How to Make Trillions of Dollars

Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation.

Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist, with whatever suffering and injustice that it entails, as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can.

At this stage of history either one of two things is possible. Either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves.

But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole, and by now that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elite should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must -- namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena.

The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured; they may well be essential to survival.

~Noam Chomsky, from "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media" 1992

I wasn't taking interest into account in my example.

5% profit of $500/year is $25/year. I'm too lazy to work out compound interest over 45 years considering that a new $25 is being added each year, however:

45 * $25 = $1125

If you invested $1125 for 45 years at an interest rate of 4%, you'd end up with $6571. (And investing $1125 over 45 years gets you more back than only adding $25 a year to the investment.)

Obviously it's possible to do better than 4%, but I would suggest that, then, however you are investing the money is "how you are making money", not "having a lifelong customer".

So, have I completely misunderstood your example, or was your maths way way off?

I'm not arguing with the entire article, I'm arguing with a mathematic statement he made within it.

I think the article is correct but phrases the lifelong customer part wrong.

The habits of a single life-long customer divorced from everyone else whose spending is absorbed by a single player might not be worth a million - EDIT: maybe 50k with interest (being very generous).

BUT if a small player has "in hand" said habits, they could be worth much more sold to the larger players. The larger players can direct the consumption of this consumer to convincing counterfeit items (margarine instead of butter, Budweiser instead of a decent beer, etc). This gives them much higher profit margin. These larger players can also us the single consumer's habits as a model for ten other people's habits.

And naturally it feels nasty discussing things this way...

So I think the "amortized" control of single consumer's habits might conceivably be worth about a million.

And indeed, once people are self-sufficient, why would they care if the economy collapsed?

The only problem with the scenario is if/when wars between the self-sufficient farms erupt.