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> For example, Elon Musk has many many many times more wealth than I, and I don't care. Ditto Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and so on and on. I don't care about

> For example, Elon Musk has many many many times more wealth than I, and I don't care. Ditto Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and so on and on. I don't care about inequality -- I care about poverty and ending it. What I wonder is, how much poverty (in developed countries) results from the ultra-wealthy accumulating more wealth? At what point does extreme wealth come at the expense of the poor?

cryptonector 2y ago
Show me how Elon Musk is causing poverty.
WalterBright 2y ago
Elon Musk created his wealth, he did not confiscate it.
pdonis 2y ago
> the ultra-wealthy accumulating more wealth? People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. > At what point does extreme wealth come at the expense of the poor? Wealth that is created doesn't come at the expense of anyone. It is true that many rich people (for example much of the financial industry) don't get rich by creating wealth but by siphoning it from other people's pockets into their own. But the other people in such cases are the middle class, not the poor.
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  > People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatment https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatm... Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That's hardly a well-paying job. I think we can easily make a case that any Tesla employee or contractor who earns at the poverty level supports an argument that extreme wealth comes at the expense of the poor.
  - pdonis 2y ago
    > Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That $20/hour is coming from wealth that Tesla is creating. It's not taken from someone else. Indeed, it's helping those people since without Tesla those jobs would not exist and they might have to work at other jobs that paid even less. > at the poverty level $20/hour times 2000 hours is $40K per year. The US Federal poverty level even for a household of 4 people is $31K per year [1], and is significantly lower for smaller households (for a household of 1 person it's $15K per year). So no, Tesla annotators are not earning "at the poverty level". [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...
    - gwbas1c 2y ago
      The poverty level varies by region. I would consider $40k / year poverty level in Buffalo, NY. It's a rather upscale area.
      - cryptonector 2y ago
        Ever driven through rural America? Lots of people raise their own chickens, keep hens for eggs, grow their own veggies and fruit. Their property taxes are low, their income is low, but they're not hungry, and often want for nothing.
Nasrudith 2y ago
The causality is a hard question to answer honestly but I can answer the ending poverty portion. So ignore it for now and engage in a bit of rough math. Take the 5.2 trillion of every US billionaire combined and divide it by a third of the US population. It comes out to a one-time payment of about $45k. An amount which would certainly be appreciated by the bottom third of the population, certainly but not a panacea. The poverty line is defined via income and not assets. So lets do a conversion, if paying out the interest only at long-term treasury bond rates that would give the bottom third a "trust fund" which gives an extra $2K per year. Of course that is ignoring many of the messy practicalities. The inflation that would ensue from this hypothetical influx of cash to the bottom third, or if one could even extract the nominal market cap via selling assets vs the value crashing after the first third is put on the market. Combine that with the fact that the fortunes are invested in productive assets and the hypothetical mother of all liquidations would do majorly bad things to productivity and the economy.
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  I like your thinking. I tend to look at extreme wealth accumulation as a symptom of not paying people enough. IE, instead of requiring a liquidation, what about increasing pay at the lowest levels?
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    That's marginal income, which is not necessarily related to book value, and is almost certainly just a small fraction, which brings you back to less than $2,000 per person per year. I.e., it's not much, and you really can't extract it. Eating the rich doesn't work. It's never worked when it has been tried. It cannot work. It will never work.

cryptonector 2y ago

Show me how Elon Musk is causing poverty.

WalterBright 2y ago

Elon Musk created his wealth, he did not confiscate it.

pdonis 2y ago

> the ultra-wealthy accumulating more wealth? People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. > At what point does extreme wealth come at the expense of the poor? Wealth that is created doesn't come at the expense of anyone. It is true that many rich people (for example much of the financial industry) don't get rich by creating wealth but by siphoning it from other people's pockets into their own. But the other people in such cases are the middle class, not the poor.

gwbas1c 2y ago
> People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatment https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatm... Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That's hardly a well-paying job. I think we can easily make a case that any Tesla employee or contractor who earns at the poverty level supports an argument that extreme wealth comes at the expense of the poor.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That $20/hour is coming from wealth that Tesla is creating. It's not taken from someone else. Indeed, it's helping those people since without Tesla those jobs would not exist and they might have to work at other jobs that paid even less. > at the poverty level $20/hour times 2000 hours is $40K per year. The US Federal poverty level even for a household of 4 people is $31K per year [1], and is significantly lower for smaller households (for a household of 1 person it's $15K per year). So no, Tesla annotators are not earning "at the poverty level". [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...
  - gwbas1c 2y ago
    The poverty level varies by region. I would consider $40k / year poverty level in Buffalo, NY. It's a rather upscale area.
    - cryptonector 2y ago
      Ever driven through rural America? Lots of people raise their own chickens, keep hens for eggs, grow their own veggies and fruit. Their property taxes are low, their income is low, but they're not hungry, and often want for nothing.

Nasrudith 2y ago

The causality is a hard question to answer honestly but I can answer the ending poverty portion. So ignore it for now and engage in a bit of rough math. Take the 5.2 trillion of every US billionaire combined and divide it by a third of the US population. It comes out to a one-time payment of about $45k. An amount which would certainly be appreciated by the bottom third of the population, certainly but not a panacea. The poverty line is defined via income and not assets. So lets do a conversion, if paying out the interest only at long-term treasury bond rates that would give the bottom third a "trust fund" which gives an extra $2K per year. Of course that is ignoring many of the messy practicalities. The inflation that would ensue from this hypothetical influx of cash to the bottom third, or if one could even extract the nominal market cap via selling assets vs the value crashing after the first third is put on the market. Combine that with the fact that the fortunes are invested in productive assets and the hypothetical mother of all liquidations would do majorly bad things to productivity and the economy.

gwbas1c 2y ago
I like your thinking. I tend to look at extreme wealth accumulation as a symptom of not paying people enough. IE, instead of requiring a liquidation, what about increasing pay at the lowest levels?
- cryptonector 2y ago
  That's marginal income, which is not necessarily related to book value, and is almost certainly just a small fraction, which brings you back to less than $2,000 per person per year. I.e., it's not much, and you really can't extract it. Eating the rich doesn't work. It's never worked when it has been tried. It cannot work. It will never work.