# The top 26 richest billionaries own half the money of the whole world



## Noctosphere (Jan 22, 2019)

Just an interresting fact I wanted tk share
Apparently, the top 26 richest billionaries own half the money of the whole world
The other half is owned by 3.8 billions peoples over the world

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/20/business/oxfam-billionaires-davos/index.html


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## Chary (Jan 22, 2019)

TIL: Billionares are rich. 

I’m surprised it’s not more than that, honestly.


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## H1B1Esquire (Jan 22, 2019)

Welcome to Earth after the invention of money--shit ain't fair and it's too bad. Git gud.....or an inheritance.


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## Xzi (Jan 22, 2019)

Surely you don't mean to tell me that income inequality is a massive problem worldwide!  Le _gasp!
_
Seriously though, yeah it's out of fucking control.  If all of them donated 1% of their wealth, world hunger would no longer be an issue.  We could probably fund universal healthcare and tuition-free college too.  The problem is that the entire world bought into the "greed is good" garbage philosophy that spewed forth from the USA in the 80s.  Now nearly forty years later we continue to have an almost-farcical reverence for wealthy individuals, even if their wealth was handed to them or it's mostly dark/blood money. 

Eventually there's going to be a breaking point because the gap is simply unsustainable.  At that point we have to decide if we want to go out like bitches and have a worldwide economic collapse imposed on us by billionaires who believe themselves isolated from it, or sack up and start rolling out the guillotines.


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## AsPika2219 (Jan 22, 2019)

Look likes Jeff Bazos (founder of Amazon) becomes newest richest person after Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft). Here the list of richest persons in the world!

https://wealthygorilla.com/top-20-richest-people-world/


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## CallmeBerto (Jan 22, 2019)

Yeah so? As long as they earned it who cares? As long as there is economic mobility who cares?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

oh and this is a good video to watch on this topic -


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## The Real Jdbye (Jan 22, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Surely you don't mean to tell me that income inequality is a massive problem worldwide!  Le _gasp!
> _
> Seriously though, yeah it's out of fucking control.  If all of them donated 1% of their wealth, world hunger would no longer be an issue.  We could probably fund universal healthcare and tuition-free college too.  The problem is that the entire world bought into the "greed is good" garbage philosophy that spewed forth from the USA in the 80s.  Now nearly forty years later we continue to have an almost-farcical reverence for wealthy individuals, even if their wealth was handed to them or it's mostly dark/blood money.
> 
> Eventually there's going to be a breaking point because the gap is simply unsustainable.  At that point we have to decide if we want to go out like bitches and have a worldwide economic collapse imposed on us by billionaires who believe themselves isolated from it, or sack up and start rolling out the guillotines.


World hunger isn't just an issue of money, though it would certainly help. It just wouldn't eliminate it completely.


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## Xzi (Jan 22, 2019)

The Real Jdbye said:


> World hunger isn't just an issue of money, though it would certainly help. It just wouldn't eliminate it completely.


IDK man, if that money is distributed to the right organizations, it would almost certainly be enough to establish food kitchens everywhere in the world where they're most needed.  Make it 2% from the richest billionaires and we'd have enough to house and clothe the world's entire population too.


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## xpoverzion (Jan 22, 2019)

Peasant Revolt!!


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## coolfuze (Jan 22, 2019)

Xzi said:


> IDK man, if that money is distributed to the right organizations, it would almost certainly be enough to establish food kitchens everywhere in the world where they're most needed.  Make it 2% from the richest billionaires and we'd have enough to house and clothe the world's entire population too.



Get out of here you NPC commie  In all seriousness stealing money (Cause that's essentially what you're proposing) won't improve the world situation for long. Poor people are poor mostly because they don't know how to or are motivated to create wealth. If you start handing out money to people who don't know to handle it they'll just be poor again in a short while.

Even I would love to get money without doing anything to earn it, but I realise that chances of me falling on my backside into a pile of cash is slim to none. My time would be better spent becoming more educated, working on my mental and physical health problems and just living a life where I can look back at yesterday and say "I love myself and the people in my life"


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## Xzi (Jan 22, 2019)

coolfuze said:


> Get out of here you NPC commie  In all seriousness stealing money (Cause that's essentially what you're proposing) won't improve the world situation for long. Poor people are poor mostly because they don't know how to or are motivated to create wealth. If you start handing out money to people who don't know to handle it they'll just be poor again in a short while.
> 
> Even I would love to get money without doing anything to earn it, but I realise that chances of me falling on my backside into a pile of cash is slim to none. My time would be better spent becoming more educated, working on my mental and physical health problems and just living a life where I can look back at yesterday and say "I love myself and the people in my life"


Most of these billionaires did not earn their wealth.  Ever stop to think why it is that you believe only people born at the bottom should have to earn their way up the ladder?  The truth of the matter is that capitalism isn't structured much better than feudalism was, it's just that capitalism is better at concealing most of the pain and suffering it causes.  Like I said, if we keep moving in the same direction, it'll collapse eventually because this level of greed and inequality is unsustainable.


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## kuwanger (Jan 22, 2019)

CallmeBerto said:


> As long as they earned it who cares?



Does usury count as "earned it"?  Honestly, I tend to heavily question any of those "richest billionaires" lists because most often supposed assets are tied up in companies or investments that can't be readily divested without substantial loss of stated value.



coolfuze said:


> In all seriousness stealing money (Cause that's essentially what you're proposing) won't improve the world situation for long. Poor people are poor mostly because they don't know how to or are motivated to create wealth. If you start handing out money to people who don't know to handle it they'll just be poor again in a short while.



Do you mean create wealth, create money, or create value?  But what you're saying is right, the whole point of taking out a tax on income isn't to magically end poverty.  There's literally no way to end poverty short of either (1) getting rid of all assets or (2) constantly redistributing all assets.  Most of those who are poor aren't motivated to seek wealth because it comes at the loss of friends, family, and most of your free time (ie working 12 hrs, 7 days a week minimal) along with giving up any sense of morality.  There are, of course, exceptions.  But that's really the only path that has a decently high probability for most people who are poor.


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## Xzi (Jan 22, 2019)

kuwanger said:


> Do you mean create wealth, create money, or create value?  But what you're saying is right, the whole point of taking out a tax on income isn't to magically end poverty.  There's literally no way to end poverty short of either (1) getting rid of all assets or (2) constantly redistributing all assets.  Most of those who are poor aren't motivated to seek wealth because it comes at the loss of friends, family, and most of your free time (ie working 12 hrs, 7 days a week minimal) along with giving up any sense of morality.  There are, of course, exceptions.  But that's really the only path that has a decently high probability for most people who are poor.


Indeed, and though it shouldn't have to be stated, people need to understand that the ultra-wealthy and those in poverty are not mutually exclusive, but rather directly tied to one another.  No shit there's going to be tons of poverty if a very small collective of people are sucking out 50% of the wealth generated by the world's economy, year over year, without returning a reasonable proportion of it.  The money just sits there and piles up in multiple forms and currencies, avoiding nearly all taxes, until the world's 26 richest billionaires each decide to buy 26 more yachts/luxury jets.


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## invaderyoyo (Jan 22, 2019)

The real tragedy is that there are so many people who think this is okay.


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## CallmeBerto (Jan 22, 2019)

@kuwanger - Yeah, I mean. You signed a contract to borrow money at X interest rate. Therefore the one lending you the money needs to see some kind of profit.


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## The Real Jdbye (Jan 23, 2019)

Xzi said:


> IDK man, if that money is distributed to the right organizations, it would almost certainly be enough to establish food kitchens everywhere in the world where they're most needed.  Make it 2% from the richest billionaires and we'd have enough to house and clothe the world's entire population too.


There isn't enough food in the world for everyone to be well fed, and creating more farmland requires destroying more nature which has its own problems.


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## CallmeBerto (Jan 23, 2019)

FREE TRADE!!
FREE MARKETS!!


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## Noctosphere (Jan 23, 2019)

The Real Jdbye said:


> There isn't enough food in the world for everyone to be well fed, and creating more farmland requires destroying more nature which has its own problems.


The real problem in Africa is that lot of land aren't harverstable
They can't grow anything in a desert
They'll first need to irrigate the whole land to make grass grow on it first...


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## Xzi (Jan 23, 2019)

The Real Jdbye said:


> There isn't enough food in the world for everyone to be well fed, and creating more farmland requires destroying more nature which has its own problems.


You'd definitely have to give me a source on that one.  AFAIK we can grow certain foods in labs now without issue.  Hell, Americans on their own waste/discard enough food daily to feed an entire continent.


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## kuwanger (Jan 23, 2019)

CallmeBerto said:


> You signed a contract to borrow money at X interest rate. Therefore the one lending you the money needs to see some kind of profit.



Not really.  Anything physical deteriorates over time.  Modern money is fundamentally different because it's fungible, fiat, and exchangeable to full restoration of its face value indefinitely.  One could argue usury is necessary because of inflation, but the current system of artificial inflation is by design to spark investment by those with money and partly as a response to usury.

One could argue that this is overall good economic policy, but it fundamentally means that most banks virtually print money.  Couple this with fractional reserves and loan magnification occurs.  This creates circumstances where financial crises can occur because of loans and investments being intermingled (it's what caused the 1929 stock market crash and the 2008 crisis).  Further, stocks function as de facto paper money (which is where most the "wealth" of these billionaires appear) which is based upon the distortion of either the supposed long-term worth of a company and/or the buy price of other people presuming relatively stable sale of said stock (which is why I pointed out originally how hypothetical the worth is).

What does this all amount to?  That in the end, a lot of people with wealth are part of a system that by design grants consistent substantial payout well above inflation.  It makes sense then in such a system to minimally tax that same group accordingly to not only (1) make sure people at the top can actually "lose" but (2) to offset stated crises that occur because of how the system can and will be gamed by some with catastrophic effects on the whole system.  That doesn't even get into the point of the more obvious stuff:  one way or another, the wealthy don't want the poor mobs rioting and destroying their wealth so paying taxes to assure reasonable levels of "bread and circuses"* makes a lot of sense.

* Seriously, it was considered a duty of wealthy Roman citizens to pay for food, public baths, etc above and beyond what taxes they paid because it was realized the poor if left unhappy long enough would do great damage.  Even those in the gilded age saw this.  With a world of poor, unhappy internet hackers, I wonder what sort of damage could be wrought today.


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## osaka35 (Jan 23, 2019)

The Real Jdbye said:


> There isn't enough food in the world for everyone to be well fed, and creating more farmland requires destroying more nature which has its own problems.


fun fact: the united states has way way more trees now than when Europeans discovered North America existed.


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## Xzi (Jan 23, 2019)

osaka35 said:


> fun fact: the united states has way way more trees now than when Europeans discovered North America existed.


It makes sense, the Native American population was far more in touch with nature and much better at managing forests than we are.  By allowing everything to grow unchecked and so close together, we invite large-scale wildfires.


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## Taleweaver (Jan 23, 2019)

Chary said:


> I’m surprised it’s not more than that, honestly.


That is indeed a very remarkable thing. This number (26 people = half the world in income) is just about halved since a year ago (at the end of 2017, it took 43 people's combined value to equal the lower half of the world).


The Real Jdbye said:


> There isn't enough food in the world for everyone to be well fed, and creating more farmland requires destroying more nature which has its own problems.


Sorry...this is simply not true. I've read from multiple sources that food _*production *_has long since become so efficient that it can easily provide the entire earth's population (and even two or three times that amount...and yes, on a daily basis). The reason famine still exists is purely a matter of food _*distribution*_. It is simply not economically feasible to feed the poor half of the world, so little is done in that aspect. Or have you never noticed the irony of the fact that both famine and obesity are plagues in this world?

EDIT:


osaka35 said:


> fun fact: the united states has way way more trees now than when Europeans discovered North America existed.


Okay...this is indeed a fun fact. From what I quickly googled, there is at least some truth in this. Of course the entire situation is more complex than this*, but it's certainly interesting. By any chance, do you have a source on this? 


*one of the weirdest things I've read is the development of what I would call "suicide trees": trees that grow so fast that at one point they literally break under their own weight. Obviously very good for wood processing industry, but in ecological terms, a normal tree is easily worth 3 or 4 of such trees.


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## The Real Jdbye (Jan 23, 2019)

Noctosphere said:


> The real problem in Africa is that lot of land aren't harverstable
> They can't grow anything in a desert
> They'll first need to irrigate the whole land to make grass grow on it first...


That's a problem too, but solving the money issue would solve that since they could import food.


Taleweaver said:


> Sorry...this is simply not true. I've read from multiple sources that food _*production *_has long since become so efficient that it can easily provide the entire earth's population (and even two or three times that amount...and yes, on a daily basis). The reason famine still exists is purely a matter of food _*distribution*_. It is simply not economically feasible to feed the poor half of the world, so little is done in that aspect. Or have you never noticed the irony of the fact that both famine and obesity are plagues in this world?


That's not what I heard. But I don't actually have a source so it could be wrong.


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## CallmeBerto (Jan 23, 2019)

@kuwanger - Well yes on usury you are correct(I didn't really explain it as well as I should have). Usury is used to both to pay for any inflation and compensate the other party for their services. An example you loan someone 1000 USD. They promise to pay you back in 1 year. Well, what if inflation goes up by 10% they have in a sense given you less money due to the fact that now that money can buy 10% fewer goods and services. Another thing to note is that person has 1000 less money to do without. You must pay them extra for this.

Banks don't print money governments do which is why inflation is a thing. inflation is taxation without legislation - Milton Friedman

Another thing to note is that as long as that there is economic mobility then it doesn't matter how rich the rich are. If with hard work, dumb luck etc a poor person can become the 1% then it is fine. While I don't have any data to back me up, I think most people know this so I don't see any revolution coming against the rich.


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## Ericthegreat (Jan 23, 2019)

Yeah I 


Chary said:


> TIL: Billionares are rich.
> 
> I’m surprised it’s not more than that, honestly.


Thought it was the top 10.


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## kuwanger (Jan 23, 2019)

CallmeBerto said:


> Well, what if inflation goes up by 10% they have in a sense given you less money due to the fact that now that money can buy 10% fewer goods and services.



The thing as you state it is really only an approximation, but having said that without government intervention deflation would be a thing too and people would have reason to hold on to money purely as a means to gain value.  My point is, as your final quote states, that the order of cause and effect is a lot less clear.



CallmeBerto said:


> Another thing to note is that person has 1000 less money to do without. You must pay them extra for this.



That's what investments are for.  Investments, though, don't always pan out.  One could say the same about loans--as people can default--but there's a lot less risk of that meaningfully happening in aggregate unless banks do something stupid like make a lot of high risk loans and misrepresent the risk of those loans.  Diversified enough investments then functionally behave almost like usury but without necessarily interest by relying upon aggregate value/wealth creation.



CallmeBerto said:


> Banks don't print money governments do which is why inflation is a thing. inflation is taxation without legislation - Milton Friedman



Banks don't print money, but the Federal Reserve does create credit and stipulate the reserve holding rules and base interest rate that banks must abide by.  This includes things like quantitative easing.  As much as the Federal Reserve is part of the government, it's also a substantially independent agency.  It has substantial say in the printed money supply even though the Treasury prints the money.  It also buys Treasury Notes as a means to limit their supply and hence inflate their value.

My point is, it's a complicated system of multiple parts designed to discourage rampant debt creation, rampant inflation, etc.  People in the right position to game it--banks--can create horrible economic circumstances and then be bailed out for fear of market corrections poisoning the money supply leading to massive, long-term economic ruin.  When you can directly or indirectly funnel money through the stock market or other investment instruments, which offers much higher average returns than standard bank loans with fixed sub-usury* rates, you encourage that sort of abuse without regulation and enforcement.

Anyways, that's how I see/understand it.  I'm done rambling for now.

* Going back to your first point, if inflation was not merely 10% but 25% then you'd always lose money in most places because today the term usury has come to mean illegally high interest rates--you'd have to come up with some other mechanism to get that sort of money.  For banks, when you start looking at investments you can see how it'd be very tempting to take $1000 meant for a savings account, spin it into an instrument that could be sold, and then pocket the sale price difference getting closer to a 10% rate rather than the amount they're likely to receive from standard loans.  This is especially true because one can keep reinvesting nearly all the money as virtually none of it has to be reserved and each sale allows for compounding growth at the rate of sales.


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## Taleweaver (Jan 23, 2019)

CallmeBerto said:


> @kuwanger
> Banks don't print money governments do which is why inflation is a thing. inflation is taxation without legislation - Milton Friedman



Milton Friedman isn't the best source to quote when it comes to economics. If you read Naomi Klein or even Joseph Stiglitz, you'll quickly learn that Friedman and his school of Chicago boys are one of the driving sources of the increased inequality in the world. He also died in 2006, so he never witnessed the backlash that it caused with the 2008 crisis.

Kuwanger is spot in in saying that banks print _virtual _money. It's not the same as actual money, but in the long run it comes down to the same thing. Lemme explain...say I own a bank with MORE THAN 1000 bucks on it. I then loan 1000 bucks to someone who'll pay me back within a year, along with interest. I'm not sure if you've ever went to a bank for a loan, but as someone who did it twice, I can tell you this: they do not give you the actual money. They don't give me stacks of paper. Heck...my girlfriend and me have recently loaned over 220'000 euro's, and literally speaking, we haven't seen a cent from the bank. What we instead got was a very expensive paper saying that we've gotten the loan, and some phone calls to our notary promising it'll be transferred to the people we'd buy a house from. Of course they never actually SEE the money either, but use it to buy a house with themselves.

This isn't a coincidence. To get back to that earlier example: banks don't really loan money...they loan IOU's. They hand out pamflets saying that whomever gets it, can trade it back for 1000 bucks.
Thus far, it's a "same difference" situation. But what banks then do, is simply allow the next person to loan 1000 bucks as well. This one also gets an IOU worth 1000 dollars. And that's the thing: banks don't even really hide the truth anymore...they call it "leverage". As long as they can pay back _some _clients who want actual money for their loan, they don't consider themselves to be in problem. More so: because they charge pretty hefty on the interest rates* they can often cover any real money they need to pay on that alone.




CallmeBerto said:


> Another thing to note is that as long as that there is economic mobility then it doesn't matter how rich the rich are. If with hard work, dumb luck etc a poor person can become the 1% then it is fine. While I don't have any data to back me up, I think most people know this so I don't see any revolution coming against the rich.


I've heard that one before. And I admit, there is certainly something to be said about it. I mean...does it really matter that the rich get (super super SUPER) rich when the poor have seen their standards raised as well? I mean...I admit I don't know whether the last year was still a net gain for the poor, but earlier on I've read on the paradox that the poor see their net worth lower (without proper education, your chances for a job are lower than ever)and yet at the same time things like mortality rates and life expectancy are going the right way.

The problems are a bit deeper. I know at least two.

For one: "economic mobility" is a pipedream. If you work hard and smart and aren't struck with serious misfortune, then you might get rich. You might. And 'rich' meaning: 'having more than the people directly around you'. You might become the richest person in the street, your neighborhood or even your local village. Richer than that becomes harder once you get in a territory where competition is involved. You see, modern capitalism is a long stretch from how I would assume it is handed out on flyers that is given out to former communists or socialists. Modern capitalism gives the already wealthy all the tools to prey and feed on the 'slightly less rich'. Through market manipulation, tax evasion, politics intermingling, patent wars and all that jazz, the extremely wealthy have an army at their disposal to make sure that they remain on top. Not so much by being the best at something (though of course: if you can hinder your opponents out of the market, you are the best by default) but by praying upon others. So no...a poor person cannot become the 1%. I'm willing to concede that most people still believe that lie, but that's changing. More and more understand that they aren't fed the rule but the exception. And that they are the suckers for believing in it.

The second problem is on the social aspect of it. While there are quite some rich heirs on the world, the TRULY rich all own multinational companies. And these go beyond merely feeding upon the lesser rich to feeding upon governments. All the benefits are internalized while all (or as much as possible of) the costs are externalized. If you break down an apple product down to its core features, then you'd be amazed how much parts of it were originally created or funded by the government or state-driven colleges or universities.
On the flip side: they play out states or even countries, hoping to get the best deal FOR THEM when it comes to labour costs. This also funnels the wealth in the world towards the leaders of these organisations.

This all is getting to a boiling point. From what I can see, the only thin thread that is holding back a second french revolution is that very idea that "if you work long and hard enough, maybe there's a place for you on the hill". And when I look at those yellow vests, students going on strike because of the climate or even things like the brexit and that moron in the oval office, I see it as signs that that thread is getting REALLY thin.

Heh...I hope I'm wrong, obviously. But with this sort of news, I doubt it. Or do you think that anyone can work hard and long enough so that in the end, they can earn as much wealth as HALF THE WORLD COMBINED? 

* honestly: please don't pretend that banks just charge interest to cover inflation costs. The interest rates and calculations are set as such that dumb people don't understand how much they pay for the privilege and smart people realise that they don't have other options. Meanwhile, rich people don't take loans. They give them at others to get even more rich.


The Real Jdbye said:


> That's not what I heard. But I don't actually have a source so it could be wrong.


Hmm...it can also be that your source (or you) misinterpret what was originally said. You said that there isn't enough food, nor enough possible farmland available to feed the entire world. Again: that is untrue. However: it is not "simply" a matter of being less greedy. It is also true that the diet of the average Western man (US, Europe) isn't sustainable if everyone adopts it. The obvious example is meat: if everyone should start eating meat every day, then either the production cannot follow (even with perfect distribution), or it would lead to an ecological disaster. So in that aspect, it isn't exactly _wrong_ to say that there isn't enough food for everyone. It's just that we're pretty spoiled in terms of what "food" really means.


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## kuwanger (Jan 23, 2019)

Taleweaver said:


> Kuwanger is spot in in saying that banks print _virtual _money. It's not the same as actual money, but in the long run it comes down to the same thing.



Which reminds me of a funny statistic.  There was approximately $1.72 trillion in circulation as of December 26, 2018, of which $1.67 trillion was in Federal Reserve notes.  Put another way, there was 2.12x as much government revenue, 2.38x as much government spending, and ~11.6x as much US GDP as total money in circulation.

Given those numbers, consider that the foreign-exchange reserve of China is ~US$3.51 trillion and of which it is estimated 2/3rds is in US currency; ie, China has in reserve ~1.36x total US currency circulation*.  When people talk about the risk of China owning US debt, they're missing the forest for the trees on the sort of devastation China could bring if it had reason to devalue the US dollar simply by releasing that currency in the US.  A switch from US to Euro as main currency reserve would also be potentially very damaging, although I imagine most countries would slowly do the change over to avoid the economic peril.

So, uh, yea.  Scary thought for the day.

* Presumable some percentage of that $1.67 trillion is yearly flowing out of country and/or into holdings in country as cash, but overall it looks like China's reserve is shrinking so it's really unclear how the ratio of currency is changing.  Also, obviously circulation != total printed money supply or it'd include estimates of China's and other countries' US dollar reserve.


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## Noctosphere (Jan 28, 2019)

I also heard yeads ago that the 1% richest people in the world owned almost the same amojnt of money as the other 99%
Idk if it changed since then though


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## Taleweaver (Jan 28, 2019)

Noctosphere said:


> I also heard yeads ago that the 1% richest people in the world owned almost the same amojnt of money as the other 99%
> Idk if it changed since then though


Sorry, but just because you heard it doesn't mean it's true. There is a huge inequality, but it was never THIS huge (yet). You sure it wasn't 50%?  Because that was true a couple years ago (source 1, source 2).


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## Noctosphere (Jan 28, 2019)

Taleweaver said:


> Sorry, but just because you heard it doesn't mean it's true. There is a huge inequality, but it was never THIS huge (yet). You sure it wasn't 50%?  Because that was true a couple years ago (source 1, source 2).


well, thats pretty much what i said
if the 1% owns as much as the other 99%
it's pretty much 50/50, right?


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## kumikochan (Jan 28, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Surely you don't mean to tell me that income inequality is a massive problem worldwide!  Le _gasp!
> _
> Seriously though, yeah it's out of fucking control.  If all of them donated 1% of their wealth, world hunger would no longer be an issue.  We could probably fund universal healthcare and tuition-free college too.  The problem is that the entire world bought into the "greed is good" garbage philosophy that spewed forth from the USA in the 80s.  Now nearly forty years later we continue to have an almost-farcical reverence for wealthy individuals, even if their wealth was handed to them or it's mostly dark/blood money.
> 
> Eventually there's going to be a breaking point because the gap is simply unsustainable.  At that point we have to decide if we want to go out like bitches and have a worldwide economic collapse imposed on us by billionaires who believe themselves isolated from it, or sack up and start rolling out the guillotines.


The entire world ? Europe is mostly middle class and doesn't have the huge gap between rich and poor like America has. Also the things you're talking about ain't a problem in europe since we have a safety net for people with problems being unemployment money, multiple food banks, goverments partly funding house rent and so forth.


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## Taleweaver (Jan 28, 2019)

Noctosphere said:


> well, thats pretty much what i said
> if the 1% owns as much as the other 99%
> it's pretty much 50/50, right?


Oh, CRAP! 

Sorry...it was me who had misread things entirely (including my own sources, no less). I had assumed that the one percent owned as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the _population_. But like you correctly said: they owned 50% of the _wealth_, so they own (indeed) as much as the remaining 99%.

...and that was two years ago. Now the richest of the richest have seen their wealth increase so much that just 26 of 'em own as much as everyone else (yes...up and including everyone else in that top one percentage). That's...okay, it was already insane the way I read it earlier. Now it is even more mind boggling*.


*so basically: if those 26 people decide to give their fortunes away, it would mean EVERYONE IN THE WORLD WOULD SEE THEIR AMOUNT OF MONEY DOUBLED.



coolfuze said:


> In all seriousness stealing money (Cause that's essentially what you're proposing) won't improve the world situation for long. Poor people are poor mostly because they don't know how to or are motivated to create wealth. If you start handing out money to people who don't know to handle it they'll just be poor again in a short while.


I've read about that argument, and there's something to be said about it. There is just one problem: how intuitive that outcome might sound, it is also totally wrong. Nearly all experiments with basic income have yielded healthier and more motivated workers, not less. The people that quit their jobs didn't do so to sit on their ass all day but did it to follow their dreams. Meaning: they basically traded the job they hated (but were forced to keep because they needed the money) for a job they wanted or deemed necessary (thus: stronger motivation).

There is also something to be said about giving an individual money versus giving entire groups more money. Dimmidice certainly put it too blunt, but it's true that the republicans assume the so-called "tragedy of the commons" is a given factor. They assume that if you give something for everyone to share (classic example: an open grass land for all the farmers), that there'll always be one bastard who takes it all without giving anything back. Or similar: that the participants assume OTHERS are such bastards, and therefore start acting that same way as to not be at a disadvantage. This too is a myth.



			
				coolfuze said:
			
		

> Even I would love to get money without doing anything to earn it, but I realise that chances of me falling on my backside into a pile of cash is slim to none.


There's another way of looking at this: do you truly believe that these 26 richest workers worked as hard as everyone else in the world combined? Because that's what's at stake here. The idea isn't so much on whether or not you get money for nothing, but rather whether if the amount of money that gets deposited on your bank account is truly, genuinely earned?



			
				coolfuze said:
			
		

> My time would be better spent becoming more educated, working on my mental and physical health problems and just living a life where I can look back at yesterday and say "I love myself and the people in my life"


I absolutely believe that. More so: I believe that the far majority of the world would have similar goals in life, if given the chance.

So then my question becomes: why shouldn't we give everyone that chance?

Now...to come back to that _Poor people are poor mostly because they don't know how to or are motivated to create wealth. _line that gave you some flak...it isn't wrong. But it isn't their choice either. A factor that is grossly overlooked in comparing rich vs poor is "shortage". There's a fascinating field of psychology that indirectly illustrates why this 'tragedy of the commons' is a myth: it's because poor people have less than they need. In fact: in a non-monetary way, I can even argue that poor people are poor BECAUSE they have less than they need.

Lemme explain that: a lot of vaccins are pretty cheap. Compared to the diseases they can prevent, you'd be almost stupid not to have them. Not only would these diseases make you ill, the cost of recovery is far greater than getting that vaccine. But this is all assuming you can purchase the vaccine. It's not that poor people are stupid by themselves...it's that what is a no-brainer for us ("should we get the vaccine or not? Meeh...we'll see. If I get ill, I can afford it") takes a lot more brain power for a poor person because he has to make a choice between that vaccine and food.

So yeah: they ARE less motivated to create wealth. Not by choice, but because they're already so tangled up with similar "more important" choices that they just can't get to this. It's too much of a long term goal ("creating wealth? Good idea...I'll get to that when I can make a way to heat my house first"). It's in that field that basic income helps tremendously: it gives people a perspective for the long term.


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## Hanafuda (Feb 8, 2019)




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## notimp (Feb 8, 2019)

kuwanger said:


> When you can directly or indirectly funnel money through the stock market or other investment instruments, which offers much higher average returns than standard bank loans with fixed sub-usury* rates, you encourage that sort of abuse without regulation and enforcement.


Thats correct and the important part.

Now in the neocapitalist opinion, the way you combat that sort of inequality creation, is to get more people as players into the stockmarket. The thing is just, that they arent doing it. And so - over the last two decades people in the stock market on average have seen inproportionally large growths, while average folks were faced with 0% interest rates on saving accounts, to pay off all the risk that made the stock bubble essentially burst in 2011.

Its fun. 

People even have asked, if you can take cummulative interest growth from an entire generation of folks, without them doing anything than basically a 3 months sit in in a park or something - what else do you expect will be enough to shake this? And the answers then either are "nothing", or "the next crash - because we havent fixed anything substantially". (Even if we tried to implement Basel 3 in the EU...  )

But this is exactly the issue.

Money accumulation ("wealth gain") from financial transactions, based on structured investment packages, to spread risk - is giving higher returns on investment, than the classical bank loans business to SMEs.

At no risk, because if their risk management turns out to have been BS, states will jump in and pay that out with their citizens savings.

Great system. 

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

@Hanafuda: The Venezuela example is BS - that was politically motivated.

The rest has something to it. Except, that billionaires arent so much financing moonshot projects - like at all.

That always ought to have been a state that invests billions over years with an uncertain outcome. So tax progressively, then lets all have moonshot projects again.

And Tesla BTW isnt one. Thats just a spoiled kids project to make automated mixers at scale, with existing battery tech. Without learning manufacturing from the germans. 

Nothing revolutionary about it.

Then the state should prop up the entire infrastructure for those cars to be viable to drive around in your country. For free. Because thats the costly part.

Also the US gave Tesla a substantial loan to even exist today. Where were the billionairs there. They would have even let it go bankrupt at the early stages. Wonderful example actually. Thanks for bringing it up.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Next question - If I'm fine with wealth concentration. And also with "random luck" and "certain personality taits" playing an essential role in accumulating it (despite there being an economic shift thats necessary for an opportunity to arise for really big private wealth generation - essentially, because all the usual sectors already have been "staffed").

Why dont we just vote for 80+% progressive inheretance tax?

The answer given to that question is always "because the state wouldnt know what to do with that money"....

Long story short...

https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-f...7-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence/


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## Xzi (Feb 8, 2019)

Hanafuda said:


> "Your job wouldn't exist without billionaires"


Rofl what?  People wouldn't have all the same necessities if billionaires didn't exist?  Jobs don't exist in non-capitalist countries?  Lost me on that one.


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## notimp (Feb 8, 2019)

Neh, that part of a complex argument is actually correct. The NYT, basically was just saved as part of "jump change" on somones personal ego project. Its the rest of the argument, thats BS.


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## SG854 (Feb 8, 2019)

Taleweaver said:


> Milton Friedman isn't the best source to quote when it comes to economics. If you read Naomi Klein or even Joseph Stiglitz, you'll quickly learn that Friedman and his school of Chicago boys are one of the driving sources of the increased inequality in the world. He also died in 2006, so he never witnessed the backlash that it caused with the 2008 crisis.
> 
> Kuwanger is spot in in saying that banks print _virtual _money. It's not the same as actual money, but in the long run it comes down to the same thing. Lemme explain...say I own a bank with MORE THAN 1000 bucks on it. I then loan 1000 bucks to someone who'll pay me back within a year, along with interest. I'm not sure if you've ever went to a bank for a loan, but as someone who did it twice, I can tell you this: they do not give you the actual money. They don't give me stacks of paper. Heck...my girlfriend and me have recently loaned over 220'000 euro's, and literally speaking, we haven't seen a cent from the bank. What we instead got was a very expensive paper saying that we've gotten the loan, and some phone calls to our notary promising it'll be transferred to the people we'd buy a house from. Of course they never actually SEE the money either, but use it to buy a house with themselves.
> 
> ...


Did you bother reading anything Milton Friedman has said? Or did you just read criticisms of what other people wrote about him, and ignoring his work since he doesn’t fit what you want to believe about economics, especially since he is a conservative, and just that word alone makes you ignore him. If you did read his stuff or at least try to look up his thoughts on the Chicago boys, which I thought you would since it’s a criticism of him, then you would’ve right away picked up stuff Naomi Klein said about him is wrong.

Someone as popular and influential in economics as Milton Friedman you would think to have actually read about stuff he wrote. Especially since his contributions to the field of Economics of consumption analysis, and monetary history and theory that he won a Nobel prize for which is taught in college classes. So your advice to basically ignore him when it comes to economics is really dumb, especially since he is taught in classes and is a huge influence on U.S. government economics today. And I would advice people to not take what you say about ignoring him seriously. You don’t have to agree everything he says but completely ignoring is just dumb.

Milton Friedman did not support the dictatorship of Chile to impose his policies, you can find YouTube videos of him talking about this. He did not support the Iraq war, he was against it from day 1. Another thing Naomi implied about him which is wrong. He doesn’t support corporate welfare, and he warns against corporations getting to much power, and using that power to create tariffs or long lasting patents that benefits them. Another point Naomi made that is wrong. She basically takes things out of context, says points he never says, uses straw mans, and doesn’t understand anything about Milton Friedman. She even tries to make a rebuttals to critics of her book, and again they make a rebuttal of her rebuttals saying she is strawmanning again.

This debunks her criticism of him.
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/bp102.pdf

Another point people make which I see a lot of is, his policies creates huge inequality. And that’s the only point they have. Ya, compared to what though. Chile became one of the richest places in South America. Compared to what they had in the past they are better off, more people are lifted out of poverty, and their standard of living rose. Many people in Chile are happy to have his policies and even the poor are living better then parents did just a few decades ago when poverty was rampant and they were starving.

The inequality is was a consequence of better living for everyone. Would you rather go back the old system if not for his policies, and have rampant absolute poverty? Yet people still manage to criticize him as if his policies are extremely horrible, because inequality, even though they are living better. Not only that they are happier, political corruption is lower compared to other South American countries, and their index standard of living went up, yet inequality, so bad policies. They are looking at this one sided to support their pre conceived beliefs of what they want to believe.

No economic system is perfect you can find criticisms I just about anything. But that’s not the point since you can find criticism in anything. It’s not about getting everything perfect because that is impossible. It’s about choosing the system that most benifits and has the best trade offs.


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## Xzi (Feb 8, 2019)

SG854 said:


> The inequality is was a consequence of better living for everyone.  Would you rather go back the old system if not for his policies, and have rampant absolute poverty? Yet people still manage to criticize him as if his policies are extremely horrible, because inequality, even though they are living better. Not only that they are happier, political corruption is lower compared to other South American countries, and their index standard of living went up, yet inequality, so bad policies. They are looking at this one sided to support their pre conceived beliefs of what they want to believe.


This is gonna come down to personal opinion, but I don't think short-term prosperity is worth long-term inequality and economic collapse.  Especially since the US is well past the 'prosperity' stage by now, when one income could buy you a house and support a whole family.  We're never gonna see those days again as long as we hold such a nonchalant attitude toward worsening inequality.  Power needs to be shifted back to the workers, as it was with the New Deal.


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## kuwanger (Feb 8, 2019)

notimp said:


> Now in the neocapitalist opinion, the way you combat that sort of inequality creation, is to get more people as players into the stockmarket. The thing is just, that they arent doing it. And so - over the last two decades people in the stock market on average have seen inproportionally large growths, while average folks were faced with 0% interest rates on saving accounts, to pay off all the risk that made the stock bubble essentially burst in 2011.



Yes, and in this regard 401k plans ended up being about the only way middle class Americans could or would invest in the stock market.  The problem of course is the poor aren't investing in retirement because they don't have a consistent amount of money they can spare and the amount of people who meet the classification of poor are substantial.  Since wage stagnation is a thing, the only realistic approach for the neocapitalist opinion to work would be if those who retired were to seed substantial parts of their own retirement funds to their child for generations--ie, middle class or poor financial dynasties.  It's not enough to argue it's merely risk aversion to the repeatedly stock bubble busts.



notimp said:


> At no risk, because if their risk management turns out to have been BS, states will jump in and pay that out with their citizens savings.



Except the money was borrowed to pay for the bailout, and everyone who kept their stock in the market through the whole recession saw near a complete rebound (minus growth) of the value of their stock.  Of course, that's the rub:  a lot of people couldn't hold off the whole recession because that was their retirement money.  Others may have had catastrophic emergencies.  Meanwhile, those who had a lot of money could buy tons of stock while it was cheap and see an even larger rebound.

Basically, there's too many steady-state presumptions from base income to consistent growth built into the idea of using the stock market as some sort of great equalizer.


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## bodefuceta (Feb 8, 2019)

That's perfectly fine by me.

No, not really. Some of those profit from distributing proprietary software as operating systems, web services, applications and more. This completely violates people's freedom, does not allow them to even know what they're running on their own machines and make absolutely ZERO effort to even inform them of that. On top of it ALL of these are SPIES who make money out of people's data. These people deserve no less than life in jail.


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## Hanafuda (Feb 9, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Rofl what?  People wouldn't have all the same necessities if billionaires didn't exist?  Jobs don't exist in non-capitalist countries?  Lost me on that one.




That’s ok I’m just throwing in another person’s perspective for another take on the situation and something to further the conversation. It’s not like I’m on “Team Billionaire” or anything lol.


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## notimp (Feb 9, 2019)

kuwanger said:


> Yes, and in this regard 401k plans ended up being about the only way middle class Americans could or would invest in the stock market.  The problem of course is the poor aren't investing in retirement because they don't have a consistent amount of money they can spare and the amount of people who meet the classification of poor are substantial.  Since wage stagnation is a thing, the only realistic approach for the neocapitalist opinion to work would be if those who retired were to seed substantial parts of their own retirement funds to their child for generations--ie, middle class or poor financial dynasties.  It's not enough to argue it's merely risk aversion to the repeatedly stock bubble busts.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Entirely agree with every word. (In europe financial crisis was leaveraged with guarantees on everyones savings, not with borrowed money directly. (State debt.))

The part I didn't put into writing but thought about was, that you have to pay special attention to the "on average" part of "the stock market on average produced more growth statement". Because the stock market is a "set up game already". So if more money flows in - existing structures benefit most. And be it just "trust structures".

Its also decoupled from your entire local community (so are investment banks), so its even hard to argue politically to make people understand, why your retirement funds should flow into an exchange rate swap or into five foreign startups. 

But you've laid out the issue with the neoliberal approach to "fix this" much better than I could have in every way.


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## fiis (Feb 9, 2019)

H1B1Esquire said:


> Welcome to Earth after the invention of money--shit ain't fair and it's too bad. Git gud.....or an inheritance.


When was it ever fair? Way back when it was survival of the fittest physically, now more or less it's survival of the fittest mentally.


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## notimp (Feb 9, 2019)

fiis said:


> When was it ever fair? Way back when it was survival of the fittest physically, now more or less it's survival of the fittest mentally.


Instagram?  (*Highest-Paid Models 2018: Kendall Jenner Leads With $22.5 Million*)


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## fiis (Feb 9, 2019)

notimp said:


> Instagram?  (*Highest-Paid Models 2018: Kendall Jenner Leads With $22.5 Million*)


haha def not referring to intelligence, just having the awareness to capitalize on an opportunity is enough, for a small portion of the population. That awareness may not have come from her (her mom most likely) but she still capitalized.


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## H1B1Esquire (Feb 10, 2019)

fiis said:


> the fittest physically



Life is: fair; everybody dies!

Life is not: Equal; some die sooner than others.

It could be said: Survival of the shittiest.


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## fiis (Feb 10, 2019)

H1B1Esquire said:


> Life is: fair; everybody dies!
> 
> Life is not: Equal; some die sooner than others.
> 
> It could be said: Survival of the shittiest.


hhahaha well said!


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## notimp (Feb 10, 2019)

fiis said:


> haha def not referring to intelligence, just having the awareness to capitalize on an opportunity is enough, for a small portion of the population. That awareness may not have come from her (her mom most likely) but she still capitalized.


Two notions. First - the 'invisible hand of the market' is supposed to make everything along those lines good. In reality it doesnt exist. In concept, I see the benefits of that kind of method to lets say channel ambition.

Then I'm taking a step back. And I'm looking at f.e. the instagram model ('what currently works'), and I see the "stars" coming out of it replacing f.e. movie stars of the past (which worked alongside a similar model), and I look at the model and all I see is a tighter integration between brands and consumer. Consumers think, that they are "direct in contact" with influencers, marketing agencies tell them "you are brave for sharing this much of your life with the world", they dont vet. They are just out there to be bought.

To then live the life of someone that has been bought, to be a brand representative. Thats it.

Then I take a further step back - and ask myself, what does this look like from that perspective. There is no artistic merrit. There is nothing "special" about the person. There is no higher goal. There is no integrity. There is no intelligence, there is just -- this.

And those are the new role models.

And call me radical, or stupid - at that point I'm just turning around saying to myself - no, thats not it. Let me not buy the products advertised.


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## kuwanger (Feb 10, 2019)

notimp said:


> Two notions. First - the 'invisible hand of the market' is supposed to make everything along those lines good. In reality it doesnt exist. In concept, I see the benefits of that kind of method to lets say channel ambition.



Well, no.  The invisible hand of the market was a metaphor for describing how a bunch of rational actors function as a whole.  Adam Smith himself readily acknowledged that this would tend towards monopolies in many markets, which would not be inherently corrected.  The other problem that is constantly paved over is that plenty of people are functionally irrational actors.  Yet somehow the collective irrationality is settles down--I don't think that's the terminology they use--into valuations of goods and services that are equivalent to "perfect information" which is the cornerstone of the hypothetical model of the invisible hand.

In short, as long as you understand it's a model and possibly really good at getting a good idea of how a lot of markets work but not all and don't treat it as equivalent to reality, you should be fine.  When you start taking your models to be reality, you have repeated stock crises as those who are supposed to monitor and regulate renege on their responsibilities.



notimp said:


> And those are the new role models.



New role models, just like the old role models.  Notice a trend that something is becoming popular, dump all your money into it.  It de facto becomes popular, and then you cash out.  That's the game that's played when you have sufficiently few venues--modeling seems like its own closed bubble--and there's any real means to elevate any one person over another.  It's definitely heavily marketing, of course, to try to guarantee that investment pays off.  Happens with actors, musicians, you name it.

It's why I really don't look at celebrities as role models.  They're people most often judged on how big of a take they bring in, and that rarely has nothing to do with them personally.


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## notimp (Feb 10, 2019)

Watched both Fyre documentaries yesterday - so the emphasis on that part of "evaluating" your place in life comes from that.

The Hulu one is better, so watch that first - if you have the interest. 

Hulu: Fyre Fraud
Netflix: FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

With actors, at least there was a craft. With models, at least there is beauty.

With this new form of - idk - there is just "my brand is staying healthy and positive" (direct quote from two influencers in the documentary which translates to "most commercially viable"), and fake smiling into camera. To be honest, its the fake smiling thats killing me. Apart from the entire rest.. 

And that I can't stomach "you can become living brand testimonial" as something worth to aspire to - and I think, that that pretty much holds universally, not just with my ethics/moral priming. There is something deeply sad about people who are actively trying to achieve that goal.

But I think you have laid it out pretty much correctly as well. 

Thats on the second part.

On the first part, the only points that I have to add is, that I personally think of free market capitalism as a model to basically take everything that inherently drives human beings - pronounce it good/right prima facie, and then let drive alone create value.

All the big concept stuff of somehow irrationality becomes best approximation of real value and so forth isn't true in the slightest. But people pay what they are willing to pay is.

Now there is public sector work for example which also generates huge value - but isn't even part of free market calculations. But its more than an externality.  Also there have to be questions asked about projects that take more time than 5 or 10 years, because not many corporations have venues to tackle stuff like that (R&D). Looking at that stuff changes your understanding of value.

Everything that drives one person to exceed in their first half of their working lives, and if they are lucky a little longe, is what drives capitalism, and what it can deliver or channel. Everything of value that goes beyond that, is out of its reach. (You need other institutions/systems for that.)

Also let me also emphasize on that you should never look at your models as a representation of reality. It is the biggest mistake anyone can make. "The map is not the territory" is an important lesson for likely developments in our near future as well.

You can always pronounce lets say 'free market capitalism' as your model, but once you've set it in place societally, you'll always have to look at the outcome all the time, and take to the parts that were not addressed, not compatible, not working - and find some way to integrate them as well. Thats an ongoing process.

Whats marketing? Everything. 40% of your driving force in free market capitalism. You can lie to the heavens, and people will have no idea. If you cant deliver, and you are good at expectation management and crisis PR, people will have no recourse.  Its the creation of desire. Its the censorship of critical voices. Its the differentiator between people staying at home and traveling around the world for leisure (starting in 1759). Whats effective, best or productive in marketing? We don't know.

But its almost half of the driving principal of capitalism.


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## fiis (Feb 10, 2019)

notimp said:


> Two notions. First - the 'invisible hand of the market' is supposed to make everything along those lines good. In reality it doesnt exist. In concept, I see the benefits of that kind of method to lets say channel ambition.
> 
> Then I'm taking a step back. And I'm looking at f.e. the instagram model ('what currently works'), and I see the "stars" coming out of it replacing f.e. movie stars of the past (which worked alongside a similar model), and I look at the model and all I see is a tighter integration between brands and consumer. Consumers think, that they are "direct in contact" with influencers, marketing agencies tell them "you are brave for sharing this much of your life with the world", they dont vet. They are just out there to be bought.
> 
> ...


I agree with you actually, good point. A lot of variables go into this.


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## notimp (Feb 10, 2019)

To be honest, its just a hodgepodge of ideas, that popped into mind, when I read the much more concise summary from kuwanger.

Its not even worked out or correct in its entirety (what does "everything that isnt the first half of your working life isnt capitalism" even mean... ).

But it draws upon a few concepts that basically should lay out, that free market capitalism isn't the 'only thing at work' in our current economical systems in the west - and that I think of it as a model to channel different kinds of ambitions, that are all related to "personal drive" to generate growth out of that.

In the second half of your worklife, maybe already gained experience becomes more important, so enabling your individual drive in every sector might be less important, but I clearly havent mapped or thought this out/through yet.


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## Phearoz (Feb 10, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Surely you don't mean to tell me that income inequality is a massive problem worldwide!  Le _gasp!
> _
> Seriously though, yeah it's out of fucking control.  If all of them donated 1% of their wealth, world hunger would no longer be an issue.  We could probably fund universal healthcare and tuition-free college too.  The problem is that the entire world bought into the "greed is good" garbage philosophy that spewed forth from the USA in the 80s.  Now nearly forty years later we continue to have an almost-farcical reverence for wealthy individuals, even if their wealth was handed to them or it's mostly dark/blood money.
> 
> Eventually there's going to be a breaking point because the gap is simply unsustainable.  At that point we have to decide if we want to go out like bitches and have a worldwide economic collapse imposed on us by billionaires who believe themselves isolated from it, or sack up and start rolling out the guillotines.


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