251–260 of 365 posts
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It's funny how often you hear "put your money to work". Money doesn't work, people do! If you receive a monthly income by doing nothing, you're taking from someone else's work.
> Money doesn't work, people do! Not really true at all. Production is almost always a combination of labor and capital. Consider a restaurant. People are working there but so is a stove, aka capital aka money.
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Yes, though it's important to note that the economic notion of value is weighted according to wealth and therefore more than a bit weird. Feeding an orphan creates no "value" because they have no money to pay you with, while merging companies into a mega-monopoly that can shake down the rest of the economy creates loads of "value" because it pays rich investors huge dividends. Of course, there are plenty of honest wa…
I think people understand that, for example, investing in schools generates more value than you put in.
The US ever larger amounts of money per pupil (around $17,280 per pupil annually these days according to the Internet), but educational outcomes haven't really changed much over the decades. Whether you measure that in absolute terms or by international comparison.
The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…
Everyone is causing production, earning money, and then spending that money on the things that everyone else decided to produce.
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"passive income", in it's original iteration, wasn't the idea that you could make money by doing nothing. The idea was that you made something or did something that you were uniquely able to make or do, and then the result of your labour would make money for you while you put in minimal continued effort. the version of passive income where you don't do anything productive at all, ever, and just put up some initial ca…
> put up some initial capital in exchange for even more money back The "even more money back" part is, in principle, compensation for you gathering the capital together and taking on the risk of losing. Not that it works out that way in practice.
The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…
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> more people will lose than win. It's not necessarily zero sum. If money is invested to produce value instead of simply moving it around then everyone can benefit.
Yes, though it's important to note that the economic notion of value is weighted according to wealth and therefore more than a bit weird. Feeding an orphan creates no "value" because they have no money to pay you with, while merging companies into a mega-monopoly that can shake down the rest of the economy creates loads of "value" because it pays rich investors huge dividends. Of course, there are plenty of honest wa…
Rich people do these kinds of things all the time.
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Another tangible example is renting a tractor to a farmer that couldn’t otherwise afford one. Their income from crop production goes up (even after tractor rental expenses) and society also gets more food.
Communists will say this is still rent seeking and the tractor should be seized and given to the farmer.
The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…
hopefully, in the future, robots will do most work in society. Humans can just learn, exercise, eat, create/build/consume for fun and curiosity.
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Yes, though it's important to note that the economic notion of value is weighted according to wealth and therefore more than a bit weird. Feeding an orphan creates no "value" because they have no money to pay you with, while merging companies into a mega-monopoly that can shake down the rest of the economy creates loads of "value" because it pays rich investors huge dividends. Of course, there are plenty of honest wa…
Yes, feeding an orphan is consumption (not investing), just like buying a yacht with your money. Rich people do these kinds of things all the time.
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I think people understand that, for example, investing in schools generates more value than you put in.
I appreciate your point in general, but I doubt the specific one you made. At least for the US. The US ever larger amounts of money per pupil (around $17,280 per pupil annually these days according to the Internet), but educational outcomes haven't really changed much over the decades. Whether you measure that in absolute terms or by international comparison.