RE: 1% own half the world's wealth

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GoddessManko -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/22/2015 8:33:12 PM)
Kirata, you do realize socialism can take on thousands of definitions right and there isn't a country in the world without it? Just double checking.

Kirata -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/22/2015 8:47:07 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: GoddessManko Kirata, you do realize socialism can take on thousands of definitions... So can "racism," but they don't negate the Standard English definition. In order to have an intelligent discussion, the words being used have to mean the same thing to everybody. Otherwise you're down a fucking rabbit hole. You know, kinda like we are now. K.

tweakabelle -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 2:01:32 AM)
Who cares whether proposals for change are this -ism or that -ism? Or whether the ideas proposed conform to the dictionary definiton of this -ism or that -ism? The point is to find ideas and proposals that will work. The current situation - with wealth increasingly concentrated in the hands of the very few at the expense of the very many - is unsustainable. It is undesirable that such enormous obscene disparities of wealth and power are allowed to continue. Even if one finds no fault with the existing arrangements, one could argue for change if only to maintain the status quo with minimal changes. If current polarising trends continue, then a violent bloody redistribution of wealth seems inevitable sooner or later. Across the world, hundreds of millions of people eke out an existence on less than $2 per day while the fortunate few wallow in billions. It is unconscionable that some individuals are allowed to garner huge fortunes while others die every day for lack of food potable drinking water housing or elementary medicine. Even at a purely economic level, the loss of talent and potential is unpardonable. In the language of discredited free market economics, the current arrangements are inefficient and do not lend themselves to an optimal use of resources and capital. If the great mass of people are left without any stake in the system, why should they care whether the system endures or collapses? Is there any one who is arguing that the current arrangements are the best possible and should be allowed to continue without any substantial changes to make access to resources and wealth more democratic? So the problem is not a lack of resources or wealth but how existing resources and wealth is distributed. How then should we arrange things so that resources and wealth are put to use to benefit 100% of the population instead of 1%?

Staleek -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 3:47:51 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: Staleek But do you know where most of his labour will go? You're just making shit up. After salaries, health insurance, retirement plans, materials, marketing, energy costs, taxes, etc., most of the return on his labor has been spent. http://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_ManagementEffectiveness.php?ind=404 http://csimarket.com/Industry/Industry_Profitability.php?ind=404 K. Yes, but most of that stuff you're talking about (health insurance, retirement, materials etc etc) are all subject to the same institutional structure, thus all of them have resources and income being leeched off them by financial institutions which have done exactly nothing to earn it. The complaint made against unemployment related welfare is that it sets up a moral hazard - you are giving people money for doing nothing, and unearned income is bad. Why is this different? Ok, there are some important differences. For example, if you give money to an unemployed person he will be forced to spend it all, thus adding value to work and the economy (creating jobs). If you give money to, for example, Mitt Romney (through Bain Capital), he will just stash it in a tax haven or use it to buy up yet more "assets", further adding to the problem. As long as people are able to make money from money the problem of wealth inequality will not only persist but will get worse. A child could see why.

bounty44 -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 5:39:27 AM)
"...If you give money to, for example, Mitt Romney (through Bain Capital), he will just stash it in a tax haven or use it to buy up yet more "assets", further adding to the problem." except for that on the whole, rich people invest their money (for a variety of reasons) back into the economy in some way. they hire more workers, they create new businesses, they invent things and even when they invest it in your "tax havens" that money is actually in the economy, being invested in the ways I just previously listed. you appear to not know what investment companies do. in the instance that you are alluding to wrongly, here's a good rundown of the actual numbers: "Among Bain Capital’s investments under Romney, the large job creators are clearly Staples and Sports Authority. Both of these were small, young companies when Bain Capital invested in them. Bain invested in Staples when it had only one store, so there were likely fewer than 200 employees at the time. Bain appears to have invested in the Sports Authority when it had fewer than ten stores. "At the end of 1998, Staples had more than 42,000 employees, Sports Authority had almost 14,000, Gartner Group had almost 3,000, and Steel Dynamics had over 500. So at the beginning of 1999, when Romney left Bain Capital, these four companies alone employed almost 60,000 total employees. "Bain Capital also successfully turned around several existing businesses during Romney’s tenure. For example, Bain Capital bought Wesley Jessen Vision Care for $6 million in 1994. It had been a division of Schering Plough and was not profitable. Bain Capital and a new CEO turned it around and sold it to Ciba Geigy for over $300 million in 2001. When it was sold, it appears to have had 2,600 employees. Today, the company is part of Ciba Vision. "Overall, then, the companies Bain Capital funded under Romney have created tens of thousands of jobs using any measure." http://www.aei.org/publication/how-many-jobs-did-romney-create-at-bain/

bounty44 -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 5:54:58 AM)
oh, and in terms of your "if you give money to an unemployed person he will be forced to spend it all, thus adding value to work and the economy..." there is no "value" added to the economy. all you have done is moved money around from one place to another, and that after the government takes a good portion of it itself for the privilege of helping. nothing has been "added." Nancy Pelosi was soundly mocked for that same sentiment. "In the words of Gateway Pundit, “Only a government bureaucrat would think paying someone for not working is a job creator.”"

Lucylastic -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 5:56:30 AM)
32 trillion dollars in safe havens is not feeding the economy its not the poor hiding their money. http://moneymorning.com/2013/05/01/check-out-whos-hiding-32-trillion-in-offshore-accounts/ More than two million emails that shed light on the biggest tax dodge in history – trillions of dollars hidden in offshore accounts – have been uncovered by the British newspaper The Guardian and the Washington, D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Some $32 trillion has been hidden in small island banking hubs which host a bevy of trust funds, shell corporations and other tax havens, the Tax Justice Network estimates. This money is to the financial world what the Higgs boson and dark matter are to particle physics: It's tough to prove it's there, but the universe doesn't make much sense without it. It's just a matter of connecting the money to the people hiding it. AND http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-29/billionaires-flee-havens-as-trillions-pursued-offshore.html According to Tax Justice Network, a U.K.-based organization that campaigns for transparency in the financial system, wealthy individuals were hiding as much as $32 trillion offshore at the end of 2010. Fewer than 100,000 people own $9.8 trillion of offshore assets, according to research compiled by former McKinsey & Co. economist James Henry. PS when do you people get that this is global not simply the US using just US addicts, the poor, the sick and the working class is more than idiotic, its wilful ignorance.

Staleek -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:02:26 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: bounty44 oh, and in terms of your "if you give money to an unemployed person he will be forced to spend it all, thus adding value to work and the economy..." there is no "value" added to the economy. all you have done is moved money around from one place to another, and that after the government takes a good portion of it itself for the privilege of helping. nothing has been "added." Yes there is. "Value" is work produced, whether that is goods produced or produce grown such as phones, computers, cars, tomatoes etc, whether services are rendered such as appliances repaired, sick people looked after, cables laid down, roads repaired, trains driven etc. All of those things are of economic "value", money which is NOT being used is actually useless. If you give money to an unemployed person he will spend it on clothes, or food, or get stuff done with it. All of which employs people. If you give money to someone who has so much he can't even spend it all you do is add to inflation and the income disparity. Money is NOT the same thing as value! quote: Nancy Pelosi was soundly mocked for that same sentiment. "In the words of Gateway Pundit, “Only a government bureaucrat would think paying someone for not working is a job creator.”" She was mocked by a deplorably partisan free-market media which as a very clear vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

tweakabelle -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:05:47 AM)
Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz explains why growing inequality is bad for the economy and society in general: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2014/07/30/4057169.htm

GoddessManko -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:08:45 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: GoddessManko Kirata, you do realize socialism can take on thousands of definitions... So can "racism," but they don't negate the Standard English definition. In order to have an intelligent discussion, the words being used have to mean the same thing to everybody. Otherwise you're down a fucking rabbit hole. You know, kinda like we are now. K. So you equate prejudice to official economic terms? Or was this an attempt to actually get an emotional response from me? LMAO!!!! Uhm, this is like comparing apples and Uranus.

Musicmystery -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:15:18 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: bounty44 on the whole, rich people invest their money (for a variety of reasons) back into the economy in some way. they hire more workers, they create new businesses, they invent things and even when they invest it in your "tax havens" that money is actually in the economy, being invested in the ways I just previously listed. While it's true that tax breaks go into the economy, tax havens are often off-shore, and do not help the US economy. Nor, in the case of off shore banks, do they necessarily go into any economy, unless re-loaned. If it's parked, it does nothing. That's been the difficulty since the 2007 crash -- do to uncertainties from poor derivatives bundling/accounting, nobody knew who/what was solvent, and since the 2000s saw the economy twice bailed out via monetary policy instead of fixing structural fiscal problems, fed interest rates were near zero, making money unusually cheap to hang on to. So banks and businesses did exactly that, drying up credit and slowing the economy. Before the 1980s, the wealthy had high incentive to invest, given the progressive tax structure in place. The implementation of "Trickle Down" Theory was based on the believe that we were at the crest of the Lauffer curve (an assumption based on no data), meaning that with extra cash, the wealthy would invest more, stimulating the entire economy. But we weren't at that point, so there was a net savings, money parked in wealth, rather than re-circulating, creating the widest income inequality ever, one that has worsened since doubling down on Reagan's mistake by the fiscally ignorant Bush, supported by those pushing the de facto construction of a US Oligarchy. So no. Money is reinvested, but there is substantial leakage, creating the current "two economies" in the US, one growing at the top, the other stagnant in the middle and lower quintiles, while real wages continue to drop. Incidentally, if you want to make that big picture argument, taxing people and having government fund projects also puts that money back into the economy, hiring workers, etc. The situation is difficult, and not likely to improve. That's why I also encourage people to consider entrepreneurship, even if at a shoe-string cottage level.

Sanity -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:24:21 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Who cares whether proposals for change are this -ism or that -ism? Or whether the ideas proposed conform to the dictionary definiton of this -ism or that -ism? The point is to find ideas and proposals that will work. The current situation - with wealth increasingly concentrated in the hands of the very few at the expense of the very many - is unsustainable. It is undesirable that such enormous obscene disparities of wealth and power are allowed to continue. Even if one finds no fault with the existing arrangements, one could argue for change if only to maintain the status quo with minimal changes. If current polarising trends continue, then a violent bloody redistribution of wealth seems inevitable sooner or later. Across the world, hundreds of millions of people eke out an existence on less than $2 per day while the fortunate few wallow in billions. It is unconscionable that some individuals are allowed to garner huge fortunes while others die every day for lack of food potable drinking water housing or elementary medicine. Even at a purely economic level, the loss of talent and potential is unpardonable. In the language of discredited free market economics, the current arrangements are inefficient and do not lend themselves to an optimal use of resources and capital. If the great mass of people are left without any stake in the system, why should they care whether the system endures or collapses? Is there any one who is arguing that the current arrangements are the best possible and should be allowed to continue without any substantial changes to make access to resources and wealth more democratic? So the problem is not a lack of resources or wealth but how existing resources and wealth is distributed. How then should we arrange things so that resources and wealth are put to use to benefit 100% of the population instead of 1%? Your brand of rabid socialism has always made things much worse wherever it has been tried. At least with capitalism, people have an opportunity to become one of those billionaires because people like you who severely punish success and try to reward failure, are held at bay Many of the poor who make up your statistics live in places like Cuba or Venezuela and are made as poor and as desperate as they are, by the very medicine you prescribe Many others who are desperately poor must bow before Islamists or other vicious warlords and dictators, or they are heavily into substance abuse etc None of which is the fault of the successful, or capitalism. And none of which are helped by reducing the successful down to their level through socialism In fact history shows again and again how your ideals only make things much worse for everyone affected

Musicmystery -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:27:11 AM)
As others have pointed out already, that argument is weak in the light of a government bail out too big to fail socialist rewards for failed wealthy enterprises system.

Sanity -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:31:16 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Staleek If you give money to an unemployed person he will spend it on clothes, or food, or get stuff done with it. All of which employs people. If you give money to someone who has so much he can't even spend it all you do is add to inflation and the income disparity. Money is NOT the same thing as value! At some point, giving money to the unemployed is no longer helping them through a tight spot. At some point it becomes rewarding laziness, or setting them (and society itself) up for ultimate failure

Musicmystery -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:33:42 AM)
...and the same is true of giving money to failed large financial institutions and too big to fail corporations. It props up a poor business model and rewards short-sighted thinking.

bounty44 -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:34:55 AM)
here's a sort of bottom line that makes talking about this challenging. to the left, since they are not free market capitalists, income inequality is inherently evil. to the right, it is a natural occurrence of competition. the left's solution is to get the government involved to make laws, to regulate, to confiscate and redistribute, to punish the wealthy, etc. the problem with that is, and leftists fail to recognize it, is that government intervention (meddling) actually creates the conditions that make it tougher for the poor to gain wealth. the countries around the world that are doing the best, are the ones who are the most economically free

Zonie63 -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:35:05 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: Zonie63 quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri That's just it, Gauge. The bank bailouts, Wall Street bailouts, the GM and Chrysler bailouts, and the big business bailouts ARE counter-productive, even though he may not have been talking about those things. The worst thing that happens is blaming that shit on Capitalism. Those bailouts aren't pillars of Capitalism. Loss IS a pillar and is about as important as profits. You take either one out, and you no longer have Capitalism. I think you indirectly answered this point with what you said in your previous post: quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri I think you can trust every politician to do what's best for him/herself and for future elections. I think the same could be said for every capitalist, in that they'll support whatever is best for him/herself and their company, even if what they support doesn't coincide with the ideological tenets of capitalism. Capitalism's only real principle is to make more money; it doesn't matter how. Capitalists have no principles, no morals, no sense of right and wrong whatsoever. Not much different from politicians, actually, except that politicians still have to answer to the people every few years, whereas capitalists do not. We disagree that Capitalists have no principles, morals or sense of right and wrong. Yes, we do disagree on that. Where we actually disagree is on the idea that capitalists are really that much different than politicians, at least on a global scale. In the U.S. experience, capitalists have probably been worse than politicians, at least in the sense of understanding right and wrong. No capitalist ever said that slavery was wrong; it took a movement led by citizen politicians (the kind who weren't born with silver spoons in their mouths) to do that. No capitalist ever said that child labor was wrong; it took political actions to end that. It's pretty much the same story for monopolies, anti-trust, environmental regulations, workplace safety, labor rights, minimum wage, etc. - all of that had to be forced by the politicians (who had more big picture concerns to worry about), while the capitalists were kicking and screaming every step of the way. (In the case of slavery, they fought the most devastating war in U.S. history just to prove a point about how far they're willing to go for money. That is the true face of capitalism.) Even to this very day, capitalists are still grumbling about these things imposed upon them by "Big Gov," and their actions (such as outsourcing, offshore accounts, etc.) would imply a somewhat spiteful and retaliatory attitude towards America and its people. quote: And, Capitalists tend to have to "answer to the people" (consumers) every day. Yet they have call centers in India to do the actual answering.

Zonie63 -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:43:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata Well then you're making up your own language. Some people seem to think that "socialism" just refers to a warm and snuggly sense of social responsibility. It doesn't. That's bullshit. K. I don't know of anyone who defines socialism in that way. More often than not, when asked to define "socialism," people's answers tend to be more like the guy in this short video. He couldn't even spell it right, let alone understand it. Such is rather typical in common political parlance regarding this topic.

Musicmystery -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 6:44:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: bounty44 here's a sort of bottom line that makes talking about this challenging. to the left, since they are not free market capitalists, income inequality is inherently evil. to the right, it is a natural occurrence of competition. the left's solution is to get the government involved to make laws, to regulate, to confiscate and redistribute, to punish the wealthy, etc. the problem with that is, and leftists fail to recognize it, is that government intervention (meddling) actually creates the conditions that make it tougher for the poor to gain wealth. the countries around the world that are doing the best, are the ones who are the most economically free Wow. You went back for thirds and fourths on the kool-aid. Right out of right-wing talk-radios stock sound bytes. First, income inequality is hardly evil to the left--Soros and Bennett, for example, are hardly vilified. Nor is the goal to "punish" the wealthy. True, there's a vision of regulation, especially balancing market externalities (pollution, safety, for example). Redistribution is a right wing boogie man. We actually have the lowest taxes on the upper brackets than we've had in a century--and yet here we are with the problem. That this "actually creates the conditions that make it tougher for the poor to gain wealth" is just bullshit. You're postulating a causal relationship you can't show. Nor does any economically savvy business person on the right see inequality as "a natural occurrence of competition," but as a dilution of their markets. It's short sighted, and good business people are instead among the sharpest and more innovative thinkers and implementers in our entire system. What you're seeing as "business" is the emergence of an oligarchy using public money to prop up old models and using that financial power to consolidate political power. Nothing in history nor economics supports your fantasy view.

tweakabelle -> RE: 1% own half the world's wealth (1/23/2015 7:01:03 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Who cares whether proposals for change are this -ism or that -ism? Or whether the ideas proposed conform to the dictionary definiton of this -ism or that -ism? The point is to find ideas and proposals that will work. The current situation - with wealth increasingly concentrated in the hands of the very few at the expense of the very many - is unsustainable. It is undesirable that such enormous obscene disparities of wealth and power are allowed to continue. Even if one finds no fault with the existing arrangements, one could argue for change if only to maintain the status quo with minimal changes. If current polarising trends continue, then a violent bloody redistribution of wealth seems inevitable sooner or later. Across the world, hundreds of millions of people eke out an existence on less than $2 per day while the fortunate few wallow in billions. It is unconscionable that some individuals are allowed to garner huge fortunes while others die every day for lack of food potable drinking water housing or elementary medicine. Even at a purely economic level, the loss of talent and potential is unpardonable. In the language of discredited free market economics, the current arrangements are inefficient and do not lend themselves to an optimal use of resources and capital. If the great mass of people are left without any stake in the system, why should they care whether the system endures or collapses? Is there any one who is arguing that the current arrangements are the best possible and should be allowed to continue without any substantial changes to make access to resources and wealth more democratic? So the problem is not a lack of resources or wealth but how existing resources and wealth is distributed. How then should we arrange things so that resources and wealth are put to use to benefit 100% of the population instead of 1%? Your brand of rabid socialism has always made things much worse wherever it has been tried. At least with capitalism, people have an opportunity to become one of those billionaires because people like you who severely punish success and try to reward failure, are held at bay Many of the poor who make up your statistics live in places like Cuba or Venezuela and are made as poor and as desperate as they are, by the very medicine you prescribe Many others who are desperately poor must bow before Islamists or other vicious warlords and dictators, or they are heavily into substance abuse etc None of which is the fault of the successful, or capitalism. And none of which are helped by reducing the successful down to their level through socialism In fact history shows again and again how your ideals only make things much worse for everyone affected If you had been around at the time of the French Revolution, no doubt you would have applauded when Marie Antoinette dismissed the poor by declaring "let them eat cake". Thinking of you as the Marie Antoinette of CM does have the unique advantage of highlighting just how petrified your way of thinking is. The notion that the poor of the world can be explained away as either stuck in socialist countries, or under Islamists' thumbs or "they are heavily into substance abuse etc" is pretty preposterous, even by your extravagant standards. It's a notion of such haughty arrogance Marie Antoinette would have been proud of it! It's sad that more noble ideas such as social justice or universal healthcare haven't succeeded in penetrating your consciousness.' I have to confess that I have a grudging admiration for your relentless persistence in dismissing any facts that don't accord with your ideological disposition, though at the same time, I can't help wondering how much better it would be if you applied your dogged obstinacy towards solving problems instead of distorting them, or arbitrarily dismissing them or even worse, denying they exist. It is a fact that billions of people world wide live their lives below the poverty line, overwhelmingly due to factors totally beyond their control. It's sad that your need for ideological consistency blinds you to their existence but they are there whether you acknowledge them or not. If you ever remove your ideological blinkers, you will find this to be the case. I for one am not holding my breath.

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