Opinion on billionaires.

The problem I have with this idea that Bezo's and co's wealth is actually a bad thing because if you look at it, their wealth has coincided with the best quality of life our humanity has ever enjoyed. Billions lifted out of poverty and given more prosperous and more comfortable futures. I know it's not absolutely across the board and maybe there is like an optimal inequality which benefits as much people as possible but I remember thinking over lockdown how actually good the life's we have in the west are. I think sometimes we lack perspective about how miserable human existence was for the majority of our ancestors. The problem with this outlook is that this lifestyle also comes with mental defects but in general, if you look at Human Development Index, prosperity correlates with happiness.

I don't necessarily think amassing huge fortunes will stifle innovation. As the economy becomes more complex with improved tech, there will be many different new business ideas that we cannot even fathom today. If you're not ahead you're behind and I think this will drive innovation, even among the richest.

Definitely. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe what we have is perfect but I believe we are only in the beginning stages of our global societal development. I am optimistic about the future but the future of our future generations, that is presuming the threat of climate change can be alleviated through innovation and green technologies to enable sustainable growth. Some see it as a paradox, there's no such thing but I believe we will find solutions as a species. We are still in the doldrums about our capabilities

Ush1 wrote: »

Who are you to decide to put some arbitrary cap on someone elses ambitions?

No man has a right to say to his country thus far shalt thou go and no further.

There's something that gets missed in all of this. Someone earlier wrote Bezos and Co. I don't think they're all that representative. The ones that court the limelight, I mean. The majority aren't household names outside of their home countries. Many are families with generational wealth. So Bezos might have this kind of polished image. The public billionaires are socially progressive, or at least they seem that way. Techbro billionaires have inclusive workplaces. There's beanbags and swings and slides in the office. They're friends with Bono. However, cleptocracy and human rights abuses in the supply chain are the common denominators for billionaires. Thieving natural resources from their source countries. Families who own all the industry in a country and decide everything. Most of this can be traced back to colonialism and the structures put in place then. If fairytale textbook ideas of a free market and competition actually existed, then you couldn't get that rich. Billionaires are a sign of a lack of competition.

So don't expect the billionaires to allow new technologies that we can all expand our economies with. They will own the infrastructure. They are not going to allow competing tech on their platforms. They'll keep everything tied to their income streams and collect rent. Was true when the railroads where built in the US and was true when Microsoft got busted. But that required legislators that opened for competition. Anti-trust laws. But the capitalism of today is global and unregulated. This is be harder to pull in.

I read something by a liberal think tank a while back. They were were proposing these kind of trading points in developing nations, where a western legal framework would exist. The thinking being that laws would develop trade. Thats how colonialism started. Western powers didn't take over whole countries at first, they just had these trading stations. Its like they'd gone full circle without realising it.

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Thanks.

Now I have a complete understanding of where you are really coming from. See ya.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices"

I knew a Zimbabwean billionaire once and he had a pain in his back from all the money under his mattress and his nose pressed against the ceiling. A Georgian ceiling.

It's not all fun and games being a billionaire. And I tell ya, ya wanna try it sometime!

IAMAMORON wrote: »

" birds of a feather eh......flock together" maybe?

Spell Gubbermint.

Thought you were finished with me. See ya.

Physiocracy

Ultimately capitalism without something to rebalance things is a runaway reaction that eventually creates conflict with the dispossessed. Without redistribution the only thing that stands between the wealthy and being dragged out into the streets and being beaten to death is a functioning society where people respect law and order, and once the people in the middle holding society together realise they're also getting fcuked over by the guys at the top it all falls apart.
The only solution is trying to build a society where there's still incentive but it doesn't get out of hand and everyone has a fair shot at being successful. That or a repressive police force of Amazon AI controlled terminators.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

If you create very high wealth taxes these billionaires would have to sell a lot of their stock of the companies they created to pay for it. At some point it would mean they could lose majority ownership. it seems unfair to do that especially if they are not consuming the wealth that have they have created.

Maybe the solution is not to sell stock but to pay yourself well from your own company.
When people are buying and selling stock so much it seems like decisions get made based on short term gains in the stock price and not the long term health of the business. They're not always the same.

completedit wrote:

It seems to be popular to be cynical of Elon Musk. I think it's more of an opposition to the fandom surrounding him and the rise of the celebrity CEO than the man himself.

We need people like musk, but we also need to make sure we include certain conditions during their activities

An Ri rua wrote:

I knew a Zimbabwean billionaire once and he had a pain in his back from all the money under his mattress and his nose pressed against the ceiling. A Georgian ceiling.

Apparently, Zimbabwes situation was from a number of economic situations occuring at the same time, not just from excessive money creation, but mainly including supply side issues

Feisar wrote:

Not to go all Bull McCabe on ye but wealth comes from the land. Bezos's wealth is sort of notional in that share prices could tumult. It's not like he's running around buying up the world's resources and hoarding them while others starve. There will always be outliers and taking his wealth and sprinkling it around on the needy won't chance much. It's a bit like when yer Mum says "eat up, there are starving kids in Africa". It's not transferable, we aren't going to post my bacon and cabbage to The Congo.

.....land value tax! Again de-personalisation of the argument is important, this is far more complex than just wealthy individuals, but how we have created deeply flawed economic systems for redistributing wealth, they're sh1t at doing it! But I think a redistribution of asset ownership would begin to help, before we re back to war!

Yellow_Fern wrote:

If you create very high wealth taxes these billionaires would have to sell a lot of their stock of the companies they created to pay for it. At some point it would mean they could lose majority ownership. it seems unfair to do that especially if they are not consuming the wealth that have they have created.

So accumulating this wealth in the form of electrons, is good by....

kowloon wrote:

Ultimately capitalism without something to rebalance things is a runaway reaction that eventually creates conflict with the dispossessed. Without redistribution the only thing that stands between the wealthy and being dragged out into the streets and being beaten to death is a functioning society where people respect law and order, and once the people in the middle holding society together realise they're also getting fcuked over by the guys at the top it all falls apart. The only solution is trying to build a society where there's still incentive but it doesn't get out of hand and everyone has a fair shot at being successful. That or a repressive police force of Amazon AI controlled terminators.

Apparently smiths idea of the free market wasn't actually what we have now, he meant a market free from rent, the opposite of what we currently have!