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Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

mkorostoff.github.io

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Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#21

Post by titzer »

andrewfromx wrote: post #15
otde wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s mind-boggling is that Bezos is still a billionaire after all of the suggested changes. The amount this affects his day-to-day life is slim to none. He’d still get to be proud of his wealth in the new system! I have a hard time feeling like large-scale preventable deaths of six figures of real human children is worth Jeff Bezos’ warm tummy fuzzies he gets when he thinks about being unfathomably rich. Instead of…

i think what you are missing is it's a game of "whack a mole" way more than a game of a perfect puzzle where if you just do the ethical thing, and just be nice, and cure this and stop that, THEN, THEN everything will be... ok. But the reality is you plow 2 billion dollars into fixing one thing and this displaces something else and you can't get to this desert mirage utopia society we think we see just down the road i…

I fundamentally reject the idea that society is obligated to help Jeff Bezos protect his $100 billion dollar fortune.

I think it is absolutely fair to say that society will not allow you to have more than $1 billion. Flat. Out. Wealth. Cap.

Then maybe instead of corporations squeezing their customers for every nickel and dime and screwing pensioners they can retire to their private islands and enjoy their life.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#22

Post by icelancer »

titzer wrote: post #19
ksec wrote: post #18

This is often the problem I see with people mixing up Wealth and Income . A person with $100K income could also have millions of wealth or asset from stocks to property. Jeff Bezos has most of this wealth from Stocks. And I am willing to bet $100 given the current market cap and PE or PEG, his resignation from the company and liquidations of his Amazon Asset will trigger a sell off that its value differs quite a lot…

You gotta wonder about the morality of a society that allows a person to amass 40,000 lifetimes of wealth and lets others starve. The ultra rich are a mathematical anomaly that exposes what a sham this "meritocracy" is. It is physically impossible to create $140 billion dollars of actual value for people in a single human lifetime (2.5 billion seconds). The only way is the amplification and exponentiation of that wor…

>> physically impossible to create $140 billion dollars of actual value for people in a single human lifetime

Source? I think Linus Torvalds and Norman Borlaug both easily did this. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates certainly might be up there. $140 billion is not that much when you compare the productivity gains just these four people have given the world.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#23

Post by titzer »

icelancer wrote: post #22
titzer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta wonder about the morality of a society that allows a person to amass 40,000 lifetimes of wealth and lets others starve. The ultra rich are a mathematical anomaly that exposes what a sham this "meritocracy" is. It is physically impossible to create $140 billion dollars of actual value for people in a single human lifetime (2.5 billion seconds). The only way is the amplification and exponentiation of that wor…

>> physically impossible to create $140 billion dollars of actual value for people in a single human lifetime Source? I think Linus Torvalds and Norman Borlaug both easily did this. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates certainly might be up there. $140 billion is not that much when you compare the productivity gains just these four people have given the world.

Why aren't teachers or scientists billionaires?

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#24

Post by triceratops »

e73u3hdjfu wrote: post #17
djyaz1200 wrote: post #14

It's in the interest of the super-rich to advocate for a strong social safety net to prevent millions of hungry people with nothing to lose from taking what they need instead of waiting for it to be shared. ...at least until they can build a colony on Mars or something?

It's not clear to me why this is actually true. Food is cheap if you don't waste a bunch of time on anti-science regulations like the EU. California and New York aren't short on space, building is simply heavily regulated with anti-poor laws masquerading as environmentalism because people would rather protect their swamps and property values than see a construction boom. Water isn't scarce, if it was you wouldn't hav…

Darned regulatory environment, inflicting clean air, water, and food upon the poor! How dare they!

(I agree with you about the property value stuff tho)

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#26

Post by foobar_ »

I think this is a false equivalency. How much of the wealth is convertible to cash ? I think its 1% at best ... so bezos is worth 100 million.

Every years budget for U.S is in trillions, so its pointless to go after wealth of private people.

Even if we were to take the wealth of the richest, do you expect the government to spend it, with all the bureaucracy ? Even if you hand wave all the cash ... malaria and hygiene are not going to fix themselves without feet on the ground.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#27

Post by ac29 »

foobar_ wrote: post #26

I think this is a false equivalency. How much of the wealth is convertible to cash ? I think its 1% at best ... so bezos is worth 100 million. Every years budget for U.S is in trillions, so its pointless to go after wealth of private people. Even if we were to take the wealth of the richest, do you expect the government to spend it, with all the bureaucracy ? Even if you hand wave all the cash ... malaria and hygiene…

According to last year's 14A [0], Jeff owns 16% of Amazon. I'm pretty sure there are a long list of people and/or institutions who would gladly pay far more than $100M in cash for that.

[0] (see page 41): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312519...

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#28

Post by foobar_ »

ac29 wrote: post #27
foobar_ wrote: post #26

I think this is a false equivalency. How much of the wealth is convertible to cash ? I think its 1% at best ... so bezos is worth 100 million. Every years budget for U.S is in trillions, so its pointless to go after wealth of private people. Even if we were to take the wealth of the richest, do you expect the government to spend it, with all the bureaucracy ? Even if you hand wave all the cash ... malaria and hygiene…

According to last year's 14A [0], Jeff owns 16% of Amazon. I'm pretty sure there are a long list of people and/or institutions who would gladly pay far more than $100M in cash for that. [0] (see page 41): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312519...

Yes but the government is sitting on "cash" not stocks and its 100 times more than Bozos.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#29

Post by j7ake »

titzer wrote: post #19
ksec wrote: post #18

This is often the problem I see with people mixing up Wealth and Income . A person with $100K income could also have millions of wealth or asset from stocks to property. Jeff Bezos has most of this wealth from Stocks. And I am willing to bet $100 given the current market cap and PE or PEG, his resignation from the company and liquidations of his Amazon Asset will trigger a sell off that its value differs quite a lot…

You gotta wonder about the morality of a society that allows a person to amass 40,000 lifetimes of wealth and lets others starve. The ultra rich are a mathematical anomaly that exposes what a sham this "meritocracy" is. It is physically impossible to create $140 billion dollars of actual value for people in a single human lifetime (2.5 billion seconds). The only way is the amplification and exponentiation of that wor…

There is nothing about morality in the billionaires that are mentioned.

People find value in the companies they create and willingly give their money to the companies in exchange for their services. Nobody is forced to give money to these companies.

The huge amount of wealth that is created from this process comes in part from the globalization and scale of their operations.

The lobbying, tax loopholes, anticompetition behaviors are a separate issue. Many of these are patently unfair and true competition starts to break down.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#30

Post by dntbnmpls »

foobar_ wrote: post #26

I think this is a false equivalency. How much of the wealth is convertible to cash ? I think its 1% at best ... so bezos is worth 100 million. Every years budget for U.S is in trillions, so its pointless to go after wealth of private people. Even if we were to take the wealth of the richest, do you expect the government to spend it, with all the bureaucracy ? Even if you hand wave all the cash ... malaria and hygiene…

> I think this is a false equivalency. How much of the wealth is convertible to cash ?

All of it? But why would anyone convert all their wealth into cash?

> I think its 1% at best ... so bezos is worth 100 million.

What? Even if he dumped all his shares on the market, he'd net a lot more than $100 million. Sure dumping the stock would push down the share price and he wouldn't net less than $100 billion, but why would he do that? Even if he did, he'd easily net tens of billions as there is ample support from $2300 to whatever level the price eventually drops to.

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