Concentrated wealth: bad for democracy?

[Worldtraveller]

The question--as always--is HOW? You can't just send in jackboots to kick your neighbor's door down because he has a bigger pile of gold in his basement than you do and you think you just deserve to have some of it. That's stealing, full stop.

So you can't take. That has never proven successful in the many many many times it's been tried in the past.

You can tax. You can try to legislate changes in business codes so that no employee can be compensated in any way by more than, say, 100% of the least compensated employee, but what is the justification for that? Because some think that's "fair"? Who measures it and by what metric? And in a global economy, that would require a global government to enforce and encode.

These threads always kick up the righteous indignation and the oh my god that's so much money moral grandstanding, but never any actual solutions. The wealthy have ALWAYS run things. Every single generation has been about a smaller, ruling elite controlling the much larger majority. Literally every single generation of humans on this fucking planet.

So we're not talking about anything new. The numbers! The numbers are meaningless. Red herrings to incite emotional responses that once again don't solve anything.

So who has got any actual, comprehensive solutions? Why shouldn't John be paid $20 Million if he increased a company's profitability by $200 million? Conversely, why should Tom get any bonus at all if the only thing he did for the company was the job he was already compensated for through his salary? Altruism? Ethics?

These are incentive-based constructs. You can argue to remove the incentive base, but then what do you propose to replace it with? We all just do what we all just do and it's somehow magically mandated?

Well said.

Compensation and earnings should be based on merit, and the ability of an individual to provide a service that is in high demand.

If you are an author and your book sells 50,000,000 copies, or if you develop a software app that is used by 500,000,000 people around the world, you should make a LOT more money than the writer who sells 52 copies of his book or the developer of an app that has 63 downloads.

If Timmy is willing to work 60 hours a week laying asphalt pavement, he should be paid at least twice as much as the worker who chose to work 30 hours that week doing the same job.

If along the way Timmy develops a new machine that can lay down asphalt pavement twice as fast as the old machine, and needs only 3 workers to run it instead of 5, and Timmy is able to patent the technology and start his own company making and selling it, then Timmy should be able to sell the new machines or license the technology for as much as the market is willing to pay for it.

To each according to his ability - there is no system more fair than this. In a free market, wealth is created by people who figure out ways to better serve more people. The author who sold 50,000,000 copies of his book or 500,000,000 copies of his app enhanced the lives of the millions of people who read the book or used the app. There is not a finite pool of money that they are stealing from - they are growing the pool and creating wealth through their work. To tie their financial success to the success of the mediocre author or software developer is deeply unfair.

This all sounds good, and it's got probably more followers than some other religions, and it's just as realistic.

There is no such thing as a 'free market'. The playing field isn't level, and never has been. Just because someone has an idea (even a great idea), there's no (NONE) reason that they should be allowed to pay someone else a sub-living wage to actually make that idea into a reality.

That's just off the top of my head why your post is so bad.

 

[Elixir]

Imagine raising this question in this forum and expecting an accurate analysis

With enough different analyses, the probability of one of them being right approaches 1:1.

 

[Trausti]

It can and does if them and fellow billionaires and multimillionaires bid up the price of housing to unaffordable levels.

The Fountainhead: Poor Doors | Adam Lee

For Wealthy Foreigners, NYC Apartments Are 'Safe Deposit Boxes With Views' - Business Insider

The reason it's raining money on Manhattan real estate right now is because of the foreign super rich. They are trying to stuff as much money as possible from overseas here. These aren't apartments they are buying; they are safe deposit boxes with views.

London needs homes, not towers of ‘safe-deposit boxes’ | Peter Wynne Rees | Opinion | The Guardian

But while gloriously un-plannable the capital needs to be loved if we want to avoid the phenomenon of “lights-out London”, with homes just used as boxes for spare cash. It cannot survive without careful management and subtle control. Left to untrammelled market forces it will become an unstoppable nuclear reaction.

Toronto to impose 15% tax on foreign home buyers to regulate housing costs | World news | The Guardian

Foreigners who buy homes in Toronto and its surrounding area now face an additional 15% tax – echoing a recent measure adopted in Vancouver – as part of a slew of measures aimed at tempering a heated housing market that ranks as one of Canada’s most expensive.

Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign house buyers in effort to cool market | World news | The Guardian

Foreigners looking to purchase a home in Vancouver now face an additional tax of 15%, as Canadian authorities seek to temper a heated housing market that ranks as one of the world’s least affordable.

So you’re suggesting high levels of immigration coupled with increased regulation adversely affects housing availability? You might be right about that.

 

[Trausti]

actually it does - perhaps not directly in the now, but it is a long term detrimental risk to me.

there is not a single instance in the whole of human history where wealth concentration (either in individuals or corporations) did not eventually lead to one or multiple segments of the underpinnings of a given society becoming bloated by predatory investment, leading to the masses being effectively shut out of the enterprise, and then some or all of that segment collapsing under the weight of inflation and corruption leading to the masses being fucked over.
for a recent example of this, see the housing crisis and ensuing economic stumble that happened because of it, or the tech bubble in the 90s, or the current cost-of-living catastrophe the US is slowly sinking into.

having more money than other people isn't a problem, and having enough money to afford unnecessary luxury isn't a problem, but allowing resources to pool up and go unused in the coffers of a select few while the rest of the species is suffering and dying due to no resources pretty much defeats the entire purpose of homo sapiens being social animals in the first place.
there is absolutely no conceivable argument to justify an individual person having more than about 300,000 dollars worth of wealth, there is no rational value in a person having more than that. once you start going over that amount, you're getting to a point where you're no longer making income based on any personal merit and you're now just siphoning off of society at large, at which point i see no problem with taking 95% of additional earned income to invest in the species as a whole.


perhaps, though if so then the braying is the part that is being wrongly done, because more refined dialogue should be had explaining the situation. there doesn't need to be an excuse to take from others, because in this case there is every conceivable sound reason to be taking from others.

Coveting another’s wealth and success is ruinious government policy.

mandating another's wealth and success is an equally ruinous government policy.

Remember the Kulaks.

remember the french revolution.

Ah, we’ve gone from a billion is too much to $300k is enough. Could there be better example why no thinking person would grant government the authority to decide when is enough? Pol Pot determined that a half bowl of rice is all you need. You filthy Kulak.

 

[lpetrich]

So you’re suggesting high levels of immigration coupled with increased regulation adversely affects housing availability? You might be right about that.

That's not what I'm saying. Read more closely and try to consider that there may be more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in whatever preconceived ideas you might have.

 

[prideandfall]

To each according to his ability - there is no system more fair than this.

in a vacuum perhaps, but that isn't how any economy in the history of the human race has ever worked, so it's totally irrelevant to the conversation since that has never been how things operate in the real world.

In a free market, wealth is created by people who figure out ways to better serve more people.

... within the confines of a pre-existing system that shelters them and enables them to do so, without which none of this would be possible, and that very system is what they inevitably try and destroy.

The author who sold 50,000,000 copies of his book or 500,000,000 copies of his app enhanced the lives of the millions of people who read the book or used the app. There is not a finite pool of money that they are stealing from - they are growing the pool and creating wealth through their work. To tie their financial success to the success of the mediocre author or software developer is deeply unfair.

who ever said that the success of one should be tied to the other? why does "success" have to be defined by ridiculously monumental gaps in the resource pool between strata of our society?
don't conflate "a gap so huge it defies any ability to even properly reference it" with "a hefty gap" - i'm not saying there should be no higher income for certain people, but i'll definitely say that there is a point at which individual wealth no longer has anything to do with a given individual, and is instead a chain reaction based on the fuel of civilization.
for example, saying that jeff bezos 'earned' the amount of money he has is like saying that the primer charge *is* the explosion of a nuclear bomb - there comes a point where even if you set something in motion, you're no longer directly responsible for what comes after.

i don't think it's unreasonable, in that instance, to expect that an individual pay back into the system that made their success possible in the first place and which protects and shelters their current and future success.

 

[prideandfall]

Could there be better example why no thinking person would grant government the authority to decide when is enough?

since when the fuck am i "the government"?
you might want to consider taking your meds before posting if this is the extent of the drivel you're capable of mustering.

 

[PyramidHead]

Imagine raising this question in this forum and expecting an accurate analysis

With enough different analyses, the probability of one of them being right approaches 1:1.

I hear that's the strategy they use when asking a pack of wolves how they feel about veganism.

 

[RVonse]

It can and does if them and fellow billionaires and multimillionaires bid up the price of housing to unaffordable levels.

The Fountainhead: Poor Doors | Adam Lee

For Wealthy Foreigners, NYC Apartments Are 'Safe Deposit Boxes With Views' - Business Insider

London needs homes, not towers of ‘safe-deposit boxes’ | Peter Wynne Rees | Opinion | The Guardian

Toronto to impose 15% tax on foreign home buyers to regulate housing costs | World news | The Guardian

Foreigners who buy homes in Toronto and its surrounding area now face an additional 15% tax – echoing a recent measure adopted in Vancouver – as part of a slew of measures aimed at tempering a heated housing market that ranks as one of Canada’s most expensive.

Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign house buyers in effort to cool market | World news | The Guardian

Foreigners looking to purchase a home in Vancouver now face an additional tax of 15%, as Canadian authorities seek to temper a heated housing market that ranks as one of the world’s least affordable.

So you’re suggesting high levels of immigration coupled with increased regulation adversely affects housing availability? You might be right about that.

Read what he actually said.

Nobody is immigrating anywhere, what they are doing is buying up US property not living in it themselves and bubbling up the price.

And as far as regulation goes....I'm about as librarian as you can get. I like Amsterdam and think the rest of the world should be just like them. And even I can see where regulation is very much needed to fix the above real estate problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Furthermore, note that we need inequality. Without it there is little incentive to better oneself.

You keep repeating this canard, but it has been shown to be false in all but the most extreme cases.

Can you stop?

Your "rebuttal" has been leftist fantasy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

... we must be very careful in what we do about it as it's very easy for the cure to be worse than the disease ...

Zatta fact? "Worse" for whom? I am sure that every step that has ever been taken toward reduction of wealth disparity has been far worse for the extremely wealthy than that horrible "disease" of having more money than you and your family could possibly spend in a hundred years.

You're ignoring the cost in reducing the incentive for success.

I'd love to see some examples from history where the people at the other end of the wealth spectrum (of whom there are far more) suffered more from the reduction of wealth disparity than they did from abject poverty prior to said reduction of wealth disparity - if that has ever happened.

It's not a matter of the suffering of the rich, but of the reduction in incentive. Those rich almost all got that way by doing something that improved society.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Concentrated wealth is not good for society. The problem is we must be very careful in what we do about it as it's very easy for the cure to be worse than the disease.

Furthermore, note that we need inequality. Without it there is little incentive to better oneself.

Also, how come you're not all "We need to be careful how we lower taxes" when that has, historically, led to far great economic fuck ups?

https://twitter.com/DLeonhardt/stat...talkrational.org/index.php/topic,396.350.html

You see me supporting His Flatulence's insanity?!

 

[SimpleDon]

Yes, the concentration of wealth is bad for the economy, in the real economy. Only in the fantasy economy of Econ 101 and the self-regulating free market is this a benefit, where the wealthy wisely invest sorely needed funds in building brand new factories to provide new jobs to everyone not too lazy to want one. As I said, this is a fantasy.

In the economy that we have, the wealthy now claim all of the added income from innovation and the gains in productivity, which is the added income from the growth of the economy. The workers get none of it. The wealthy don't invest the additional money that they receive in any meaningful way for the economy. They spend a small fraction of it and the rest they put into savings, most notably in the bank, the stock market or into real estate. Contrary to the Econ 101 fantasy in the real economy none of this helps the economy and some of it hurts the economy.

The fantasy economy is still supply-driven, as the real economy was in the 18th century when the economy was an agrarian economy and production was limited by the amount of suitable land. But today's economy is demand-driven. No investment is made unless the demand exists for the extra product that will be produced and the decision of whether to invest will be made by the corporation, not by stock market investors or bankers. In the highly industrialized economy supply is money and in an economy, with a fiat currency, the amount of money in the economy grows as the economy grows.

Giving all of the new income to the already rich limits the growth in the economy, because it reduces the demand in the economy. If the money from the added growth in the economy was instead paid as salaries and wages the money would increase demand. The middle class saves very little of any increase they receive, spending almost all of it.

If this all was true above the economy it would produce would have the following characteristics;

• Inflation would be low to non-existent
• The stock market would be booming and the PE ratios would be soaring
• The growth in the economy would be stagnating
• Interest rates would be very low
• Real estate prices would be increases greater than the cost of living along with the costs of housing
• Private debt would be increasing as the middle class borrows money
• The main growth of highly paid new jobs would be in the financial sector, the non-productive rentiers
• The gains from improved productivity would be dropping
• The average markup above the costs of production would be increasing
• The relatively easy profits from lowering relative wages will leave the corporations indolent and innovation increasingly non-existent
• Free trade with a low labor cost country would devastate jobs and workers wages further reducing demand as previously highly paid workers are forced to take jobs in the lower-paid service sector
• The excessive financial capital available would generate increased calls to open government functions and other functions previously deemed to not be suitable for-profits like health care to the profit motive to provide new areas open to investment
• Corporations would be reducing their other employment costs besides wages, retirement pensions and health care, leaving these things to the individual
• The excessive amount of financial capital would encourage Wall Street to invent new, risker financial instruments to capture more of the excessive amount of financial capital available, things like tranced mortgage securities that increases the already high instability of the financial markets

This pretty much describes our economy today.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is no such thing as a 'free market'. The playing field isn't level, and never has been. Just because someone has an idea (even a great idea), there's no (NONE) reason that they should be allowed to pay someone else a sub-living wage to actually make that idea into a reality.

That's just off the top of my head why your post is so bad.

The same fallacy that you can create good jobs by killing bad jobs.

If good jobs existed they would automatically kill the bad jobs with no government intervention.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It can and does if them and fellow billionaires and multimillionaires bid up the price of housing to unaffordable levels.

The Fountainhead: Poor Doors | Adam Lee

For Wealthy Foreigners, NYC Apartments Are 'Safe Deposit Boxes With Views' - Business Insider

London needs homes, not towers of ‘safe-deposit boxes’ | Peter Wynne Rees | Opinion | The Guardian

Toronto to impose 15% tax on foreign home buyers to regulate housing costs | World news | The Guardian

Foreigners who buy homes in Toronto and its surrounding area now face an additional 15% tax – echoing a recent measure adopted in Vancouver – as part of a slew of measures aimed at tempering a heated housing market that ranks as one of Canada’s most expensive.

Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign house buyers in effort to cool market | World news | The Guardian

Foreigners looking to purchase a home in Vancouver now face an additional tax of 15%, as Canadian authorities seek to temper a heated housing market that ranks as one of the world’s least affordable.

So you’re suggesting high levels of immigration coupled with increased regulation adversely affects housing availability? You might be right about that.

He's got a valid point but I don't know how much of it is real vs blame.

 

[Worldtraveller]

There is no such thing as a 'free market'. The playing field isn't level, and never has been. Just because someone has an idea (even a great idea), there's no (NONE) reason that they should be allowed to pay someone else a sub-living wage to actually make that idea into a reality.

That's just off the top of my head why your post is so bad.

The same fallacy that you can create good jobs by killing bad jobs.

If good jobs existed they would automatically kill the bad jobs with no government intervention.

I want some of what you're smoking, that must be some good shit.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Start with Germany's example. Mandatory Union leaders on all the corporate boards. Therefore CEO pay and where the manufacturing plant gets located is a joint decision between management and labor.

Interesting that. I remember when VW tried to open a plant in Tennessee. The main union in Germany requires that all plants have unions. The workers in Tennessee voted against having a union. In fact, the workers voted on this more than once. The most recent vote was June of this year. VW had to negotiate with their home union on how to deal with this, because US law doesn't allow forced unionization. How would you remedy that?

 

[ZiprHead]

Start with Germany's example. Mandatory Union leaders on all the corporate boards. Therefore CEO pay and where the manufacturing plant gets located is a joint decision between management and labor.

Interesting that. I remember when VW tried to open a plant in Tennessee. The main union in Germany requires that all plants have unions. The workers in Tennessee voted against having a union. In fact, the workers voted on this more than once. The most recent vote was June of this year. VW had to negotiate with their home union on how to deal with this, because US law doesn't allow forced unionization. How would you remedy that?

Interesting? They're just riding the coattails of the union membership in Germany that got them those good jobs in the first place.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Start with Germany's example. Mandatory Union leaders on all the corporate boards. Therefore CEO pay and where the manufacturing plant gets located is a joint decision between management and labor.

Interesting that. I remember when VW tried to open a plant in Tennessee. The main union in Germany requires that all plants have unions. The workers in Tennessee voted against having a union. In fact, the workers voted on this more than once. The most recent vote was June of this year. VW had to negotiate with their home union on how to deal with this, because US law doesn't allow forced unionization. How would you remedy that?

Interesting? They're just riding the coattails of the union membership in Germany that got them those good jobs in the first place.

Interesting that the one part of my post you didn't address was "How would you remedy that?"

 

[SimpleDon]

Start with Germany's example. Mandatory Union leaders on all the corporate boards. Therefore CEO pay and where the manufacturing plant gets located is a joint decision between management and labor.

Interesting that. I remember when VW tried to open a plant in Tennessee. The main union in Germany requires that all plants have unions. The workers in Tennessee voted against having a union. In fact, the workers voted on this more than once. The most recent vote was June of this year. VW had to negotiate with their home union on how to deal with this, because US law doesn't allow forced unionization. How would you remedy that?

They don't have to. The current VW management opposed the union. The management installed after the diesel cheating scandals. They faced another union vote recently and they escaped the union being voted in by running a massive disinformation campaign that included having the Republican governor of Tennesse speak directly to the plant personnel in a closed meeting, illegal, and the rather novel idea of immediately before the election they raised the wages for line personnel to nearly the same as union workers were making. In spite of all of this, the management barely won to keep out the union by about 50 votes out of 1600. The management had to raise the wages to union scale to keep the union out of the plant. The workers won, hands down.

I dare say that there will be no Southern plants unionized if they all voluntarily pay union scale.

I don't see how you support a rule like Taft-Hartley that prevents an employer from operating a closed shop if he wants to. Isn't this the heavy hand of the state forcing the employer to behave differently than he wants to?