81–90 of 444 posts
This is why have start ups. But when someone starts company on here we are supportive, soon as they make it big everyone is jealous and that person is evil.
You know, if you go on reddit and say you own a home, it's like going to Israeli in a Nazi uniform.
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I’m sure someone would shed a tear for you. Think of how productive thousands of people would be if they weren’t staring down at death or disability daily because some ambitious motherfucker decided to make a cheap commodity like insulin a monopolized product, essential for life at a usurious price.
I find this example very ironic, given that the reason an " ambitious motherfucker " can take a cheap commodity like insulin and make it a monopolized product is directly a result of government regulations. The very same government you want to take everyone money and believe will spend it wisely
I guess I’m not surprised that a bunch of folks who have made a career out of advising politicians on income inequality….discovered income inequality in their study. The two questions in my mind are: 1. Should we trust the government to spend the money more wisely than the folks who earned it? Or said another way, how do you combat the almost inevitable corruption you see with large government spending? 2. What will…
I’m sure someone would shed a tear for you. Think of how productive thousands of people would be if they weren’t staring down at death or disability daily because some ambitious motherfucker decided to make a cheap commodity like insulin a monopolized product, essential for life at a usurious price.
In the case of insulin, it was in fact invented with nothing more than research grants and the promise of fame and nobel prizes. But it also took 30 years from the first hints of what might solve diabetes until they produced a drug for it. It's an open question whether that could have happened faster with a profit-motivated company pushing the research.
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> give a million hungry people $20 each, and see $20M return to the economy the next day as they spend it on food. if there wasn't enough food in the first place, then the $20m just got inflated. This 20m will not go towards investment in higher food productivity when given to individuals like that. Give this 20m to "the rich", they will invest it in food creation machinery. At least there would be more food produced…
Arguably there is fixed bandwidth on investment. It's why negative interest rates are coming. There's few good places to put money.
not if there was a lack of food as i initially posited.
There's few places to put in low risk money, but i would say that there's still plenty of high risk investments out there that could return well.
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>the folks who earned It's quaint that there are people out there who believe that income at the top strata of society is primarily earned. Those dividend payments, rents and capital gains (realized) that make up the bulk of top earner incomes happen while they sleep. A minimum wage is earned. A doctor's wage is earned. A golden parachute after a CEO ruins a company? Somebody with a trust fund? A person living off di…
So if I worked as a doctor for 20 years, invested most of my income in that 20 years in to dividend paying stocks, then at age 45 or so retire to live off my dividends that my hard work paid of, I did not earn any of that?
>> A doctor's wage is earned.
Your wage is earned.
> invested most of my income in that 20 years in to dividend paying stocks
Whether that one is 'earned' is debatable. From a neoliberal economists perspective you probably 'earned' it by risking your income. Although I always have to chuckle a bit of someone says that speculation is 'investment'. Investment is buying machinery, investment is specialization training of workers, investment is research and development. Playing roulette on the stock market is hardly 'investment'.
From a moral perspective you probably didn't 'earn' it. You didn't work for it and - since you were able to put it aside for a later use - you didn't actually 'need' it. So from a moral and societal point of view, that money should have rather gone to pay for teachers wages, for infrastructure or anything else that was of immediate necessity. By investing in the stock market, it probably just went to some banker's bank account.
I guess I’m not surprised that a bunch of folks who have made a career out of advising politicians on income inequality….discovered income inequality in their study. The two questions in my mind are: 1. Should we trust the government to spend the money more wisely than the folks who earned it? Or said another way, how do you combat the almost inevitable corruption you see with large government spending? 2. What will…
>the folks who earned It's quaint that there are people out there who believe that income at the top strata of society is primarily earned. Those dividend payments, rents and capital gains (realized) that make up the bulk of top earner incomes happen while they sleep. A minimum wage is earned. A doctor's wage is earned. A golden parachute after a CEO ruins a company? Somebody with a trust fund? A person living off di…
Ahh, the good old trickle-down, aka "piss in my eyes and tell me it's raining" (which is the only way trickle-down actually works). It was pure mythology from the start; there's never been any basis for it to begin with. It's a pity we even have to debunk it like that. Go figure, give a million hungry people $20 each, and see $20M return to the economy the next day as they spend it on food. Give a billionaire $20M, s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> give a million hungry people $20 each, and see $20M return to the economy the next day as they spend it on food. if there wasn't enough food in the first place, then the $20m just got inflated. This 20m will not go towards investment in higher food productivity when given to individuals like that. Give this 20m to "the rich", they will invest it in food creation machinery. At least there would be more food produced…
> Give this 20m to "the rich", they will invest it in food creation machinery. At least there would be more food produced after the investment. That's the falacy. Reality is nearer they'll buy an NFT of a hamburger and then ask for another $20m
let's say for argument's sake, that they ended up doing this - what's the difference than the food buyers in this case? Both is generating economic activity. And if the $20m was spent on food, wouldn't those people also then ask for another $20m after having eaten their food?
My point is, gov't handouts are better off being invested into productivity producing investments, rather than consumption. The productivity investments would allow cheaper consumption in the future, and in the mean time, generate jobs for people to produce for consumption.
Bit of a giveaway to write ' demolished the myth of 'trickle-down'. I am not familiar with the authors apart from Thomas Pickety. However would one seriously expect any other conclusion from him? He and the other authors (if they inserted the word 'myth') had an agenda and naturally, produced a report validating it.This is not to say there are no serious issues with the 98% of wealth distribution. I should not use th…
Thomas Piketty's work is surprisingly banal. If you've ever heard anybody with money talk about "the magic of compounding" they're essentially saying the same thing he demonstrated with a huge pile of data, except on a personal, rather than societal level. It's controversial solely for the same reason global warming is - it threatens wealth.