5 ms·

There's also a way of seeing it as just a thing.

by somedude895 3y ago

breadbreadbread 3y ago
only if you are content with the way the US economy works, which requires wearing some pretty large blinders
- breadbreadbread 3y ago
  actually no, I don't think anyone should look at the wealth spread in the US and think that it's normal or good. It's objectively dangerous and undemocratic. If someone can earn millions a day from passive investment but someone who actually provides meaningful goods and services day-to-day barely makes 50k a year, I think we have totally misunderstood as a society what to value and how to distribute resources
  - exabrial 3y ago
    There are plenty of people on earth living less than $1usd a day and would trade their situation gladly for a very comfortable $50kusd/year.
    - breadbreadbread 3y ago
      imagine if i told you that i think everyone deserves to make a wage that allows them to thrive and have stability. Also consider that A) things are more expensive here and B) our economy is debt based and many people with homes and cars in the US have negative income after expenses, just because aesthetically our poverty looks different, it doesn't mean that it's good. It's not comparable.
      - al_borland 3y ago
        Debt is heavily marketed, but ultimately a personal choice. For those who choose to live within their means and not take on debt, they don’t have most of their paycheck going out the door to pay for last month, or have negative income. I’ve had people who make less than me tell me I live like a poor person. That’s ok. I know I’m doing fine and they have since told me about some of their money struggles, and have a lot of debt to deal with each month. Maybe if people stopped using debt to pretend they had more than they do, we’d see more reasonable housing and car prices, as well as goods that are made with some quality and repairablity instead of things like fast fashion that simplely gets thrown away. Companies doing business in the US go to where the demand is. People need to stop using debt to demand junk that makes things worse. Step one could be ratching down the average home size. It has more than doubled since the 1950s, while the number of people in the house has gone down. A bigger home is naturally going to be more expensive to buy/build, but then it also takes more land, has higher property taxes, costs more to heat/cool, costs more to repair and maintain, has more rooms to furnish, and has more place to put stuff before a person needs to stop and question if this need all of it. Simply living in a more modest home or apartment can have a massive effect on a person’s finances.
    - breadbreadbread 3y ago
      if your opinion is that some people make millions a day and some people make $1 a day and thats just life and we shouldnt try to change that, I think you are fundamentally lost. Also consider: where do the billionaires in the US get the resources to fuel their empires? Do they get their cobalt from slave labor mines in the Congo? Do you think maybe there is some kind of connection between corporate greed in America and people on the other side of the world making $1/day or less?
    - sapphicsnail 3y ago
      So as long as there is someone more miserable than me, I can't want something better?
    - MerManMaid 3y ago
      >There are plenty of people on earth living less than $1usd a day and would trade their situation gladly for a very comfortable $50kusd/year. This is absolutely besides the point. I also wish as many people as possible could make enough money to live comfortable lives but it has nothing to do with the problem of people passively earning millions of dollars without contributing anything positive to society.
- bwanab 3y ago
  Only if you forget to notice that the bottom 20% in the US lives better than the majority of the rest of the world.
  - bcrosby95 3y ago
    So what you're saying is the lifestyle of the bottom 20% should be good enough for the rich in the US too.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    That is not necessarily true nor does it negate the point.
    - exabrial 3y ago
      What he said is _most definitely true_: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2prHCbrVUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2prHCbrVUw
      - breadbreadbread 3y ago
        "a bad thing happens somewhere in the world therefore you shouldn't complain"
        exabrial 3y ago
        Precisely. It's called being an entitled brat.
        bmitc 3y ago
        It's insane to consider people suffering from malnutrition, lack of education, food scarcity, lack of access to healthcare as "entitled brats". I just don't even understand how one comes to that conclusion.
        breadbreadbread 3y ago
        you know all this shit is connected right? the rich in America exploit labor to accumulate profit -> funnel that shit into investments to passively increase their income -> investment firms squeeze their controlled companies to generate more profit to increase shareholder value -> companies outsource labor to the 3rd world to reduce costs and give savings to shareholders -> those foreign businesses exploit their workers to a greater degree because there is less/none regulation -> people in other countries get paid $1 a day Fighting corporate greed in the US is in effect fighting for the rights of laborers internationally that are negatively affected by American business interests. No one who fights for this kind of change does so for selfish reasons, it's for all of us.
swells34 3y ago
Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. Additionally, based on the comment from dwallin, it's likely a bad thing for 99.9% of American households. This is an odd state of being for a democracy, you'd think that we'd support laws that benefit the majority, since the idea of democracy is that the majority sets policy.
- BeetleB 3y ago
  > Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. It sounds like you believe that if the ownership share of the top 10% went up, then the average wealth of the bottom 90% went down. The latter does not follow from the former. Both can have seen increases in wealth.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Nearly every measure you can think of for standards of living, health, education, etc. is negatively affected by the increase of wealth inequality.
    - BeetleB 3y ago
      This is a generalism in response to a precise statement. It's a simple question: Has the wealth of the lowest 90% gone up or down? (And 90% is too coarse. Would be good to see it for every decile.)
      - wyre 3y ago
        Wealth for the lower 90% has gone up but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases.
        BeetleB 3y ago
        OK - new claim: > but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases. Can we show that for each decile?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

There's also a way of seeing it as just a thing.

breadbreadbread 3y ago

only if you are content with the way the US economy works, which requires wearing some pretty large blinders

breadbreadbread 3y ago
actually no, I don't think anyone should look at the wealth spread in the US and think that it's normal or good. It's objectively dangerous and undemocratic. If someone can earn millions a day from passive investment but someone who actually provides meaningful goods and services day-to-day barely makes 50k a year, I think we have totally misunderstood as a society what to value and how to distribute resources
- exabrial 3y ago
  There are plenty of people on earth living less than $1usd a day and would trade their situation gladly for a very comfortable $50kusd/year.
  - breadbreadbread 3y ago
    imagine if i told you that i think everyone deserves to make a wage that allows them to thrive and have stability. Also consider that A) things are more expensive here and B) our economy is debt based and many people with homes and cars in the US have negative income after expenses, just because aesthetically our poverty looks different, it doesn't mean that it's good. It's not comparable.
    - al_borland 3y ago
      Debt is heavily marketed, but ultimately a personal choice. For those who choose to live within their means and not take on debt, they don’t have most of their paycheck going out the door to pay for last month, or have negative income. I’ve had people who make less than me tell me I live like a poor person. That’s ok. I know I’m doing fine and they have since told me about some of their money struggles, and have a lot of debt to deal with each month. Maybe if people stopped using debt to pretend they had more than they do, we’d see more reasonable housing and car prices, as well as goods that are made with some quality and repairablity instead of things like fast fashion that simplely gets thrown away. Companies doing business in the US go to where the demand is. People need to stop using debt to demand junk that makes things worse. Step one could be ratching down the average home size. It has more than doubled since the 1950s, while the number of people in the house has gone down. A bigger home is naturally going to be more expensive to buy/build, but then it also takes more land, has higher property taxes, costs more to heat/cool, costs more to repair and maintain, has more rooms to furnish, and has more place to put stuff before a person needs to stop and question if this need all of it. Simply living in a more modest home or apartment can have a massive effect on a person’s finances.
  - breadbreadbread 3y ago
    if your opinion is that some people make millions a day and some people make $1 a day and thats just life and we shouldnt try to change that, I think you are fundamentally lost. Also consider: where do the billionaires in the US get the resources to fuel their empires? Do they get their cobalt from slave labor mines in the Congo? Do you think maybe there is some kind of connection between corporate greed in America and people on the other side of the world making $1/day or less?
  - sapphicsnail 3y ago
    So as long as there is someone more miserable than me, I can't want something better?
  - MerManMaid 3y ago
    >There are plenty of people on earth living less than $1usd a day and would trade their situation gladly for a very comfortable $50kusd/year. This is absolutely besides the point. I also wish as many people as possible could make enough money to live comfortable lives but it has nothing to do with the problem of people passively earning millions of dollars without contributing anything positive to society.
bwanab 3y ago
Only if you forget to notice that the bottom 20% in the US lives better than the majority of the rest of the world.
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  So what you're saying is the lifestyle of the bottom 20% should be good enough for the rich in the US too.
- bmitc 3y ago
  That is not necessarily true nor does it negate the point.
  - exabrial 3y ago
    What he said is _most definitely true_: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2prHCbrVUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2prHCbrVUw
    - breadbreadbread 3y ago
      "a bad thing happens somewhere in the world therefore you shouldn't complain"
      - exabrial 3y ago
        Precisely. It's called being an entitled brat.
        bmitc 3y ago
        It's insane to consider people suffering from malnutrition, lack of education, food scarcity, lack of access to healthcare as "entitled brats". I just don't even understand how one comes to that conclusion.
        breadbreadbread 3y ago
        you know all this shit is connected right? the rich in America exploit labor to accumulate profit -> funnel that shit into investments to passively increase their income -> investment firms squeeze their controlled companies to generate more profit to increase shareholder value -> companies outsource labor to the 3rd world to reduce costs and give savings to shareholders -> those foreign businesses exploit their workers to a greater degree because there is less/none regulation -> people in other countries get paid $1 a day Fighting corporate greed in the US is in effect fighting for the rights of laborers internationally that are negatively affected by American business interests. No one who fights for this kind of change does so for selfish reasons, it's for all of us.

swells34 3y ago

Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. Additionally, based on the comment from dwallin, it's likely a bad thing for 99.9% of American households. This is an odd state of being for a democracy, you'd think that we'd support laws that benefit the majority, since the idea of democracy is that the majority sets policy.

BeetleB 3y ago
> Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. It sounds like you believe that if the ownership share of the top 10% went up, then the average wealth of the bottom 90% went down. The latter does not follow from the former. Both can have seen increases in wealth.
- bmitc 3y ago
  Nearly every measure you can think of for standards of living, health, education, etc. is negatively affected by the increase of wealth inequality.
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    This is a generalism in response to a precise statement. It's a simple question: Has the wealth of the lowest 90% gone up or down? (And 90% is too coarse. Would be good to see it for every decile.)
    - wyre 3y ago
      Wealth for the lower 90% has gone up but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases.
      - BeetleB 3y ago
        OK - new claim: > but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases. Can we show that for each decile?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]