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"Billinaires shouldn't exist." Do you agree with Bernie?

Billionaires shouldn't exist -- do you agree?

  • Total voters
    106
Rogue Valley said:
The top 10% of wealthy Americans own 70% of America's wealth.
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Its 1990 FANG stocks don't exist. Along comes Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google and they're worth what today? Alot, right.

Bezos took $300k and turned it into alot. You might have taken $300k and turned that into $5mn.

If the entire universe was you and Bezos you would have gone from having 50% of the wealth to less than 1% of the wealth.

Capital is NOT fixed.

Ask yourself, is google making you poorer?
 
ecofarm said:
Innovation requires huge piles of private capital.
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really....

Steve Jobs and Woz would really disagree with you

So would Bill Gates

So would countless other people who have taken ideas, built upon them, and make their dream come true
 
Outlook said:
This is the land of opportunity. People want to come to America for their chance to become rich. How many people do these millionaires and billionaires have working for them?
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You have no idea what you are talking about. People want to come to America for many reasons: family, freedom, education, war, and more. Adults are required to have job skills and demonstrate they can work to become U.S. citizens. It can be any kind of job skill. They want to live in America for other reasons and train in their native countries to be eligible for citizenship and get jobs or start new small businesses here. They are not always high-paying jobs; in fact many of them get low wages.

The left on the other hand would like to give the money these people worked hard for and simply give it away to someone less fortunate, perhaps someone that does not want to work as hard.
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Again, you don't know what really happens. Democrats know where the money rich people own belongs: in the hands of people who never have enough of it for reasons totally out of their control. It is never a disabled person's fault that he or she can't get a job. It is never bad to retire when you can't work anymore. The government is responsible for giving them everything they need because rich people will not do it on their own. Billionaires do not get that rich by earning all that money. They get that rich by saving it.
 
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joko104 said:
That is not what "monopoly" means. The most famous anti-trust case was against Standard Oil/Rockefeller. At the time there were hundreds of oil companies.

Google controls over 80% of the Internet. Amazon overwhelming dominates. Plus Google and Amazon act as a team via the commonality of Jeff Bezos.

So you are a small business in Internet sales, which is over 50% of all retail and virtually 100% for many product areas. This is what you are up against - noting people shop from the top of page one downward:

Even if you are paying for Google and Amazon advertising...
Google will put Amazon above you for free. So no one pays to click on Amazon - but you have to pay $1, $2, $3 just for someone to look at your website - and people who don't buy off the top page site usually are then just looking - at your expense.
On Amazon, you will pay Amazon 15% (or more), plus $1, $2, $3 against for anyone to just look at your listing - the total costing as much as 30% of the sale.
Amazon pays none of that, plus Amazon will put their own offering of the product above yours (without the 30% cost). Even if someone clicks on your listing (you pay for clicks, not sales), where you check out there probably will be a button stating you can buy it from Amazon for less - so you spent $1, $2, $3 to promote Amazon selling your product.
Thus, you spent $4, $5, $6 to be behind and below Amazon - with Amazon consuming the sale anyway.
If you also can not offer 1 day shipping because it would cost you $35 for 1 day shipping, and Amazon will pay $7.55 cents to the post office for the same 1 day delivery.
Finally, if you have a product Amazon does not have, if you sell a lot of it Amazon will use your data and do the above to you - or just overnight ban you - as many Google - and your company is gone and all employees lost their job overnight. Of course, you can try to scramble for the other less than 20% of the marketplace - with your advertising costs off-the-charts per sale since people do shop from the top down - and the lower it goes the more you are just paying for lookers who don't buy.

THAT is a "monopoly." A monopoly means their dominance and massive size creates unfair competition.

The government just refused to allow Staples and Office Max to merge, claiming it would too much be a monopoly. Are there other office supply stores? Sure. Can people buy office supplies elsewhere online? Sure. But they would so dominate the market it is an unfair advantage.

Amazon also is the #1 location where patent and copyright violations occur, with this very much protected by Amazon. Overall, Amazon commits millions of FDA and USDA violations per day, being too big and too politically powerful to fight. The government literally has demanded we not have certain ad language on our websites - that we many have on Amazon because Amazon is immune for all laws.

Another monopoly aspect is businesses are so dependent on Amazon for Internet sales, that everyone - buyers and sellers - are required to agree that there is no circumstance by which you can sue Amazon. Amazon could knowingly sell you bottles of known poison inaccurately labeled killing everyone in your family, and all you could do is file a case with Amazon to be decided by one of Amazon's mediators.

Actually, who most has called from breaking up Amazon and Google is Elizabeth Warren - and she has explained how it works as a monopoly in great detail. It is an issue I completely agree with her on having direct knowledge. THIS ALSO IS WHEN HER FUND RAISING CRASHED AND SHE RADICALLY DROPPED IN THE POLLS. She dared challenge media owning Amazon and Google, so they crushed her campaign. People wonder what happened to her campaign. Jeff Bezos happened.

IT IS AMAZON, GOOGLE and their media power that crashed Warren's campaign after she said she would use anti-trust laws to break them up their components into separate companies. She has never been brave enough to even mention Amazon or Google ever since. They not only totally control the majority of retail sales, they control the government and politics.

Your defense is not on any knowledge. As for the overall effects and realities? You haven't a clue. Don't even think about patenting a new consumer product. Within a week it will be copied in China with 50 listings above yours on Amazon - with Google putting the cheap Chinese knock-off above your's, and if Amazon is selling it they'll put it above your listing no matter how much you pay - until Amazon and Google ban you entirely.

The ONLY products we sell on Amazon are hazardous materials or that we uniquely manufacture. Amazon does not have hazardous materials at Amazon Prime warehouses and so far no one can even duplicate the other product line.
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Why do you think people shop with Amazon?

And do you use google?
 
A billionaire is a person who has exploited the labor of their workers and has stolen the worker's wealth for themselves. They should not exist.
 
Blue Donkey said:
No they don't. Google originally was nothing but a search engine. Then they added email. Then they added maps, calendars, etc. No other company has all of the services and products Google offers. Some companies did shrink or go out of business because they did not have enough moneyt to catch up with Google. Not to mention those TV advertisements for an artificial intelligence product, whose competition is . . . Amazon.

Speaking of Amazon, can you name any other company that offers free one-day shipping and two-day shipping, including free return shipping, on select products if you have a membership? That alone makes Amazon a richer company than any of its "competitors" in America, which only "compete' in the sense of selling the asme or similar products in their respective departments. Another way they do it is make their own products. Trivia question: Which company invented the TV Firestick?
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Why do you shop with Amazon?
 
VanceMack said:
Why do you think people shop with Amazon?

And do you use google?
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Why did people buy Standard Oil?

Apparently, your claim is the more profitable and domineering a company is, the less of a monopoly it must be. Thus, the perfect company would have 100% of all sales and all customers. :roll:
 
VanceMack said:
Why do you shop with Amazon?
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Wouldn't elections be better if there was only one political party? Think of all the money saved and so convenient.
 
Surrealistik said:
Slow GDP growth rates don't necessitate the creation or growth of wealth gaps, nor does lower productivity growth. Billionaires are one of the foremost driving factors underlying the other, actually relevant things you mentioned, plus gaming tax law, subsidies and pork in their favour, and regulatory capture.
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Right but anytime you have slow gdp growth, wealth an income gains will always concentrate at the top 20% or so of earners.
 
The losers with useless BA's who are living in mommy's basement need free video games.

Bernie's base!
 
Blue Donkey said:
I often get Amazon gift cards for birthdays and Christmas. Years ago Mom added me to her Amazon Prime membership.
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So you use their services?
 
Your Star said:
A billionaire is a person who has exploited the labor of their workers and has stolen the worker's wealth for themselves. They should not exist.
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exploited and stolen

no bias in your world at all is there

i suppose every owner of every business steals according to you, right?

would you rather NO ONE had a job?
 
joko104 said:
Why did people buy Standard Oil?

Apparently, your claim is the more profitable and domineering a company is, the less of a monopoly it must be. Thus, the perfect company would have 100% of all sales and all customers. :roll:
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Im not making a claim...I'm asking some direct and honest questions.

Why do you think people shop with Amazon?

And do you use google?
 
VanceMack said:
Im not making a claim...I'm asking some direct and honest questions.

Why do you think people shop with Amazon?

And do you use google?
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1 and 2 day shipping cheap due to government subsidies and because people shop from the first item or top of page one. The marriage between Google and Amazon assures this. Every time someone buys something from Amazon Prime, I pay part of the shipping costs thru government subsidies.

My Mrs. company ships too. The government does not subsidize our shipping and unlike Amazon we have to pay USPS mail costs and overall more shipping costs.

I've written it out before of our personal experience of the raw power of money to wipe out all competitors. It was how a sideline of selling a couple items a week on eBay to a massively growing operation with nearly a dozen facilities for office, warehousing, shipping and manufacturing with an IT department - in just over a year.
How? She got a 50% partner who is the trophy wife of a billionaire of a family of billions. He husband thought his wealthy wife wanting to do business was "cute," so he and his pals threw their money, resources and power behind it.
I wrote out some years ago how that massive wealth allowed literally going from ZERO to being able to crush any and all competitors within a week of entering their market for any market entered. They could literally buy up all inventory so competitors couldn't even get it, starve them to death by price warring and unlimited advertising budgets, plus connections to the big outfits and the government as well.
It was systematic and very methodical. The competitors would discover on a Monday that over 90% of their business vanished overnight. Even with that, any inventory they might be able to find now had to buy from this same company. Nor 1 company, but to create half a dozen to totally capture the top listings on page 1, 2, and 3 of all search engines - price warring the competition out of existence - the having virtually total control of the supply market, wholesale market and retail market.
Massive money is massive competitive advantage.
 
ecofarm said:
Innovation requires huge piles of private capital.
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Billions of dollars?

It would seem that concentrated capital would make innovation less like since capital is in fewer hands.
 
j brown's body said:
Billions of dollars?

It would seem that concentrated capital would make innovation less like since capital is in fewer hands.
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You'll never convince a bunch of people to take the risk necessary for revolutionary innovation.
 
Blue Donkey said:
You have no idea what you are talking about. People want to come to America for many reasons: family, freedom, education, war, and more. Adults are required to have job skills and demonstrate they can work to become U.S. citizens. It can be any kind of job skill. They want to live in America for other reasons and train in their native countries to be eligible for citizenship and get jobs or start new small businesses here. They are not always high-paying jobs; in fact many of them get low wages.



Again, you don't know what really happens. Democrats know where the money rich people own belongs: in the hands of people who never have enough of it for reasons totally out of their control. It is never a disabled person's fault that he or she can't get a job. It is never bad to retire when you can't work anymore. The government is responsible for giving them everything they need because rich people will not do it on their own. Billionaires do not get that rich by earning all that money. They get that rich by saving it.
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Right over your head.
 
...concentrations of wealth are bad for pretty much everyone except the super rich themselves. We’ve argued that they would benefit from having their lucre reduced, since levels of inequality pose a cost on longevity, even among the top rich. Highly unequal societies have shallow social bond...

Remember Smaug the dragon, in The Hobbit? He hoarded up a vast pile of wealth, and then he just hung out in his cave, sitting on it (with occasional forays to further pillage and immolate the local populace). That’s what you should think of when you consider the mind-boggling hoards of wealth that the very rich have amassed in America over the last forty years. ..These people could spend $20 million every year and they’d still just keep getting richer, forever, even if they did absolutely nothing except choose some index funds, watch their balances grow, and shop for a new yacht for their eight-year-old.

But here’s what’s even more egregious: that concentrated wealth is strangling our economy, our economic growth, our national prosperity. Wealth concentration drives a vicious, downward cycle, throttling the very engine of wealth creation itself.

Because: people with lots of money don’t spend it. They just sit on it, like Smaug in his cave. The more money you have, the less of it you spend every year. If you have $10,000, you might spend it this year. If you have $10 million, you’re not gonna. If you have $1,000, you’re at least somewhat likely to spend it this month.

If you’re thinking that they “deserve” all that wealth, and all that income just for owning stuff, because they’re “makers,” think again: between 50% and 70% of U.S. household wealth is “earned” the old-fashioned way (cue John Houseman voice): it’s inherited.
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Insanely Concentrated Wealth Is Strangling Our Prosperity | naked capitalism
 
Outlook said:
Right over your head.
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I actually know a lot about people being unable to get jobs or even work at all for medical reasons. Rich people are the ones who will not accept the facts for their own selifhs purposes.
 
captaintrips said:
Bernie is a communist and wants to be a communist leader.

Leaders in communist countries have all the wealth they need/want while they make sure everyone else has "what they need." . . . which is never what they want
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Bernie has never been and never wanted to be a Communist. The people who say that are Republicans afraid of losing freedoms and totally unwilling to accept the facts. Democratc socialism is not even close to Communism.
 
Billionaires and millionaires. Compared to the average income earners in the US millionaires are well outside the earning imigination of workers. Lets get rid of all of them. Bernie, line up to give up your money and at least two of your homes.
 
jamesrage said:
Amazing how he wants to impose excessive taxes on the rich in order to provide free everything for everybody including illegals.But he thinks these people whom he wishes to impose excessive taxes on in order to pay for everything shouldn't exist. Is he aware that the richest 20% of Americans pay 87% of all income tax collected by the federal government? That money wouldn't magically be divided among everyone else if those billionaires disappeared.
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Bernie Sanders was sending the message that taxes on the rich are not excessive because they can pay all of that money. It is still a small fraction of their financial assets. You want to know what is excessive? The obvious answer is their savings created by Bush tax cuts on rich people and decisons to not help those who need it most.
 
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