Millionaires, Billionaires Own 79% of America's Wealth

From your link:

Your above quote is from the “synonym study” section, not the definition. I’m shocked.

That is one definition from your link. Here are two others.

As we will see below, your opinion is not common usage. There are only a couple examples including your connotations and they are incestuous.

The “free dictionary” draws from a variety of sources. One of which is the Collins you included above. The “free dictionary” also cross links with Wikipedia and the Wiki entry definition does not contain the undeserved/unearned language. In short, there is one obscure addition of your preferred usage that you are clinging to. Webster’s, Oxford, nor Cambridge, considered authoritative, contain your “common usage”. Nor does Wikipedia, accessed through “free dictionary” or directly, which would if your opinion was actually common usage.

Incorrect. There is one obscure definition fitting your opinion. It’s been repeated in the synonym section of one of your links. That doesn’t mean it’s in common use.

Now you know your claim is incorrect.

Yours is debunked, mine is now supported.

Incorrect. As demonstrated above.

Please do.

Is that why in your first link you pulled the quote from the synonym section not the actual definition as I did? LOL

My claim is supported. Your claim of common usage is completely unsupported by your own links.

Agreed. But your usage is not common. It’s obscure.

It is. Except in your mind.

If you had interest in correct usage you would not pull quotes from your link that are not the links’s definition. You would not dismiss the majority definition including Webster’s, Oxford, etc. and latch on to one obscure definition.

I understand the need for many to redefine the meaning of words to fit a narrative. I’m not a fan.

I’ll let the third party reader be the judge of that.

It is to me because I advocate for independence from government and for personal responsibility. I know I’m in the minority.

Apparently so.

LOL. Ironically I just got off the phone with a relative of my wife’s who is a Nepalese immigrant, now a very successful physician. Both he and I (who came from abject poverty) would disagree with you.

On that we can agree.

Another point of agreement.

 

Once again, it has little to do with how much you actually earn - it's about what you spend. The vast majority of people who own their homes (for example) were never big money earners. If you go outside the big cities, most home owners are on lower or even minimum wages.

Higher paying jobs are just one way to skin the cat - and not necessarily even the best way.

 

You think Big Corp is going to keep pumping out widgets that no one is buying?

Come on now BIO, you're not that silly.

 

Exactly. We evolved to exist in small groups, interdependent and mutually beneficial. But the overall mission of the group is to secure as much territory and resources as possible - for survival. That's always been the goal, and still is the goal. You can call it greed, but it's still a survival instinct.

 

Who cares what apartment owners are doing? They own the place, they can do whatever they like. If you resent the increase in prices (god knows why you would, unless you don't own property), that's an issue you have. If it's indeed true that you've chosen not to own property, then why on earth are you bothered by any of this? You have opted to have no skin in the game.

No idea what you mean by 'income inequality'. We're all free to leave a job we don't like, at any time. We're all free to find or create better paid work. We're all free to adjust our lifestyle to accommodate a job we like but which isn't well paid. And so on and so on. You'll need to explain exactly what you mean by the term income inequality.

 

What on earth do you incorrectly imagine that has to do with institutionalized injustice?

 

It is painfully clear you have no idea.

The problem is you are carefully avoiding the obvious.

 

@crank is correct here. Greed is most certainly not a result of thought in most social animals. Individuals almost constantly use violence or threat of violence to get more for themselves.

 

No it isn't! Greed is a result of thought. Other social animals operate by instinct that is cooperative in nature. Greed is of the ego, the individual.

We evolved in small groups where individual greed, not sharing would threaten survival and not tolerated. Greed is a product of civilization where members are now expendable. Not needed for the survival of the large group .Its a luxury but a most nefarious one. All religions teach against it given the damage and problems it inevitably created.when out of hand.

If greed was not a creation of ego and thought every human would be a greedy bastard yet that is not the case. Most people just want a comfortable life with sufficient resources! That isn't greed, its positive human nature.

Most of our time.was spent in small tribes.. Greed was not tolerated and sharing was the norm. Status was created by equality and sharing. , A greed driven person.was apt to be ostrasized and his chance of survival alone was nil.

This is what I believe given I know so few actual greed driven people.

 

I see a difference between survival and greed.. All of life seems hard wired to continue living and will fight an attacker to the death. If someone is choking you to death you will fight like hell to save your life! Calling that greed is crazy..

Piling up a surplus that you can never need for survival as you watch others starve is greed. Its sociopathic.

 

So the lefts idea is to let millions more illegals into this country? Yeah that's the ticket that will drive down rent.

 

Our system does not allow your abstraction consistently.. Too many essential jobs are working poor jobs in need of charity and welfare. That is a reality you will not accept.

Gifted people, higher IQ people generally prosper. But all are not in that group. Our manufacturing once provider for the average person. The service sector much of it does not.

Oh, well, these people need to go into their own business! Except even in good times most businesses fail within a couple years! Where does the capital come from to start another one? Banks? Pardon me while I roll on the floor and laugh my old retired are off!

 

Moving the goalposts won't help you.

 

No. Social mammals (and especially primates), at least, are competitive and even combative within a scheme of social instincts. It is not at all uncommon for wolves, chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas, lions, etc. to kill each other; in fact, it is far more common than in any known human society.

Some individuals are greedier than others, if that's what you mean.

Our moral capacity arose from the tension between individual survival and reproduction and the survival and competitive position of the community.

And yet...

Women prefer greedy men who control more resources.

You are dreaming.

Only if he overstepped the bounds of accepted behavior.

 

Dreaming? Damn I had really bad anthropology profs in the early 70s!

Sorry but the primitives we studied were not dog eat dog within the tribe. Of course the field research could have been lying? And the films a set up.

Are we identical to other primates? We share some similarities .

 

How does someone accumulating massive wealth prevent anyone else from doing the same?

 

Several ways.

But let's look at the consequence, before the virus, the number of people escaping poverty had slowed to a crawl, and the trend was for that to get even worse.

 

Sorry you won't accept reality

 

1) You're right. I have no idea why someone who isn't buying and selling apartments - and doesn't plan to - cares about what those in that game are doing. They're individuals making free choices about how to spend their money, just as you are. If it concerns you that much, why don't you just enter the game and play it your way?

2) What is 'the obvious', please? I wouldn't have asked you for your definition of income inequality if I knew what it was.

 

Reality is complicated, you know what that means.

 

You have no interest in learning.

In the wildly improbable event you change your mind, you know where to start.

 

Who determines what others need or deserve? Who determines what a “fair share” is?

 

I can’t believe humans would evolve as any other animal fighting tooth and nail without thought of others, lose that “greed” while in tribal civilization, and re-aquire it in ten thousand years or so of social development after introduction of agriculture. Just isn’t logical and highly unlikely from a biological perspective.

It’s more likely heightened thought and reason is what has allowed us to NOT all be greedy bastards. I think you can see evidence of that in the reality of things like riots etc. where rational thought decreases, propensity to violence, greed and other basal animal instincts increases.

 

Piling up a surplus which your 'tribe' can never use, is different. But it's not sociopathic, it's a function of opportunity. We have the technology to do it, so we do. Animals don't avoid stockpiles because they're have some kind of moral compass, they simply don't have the means to acquire very much more than they can use.

We agree that seeking non-essential stockpiles isn't good for humanity or the planet, but it's the end result of so many demanding it. When we demand to be able to purchase goods and services we don't want to provide for ourselves, this is what we get. Your choices are a) don't demand purchased goods and services, or b) accept that stockpiling is your preferred state.

 

Weak justification for greed IMO as well as the opinion of most religions.

So if many are demanding resources yet s few stockpile what they can never use , this isn't really greed? For what they stockpile isn't enough to feed everyone anyways ? Is that your rationale? Or are you trying to protect the greedy for they deserve what they piled up?