Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

Post by tucaz » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

badosu wrote: post #191

tucaz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are correct. In theory he would be able to turn all his assets into money, but probably he would loose huges amount of it in the process due to the effect you mentioned. I guess these rankings are just rankings. It's an abstract way to value what someone have (or could potentially have) with no relationship to absolute truth.

I am sorry for sidetracking on this, but I need to understand why I am reading so much 'loose' here on HN. Is this error being used with intent? I have no interest in shaming grammar errors, it's just that I am seeing this too often here, in the same place where I read great arguments. English is not my native language, so maybe this is a colloquial use of the word?

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 2:27 PM UTC

emt02 wrote: post #376

rdtsc wrote: post #291

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> "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." I think you got confused, that's communism. :P And it's not decapitation (too messy) it is a bullet to the back of the head or death in a labor camp. Feudalism is "you can farm here but you owe me and your promise to fight in my wars". > The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terrifying. Really? Is it terrifying to compare a…

> that's communism. I think you're confused about communism. What you're talking about seems more about soviet russia and other countries that run/ran an authoritarian state-capitalism system (often calling it communism). However, communism has nothing to do with enforcing people to work under a threat of death, rather the contrary.

Post by metaphorm » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 2:39 PM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #100

_m8fo wrote: post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence, whereas Jeff Bezos got rich because you gave him money in exchange for products. Like, "Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50." is a markedly different from "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terr…

Post by samstave » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 2:41 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #316

samstave wrote: post #179

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OK, first, I am not trolling - and I didn't state that this was my belief per-se... I do find all the Benghazi BS to be super weird - but thats just me without all the facts... However, it is a documentable fact that Gaddafi may have been the richest documentable person (clearly we are ignoring the Rothschilds etc...) in the world... He had vast assets and liquid cash all over the place. This is known - so do not acc…

> now, I shall admit my ignorance... You've already demonstrated it in spades. When something seems odd, maybe you don't have all the facts that would instead paint a much better picture. You're like someone with two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle who's convinced it's something perverted but really it's just a fruit bowl.

Post by metaphorm » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 2:48 PM UTC

aljungberg wrote: post #448

appleflaxen wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. the solution should be to just to tax Wilt Chamberlain at a rate high enough that the astronomical net worths become merely "stratospheric".

That's just another way of saying people shouldn't be allowed to give their shares freely. You give your shares to Wilt, the government gives them back to you (assuming the government has no overhead). So the original argument stands: forced wealth redistribution is incompatible with free will and liberty. The word "force" itself means the removal of freedom.