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People make money by providing value to other people. The people who provide the most perceived value have the most money. It is a signifier of status whether y

People make money by providing value to other people. The people who provide the most perceived value have the most money. It is a signifier of status whether you like it or not. Most people who make money are providing a service to many people, or to someone else with a lot of money (who therefore provided value previously). Care to provide a counterexample?

klyrs 5y ago
Bain Capitol is a classic example. They bought companies, sold off their assets, wrote themselves huge bonuses, bankrupted the companies, and wrote them off as losses to avoid paying taxes on any of the above. They made their money by destroying value, not providing any. And then there's multigenerational wealth. Rich brats don't provide intrinsic value, but they're born rich. They don't get that way by providing value. Their ancestors may have stolen their wealth, so they didn't get there by providing value either.
- darkerside 5y ago
  I remember the hysteria about vulture capitalism. Even vultures play a valuable role in their ecosystem. Companies don't sell themselves to a private equity shop because they are thriving and healthy. If they were more valuable in parts than their sum, it says something about the company. Can't say much about the hypothetical wealth stealing since it's completely hypothetical.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    "It says something about the company" might be a moral salve in your eyes, but you have not established that they provide value to anybody but themselves. Specifically: how does pilfering pension funds, and then declaring bankruptcy provide "value" in any meaningful sense? It provides greater wealth to the already filthy-rich and destroys the considerable investment that life-long workers have earned, sending those who would be retiring comfortably into poverty -- which then taxes the public support systems. A huge negative for hundreds or thousands of people, for what? A marginal increase in wealth for the already wealthy. Where's the value?
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      >pilfering pension funds, and then declaring bankruptcy That's a bit of a straw man there. The classic target for these corporate raiders is a business whose capital (real estate, equipment, IP etc.) is worth more than the total market cap of the business itself (which, for most established businesses is a proxy for profit). In this way, the typical corporate raider buys up a business who is using a valuable asset inefficiently, sells their capital to other businesses who can make more productive use of it, and line their pockets with the value differential they created. In the process, they'll generally fuck over a whole lot of workers, but there is real economic value (not necessarily social good) in this process of capital redistribution.
      - pdonis 5y ago
        > That's a bit of a straw man there. No, it isn't. See below. > In the process, they'll generally fuck over a whole lot of workers The only way they can do that, since the workers' pensions were an obligation of the company that got broken up, is to declare that company bankrupt and void the obligation. But bankruptcy is not supposed to be a way to make money by voiding a company's obligations and then selling off its capital. The net value of the company is its assets minus its obligations; the process of cashing out the company should involve paying the obligations, not voiding them. > there is real economic value (not necessarily social good) in this process of capital redistribution Now who is using a straw man? Again, the "economic value" in a company is its assets minus its obligations. Cashing in on the assets while voiding the obligations is not creating "real economic value". It's stealing it from the people to whom the obligations were owed.
        AussieWog93 5y ago
        It's a straw man because literally nobody here was arguing that there is value created in the nullification of employee pensions.
        klyrs 5y ago
        No, it's absolutely not a straw man. The destroyed pensions are theft, which must appear on the balance sheet when you claim that vulture capitalism creates value. The loss of pension has direct impact on those owed: they are being deprived of money that they earned by providing value.
- SubuSS 5y ago
  Why rule out the rich kids so glibly? Wealth preservation is something that doesn’t get talked about - imo this is what the rich kids should be schooled in assuming they aren’t good enough to multiply their wealth like Elon. They keep it together for a future generation to take advantage of.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    Value that was created in the past is still value, is it not? Parent post created a conflated straw man of ancestors stealing wealth plus inheritance. So what if you are rich because your parents created value? Did the value they created die with them?
    - klyrs 5y ago
      > Value that was created in the past is still value, is it not? That's your claim, not ours. Cotton plantation owners made obscene profits from the literal blood of slaves. Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. Did the slaves enjoy multiple generations of exponential growth of their net worth? No, the plantation owners were paid reparations, and the slaves got nothing. Descendents of plantation owners are strongly represented in Southern business and politics to this very day. Not because their ancestors made value but because they took it. You seem to confuse "money" with "value."
      - darkerside 5y ago
        > Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. I am 100% against slavery, period. Who invented the incandescent lightbulb and the iPhone? The mass market automobile? Who built the railroads? None of these things can be fully credited to the small number of people at the top of the corporations responsible, but we can say fairly confidently they wouldn't have happened without a visionary leader aggregating the efforts of many into a final product. I agree slaves were deprived of freedom and wages, which is not right. And that wealth is stolen. That is different from the fact that it's been passed down through generations. I don't quarrel with the children of entrepreneurs having wealth passed down in the same way. Conflating two arguments makes discussion more difficult. Money and value are directly related. Money is just score keeping for value created. People pay money for things they value. That's not always going to be the case, but I think treating it as a rule with exceptions is a better heuristic than... what is your definition of value versus money?
uhuhoo 5y ago
Bill Gates? This obviously depends on your opinion of Microsoft, but some of us still remember IE.
- darkerside 5y ago
  I get some of us don't like him, but nobody has done more to popularize personal computing. That is value creation whether you like it or not.

klyrs 5y ago

Bain Capitol is a classic example. They bought companies, sold off their assets, wrote themselves huge bonuses, bankrupted the companies, and wrote them off as losses to avoid paying taxes on any of the above. They made their money by destroying value, not providing any. And then there's multigenerational wealth. Rich brats don't provide intrinsic value, but they're born rich. They don't get that way by providing value. Their ancestors may have stolen their wealth, so they didn't get there by providing value either.

darkerside 5y ago
I remember the hysteria about vulture capitalism. Even vultures play a valuable role in their ecosystem. Companies don't sell themselves to a private equity shop because they are thriving and healthy. If they were more valuable in parts than their sum, it says something about the company. Can't say much about the hypothetical wealth stealing since it's completely hypothetical.
- klyrs 5y ago
  "It says something about the company" might be a moral salve in your eyes, but you have not established that they provide value to anybody but themselves. Specifically: how does pilfering pension funds, and then declaring bankruptcy provide "value" in any meaningful sense? It provides greater wealth to the already filthy-rich and destroys the considerable investment that life-long workers have earned, sending those who would be retiring comfortably into poverty -- which then taxes the public support systems. A huge negative for hundreds or thousands of people, for what? A marginal increase in wealth for the already wealthy. Where's the value?
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    >pilfering pension funds, and then declaring bankruptcy That's a bit of a straw man there. The classic target for these corporate raiders is a business whose capital (real estate, equipment, IP etc.) is worth more than the total market cap of the business itself (which, for most established businesses is a proxy for profit). In this way, the typical corporate raider buys up a business who is using a valuable asset inefficiently, sells their capital to other businesses who can make more productive use of it, and line their pockets with the value differential they created. In the process, they'll generally fuck over a whole lot of workers, but there is real economic value (not necessarily social good) in this process of capital redistribution.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > That's a bit of a straw man there. No, it isn't. See below. > In the process, they'll generally fuck over a whole lot of workers The only way they can do that, since the workers' pensions were an obligation of the company that got broken up, is to declare that company bankrupt and void the obligation. But bankruptcy is not supposed to be a way to make money by voiding a company's obligations and then selling off its capital. The net value of the company is its assets minus its obligations; the process of cashing out the company should involve paying the obligations, not voiding them. > there is real economic value (not necessarily social good) in this process of capital redistribution Now who is using a straw man? Again, the "economic value" in a company is its assets minus its obligations. Cashing in on the assets while voiding the obligations is not creating "real economic value". It's stealing it from the people to whom the obligations were owed.
      - AussieWog93 5y ago
        It's a straw man because literally nobody here was arguing that there is value created in the nullification of employee pensions.
        klyrs 5y ago
        No, it's absolutely not a straw man. The destroyed pensions are theft, which must appear on the balance sheet when you claim that vulture capitalism creates value. The loss of pension has direct impact on those owed: they are being deprived of money that they earned by providing value.
SubuSS 5y ago
Why rule out the rich kids so glibly? Wealth preservation is something that doesn’t get talked about - imo this is what the rich kids should be schooled in assuming they aren’t good enough to multiply their wealth like Elon. They keep it together for a future generation to take advantage of.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Value that was created in the past is still value, is it not? Parent post created a conflated straw man of ancestors stealing wealth plus inheritance. So what if you are rich because your parents created value? Did the value they created die with them?
  - klyrs 5y ago
    > Value that was created in the past is still value, is it not? That's your claim, not ours. Cotton plantation owners made obscene profits from the literal blood of slaves. Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. Did the slaves enjoy multiple generations of exponential growth of their net worth? No, the plantation owners were paid reparations, and the slaves got nothing. Descendents of plantation owners are strongly represented in Southern business and politics to this very day. Not because their ancestors made value but because they took it. You seem to confuse "money" with "value."
    - darkerside 5y ago
      > Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. I am 100% against slavery, period. Who invented the incandescent lightbulb and the iPhone? The mass market automobile? Who built the railroads? None of these things can be fully credited to the small number of people at the top of the corporations responsible, but we can say fairly confidently they wouldn't have happened without a visionary leader aggregating the efforts of many into a final product. I agree slaves were deprived of freedom and wages, which is not right. And that wealth is stolen. That is different from the fact that it's been passed down through generations. I don't quarrel with the children of entrepreneurs having wealth passed down in the same way. Conflating two arguments makes discussion more difficult. Money and value are directly related. Money is just score keeping for value created. People pay money for things they value. That's not always going to be the case, but I think treating it as a rule with exceptions is a better heuristic than... what is your definition of value versus money?

uhuhoo 5y ago

Bill Gates? This obviously depends on your opinion of Microsoft, but some of us still remember IE.

darkerside 5y ago
I get some of us don't like him, but nobody has done more to popularize personal computing. That is value creation whether you like it or not.