Is income inequality unjust, and if so, where is the injustice?
- Thread starter strawman
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Also don't forget that time Bayer knowingly sold hiv-infected blood to third world countries because they would lose too much money destroying it
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24785997/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24785997/
Are you a FTSE 100 CEO? Do you work 09:00 - 17:00 Monday to Friday? Did you go back to work after the New Year on Thursday 2nd Jan? If you answered "yes" to all of the above then congratulations your pay so far this year is greater than the average full time employee will be paid over the entirety of 2020.
The following tweet's been going around since Fall of last year, and if it doesn't demonstrate the idea of "imbalance," I don't know what else would:
And then there's also this rather interesting thread on reddit:
Why should any American company ever act responsibly again?
The comments are pretty rant-y (and Boeing shows up a lot), but there are other comments which are actually insightful.
--Patrick
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To continue pointing people to reddit threads:
Fed should pay every American more, let hedge funds and billionaires ‘get wiped out,’ says Social Capital CEO
Some good stuff in this thread as well, such as a link to the Velocity of money.
--Patrick
Fed should pay every American more, let hedge funds and billionaires ‘get wiped out,’ says Social Capital CEO
And in case you were wondering about the math, $2 trillion / US population = just over $6000/person.
Some good stuff in this thread as well, such as a link to the Velocity of money.
--Patrick
Well we're at the plague stage, so I guess we only have about another hundred years or so left before it's over.
--Patrick
I've already been reading stuff from Pro-Feudalism Right Libertarians. They're concerned the "Event" came sooner than they predicted and that they don't have the means to control their workers (mind control devices, electroshock collars, robot workforce, etc...) that they predicted would exist by now and might be held accountable for their actions by the mob if they try anything. It's some weird, chilling shit... there are a lot of very rich people with some very fucked up world views.
The what now?
By the sound of it, people who believe some lives are worth significantly more than others, and that the rest are just downright expendable, possibly even considered as nothing more than livestock.
—Patrick
Kinda? It's mostly hedge-fund managers believing some "Event" will destroy civilization as we know it and are making plans to basically escape it and lock the door behind them. It's basically a doomsday cult, but the religion is worship of the almighty dollar.
Here's an article that talks briefly about it, but I'll just quote the relevant bit.
To paraphrase the article: these are people who see Humanity's free will as a bug and not a feature. They want to live like kings and are making plans not only to do it, but to force us to comply.
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Money/Get back/I'm all right Jack/Keep your hands off of my stack
Money/It's a hit/Don't give me that do goody-good bullshit
--Patrick
Historically these are the people who eventually get their head cut off by an angry mob
Heh, i love this quote: The living individual will be hooked up to a machine which pumps them with embalming chemicals, a method which is “100 per cent fatal” the company claimed.
Yeah, it's really great that you can ensure none of them accidentally live.
Apparently the richest people have been making out like bandits while 60,000 of their fellow Americans die. And while in Bezos' case he fails to provide a safe working environment for his employees.
Not exactly surprising.
Speaking of Bezos, there is an effective visualization of Bezos' wealth on GitHub called "1-pixel-wealth" that's been making the rounds recently. It does a good job of illustrating the inequity visually rather than via incomprehensible numbers. Towards the end it veers off into territory that even _I_ think smells a bit like L'Eau d'Wealth Envy, but I gotta say I agree completely with the overall message.
--Patrick
Nobody will ever accuse me of being a communist (I'm considered right wing scum by Belgian standards), but yes, this complete imbalance, which has grown enormously over the last 20-30 years, simply isn't reasonable or healthy anymore.
One main issue, of course, is defining wealth - and worthy causes. Let's consider a world where president Bernie does this...what stops a next generation Trump from doing the same simply to line his own pockets? What stops a next generation president Lenin from confiscating 80% of everything over $1 million?
It's definitely unequal and unjust - but that doesn't mean a solution is simple.
One main issue, of course, is defining wealth - and worthy causes. Let's consider a world where president Bernie does this...what stops a next generation Trump from doing the same simply to line his own pockets? What stops a next generation president Lenin from confiscating 80% of everything over $1 million?
It's definitely unequal and unjust - but that doesn't mean a solution is simple.
What's supposed to stop them (besides having a dang conscience, that is!) is the constant specter hanging over them of being ousted when they screw up. By the People, by the Senate, by whatever. But unfortunately the ability of the People has been eroded via things like Gerrymandering, the Senate has chosen to sit on their hands while turning a blind eye (a convoluted posture if ever there was one), and the end result is what we've been seeing--lack of transparency, outright grift, rampant cronyism, the trampling of personal rights and segregation of "undesirables," and all that.
--Patrick
Sixpackshaker‘s post in another thread...
My wife likes to say that some things are SO obvious that one wonders why anyone would waste money funding a study to prove them. To those people, she says, “Because no matter how obvious something might be, there are still gonna be people who aren’t gonna believe it until after there’s some kinda study that proves it. And maybe not even then.”
—Patrick
...reminded me of this recently published study (PDF Link). 50 years of data over 18 countries, and what was their conclusion?
In other words, the only measurable result of cutting taxes for the rich was that it increased the income/wealth of the richest 1% of the population. It had no measurable effect on any of the economies studied (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States).
My wife likes to say that some things are SO obvious that one wonders why anyone would waste money funding a study to prove them. To those people, she says, “Because no matter how obvious something might be, there are still gonna be people who aren’t gonna believe it until after there’s some kinda study that proves it. And maybe not even then.”
—Patrick
Better idea. There are less than 3000 billionaires in the world. Now, that's a large number, but with a sharp enough guillotine doable in a weekend
GasBandit
Staff member
Too fatty. I can't deal with the grease anymore, I need lean meat.
Rich people can afford personal trainers.
Only if you want an upset stomach thanks to food poisoning. Most are rotten to the core.
yeet the rich
The price itself doesn't really matter, it only needs to be set juuuust high enough to keep it inaccessible to the majority of the population.
You know, like a poll tax.
--Patrick
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Yeah, this is what my former doctor is doing now. After years of providing care to the West Side (where we don't have a lot of general practitioners anymore), she moved to Hillard with a handful of other GPs to play concierge to the rich and elite of Columbus.