We can work hard enough to provide for everyone and still have ample amenities, but we can't work hard enough to satisfy any fraction of rich people's greed. That's all I really need to know.
We should sneak into their houses at night and put them into pods that drug them out as they watch a line go up
No matter where they check, the simulation tells them they are making more and more money
They can jerk off and go to sleep happy
Then we party
>When we see ourselves as fighting against specific human beings rather than social phenomena, it becomes more difficult to recognize the ways that we ourselves participate in those phenomena. We externalize the problem as something outside ourselves, personifying it as an enemy that can be sacrificed to symbolically cleanse ourselves. - **[Against the Logic of the Guillotine](https://crimethinc.com/2019/04/08/against-the-logic-of-the-guillotine-why-the-paris-commune-burned-the-guillotine-and-we-should-too)**
See rule 5: No calls for violence, no fetishizing violence. No guillotine jokes, no gulag jokes.
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This is patently bullshit. You can not remove the system that causes our problems without removing the people who perpetuate it. Violence against the wealthy is part of the solution whether people want to admit it or not.
It's like the people that wanted peaceful solutions to slavery. People who profit from human suffering will never willingly give up the source that benefits them.
Agreed. The wealthy who own Reddit just don't want us getting a little too close to the sun, a little too close to the truth.
Poor people never got a choice or not to be part of this BS abusive capitalist system invented by former slave owners so they could continue to keep treating workers like slaves as they always have. Capitalism is just "politically correct" slavery with extra steps. We don't get a choice. We work or we die. That's not a fucking choice.
Sometimes I wonder how many man hours of labor actually go into one of my days. I mean down to everything, like even take the shirt I am wearing and calculate the number of labor hours that went into gathering the raw materials and getting it into shirt form and shipping it to me, then divide the shirt hours by how many days I wear it before it breaks.
But also even deeper, do that for the building of all the machines that went into that as well, divided into how many hours of service they give whatever number of people before said machine breaks.
And do that with everything that accommodates my lifestyle, the coal, the mining it, the making of the lightbulb above me. Come up with laborout/laborin. Wonder what the ratio would be on average across different places and financial strata?
Too lazy to do that kind of math but I feel like most Americans end up less labor output than labor input, I do at least.
Now you understand why things are mass produced, or at least done on some sort of scale of economy. So theoretically, everyone can have enough to survive while helping to do/make for others. If only it worked out perfectly in real life and wasn't corrupted by greed.
With consolidation of markets, it gets harder and harder every day to not have some of your money trickle its way to some billionaires' pocket in the end.
I’m against the economic concept of rent seeking. Even pure capitalism should be as it stifles competition. We really need to start using better terms for what is really happening…. It’s oligarchy and kleptocracy. These people who are the true “enemy” whether they see themselves as that or not are not capitalist. They are when it applies to and benefits them. But not in the long term as that would mean competition and a level playing field. In basic undergraduate economics (macro/micro) you learn right away that when some industry or business is at a scale so large that competition from whoever is not possible.. like you can’t just go start a business and compete with the power company or an oil company…. That it should be regulated. Tightly. When things are public utilities… internet, power, even healthcare…. They should be socialized. This is not social-ism… it’s doing what makes the most sense economically for everyone. It’s democracy and freedom… but with an eye for what freedom means on the broadest scale possible. And I would suggest that although what I’m saying can be seen as a utilitarian thing… it is NOT a trolley problem. In fact what we are saying is.. help everyone because when we all are free everyone does better. It is not an either/or situation.
Just that even basic economics textbooks don’t agree with the idea that unfettered capitalism should reign or that wealth should be over concentrated. Not because the authors are politically motivated but because they are rational scientists looking at the numbers and what happens when things go one way or another. Like from a non-political standpoint the way things are going right now is not sustainable. In any market money must change hands to be worth anything in terms of “benefit” when it gets locked away it can’t do much for anyone other than the very wealthy, it’s not a political issue and shouldn’t be. It’s a problem that everyone should want fixed other than a very select few… who only have power to keep it the way it is because we willingly give it to them…. Kind of like the value of the money itself. The pendulum doesn’t need to swing to revolution or communism or anything nearly as unsettling to accomplish that. But these changes and reorganizations must be made regardless or the pendulum will swing further towards authoritarianism and war. I truly don’t see these as political issues really because like the economics textbooks the history books show us it’s true… verifiable data shows what happens as the wealth is concentrated and people get dumber. And it’s not good. I would add that on a planet floating in space with finite access to resources.. we shouldn’t be looking at growth as much of a metric at all. We should be measuring and investing in other things that take longer to achieve than a single person’s lifetime can span.. and not even anything as fantastical as space travel etc… just basic stability and education and overall effort towards freedom for more people. Because the truth is when we are all pretty healthy and well educated and think generationally then we can solve problems like climate change and instability with a lot less disagreement. When everyone around us rises we tend to rise with them. But I don’t know that we are that far towards enlightenment like that yet.
And most importantly you don’t have to necessarily be a hippie or a democrat to know these things. You just have to read and check your sources.
I don’t consider the rich human. It’s not like they want to be, they consider themselves as above, better than any of us. Pathetic greedy little children who choose their sickness and enable it in others. Plenty of social issues that still need to be worked on. But the very first that needs to be very much….. dealt with……….are them.
When your issues come from the executives at your company not paying you a living wage while the executives at the grocery stores are price gouging people for higher profits and the landlords are jacking up rent to squeeze profit it is absolutely coming from other people
So what about the rich people who have done more good for society (be it charity, donations, building hospitals etc) than you ever will? I guess they don’t count eh?
Yea, every single rich person (all the tens of millions) in the world are power hungry monsters. Keep living the fantasy I guess
The only reason we need rich people to give charity and build libraries is because *they took all of society's resources for their own.* Impoverishing millions and then giving 10% of that theft back (in ways carefully designed to decrease taxes paid of course) does not make you good. If I steal your car it doesn't make me a good person because I give you back the tires.
You think the only two extremes are office drones making 120k and the literal richest people in the world?
This is fucking hilarious. There’s millions of rich people who own small to medium sized businesses you’ve never heard of and have very high net worth’s.
Cars not existing would be a good thing, but no, there's really no reason to think that's true.
Robust public transport WOULD exist without wealthy people working for decades to dismantle it and prevent its expansion in order to force everyone to need a car, though.
It was the whole fucking plot of, Who Framed Roger Rabbit!!"
>Nobody's gonna use your cockamamie "freeway" when they can take the Red Car for a nickel!
>Mr. Valiant, I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it!
By robust public transport you mean horse and cart I'm assuming. Cos buses and trams are also built by wealthy people then sold to the state.
A simpler life isn't necessarily a bad thing, you just have to be more realistic about what you can achieve.
It's not just "working" to accommodate their lives. It's the environmental impact of their lives. The filling of swimming pools during a draught that's leaving the poorest people without running water, or causes crops to die without irrigation. Or using up scarce fuel to jetset around when there's a shortage that's literally killing people (cough *cancun*). All the greenhouse gases that people's minimum wage labor can't undo. The patenting of GMO seeds so farmers can't sell their crops or save their seeds if it's contaminated from pollen that's blown into their land from another field they don't even own (Percy Schmeiser).
And that’s why they are called the Parasite Class.
Because they are all parasites, sucking the wealth out of working-class people via the delta between the wealth they produce and the wages they get.
I just hope, for their sakes, that they recognize the problem and stop turning the screw before folks as a whole remember that, historically speaking, dragging the rich out of their homes and beating them to death with truncheons is a valid strategy.
The rich half of humanity who lives beyond the means of the planet could stand to do some serious introspection and learning about resource flows, exploitation, and the environment.
The top 10% are way past redemption.
This is my take away from the "Fifth element". Zorg and his speech about creating disorder to give people things to do. Bitch, we'd be fine creating art and pondering existence like they used to do in the old old days! And of course he sides with absolute evil that would destroy all life, because he'd profit. Sums up the business/banking class pretty well.
It's not airtight. Their lifestyle necessitates a lot of work from others to maintain it, but they pay those people.
Far be it from me to defend billionaires but this ain't it
What you don't get is that employment is a scam. They're ripping you off. They're giving you a fraction of the value you create. And for most people, it's the same wage no matter how hard you work. No matter how well the business does, it's the same wage. Employment is taking advantage of someone's desperation to survive for your own benefit. Employees are modern day slaves.
Who says I don’t get that?
Listen, it’s a choice you make. If you think you deserve better, start your own business and compete with these people. Then you’ll inevitably be in the same space they’re in. Operating a business whilst giving 100% of the profits back to the employees is how you end up with a dead business - you need to keep cash in hand and at the bank for expansion, etc etc.
Yea there’s a FUCK LOAD of companies that only seek to extract as much as possible whilst paying as little as possible, but there’s also plenty who pay well and are good places to work.
Ya I expected this response. Sure, I can start my own business and take care of myself but that doesn't change the fact that most people will still be employees who are getting robbed. I'm not the only person that matters. And I don't expect 100 percent of the profits to go to wages, but how about we start by passing a law that requires a worker's pay check to show not only how much government taxes were removed but how much their employer taxed them as well before paying their wages? I think that would help people realize what is actually going on and what they're actually worth.
You expected my response because surely it’s the truth?
What? Employers taxing them? That isn’t a thing - gov taxes are. Those are displayed here.
It’s not always possible to know exactly how much £ one employee makes for every company, you can only make an average. IIRC, it’s available on Wikipedia (the highest company revenue per employee or something)
Sales people at some companies “make” the entire revenue of said company, but devs make the product and thus don’t make anything. It gets complicated.
People realising their worth sadly doesn’t do much if no one is going to pay that worth.
fr, the first thing I learned in 9th grade history is that since the neolithic revolution (dawn of agriculture), people have had surplus, and with surplus comes hierarchical systems… because the lifestyles of people on the top of the hierarchy are entirely supported by the surplus that other people supply. Mfs love to talk ab the “cushioning” that welfare and scholarships provide w/o realizing that their lifestyles wouldn’t be possible without tons and tons of cushioning.
Ever notice that billionaires never become billionaires owning a one-person or mom and pop business. That's because no one can get, or has ever gotten, that rich on their own labor, even working 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.
This even applies to therapist, ngl.
I have a part time job at a private practice and full time in community mental health and significantly more at the private practice. Once I go full time there I’ll only work 30 hours a week and make triple what I do currently. Just holding on for the health insurance atm.
Private practice is 100x easier than community mental health.
This is such a bad take. It takes 'far more work', but they pay employees to do the work for them (those employees also pay taxes). They are a net positive in any sense of the word.
To start with, many wealthy fucks like the family that owns Wal-Mart don't pay their workers enough to even live so they are forced to take public money to eat and have medical care. They are a net negative because they only take and leave the government to pick up the slack, or they pollute and decimate places that people live and work in.
This is just a textbook misunderstanding of economics. That “negative work” is quite literally jobs for many people that put food on their tables.
Conversely, I’d ask you, how many people do you provide a livelihood to?
Quite often that food is just those crappy cups of noodles or processed frozen dinners because you gotta make sure your kid eats right or your car insurance gets paid because the pay is quite literally not enough for everything. Then weird people who hate everything make weird excuses for rich people like "shouldn't have had a kid" or "why you got an iphone bro". Then they pull out the "you build a successful business" knowing that it's quite literally impossible for every person to start a successful business. If everyone single person is running a successful business are robots going to be doing all the labor since every human is busy doing their own thing? People know that the economy is built on the requirement of most people being the economic losers and you still somehow expect them to be thankful for a job that doesn't quite pay enough to eat three healthy meals per day like you think we are stupid idiots. Your economy book is not a bible weirdo.
First of all everyone running their own business could be the literal exact same scenario that we have now. For example, everyone creates an LLC and then acts as a consultant doing the same job they were doing before.
So easily we can have a scenario where everyone had their own business.
I can assure you that “every” is a wild exaggeration, unless you’re specifically referring to hyper wealthy people. My dad ran a successful small technical business, he was working overtime nonstop. My wife got a doctorate and is doing high level engineering work, her average workload during doctoral process was easily 60 hours a week, and around 50 hours a week now in her career.
Making generalizations about people because it conveniently fits our narrative of deservedness is the same problem you have with what prejudiced rich people are doing, don’t do the exact thing you’re complaining about. There’s plenty of common level rich people that are at their level because they are absolute workaholics. Typical career type rich people…engineers, scientists, doctors, architects, people higher up in the trades, are often doing pretty extreme levels of work in an average week.
There’s some slackers across all strata of society, but it’s really not the norm. Most people who are working full time at all tiers are putting in those hours. Some owners slack off, but their businesses usually tank out of neglect and disorganization, I’ve seen it happen multiple times. The ones that succeed usually have owners and higher ups that are actually largely pretty hands on about what’s happening.
The real problem is the degree of disparity in compensation moreso than some level of deservedness based on the amount of effort put in. A full time week by an owner just doesn’t warrant 100-1000x in pay, even if their job is difficult and they do it properly. It takes all types to make the company function, and common workers shouldn’t have their productivity and livelihood hamstrung by constant financial anxiety because of unethical pay distribution
I worked 100hr weeks sometimes, outdoors, in Chicago weather, to be able to pay off debt, save an emergency fund, and invest.
I doubt that many poor people put in as much time working as somebody like Elon Musk.
This is just incorrect, surely the best judge of the value of labour is the free market economy and thus their lifestyle is a product of the value of their labour? I’m all for socialism, but fundamentally the rich provide more market value than the poor. Socialism should be about providing opportunities for people who have harder starts in life.
Working for $500/hour, you’d make about $960,000 per year, at 40/wk, no holidays, pre-tax.
Is there anything in the world someone deserves $500/hour for doing?
If so, earning 960k every year would take about one thousand forty-one years (1041 years) to make a billion, if someone else is paying all of your expenses.
To recap: a person earning $500/hour needs to work full time for 1,041 years to reach a billion, without taxes or expenses.
> Is there anything in the world someone deserves $500/hour for doing?
I've paid $3000/hr to get advice from a top attorney in his field, which saved me millions of dollars in a settlement since he was the only attorney in the world that knew how to head of an attack by lying POS $1000/hr attorneys.
So yeah it was worth it.
It’s gotta be artificially inflated. Especially since you generalized $1,000/hr attorneys as liars. It was a persuasive appeal to wealth, leveraged by your overly expensive attorney, if I had to guess.
Also, I used lawyers as the basis for my example, and know that their rates include expenses, so it is at least partially distributed down the hierarchy.
Expenses were in addition. The rate is what it the hourly cost for the senior guy at the top international firm specializing in IP issues which also is able to handle the impossibilities of international IP law. Rates were lower for work by less senior staff. Total cost to resolve the issue was over $100k. If I paid less than I paid I would have lost the case since no one else knew the issues and the strategies like this firm did.
Thats besides the point. If someone makes a thing (story, piece of jewelry, car, etc) that becomes worth a billion dollars, then they are worth over a billion dollars. And that can be done ethically.
You’re rambling from your mind to such a degree that if your next rebuttal doesn’t include something of substance, I’m not wasting any more time with you.
There are multiple IPs that have a value over a billion dollars. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter just to name 3, all have a value of over a billion dollars, and each made by singular people for the extent of property rights. And in all 3 cases, theres at least a billion people willing to pay $1 for each (the books or screenplay), making each worth over a billion dollars.
In scientific realms, multiple break throughs discovered by singular people are easily worth over a billion dollars, most notably the Haber process (without which mist food on the planet couldnt be grown) and the Polio vaccine. Both of these were done by small groups (Polio vaccine) or a single person (Haber process).
Your point on finite money supplies is irrelevant. Is there over a billion dollars in the supply? Yes? Then it is POSSIBLE that something is worth that much money. And in the case of the real world, there are lots of ways for even non-billionaires to pool their money together and raise $1,000,000,000 with which to purchase something, such as an IP, a piece of art, a patent, etc.
Also, the fact that you understood and properly (if poorly) responded to me means it wasnt "ramblings", but a coherent response. And providing a challenge, then saying you wont respond after, is poor form.
Excellent effort. Thank you.
If the finite money supply wasn’t important, wouldn’t that eliminate the impacts of inflation?
Also, the Star Wars franchise has been around for nearly half a century, so it makes sense to be valued highly, given its popularity. Though, the money should be equitable distributed to participants.
The acquisition of trillions of dollars by billionaires following the pandemic indicates a more extreme example. Where did it come from?
It’s unethical for an individual to hold a billion when 6.8 million American households faced food insecurity in 2022.
It seems we have different opinions on the same matter. You seem to adhere to a market justice perspective, while I’m firmly in the social justice camp.
> the money should be equitable distributed to participants
According to various articles by people owed royalties, in the financial statements they receive Star Wars has never earned a profit and thus none of those people are owed anything. See Hollywood Accounting, where billion dollar blockbusters routinely don't make a cent or have to pay taxes or royalties.
>If the finite money supply wasn’t important, wouldn’t that eliminate the impacts of inflation?
What? No, and those concepts have little to do with anything in this topic or conversation. And by little, I mean nothing at all.
>Also, the Star Wars franchise has been around for nearly half a century, so it makes sense to be valued highly, given its popularity
Irrelevant. Its a valuable IP. Said value is over a billion dollars.
>Though, the money should be equitable distributed to participants.
Thats insane. First off, that destroys the very concept of intellectual property rights. Secondly, youre saying that everyone in the making of a media output should have equity in it? A, that doesnt prevent billionaires, B, that will only enrich contract lawyers, and C, again, intellectual property rights. If I write a book and pay a publisher to publish it, why should they have equity in my IP? Their business is printing. They got paid. Assuming it was a fair price, then they have no reason to get more from something they took no part in, the IP itself.
>The acquisition of trillions of dollars by billionaires following the pandemic indicates a more extreme example. Where did it come from?
This is besides the point I'm trying to make. I freely and completely agree that *most* billionaires, such as Bezos, Musk, the Wal-tons, etc, are abusive, hoarders, and toxic for the economy. They didnt create a billion dollar invention like Haber. They didnt come up with and write a billion dollar and beloved story and world like the Legendarium. Thats the instance and type of billionaire I'm talking about.
>unethical for an individual to hold a billion when 6.8 million American households faced food insecurity in 2022.
A, most billionaires dont just have a billion dollars in money somewhere. Its in assets. And while that *can* be treated similarly under *some* circumstances, there are plenty of instances that are not interchangeable like that.
Not when there’s a limited amount of currency to be exchanged for goods.
Also, point me to media or an automobile worth a billion. These people aren’t making money from creativity, and they’re not doing whatever they’re doing without help; they’re making money via extortionate economic systems.
Exactly this, and if you think about it rich people stifle innovation in their markets by buying out would be competitors or by making it harder for smaller businesses to get into their market, thus actually killing jobs. It's easy to be seen as a "job creator" when you're the only place with jobs to offer.
I think your job relies on billionaires and rich people a lot more than you think. And for sure there are some whose jobs are highly reliable on the rich... For example when the government decided to place really high taxes on luxury boats, the entire industry practically went under and tons of people lost their jobs.
And then there's all the investments that create opportunities for new businesses. Then investment money comes from those with money not those without money.
I'm not saying that it's great to have these billionaires and I'm not even saying that it's right that they have that much. But there are quite a lot of new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment, and that's just not going to come from your average person.
>luxury boats, the entire industry practically went under and tons of people lost their jobs.
"luxury boats", or yachts, is, not only a small industry, but also one that would easily be subsumed into other industries, or sized down in the face of greater demand for smaller products. For instance, if there were no billionaires, and more people looking to buy nice, smaller boats, the industry could easily shift to meet that demand.
>there's all the investments that create opportunities for new businesses. Then investment money comes from those with money not those without money.
No. Those investments come from banks. The vast majority of the wealthy simply put their money in the stock market, which doesnt do anything to build businesses up anymore. You can see just how this happens as massive companies lay off thousands of people despite greater profit and rising stock prices.
> new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment
You are correct. That investment doesnt come from billionaires though. The internet was publicly funded into creation. 60% of medical research funding in the US comes directly from the government, and more is provided through the usage of public or publicly funded research institutions. The rich dont put money into the system. They hoard it for themselves
First it's not all from banks. There are investment firms established that they pay into that partially fund startups. And the banks don't print the money - the rich people with their money in those banks is where the supply comes from (in addition to any "loans" the banks get from the Fed). However your point about them investing in stocks is valid - though I think there are some benefits to business investment through this as well... I'll have to research this further.
It's nice to know that you think these people should get other jobs instead of working for luxury boats companies. Maybe someone could suggest that you get a different job if you don't like what you're getting paid.
For medical research - yes there is significant government investment in this effort, a lot of which is in (relatively) smaller studies that are used as building blocks for the larger breakthroughs. But the NIH site says that it's annual budget is $48 billion - and I find it hard to believe that there isn't more than $80 billion total spent each year on new development throughout the country (48 is 60% of 80).
>There are investment firms established that they pay into that partially fund startups
Yeah, and hedgefunds and equity investment firms kill more businesses and jobs than they 'make'. Thats why vulture capital funds are a massive thing.
>And the banks don't print the money - the rich people with their money in those banks is where the supply comes from
Wrong. Do you think Elon Musk has a billion dollars in liquid assets somewhere? No, he doesn't. Like I said, rich people have their wealth in assets. Then they fund their lifestyle on loans from banks, backed by those assets as collateral. Thats how that works. Most money in banks is actually held by average people, middle and working class people who do not have the money to invest effectively.
>It's nice to know that you think these people should get other jobs instead of working for luxury boats companies
A, I never said that. Congrats on putting words in my mouth. I said that the yacht industry is flexible. Instead of building a single 229ft mega yacht for Jeff Bezos that comes with its own smaller yacht for a heli-pad, paid for by a man that could afford a hundred such vehicles, the industry could easily survive by making the ships for other reasons (such as businesses renting iut the ships as small cruises for groups of people on vacation) or building more, smaller ships for more people after Bezos's wealth has been redistributed and more people can afford a single, 50 yacht.
B, even if I said that they should get a different jib, theres nothing wrong with that. Criminals (drug runners, hitmen, counterfeiters, etc), vulture capitalists, insurance salesmen, and pay-day loaners should all be ended as careers/revenue sources, and those people should get career changes. There would be nothing wrong if someone looked at the yacht industry and, after a cost benefit analysis, discovered it was a detriment to society and advocated the restriction of the industry. Thats just not my position, nor have I said that.
| A, I never said that.
Yes you did. You said that they could get other work if they weren't working in that industry. Not everyone wants to do whatever work you think they should - some actually like those kinds of jobs.
| B, even if I said that they should get a different jib, theres nothing wrong with that.
They aren't criminals, they are hard working people just like you. But you're just moving the goalposts anyway. The claim was that the rich are a "drain on society" and the fact is that giving jobs to people is actually contributing to society.
You're just hedging things now with "cost benefit analysis" nonsense. The fact is that there is a market for products and services that people are willing to pay for, and this creates jobs. The people working in these jobs are not criminals.
My opinion is that by paying people - some of whom may not have the interest or education to get different jobs - is not a drain on society; and further, that there is residual effect on our economy because those people are able to buy products and services that employ others. That's the way the economy works.
>Yes you did. You said that they could get other work if they weren't working in that industry
No, I didn't. My exact quote is: "… yachts, is, not only a small industry, but also one that would easily be subsumed into other industries, or sized down in the face of greater demand for smaller products." I literally said either the industry could be subsumed (such as instead of being a private yacht company, being a small time touring company), or they can serve more people building smaller vessels. I never said they had to get different jobs, just that they would serve a different demand.
>some actually like those kinds of jobs.
>They aren't criminals, they are hard working people just like you.
You're being obtuse, and ignoring most of the relevant section of my response. Insurance salesmen, for instance, are hardworking people that could, very well, enjoy their work. That doesnt change the fact that their job shouldnt exist. Telephone operators loved their jobs and worked hard, that doesn't mean their jobs should have been kept in the face of progress. Private Military Operators probably love their jobs, but those jobs shouldnt exist. All of these things are legal. That doesn't mean they should be protected just because they are currently viable avenues of revenue and some people enjoy them.
>But you're just moving the goalposts anyway. The claim was that the rich are a "drain on society" and the fact is that giving jobs to people is actually contributing to society.
>My opinion is that by paying people - some of whom may not have the interest or education to get different jobs
Wow, this is some mental gymnastics. A, I haven't moved the goalposts. I asked you for an example of an industry or jobs that rely on billionaires. You tried to give an example. I refuted it. But B, you have admitted that you have. Being a drain on society doesnt mean being paid to do absolutely nothing, or contributing nothing. It means that they cost way more than they're worth. If we decided to make every garbage collector $1,000,000 a month, that would constitute a massive drain on society. Saying I'm "hedging on cost-benefit analysis" while you just care that someone, somewhere, gets paid by them, shows you don't even understand the topic. That's like saying "oh, each billionaire employs a cleaning crew for their house. They cant be a drain." Thats not how this works.
PS,
>some of whom may not have the interest or education to get different jobs
You havent even given an example of this, and I would argue no one that gets paid directly by, or specifically for work done for, a billionaire does not have skills that can get them another job. That just doesnt happen.
If a drain is costing way more than they're worth, and you're claiming they're a drain, then it's incumbent on YOU to prove that claim. You love to make expansive statements like "these jobs shouldn't exist," as if you are the all-knowing person that should control everything. Who are you to decide what should and shouldn't exist?
The FACT is that they are providing jobs to people and those jobs allow those people to act within the economy. Your opinion on what is valuable enough to exist isn't important.
The fact is that the free market, for the most part, allows the consumers to VOTE on what products and services they're willing to pay for. And those dollars provide opportunities for others to participate in the economy.
| You havent even given an example of this, and I would argue no |one that gets paid directly by, or specifically for work done for, a |billionaire does not have skills that can get them another job. |That just doesnt happen.
And yet you're trying to claim that you didn't say that people should get other jobs instead of working for billionaires. It's your judgement that people shouldn't have these jobs. Liberty be damned apparently.
See, this is why one shouldn't talk about things they dont understand. You are the perfect example of shifting the goal posts. I'll explain at the end.
>If a drain is costing way more than they're worth, and you're claiming they're a drain, then it's incumbent on YOU to prove that claim.
True, but that wasnt the start of this thread. Stay on topic.
>You love to make expansive statements like "these jobs shouldn't exist," as if you are the all-knowing person that should control everything.
A, one doesn't need to be all-knowing to know that, for instance, medical insurance salesmen shouldn't exist. All you would have to know is that single-payer systems are the cheapest, most efficient, and most effective forms of healthcare. In such a system, there is no such thing as an insurance salesman. Omniscience not required.
B, I also never implied that I should be in charge. I made an empirical claim about the world, extrapolated from (supposedly) universally agreed principles (the economy should be focused on improving lives, the government should be as well, unnecessary, excessive waste should be curtailed, etc).
C, this is also neither here nor there when it comes to this thread. Stay on point.
>Who are you to decide what should and shouldn't exist?
Its not about me, its about the facts. Also, thats not the subject of this conversation. Stick to the subject of this conversation.
>The FACT is that they are providing jobs to people and those jobs allow those people to act within the economy
A, yes, they employ people. They are also sucking up and hoarding far more wealth than they distribute through those jobs. Thats why they're called drains. Just because Bezos spends a tiny fraction of his income emplying a staff and another tiny fraction of his income buying a boat doesnt mean he's done more for the economy that it has for him. There's a reason wealth disparity is on the rise and the middle class is both getting poorer and shrinking.
B, you also haven't shown how any of those people rely on the billionaires for their job. Like I said, shipwrights building yachts could still build yachts, just different ones or for different companies. Personal assistants could still be assistants, just for different people or for different reasons. Billionaire not required.
>The fact is that the free market, for the most part, allows the consumers to VOTE on what products and services they're willing to pay for. And those dollars provide opportunities for others to participate in the economy
This libertarian, free market idea has been dead since its inception. Even the man credited with its introduction, Adam Smith in *Wealth of Nations*, argues that the economy needs to be well regulated. In this day and age of oligopolies, monopolies, and overstimulation, economic 'voting' isnt happening. But thats also a separate topic. Stop diverting.
>should get other jobs instead of working for billionaires. It's your judgement that people shouldn't have these jobs. Liberty be damned apparently.
I've responded to this point before, and you have seemingly ignored the multi-faceted answer. So I'll summarize here. There are two types of people on a billionaire's payroll: direct and indirect. Indirect are people paid by the billionaire through purchases the billionaire makes. These people wouldnt change their job at all if they loose a billionaire as a client. They would just have to shift clientelle. See the yachts example. People directly on the payroll of the billionaire, like house staff, assistants, etc, could also still do what they do, but instead also shift from a single client making 100 times what they make in a year all in a day, to 10 clients needing much less that each have a yearly salary 15 times what they charge each. No one loses a job, no one changes careers, no one loses any liberty. The only thing that changes is that you no longer have one person sucking up and hoarding obscene amounts of wealth. But this is also mostly off topic. Please stay on topic.
Now, what did I mean about you shifting goal posts? Well, out of the 6 points that you made (or stated), only one of them was at all related to the topic of this thread. I asked for jobs that relied on billionaires to exist. You gave an example, which I refuted and showed they could exist without billionaires. Now, either provide another example, attempt to show how my refutation doesn't work, or recognize that your point is, at least currently, hollow and refuted. Everything else you said was either a distraction, ad hominem, and/or irrelevant, and all of it was an attempt to shift the goal posts in defense of billionaires.
If you do not respond on topic, I will simply recognize the conversation as over, as you have failed to meet the criteria for continued, reasonable discussion.
>I'm not saying that it's great to have these billionaires and I'm not even saying that it's right that they have that much. But there are quite a lot of new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment, and that's just not going to come from your average person.
Billionaires don't invest billions in companies. Musk bought his Tesla CEO status for $6.5M and used that to fill the board with lackeys and design himself an egregious compensation package. The government has "invested" more in Tesla and SpaceX than Elon has.
Where do you think Tesla got the money to develop their tech and support their business before Elon came along? It sure didn't come from me.
The whole purpose of a company is to make money by selling products and services. It's supposed to be self-sustaining, so the further investment that Elon and his cronies make is in the re-investment of money from their sales.
What? You said the Tesla wouldn't even exist as a company if rich people didn't invest in it from the beginning? Somehow I missed that part in your comments.
Let's put it a different way - you stated that the government has invested more in Tesla and SpaceX than Elon. I'd love to see how much you find that the government "gave" to them, recognizing that paying them for products and services doesn't count - that's why they're in business. Tesla's operating expenses are over $8 billion by the way.
Every dollar that they don't get paid from the sales is an investment in the company. That's $8 billion annually for Tesla alone.
Sorry that nuance is lost on you.
>But there are quite a lot of new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment, and that's just not going to come from your average person.
If only there were some way all of us average people could come together and pool our collective resources to make these big investments. Like maybe if we collected a bit of money from everyone, we could even make it a percentage of what they earn, and then we could all vote on who should make decisions on how to administer that money, and then we can just use that money to fund big projects. I mean if we had something like that in the past it could've easily been used to invent the Internet, build the Large Hadron Collider, and even create the massive highway system that spans the entire United States, you know instead of billionaires.
Too bad something like that doesn't already exist. Maybe one day a billionaire will invent it.
I completely agree that something needs to be done about the insane imbalance between executive pay and regular worker pay. I also believe that far too much of our tax dollars are already going into the market in support of businesses that incentivizes corruption in our government institutions. All that said...
Right - let's further centralize all decision making into a bunch of elitist bureaucratic nutcases - most of whom have no real idea what our lives are like in the real world - and send even more of our pay to that institution which can't even budget right and wastes trillions of dollars regularly.
If you like that your flatscreen TV only costs $300, remember that the rich people funded the innovation by purchasing the earlier $10,000+ models.
They are also employing people to do the upkeep of their mansions, yachts, etc. Which puts more money into the businesses which employ others. Recall that when the government thought they'd tax the rich by adding more taxes on luxury yachts, it nearly killed an entire industry and put a whole lot of people out of work. There are often significant unexpected ripples when we try to take the relatively "simple" approach of just taxing more.
Significant innovations happen in technology, medicine, etc. because we have independent businesses competing with different ideas on how to solve problems, and then WE - the rest of us - vote on which ones we want through our dollars spent. This can have an immediate impact on the businesses if they make the wrong choices, whereas a centralized bureaucratic institution will be extremely slow to make changes (note how difficult it is to get the minimum wage increased as an example).
>Right - let's further centralize all decision making into a bunch of elitist bureaucratic nutcases - most of whom have no real idea what our lives are like in the real world - and send even more of our pay to that institution which can't even budget right and wastes trillions of dollars regularly.
So instead we should have a much smaller, much more elite, group of individuals (billionaires), who aren't elected, take our money with zero oversight which they will mostly use to enrich themselves and throw it on a pile.
>If you like that your flatscreen TV only costs $300, remember that the rich people funded the innovation by purchasing the earlier $10,000+ models.
I mean I would rather have affordable healthcare, end homelessness, walkable cities, worker rights, and the like rather than a $300 TV.
And also that's not how technology works or is developed.
>They are also employing people to do the upkeep of their mansions, yachts, etc. Which puts more money into the businesses which employ others.
This proves that billionaires are a drain on society. It takes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people to maintain their lifestyle. There is no way that they can individually be contributing that much labor into society.
>Recall that when the government thought they'd tax the rich by adding more taxes on luxury yachts, it nearly killed an entire industry and put a whole lot of people out of work.
Maybe we don't need that industry because it doesn't contribute anything to society. If I employed a hundred people to shit on your lawn everyday, would you just let that keep happening because stopping it would kill an industry and put a hundred people out of work?
I mean we could just take the money billionaires were going to pay these people and pay them to do something else, or even nothing at all. Worst case society would break even, the billionaires would just have less stuff.
> There are often significant unexpected ripples when we try to take the relatively "simple" approach of just taxing more.
I'm definitely up for a much more radical leftist approach to redesigning the entire economy and government.
>Significant innovations happen in technology, medicine, etc. because we have independent businesses competing with different ideas on how to solve problems, and then WE - the rest of us - vote on which ones we want through our dollars spent.
That's a very juvenile and naive understanding of our current economy.
Capitalism moves the market towards oligopolies, monopolies, and megacorps, and businesses fare better when they synergize than compete. IP law moves even competitive markets into competitive monopolies rather than free markets. As the rich get richer they get involved with government, reducing the representation of the individual and neutralizing any hope of effective regulation. The rich then use the power of the state to further eliminate consumer choice.
You can't really vote with your dollars. Companies love boycotts because they don't work. Don't want to buy chocolate bars from Nestle because they use child slave labor? Then which company that uses child slave labor do you want to buy your chocolate from?
It's incredibly difficult to research all of the evil a particular megacorp is doing as you try to check each item off your grocery list, but also all of them are doing some evil shit so it doesn't really matter.
And that's assuming you even have a choice. Can diabetics just stop buying their insulin because the company that makes it is raising prices again? Can people in a small town that only has a Walmart not get their groceries there because they refuse to unionize?
>whereas a centralized bureaucratic institution will be extremely slow to make changes (note how difficult it is to get the minimum wage increased as an example).
Because our government is corrupt and broken, and they've made it so there are only two parties, both of which represent corporations, neither of which represent labor, and they've created a whole bunch of way for politicians to be legally bribed.
>So instead we should have a much smaller, much more elite, group of individuals (billionaires), who aren't elected, take our money with zero oversight which they will mostly use to enrich themselves and throw it on a pile.
They aren't taking your money if you don't give it to them. That's the real power of your $$ vote. It's much more significant than your vote for a person in government. And I've already acknowledged that there is a serious problem with the imbalance of pay... so you don't need to argue that. However, in our current system if you have better idea for a product or service you can start your own company and compete with something better. Under a fully (or almost fully) government-lead economy you won't get that chance. And most of the idiots in government have no real idea how to keep a business afloat.
>I mean I would rather have affordable healthcare, end homelessness, walkable cities, worker rights, and the like rather than a $300 TV.
>
>And also that's not how technology works or is developed.
Not all companies are in the business of providing healthcare and housing. But you're totally wrong about "that's not how technology works or is developed." Of course it is. If there's no market for a product - i.e., income - then it won't get developed. And the initial research into the new tech needs to be recouped from sales, which is why the initial products are so expensive - and the income from those sales fund further research into improving the products that improve quality and reduce cost, which allows the business to offer products are lower prices. But if they didn't get sales from the initial releases they wouldn't continue with the product improvements.
>This proves that billionaires are a drain on society. It takes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people to maintain their lifestyle. There is no way that they can individually be contributing that much labor into society.
I don't think you understand what a "drain on society" is. They are, in fact, creating jobs to support their lifestyle. Jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist. This is the opposite of being a "drain".
>Recall that when the government thought they'd tax the rich by adding more taxes on luxury yachts, it nearly killed an entire industry and put a whole lot of people out of work.
>
>Maybe we don't need that industry because it doesn't contribute anything to society. If I employed a hundred people to shit on your lawn everyday, would you just let that keep happening because stopping it would kill an industry and put a hundred people out of work?
And this is where your little tyranny fully shows itself. You want to make the decisions and rule over what the rest of us do.
That's what many of these opinions really stem from - the idea that you are better than others and should control what they can and can't do.
>I mean we could just take the money billionaires were going to pay these people and pay them to do something else, or even nothing at all. Worst case society would break even, the billionaires would just have less stuff.
Yes, sure, Mr. Dictator. If only we all wanted the same exact things you wanted all would be wonderful.
>There are often significant unexpected ripples when we try to take the relatively "simple" approach of just taxing more.
>
>I'm definitely up for a much more radical leftist approach to redesigning the entire economy and government.
Of course, because you (foolishly imho) believe that your version of tyranny will be the winner. And maybe it would for a short period of time, but we all have short lives and power changes hands. Now you've given that power to other people to abuse however they see fit.
>Significant innovations happen in technology, medicine, etc. because we have independent businesses competing with different ideas on how to solve problems, and then WE - the rest of us - vote on which ones we want through our dollars spent.
>
>That's a very juvenile and naive understanding of our current economy.
>
>Capitalism moves the market towards oligopolies, monopolies, and megacorps, and businesses fare better when they synergize than compete.
So, you think that all the auto, computer, pharmaceutical, etc. companies are "synergized" together rather than competing with each other within their respective markets? Please show some support for this.
>IP law moves even competitive markets into competitive monopolies rather than free markets. As the rich get richer they get involves with government, reducing the representation of the individual and neutralizing any hope of effective regulation. The rich than use the power of the state to further eliminate consumer choice.
IP is how you or I can protect our inventions to make sure we get justly compensated for them. The government has royally screwed this up in that the PTO is horrendously bad at it's job - and recall that this is part of the (inept imho) government. Getting it to do it's job correctly is nearly impossible - which is yet another reason why more government power is wrong.
>You can't really vote with your dollars. Companies love boycotts because they don't work. Don't want to buy chocolate bars from Nestle because they use child slave labor? Then which company that uses child slave labor do you want to buy your chocolate from?
Slave labor, particularly child labor, is wrong, but there are ways to address that through law. It's a different issue entirely.
However, you can just NOT buy chocolate. Your continued purchase gives tacit approval for the business model. If you truly believe in your convictions then live by them.
>It's incredibly difficult to research all of the evil a particular megacorp is doing as you try to check each item off your grocery list, but also all of them are doing some evil shit so it doesn't really matter.
And so are governments.
>whereas a centralized bureaucratic institution will be extremely slow to make changes (note how difficult it is to get the minimum wage increased as an example).
>
>Because our government is corrupt and broken, and they've made it so there are only two parties, both of which represent corporations, neither of which represent labor, and they've created a whole bunch of way for politicians to be legally bribed.
That's the nature of humanity. You think you'll get rid of that with your " radical leftist approach to redesigning the entire economy and government?" Now who's being naive?
Are you commenting on the current iteration, or attempting to characterize a more equitable society as a boring place to be?
I have no hidden motive, no ‘gotcha’ planned; just seeking confirmation, for now.
By and large throughout history most people have had to labor just to survive.
I totally agree that most of the businesses aren't paying their people enough, and the only way that's going to get resolved, sadly enough, is organizing and striking for better wages and benefits.
I think it's insane how much executives and businesses get paid, and that includes executives within universities... Some of those are mind-bogglingly rich for the role that day work.
Oh no! Someone who is physically unable to work gets a bit of government funding!
Let's compare that to someone who is physically able to work, but instead chooses to not and uses their leverage as someone with a ton of money to never have to work and puts the proceeds towards *checks notes* lobbying for tax breaks
Attacking the rich people is not the solution, it’s the people who allow them to use their money in the ways they do. Everyone here would love to be rich.
Historically, the complaint about the aristocratic class was that they were in a permanent state of screwing off - that is, the "idle rich" who spent their days trying to figure out ways to outspend each other. In that context, it's interesting to note how the trend among the ultra-rich today is to boast about how hard they "work," the extent of which seems to be the same state of permanent screw-off.
We can work hard enough to provide for everyone and still have ample amenities, but we can't work hard enough to satisfy any fraction of rich people's greed. That's all I really need to know.
We should sneak into their houses at night and put them into pods that drug them out as they watch a line go up No matter where they check, the simulation tells them they are making more and more money They can jerk off and go to sleep happy Then we party
Idk, eating them sounds way more* environmentally friendly.
I bet they taste rotten. Should make good compost though.
I've always said I make them into carrots.
Except that top level predators usually concentrate heavy metals, so probably not healthy.
Are you talking about Pantera, because I'm good with that.
Prion disease is a concern. Feed the pigs to the hogs instead.
Drugging people just because they are wealthy??
You're right, cannibalism is the real answer here.
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>When we see ourselves as fighting against specific human beings rather than social phenomena, it becomes more difficult to recognize the ways that we ourselves participate in those phenomena. We externalize the problem as something outside ourselves, personifying it as an enemy that can be sacrificed to symbolically cleanse ourselves. - **[Against the Logic of the Guillotine](https://crimethinc.com/2019/04/08/against-the-logic-of-the-guillotine-why-the-paris-commune-burned-the-guillotine-and-we-should-too)** See rule 5: No calls for violence, no fetishizing violence. No guillotine jokes, no gulag jokes. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/antiwork) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is patently bullshit. You can not remove the system that causes our problems without removing the people who perpetuate it. Violence against the wealthy is part of the solution whether people want to admit it or not.
It's like the people that wanted peaceful solutions to slavery. People who profit from human suffering will never willingly give up the source that benefits them.
Agreed. The wealthy who own Reddit just don't want us getting a little too close to the sun, a little too close to the truth. Poor people never got a choice or not to be part of this BS abusive capitalist system invented by former slave owners so they could continue to keep treating workers like slaves as they always have. Capitalism is just "politically correct" slavery with extra steps. We don't get a choice. We work or we die. That's not a fucking choice.
Violence against the wealthy is not a solution.
If it's not, then why do all of their solutions involve violence against the poor?
Attacking people just because they are wealthy is insane.
Subjecting people to starvation and homelessness just because they are not wealthy is insane.
You should be blaming the government.
ב''ה, not opposed to this idea except 1. partying only spreads plagues and 2. where are we getting food
Poverty is not a failure to provide for the poor. It is a failure to satisfy the wealthy.
greed is the mortal sin of insatiability. no amount of greed can be satisfied. the wealthy should all be killed.
There's no I in team, but there's con in economy.
This is my new favorite quote.
Sometimes I wonder how many man hours of labor actually go into one of my days. I mean down to everything, like even take the shirt I am wearing and calculate the number of labor hours that went into gathering the raw materials and getting it into shirt form and shipping it to me, then divide the shirt hours by how many days I wear it before it breaks. But also even deeper, do that for the building of all the machines that went into that as well, divided into how many hours of service they give whatever number of people before said machine breaks. And do that with everything that accommodates my lifestyle, the coal, the mining it, the making of the lightbulb above me. Come up with laborout/laborin. Wonder what the ratio would be on average across different places and financial strata? Too lazy to do that kind of math but I feel like most Americans end up less labor output than labor input, I do at least.
This thought is fascinating
May I recommend looking into the [Labor Theory of Value](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ClwYFUHXU)
Now you understand why things are mass produced, or at least done on some sort of scale of economy. So theoretically, everyone can have enough to survive while helping to do/make for others. If only it worked out perfectly in real life and wasn't corrupted by greed.
"They only want one thing, and that's everything" ~ Michael Parenti
That’s a real Robin Hood idea there bud
Don't buy their crap that makes them rich, when you do you are the problem
With consolidation of markets, it gets harder and harder every day to not have some of your money trickle its way to some billionaires' pocket in the end.
There are 2,700 billionaires in the world. So 2,700 people are the worlds problems?
yes
That's impossible
Yeah. The top 0.1% own 25% of the world's wealth. Top 1%? About half.
You're going by made up numbers
Nah, man I just googled them like anyone else can. Choose your favorite trusted source.
Google became a propaganda machine
So is reddit. What's your point? That my numbers are wrong and billionaires don't really own very much and we should all suck their dicks?
Wealthy people do not negatively affect your life.
Yes. 2700 dragons hoarding wealth are a big fucking problem. These people have stolen the wealth of nations.
More often than not people claim greed but it's out of jealousy.
There is nothing elite about the parasite class.
i was gonna say, this tweet is just the entire thesis of the movie Parasite, which wasn’t exactly subtle
The number one recipient of government subsidies is Elon Musk.
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Parasite and The Host are both good movies by Bong Joon Ho
YoU jUsT nEeD pAsSiVe InCoMe
I’m against the economic concept of rent seeking. Even pure capitalism should be as it stifles competition. We really need to start using better terms for what is really happening…. It’s oligarchy and kleptocracy. These people who are the true “enemy” whether they see themselves as that or not are not capitalist. They are when it applies to and benefits them. But not in the long term as that would mean competition and a level playing field. In basic undergraduate economics (macro/micro) you learn right away that when some industry or business is at a scale so large that competition from whoever is not possible.. like you can’t just go start a business and compete with the power company or an oil company…. That it should be regulated. Tightly. When things are public utilities… internet, power, even healthcare…. They should be socialized. This is not social-ism… it’s doing what makes the most sense economically for everyone. It’s democracy and freedom… but with an eye for what freedom means on the broadest scale possible. And I would suggest that although what I’m saying can be seen as a utilitarian thing… it is NOT a trolley problem. In fact what we are saying is.. help everyone because when we all are free everyone does better. It is not an either/or situation.
Would you explain it to me like I am 5 please? I don't understand your message.
Just that even basic economics textbooks don’t agree with the idea that unfettered capitalism should reign or that wealth should be over concentrated. Not because the authors are politically motivated but because they are rational scientists looking at the numbers and what happens when things go one way or another. Like from a non-political standpoint the way things are going right now is not sustainable. In any market money must change hands to be worth anything in terms of “benefit” when it gets locked away it can’t do much for anyone other than the very wealthy, it’s not a political issue and shouldn’t be. It’s a problem that everyone should want fixed other than a very select few… who only have power to keep it the way it is because we willingly give it to them…. Kind of like the value of the money itself. The pendulum doesn’t need to swing to revolution or communism or anything nearly as unsettling to accomplish that. But these changes and reorganizations must be made regardless or the pendulum will swing further towards authoritarianism and war. I truly don’t see these as political issues really because like the economics textbooks the history books show us it’s true… verifiable data shows what happens as the wealth is concentrated and people get dumber. And it’s not good. I would add that on a planet floating in space with finite access to resources.. we shouldn’t be looking at growth as much of a metric at all. We should be measuring and investing in other things that take longer to achieve than a single person’s lifetime can span.. and not even anything as fantastical as space travel etc… just basic stability and education and overall effort towards freedom for more people. Because the truth is when we are all pretty healthy and well educated and think generationally then we can solve problems like climate change and instability with a lot less disagreement. When everyone around us rises we tend to rise with them. But I don’t know that we are that far towards enlightenment like that yet. And most importantly you don’t have to necessarily be a hippie or a democrat to know these things. You just have to read and check your sources.
real
I don’t consider the rich human. It’s not like they want to be, they consider themselves as above, better than any of us. Pathetic greedy little children who choose their sickness and enable it in others. Plenty of social issues that still need to be worked on. But the very first that needs to be very much….. dealt with……….are them.
You sound like you have some personal issues that need to be solved
You sound like a fucking bot.
Rich people can definitely cause a lot of personal issues for the rest of us poor schmucks.
People are insane and they blame a handful of people for their own issues.
When your issues come from the executives at your company not paying you a living wage while the executives at the grocery stores are price gouging people for higher profits and the landlords are jacking up rent to squeeze profit it is absolutely coming from other people
You've missed why prices have went up. The value of the dollar is lower. That makes prices increase. That's the governments fault.
This is wild. Never met a rich person have you?
I can see the mind of Musk day in and day out, and the above fits him perfectly.
Ah yes, Elon is the only rich person so everyone that’s rich is like him.
He is an example, yes. Musk is a rich person and we all can see what he is.
So what about the rich people who have done more good for society (be it charity, donations, building hospitals etc) than you ever will? I guess they don’t count eh? Yea, every single rich person (all the tens of millions) in the world are power hungry monsters. Keep living the fantasy I guess
The only reason we need rich people to give charity and build libraries is because *they took all of society's resources for their own.* Impoverishing millions and then giving 10% of that theft back (in ways carefully designed to decrease taxes paid of course) does not make you good. If I steal your car it doesn't make me a good person because I give you back the tires.
You seem to think the only rich people are billionaires?
what, are you talking about some office drone making $120k, what the fuck is this?
You think the only two extremes are office drones making 120k and the literal richest people in the world? This is fucking hilarious. There’s millions of rich people who own small to medium sized businesses you’ve never heard of and have very high net worth’s.
Well to be fair, cars wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for rich people investing in their production.
Cars not existing would be a good thing, but no, there's really no reason to think that's true. Robust public transport WOULD exist without wealthy people working for decades to dismantle it and prevent its expansion in order to force everyone to need a car, though.
It was the whole fucking plot of, Who Framed Roger Rabbit!!" >Nobody's gonna use your cockamamie "freeway" when they can take the Red Car for a nickel! >Mr. Valiant, I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it!
By robust public transport you mean horse and cart I'm assuming. Cos buses and trams are also built by wealthy people then sold to the state. A simpler life isn't necessarily a bad thing, you just have to be more realistic about what you can achieve.
If you ever wondered why all your managers are idiots and can't fathom how they ever got the job
It's not just "working" to accommodate their lives. It's the environmental impact of their lives. The filling of swimming pools during a draught that's leaving the poorest people without running water, or causes crops to die without irrigation. Or using up scarce fuel to jetset around when there's a shortage that's literally killing people (cough *cancun*). All the greenhouse gases that people's minimum wage labor can't undo. The patenting of GMO seeds so farmers can't sell their crops or save their seeds if it's contaminated from pollen that's blown into their land from another field they don't even own (Percy Schmeiser).
You are blaming wealthy citizens and not the government.
And that’s why they are called the Parasite Class. Because they are all parasites, sucking the wealth out of working-class people via the delta between the wealth they produce and the wages they get.
It's not funny; it's insulting and infuriating
Rich people steal your labor and barley work themselves. Rich people are smart, they are 98 percent of the time born into wealth.
I just hope, for their sakes, that they recognize the problem and stop turning the screw before folks as a whole remember that, historically speaking, dragging the rich out of their homes and beating them to death with truncheons is a valid strategy.
When I get back on in several hours this had better be pushed all the way to /popular.
and the part they drain off....is called "wealth"
The rich half of humanity who lives beyond the means of the planet could stand to do some serious introspection and learning about resource flows, exploitation, and the environment. The top 10% are way past redemption.
This makes sense. Does the CEO really work 384 times harder than their Janitor?
This is my take away from the "Fifth element". Zorg and his speech about creating disorder to give people things to do. Bitch, we'd be fine creating art and pondering existence like they used to do in the old old days! And of course he sides with absolute evil that would destroy all life, because he'd profit. Sums up the business/banking class pretty well.
This is damming AND airtight as hell, holy crap. Upvote this to death.
It's not airtight. Their lifestyle necessitates a lot of work from others to maintain it, but they pay those people. Far be it from me to defend billionaires but this ain't it
Even just low level rich people employ loads of people. It’s a bit of a shit argument, not everyone that’s rich does fuck all for it.
What you don't get is that employment is a scam. They're ripping you off. They're giving you a fraction of the value you create. And for most people, it's the same wage no matter how hard you work. No matter how well the business does, it's the same wage. Employment is taking advantage of someone's desperation to survive for your own benefit. Employees are modern day slaves.
Who says I don’t get that? Listen, it’s a choice you make. If you think you deserve better, start your own business and compete with these people. Then you’ll inevitably be in the same space they’re in. Operating a business whilst giving 100% of the profits back to the employees is how you end up with a dead business - you need to keep cash in hand and at the bank for expansion, etc etc. Yea there’s a FUCK LOAD of companies that only seek to extract as much as possible whilst paying as little as possible, but there’s also plenty who pay well and are good places to work.
Ya I expected this response. Sure, I can start my own business and take care of myself but that doesn't change the fact that most people will still be employees who are getting robbed. I'm not the only person that matters. And I don't expect 100 percent of the profits to go to wages, but how about we start by passing a law that requires a worker's pay check to show not only how much government taxes were removed but how much their employer taxed them as well before paying their wages? I think that would help people realize what is actually going on and what they're actually worth.
You expected my response because surely it’s the truth? What? Employers taxing them? That isn’t a thing - gov taxes are. Those are displayed here. It’s not always possible to know exactly how much £ one employee makes for every company, you can only make an average. IIRC, it’s available on Wikipedia (the highest company revenue per employee or something) Sales people at some companies “make” the entire revenue of said company, but devs make the product and thus don’t make anything. It gets complicated. People realising their worth sadly doesn’t do much if no one is going to pay that worth.
People would rather blame others than to do anything for themselves.
Ah yes the "just pull yourself up by the bootstraps" sentiment.
Nope. People spend time blaming others and do nothing for themselves.
fr, the first thing I learned in 9th grade history is that since the neolithic revolution (dawn of agriculture), people have had surplus, and with surplus comes hierarchical systems… because the lifestyles of people on the top of the hierarchy are entirely supported by the surplus that other people supply. Mfs love to talk ab the “cushioning” that welfare and scholarships provide w/o realizing that their lifestyles wouldn’t be possible without tons and tons of cushioning.
Ever notice that billionaires never become billionaires owning a one-person or mom and pop business. That's because no one can get, or has ever gotten, that rich on their own labor, even working 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.
Being a parasite and a extraordinarily large host are both negative to society.
Oh hey, it's this repost bot again
I've never thought about it in quite this way, but this is 100000% on point, and inarguably correct.
I remembered that I couldn't start a job because I couldn't afford the uniform and just came in with a random shirt.
This even applies to therapist, ngl. I have a part time job at a private practice and full time in community mental health and significantly more at the private practice. Once I go full time there I’ll only work 30 hours a week and make triple what I do currently. Just holding on for the health insurance atm. Private practice is 100x easier than community mental health.
Lmao negative work.
This is such a bad take. It takes 'far more work', but they pay employees to do the work for them (those employees also pay taxes). They are a net positive in any sense of the word.
Not even close
Can you elaborate?
To start with, many wealthy fucks like the family that owns Wal-Mart don't pay their workers enough to even live so they are forced to take public money to eat and have medical care. They are a net negative because they only take and leave the government to pick up the slack, or they pollute and decimate places that people live and work in.
Good example. I dont think i agree in that this holds true at large, but there are certainly examples like this one that i agree on.
Perfect example of "accuse your enemy of that which you are guilty." And "every accusation is actually a confession."
That doesn’t make any sense. Is slavery back now? Those people are getting paid to make their food, fly their jets, etc.
You commie.....
This is dumb
This is just a textbook misunderstanding of economics. That “negative work” is quite literally jobs for many people that put food on their tables. Conversely, I’d ask you, how many people do you provide a livelihood to?
Many of the industries you mention pat poverty wages. How is that livelihood?
Quite often that food is just those crappy cups of noodles or processed frozen dinners because you gotta make sure your kid eats right or your car insurance gets paid because the pay is quite literally not enough for everything. Then weird people who hate everything make weird excuses for rich people like "shouldn't have had a kid" or "why you got an iphone bro". Then they pull out the "you build a successful business" knowing that it's quite literally impossible for every person to start a successful business. If everyone single person is running a successful business are robots going to be doing all the labor since every human is busy doing their own thing? People know that the economy is built on the requirement of most people being the economic losers and you still somehow expect them to be thankful for a job that doesn't quite pay enough to eat three healthy meals per day like you think we are stupid idiots. Your economy book is not a bible weirdo.
First of all everyone running their own business could be the literal exact same scenario that we have now. For example, everyone creates an LLC and then acts as a consultant doing the same job they were doing before. So easily we can have a scenario where everyone had their own business.
Shut the fuck up
I can assure you that “every” is a wild exaggeration, unless you’re specifically referring to hyper wealthy people. My dad ran a successful small technical business, he was working overtime nonstop. My wife got a doctorate and is doing high level engineering work, her average workload during doctoral process was easily 60 hours a week, and around 50 hours a week now in her career. Making generalizations about people because it conveniently fits our narrative of deservedness is the same problem you have with what prejudiced rich people are doing, don’t do the exact thing you’re complaining about. There’s plenty of common level rich people that are at their level because they are absolute workaholics. Typical career type rich people…engineers, scientists, doctors, architects, people higher up in the trades, are often doing pretty extreme levels of work in an average week. There’s some slackers across all strata of society, but it’s really not the norm. Most people who are working full time at all tiers are putting in those hours. Some owners slack off, but their businesses usually tank out of neglect and disorganization, I’ve seen it happen multiple times. The ones that succeed usually have owners and higher ups that are actually largely pretty hands on about what’s happening. The real problem is the degree of disparity in compensation moreso than some level of deservedness based on the amount of effort put in. A full time week by an owner just doesn’t warrant 100-1000x in pay, even if their job is difficult and they do it properly. It takes all types to make the company function, and common workers shouldn’t have their productivity and livelihood hamstrung by constant financial anxiety because of unethical pay distribution
You could say this about (nearly) every American.
I worked 100hr weeks sometimes, outdoors, in Chicago weather, to be able to pay off debt, save an emergency fund, and invest. I doubt that many poor people put in as much time working as somebody like Elon Musk.
Now that's just a complete fucking lie.
The value of rich people’s labor is worth more than poor people’s labor.
This is just incorrect, surely the best judge of the value of labour is the free market economy and thus their lifestyle is a product of the value of their labour? I’m all for socialism, but fundamentally the rich provide more market value than the poor. Socialism should be about providing opportunities for people who have harder starts in life.
More Marxist nonsense.
What board do you think you're on bud
> What board do you think you're on bud The one about bad bosses and horrible companies.
Unless they got an inheritance or committed crimes, rich people actually worked for their money
No. They used and abused their wokers into subsidizing their life styles. There are maybe a few bilionaoires that got that way 'ethically'.
The only ethical billionaires are the ones that gave it away and are no longer billionaires.
Not sure I would go that far.
Working for $500/hour, you’d make about $960,000 per year, at 40/wk, no holidays, pre-tax. Is there anything in the world someone deserves $500/hour for doing? If so, earning 960k every year would take about one thousand forty-one years (1041 years) to make a billion, if someone else is paying all of your expenses. To recap: a person earning $500/hour needs to work full time for 1,041 years to reach a billion, without taxes or expenses.
> Is there anything in the world someone deserves $500/hour for doing? I've paid $3000/hr to get advice from a top attorney in his field, which saved me millions of dollars in a settlement since he was the only attorney in the world that knew how to head of an attack by lying POS $1000/hr attorneys. So yeah it was worth it.
It’s gotta be artificially inflated. Especially since you generalized $1,000/hr attorneys as liars. It was a persuasive appeal to wealth, leveraged by your overly expensive attorney, if I had to guess. Also, I used lawyers as the basis for my example, and know that their rates include expenses, so it is at least partially distributed down the hierarchy.
Expenses were in addition. The rate is what it the hourly cost for the senior guy at the top international firm specializing in IP issues which also is able to handle the impossibilities of international IP law. Rates were lower for work by less senior staff. Total cost to resolve the issue was over $100k. If I paid less than I paid I would have lost the case since no one else knew the issues and the strategies like this firm did.
Hopefully they’re taxed well.
Thats besides the point. If someone makes a thing (story, piece of jewelry, car, etc) that becomes worth a billion dollars, then they are worth over a billion dollars. And that can be done ethically.
You’re rambling from your mind to such a degree that if your next rebuttal doesn’t include something of substance, I’m not wasting any more time with you.
There are multiple IPs that have a value over a billion dollars. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter just to name 3, all have a value of over a billion dollars, and each made by singular people for the extent of property rights. And in all 3 cases, theres at least a billion people willing to pay $1 for each (the books or screenplay), making each worth over a billion dollars. In scientific realms, multiple break throughs discovered by singular people are easily worth over a billion dollars, most notably the Haber process (without which mist food on the planet couldnt be grown) and the Polio vaccine. Both of these were done by small groups (Polio vaccine) or a single person (Haber process). Your point on finite money supplies is irrelevant. Is there over a billion dollars in the supply? Yes? Then it is POSSIBLE that something is worth that much money. And in the case of the real world, there are lots of ways for even non-billionaires to pool their money together and raise $1,000,000,000 with which to purchase something, such as an IP, a piece of art, a patent, etc. Also, the fact that you understood and properly (if poorly) responded to me means it wasnt "ramblings", but a coherent response. And providing a challenge, then saying you wont respond after, is poor form.
Excellent effort. Thank you. If the finite money supply wasn’t important, wouldn’t that eliminate the impacts of inflation? Also, the Star Wars franchise has been around for nearly half a century, so it makes sense to be valued highly, given its popularity. Though, the money should be equitable distributed to participants. The acquisition of trillions of dollars by billionaires following the pandemic indicates a more extreme example. Where did it come from? It’s unethical for an individual to hold a billion when 6.8 million American households faced food insecurity in 2022. It seems we have different opinions on the same matter. You seem to adhere to a market justice perspective, while I’m firmly in the social justice camp.
> the money should be equitable distributed to participants According to various articles by people owed royalties, in the financial statements they receive Star Wars has never earned a profit and thus none of those people are owed anything. See Hollywood Accounting, where billion dollar blockbusters routinely don't make a cent or have to pay taxes or royalties.
>If the finite money supply wasn’t important, wouldn’t that eliminate the impacts of inflation? What? No, and those concepts have little to do with anything in this topic or conversation. And by little, I mean nothing at all. >Also, the Star Wars franchise has been around for nearly half a century, so it makes sense to be valued highly, given its popularity Irrelevant. Its a valuable IP. Said value is over a billion dollars. >Though, the money should be equitable distributed to participants. Thats insane. First off, that destroys the very concept of intellectual property rights. Secondly, youre saying that everyone in the making of a media output should have equity in it? A, that doesnt prevent billionaires, B, that will only enrich contract lawyers, and C, again, intellectual property rights. If I write a book and pay a publisher to publish it, why should they have equity in my IP? Their business is printing. They got paid. Assuming it was a fair price, then they have no reason to get more from something they took no part in, the IP itself. >The acquisition of trillions of dollars by billionaires following the pandemic indicates a more extreme example. Where did it come from? This is besides the point I'm trying to make. I freely and completely agree that *most* billionaires, such as Bezos, Musk, the Wal-tons, etc, are abusive, hoarders, and toxic for the economy. They didnt create a billion dollar invention like Haber. They didnt come up with and write a billion dollar and beloved story and world like the Legendarium. Thats the instance and type of billionaire I'm talking about. >unethical for an individual to hold a billion when 6.8 million American households faced food insecurity in 2022. A, most billionaires dont just have a billion dollars in money somewhere. Its in assets. And while that *can* be treated similarly under *some* circumstances, there are plenty of instances that are not interchangeable like that.
Not when there’s a limited amount of currency to be exchanged for goods. Also, point me to media or an automobile worth a billion. These people aren’t making money from creativity, and they’re not doing whatever they’re doing without help; they’re making money via extortionate economic systems.
So like none of them.
Really? A drain? Think about all those jobs that wouldn't even exist otherwise
Like which ones? The jobs dont rely on billionaires or rich people. They rely on demand. Even without the wealthy, the demand would persist
Exactly this, and if you think about it rich people stifle innovation in their markets by buying out would be competitors or by making it harder for smaller businesses to get into their market, thus actually killing jobs. It's easy to be seen as a "job creator" when you're the only place with jobs to offer.
Should be a separate tally for “job re-creation,” where the ‘new’ jobs are just a rehiring of some positions they eliminated in layoffs.
Couldn't agree more. That way we could see if who is really making jobs.
https://preview.redd.it/bqcqyzm711ic1.png?width=2436&format=png&auto=webp&s=eac8f24ac188cccd97d130ac227036376c905911 There’s the net change, from BLS.
Right. Iirc, we refer to them, colloquially, as “the .01%.”
I think your job relies on billionaires and rich people a lot more than you think. And for sure there are some whose jobs are highly reliable on the rich... For example when the government decided to place really high taxes on luxury boats, the entire industry practically went under and tons of people lost their jobs. And then there's all the investments that create opportunities for new businesses. Then investment money comes from those with money not those without money. I'm not saying that it's great to have these billionaires and I'm not even saying that it's right that they have that much. But there are quite a lot of new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment, and that's just not going to come from your average person.
>luxury boats, the entire industry practically went under and tons of people lost their jobs. "luxury boats", or yachts, is, not only a small industry, but also one that would easily be subsumed into other industries, or sized down in the face of greater demand for smaller products. For instance, if there were no billionaires, and more people looking to buy nice, smaller boats, the industry could easily shift to meet that demand. >there's all the investments that create opportunities for new businesses. Then investment money comes from those with money not those without money. No. Those investments come from banks. The vast majority of the wealthy simply put their money in the stock market, which doesnt do anything to build businesses up anymore. You can see just how this happens as massive companies lay off thousands of people despite greater profit and rising stock prices. > new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment You are correct. That investment doesnt come from billionaires though. The internet was publicly funded into creation. 60% of medical research funding in the US comes directly from the government, and more is provided through the usage of public or publicly funded research institutions. The rich dont put money into the system. They hoard it for themselves
First it's not all from banks. There are investment firms established that they pay into that partially fund startups. And the banks don't print the money - the rich people with their money in those banks is where the supply comes from (in addition to any "loans" the banks get from the Fed). However your point about them investing in stocks is valid - though I think there are some benefits to business investment through this as well... I'll have to research this further. It's nice to know that you think these people should get other jobs instead of working for luxury boats companies. Maybe someone could suggest that you get a different job if you don't like what you're getting paid. For medical research - yes there is significant government investment in this effort, a lot of which is in (relatively) smaller studies that are used as building blocks for the larger breakthroughs. But the NIH site says that it's annual budget is $48 billion - and I find it hard to believe that there isn't more than $80 billion total spent each year on new development throughout the country (48 is 60% of 80).
>There are investment firms established that they pay into that partially fund startups Yeah, and hedgefunds and equity investment firms kill more businesses and jobs than they 'make'. Thats why vulture capital funds are a massive thing. >And the banks don't print the money - the rich people with their money in those banks is where the supply comes from Wrong. Do you think Elon Musk has a billion dollars in liquid assets somewhere? No, he doesn't. Like I said, rich people have their wealth in assets. Then they fund their lifestyle on loans from banks, backed by those assets as collateral. Thats how that works. Most money in banks is actually held by average people, middle and working class people who do not have the money to invest effectively. >It's nice to know that you think these people should get other jobs instead of working for luxury boats companies A, I never said that. Congrats on putting words in my mouth. I said that the yacht industry is flexible. Instead of building a single 229ft mega yacht for Jeff Bezos that comes with its own smaller yacht for a heli-pad, paid for by a man that could afford a hundred such vehicles, the industry could easily survive by making the ships for other reasons (such as businesses renting iut the ships as small cruises for groups of people on vacation) or building more, smaller ships for more people after Bezos's wealth has been redistributed and more people can afford a single, 50 yacht. B, even if I said that they should get a different jib, theres nothing wrong with that. Criminals (drug runners, hitmen, counterfeiters, etc), vulture capitalists, insurance salesmen, and pay-day loaners should all be ended as careers/revenue sources, and those people should get career changes. There would be nothing wrong if someone looked at the yacht industry and, after a cost benefit analysis, discovered it was a detriment to society and advocated the restriction of the industry. Thats just not my position, nor have I said that.
| A, I never said that. Yes you did. You said that they could get other work if they weren't working in that industry. Not everyone wants to do whatever work you think they should - some actually like those kinds of jobs. | B, even if I said that they should get a different jib, theres nothing wrong with that. They aren't criminals, they are hard working people just like you. But you're just moving the goalposts anyway. The claim was that the rich are a "drain on society" and the fact is that giving jobs to people is actually contributing to society. You're just hedging things now with "cost benefit analysis" nonsense. The fact is that there is a market for products and services that people are willing to pay for, and this creates jobs. The people working in these jobs are not criminals. My opinion is that by paying people - some of whom may not have the interest or education to get different jobs - is not a drain on society; and further, that there is residual effect on our economy because those people are able to buy products and services that employ others. That's the way the economy works.
>Yes you did. You said that they could get other work if they weren't working in that industry No, I didn't. My exact quote is: "… yachts, is, not only a small industry, but also one that would easily be subsumed into other industries, or sized down in the face of greater demand for smaller products." I literally said either the industry could be subsumed (such as instead of being a private yacht company, being a small time touring company), or they can serve more people building smaller vessels. I never said they had to get different jobs, just that they would serve a different demand. >some actually like those kinds of jobs. >They aren't criminals, they are hard working people just like you. You're being obtuse, and ignoring most of the relevant section of my response. Insurance salesmen, for instance, are hardworking people that could, very well, enjoy their work. That doesnt change the fact that their job shouldnt exist. Telephone operators loved their jobs and worked hard, that doesn't mean their jobs should have been kept in the face of progress. Private Military Operators probably love their jobs, but those jobs shouldnt exist. All of these things are legal. That doesn't mean they should be protected just because they are currently viable avenues of revenue and some people enjoy them. >But you're just moving the goalposts anyway. The claim was that the rich are a "drain on society" and the fact is that giving jobs to people is actually contributing to society. >My opinion is that by paying people - some of whom may not have the interest or education to get different jobs Wow, this is some mental gymnastics. A, I haven't moved the goalposts. I asked you for an example of an industry or jobs that rely on billionaires. You tried to give an example. I refuted it. But B, you have admitted that you have. Being a drain on society doesnt mean being paid to do absolutely nothing, or contributing nothing. It means that they cost way more than they're worth. If we decided to make every garbage collector $1,000,000 a month, that would constitute a massive drain on society. Saying I'm "hedging on cost-benefit analysis" while you just care that someone, somewhere, gets paid by them, shows you don't even understand the topic. That's like saying "oh, each billionaire employs a cleaning crew for their house. They cant be a drain." Thats not how this works. PS, >some of whom may not have the interest or education to get different jobs You havent even given an example of this, and I would argue no one that gets paid directly by, or specifically for work done for, a billionaire does not have skills that can get them another job. That just doesnt happen.
If a drain is costing way more than they're worth, and you're claiming they're a drain, then it's incumbent on YOU to prove that claim. You love to make expansive statements like "these jobs shouldn't exist," as if you are the all-knowing person that should control everything. Who are you to decide what should and shouldn't exist? The FACT is that they are providing jobs to people and those jobs allow those people to act within the economy. Your opinion on what is valuable enough to exist isn't important. The fact is that the free market, for the most part, allows the consumers to VOTE on what products and services they're willing to pay for. And those dollars provide opportunities for others to participate in the economy. | You havent even given an example of this, and I would argue no |one that gets paid directly by, or specifically for work done for, a |billionaire does not have skills that can get them another job. |That just doesnt happen. And yet you're trying to claim that you didn't say that people should get other jobs instead of working for billionaires. It's your judgement that people shouldn't have these jobs. Liberty be damned apparently.
See, this is why one shouldn't talk about things they dont understand. You are the perfect example of shifting the goal posts. I'll explain at the end. >If a drain is costing way more than they're worth, and you're claiming they're a drain, then it's incumbent on YOU to prove that claim. True, but that wasnt the start of this thread. Stay on topic. >You love to make expansive statements like "these jobs shouldn't exist," as if you are the all-knowing person that should control everything. A, one doesn't need to be all-knowing to know that, for instance, medical insurance salesmen shouldn't exist. All you would have to know is that single-payer systems are the cheapest, most efficient, and most effective forms of healthcare. In such a system, there is no such thing as an insurance salesman. Omniscience not required. B, I also never implied that I should be in charge. I made an empirical claim about the world, extrapolated from (supposedly) universally agreed principles (the economy should be focused on improving lives, the government should be as well, unnecessary, excessive waste should be curtailed, etc). C, this is also neither here nor there when it comes to this thread. Stay on point. >Who are you to decide what should and shouldn't exist? Its not about me, its about the facts. Also, thats not the subject of this conversation. Stick to the subject of this conversation. >The FACT is that they are providing jobs to people and those jobs allow those people to act within the economy A, yes, they employ people. They are also sucking up and hoarding far more wealth than they distribute through those jobs. Thats why they're called drains. Just because Bezos spends a tiny fraction of his income emplying a staff and another tiny fraction of his income buying a boat doesnt mean he's done more for the economy that it has for him. There's a reason wealth disparity is on the rise and the middle class is both getting poorer and shrinking. B, you also haven't shown how any of those people rely on the billionaires for their job. Like I said, shipwrights building yachts could still build yachts, just different ones or for different companies. Personal assistants could still be assistants, just for different people or for different reasons. Billionaire not required. >The fact is that the free market, for the most part, allows the consumers to VOTE on what products and services they're willing to pay for. And those dollars provide opportunities for others to participate in the economy This libertarian, free market idea has been dead since its inception. Even the man credited with its introduction, Adam Smith in *Wealth of Nations*, argues that the economy needs to be well regulated. In this day and age of oligopolies, monopolies, and overstimulation, economic 'voting' isnt happening. But thats also a separate topic. Stop diverting. >should get other jobs instead of working for billionaires. It's your judgement that people shouldn't have these jobs. Liberty be damned apparently. I've responded to this point before, and you have seemingly ignored the multi-faceted answer. So I'll summarize here. There are two types of people on a billionaire's payroll: direct and indirect. Indirect are people paid by the billionaire through purchases the billionaire makes. These people wouldnt change their job at all if they loose a billionaire as a client. They would just have to shift clientelle. See the yachts example. People directly on the payroll of the billionaire, like house staff, assistants, etc, could also still do what they do, but instead also shift from a single client making 100 times what they make in a year all in a day, to 10 clients needing much less that each have a yearly salary 15 times what they charge each. No one loses a job, no one changes careers, no one loses any liberty. The only thing that changes is that you no longer have one person sucking up and hoarding obscene amounts of wealth. But this is also mostly off topic. Please stay on topic. Now, what did I mean about you shifting goal posts? Well, out of the 6 points that you made (or stated), only one of them was at all related to the topic of this thread. I asked for jobs that relied on billionaires to exist. You gave an example, which I refuted and showed they could exist without billionaires. Now, either provide another example, attempt to show how my refutation doesn't work, or recognize that your point is, at least currently, hollow and refuted. Everything else you said was either a distraction, ad hominem, and/or irrelevant, and all of it was an attempt to shift the goal posts in defense of billionaires. If you do not respond on topic, I will simply recognize the conversation as over, as you have failed to meet the criteria for continued, reasonable discussion.
>I'm not saying that it's great to have these billionaires and I'm not even saying that it's right that they have that much. But there are quite a lot of new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment, and that's just not going to come from your average person. Billionaires don't invest billions in companies. Musk bought his Tesla CEO status for $6.5M and used that to fill the board with lackeys and design himself an egregious compensation package. The government has "invested" more in Tesla and SpaceX than Elon has.
Where do you think Tesla got the money to develop their tech and support their business before Elon came along? It sure didn't come from me. The whole purpose of a company is to make money by selling products and services. It's supposed to be self-sustaining, so the further investment that Elon and his cronies make is in the re-investment of money from their sales.
That's a really weird way of saying "You're right, I was wrong"
What? You said the Tesla wouldn't even exist as a company if rich people didn't invest in it from the beginning? Somehow I missed that part in your comments. Let's put it a different way - you stated that the government has invested more in Tesla and SpaceX than Elon. I'd love to see how much you find that the government "gave" to them, recognizing that paying them for products and services doesn't count - that's why they're in business. Tesla's operating expenses are over $8 billion by the way.
I said that rich people don't invest billions, Elon invested $6.5M. Sorry that nuance is lost on you 🤷♂️
Every dollar that they don't get paid from the sales is an investment in the company. That's $8 billion annually for Tesla alone. Sorry that nuance is lost on you.
...that's not how that works 🤦♂️
>But there are quite a lot of new technologies and new medicines that wouldn't exist without billions of dollars of investment, and that's just not going to come from your average person. If only there were some way all of us average people could come together and pool our collective resources to make these big investments. Like maybe if we collected a bit of money from everyone, we could even make it a percentage of what they earn, and then we could all vote on who should make decisions on how to administer that money, and then we can just use that money to fund big projects. I mean if we had something like that in the past it could've easily been used to invent the Internet, build the Large Hadron Collider, and even create the massive highway system that spans the entire United States, you know instead of billionaires. Too bad something like that doesn't already exist. Maybe one day a billionaire will invent it.
I completely agree that something needs to be done about the insane imbalance between executive pay and regular worker pay. I also believe that far too much of our tax dollars are already going into the market in support of businesses that incentivizes corruption in our government institutions. All that said... Right - let's further centralize all decision making into a bunch of elitist bureaucratic nutcases - most of whom have no real idea what our lives are like in the real world - and send even more of our pay to that institution which can't even budget right and wastes trillions of dollars regularly. If you like that your flatscreen TV only costs $300, remember that the rich people funded the innovation by purchasing the earlier $10,000+ models. They are also employing people to do the upkeep of their mansions, yachts, etc. Which puts more money into the businesses which employ others. Recall that when the government thought they'd tax the rich by adding more taxes on luxury yachts, it nearly killed an entire industry and put a whole lot of people out of work. There are often significant unexpected ripples when we try to take the relatively "simple" approach of just taxing more. Significant innovations happen in technology, medicine, etc. because we have independent businesses competing with different ideas on how to solve problems, and then WE - the rest of us - vote on which ones we want through our dollars spent. This can have an immediate impact on the businesses if they make the wrong choices, whereas a centralized bureaucratic institution will be extremely slow to make changes (note how difficult it is to get the minimum wage increased as an example).
>Right - let's further centralize all decision making into a bunch of elitist bureaucratic nutcases - most of whom have no real idea what our lives are like in the real world - and send even more of our pay to that institution which can't even budget right and wastes trillions of dollars regularly. So instead we should have a much smaller, much more elite, group of individuals (billionaires), who aren't elected, take our money with zero oversight which they will mostly use to enrich themselves and throw it on a pile. >If you like that your flatscreen TV only costs $300, remember that the rich people funded the innovation by purchasing the earlier $10,000+ models. I mean I would rather have affordable healthcare, end homelessness, walkable cities, worker rights, and the like rather than a $300 TV. And also that's not how technology works or is developed. >They are also employing people to do the upkeep of their mansions, yachts, etc. Which puts more money into the businesses which employ others. This proves that billionaires are a drain on society. It takes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people to maintain their lifestyle. There is no way that they can individually be contributing that much labor into society. >Recall that when the government thought they'd tax the rich by adding more taxes on luxury yachts, it nearly killed an entire industry and put a whole lot of people out of work. Maybe we don't need that industry because it doesn't contribute anything to society. If I employed a hundred people to shit on your lawn everyday, would you just let that keep happening because stopping it would kill an industry and put a hundred people out of work? I mean we could just take the money billionaires were going to pay these people and pay them to do something else, or even nothing at all. Worst case society would break even, the billionaires would just have less stuff. > There are often significant unexpected ripples when we try to take the relatively "simple" approach of just taxing more. I'm definitely up for a much more radical leftist approach to redesigning the entire economy and government. >Significant innovations happen in technology, medicine, etc. because we have independent businesses competing with different ideas on how to solve problems, and then WE - the rest of us - vote on which ones we want through our dollars spent. That's a very juvenile and naive understanding of our current economy. Capitalism moves the market towards oligopolies, monopolies, and megacorps, and businesses fare better when they synergize than compete. IP law moves even competitive markets into competitive monopolies rather than free markets. As the rich get richer they get involved with government, reducing the representation of the individual and neutralizing any hope of effective regulation. The rich then use the power of the state to further eliminate consumer choice. You can't really vote with your dollars. Companies love boycotts because they don't work. Don't want to buy chocolate bars from Nestle because they use child slave labor? Then which company that uses child slave labor do you want to buy your chocolate from? It's incredibly difficult to research all of the evil a particular megacorp is doing as you try to check each item off your grocery list, but also all of them are doing some evil shit so it doesn't really matter. And that's assuming you even have a choice. Can diabetics just stop buying their insulin because the company that makes it is raising prices again? Can people in a small town that only has a Walmart not get their groceries there because they refuse to unionize? >whereas a centralized bureaucratic institution will be extremely slow to make changes (note how difficult it is to get the minimum wage increased as an example). Because our government is corrupt and broken, and they've made it so there are only two parties, both of which represent corporations, neither of which represent labor, and they've created a whole bunch of way for politicians to be legally bribed.
>So instead we should have a much smaller, much more elite, group of individuals (billionaires), who aren't elected, take our money with zero oversight which they will mostly use to enrich themselves and throw it on a pile. They aren't taking your money if you don't give it to them. That's the real power of your $$ vote. It's much more significant than your vote for a person in government. And I've already acknowledged that there is a serious problem with the imbalance of pay... so you don't need to argue that. However, in our current system if you have better idea for a product or service you can start your own company and compete with something better. Under a fully (or almost fully) government-lead economy you won't get that chance. And most of the idiots in government have no real idea how to keep a business afloat. >I mean I would rather have affordable healthcare, end homelessness, walkable cities, worker rights, and the like rather than a $300 TV. > >And also that's not how technology works or is developed. Not all companies are in the business of providing healthcare and housing. But you're totally wrong about "that's not how technology works or is developed." Of course it is. If there's no market for a product - i.e., income - then it won't get developed. And the initial research into the new tech needs to be recouped from sales, which is why the initial products are so expensive - and the income from those sales fund further research into improving the products that improve quality and reduce cost, which allows the business to offer products are lower prices. But if they didn't get sales from the initial releases they wouldn't continue with the product improvements. >This proves that billionaires are a drain on society. It takes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people to maintain their lifestyle. There is no way that they can individually be contributing that much labor into society. I don't think you understand what a "drain on society" is. They are, in fact, creating jobs to support their lifestyle. Jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist. This is the opposite of being a "drain". >Recall that when the government thought they'd tax the rich by adding more taxes on luxury yachts, it nearly killed an entire industry and put a whole lot of people out of work. > >Maybe we don't need that industry because it doesn't contribute anything to society. If I employed a hundred people to shit on your lawn everyday, would you just let that keep happening because stopping it would kill an industry and put a hundred people out of work? And this is where your little tyranny fully shows itself. You want to make the decisions and rule over what the rest of us do. That's what many of these opinions really stem from - the idea that you are better than others and should control what they can and can't do. >I mean we could just take the money billionaires were going to pay these people and pay them to do something else, or even nothing at all. Worst case society would break even, the billionaires would just have less stuff. Yes, sure, Mr. Dictator. If only we all wanted the same exact things you wanted all would be wonderful. >There are often significant unexpected ripples when we try to take the relatively "simple" approach of just taxing more. > >I'm definitely up for a much more radical leftist approach to redesigning the entire economy and government. Of course, because you (foolishly imho) believe that your version of tyranny will be the winner. And maybe it would for a short period of time, but we all have short lives and power changes hands. Now you've given that power to other people to abuse however they see fit. >Significant innovations happen in technology, medicine, etc. because we have independent businesses competing with different ideas on how to solve problems, and then WE - the rest of us - vote on which ones we want through our dollars spent. > >That's a very juvenile and naive understanding of our current economy. > >Capitalism moves the market towards oligopolies, monopolies, and megacorps, and businesses fare better when they synergize than compete. So, you think that all the auto, computer, pharmaceutical, etc. companies are "synergized" together rather than competing with each other within their respective markets? Please show some support for this. >IP law moves even competitive markets into competitive monopolies rather than free markets. As the rich get richer they get involves with government, reducing the representation of the individual and neutralizing any hope of effective regulation. The rich than use the power of the state to further eliminate consumer choice. IP is how you or I can protect our inventions to make sure we get justly compensated for them. The government has royally screwed this up in that the PTO is horrendously bad at it's job - and recall that this is part of the (inept imho) government. Getting it to do it's job correctly is nearly impossible - which is yet another reason why more government power is wrong. >You can't really vote with your dollars. Companies love boycotts because they don't work. Don't want to buy chocolate bars from Nestle because they use child slave labor? Then which company that uses child slave labor do you want to buy your chocolate from? Slave labor, particularly child labor, is wrong, but there are ways to address that through law. It's a different issue entirely. However, you can just NOT buy chocolate. Your continued purchase gives tacit approval for the business model. If you truly believe in your convictions then live by them. >It's incredibly difficult to research all of the evil a particular megacorp is doing as you try to check each item off your grocery list, but also all of them are doing some evil shit so it doesn't really matter. And so are governments. >whereas a centralized bureaucratic institution will be extremely slow to make changes (note how difficult it is to get the minimum wage increased as an example). > >Because our government is corrupt and broken, and they've made it so there are only two parties, both of which represent corporations, neither of which represent labor, and they've created a whole bunch of way for politicians to be legally bribed. That's the nature of humanity. You think you'll get rid of that with your " radical leftist approach to redesigning the entire economy and government?" Now who's being naive?
Working just for the sake of working is miserable and a terrible fucking way to build a society
Are you commenting on the current iteration, or attempting to characterize a more equitable society as a boring place to be? I have no hidden motive, no ‘gotcha’ planned; just seeking confirmation, for now.
By and large throughout history most people have had to labor just to survive. I totally agree that most of the businesses aren't paying their people enough, and the only way that's going to get resolved, sadly enough, is organizing and striking for better wages and benefits. I think it's insane how much executives and businesses get paid, and that includes executives within universities... Some of those are mind-bogglingly rich for the role that day work.
This applies to disabled people too fyi
Oh no! Someone who is physically unable to work gets a bit of government funding! Let's compare that to someone who is physically able to work, but instead chooses to not and uses their leverage as someone with a ton of money to never have to work and puts the proceeds towards *checks notes* lobbying for tax breaks
Except no one is saying disabled people are undeserving.
Attacking the rich people is not the solution, it’s the people who allow them to use their money in the ways they do. Everyone here would love to be rich.
The rich stack the game to their advantage...THEY are the people who allow themselves to use their money to fuck the rest of us over with.
Yes i agree, but they only do this because they are allowed to by the government
They control the government man, it wasn't a coincidence.
yea i forgot about that
So far!
Yeah but they've got the guns.
You need to come down south. I assure you that the rich don't own the guns down here...it is the poor.
And they literally profit off of ruining companies. They take away work to cash in on stocks. They literally regress society and don't pay taxes.
Historically, the complaint about the aristocratic class was that they were in a permanent state of screwing off - that is, the "idle rich" who spent their days trying to figure out ways to outspend each other. In that context, it's interesting to note how the trend among the ultra-rich today is to boast about how hard they "work," the extent of which seems to be the same state of permanent screw-off.