131–140 of 660 posts
This is exactly why I don't really care how rich Elon, Gates, Bezos, Buffett are. If they have money, great... If they don't... oh well. Doesn't change my life. It's also the reason why you shouldn't care and why this book is likely a load of crock.
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Those things were created by working people, most of whom are not wealthy.
Organized by an employer, capital, and management. The orchestration, decision making, done well, is the difference between a highly valuable well functioning company, and dysfunctional paralysis. There are now multiple examples in history (pre-1989 Poland, Soviet Union, DPRK, etc.) that show the communal ownership of industry by labor does not create a high standard of living, enabled by plentiful goods, services, a…
The Soviet block and DPRK was exactly as close to socialism as it was to democracy: 100% in their propaganda, 0% in reality. Or would you say democracy doesn't work because the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a shit show country despite being "democratic"?
I'm wondering if people understand that almost all the pleasures/comforts in modern life were created by people who wouldn't exist in this system.
This system doesn't eliminate people. It eliminates the pointless and harmful hoarding of wealth.
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Those things were created by working people, most of whom are not wealthy.
Look at each valuable item that you use often, now look up the salary of the leader of the company that made it. Edit: You wouldn't have that item without that compensation. This should be more traumatic than people make it out to be. You wouldn't have your iphones, twitters, facebooks, vr goggles, steams, ikea tables, etc.
God, don't threaten me with a good time.
Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…
Wealth, at least the way we measure it, is inextricably tied to modernity. The system you say is a "good thing" is literally speedrunning the destruction of our biosphere. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a system more effective at destroying our world. What many see as prosperity, is irreconcilable with sustainability. I find that's an uncomfortable thought.
How about we just don’t empower a central planning body to make monetary decisions that devalue wages & salaries while inflating asset prices? QE & LIRP have literally been “rich get richer, poor get poorer: the policy”. People educated enough in finance to follow the effect tend to be in the asset-holding camp so there is less complaint. I’m not advocating high rates as good for the poor; I’m championing shaping the…
This is just not true: the share and absolute number of poor people has been decreasing for a long time. See https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief.
Socialist/communist countries that tried to limit the ability of people to get rich made all of their citizens poor.
Nobody should even be a millionaire it says. A small house in California is a million dollars ffs. The irony of charging 20 pounds for this is palpable.
If no one was a millionaire, a small house in California wouldn't cost that much. (I'm not defending the thesis, but it needs a stronger argument against than that.)
It depends how this is structured. If the limit is you can't save, this actually puts pressure on housing prices as people are looking at ways to 'productively' spend the money.
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How do you figure? Its not like Edison was born hyper rich.
Are you suggesting Edison would have invented everything he did if he wasn't allowed to get rich? You chose an extremely funny example if that's what you're trying to say. Edison was famous for caring about money more than other inventors. One of his most famous quotes was “Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.” The guy helped found some of the largest…
Who said anything about not being allowed to get rich? 10s of millions of dollars is rich by any measure.
The problem I have with extreme, gratuitous wealth, and the inequality that creates it, is that it is fundamentally anti-democratic. It is well known by anyone with a pulse that money = political power, which means those with the most money, have the most political power, and given how just how much wealth so few people in the world have now, an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the population of most democratic count…
Reducing the influence of $ in politics is at the heart of the matter.