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The Wealth Gap

Does it matter Millionaire - Billionaire?


  • Total voters
    42
Resources are finite but currency is not. Currency/money that most people race for is printed and can be printed infinitely.

Yes but money is not equivalent to wealth in the literal sense. If it were, we could just print a billion dollars for every person on earth and then everybody could live happily ever after, lounging at a beach resort in the Caribbean sipping a fruity drink out of a coconut shell. We all know that's not true.

Wealth is the collection of all material goods/resources humans possess from which humans can derive benefit. So, food, motorcycles, mouse traps, crude oil, hair scrunchies, CPUs, hypodermic needles, wedding dresses, shovels, books, skyscrapers, dildos, etc. Money is an agreed-upon representation of ownership of a certain amount of that collection of goods.

Printing money doesn't increase wealth because it doesn't increase this collection of goods.
 
What to do about this flaw is what I am getting at?

After they shoot all the billionaires and consume their money, I wonder who'll they shoot next........................year.
 
Wealth and success are laudable when they're earned in an honest way. If they're earned at the expense of someone else, or at the expense of the environment, then they're not so laudable at all.

Likewise, there's no pat on the back deserved for someone who merely inherited their wealth. Generational wealth does nothing to help society and, as a matter of fact, it can be quite destructive.

If only we had a truly progressive tax shift. :)

LVT would ensure a better environment, fairer distribution, and honest earnings.
 
I think people who demand the rich pay more are just jealous of what they achieved. I dont mind the wealth gap at all, I dont see anything wrong with it because it rewards those who work hard and are lucky as opposed to lazy people who just want something for nothing.

You are falling for the 'vulgar libertarian' trap Kevin Carson always warns about. You assume that all wealth that is acquired is earned in a completely free, open, and voluntary market system. We have no such system.

Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term “free market” in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get [a] standard boilerplate article… arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because “that’s not how the free market works”— implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of “free market principles.”
 
a government that would take every penny someone has past a certain amount should be overthrown

I'd rather have that than the current income tax system we have now. If I made $9,999,999 +$1 and the government took that dollar, my freedom is not impeded the same way a 20% tax rate is on an annual income of $32,000.

Still, I'd rather see no income tax at all and replace everything with land dues.
 
A billionaire has more power and control than a millionaire, who in turn has more power and control than the rest of us...

I'm not raging against billionaires for being powerful and wealthy, or for even using their influence in an unethical way, occasionally. It's been happening since money and assets developed in civilization, and it's probably always going to happen, unless society changes. I see a problem with the ultra wealthy corporations and people who run them, being so greedy that their short sightedness is hurting the global economy. It's not the poorer classes that suddenly, with all their control and power, changed the rules.

The government is in bed with them (bail outs, contracts, subsidies, campaign money) and have to borrow just to support the poor masses, because of corporate greed. Money is being unevenly distributed destroying the middle class, not because capitalism is a broken concept but because the ultra powerful broke it thru their excessive use of leverage.
 
If you want to talk a wealth gap watch this video on America's disappearing middle class by Bill Maher.




This is an hilarious skit. The part where Alice Walton, one of the owners of Walmart, spent over a billion dollars on an art museum in Arkansas, instead of giving employees a raise, is too funny. :lol:
 
You are falling for the 'vulgar libertarian' trap Kevin Carson always warns about. You assume that all wealth that is acquired is earned in a completely free, open, and voluntary market system. We have no such system.
Very wrong. Im fully aware that its not a free market and never has been. What I am totally against is government taking money away from its citizens because that is what taxes are- stolen money and stolen by the government under threat of force.
 
Very wrong. Im fully aware that its not a free market and never has been.

Then why are you defending the market we have and what results from it?
 
Then why are you defending the market we have and what results from it?
Look, Im all for a free market but this is what we have right now. And the alternative, which is to tax the hell out of the rich to give to the poor is something I am totally against.
 
Look, Im all for a free market but this is what we have right now.

So? It is not your child. Nothing is forcing you to love and defend it.


And the alternative, which is to tax the hell out of the rich to give to the poor is something I am totally against.

That is hardly the only alternative. There are many (non-vulgar) libertarian solutions. I just get tired of 'libertarians' defending our current market when it is nothing close to freed.
 
The other wealth gap

"From an economic perspective, the most dramatic wealth gap is between middling millionaires, who have seen only modest gains, and the booming billionaires, who now seem to defy economic gravity. It's between the guy making $300,000, who still feels poor, and the man who made $37 million a day for a year. Both are lumped together by politicians, the media and even economists as "the rich" or "the 1 percent," who are gaining at the expense of everyone else.


The big winners are those in the top 0.01 percent. These folks, who have a net worth of more than $100 million. How are they doing it? The top 0.01 percent are stock-market winners—CEOs, bankers, entrepreneurs—who are riding financial markets to outsize gains. The rest of the top 1 percent are often mere wage earners."



Does this matter in your opinion of who's really "leveraging" the system in their favor?

I'm not getting into whether.. it's fair or not.. to be able to use your incredible wealth ($1 billion+) to manipulate markets, but rather> do you see a difference in the gaps?

The fewer avenues the average joe has to be a part of the decision making for his society that he finds the more likely he is to become radicalized. This is a pattern continually repeated throughout society.

I don't care if it's fair or not and it probably is. It's just dangerous and destabilizing. Nobody wins in this environment in the long run, not even the rich guys.

This is the basis if my opposition. I don't have to have to live through revolution, riots, etcetera. We can debate the morality of it until the cows come home, but the fact is human nature won't change and hasn't changed and the cycle tends to repeat itself.
 
The fewer avenues the average joe has to be a part of the decision making for his society that he finds the more likely he is to become radicalized. This is a pattern continually repeated throughout society.

I don't care if it's fair or not and it probably is. It's just dangerous and destabilizing. Nobody wins in this environment in the long run, not even the rich guys.

This is the basis if my opposition. I don't have to have to live through revolution, riots, etcetera. We can debate the morality of it until the cows come home, but the fact is human nature won't change and hasn't changed and the cycle tends to repeat itself.

This is an astute comparison of what has, historically, happened in the past. The wealthy, elite, controlling class, ultimately, measure everything by factors, not involving the human value as the highest. If we are to have a simple metric by which to govern society, it's thru our laws, values, ethics and traditional standards that equate into rights. These notions are being changed and subverted, so that the boundary lines are being moved to suit those whom have special interests.

There will probably be an eventual series of financial catastrophe's- coinciding with global conflicts that lead to large swaths of societal dysfunction and contraction. Meaning the evolution of the species, even though the crap will hit the fan.
 
This is an astute comparison of what has, historically, happened in the past. The wealthy, elite, controlling class, ultimately, measure everything by factors, not involving the human value as the highest. If we are to have a simple metric by which to govern society, it's thru our laws, values, ethics and traditional standards that equate into rights. These notions are being changed and subverted, so that the boundary lines are being moved to suit those whom have special interests.

There will probably be an eventual series of financial catastrophe's- coinciding with global conflicts that lead to large swaths of societal dysfunction and contraction. Meaning the evolution of the species, even though the crap will hit the fan.

There are multiple themes which can signal the downfall of a society and wealth disparity is one of them. Some others can include too large a military, over sophistication and expense of societal systems, and a loss if a sense of community. This country is rife with all that.

We are slashing and burning our culture for profit, essentially.

But I agree you may be right. The stakes are global this time and consequences are unforeseen.

If you listen to the arguments of the conservatives and liberals here. They each see a piece of the whole but are too busy infighting to fix it and pull us back from the brink
 
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There are multiple themes which can signal the downfall of a society and wealth disparity is one of them. Some others can include too large a military, over sophistication and expense of societal systems, and a loss if a sense of community. This country is rife with all that.

We are slashing and burning our culture for profit, essentially.

But I agree you may be right. The stakes are global this time and consequences are unforeseen.

If you listen to the arguments of the conservatives and liberals here. They each see a piece of the whole but are too busy infighting to fix it and pull us back from the brink

I see a trending problem that has not existed before and that's the intentional growth of the global population, to increase the world economies size and profitability. The 'powers that be' have purposely built our current economies on a growth formula that is unsustainable, because of natural resources and structural problems supplying the needs of the many.

And you are right that the two or mulitple distinguishing ideologies (parties) are blinded to this reality, thinking they can fight for what's left of the pie, without facing the overall ramifications that the whole system is in danger.
 
Look, Im all for a free market but this is what we have right now. And the alternative, which is to tax the hell out of the rich to give to the poor is something I am totally against.

There is a second methodology for progressive taxation.

One that encourages "leaving fruit on the vine" by promising to take such a large chunk of income over a certain level that they let someone else make what would have been that second ten million dollars (or whatever).

Deterrent in other words. No money for "parasites" at all unless the "taxee" chooses to go for that second ten million.
 
I don't think anybody is "too wealthy" however I'm beginning to think my preferred economic model is capitalism but where all employes are also allowed to become stock holders over time as the company expands.
 
Thought you were from Dallas?

Also, what do you propose it should be done with the aristocrats?

I live in Dallas Texas, yes. It's very nice here especially this time of year. I was born in Sweden, even though my dad is from Italy, so I actually have two passports.

What I think we should do about billionaires is add a top tax bracket that is 100% on income, and also we should have a land tax.
 
I don't think anybody is "too wealthy" however I'm beginning to think my preferred economic model is capitalism but where all employes are also allowed to become stock holders over time as the company expands.

There's nothing stopping people from doing this now. In fact, the largest classes of shareholders in America are mutual funds and pension funds. They far outstrip wealthy individuals.
 
I'm not sure what the OP is asking so I'll answer my own questions.

Does more money = more leverage? Yes

Is that unfair? No

Is it a problem even though it's fair? Yes. "Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty." - Ronald Reagan
 
Nobody should be allowed to have a billion dollars. We need an upper-upper tax bracket of 100%.

Not really a Libertarian then are you.
 
That the real culprits in abusing, twisting, and destroying our economic systems is smaller than a whole percentage of the population is really immaterial. What the statistics in the OP demonstrate is that anyone who works for a living, who applies their skills to do something for our nation, for their community, for the people of this country, are getting screwed. The class that does nothing, but rather owns things, is reaping all the benefits of technological innovation and that huge improvements in productivity that American workers have made over the last half century, and that is just wrong. There is no ethical way to justify the idea that hardworking people suffer while owning things brings prosperity and wealth.

If the millionaires that the OP is talking about were the upper echelons of our nation, we would have a pretty fair society. But the tier beyond that, the tier that crashes economies, that buys elections, that writes the laws governing their own industries, that destroys tens of thousands of people's livelihoods in order to line their own pockets... that tier is so unimaginably beyond what the rest of us can reach for. They give nothing back to this nation. There is nothing a person can do to earn that kind of privilege. It is a choice, right now, that we continue to disproportionately reward people for astounding self-interest. It is a choice we should alter.
 
What's your point?

1) There does not exist enough wealth for everyone to have as much as they want.

2) In some cases increasing one person's wealth means that someone else must lose wealth.
 
I agree. We are headed in for nasty times I think. :(
I see a trending problem that has not existed before and that's the intentional growth of the global population, to increase the world economies size and profitability. The 'powers that be' have purposely built our current economies on a growth formula that is unsustainable, because of natural resources and structural problems supplying the needs of the many.

And you are right that the two or mulitple distinguishing ideologies (parties) are blinded to this reality, thinking they can fight for what's left of the pie, without facing the overall ramifications that the whole system is in danger.
 
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