4 ms·

Capital isn't a group of people. What does this mean? People who own capital? Like there is some proxy sent to Blackrock about "should we shorten the work week

by bko 1y ago

Capital isn't a group of people. What does this mean? People who own capital? Like there is some proxy sent to Blackrock about "should we shorten the work week to 4 days" and they vote on it. As someone with a 401k, I must have missed that one. What's with this low quality comment. If you have nothing productive to add, don't comment. Or try to make a change yourself. Start a business and try a 4 day work week. Everyone should love it according to your world view and you could just be slightly less "greedy" and hire immigrants and trans folks and every other 'misfortunate' soul.

tharmas 1y ago
"We need more sheep to fleece" cried the Wolf.
- throwpoaster 1y ago
  Fleecing sheep doesn’t hurt them. Especially during the summer they really love it.
  - tharmas 1y ago
    so do the MAGAts apparently. Make Amerikkka GILDED Again!
fzeroracer 1y ago
Capital is a group of people. It is a few shared dynasties, people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth, the folks running private equity, the shrinking number of real estate developers that own a larger and larger share of all apartments. Your line about 'just start a business' is something people say but never actually execute on themselves. Try making a store to compete with Amazon, a or a grocer to compete with our consolidated giants. They can and will use the economy of massive scale they have to crush your business into oblivion, taking a short term loss to maintain a death grip on the market That's capital.
- gruez 1y ago
  >Capital is a group of people. It is a few shared dynasties, people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth, the folks running private equity, the shrinking number of real estate developers that own a larger and larger share of all apartments. What about the average American with pensions and 401ks that are invested in stocks? Or the "FIRE" crowd on reddit with 6 figures invested in Vanguard ETFs? Is "Capital" just a slur to be used against owners of capital you don't like, or you think have too much?
  - triceratops 1y ago
    > What about the average American with pensions and 401ks that are invested in stocks? Or the "FIRE" crowd on reddit with 6 figures invested in Vanguard ETFs? Own capital or be owned by those who do. That's how it works. We're trapped in a game that's taking the world to a bad place, but which we're doing really well at. Pensions and 401ks are today's "people taking care of elders when they're too old to work" - an idea as old as humanity. It's just abstracted through markets.
    - gruez 1y ago
      >Own capital or be owned by those who do. That's how it works. You didn't answer the question. Are those people "captial" or not? If it's just "own capital", then most Americans are "capital" because they at least have some sort of 401k or pension, but I suspect you wouldn't put them in the same group as "people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth" or whatever.
      - triceratops 1y ago
        > I suspect you wouldn't put them in the same group as "people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth" or whatever. 59% of Americans have a 401k or other retirement account.[1] They accumulate capital so they don't need to work when they're old. A small fraction of them are the "Reddit FIRE" types. The top 1% own more than 50% of all equity in private and public companies.[2] They and their kids and maybe grandkids don't need to work to live. Would you put both in the same group? Other than "owns productive assets" they don't have that much in common. 1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/691202/percentage-americans-retirement-savings-account.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/691202/percentage-americans-ret... 2. https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1212/average-net-worth-of-the-1.aspx https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1212/average-net...
AlecSchueler 1y ago
The market, emergent phenomena greater than the sum of their parts etc. I don't think it's unreasonable in 2025 to speak as if these things have agency beyond the level of individual humans living within the system. Of course they could start their own business with better morals but they'd be outcompeted by businesses which didn't care, that's the whole reason we need regulations and all the rest of it.
bigbadfeline 1y ago
> make a change yourself. Start a business and try a 4 day work week. Everyone should love it according to your world view... Back to reality, we would have 16x6 workweeks if not for government regulation. That much is not up for debate. Moving to 4x8 workweek is just a logical next step demanded by the circumstances.
- bko 1y ago
  I'm pretty sure there's no law that says you can't require people to work 16x6 and plenty of bankers do that. We don't because someone else offers us better options (i.e. competition)
  - int_19h 1y ago
    We also don't because the law mandates overtime pay. But then for some mysterious reason we specifically exempt quite a lot of (mostly white-collar) jobs from that.

by bko 1y ago

tharmas 1y ago

"We need more sheep to fleece" cried the Wolf.

throwpoaster 1y ago
Fleecing sheep doesn’t hurt them. Especially during the summer they really love it.
- tharmas 1y ago
  so do the MAGAts apparently. Make Amerikkka GILDED Again!

fzeroracer 1y ago

Capital is a group of people. It is a few shared dynasties, people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth, the folks running private equity, the shrinking number of real estate developers that own a larger and larger share of all apartments. Your line about 'just start a business' is something people say but never actually execute on themselves. Try making a store to compete with Amazon, a or a grocer to compete with our consolidated giants. They can and will use the economy of massive scale they have to crush your business into oblivion, taking a short term loss to maintain a death grip on the market That's capital.

gruez 1y ago
>Capital is a group of people. It is a few shared dynasties, people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth, the folks running private equity, the shrinking number of real estate developers that own a larger and larger share of all apartments. What about the average American with pensions and 401ks that are invested in stocks? Or the "FIRE" crowd on reddit with 6 figures invested in Vanguard ETFs? Is "Capital" just a slur to be used against owners of capital you don't like, or you think have too much?
- triceratops 1y ago
  > What about the average American with pensions and 401ks that are invested in stocks? Or the "FIRE" crowd on reddit with 6 figures invested in Vanguard ETFs? Own capital or be owned by those who do. That's how it works. We're trapped in a game that's taking the world to a bad place, but which we're doing really well at. Pensions and 401ks are today's "people taking care of elders when they're too old to work" - an idea as old as humanity. It's just abstracted through markets.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >Own capital or be owned by those who do. That's how it works. You didn't answer the question. Are those people "captial" or not? If it's just "own capital", then most Americans are "capital" because they at least have some sort of 401k or pension, but I suspect you wouldn't put them in the same group as "people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth" or whatever.
    - triceratops 1y ago
      > I suspect you wouldn't put them in the same group as "people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth" or whatever. 59% of Americans have a 401k or other retirement account.[1] They accumulate capital so they don't need to work when they're old. A small fraction of them are the "Reddit FIRE" types. The top 1% own more than 50% of all equity in private and public companies.[2] They and their kids and maybe grandkids don't need to work to live. Would you put both in the same group? Other than "owns productive assets" they don't have that much in common. 1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/691202/percentage-americans-retirement-savings-account.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/691202/percentage-americans-ret... 2. https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1212/average-net-worth-of-the-1.aspx https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1212/average-net...

AlecSchueler 1y ago

The market, emergent phenomena greater than the sum of their parts etc. I don't think it's unreasonable in 2025 to speak as if these things have agency beyond the level of individual humans living within the system. Of course they could start their own business with better morals but they'd be outcompeted by businesses which didn't care, that's the whole reason we need regulations and all the rest of it.

bigbadfeline 1y ago

> make a change yourself. Start a business and try a 4 day work week. Everyone should love it according to your world view... Back to reality, we would have 16x6 workweeks if not for government regulation. That much is not up for debate. Moving to 4x8 workweek is just a logical next step demanded by the circumstances.

bko 1y ago
I'm pretty sure there's no law that says you can't require people to work 16x6 and plenty of bankers do that. We don't because someone else offers us better options (i.e. competition)
- int_19h 1y ago
  We also don't because the law mandates overtime pay. But then for some mysterious reason we specifically exempt quite a lot of (mostly white-collar) jobs from that.