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Fair point, governments don't literally wire tax money straight to Qatar for oil. But whether it is at the pump or through subsidies, it is still ordinary peop

by gloosx 1y ago

Fair point, governments don't literally wire tax money straight to Qatar for oil. But whether it is at the pump or through subsidies, it is still ordinary people who end up carrying the cost — and that money gets recycled into football vanity projects.

fluoridation 1y ago
I mean, if you're going to consider indirect transactions too, eventually every part of the economy ends up affecting every other part. That money that goes into those projects doesn't just vanish, it gets spent and flows back out into the economy.
- bamboozled 1y ago
  I think you know what they mean...fuel is subsidized by the government, and Qatar winds up with the subsidized money. Need it be more complicated?
- gloosx 1y ago
  From a wider perspective it does vanish in terms of productive value: billions go into inflated transfers and club losses that generate little beyond spectacle, instead of going into things that improve lives (cheap energy, infrastructure, innovation, public goods)
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    I honestly don't understand what you mean. >billions go into inflated transfers and club losses that generate little beyond spectacle "Club losses"? If you pay a football player 100k to play a match, even if the point of the match is nothing but spectacle, that money doesn't evaporate. The player will spend it on the economy. What else could he possibly do with it besides spending it or tossing it in a fire? If a club spends 10M on something entirely frivolous -- say, a giant concrete football -- that money also doesn't simply disappear, it's used to pay the people who will make the raw materials and the people who will design and build the thing. Only individuals and distinct entities lose money. An economy never does.
    - gloosx 1y ago
      The point is how it circulates. If €200M goes into a transfer fee, it is locked into a prestige loop instead of funding productive investment, it gets trapped in a cycle that reinforces inequality and produces very little outside of image-building. The recipients of this money are a tiny elite which they then spend mostly in elite consumption loops: luxury real estate, yachts, exclusive services, tax havens. Speaking capitalist language, overinflated football spending is a misallocation of capital on low-return assets which creates market distortions.
      - fluoridation 1y ago
        >luxury real estate, yachts, exclusive services, tax havens All of that eventually has to flow back into, as you'd put it, non-elite segments of the economy. What, do you think shipyard workers eat yatchs? There's no subnetwork in the economy where money flows in and never comes back out. That just doesn't exist.
        gloosx 1y ago
        "money always comes back" view is too simplistic. Value can absolutely be destroyed or locked away: Build a $2M missile -> launch -> it explodes. The workers get wages, sure, but the capital value is literally blown up. No ongoing benefit to the wider economy. Stadiums for Olympics/World Cups -> billions spent -> used for 2 weeks -> abandoned. Money circulates in construction wages, but the asset sits idle, draining maintenance costs. Buy a $450M painting -> store it in a tax-free warehouse -> never seen, never sold for decades. That capital is locked — the flow stops until resale. So yes, wages circulate. But the end product can be waste, destruction, or dead capital. That is the difference between circulation and productive reinvestment.
        fluoridation 1y ago
        >Build a $2M missile -> launch -> it explodes. The workers get wages, sure, but the capital value is literally blown up. No ongoing benefit to the wider economy. >Stadiums for Olympics/World Cups -> billions spent -> used for 2 weeks -> abandoned. Money circulates in construction wages, but the asset sits idle, draining maintenance costs. You have no possible way to quantify the wastefulness of an action. Blowing up a rocket can help prevent more waste. You can feed someone a bowl of soup that makes them sick. With what omniscience do you get to deem a club's expenses wasteful? >Buy a $450M painting -> store it in a tax-free warehouse -> never seen, never sold for decades. That capital is locked — the flow stops until resale. No kidding? The thing you bought stays with you until you sell it? Sorry, how is this different from literally anything else? >But the end product can be waste, destruction, or dead capital. That is the difference between circulation and productive reinvestment. Let's say I'm the richest man in the world, and I use half of my wealth to pay people to dig the biggest, deepest hole possible, and then the other half to fill it back up. I'm sure both you and I will agree that that's a purely wasteful endeavor that would accomplish nothing. Ignoring ecological destruction, who was harmed? What was lost, and who lost it?

by gloosx 1y ago

fluoridation 1y ago

I mean, if you're going to consider indirect transactions too, eventually every part of the economy ends up affecting every other part. That money that goes into those projects doesn't just vanish, it gets spent and flows back out into the economy.

bamboozled 1y ago
I think you know what they mean...fuel is subsidized by the government, and Qatar winds up with the subsidized money. Need it be more complicated?
gloosx 1y ago
From a wider perspective it does vanish in terms of productive value: billions go into inflated transfers and club losses that generate little beyond spectacle, instead of going into things that improve lives (cheap energy, infrastructure, innovation, public goods)
- fluoridation 1y ago
  I honestly don't understand what you mean. >billions go into inflated transfers and club losses that generate little beyond spectacle "Club losses"? If you pay a football player 100k to play a match, even if the point of the match is nothing but spectacle, that money doesn't evaporate. The player will spend it on the economy. What else could he possibly do with it besides spending it or tossing it in a fire? If a club spends 10M on something entirely frivolous -- say, a giant concrete football -- that money also doesn't simply disappear, it's used to pay the people who will make the raw materials and the people who will design and build the thing. Only individuals and distinct entities lose money. An economy never does.
  - gloosx 1y ago
    The point is how it circulates. If €200M goes into a transfer fee, it is locked into a prestige loop instead of funding productive investment, it gets trapped in a cycle that reinforces inequality and produces very little outside of image-building. The recipients of this money are a tiny elite which they then spend mostly in elite consumption loops: luxury real estate, yachts, exclusive services, tax havens. Speaking capitalist language, overinflated football spending is a misallocation of capital on low-return assets which creates market distortions.
    - fluoridation 1y ago
      >luxury real estate, yachts, exclusive services, tax havens All of that eventually has to flow back into, as you'd put it, non-elite segments of the economy. What, do you think shipyard workers eat yatchs? There's no subnetwork in the economy where money flows in and never comes back out. That just doesn't exist.
      - gloosx 1y ago
        "money always comes back" view is too simplistic. Value can absolutely be destroyed or locked away: Build a $2M missile -> launch -> it explodes. The workers get wages, sure, but the capital value is literally blown up. No ongoing benefit to the wider economy. Stadiums for Olympics/World Cups -> billions spent -> used for 2 weeks -> abandoned. Money circulates in construction wages, but the asset sits idle, draining maintenance costs. Buy a $450M painting -> store it in a tax-free warehouse -> never seen, never sold for decades. That capital is locked — the flow stops until resale. So yes, wages circulate. But the end product can be waste, destruction, or dead capital. That is the difference between circulation and productive reinvestment.
        fluoridation 1y ago
        >Build a $2M missile -> launch -> it explodes. The workers get wages, sure, but the capital value is literally blown up. No ongoing benefit to the wider economy. >Stadiums for Olympics/World Cups -> billions spent -> used for 2 weeks -> abandoned. Money circulates in construction wages, but the asset sits idle, draining maintenance costs. You have no possible way to quantify the wastefulness of an action. Blowing up a rocket can help prevent more waste. You can feed someone a bowl of soup that makes them sick. With what omniscience do you get to deem a club's expenses wasteful? >Buy a $450M painting -> store it in a tax-free warehouse -> never seen, never sold for decades. That capital is locked — the flow stops until resale. No kidding? The thing you bought stays with you until you sell it? Sorry, how is this different from literally anything else? >But the end product can be waste, destruction, or dead capital. That is the difference between circulation and productive reinvestment. Let's say I'm the richest man in the world, and I use half of my wealth to pay people to dig the biggest, deepest hole possible, and then the other half to fill it back up. I'm sure both you and I will agree that that's a purely wasteful endeavor that would accomplish nothing. Ignoring ecological destruction, who was harmed? What was lost, and who lost it?