Millionaires, Billionaires Own 79% of America's Wealth

What a load of crap.

Sure, there are empty places in poor places, big surprise.

But most people in most places have trouble finding housing they can afford.

You keep coming up with childishly simple answers to complicated problems, and that isn't half as bad as your half assed ideas about economics.

https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequa...id=1602903599&sprefix=stiglitz,aps,196&sr=8-1

 

Who can live well on less than $20,000 / year? Explain? Mooch off everyone you know? Live on the streets? Share expenses with four in a roach infested studio apartment?

I think some of you forget some basic facts, and it's sad.

I spent some years couch diving for change, so I could get ramen right before payday. I HAD a couch to dive in, though. It wasn't a nice couch, but it was MY couch. Point being, I never made minimum wage in my life. But, I was close. Now, jobs I had making livable wages in the 80s and 90s, are now "only the lazy do those jobs," minimum wage type jobs.

A society that recognizes the value the lowest paid bring to the economy, is an economy that thrives. A society who believes they offer no value and deserve their lot in life, are doomed to face a revolution.

 

You don't follow me, by getting rid of subsidizing the employees one of two things would happen

1. They would have no choice but to raise wages

Or

2. Go out of business

 

To dismiss greed is absurd, period. Greed, the list for power, for position, for taking what others have drives some people and human history has that as a foundation..

The alpha wolf.always eats the liver.

As FDR told our rich elites, they can't have it all. We are at that place again.

 

Ambition is trying to earn more than you have. Greed is trying to get more than you've earned. See the difference?

It's a solvable problem. But it can't be solved without solving the big problem: privilege, i.e., legal entitlements to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation.

 

True. It also requires supine acquiescence at the bottom, such as you advocate.

No. Human nature is not going to change any time soon. The problem is institutions that are not compatible with human nature.

 

That isn't a given. But it sounds nice.

 

Lol, I know in my little fantasy world it should work.

 

Ideally it should work. But what seems right and logical isn't a given. Many suffering people will take jobs that won't support them and then rely upon burdening family and friends to survive. That is reality.

 

I see liitle difference between ambition and greed . For where you see one.the other follows, most times.

 

I have seen human nature, the base side, corrupt institutions. Whether based on Marxism or capitalism/democracy.

 

OK, let me try again. Do you see the difference between making yourself better off by making others better off, and making yourself better off by making others worse off?

Maybe. I suspect a lot of people who start out ambitious end up greedy because the more successful they become, the more their circle of acquaintance leans towards the greedy side. At the very top, there is no one left who is making others better off.

 

Capitalism and Marxism/socialism/communism are both incompatible with human nature. They are both based on lies. In fact, they are based on the same lie.

 

Say what? Marxism/socialism works great on paper and in nature, like with ants and bees ..but not so good in real life with humans

 

That’s the inconvenient (for some) truth.

 

Very good point. Middle class posers are common. Living the life with a negative net worth.

 

Only if the paper is not very deep or specific.

It works with ants and bees because they do not have individual desires and goals. Human beings do. So socialism can only work voluntarily, on a small scale, like the Israeli kibbutzim and the Mondragon cooperative in Spain.

 

557 screwed up the quotes, but I'll try to fix it.

No, that is just objectively false. Greed is defined as excessive, rapacious desire for more than one needs or deserves. Trying to get more than you deserve is by definition trying to get more than you have earned.

Yes, but if you are greedy, you at least want to get more than you have earned.

They are not, as I have already proved to you. Please consult a good dictionary.

No, they have different denotations as well.

No. Ambition is desire to achieve, greed is desire to get, without having to achieve.

So?

I'm talking about dictionary definitions and correct usage, not politically inspired misuse. I don't think it is meaningful to ascribe greed to a family. Maybe to most of its members -- like the Trump family -- but a family is not an entity that can be greedy.

How?

I doubt that envy has much to do with the welfare system. It's more about power.

Depends how you define, "welfare." I definitely oppose the current means-tested system of cash income support.

 

Oh? What's the logic behind "America's wealth"?

 

My bad. My apologies.

Demonstrate your claim that greed has anything to do with what one “deserves” is true. I believe if you attempt to do so you will find you are incorrect.

No. I can be greedy and earn everything I have. I can be greedy and have no desire to exploit.

You have made an unsupported claim.

Only in that one originally pertained to the immaterial and the other to the material.

Better consult your dictionary.

There’s your problem. You want words to mean what you need them to mean to support your opinions. I just gave you a lesson on how the origin of a word affects it’s meaning and you dismissed it. Yet you want me to accept your corruption of words without any basis for doing so.

No you aren’t. You just dismissed the roots of a word we are discussing. You have no interest in correct usage because you don’t even understand how the origin of a word is important.

Thanks for proving my point.

Doing away with provisions that don’t allow transition from dependence to partial or complete independence would be a good place to start.

Wow. You don’t see politicians playing on the envy of constituents? What do you think all the noise about income inequality boils down to? Power for politicians, perpetual envy in constituents.

I ask because you seemed opposed to “abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation”. That pretty much defines welfare we have in this country today.

 

Interesting. Mind elaborating?

 

I keep posting a link to Price of Inequality because it's complicated.

Keeping a capitalist economy requires a number of things. One of the underlying ideas is you keep capital moving.

Think of capital as being like blood. When you cut off blood flow things go terribly wrong terribly quickly. But a reduction can still kill you. We have too much inequality to support the long term health of the economy or the country.

I am not talking about the inherent tendency of wealth to grow. These are political decisions, many made in the 1980s.

Economists measure that, I think it's called Income Velocity, but don't hold me to that. In any case, the Reagan nuts set a record for increasing income velocity. IOW, they were robbing everyone to give to the rich. That also set off the chain of events that led to the big crash.

That's pretty good for a forum post, but you still need to read the book. You can get a copy from your library, most have a copy, but they can get one from another library if they don't.

 

Notice how socialism and capitalism are defined. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production (land and what classical economics called, "capital": products of labor devoted to production, especially factories). Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. The one lie that capitalism and socialism are both based on is that there is no essential difference between the factory owner and the landowner. The capitalist says the landowner is as much a contributor to production as the factory owner, and thus earns his return; the socialist says the factory owner is as much a parasite as the landowner, and thus does not earn his return. But the truth is that the factory owner is a contributor who earns his return, the landowner a parasite who does not.

 

It's a question of subjective morals. What makes it "complicated" is that not everyone subscribes to your moral view, nor believes that said morals should be enshrined into law any more, than, say, religious morals ought to be.

Again, a subjective moral view. It's not your job to decide how other people use their capital, unless you think your preferences give you that right. Capital moves where it's efficiently used. The more government you pile on, the less efficiently capital moves and the more efficient it becomes to capture the regulatory process.

What is the objective level of inequality beyond which it is "too much"?

What does that mean, logically?

Governments exist to rob people and enrich the political class. Those that shift out of capitalism quickly discover just how rapidly they enrich themselves when there's no wealth being created anymore.