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Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

mkorostoff.github.io

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Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#31

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

j7ake wrote: post #29
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…

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, anticompetiti…

You cannot dismiss the argument in one breath saying that no one is forced to give money to these companies and in the next breath say that anti-trust and lobbying is separate. It’s a fallacy of choice.

These companies and C-suite individuals are taking advantage of a system which serves capital first and foremost. Amazon is able to extract large amounts of value from both workers foreign and domestic within the laws written and lobbied by the capitalists of the last generation.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#32

Post by dntbnmpls »

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.

> Source?

The reality of physics and human capability?

> I think Linus Torvalds and Norman Borlaug both easily did this.

They had a part in it, but it's the people/ecosystem that creates the wealth, not an individual. Linus didn't create all the distros. He didn't install it on all the servers around the world.

> Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates certainly might be up there.

They themselves didn't create $140 billion of anything. It took the efforts of hundreds of thousands/millions of people, along with highly favorable laws and the society in which they lived in. Also, Bezos and Gates destroyed a lot of businesses as well with their monopolistic practices. As a matter of fact, when it comes to gates/microsoft, I'd say it's an overall net negative as microsoft set back computing/computer literacy more than anything.

I thought the fallacy/myth of the "great man" nonsense died with Jobs. There were plenty of people who thought Apple was over when Jobs died. But I guess it's alive and well today.

What's the right wealth level for people? I don't know. Personally, I think the best way combat wealth inequality is to create laws to foster competition so that one company doesn't become a monopoly. But instead, we are in an era of mergers, monopolies and consolidation. So wealth inequality will inevitably continue to grow.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#33

Post by foobar_ »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #30
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…

> But why would anyone convert all their wealth into cash?

How would you setup a malaria fund of 10 billion, otherwise ?

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#34

Post by Someone »

foobar_ wrote: post #33
dntbnmpls wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> But why would anyone convert all their wealth into cash? How would you setup a malaria fund of 10 billion, otherwise ?

You give it 10 billion worth of ‘stuff’ (or promise to do so over a number of years)

A charity fund of that size will invest its money, anyways, until it has found a way to spend it (well) on its cause, so you can just as well give it bonds, buildings, or shares.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#35

Post by tincholio »

longtermd wrote: post #25

The confusion of wealth and income is big with this one. All of the comparisons, unfortunately, don't make any sense.

In this case it's pretty much a rounding error. Median net worth for college-educated people in the US is [0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-and-h... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#36

Post by splintercell »

titzer wrote: post #23
icelancer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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?

Because they don't scale.

This is like asking why JK Rowling is a billionaire but your neighbor who only sold 10 children's books is not.

Teachers and Scientists who scale are billionaires[1][2] or centimillionaires [3]

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/30/indias-newest-billionaire-is...

2. James Watson, Ronda Stryker, Gordon Moore

3. Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Jane Goodall, Noam Chomsky

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#37

Post by bjourne »

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.

No! The burden of proof is on you. Please explain in detail exactly how Torvalds in 50 years of living has created $140 billion dollars of value. How many billions of value did he create this year? How many did he create last year? And so on.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#38

Post by icelancer »

bjourne wrote: post #37
icelancer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

No! The burden of proof is on you. Please explain in detail exactly how Torvalds in 50 years of living has created $140 billion dollars of value. How many billions of value did he create this year? How many did he create last year? And so on.

Uh, Linux and its derivations drive over half of the computing power in the world, yielding insane productivity gains for people of all classes, races, ages, and geographic locations.

I think that speaks for itself.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#39

Post by icelancer »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #32
icelancer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

> Source? The reality of physics and human capability? > I think Linus Torvalds and Norman Borlaug both easily did this. They had a part in it, but it's the people/ecosystem that creates the wealth, not an individual. Linus didn't create all the distros. He didn't install it on all the servers around the world. > Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates certainly might be up there. They themselves didn't create $140 billion of anyt…

>> They had a part in it, but it's the people/ecosystem that creates the wealth, not an individual. Linus didn't create all the distros. He didn't install it on all the servers around the world.

One is a much more replaceable skill than the other in this equation. That's why Torvalds has contributed more to world productivity than most.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#40

Post by stanfordkid »

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…

Look, human nature is to actually amass wealth without creating value. We are lucky we live in a society where value creation and wealth acquisition are at least tangentially related.

The problem in my opinion is not that a single person gets so much wealth, but rather what they receive the wealth for. Amazon just made life easier for the masses to consume goods. IMO someone like Einstein deserves a lot more money and someone like Bezos less. The people inventing the actual science that then enables something like Amazon don't really get compensated -- and perhaps they should.

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