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> genuine value creation But how do we even know what this is anymore? With more than half the wealth accumulated by the top fraction of society it seems like
by boppo1 4y ago
> genuine value creation
But how do we even know what this is anymore? With more than half the wealth accumulated by the top fraction of society it seems like ultra-luxury goods are going to be the most profitable, but surely that's not actually genuine value creation.
And have we strayed too far to achieve that without austerity? How will we pay interest on the national debt?
- hoseja 4y agoDoes the top fraction of society ever actually spend significant amounts though. No. Trickle-down has never worked.
- heartbeats 4y agoThey don't have to spend it per se; by conventional economic theory, as long as they keep it in the bank, it's enough. Keynes: > Europe was so organized socially and economically as to secure the maximum accumulation of capital. While there was some continuous improvement in the daily conditions of life of the mass of the population, Society was so framed as to throw a great part of the increased income into the control of the class least likely to consume it. The new rich of the nineteenth century were not brought up to large expenditures, and preferred the power which investment gave them to the pleasures of immediate consumption. ... If the rich had spent their new wealth on their own enjoyments, the world would long ago have found such a régime intolerable. But like bees they saved and accumulated, not less to the advantage of the whole community because they themselves held narrower ends in prospect. > Thus this remarkable system depended for its growth on a double bluff or deception. On the one hand the laboring classes accepted ... a situation in which they could call their own very little of the cake that they ... were co-operating to produce. And on the other hand the capitalist classes were allowed to call the best part of the cake theirs and were theoretically free to consume it, on the tacit underlying condition that they consumed very little of it in practice. ... And so the cake increased; but to what end was not clearly contemplated. Individuals would be exhorted not so much to abstain as to defer, and to cultivate the pleasures of security and anticipation. Saving was for old age or for your children; but this was only in theory,—the virtue of the cake was that it was never to be consumed, neither by you nor by your children after you.
- atoav 4y agoUltra luxury goods have a few downsides tho. The ultra rich are not easy customers, there is a high risk involved with having few customers (e.g. they could leave you hanging, another company could outperform you and grab that customer and you are basically done for etc.). A friend of my family has made his living selling handcrafted multi-million dollar hunting rifles. Let me tell you, these people are not easy to deal or negotiate with. The income brackets below are happier to spend and there is more of them Even ultra luxury good creators rely a lot on other stuff, like manufacturing machines, hardware, parts, materials, etc. So the safer bet is probably going to be to sell shovels in a gold rush.