3 ms·

I‘d argue that we could question how they were able to acquire this amount of money in the first place.

nielsbot 2y ago
The answer I hear in lefty circles is ever lower taxation on them. (Since WWII?)
to11mtm 2y ago
Wealth, especially generational wealth, is a complicated problem in many aspects. The biggest 'challenge' is once you get to various echelons... of all places, I heard it best described on reddit; It's like the reverse of MMO mechanics; Rather than low levels giving you lots of growth and higher levels requiring a lot of 'grind', the farther you get the easier it is to make more money, even 'doing nothing'. A -huge- factor nowadays is property values as well, which doesn't help. ---- There is also the concern of 'other ways' people get into that echelon. I think of those who exploit labor, flount the law, and honestly in some cases (maybe they aren't the 1% but) those who use their power of 'celebrity' to get people to spend waaaaaay too much money on 'signature' goods or whatever else they endorse (Air Jordans come to mind as an example.) It's all kinda gross to me tbh.
hasbot 2y ago
Why? Each billionaire has a unique origin story so I'm not sure what's there to gain by your question.
- consteval 2y ago
  This seems awfully confident. I mean, have you interviewed every single billionaire? I doubt it. I'm sure there's many patterns or things linking them together. All I know is that I, and also everyone else I know, would never let themselves have a billion dollars. That money would be long gone before they reach 1 billion. Impulsively spent on whatever they think is good for other people. Could money be an addiction, like alcohol? Where some are predispositioned to want more and more and some don't care for it?
  - hasbot 2y ago
    I didn't have to interview them; it's all here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/04/02/forbes-worlds-billionaires-list-2024-the-top-200 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/04/02/forbes-... What patterns do you see and, more importantly, what actions would you take?
    - consteval 2y ago
      I don't think a forbes article is enough to claim with 100% certainty that every billionaire is completely different from the others. It's such a wild and obviously incorrect claim I don't know how you could possibly make it. I mean, even me - there are things in common between me and random people. > what actions would you take Nice try, but if I tell you you'll just use that to discredit anything I say. That's not relevant to the conversation so I won't be answering that. Feel free to speculate.
      - hasbot 2y ago
        Sure it is. Just scroll through the list and you see very few similarities. If anything might be in common, is that many of them were from rich families to begin with (e.g. Gates, Zuckerberg, Donald Trump) but there's many that weren't (e.g. Phil Knight). > I'm sure there's many patterns or things linking them together. That's awfully confident. What knowledge do you have that inspires such confidence?
dubcanada 2y ago
The answer is obvious, we put up gates to prevent competition. Every industry has so much red tape and list of approved products that it is impossible. Have a new product to solve house building in a timely fashion, hopefully you have hundred of thousands to pay for certification and then wait years for some government agency to approve your product for building. It's rather disgusting how we grid locked ourselves with regulations. There used to be thousands of ISPs, banks, grocery stores, etc and we added red tape after red tape to restrict and allowed them to be all bought by the company that did the best. Now we got like 3 banks, 3 ISPs, and 3 grocery stores with different names.
stanleykm 2y ago
A bearded german guy wrote about this at length a while ago
femto 2y ago
Thomas Piketty's book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", has a bit to say on this. It argues that historically, and increasingly so today, the return on capital exceeds the return on labour. This means wealth is a positive feedback cycle: wealth earns more wealth, at the expense of those who only have their labour. Once someone hits a net worth threshold it snowballs from there. Agree with it or not, the book is quite readable.
antisthenes 2y ago
If we're talking about US specifically, if you go back several generations, the answer would be slavery and Native american genocide (then taking their land and natural resources) The new money is mostly from tech/oil and exploiting globalization in smart ways.
Ekaros 2y ago
It is not money in first place... Wealth is kinda imaginary, a dream that most people believe in. Whole financial system is set up so that as long as numbers keep going up there is more money appearing... Unrealized gains. Commercial real-estate and home values. All of these are wealth. Most of them still go up in value thus in "wealth".

The answer I hear in lefty circles is ever lower taxation on them. (Since WWII?)

Wealth, especially generational wealth, is a complicated problem in many aspects. The biggest 'challenge' is once you get to various echelons... of all places, I heard it best described on reddit; It's like the reverse of MMO mechanics; Rather than low levels giving you lots of growth and higher levels requiring a lot of 'grind', the farther you get the easier it is to make more money, even 'doing nothing'. A -huge- factor nowadays is property values as well, which doesn't help. ---- There is also the concern of 'other ways' people get into that echelon. I think of those who exploit labor, flount the law, and honestly in some cases (maybe they aren't the 1% but) those who use their power of 'celebrity' to get people to spend waaaaaay too much money on 'signature' goods or whatever else they endorse (Air Jordans come to mind as an example.) It's all kinda gross to me tbh.

hasbot 2y ago

Why? Each billionaire has a unique origin story so I'm not sure what's there to gain by your question.

consteval 2y ago
This seems awfully confident. I mean, have you interviewed every single billionaire? I doubt it. I'm sure there's many patterns or things linking them together. All I know is that I, and also everyone else I know, would never let themselves have a billion dollars. That money would be long gone before they reach 1 billion. Impulsively spent on whatever they think is good for other people. Could money be an addiction, like alcohol? Where some are predispositioned to want more and more and some don't care for it?
- hasbot 2y ago
  I didn't have to interview them; it's all here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/04/02/forbes-worlds-billionaires-list-2024-the-top-200 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/04/02/forbes-... What patterns do you see and, more importantly, what actions would you take?
  - consteval 2y ago
    I don't think a forbes article is enough to claim with 100% certainty that every billionaire is completely different from the others. It's such a wild and obviously incorrect claim I don't know how you could possibly make it. I mean, even me - there are things in common between me and random people. > what actions would you take Nice try, but if I tell you you'll just use that to discredit anything I say. That's not relevant to the conversation so I won't be answering that. Feel free to speculate.
    - hasbot 2y ago
      Sure it is. Just scroll through the list and you see very few similarities. If anything might be in common, is that many of them were from rich families to begin with (e.g. Gates, Zuckerberg, Donald Trump) but there's many that weren't (e.g. Phil Knight). > I'm sure there's many patterns or things linking them together. That's awfully confident. What knowledge do you have that inspires such confidence?

dubcanada 2y ago

The answer is obvious, we put up gates to prevent competition. Every industry has so much red tape and list of approved products that it is impossible. Have a new product to solve house building in a timely fashion, hopefully you have hundred of thousands to pay for certification and then wait years for some government agency to approve your product for building. It's rather disgusting how we grid locked ourselves with regulations. There used to be thousands of ISPs, banks, grocery stores, etc and we added red tape after red tape to restrict and allowed them to be all bought by the company that did the best. Now we got like 3 banks, 3 ISPs, and 3 grocery stores with different names.

stanleykm 2y ago

A bearded german guy wrote about this at length a while ago

femto 2y ago

Thomas Piketty's book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", has a bit to say on this. It argues that historically, and increasingly so today, the return on capital exceeds the return on labour. This means wealth is a positive feedback cycle: wealth earns more wealth, at the expense of those who only have their labour. Once someone hits a net worth threshold it snowballs from there. Agree with it or not, the book is quite readable.

antisthenes 2y ago

If we're talking about US specifically, if you go back several generations, the answer would be slavery and Native american genocide (then taking their land and natural resources) The new money is mostly from tech/oil and exploiting globalization in smart ways.

Ekaros 2y ago

It is not money in first place... Wealth is kinda imaginary, a dream that most people believe in. Whole financial system is set up so that as long as numbers keep going up there is more money appearing... Unrealized gains. Commercial real-estate and home values. All of these are wealth. Most of them still go up in value thus in "wealth".