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That money is out making more money by investing in the macroeconomy. It isn't sitting in their bedsheets. Bill Gates doesn't sleep on a pile of gold like scr

That money is out making more money by investing in the macroeconomy. It isn't sitting in their bedsheets. Bill Gates doesn't sleep on a pile of gold like scrooge mcduck. He created something the world needed and valued. Now his money out creating new things. Money does NOT follow the laws of thermodynamics

lidHanteyk 7y ago
Implication: People who cannot create things that the world needs or values, should not have as much money. However, our society requires a modicum of money for survival. How do you square our failure to give people a modicum with the moral implications of being unable to produce value?
- zozbot234 7y ago
  The sum of money that's genuinely "required for survival" is so low as to be almost insubstantial. People, even the extreme poor in fact, spend a lot of their discretionary income on what amounts to social inclusion, not bare survival. (But social inclusion is basically a collective good, that's far more cheaply delivered by altering social norms in a direction that boosts provision of social capital.)
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
So, its OK that 0.1% of everybody has 99.9% of the money? This is productive somehow? Its fine if we all borrow money from BG and friends, to create businesses, and the profits are bled back to BG&F as interest etc. So we create value, but its almost all for them? Of course money gets moved around. But its important to understand the flows. And the flows are all to the rich, so they get richer. This is so well understood, I have to suspect the simplistic comments as trolling.
Pokepokalypse 7y ago
but it's not: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-super-rich-elite-have-more-money-than-they-know-what-to-do-with-2019-10-28?mod=home-page https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-super-rich-elite-have-...
gremlinsinc 7y ago
So Bill Gates spends annually 100% of his income in reinvestments? None of it's just sitting in the stock market? But helping small businesses and entrepreneurs? (Don't get me wrong I admire Bill Gates), but a LOT of money IS just sitting in accounts collecting interest and doing nobody a lot of good. Till they die then it goes to their spoiled brat children who hardly deserve it - I mean they didn't do the work to get it, why should they get it? How about an estate tax of 100% over 10 million, 0 under 10 mill. That's plenty of money for anybody, and puts the money back in play. Honestly, if i were filthy rich, my kids wouldn't get a ton of that money. I want my posterity to be self-enablers, not born with golden spoons like Trump and others. Though, I think the best way to pay for this is MANY different ways: Companies already pay healthcare --make them keep paying that just as a tax to the pool for everyone's care. Create a VAT tax that's something like 5%, 10% for non-residents. (Bonus this makes it so illegal/legal visitors from other countries actually pay more in taxes (at least VAT) than we do so people shut up about "those lazy immigrants don't contribute nothin'" -- now they do, so shut up about it. Next we need to do whatever we can to get our bottom tier of American's to rise higher. The higher they rise the more they spend locally, the more VAT they pay, the more income tax they pay. GBI could help, or just free education, or re-trainment programs for lost jobs or those in shitty jobs who want to move up to something better. America's also desperately facing infrastructure issues all over the place from falling bridges to natural disasters destroying things. We need a guaranteed jobs bill where anyone who wants work gets to work. We also can legalize and tax Marijuana and natural psychedelics and decriminalize. This puts more people to work -can't work in jail, and increases tax flows. A tax on speculation could also help as well. What about a foreign tax on property. All property owned by non U.S. citizens has a 10%/year tax -- make China pay for our healthcare! A small 1% tax on all NYSE/Nasdaq trades. Again lots of foreign money circulates through there so some of that tax will come from foreign investors. Find other ways to save money. Maybe cut the military budget 50%. Cut foreign aid. Close down some air bases and get rid of a lot of our out-of-america buildings/offices/etc. Let's stop being 'police of the world' and focus more on homeland security and our own borders. Most people on the left are trying hard to make the rich pay for all this, when a lot of the middle class and lower class would be happy to chip in. Sure we all can't afford a million/year but 1k per 20k of income in medical tax from every working American should be do-able. If the average family makes $50k that's 1 trillion/year. If an employer is required to pay $5k/year/employee we now have 2 trillion/year allotted for M4All. There's definitely wiggle room. Or they could just do 500/20k income w/ no caps... that would make someone earning 2 billion/year paying 10 million/year -- a drop in a bucket for them, and a win for everyone.

lidHanteyk 7y ago

Implication: People who cannot create things that the world needs or values, should not have as much money. However, our society requires a modicum of money for survival. How do you square our failure to give people a modicum with the moral implications of being unable to produce value?

zozbot234 7y ago
The sum of money that's genuinely "required for survival" is so low as to be almost insubstantial. People, even the extreme poor in fact, spend a lot of their discretionary income on what amounts to social inclusion, not bare survival. (But social inclusion is basically a collective good, that's far more cheaply delivered by altering social norms in a direction that boosts provision of social capital.)

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

So, its OK that 0.1% of everybody has 99.9% of the money? This is productive somehow? Its fine if we all borrow money from BG and friends, to create businesses, and the profits are bled back to BG&F as interest etc. So we create value, but its almost all for them? Of course money gets moved around. But its important to understand the flows. And the flows are all to the rich, so they get richer. This is so well understood, I have to suspect the simplistic comments as trolling.

Pokepokalypse 7y ago

but it's not: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-super-rich-elite-have-more-money-than-they-know-what-to-do-with-2019-10-28?mod=home-page https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-super-rich-elite-have-...

gremlinsinc 7y ago

So Bill Gates spends annually 100% of his income in reinvestments? None of it's just sitting in the stock market? But helping small businesses and entrepreneurs? (Don't get me wrong I admire Bill Gates), but a LOT of money IS just sitting in accounts collecting interest and doing nobody a lot of good. Till they die then it goes to their spoiled brat children who hardly deserve it - I mean they didn't do the work to get it, why should they get it? How about an estate tax of 100% over 10 million, 0 under 10 mill. That's plenty of money for anybody, and puts the money back in play. Honestly, if i were filthy rich, my kids wouldn't get a ton of that money. I want my posterity to be self-enablers, not born with golden spoons like Trump and others. Though, I think the best way to pay for this is MANY different ways: Companies already pay healthcare --make them keep paying that just as a tax to the pool for everyone's care. Create a VAT tax that's something like 5%, 10% for non-residents. (Bonus this makes it so illegal/legal visitors from other countries actually pay more in taxes (at least VAT) than we do so people shut up about "those lazy immigrants don't contribute nothin'" -- now they do, so shut up about it. Next we need to do whatever we can to get our bottom tier of American's to rise higher. The higher they rise the more they spend locally, the more VAT they pay, the more income tax they pay. GBI could help, or just free education, or re-trainment programs for lost jobs or those in shitty jobs who want to move up to something better. America's also desperately facing infrastructure issues all over the place from falling bridges to natural disasters destroying things. We need a guaranteed jobs bill where anyone who wants work gets to work. We also can legalize and tax Marijuana and natural psychedelics and decriminalize. This puts more people to work -can't work in jail, and increases tax flows. A tax on speculation could also help as well. What about a foreign tax on property. All property owned by non U.S. citizens has a 10%/year tax -- make China pay for our healthcare! A small 1% tax on all NYSE/Nasdaq trades. Again lots of foreign money circulates through there so some of that tax will come from foreign investors. Find other ways to save money. Maybe cut the military budget 50%. Cut foreign aid. Close down some air bases and get rid of a lot of our out-of-america buildings/offices/etc. Let's stop being 'police of the world' and focus more on homeland security and our own borders. Most people on the left are trying hard to make the rich pay for all this, when a lot of the middle class and lower class would be happy to chip in. Sure we all can't afford a million/year but 1k per 20k of income in medical tax from every working American should be do-able. If the average family makes $50k that's 1 trillion/year. If an employer is required to pay $5k/year/employee we now have 2 trillion/year allotted for M4All. There's definitely wiggle room. Or they could just do 500/20k income w/ no caps... that would make someone earning 2 billion/year paying 10 million/year -- a drop in a bucket for them, and a win for everyone.