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Every dollar you make in interest from your savings account at your credit union is $30 that someone had to pay the credit union in interest on their mortgage.

by pb7 6y ago

Every dollar you make in interest from your savings account at your credit union is $30 that someone had to pay the credit union in interest on their mortgage. You are swindling people out of their hard earned money — people who are struggling to own their home or business — to fund your own retirement.

runarberg 6y ago
Do you honestly believe that these are equivalent? Or are you just arguing in bad faith? I’m gonna assume the former and explain the difference. The interest you are paying when you take out a loan is a) compensating the creditor for money lost because of inflation, and b) paying for a service. The bank/credit union at the same time will at the same time a) compensate for inflation and b) reward savings accounts for injecting money into the bank/credit union. This is fundamentally different from shareholders buying stocks from a business siphoning parts of the profits from the workers to the shareholder. People taking loans need the people that open the saving account, and get something of value (money they need). Workers don’t need the shareholders, and they get nothing in return (except lower salaries). I’m sorry if I sound like I’m talking down to you. It is just that the different is so obvious I don’t know how to explain it differently.
- pb7 6y ago
  It’s odd to me that you see the mutually beneficial transaction there but not in the stock market. I will state this once as simply as I can: stock market investors are rewarded for funding companies by taking on that risk in hopes that the companies they invest in produce a profit. It is overwhelmingly similar to the process you are describing with your credit union, but in a much more distributed way. > Workers don’t need the shareholders, and they get nothing in return (except lower salaries). There would be no workers if companies didn’t have the capital the needed. So no, the workers very very much need the shareholders. The money has to come from somewhere. No bank is going to bankroll the next Airbnb, Uber, Instacart, DoorDash, etc. Beyond that, the workers aren’t owed a penny more than they agreed to be paid. If public shareholders didn’t exist, the owners would have full ownership which is what happens with small businesses. Nowhere in these circumstances are workers any better off. Profits and losses are not their domain. I’m sorry if I sound like I’m talking down to you. It is just that you are a victim of cognitive dissonance possibly due to your unconscious bias against wealth.
  - recursive 6y ago
    If I buy a stock of a company, how is that funding the company? Only the previous holder of the stock gets the money.
    - pb7 6y ago
      At some point, the previous holder of the stock was the company itself. That’s called an IPO. Additionally, companies frequently issue new shares to raise money. Tesla has done this multiple times in the past few years.
      - recursive 6y ago
        Most of the activity (all of it?) on the stock market seems unrelated to IPOs. Is there any particular reason stocks must be transferable?
        pb7 6y ago
        Yes, it’s an incentive to encourage buying by reducing the commitment.
        recursive 6y ago
        It does seem to have that effect. It also seems to have other effects. And it seems to be mostly other effects. If funding companies requires all those effects, it seems legitimate to question whether it's a net benefit.
        pb7 6y ago
        I would take you more seriously if you spoke more concretely. What other effects, specifically? I’ll give you one: it distributes wealth by letting the common man invest in highly valuable companies rather than limiting it to just wealthy people profiting from entrepreneurship. I’ll bet you you and people like you wouldn’t be too happy if only the original founders of companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and their descendants owned those companies. Do you know how I know? Because Jeff Bezos owns just 11% of his own company and people still hate him despite that the other near 90% has made other people very wealthy too. Now imagine he owned 100% of it. That’s what you’re advocating for. If you think Jeffy boy would be more generous to his employees if he owned all of it, then you must not know the realities of most family owned businesses.

by pb7 6y ago

runarberg 6y ago

Do you honestly believe that these are equivalent? Or are you just arguing in bad faith? I’m gonna assume the former and explain the difference. The interest you are paying when you take out a loan is a) compensating the creditor for money lost because of inflation, and b) paying for a service. The bank/credit union at the same time will at the same time a) compensate for inflation and b) reward savings accounts for injecting money into the bank/credit union. This is fundamentally different from shareholders buying stocks from a business siphoning parts of the profits from the workers to the shareholder. People taking loans need the people that open the saving account, and get something of value (money they need). Workers don’t need the shareholders, and they get nothing in return (except lower salaries). I’m sorry if I sound like I’m talking down to you. It is just that the different is so obvious I don’t know how to explain it differently.

pb7 6y ago
It’s odd to me that you see the mutually beneficial transaction there but not in the stock market. I will state this once as simply as I can: stock market investors are rewarded for funding companies by taking on that risk in hopes that the companies they invest in produce a profit. It is overwhelmingly similar to the process you are describing with your credit union, but in a much more distributed way. > Workers don’t need the shareholders, and they get nothing in return (except lower salaries). There would be no workers if companies didn’t have the capital the needed. So no, the workers very very much need the shareholders. The money has to come from somewhere. No bank is going to bankroll the next Airbnb, Uber, Instacart, DoorDash, etc. Beyond that, the workers aren’t owed a penny more than they agreed to be paid. If public shareholders didn’t exist, the owners would have full ownership which is what happens with small businesses. Nowhere in these circumstances are workers any better off. Profits and losses are not their domain. I’m sorry if I sound like I’m talking down to you. It is just that you are a victim of cognitive dissonance possibly due to your unconscious bias against wealth.
- recursive 6y ago
  If I buy a stock of a company, how is that funding the company? Only the previous holder of the stock gets the money.
  - pb7 6y ago
    At some point, the previous holder of the stock was the company itself. That’s called an IPO. Additionally, companies frequently issue new shares to raise money. Tesla has done this multiple times in the past few years.
    - recursive 6y ago
      Most of the activity (all of it?) on the stock market seems unrelated to IPOs. Is there any particular reason stocks must be transferable?
      - pb7 6y ago
        Yes, it’s an incentive to encourage buying by reducing the commitment.
        recursive 6y ago
        It does seem to have that effect. It also seems to have other effects. And it seems to be mostly other effects. If funding companies requires all those effects, it seems legitimate to question whether it's a net benefit.
        pb7 6y ago
        I would take you more seriously if you spoke more concretely. What other effects, specifically? I’ll give you one: it distributes wealth by letting the common man invest in highly valuable companies rather than limiting it to just wealthy people profiting from entrepreneurship. I’ll bet you you and people like you wouldn’t be too happy if only the original founders of companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and their descendants owned those companies. Do you know how I know? Because Jeff Bezos owns just 11% of his own company and people still hate him despite that the other near 90% has made other people very wealthy too. Now imagine he owned 100% of it. That’s what you’re advocating for. If you think Jeffy boy would be more generous to his employees if he owned all of it, then you must not know the realities of most family owned businesses.