Billionaires Blast off

[DBT]

Somebody constructs the wheels, the struts, the engine, wings, seats, propeller so the 'rich guy' can realize their dream. Where they all working for a fair wage, or the bare minimum?

See any wheels or seats there? The struts, engine, wings and propellers they built themselves. They didn't want to build their own engine but all the ones they could buy were too heavy. The propellers, they not only carved themselves, they invented themselves. Previous attempts at powered flight were based on the notion that an aircraft propeller is a kind of steamship screw; it was W. and O. who figured out an aircraft propeller actually needs to be a 90-degree-rotated wing.

Are you suggesting the inventor mined ore, processed raw materials, etc, all on his lonesome? That mine owners extracted raw materials on their lonesome? Factory owners producing goods on their lonesome? No workers needed?

 

[Derec]

Real cheese--not the horrid processed stuff--is more expensive than beans and rice. Plus, cheese is full of fat and a not inconsiderable amount of sodium. I write this as a cheese lover. When I was really poor, cheese was a real luxury for me.

Of course it's more expensive than rice and beans, but you thought it was too much to ask the poor to actually cook their rice and beans, so I was looking for options you don't have to cook.

Food stamps are great but if you've never tried to feed your family on them, you really don't know what you're talking about.

I have not, but I do know that S in SNAP stands for 'supplemental', which means that it is not meant to pay for all the food used by a family. It is just meant to help with food bills.

Do you not realize that all of those convenience foods are loaded with fat and sodium? Have you looked at the sodium content for ham?????

Well, if you think the poor are not capable of cooking fresh foods, then preserved foods are a must. And salt is a good preservative.
I never said that ham was health food. But the claim of that chart was that thousands of Americans starve to death because they are not getting enough calories and protein. And I just wanted to show that it is trivially easy to get enough calories and protein in your diet. If that number is at all accurate it is not because these people could not afford the protein. I think Loren might be right, that it is mostly people so messed up by drugs that they neglect necessities like food.

All of what you mentioned is exactly what a lot of people without much money do to feed themselves. There are too many people who cannot afford to do that, or only can do it rarely. Food stamps don't work at burrito stands, none of which are in my town, despite there being a couple of Mexican restaurants.

I was just throwing out options. The smart thing is of course to prepare meals. It is usually cheaper and more nutritious. Even the rare people without a stove can buy a $20 hot plate and a pot and a skillet for about the same.

The diet you are suggesting is full of fat and sodium which both contribute to poor health and is simply out of reach of a lot of people. And not necessarily available everywhere or for purchase with food stamps.

I am not suggesting that diet, I am pointing out that even that diet will get you enough protein. I was specifically talking about that protein starvation chart.

Yeah, they are. I know what I spend each week on fresh fruits and vegetables and it's not something I could do if I were poor. When I was poor, a bag of carrots and a bag of apples needed to last for at least a couple of weeks. At least. Oranges were a rare treat.

What were you spending all your money on that an 80¢ orange was a "rare treat"? Around here, people paying with food stamps tend to wear brand name clothes and sneakers. Priorities, I guess.

Grocery stores and restaurants operate on very slim profit margins. Fresh fruits and vegetables have shorter shelf lives compared with canned. They cost more for stores to carry and are riskier. You need to be sure of your profit.

No kidding! And those profit margins can be destroyed by shoplifting and/or vandalism. "Food deserts" are not due to evil grocery store companies, but because of people living in those neighborhoods.

 

[Derec]

Even cheaper: Beans and rice in a crock pot. Non-perishable until cooked, also.

Of course. When it comes to cheap complete protein, you can't beat rice and beans. But Toni thought it was too much to expect the poor to cook, so I specifically mentioned protein-rich foods you don't have to cook.

 

[Shadowy Man]

What if the government confiscated Jeff Bezos wealth and invested it to create a highly efficient supply chain to lower the prices of goods, and the speed at which they were delivered.

This would greatly improve the lives of everyone!

Maybe. Would the workers get bathroom breaks?

 

[Bomb#20]

I, for one, am proud to have helped pay the tax burden of billionaires so they can take their vanity flights to space.

So how did you determine that some of the tax burden you paid was actually "the tax burden of billionaires"?

It's disgraceful for people who have to work for the government three days a month to slander people who have to work for the government five days a month as not paying their fair share.

 

[Trausti]

What if the government confiscated Jeff Bezos wealth and invested it to create a highly efficient supply chain to lower the prices of goods, and the speed at which they were delivered.

This would greatly improve the lives of everyone!

Maybe. Would the workers get bathroom breaks?

Oh, come on. When has government ever created something with high efficiency?

 

[Bomb#20]

So the question is, how much wealth would the 4.6 billion poorest have if those countries had governments that didn't take private property rights seriously? If you can't show that they'd have more than $1000 each, then you haven't shown the inequality is causing a problem.

Dunno about "taking property rights seriously" but GDP growth, both globally and within-country, has slowed to such an extent and in such local proportions that even the IMF now attributes it to increasing rich-poor income gaps , both global in within-country.

And if the IMF says it it must be true? A lot of things about the world economy have changed over the years; picking two and saying "This one is because of that one." is post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc. Where's the controlled experiment that shows making billionaires poorer increases GDP?

The idea that convergence further down the global income distritbution (which wouldn't even be a thing without China) is a necessary corollary of the average American's loss of income share is zero-sum thinking 101.

So who the heck said it's a necessary corollary? There are any number of ways the average American could "lose income share" -- i.e., gain income not as fast as the average earthling -- without convergence further down. I'm just saying it's what actually happened over the last few decades.

Not to mention "in-group" favouratism.

How do you figure that? In-group favoritism is a matter of preference; opinions about whether X happened or about whether X was a necessary corollary of Y aren't matters of preference.

 

[bilby]

What if the government confiscated Jeff Bezos wealth and invested it to create a highly efficient supply chain to lower the prices of goods, and the speed at which they were delivered.

This would greatly improve the lives of everyone!

Maybe. Would the workers get bathroom breaks?

Oh, come on. When has government ever created something with high efficiency?

Government is at least as efficient as private industry, when adjusted for scale.

Corporations with similar sizes to government entities are similarly inefficient.

The big corporations don't get the same scrutiny that governments do; But the idea that they're more efficient is a total myth.

 

[DBT]

Even worse, Bezos, Musk, et al, gets subsidies from the government to the tune of billions of dollars....so much for standing on their own feet. Billionaire welfare?

 

[laughing dog]

I, for one, am proud to have helped pay the tax burden of billionaires so they can take their vanity flights to space.

So how did you determine that some of the tax burden you paid was actually "the tax burden of billionaires"?

It's disgraceful for people who have to work for the government three days a month to slander people who have to work for the government five days a month as not paying their fair share.

When someone trots out the libertardian rhetoric for tax rates (i.e. taxes = working for the government), you know rational discussion has left the room.

 

[Bomb#20]

You talk as if mega-billionaires were half the population. In fact, they're an "outgroup" for 99.9999% of us.

You appear not to have grasped the whole ingroup/outgroup concept. You might as well call people with AB- blood "outgroup for 99% of us". That's not how it works. AB- people aren't outgroup for the rest of us because we aren't biased for or against people based on their blood type.

No, it's not like that. It's like 10 muslims suppressing the standard of living for 10 million dhimmis.

Reciting your premise isn't the same as arguing for it.

Of course they would -- just people outside your own monkeysphere.

Again, YOU are part of "my monkeyshpere", as is virtually every other American.

You appear not to have grasped the whole monkeysphere concept either. "The Monkeysphere is the group of people who each of us, using our monkeyish brains, are able to conceptualize as people. If the monkey scientists are monkey right, it's physically impossible for this to be a number much larger than 150." I doubt if "virtually every other American" is an accurate way to characterize those you can conceptualize as people.

You don't have a reason to believe that; it's your faith in zero-sum-game economics talking.

Bull... I have been a businessperson and an entrepreneur all my life. I KNOW about productivity, first hand. I know about growth algorithms, barriers to market entries and all kinds of things that bear on the success of enterprises. It is you who are harboring a fantasy that the physical and fiscal mechanics that apply to my productivity and that of my companies are the same as those that apply to generating tens of billions of dollars per year of personal profits for a single mega-billionaire.

You were productive and traded with others, who voluntarily traded with you because you found a win-win solution to a problem you had and a problem somebody else had, so you made money without being an economic black hole who sucked up wealth from your vicinity, but by being a wealth source who enriched his own life and others' lives at the same time. But somehow, you know that a mega-billionaire doesn't do the same thing on a larger scale. Instead, he makes the preexisting wealth of those he deals with go away into his black-hole pocket, impoverishing them rather than making them better off with some win-win solution of his own.

How do you know this? Because reasons? Because mega-billionaires are celestial beings rather than earthlings and the celestial spheres follow their own laws of physical and fiscal mechanics? Whatever, let's suppose you're right. Then please explain why the mega-billionaire's customers and suppliers don't just walk away. Why do they keep buying from him and selling to him when it's making them worse off?

I take it you're referring to your local property taxes and the increased value as judged by your local assessor. In the first place, that means the tax is something like $12,000, not the $200,000ish tax we'd be talking about if how much other people want your house determined how much income you have.

Now you're back to trying to apply the same principles to you and me at our income and wealth levels, that I would apply to the 1,000,000,001th dollar of annual increased wealth of a mega billionaire. Surely you can see the difference?

"Now you're back to applying the same principles to the Jews that I would apply to Christians like you and me. Surely you can see the difference?", said any number of medieval religious thinkers. So yes, I can see the difference: I can see that I don't have a double standard for how other people should behave, and you do.

 

[Bomb#20]

Yep: the balance of power is weighted in favor of the common man, and against the rich. What a surprise. We live in democracies.

You still miss the point.

To summarize: in terms of pay rate, the 'common man' as in the average worker has very little negotiating power on his own.

Well sure; but he's not on his own. He has the power of numbers.

Without protections in place, awards (often too low), he is presented with the pay rate and conditions, take it or leave it.

Workers don't get to set the rules. Politicians promise the world at election time, then take care of those at the top, the business leaders. Workers are left to languish, wages stagnate for decades while the upper crust enjoy gains.

Collective bargaining and good representation at the table is often the only way to for workers to improve their lot.

Which does not mean 'eating the rich' or making them poor, just getting a fairer share of the wealth they help to build.

So what's the problem?

Well, you're making it look like the problem is you know perfectly well that expecting politicians to solve the workers' grievances is a losing proposition, and self-help by collective bargaining is the actual way for workers to improve their lot, and yet you keep arguing for political solutions!

When people who think like you get their way, and the government brings private employers to heel, and wages are set by government edict instead of across the bargaining table, wages stagnate for decades. When you in effect turn government itself into the employer, what else would you expect but that government policymakers will take up thinking like employers? All the workers accomplish that way is to be facing a monopoly across that table, instead of multiple companies competing for workers' services. Why would you expect them to get a better deal from a monopoly?

 

[laughing dog]

Well sure; but he's not on his own. He has the power of numbers.

Without protections in place, awards (often too low), he is presented with the pay rate and conditions, take it or leave it.

Workers don't get to set the rules. Politicians promise the world at election time, then take care of those at the top, the business leaders. Workers are left to languish, wages stagnate for decades while the upper crust enjoy gains.

Collective bargaining and good representation at the table is often the only way to for workers to improve their lot.

Which does not mean 'eating the rich' or making them poor, just getting a fairer share of the wealth they help to build.

So what's the problem?

Well, you're making it look like the problem is you know perfectly well that expecting politicians to solve the workers' grievances is a losing proposition, and self-help by collective bargaining is the actual way for workers to improve their lot, and yet you keep arguing for political solutions!

Collective bargaining is a political solution. In the USA, given the difficulty in starting a union ( a political problem), or even going on strike (another political problem - the gov't can and has called strikes against the national interest), a political solution is a reasonable expectation. What form that political solution takes is another matter.

When people who think like you get their way, and the government brings private employers to heel, and wages are set by government edict instead of across the bargaining table, wages stagnate for decades. When you in effect turn government itself into the employer, what else would you expect but that government policymakers will take up thinking like employers? All the workers accomplish that way is to be facing a monopoly across that table, instead of multiple companies competing for workers' services. Why would you expect them to get a better deal from a monopoly?

Can you point to a basis the above? I don't see DBT advocating making the gov't the employer and setting wages by edict. Which makes the above appear more like a straw man to me.

 

[DBT]

Well, you're making it look like the problem is you know perfectly well that expecting politicians to solve the workers' grievances is a losing proposition, and self-help by collective bargaining is the actual way for workers to improve their lot, and yet you keep arguing for political solutions!

It's a multifaceted problem. Not all workers are able to join unions, casual, part time, short term contracts, etc, so it's not always possible for workers to organize themselves in order to benefit from collective bargaining.

Which is why governments in western nations tend to legislate a minimum wage as protection from outright, untrammeled exploitation of vulnerable workers. Something that ideally should not be necessary.

As for exploitation, there are no shortage of examples throughout history, right up to the present day.

 

[Bomb#20]

Elixir: THAT IS NOT ABOUT ANYONE TO WHOM A WEALTH TAX WOULD APPLY.

Bomb#20: Yes, we get all that. We all understand that the discriminatory tax you have in mind for your outgroup is a tax you want only on your outgroup.

Elixir: You talk as if mega-billionaires were half the population. In fact, they're an "outgroup" for 99.9999% of us.

Loren Pechtel: That doesn't refute his argument.

Elixir: Maybe not in an authoritarian State, but in a representative democracy, it should.

Derec: So, dictatorship of the majority?

Elixir: When the majority is 99.9999%, yeah. You disagree. So dictatorship of the .0001%?

Derec: That's a false dichotomy.

Elixir: That’s an ignorant quip, not an argument.

Think of it as a shorthand pointer to an argument. We all can figure out what argument is meant; I suspect you all can too.

When the majority is 99.9999%, yeah.
You disagree. So dictatorship of the .0001%?

Hey, here's an idea. How about if we have no dictatorship at all? How about if instead we have rule of law, with the law the same for everybody?

I encourage you to think real hard about whose welfare is more important- the 99.9999 percent or the billionaires. Then think about which group a government should serve.

How about if the government serves neither group? How about if it doesn't divide people into groups? How about if it doesn't assume its job is to decide which groups to serve and which groups to serve them to? How about if the government is a government for all the people and treats all the people with equal justice?

Yeah, I know, liberalism went out of fashion in the 1920s and the above line of argument has little appeal to progressives. Doesn't change the fact that you made a false dichotomy.

 

[Bomb#20]

Ants are smarter than Republicans.

View attachment 34614

That's a water drop those ants found, not a water drop any ants made. Leftist ethics in a nutshell: a demand that farmers live according to hunter-gatherers' morality.

 

[Bomb#20]

No, you have missed the implications of your position. You take away the wealth, you take away what that wealth produces.

Nobody is proposing taking away all their wealth. Why do you keep trotting out that stupid straw man?

It's not a strawman. Plenty of people are proposing taking away over 99% of their wealth -- Bilby, for instance -- and LP's point remains whether it's 99% or 100%.

 

[Bomb#20]

Basically they want to create a new tax - afaik unprecedented in the history of modern taxation - where unrealized capital gains are taxed.

Not unprecedented. Australia taxes unrealized capital gains on foreign stocks; the discrimination is supposed to incentivize Australians to invest in Australian companies instead of doing the rational thing and diversifying.

 

[bilby]

No, you have missed the implications of your position. You take away the wealth, you take away what that wealth produces.

Nobody is proposing taking away all their wealth. Why do you keep trotting out that stupid straw man?

It's not a strawman. Plenty of people are proposing taking away over 99% of their wealth -- Bilby, for instance -- and LP's point remains whether it's 99% or 100%.

99% of a billion dollars taken in tax leaves them with only $10,000,000.

I can see how that's an awful impost that leaves someone at genuine risk of starvation, homelessness, and destitution.

Oh, wait.

Fuck off.

 

[DBT]

Ants are smarter than Republicans.

View attachment 34614

That's a water drop those ants found, not a water drop any ants made. Leftist ethics in a nutshell: a demand that farmers live according to hunter-gatherers' morality.

Our environment is the foundation of our existence.

Whatever we do with the resources available to us, someone has do the actual work.

Ideas and planning alone doesn't put bread on the table, clothes on our backs, houses with cars in the garage.....that takes workers.