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You're conflating fiat, which is always zero sum when it changes hands in a transaction, with utility and value, which usually is positive sum. When I buy a pho
by csee 5y ago
You're conflating fiat, which is always zero sum when it changes hands in a transaction, with utility and value, which usually is positive sum. When I buy a phone, I am losing $500 to get something that cost $400 to make, and the phone company made $100. But I gained about $2000 worth of hidden value from that transaction because my life got way better and easier! That's why it wasn't zero sum and that's part of the explanation for wealth creation.
- pastacacioepepe 5y agoYou didn't really answer my question. I don't care if a market is a not a zero sum game or any other technicism. I want to know why if you think that a system that thrives on wealth inequality doesn't contribute to poverty, we see median househould incomes declining while all the prices are rising and a very small class of already rich people becomes ever richer.
- kiba 5y agoWe are seeing people hording land. These lands are not being given to developers and people who can make the best use of it, which are very likely to be other wealthy people. Instead of rewarding wealthy people for increasing the pie, we just give wealthy people free money for sitting on lands and having that appreciate, rather than selling it to someone who can use it. "Robust housing market" and rising price is not a good thing. It is a socioeconomic disaster. Another way we becomes poorer: Pattern of development that incentivize ownership of expensive items just to participate in society, like cars and roads.
- Hdhdndhhe 5y agoWhat difference does it make to the poor if Elon's stock goes up 10% tomorrow?
- pastacacioepepe 5y agoThis is just deflecting my question with whataboutism.
- Hdhdndhhe 5y agoHow exactly would Tesla's stock going up make the poor worse off?
- csee 5y agoYou disagreed with the statement "One man being rich doesn’t make another man poor." I was explaining why that statement is actually often correct. When I buy a phone, wealth inequality gets worse but yet it is still a positive sum trade. The system doesn't thrive on wealth inequality. Wealth inequality is a mere byproduct of forces like the tremendous scale afforded by capital markets and technology, the unequal distribution of the extreme end of intelligence, the increasing relevance of intelligence in the context of modern technology, the rise of China as a competitor for our lower classes, and so on.