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Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

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Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#91
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. If you create $6 of value for every American and capture half of it you are a billionaire. “Public investments” besides are heavily spent on. The majority of the US federal budget goes to welfare. If you want new infrastructure and so on, the primary blockers are the universal veto powers we ha…

In an ideal capitalistic world billionaires are people that provide most value to society, yes. In the real world it’s questionable to say the least because they usually do not do fair win-win business, they do cutthroat “I’m gonna abuse my position to the absolute limit, what are you gonna do about it, you have no other choice” business. People that don’t do that don’t end up billionaires because they can’t compete…

The definition of „value“ in capitalism is already contentious, so even in idealized capitalism billionaires can provide „value“ that does not align with the „value“ of most of the people.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#92
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve gotta add American Liberals, majority of Democratic Party to the list. The Sanders faction is unfortunately not yet the prevailing force.

Around the world "liberal" is synonymous with "capitalist". US is pretty unique in that it considers liberalism a leftwing ideology

Yeah for sure, speaking purely on the American common framing of big L Liberals as akin to social liberals rather than classical/economic liberals.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#94
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically most older professionals, and today's young professionals will step into their shoes as they grow their wealth over time too. Which means probably far more than 10% of the population will at some point in their life belong to that group which owns 90% of the means of production.

> will at some point in their life belong to that group which owns 90% of the means of production Would love to but I'm afraid you grossly misunderstand how the power law distribution works. Unfortunately the billionaires are running away from us exponentially faster than we are catching up. Speaking as someone who will almost certainly become a multi millionaire in the next decade or two. (even if I stop adding more…

>Unfortunately the billionaires are running away from us exponentially faster than we are catching up.

Why does that matter? Who is trying to catch up with a billionaire? They are not even playing the same game as the rest of us.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#95
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. I truly cannot believe that anyone with an ounce of empathy or integrity could possibly believe a statement as absurd as this.

Why is this absurd?

Two sorts of people become billionaires from share price increases. The founders and the early investors. Neither are thousands of times more impactful than the other early hires, but they get to keep billions of dollars while the early hires only get a handful of millions. And the slightly-less-early-hires who were too late to get equity usually get nothing more than their salary, regardless of their impact.

I don't have any problem with people getting insanely rich from stock price increases, but the argument that it's society sharing the value they created ignores the fact that they were only responsible for the initial foundations of that value, and not all the work that continues later.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#97
post #78
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. If you create $6 of value for every American and capture half of it you are a billionaire. “Public investments” besides are heavily spent on. The majority of the US federal budget goes to welfare. If you want new infrastructure and so on, the primary blockers are the universal veto powers we ha…

> People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. That's certainly an opinion that some people have, but as the parent comment stated, companies don't run without employees, so the idea that the value created is solely attributed to the founders or other executives is not an empircal fact like you're claiming it is. There's no scientific for…

> companies don't run without employees, the idea that the value created is solely attributed to the founders

That's why the owners get to keep what is left AFTER paying employees. It's called profit.

One way to become a billionaire is when you offer that stream of future profits securitized as "stock" to other people who buy those future profits from you and collectively value those securitizations at over a billion dollars.

The owner takes the risk that there is no (or negative) money left over after paying employees and all other costs. As a result, if there is money left over, they get to keep it. I suppose I should remind you that the vast majority of businesses fail. The entire dataset visible to you is imbued with survivorship bias.

Welcome to money 101. This is how all business works everywhere. Nobody thinks that value is created "solely" by the owners. That's a fake strawman.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#98
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve gotta add American Liberals, majority of Democratic Party to the list. The Sanders faction is unfortunately not yet the prevailing force.

Around the world "liberal" is synonymous with "capitalist". US is pretty unique in that it considers liberalism a leftwing ideology

Left/Right alignment is relative, and the American political center is...where it is, and has been drifting rightward since Bill Clinton's "Third Way".

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#99
post #63
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro-tip: more often than not people are billionaires because their parent was a billionaire or multi millionaire

That’s actually a pretty good thing. Becoming a multi-millionaire is quite achievable in this country and if that means I provide a compounding ability to my kids to provide a large amount of value to a large amount of people and capture some amount of that, that’s a good thing. Since 2/3rds of American billionaires are from industry, if it is true that their parents were multi-millionaires, that is wonderful. The fa…

You are drawn to the multi generational accumulation of wealth and power? The societal ill our founders were concerned about that's currently giving us a high grade fever?

Brings to mind a certain creature that thrives in festering wounds.. It's in the tip of my...

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#100
post #54
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you pitting workers against each other? Developers don't set EE wages. It's always the management class that is the source of your woes, not your fellow workers. We're in this together.

It's not pitting workers against each other to point out that the conclusion of the argument doesn't follow from the premise.

Everyone knows the kindergarten rule on stating an observation: "They who smelt it, dealt it."
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