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Rich people losing a fraction of their wealth and who will rebound thanks to business networking effects, and be given a pass because sometimes that’s how it go

Rich people losing a fraction of their wealth and who will rebound thanks to business networking effects, and be given a pass because sometimes that’s how it goes Limited downside seems accurate

jerf 8y ago
OK, what are you looking for? Rich people get one shot at doing something, and if they fail, the government comes riding in and takes all their stuff? You have to be careful when you get vindictive at rich people; they're also the employers, and it's hard to build a system where such people aren't "the rich". (If you hard-core leveled everyone in the world to equal wealth, nobody would be able to employ anybody else in the current sense of the term. People would have to pool their money and give it to somebody or set of somebodies to manage. And lo, watch "the rich" appear again as the people who successfully employ others get a return, and those who fail do not. It's really hard to avoid "the rich" also being "the employers".) I can pretty much guarantee someone, probably multiple someones, were called on the carpet at these firms, and did not get the "Oh well, just try again good buddy!" treatment.
- chongli 8y ago
  OK, what are you looking for? Rich people get one shot at doing something, and if they fail, the government comes riding in and takes all their stuff? I can't speak for the person you replied to, but how about this? Less downside for the workers. We're talking about thousands of people losing their jobs. These people then go into a smaller labour market where they compete with other vulnerable retail workers, affecting far more people. If we want an appropriate measure of downside in a situation like this, we should look at all of the externalities. Few people ever do, though, and society marches on.
  - harryh 8y ago
    Poorly performing companies going out of business in order for new, better companies to flourish is a necessary step for the creation of a healthy job market.
    - chongli 8y ago
      I don't see it. Working at Toys R Us may not have been great, fine, but it sure beats pissing in bottles in a sweltering/freezing Amazon warehouse. Amazon is a lot more profitable than Toys R Us ever was but that doesn't mean they make the job market, let alone society, healthier.
      - harryh 8y ago
        I bet you spend more money at Amazon than you did at Toys R Us. You might not see it, but your wallet does.
        chongli 8y ago
        Yes, and I can complain about sweatshops in India and Bangladesh without foregoing clothes. Appeals to hypocrisy are the weakest sort of argument.
        harryh 8y ago
        It was not intended an appeal to hypocrisy. It was demonstrating that a lot of people (including you and me) get a tremendous amount of value out of Amazon and society is healthier as a result.
    - smcl 8y ago
      It probably feels very good to type a comment like that while imagining some invisible force gently guiding these newly unemployed people to their new careers. However in reality thousands of people have now lost their income and likely their health insurance, and will have to compete in what in many places is a pretty brutal and not at all healthy job market. It sucks, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it ... but pretending that this is actually a good thing for anyone but a handful of rich guys who will have made out like bandits on the whole debacle is just fantasy.
      - harryh 8y ago
        The job market is actually pretty healthy right now. Unemployment is nearing a 45 year low and prime age labor force participation rate has been on the upswing for about 3 years. We're also starting to see some growth in wages which is nice. And sure, it's weird to contrast a theory of firm destruction being necessary for a vibrant economy with the reality of individuals you can point to losing their jobs but the fact remains that doesn't really distract from the truth of my statements. Just because it's a bit harder to point at specific individuals who will benefit from the demise of Toys R Us doesn't mean the link isn't real.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - refurb 8y ago
    Toys R Us was going under if this LBO didn't happen. So in essence they are no worse off than if it didn't happen.
  - jerf 8y ago
    "We're talking about thousands of people losing their jobs. These people then go into a smaller labour market where they compete with other vulnerable retail workers, affecting far more people." Expand your time horizon a bit. Having freed up the malinvested resources, other enterprises will arise which will hire them, at jobs that are now almost by definition more solid than the one they left behind, since the one they left behind couldn't sustain itself. "But what if they can't wait around?" They don't necessarily have to. The job market is not so tight that one job has to instantly open up as soon as one person is fired. There is some fluidity in it. The only place there will be any particular trouble would be around the HQ of Toys R Us; the individual stores are going to be in economies where the store going out of business is just a tiny blip hardly affecting the local retail employment environment. "But what about the permanently unemployed?" Well, if you're used to the "new normal", be sure to have a look at the current unemployment trends before getting too far into that sort of argument. And you have to consider the flip side as well. What if you got to go to work for Toys R Us, and it was guaranteed that you would be employed indefinitely there no matter how badly things went for Toys R Us? Sweet deal, right? Well, sure, but it's not going to be unique to Toys R Us, right? It's going to be the deal for everybody. We've got experience with what that "sweet deal" produces; read about the Soviet Union's economy. Would you rather have to find a new job every so often and live in the US, or be stuck in the Soviet Union? We don't have to hypothesize the answer to that; people are still falling over themselves to get into the US. It is vital that people understand that creative destruction trades some short-term inconvenience for massive long term wins, lest we foolishly legislate short-term conveniences for massive long-term losses because we collectively stopped understanding the full story.
    - kelleoeo 8y ago
      Employed to what end is a question you seem to not be asking at all Continue piling onto the stash already very wealthy people have is primarily all this economic activity is accomplishing now as they crater retirements, cut healthcare or inflate prices out of the reach of the majority (which globally ~80% lives on ~2.50/day.) What’s the point of 40-50+ hrs a week for me now if some whithered old geezer can change a law and flush the effort down the drain How about meet basic utilitarian needs of food and healthcare, common ones of all humans, in the domain of the government And what we spend on time on otherwise is up to us. Let’s all punch a clock to make earrings and baubles to support the ephemeral economy? Why does one need to be compelled to make consumer garbage? Oh cause stock prices or we can’t anger a small portion of the population: rich people They have no divine right to wealth you know? It’s self eating shitshow of stupid ideas that reinforce stupid ideas. Steve Jobs is right: none of the rich are any smarter or more capable than your avg college grad. They just got lucky sooner
- kelleoeo 8y ago
  I want you and everyone else to stop kowtowing to blatant nonsense and “daddy”. Physics and economics are not one and the same. Ownership is not divine and should be treated as such. Paulo Freire and others are better at explaining the reality. This forum is a wasteland of neoliberal babies who want to build a giant castle to their egos and live in it. Grow up a bit. Be less ignorant of history and stop fetishizing economic output. If we have to motivate the species so hard to produce, perhaps economy is inherent to our biology. But next quarter growth or bust! Clueless rubes

Rich people losing a fraction of their wealth and who will rebound thanks to business networking effects, and be given a pass because sometimes that’s how it goes Limited downside seems accurate

jerf 8y ago

OK, what are you looking for? Rich people get one shot at doing something, and if they fail, the government comes riding in and takes all their stuff? You have to be careful when you get vindictive at rich people; they're also the employers, and it's hard to build a system where such people aren't "the rich". (If you hard-core leveled everyone in the world to equal wealth, nobody would be able to employ anybody else in the current sense of the term. People would have to pool their money and give it to somebody or set of somebodies to manage. And lo, watch "the rich" appear again as the people who successfully employ others get a return, and those who fail do not. It's really hard to avoid "the rich" also being "the employers".) I can pretty much guarantee someone, probably multiple someones, were called on the carpet at these firms, and did not get the "Oh well, just try again good buddy!" treatment.

chongli 8y ago
OK, what are you looking for? Rich people get one shot at doing something, and if they fail, the government comes riding in and takes all their stuff? I can't speak for the person you replied to, but how about this? Less downside for the workers. We're talking about thousands of people losing their jobs. These people then go into a smaller labour market where they compete with other vulnerable retail workers, affecting far more people. If we want an appropriate measure of downside in a situation like this, we should look at all of the externalities. Few people ever do, though, and society marches on.
- harryh 8y ago
  Poorly performing companies going out of business in order for new, better companies to flourish is a necessary step for the creation of a healthy job market.
  - chongli 8y ago
    I don't see it. Working at Toys R Us may not have been great, fine, but it sure beats pissing in bottles in a sweltering/freezing Amazon warehouse. Amazon is a lot more profitable than Toys R Us ever was but that doesn't mean they make the job market, let alone society, healthier.
    - harryh 8y ago
      I bet you spend more money at Amazon than you did at Toys R Us. You might not see it, but your wallet does.
      - chongli 8y ago
        Yes, and I can complain about sweatshops in India and Bangladesh without foregoing clothes. Appeals to hypocrisy are the weakest sort of argument.
        harryh 8y ago
        It was not intended an appeal to hypocrisy. It was demonstrating that a lot of people (including you and me) get a tremendous amount of value out of Amazon and society is healthier as a result.
  - smcl 8y ago
    It probably feels very good to type a comment like that while imagining some invisible force gently guiding these newly unemployed people to their new careers. However in reality thousands of people have now lost their income and likely their health insurance, and will have to compete in what in many places is a pretty brutal and not at all healthy job market. It sucks, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it ... but pretending that this is actually a good thing for anyone but a handful of rich guys who will have made out like bandits on the whole debacle is just fantasy.
    - harryh 8y ago
      The job market is actually pretty healthy right now. Unemployment is nearing a 45 year low and prime age labor force participation rate has been on the upswing for about 3 years. We're also starting to see some growth in wages which is nice. And sure, it's weird to contrast a theory of firm destruction being necessary for a vibrant economy with the reality of individuals you can point to losing their jobs but the fact remains that doesn't really distract from the truth of my statements. Just because it's a bit harder to point at specific individuals who will benefit from the demise of Toys R Us doesn't mean the link isn't real.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- refurb 8y ago
  Toys R Us was going under if this LBO didn't happen. So in essence they are no worse off than if it didn't happen.
- jerf 8y ago
  "We're talking about thousands of people losing their jobs. These people then go into a smaller labour market where they compete with other vulnerable retail workers, affecting far more people." Expand your time horizon a bit. Having freed up the malinvested resources, other enterprises will arise which will hire them, at jobs that are now almost by definition more solid than the one they left behind, since the one they left behind couldn't sustain itself. "But what if they can't wait around?" They don't necessarily have to. The job market is not so tight that one job has to instantly open up as soon as one person is fired. There is some fluidity in it. The only place there will be any particular trouble would be around the HQ of Toys R Us; the individual stores are going to be in economies where the store going out of business is just a tiny blip hardly affecting the local retail employment environment. "But what about the permanently unemployed?" Well, if you're used to the "new normal", be sure to have a look at the current unemployment trends before getting too far into that sort of argument. And you have to consider the flip side as well. What if you got to go to work for Toys R Us, and it was guaranteed that you would be employed indefinitely there no matter how badly things went for Toys R Us? Sweet deal, right? Well, sure, but it's not going to be unique to Toys R Us, right? It's going to be the deal for everybody. We've got experience with what that "sweet deal" produces; read about the Soviet Union's economy. Would you rather have to find a new job every so often and live in the US, or be stuck in the Soviet Union? We don't have to hypothesize the answer to that; people are still falling over themselves to get into the US. It is vital that people understand that creative destruction trades some short-term inconvenience for massive long term wins, lest we foolishly legislate short-term conveniences for massive long-term losses because we collectively stopped understanding the full story.
  - kelleoeo 8y ago
    Employed to what end is a question you seem to not be asking at all Continue piling onto the stash already very wealthy people have is primarily all this economic activity is accomplishing now as they crater retirements, cut healthcare or inflate prices out of the reach of the majority (which globally ~80% lives on ~2.50/day.) What’s the point of 40-50+ hrs a week for me now if some whithered old geezer can change a law and flush the effort down the drain How about meet basic utilitarian needs of food and healthcare, common ones of all humans, in the domain of the government And what we spend on time on otherwise is up to us. Let’s all punch a clock to make earrings and baubles to support the ephemeral economy? Why does one need to be compelled to make consumer garbage? Oh cause stock prices or we can’t anger a small portion of the population: rich people They have no divine right to wealth you know? It’s self eating shitshow of stupid ideas that reinforce stupid ideas. Steve Jobs is right: none of the rich are any smarter or more capable than your avg college grad. They just got lucky sooner
kelleoeo 8y ago
I want you and everyone else to stop kowtowing to blatant nonsense and “daddy”. Physics and economics are not one and the same. Ownership is not divine and should be treated as such. Paulo Freire and others are better at explaining the reality. This forum is a wasteland of neoliberal babies who want to build a giant castle to their egos and live in it. Grow up a bit. Be less ignorant of history and stop fetishizing economic output. If we have to motivate the species so hard to produce, perhaps economy is inherent to our biology. But next quarter growth or bust! Clueless rubes