Capitalism is a system like all others that need's balance for it to thrive.
Like other systems, it gets out of balance - excessive accumulation of wealth, exploitation of workers, supported by conspicuous consumption (used to be a bad word, but now what our economy is built upon).
So, there is enough blame to hit the entire chain of participants...from the greedy owner not willing to share the excesses to their exploited worker, who is addicted to the cheap goods he/she helps sell.
So go ahead blame those who control capital, but also the rest who are addicted to what they pimp.
There we go. This is a big part of what I was getting at.
France and America have been intertwined for all of our history. And it was voting and counting that played a part in a certain revolution they had, maybe it's time for a repeat?
The familiar trope that if someone is rich then someone else must be poor, because life is a zero sum game ad the only way to get rich (at least richer than you are) is by stealing from those worse off.
The whole of human history disproves this. We are immensely better of than generations before, thriving collectively as individuals advance technology, culture, and intellectual life...and are rewarded for it. Exactly zero of the world's problems are the result of too many rich people.
Not going to happen. People with that kind of wealth can afford the financial advice to defend it. Squeeze them all you like, best you can do is drive them out of the country. Like Richard Branson. Or all five Rolling Stones. Or David Bowie or John Lennon or Marc Bolan or Phil Collins or Rod Stewart or just about every successful F1 driver or...
More mythology. If the people working at Walmart would be better off not working at Walmart they can quit any time. They'd still be on public assistance.
Or working at a better job...which most of them can't get...or they would. Walmart can't force them to work there. Walmart hires entry-level people. They serve a public (maybe one you have nothing but contempt for*, but they're real people) that benefits enormously from the low-cost goods they sell or they wouldn't be shopping there. They have agency, they could be spending their last dimes buying organic arugula hand-picked by an urban collective on a rooftop in Brooklyn, but they'd rather eat more than one meal.
You want them better-paid, but you of all people should understand that work doesn't just have a cost, it has a value. If the cost exceeds the valueâto the employerâit will eventually be eliminated.
Someone stocking shelves in Walmart isn't adding very much value. They are paid accordingly. Want to be paid more? Learn to do something that's worth more. That can happen at Walmart or it can happen somewhere else, but it starts with the realization that people pay what something is worth to them, not what it's worth to you.
If you disagree feel free to saunter over to your nearest Walmart, approach the first employee you see, and offer him/her $100K a year and a cadillac health insurance policy to mow your lawn once a week. Not doing so makes you a monster!
No, I think they insulate themselves from criticism (to the extent they do) by keeping their opinions to themselves. In Besos' case he keeps WaPo the reliably left-leaning publication that its audience expects. Branson stays out of politics and Virgin Media is a nothingburger. That doesn't mean they don't have opinions you'd disapprove of, it means they haven't shared them with you.
And you aren't just criticizing the mythology around Musk*, you're criticizing him. And your vehemence seems as irrational to me as his fanbois' exuberance. He'll succeed or fail. Failure will punish him plenty if it happens. If he succeeds he won't care that you hate him. Nor should he.
Your admission reveals more than you meant to: Jeff Bezos' success drove the success of many others. You certainly aren't alone; there are many many things we use everyday taking advantage of Amazon Web Services. Services that stay up even when the power fails at headquarters, web sites that are more scalable, less vulnerable, overall more robust and cheaper to run because of innovations he pioneered and/or implemented at scale. He got rich making other peoples' lives better. As did Bill Gates and the Waltons and Walt Disney.
Most of the items for sale on Amazon aren't things Amazon makes or retails, they're things sold by third parties who use Amazon's marketing and sales features. Everything from mom&pop shops to Fortune 500 companies making a living thru Amazon's sales channels. Many of those folks wouldn't have businesses if they had to build all that themselves. They concentrate on what they're good at, Amazon does what it's good at, and both prosper. You know...the division of labor. Capitalism.
* A lot of the criticism of Walmart and its clientele is disgustingly classist.
**I have no idea how much of that he's responsible for and I'm not going to start reading twitter to find out.
More stuff not said. This really should be in the tax thread, but as a quicky. Really wealthy people got that way by getting advantages of working within our system. I don't think it's that unfair to ask them to pay the top rate, and certainly not have their marginal rates be notably smaller than most of the people working for them. I'm not talking about confiscation, or them having money depriving anyone else, simply - pay taxes at a similar rate as everyone else.
ugh... a lot more there, I may get back to this later, but no promise.
Capitalism is a system like all others that need's balance for it to thrive.
Like other systems, it gets out of balance - excessive accumulation of wealth, exploitation of workers, supported by conspicuous consumption (used to be a bad word, but now what our economy is built upon).
So, there is enough blame to hit the entire chain of participants...from the greedy owner not willing to share the excesses to their exploited worker, who is addicted to the cheap goods he/she helps sell.
So go ahead blame those who control capital, but also the rest who are addicted to what they pimp.
The sheer amount of shoddy garbage is astounding. What kind of trade policy thrives on filling the world and landfills with useless and worthless crap?
Capitalism is a system like all others that need's balance for it to thrive.
Like other systems, it gets out of balance - excessive accumulation of wealth, exploitation of workers, supported by conspicuous consumption (used to be a bad word, but now what our economy is built upon).
So, there is enough blame to hit the entire chain of participants...from the greedy owner not willing to share the excesses to their exploited worker, who is addicted to the cheap goods he/she helps sell.
So go ahead blame those who control capital, but also the rest who are addicted to what they pimp.
Most of the items for sale on Amazon aren't things Amazon makes or retails, they're things sold by third parties who use Amazon's marketing and sales features. Everything from mom&pop shops to Fortune 500 companies making a living thru Amazon's sales channels. Many of those folks wouldn't have businesses if they had to build all that themselves. They concentrate on what they're good at, Amazon does what it's good at, and both prosper. You know...the division of labor. Capitalism.
OR they're made (printed) and sold by Amazon with royalties to ...ME.
Wtf? Look at the title of the thread. But sure, Bezos is horrible person as well. Paul Allen is dead. I actually don't know much about Branson, but Yes, if you've accumulated 10s of billions of dollars, I think you've taken advantage of people/situations/systems and exploited them in ways that are not moral.
Yeah: mythology. Your post is steeped in it.
The familiar trope that if someone is rich then someone else must be poor, because life is a zero sum game ad the only way to get rich (at least richer than you are) is by stealing from those worse off.
The whole of human history disproves this. We are immensely better of than generations before, thriving collectively as individuals advance technology, culture, and intellectual life...and are rewarded for it. Exactly zero of the world's problems are the result of too many rich people.
Couple of other counterpoints to arguments I didn't make. a) Not asking them to fund Medicare outright. Just asking them to pay a similar tax burden (yes percentage wise) as everyone else. Seems fair as we can point to the benefit they have realized from our system easily - Their billion dollar stacks of wealth.
Not going to happen. People with that kind of wealth can afford the financial advice to defend it. Squeeze them all you like, best you can do is drive them out of the country. Like Richard Branson. Or all five Rolling Stones. Or David Bowie or John Lennon or Marc Bolan or Phil Collins or Rod Stewart or just about every successful F1 driver or...
Also, not just taxes - Many of the people working for the Walton family are on public assistance due to their low wages. So we - all of us collectively are paying to support the workers for the wealthiest family in America. This is not moral. And back to health care - how about providing it, or paying their workers enough to afford it?
More mythology. If the people working at Walmart would be better off not working at Walmart they can quit any time. They'd still be on public assistance.
Or working at a better job...which most of them can't get...or they would. Walmart can't force them to work there. Walmart hires entry-level people. They serve a public (maybe one you have nothing but contempt for*, but they're real people) that benefits enormously from the low-cost goods they sell or they wouldn't be shopping there. They have agency, they could be spending their last dimes buying organic arugula hand-picked by an urban collective on a rooftop in Brooklyn, but they'd rather eat more than one meal.
You want them better-paid, but you of all people should understand that work doesn't just have a cost, it has a value. If the cost exceeds the valueâto the employerâit will eventually be eliminated.
Someone stocking shelves in Walmart isn't adding very much value. They are paid accordingly. Want to be paid more? Learn to do something that's worth more. That can happen at Walmart or it can happen somewhere else, but it starts with the realization that people pay what something is worth to them, not what it's worth to you.
If you disagree feel free to saunter over to your nearest Walmart, approach the first employee you see, and offer him/her $100K a year and a cadillac health insurance policy to mow your lawn once a week. Not doing so makes you a monster!
I don't blame him for any of the 'troubles in the world' (except maybe the proliferation of asshole fanbois on the internet). I simply take issue with the idea(s) that he founded tesla, designs rockets for space x, has single handedly 'saved' twitter/X, is some kind of 4d chess playing business genius.
And yes, he gets criticism directly when he makes a statement demanding "sub 10 micron" tolerances on large pieces of stainless steel. You think somehow owning Virgin Media /WaPo has insulated Bezos and Branson? Musk owns Twitter / X, I think that qualifies. You just don't see the other two seeking the spotlight to make stupid statements all the time.
No, I think they insulate themselves from criticism (to the extent they do) by keeping their opinions to themselves. In Besos' case he keeps WaPo the reliably left-leaning publication that its audience expects. Branson stays out of politics and Virgin Media is a nothingburger. That doesn't mean they don't have opinions you'd disapprove of, it means they haven't shared them with you.
And you aren't just criticizing the mythology around Musk*, you're criticizing him. And your vehemence seems as irrational to me as his fanbois' exuberance. He'll succeed or fail. Failure will punish him plenty if it happens. If he succeeds he won't care that you hate him. Nor should he.
So to summarize - I think we have too many billionaires, and they should probably pay a lot more in taxes. No, that won't solve all of our problems. Most billionaires* have taken advantage of people in things and ways that are not moral. I think societies like the Netherlands do things a lot better. Much more sense of common goals and less selfishness (and willingness to pay taxes), makes a nicer society.
*Most people with extreme wealth - Don't know exactly where to draw the line, but yes I'll include myself in that pile to some extent. Certainly orders of magnitude smaller than most we are talking about, but yes I'm against the system that got me to where I am now (and Mr. Bezos was a part of that).
Your admission reveals more than you meant to: Jeff Bezos' success drove the success of many others. You certainly aren't alone; there are many many things we use everyday taking advantage of Amazon Web Services. Services that stay up even when the power fails at headquarters, web sites that are more scalable, less vulnerable, overall more robust and cheaper to run because of innovations he pioneered and/or implemented at scale. He got rich making other peoples' lives better. As did Bill Gates and the Waltons and Walt Disney.
Most of the items for sale on Amazon aren't things Amazon makes or retails, they're things sold by third parties who use Amazon's marketing and sales features. Everything from mom&pop shops to Fortune 500 companies making a living thru Amazon's sales channels. Many of those folks wouldn't have businesses if they had to build all that themselves. They concentrate on what they're good at, Amazon does what it's good at, and both prosper. You know...the division of labor. Capitalism.
* A lot of the criticism of Walmart and its clientele is disgustingly classist.
**I have no idea how much of that he's responsible for and I'm not going to start reading twitter to find out.
So to summarize - I think we have too many billionaires, and they should probably pay a lot more in taxes. No, that won't solve all of our problems. Most billionaires* have taken advantage of people in things and ways that are not moral. I think societies like the Netherlands do things a lot better. Much more sense of common goals and less selfishness (and willingness to pay taxes), makes a nicer society.
*Most people with extreme wealth - Don't know exactly where to draw the line, but yes I'll include myself in that pile to some extent. Certainly orders of magnitude smaller than most we are talking about, but yes I'm against the system that got me to where I am now (and Mr. Bezos was a part of that).
If you want to feel better... I'll put some of those Amazon options to good use.
Buffett and Gates have been saying for years that they should pay more in taxes... but as you point out, the resistance comes at lower levels. There are definitely opportunities to raise revenue with absolutely no impact on the lives of those paying more.
They don't. not really. They are holding very tight tolerances (I've heard everything from 1 micronâbullshitâto 40 microns, and Lego won't say) but they are holding it over a several-orders-of-magnitude shorter distance. They are also working with a material with 10X the CTE of steel, so give them that.
So I tried t find some Legos to measure to see what my calipers tell me but I couldn't find a single one. Even tried walking around the house barefoot, but the kids have been gone too long.
Jeff Besos' Blue Origin has a was to go to catch up. Virgin Gallactic (despite being funded by another billionaire, Richard Branson) just launched its first commercial cargo.
You don't hate him, but you give a mighty fine impression of someone who does. Do you feel the same towards Besos and Branson? They both own media companies too; Besos owns WaPo, Branson owns Virgin Media (what, you never heard of Virgin Media? No? I hadn't either).
You haven't mentioned why you think them being rich deprives other people of healthcare and food for their families, but the usual complaint is that they don't pay enough taxes. Maybe if we taxed them all into poverty we'd all get healthcare and food, because that's how that works, right?
Between the four of them their net worth is about $408B, That would fund federal healthcare benefits* for about 8 months. For one year.
Fetishizing Musk is stupid, but so is blaming him for all the troubles in the world. And if he gets blame for everything that goes wrong at any of his companies shouldn't he get credit for everything that goes right?
*In the form of Medicaid; trying to be as generous as possible to the premise, ignoring all the other programs. Medicare, for instance, is 30% more expensive than Medicaid.
Wtf? Look at the title of the thread. But sure, Bezos is horrible person as well. Paul Allen is dead. I actually don't know much about Branson, but Yes, if you've accumulated 10s of billions of dollars, I think you've taken advantage of people/situations/systems and exploited them in ways that are not moral.
Couple of other counterpoints to arguments I didn't make. a) Not asking them to fund Medicare outright. Just asking them to pay a similar tax burden (yes percentage wise) as everyone else. Seems fair as we can point to the benefit they have realized from our system easily - Their billion dollar stacks of wealth.
Also, not just taxes - Many of the people working for the Walton family are on public assistance due to their low wages. So we - all of us collectively are paying to support the workers for the wealthiest family in America. This is not moral. And back to health care - how about providing it, or paying their workers enough to afford it?
I don't blame him for any of the 'troubles in the world' (except maybe the proliferation of asshole fanbois on the internet). I simply take issue with the idea(s) that he founded tesla, designs rockets for space x, has single handedly 'saved' twitter/X, is some kind of 4d chess playing business genius.
And yes, he gets criticism directly when he makes a statement demanding "sub 10 micron" tolerances on large pieces of stainless steel. You think somehow owning Virgin Media /WaPo has insulated Bezos and Branson? Musk owns Twitter / X, I think that qualifies. You just don't see the other two seeking the spotlight to make stupid statements all the time.
So to summarize - I think we have too many billionaires, and they should probably pay a lot more in taxes. No, that won't solve all of our problems. Most billionaires* have taken advantage of people in things and ways that are not moral. I think societies like the Netherlands do things a lot better. Much more sense of common goals and less selfishness (and willingness to pay taxes), makes a nicer society.
*Most people with extreme wealth - Don't know exactly where to draw the line, but yes I'll include myself in that pile to some extent. Certainly orders of magnitude smaller than most we are talking about, but yes I'm against the system that got me to where I am now (and Mr. Bezos was a part of that).
