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The Wealth Gap

Does it matter Millionaire - Billionaire?

  • Total voters
    42
the_recruit said:
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.
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Survival of the fittest.
 
Hum. Let me see. I guess that this is a net worth thing. A billion is 1000 times more than a million. And a million is 1000 times more than a thousand. I say that a thousandaire is a lot poorer than millionaire. A thousandaire has to consider what he pays for lunch. A millionaire can buy just about any lunch he wants. (We do.) But, a single digit millionaire can't finance a state election candidate or issue, but a billionaire can.
 
cpgrad08 said:
Survival of the fittest.
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Yup. In flipping a house (one of the things we have done) the investors in the banks lost money and we made money. I guess you could say it was transferred, but it took some work and some risk.
 
Geoist said:
So? It is not your child. Nothing is forcing you to love and defend it.




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.
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LOL what do you want me to do? Lead a revolution?

I think the market just needs a few tweaks, namely that the government start butting out of it and eliminate corporate and individual income tax and all regulations for starters. But whatever people earn they ought to keep.
 
faithful_servant said:
Seriously??? Politics baby. You can have great political power with little real wealth.
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You gotta be kidding me baby...It takes wealth to play in politics or you can't play.. I would say that Judges have more power..
 
Juanita said:
How exactly can you achieve power without wealth?
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There are 5 kinds of power and being wealthy has usually more to do with one of them:

Power 1 = Positive power. The position of one to give you something you want in exchange for something they want. Eg., the rich give you money in exchange for your qualities.

Power 2 = Negative power. The position of one to take something from you should you not do something as they want. E.g., If you drive fast you will get a ticket, if you do not pay back you may be killed from the mafia, if you do not surrender you may get bombarded, etc.

Power 3 = Expert power. Doctors, lawyers, artists, craftman, etc., have power over what you will do in order for you to get well. They generate knowledge in their expert fields, something the rest ought to follow for their own good.

Power 4 = Standard power. It is the power of the norm, standards, culture, and usual societal expectations that we are surrounded with.

Power 5 = Referential or information power. Basically you trade some service in exchange for unique high in demand information. Spies benefit from this power the most.

So pick one power, work on it, compete with rival people that use similar power as you, and exchange powers with people whom use different kinds of power. You may not poses the positive power like the rich but you may have other powers that may be of use to you.
 
the_recruit said:
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.
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So why cannot one who has money buy those goods?
 
Paschendale said:
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.
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That's ridiculous. "Anyone" who works for a living, etc. is automatically and necessarily getting screwed? All people are victims now?

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.
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There is no particular class that does nothing. There is no one class that reaps ALL benefits of technological innovation. Again, ridiculous.

There is no ethical way to justify the idea that hardworking people suffer while owning things brings prosperity and wealth.
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Every person, every living thing, is vulnerable to suffering. When it comes to suffering and death, wealth is truly irrelevant. Wealth does not buy immortality, or even happiness.

But the tier beyond that, the tier that crashes economies,
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There is no one tier that crashes economies!

It is a choice, right now, that we continue to disproportionately reward people for astounding self-interest. It is a choice we should alter.
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What one thing would you advise people to do to cease support of owners of significant wealth?
 
the_recruit said:
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.
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1) Make more

2) Bull****, wealth is not a zero sum games.
 
grip said:
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:
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Your video has been deleted. I'm an owner of Wal Mart too and I haven't given employees a raise either. That isn't my role, I'm a shareholder, not a manager of the company.
 
mpg said:
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
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Honestly guys, the only thing that bothers me about the ultra rich is their ability to buy legislation and bribe politicians, even if its indirectly and is caused by dependency corruption versus blatant corruption, thus negatively affecting my life or the life of the country. If they were somehow prevented from skewing the balance of political power away from the people, than I would cease to care. (and this is not about whether I may or may not agree with this or that rich person, its about how I think the country works best for everyone).

This is where the SCOTUS is getting things disastrously wrong and is where existing rulings are quite dangerous to the health of our country, because as things get skewed, people's natural tendencies to want to have a say in the environment around them will seek ever more desperate ways to have that say if they are shut out of the normal political systems. This very thing has destroyed other societies in the past.
 
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We seem to be living in an age of robber barons. It should be a concern for the people. Though I think encouraging the billionaires to spend their money is a good solution but I am not so sure it will help set this point.
 
Juanita said:
You gotta be kidding me baby...It takes wealth to play in politics or you can't play.. I would say that Judges have more power..
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Yes, it takes money, but it doesn't have to be YOUR money. You can get elected to national office and never spend a dime of your own money.
Judges are political power.
 
tacomancer said:
Honestly guys, the only thing that bothers me about the ultra rich is their ability to buy legislation and bribe politicians, even if its indirectly and is caused by dependency corruption versus blatant corruption, thus negatively affecting my life or the life of the country. If they were somehow prevented from skewing the balance of political power away from the people, than I would cease to care. (and this is not about whether I may or may not agree with this or that rich person, its about how I think the country works best for everyone).

This is where the SCOTUS is getting things disastrously wrong and is where existing rulings are quite dangerous to the health of our country, because as things get skewed, people's natural tendencies to want to have a say in the environment around them will seek ever more desperate ways to have that say if they are shut out of the normal political systems. This very thing has destroyed other societies in the past.
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Like everyone else who opposes this, you are attacking the symptom instead of the problem. The problem is that we have people in elected office who are for sale. Change that situation and you fix the problem.
 
faithful_servant said:
Like everyone else who opposes this, you are attacking the symptom instead of the problem. The problem is that we have people in elected office who are for sale. Change that situation and you fix the problem.
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Yes and human nature is to have a price. We will never elect a group of incorruptible people as a rule. What we can do is steer the corruption towards acceptable ends. If politicians were answerable to the people instead of a small group of people again than we could use this bug as a feature and we cannot do that without rebalancing political power back to the common individual. Right now voting doesn't work because the process that chooses candidates is broken for dependency money

Ultimately that is the problem and not simply a symptom
 
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tacomancer said:
Yes and human nature is to have a price. We will never elect a group of incorruptible people as a rule. What we can do is steer the corruption towards acceptable ends. If politicians were answerable to the people instead of a small group of people again than we could use this bug as a feature and we cannot do that without rebalancing political power back to the common individual. Right now voting doesn't work because the process that chooses candidates is broken for dependency money

Ultimately that is the problem and not simply a symptom
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There are people who will not be bought for any amount of money. I know quite a few of them personally. But what we've done is allowed the ones who are EAGER to be bought to be the ones getting elected. We need a independent board that assesses the results of campaign contributions on the elected officials. If someone shows that they are providing favors tot those who elected them, the issue is brought to the people's attention. We need more responsibility, not less rights.
 
faithful_servant said:
There are people who will not be bought for any amount of money. I know quite a few of them personally. But what we've done is allowed the ones who are EAGER to be bought to be the ones getting elected. We need a independent board that assesses the results of campaign contributions on the elected officials. If someone shows that they are providing favors tot those who elected them, the issue is brought to the people's attention. We need more responsibility, not less rights.
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Those people are rare enough that they cannot be a reliable source of politicians. That is not a raw material we have enough in abundance to actually successfully exploit.

For your board idea, it would be almost immediately politicized and become something awful. Who watches the watchers?

The scotus ****ed us and closed all avenues for realistic reform and we will reap the consequences unfortunately.
 
tacomancer said:
Those people are rare enough that they cannot be a reliable source of politicians. That is not a raw material we have enough in abundance to actually successfully exploit.

For your board idea, it would be almost immediately politicized and become something awful. Who watches the watchers?

The scotus ****ed us and closed all avenues for realistic reform and we will reap the consequences unfortunately.
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You have an unfortunately low opinion of people. I know a lot of people who would fit the bill. People who are every bit as intelligent and qualified as the "kleptocrats" we currently have in office. Implementing term limits to avoid the motivation to hold onto power would the first step. Then establish a board of retired Fed. judges and top level DOJ personnel drawn randomly from a pool of volunteers to carry out the investigations into the politician's actions. The board would have no authority other than to expose the issues. They wouldn't be kicking someone out of office. Their investigations could reveal blatant criminal actions which would then be investigated by the DOJ/Congress, but they would have no authority other than to show who the problem children are.
 
faithful_servant said:
You have an unfortunately low opinion of people. I know a lot of people who would fit the bill. People who are every bit as intelligent and qualified as the "kleptocrats" we currently have in office. Implementing term limits to avoid the motivation to hold onto power would the first step. Then establish a board of retired Fed. judges and top level DOJ personnel drawn randomly from a pool of volunteers to carry out the investigations into the politician's actions. The board would have no authority other than to expose the issues. They wouldn't be kicking someone out of office. Their investigations could reveal blatant criminal actions which would then be investigated by the DOJ/Congress, but they would have no authority other than to show who the problem children are.
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Are these things always blatant and obvious? yet they happen. If Company A is known to fund candidates who do this or that in regards to this or that law or regulation, there would be pressure for candidates that need money to change stances enforcing the wishes if a few against wishes of many and bypassing national discussions in appropriate policy, which is a harm. There is no obvious money trail but it causes problems and people notice as as a result lose faith in the system as try to find other means to shape their world. It would cause witch hunts and standards creep for political advantage as people try to suss that out.

And I think I am realistic in my expectations of people. Things devolve to the LCD over time.
 
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tacomancer said:
Are these things always blatant and obvious? yet they happen. If Company a one day is known to fund candidates who do this or that in regards to this or that law or regulation, there would be pressure for candidates that need money to change stances enforcing the wishes if a few against wishes of many and bypassing national discussions in appropriate policy. There is no obvious money trail but it causes problems. It would cause witch hunts and standards creep for political advantage as people try to suss that out.
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Hmmm.... Maybe I should go into a little more detail about how this would work.
Each year, you do a new draw from the pool. The draw establishes a set of teams ("Watchgroups"?) that are randomly assigned elected officials. Each team is tasked with investigating any laws the pols. they are assigned have involved themselves in and they are examined to see if they have undue impact on the major campaign contributors for those pols.

There's no doubt that there would be some political gamesmanship, but exposing the issues that are driving this can only help things. You might have a politicized group watching someone for a year, but next year, they get a whole new group watching them. The pols. are never sure of who will be watching them and thus can never be confident that there would be a Watchgroup that would have their back. In fact, the possibility that there might be a Watchgroup that would pursue them for political reasons would actually be good thing. If they walk in a level of integrity that leaves them above reproach, they would have nothing to worry about no matter who was watching them.


BTW - VERY enjoyable discussion.
 
PoS said:
LOL what do you want me to do? Lead a revolution?
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Not at all. But you can start with not supporting the very thing libertarians should oppose.

I think the market just needs a few tweaks, namely that the government start butting out of it and eliminate corporate and individual income tax and all regulations for starters. But whatever people earn they ought to keep.
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The wealth concentration is due to the marriage of statism and corporatism. Government patents, absentee land privileges, corporate welfare, etc all play huge roles in this. When you defend that concentration of wealth you are defending a corrupt and non-free system.
 
I usually try to avoid this topic, as it tend to resort to "rich people are evil," or "poor people are lazy," but I think a realistic look is required. The US economy works best when everyone is included and has an equal place at the table. That is not to say everyone should be equal, but that all socioeconomic groups should have the same influence and opportunities at the table. For example, and I know many hate the unions, but bear with me. Before unionization, the economic table was rigged to benefit the wealthy. Why? Because money translates into power and influence. In order to balance this, the lower classes acted collectively in unions or trade groups. Their collective power and money balanced that of the rich and the nation was able to have compromises in which all parties benefit. The wealthy remained wealthy and the Middle Class thrived and the nation was healthy.

Then we saw the corruption and bad side of unionization. Next we saw the opening of global markets and the portability of labor. This has led to an imbalance once again as the lower classes are no longer able to effectively balance the rich and now ultra rich. CEO pay is now $500 to every $1 earned by an employee, and this system is leading to the ever increasing wealth gap and subsequently the weak economy. Balance is key and only collectively can the Middle Class act to increase their influence over the economy. Only when they do, will the US see a booming economy once again.
 
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