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>> Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil How would hoarding of gold, in and of itself, be bad? Say so

>> Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil How would hoarding of gold, in and of itself, be bad? Say someone goes out and works and makes money, and they take the money and buy gold coins and keep them in a safe, or fill up a swimming pool so they can dive into their hoard of gold like Scrooge McDuck. They are contributing to society, and to the extent they hoard gold, asking nothing back for what they have contributed. It's like what Charlie Munger did. Made a massive fortune, spent his whole life doing it, had an amount of money that he could have used for extravagant spending, could have bought whole islands in Hawaii, could have bought politicians. But he didn't. He earned the money, earned dividends on the money, piled up all the money in a hoard. Then he died.

vacuity 3y ago
Hoarding gold isn't inherently bad, but many super rich people who arguably don't deserve nearly as much wealth as they have (worker exploitation, buying politicians, inheritance money, etc.), especially when juxtaposed with the terrible wealth inequality gap that they have the greatest ability to amend (through not exploiting, donating wealth or being taxed, not buying politicians to favor them, etc.). If everyone had a good baseline of living and politicians won't be bought to revert things, then no, I don't see a major issue with gold hoarders. But that's not the world we live in today.
cosmojg 3y ago
Charlie Munger achieved the vast majority of his wealth not by hoarding inelastic goods but by investing and reinvesting in dividend-paying stocks and bonds, virtual tokens representing liquid fractional ownership of productive enterprise. He can "hoard" those all he wants, and we all benefit from the greater levels of capital available to said productive enterprise. Now, if gold or other precious metals are necessary for the production of desirable goods, the hoarding of such assets increases the price of those goods in a zero-sum fashion. Of course, I'd never want to deny someone the pleasure of swimming in a pile of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. I'm just saying that they shouldn't be able to profit as much off of keeping the pile locked away in their mansion. Rather, they should repay society for its losses in the form of a land value tax.

vacuity 3y ago

Hoarding gold isn't inherently bad, but many super rich people who arguably don't deserve nearly as much wealth as they have (worker exploitation, buying politicians, inheritance money, etc.), especially when juxtaposed with the terrible wealth inequality gap that they have the greatest ability to amend (through not exploiting, donating wealth or being taxed, not buying politicians to favor them, etc.). If everyone had a good baseline of living and politicians won't be bought to revert things, then no, I don't see a major issue with gold hoarders. But that's not the world we live in today.

cosmojg 3y ago

Charlie Munger achieved the vast majority of his wealth not by hoarding inelastic goods but by investing and reinvesting in dividend-paying stocks and bonds, virtual tokens representing liquid fractional ownership of productive enterprise. He can "hoard" those all he wants, and we all benefit from the greater levels of capital available to said productive enterprise. Now, if gold or other precious metals are necessary for the production of desirable goods, the hoarding of such assets increases the price of those goods in a zero-sum fashion. Of course, I'd never want to deny someone the pleasure of swimming in a pile of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. I'm just saying that they shouldn't be able to profit as much off of keeping the pile locked away in their mansion. Rather, they should repay society for its losses in the form of a land value tax.