3 ms·

I am familiar with the argument, but note that Randgalt said: > it's not as if the money is just sitting there and 1% are taking most of it Well, the money is

I am familiar with the argument, but note that Randgalt said: > it's not as if the money is just sitting there and 1% are taking most of it Well, the money is just sitting there. Additionally, of all the money that exists, banks effectively take ~10% off-the-top annually through interest privilege, giving them (and their shareholders) a headstart. Everyone else gets to fight from what's left before it gets destroyed in a principal payment.

btilly 10y ago
You do not appear to be acquainted with how wealth works. Suppose I buy $15 of Xynodyne stock and $1 per share. Suppose later it is trading at $2 per share. I have just made $15 without any money being added to the system. I sell my shares. Do I keep money? No! I buy shares in a money market. Leave it there for 3 months, then sell that for shares in Apple. At each step I am wealthier and wealthier. And it is wealth that wasn't sitting there, it was created out of the fact that people price assets differently. And they price them differently because the company is producing something valued more highly by our whole society. Money doesn't actually enter into the picture. I write a check from my bank account to my broker. My broker settles transactions electronically. I eventually get a transfer from them to my bank, from which I pay my taxes. All of the "money" in this system is a brief record created in one place, destroyed in another. This is all basic economics of fractional reserve banking. The size of our economy is no more limited by the amount of money that exists than it is by how much gold is in the ground. Money is a medium of exchange, not a measure of value. And the rich got that way in one of three ways, owning something that became valuable, creating value where none existed, and theft. In general the ones who got really rich through theft did so through political connections (Carlos Slim comes to mind). Successful entrepreneurs like Paul Graham fall in the second bucket. And the first bucket happened historically, for example the Astor family of New York, but isn't so common now.

btilly 10y ago

You do not appear to be acquainted with how wealth works. Suppose I buy $15 of Xynodyne stock and $1 per share. Suppose later it is trading at $2 per share. I have just made $15 without any money being added to the system. I sell my shares. Do I keep money? No! I buy shares in a money market. Leave it there for 3 months, then sell that for shares in Apple. At each step I am wealthier and wealthier. And it is wealth that wasn't sitting there, it was created out of the fact that people price assets differently. And they price them differently because the company is producing something valued more highly by our whole society. Money doesn't actually enter into the picture. I write a check from my bank account to my broker. My broker settles transactions electronically. I eventually get a transfer from them to my bank, from which I pay my taxes. All of the "money" in this system is a brief record created in one place, destroyed in another. This is all basic economics of fractional reserve banking. The size of our economy is no more limited by the amount of money that exists than it is by how much gold is in the ground. Money is a medium of exchange, not a measure of value. And the rich got that way in one of three ways, owning something that became valuable, creating value where none existed, and theft. In general the ones who got really rich through theft did so through political connections (Carlos Slim comes to mind). Successful entrepreneurs like Paul Graham fall in the second bucket. And the first bucket happened historically, for example the Astor family of New York, but isn't so common now.