161–170 of 606 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protip: if you ever want to downplay inequality, gloss over wealth inequality and focus on income inequality to the exclusion of all else. It's VERY effective.
The article also uses income... Anyway, if anything the distribution based on wealth would even more starkly be hyper-focused at the top, the people in the 10-9% range aren't exactly sitting on mountains of gold.
I was very surprised by the holiday budget. Less than 2500$ for 80% of the population? Does that mean that no one from these 80% stays in a Hotel or AirBnB for longer than a week with their family? No one travels overseas, or if so, only every 5 years or so? 2000$ is what you can easily spend on plane tickets for a family of 4.
I think about this from time to time and I suppose everything is cyclical in the end. Most of us would have been some peasant in the feudal age and when it gets really bad it always ends in a revolution of some sort. It's just on a global scale and timeframe now. As more of the population feels the effects of inequality they won't appeased by just fancy toys and shiny things, they will want change by force. My only s…
It’s different this time around. The sheer complexity of society makes it hard to ascertain exactly the true nature of the situation. People who voted for trump aren’t even aware he’s part of the problem of wealth inequality. They aren’t even aware wealth inequality is the problem. At worst we will get an angry mob stampeding the White House with no real direction or objective. Are rich people the problem or is it th…
What is wealth when everyone is fed, watered and entertained?
Only stating this as an explanation to why there has not been a civil revolution. People are still dying in poverty with no way to escape every day, and we need to address it.
So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.
It has not been possible for decades in Southern Europe countries for decades, that is why most people live with their parents and only leave home when married, and then get credits that last all the way until they retire, assuming they live that long in first place. Or eventually get the parents house from generation to generation.
What's happened is a massive shift from a small-scale agricultural economy to a mix of urban and large-scale agriculture, and the building of homes/apartments hasn't kept pace.
As a person born in the middle class, I am quite sad to see it's extinction in realtime. Not sure what is the solution to this.
So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.
> Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible. At least in Finland today it's much easier for young people to buy their 1st home now compared to 15 years ago. Interest rates are roughly where they were 15 years ago, but house prices in real terms have gone way down. There's also huge market asymmetry with large amount of vacant properties that nobody wants to buy, and relatively…
So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.
The rich stay rich no matter what. Hell, there are companies and families who supported the third Reich openly. They were rich before world war 2, they were rich after and they are still rich today. Not to mention none of them had to go to the Nuremberg trials... It's their system, it's their game.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 250 years ago George Washington His wealth was mainly in very illiquid land. A lot of it was near worthless unless US won the war since it was beyond the line drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and white settlers were generally banned from settling there. Otherwise like many landholders back in the day he was semi-broke and had limited access to cash. Of course after the war of course he was both compensated f…
Well, most of Elon Musks assets today are also not cash and highly dependent on the federal government going his way on key issues. He's certainly not dumb doing what he does if his goal is to get richer and more powerful. But unlike 200 years ago, we can watch live how that stuff plays out.
Perhaps but IMHO it’s a very high risk strategy and I doubt it’s necessarily optimal if more wealth is his primary goal (as opposed to his other seemingly highly megalomaniacal ambitions..)
So far his actions haven’t really been that beneficial for Tesla (of course its sales growth might have significantly slowed down even if he stayed out of politics). SpaceX can only make that much even if it gets to appropriate the entire budget of NASA. Also at the end of the day his and Trump’s relationship might fall apart any day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 250 years ago George Washington His wealth was mainly in very illiquid land. A lot of it was near worthless unless US won the war since it was beyond the line drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and white settlers were generally banned from settling there. Otherwise like many landholders back in the day he was semi-broke and had limited access to cash. Of course after the war of course he was both compensated f…
Well, most of Elon Musks assets today are also not cash and highly dependent on the federal government going his way on key issues. He's certainly not dumb doing what he does if his goal is to get richer and more powerful. But unlike 200 years ago, we can watch live how that stuff plays out.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War