How Billionaires Got $637 Billion Richer During The Pandemic

[Jordan Welsh]

 

 

 

Highly stage orange structured society. what are your thoughts?

[Preety_India]

They always get rich by preying on the miseries of people. Now selling vaccines will make them rich. Meanwhile poor get poorer. I observed that whenever things go bad in this world, the rich get richer. Good for them. They devised money making in such a way that It's heads, they win, it's tails, we lose. 

In any case they win

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Preety_India

[Tim R]

@Preety_India

11 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

In any case they win

Mathew 25, 29:

"For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away."

 

Welp. That's what happens in late stage capitalism, nothing particularly surprising. They will get even richer lol.

Until they have taken everything they could get their greedy paws on - and then this whole structure will simply collapse like a house of cards. When there's nothing to take and nothing to spend, their money will become worthless.

Unless they invest in public structures - which would basically be the transition towards a green(er) economy and society. 

[LfcCharlie4]

Lockdowns are a luxury of the rich. 

While Big Tech grows to astronomical levels your average person is struggling to keep their small business open, losing their job, their mental health being destroyed, especially with no end in sight. 

All while those who are encouraging & promoting Lockdown are doing so from their Ivory Towers, drinking from their $1000 bottle of Champagne. Oh well.

 

[Preety_India]

7 minutes ago, Tim R said:

Mathew 25, 29:

"For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away."

I don't think this passage meant the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. 

Maybe it has different interpretations. 

I always thought it meant that if you have more faith, and you give more, more will be given as gifts from heaven and if your faith is little, even this little faith will be tested and destroyed. 

But I'm not sure. Only true theologians can explain that quote 

 

 

[aurum]

@Jordan Welsh

Yes, this kind of inequality is inevitable given how our systems are set up.

Previously, we've been able to hold off inequality from rising too high with economic growth. But as I've said many times on this forum, I see that those times are largely coming to an end.

There's also the question of the actual structure of money itself with leads to inequality. Since money holds its value over time, the more money I accumulate, the more money it helps me accumulate in the future. Thus, accumulation, hoarding and "greed" are incentivized.

However, you could have money that decreases in value over time, e.g negative interest rates. We may be heading there  anyway as the Feds realize they cannot raise rates.

[Jordan Welsh]

In some ways & to a degree I highly agree with what has been mentioned among the commentary although I wouldn’t put all billionaires in the same boat. Bill Gates compared to Jeff Bezos is a saint in terms of charity work especially funding nutrition & education programmes for the down trodden in underdeveloped 3rd world countries. There is a spectrum of moral development that needs to be taken into account.

[Jordan Welsh]

Here’s another example in a positive light:

 

 

 

[Tim R]

22 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

I don't think this passage meant the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. 

@Preety_India Haha yes, it doesn't explicitly and only mean that. But it also means that. Because if you are rich, you will get richer since you have the means to get richer. And if you're poor, the rich will take what you have because you're poor and they're rich. 

It's called the "Mathew-Principle" and it's applicable in many, many fields. Art for example: if you're a good artist, you sell well. The better you sell, the more attention you attract. And that sets up a feedback loop by which you'll get more and more famous and successful - equally, any other artist who doesn't do as well, won't be able to keep up with your success and therefore simply drowns in the ocean of competition.

"Pareto distribution" is also a key word btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

[Jordan Welsh]

Didn’t anticipate how potentially controversial this discussion could get although I appreciate everyone’s opinion.

[Gesundheit]

Capitalism is designed to further enrich the rich, and further impoverish the poor. It keeps expanding the gaps between the three major classes, until society becomes feudal, which is the next stage. And that is guaranteed regardless of the circumstances.

[Jake Johnson]

Millions unemployed, hungry, homeless or on the verge of homlessness, yet the roughly 600 American billionaires become $637 billion richer. Is anyone beginnIng to get a handle on conservative priorites?

Edited January 23, 2021 by Jake Johnson

[Preety_India]

9 hours ago, datamonster said:

Actually, over the last century living conditions and quality of life have improved almost everywhere. Good book on point: Factfulness by Hans Rosling.

That's because of education, technology and people moving to cities with clean water, housing and in general people making better choices for living. 

However the quality of financial situation is rapidly declining because of capitalism. 

My parents could easily afford a house. The younger generation can't. 

Back in the day, what they had, kids can't have these days. 

People are getting poorer. 

I see it with my colleagues. Their parents could afford a decent education for kids. Whereas they struggle to make ends meet. 

Most young people are afraid to start families because of financial reasons. 

Financially, things are getting tough. 

And now the pandemic brought a new low. 

Capitalism is definitely doing a lot of harm to the financial state of the world. 

 

[Preety_India]

11 minutes ago, datamonster said:

@Preety_India It's way too easy to blame "capitalism" for the misfortune you see in the world.

You're blinded by capitalism. 

You don't see its evils. 

[Jordan Welsh]

The society of the future will not be rather socialism or capitalism meaning 100% either or but a mixture to ensure economic opportunity as well as innovation. This is while simultaneously incorporating humanitarian values & understanding for our fellow human being’s through carefully planned societal systems which have learnt from the mistakes of the past that lead to human suffering.

. This video has a quality outlook & educational foundation to formulate a comprehensive picture:

 

 

[Michal__]

LOA (doesn't have to be done consciously, just the fact that they're already rich contributes) + being smart + not so high morals in some cases

[No Self]

Just to offer a different perspective:

Given Elon Musk's ultimate vision entails saving humanity via clean energy and multiplanetary habitation, having him emerge as the world's richest person is a radical change from bygone decades when it was fossil fuel peddlers and the like at the top. At least innovation is being rewarded and encouraged, rather than amoral ruthlessness.

That said, I'm all for taxing the wealthy. It's very hard to do this as they will simply change locations or use other trickery. 

[Consept]

4 hours ago, datamonster said:

@Preety_India It's way too easy to blame "capitalism" for the misfortune you see in the world.

The thing with capitalism is that its just not played fairly, there a massive corporations that pay minuscule tax and can even consciously avoid it through offshores and clever accounting, that is a direct result of just having the money to do it. This is not the case for the average person of course who cant avoid tax. On top of that having money can get you political power, better justice, education, these things should be equal regardless of wealth, by them not being equal the gap grows even larger. Youve also got average wages which dont even raise at the same rate of inflation, whereas the owner class income constantly rises, bailouts if big businesses go under etc etc.

Speaking objectively, the way our brand of capitalism plays it is simply unfair, if you believe in capitalism then it should at least play by its own rules, if it doesnt then its no better than any other system that is taken advantage of by the rich. The only thing capitalism has over other systems is it gives slight hope that you can move into the owner class, this keeps people working hard everyday with that hope in mind, that one day im gonna be there even though 98% of people wont be. Other systems dont really offer that. But essentially its a pyramid scheme 

Edited January 23, 2021 by Consept

[Consept]

Just now, datamonster said:

It's the average person who works as a financial analyst at the corporation who makes the business case to move the company's HQ to a tax haven and an it's an average manager who approves.

Don't blame some mystical corporation or all-mighty force called Capitalism. Average people are corporations. Average people are capitalism.

Its not about the corporation or the average person, my point is that there are holes in capitalism that allow average people, who are motivated by success to take advantage of these loopholes. Their success is based on how much money they can make or save for the owner class. So really its to do with government closing these loopholes which they might not be incentivised to do because their funding is from the owner class usually 

 

[Consept]

3 minutes ago, datamonster said:

If average people can become successful through motivation and hard work, that's kinda great, isn't it?

The problem I see is that precisely this is not always possible. Some people just cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps no matter how hard they work. This is something that we should strive to fix.

Right so thats my point, why do you think people cant be successful no matter how hard they work?