So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.
World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
51–60 of 284 posts
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if it did increase, most of that increase is just inflation anyway. And it's usually the wealthy that benefit from inflation (at least more than regular people do).
Compare the "regular" person of today to the "regular" person of 50 years ago. Is it easier or harder to afford basic foodstuffs? Do they eat out (luxury) more or less? If they own a home, is it larger or the same size? Who travels more? Who has better healthcare? Who spends more on entertainment? How much do they spend on the family pet? Who spent more time furthering their education? All of these are measures of we…
House prices less affordable than 50 years ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8468605.stm
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#53So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.
It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence.
This is regardless of how poor anyone else is.
No one should have this kind of money, it's really absurd.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#54There was an interesting study posted (I believe here) on how a flat 10% re-distribution (10% taxed from everyone, then redistributed evenly across everyone, aka basic income), created a more stable "society" in simulation. It did this by helping support a larger "middle class". Does anyone know the link/can point me to the study? Google is failing me at the moment...
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
The central idea of capitalism is that voluntary exchange enriches both parties. So the answer to your first question is yes.
The central idea of capitalism is the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor. Voluntary exchange is not capitalism. Voluntary exchange has existed since the dawn of society. Capitalism is a form of production that developed with the industrial revolution. I can't tell if you've fallen for or are employing a sleazy equivocation.
I've always found this idea that capitalism was "invented" to be so strange.
e.g. When an ancient king had land, and let poor people work the land in exchange for a part of their production, what would you call that? Sure sounds like, "the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor" to me.
Same story if the lord has a mill and charges people to use it. Or a bridge and charges people to cross it. Technology was worse, so there weren't as many physical forms of capital, but it definitely existed.
Some people seem to have this need to see capitalism as this invention created by bad people. Because to admit now natural and organic it is would be to admit how much enforcement and violence their ideology really demands in order to obtain the real world.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#56So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.
The poorer are getting richer, too. But the rich gets richer faster. I don't see a problem with it, but it's funny to see how besides having more regulations, higher taxes and more government intervention (most of the time in the name of making society more equal) increases inequality at a faster rate just to see the very same people saying "we need higher taxes and more government intervention!"
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is simple to understand: as population grows and technology grows even faster, there should be a steady stream of wealth increase. This has been observed as is obvious to everyone. However, if we allow the bulk of this wealth to be controlled by a tiny part of the population, we are creating a huge problem to current and to future generations. A hereditary oligarchy can be terrible to our civilization, and…
It's way simpler. As population grows, the 500 richest people (whoever they are) are expected to get richer even if the wealth distribution does not change. And as the society gets richer, they are expected to get richer too. So, if there is any indication that wealth has been accumulating faster, it is not on the article. And as such, the article is valueless and a complete loss of time.
The indication you're searching for is called wealth inequality. It is a measure of how much more money the richest people have compared to the rest of the population, and it has increased significantly over the years:
http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/
There is an economist called Thomas Piketty who has made his name by studying and measuring inequality over the years. Read his book and you will get a detailed analysis of how inequality has increased in our society.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn’t have to be symmetric. If there is $2 consumer and $4 producer surplus, both parties benefit. And just because enrichment, as you call it, can happen other ways than exchange, does not mean it doesn’t happen via exchange too.
If it is asymmetric, the superficially apparent mutual gain may be illusory, because—while many people think for moral or aesthetic reasons that this should not be the case—there is enormous empirical evidence that the actual experience of utility related to material position is very strongly driven by relative material position, which is often far more significant than absolute material position.
Parent is saying that it's better if everyone gets richer, even if some get more richer than others.
So you're saying that it would be better if everyone was poorer individually, as long as they were more equally poor?
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#59This article provides paragraph after paragraph of supporting data that the richest have gotten richer, but none that I can see supporting its claim that “billions of poorer people across the world have seen their wealth standstill or decline”.
The issue is simple to understand: as population grows and technology grows even faster, there should be a steady stream of wealth increase. This has been observed as is obvious to everyone. However, if we allow the bulk of this wealth to be controlled by a tiny part of the population, we are creating a huge problem to current and to future generations. A hereditary oligarchy can be terrible to our civilization, and…
Not to say I disagree because I do think the wealthiest should contribute meaningfully to society.
But when you say "without visible contributions to society." why should an extremely wealthy person have to contribute to society?
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#60So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.
It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence. This is regardless of how poor a…
Didn't Trump get elected with 1/7th the budget of Hillary Clinton?