America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
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Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#2Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past.
It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor people.
Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#3Ah yes, the famous cabal of 1 percenters sitting around and committing grand larceny as they raid the bank accounts of poor people. At least that's what this headline would have you believe.
The reality is much more boring. Thanks to "math," they've determined that if the ratio of incomes from 1945-1974 held steady, the bottom 90% would have "more" than they do now. Of course the bottom 90% itself is a fantasy and you can find yourself in or out of it many times in the course of a career.
But is it possible that maybe, just maybe, wealth distribution isn't a 0 sum game? And maybe being in the bottom 90% is better now than it was 40 years ago, because of, I don't know, iPhones, next-day delivery for anything you want, telehealth, instant access to the world's information, electric cars, and many other things that 1 percenters have made for us?
Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#4Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past. It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor p…
A lot of those "net worth" numbers don't translate to cold, hard cash either.
Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#5Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past. It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor p…
You are absolutely right! Everyone, from the most hardcore Marxist-Leninist leftists, to "don't tread on me"-style libertarians, would agree there is absolutely no difference how rich rich people are if there is less poverty.
This is precisely the reason why Dengist reforms happened in China -- to foster getting a billion people out of poverty by market reforms that yes, would make a few hundred billionaires.
The thing is, America is getting poorer. And as poor America gets poorer, rich America gets richer -- and, coincidentally, everywhere in the world, rising inequality means higher societal instability, less cohesion, less happiness and, absolutely, more poverty for poor people.
So the question we need to ask ourselves -- is it a coincidence that rich people getting richer and poor people getting poorer go hand in hand? Or is it a law of nature? I'm not sure either way. But you shouldn't so quickly dismiss people that actually do think these are correlated.
Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#6Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past. It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor p…
It has always mattered how rich the richest people in the world are, for good reason. Now knowing or understanding that isn’t some unique or fresh perspective.
Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#7Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past. It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor p…
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Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#8Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past. It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor p…
If Bezos continues paying people at minimum wage, hires union busting lawyers, and hires more lawyers to actively lobby to keep minimum wage low for 20+ years while he makes more money. Is he stealing from poor people or is that just people on the Internet trying to convince themselves he is stealing from poor people?
Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#9Flagged. The original poster has a long history of posting content with the goal of starting political flamewars.
Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%
#10Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past. It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor p…
But isn't wealth to a large degree relative? Like, if I'm richer than I value my time higher, meaning it's more expensive to buy my time (human services). Same with other resources such as land, gold or bitcoin. There's only so much of it thus the value rises.
Of course the world can become more productive and thus make everyone (in average) more "wealthy", but only for certain things.