Lurker > RchHomieQuanChi

ROOTFayth posted...

maybe theyve been saving money for longer, which in the bigger picture is part of the whole decisions scheme, theyre rewarded for being more patient, if someone has more money, either they earned it previously through better decisions (on average) or through someone elses better decisions (inheriting from your rich family)

Maybe but none of this is the point.

The point is that you don't necessarily have to be smarter, more talented or more innovative than someone to be richer than them.

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s0nicfan posted...

Because their ROI is the same?

We don't buy things with ROI, we buy them with money.

If I invest $10 in the stock market and make back $30, while you invest $1,000,000, and make back $3,000,000 you wouldn't say we're both equally as successful. You can buy and own exponentially more assets than I can, which in turn makes you even more money, all because you had $1,000,000 to spare and I didn't.

s0nicfan posted...

what would your version of the stock market be if you don't think it's meritocratic? One person puts in a dollar, another person puts in 1,000, and they both get back $100?

Well that's the whole point. The stock market isn't meritocratic by design. It favors people who can afford to lose money, which generally aren't poor people.

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ROOTFayth posted...

nobody starts with more money, if you inherit money thats not the fault of capitalism

Didn't say it was.

Also, socioeconomics don't exist in a bubble. If you were born into a poor family, it is much harder to escape poverty than if you were born into wealth. And the capitalist system favors the kid who was born into wealth.

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Funkydog posted...

Guys, you know you don't have to respond to people like Broseph, right?

They aren't arguing in good faith, so it's a waste of everyone's time.

Yeah I should take my own advice for once

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

It's not irrelevant lol there are no laws barring them from investing.

It is irrelevant because you aren't addressing my argument.

If two people make the same investing decision proportional to their income, one person will come out far more wealthy than the other person, without being any more innovative, smarter or talented.

Explain to me how that is meritocratic.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

If they're capable of making the same decisions then I would highly suggest they start working in that industry?

Again, completely irrelevant.

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ROOTFayth posted...

its not strictly investing, I started with 50$, could have bought a video game with it, instead I learned poker at the penny stakes and slowly built this 50$ up, Im just one example among many but thats still a decision I made and dropped out of college 6 months after that

That's irrelevant. Someone who started with more money than you can make more money than you, despite both of you making the exact same decisions.

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kage_53 posted...

Yes it is. Under socialism, government does control the economy. If the government owns the companies, then there is no negotiating if bartering were to occur.

You are probably thinking about communism.

Workers own the means of production under socialism, not the state. The state can still own things and it can still be capitalism.

And communism is a stateless/classless society.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

They're still risking their money to invest. Without the incentive of profit no one would.

That is completely irrelevant.

Explain to me how someone throwing money into the stock market deserves more wealth than a poor person capable of making the same decisions.

Literally the only difference is the money they can afford to lose. The rich person isn't smarter, more talented or more innovative. They just have more money.

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kage_53 posted...

It doesnt happen.The government controls the production of goods and services.

That's not what socialism is.

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ROOTFayth posted...

unsure where I stand on that, I think making better decisions does mean you deserve more money

This is a moot point when the poor don't have the money to make investing decisions at all.

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ROOTFayth posted...

you think you shouldnt be rewarded to lend tools to someone so that they attempt to make their innovative ideas a reality?

I'm simply demonstrating that the system isn't as entirely meritocratic as you claim.

Having money and common sense does not make you somehow more deserving of your wealth.

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kage_53 posted...

It does not exist in socialism. The value of products are driven by supply and demand.

Socialism simply dictates who owns the means of production. It doesn't mean there is no bartering happening.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

You are investing in companies that must innovate, what is hard to understand about this?

The profit you may or may not see on that is the incentive to invest in the first place.

The company is being innovative. You yourself are not. Throwing money at an idea that sounds good to you isn't the same as being innovative, nor is it any indication that you yourself have good ideas.

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ROOTFayth posted...

investing money allows for the person with an innovative idea to act upon said idea

You're funding someone with an innovative idea. You aren't being innovative yourself.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

It... does not.

It does.

Growing apples and trading them with another farmer that grows oranges is bartering, but it isn't necessarily capitalism.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

Money... is value.

That's not the point. You mentioned innovation. How is investing money in stocks innovative?

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kage_53 posted...

It comes from bartering. Person A has x material. Person B has y material. Both want some of each others material so they trade with each other. Bartering is literally capitalism.

Bartering exists in literally every economic system, capitalist or not lol. The existence of markets isn't capitalism.

Also, how did Person B acquire material y? They certainly didn't just will it into existence.

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pure_temper posted...

considering the number of people who would otherwise squander those 4 years on a worthless degree, its excellent advice

it should be about developing into someone who provides value in what is in demand

and then you make a lot more than min wage

How does your advice help someone who doesn't have the money to go to school? Or someone that's already paid their dues and still can't find work due to an oversaturated job market?

Poverty and income inequality doesn't exist in a bubble. There's a reason these things are happening and it has nothing to do with people pursuing "useless" degrees.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

You still have to provide value.

Bezos' net worth is just the estimated value of stock he owns.
Amazon stock is worthless if the company isn't successful.
The company is successful because it provides such a large consumer surplus to people.

You do realize you can own stock in a company without ever providing anything of value beyond your money....right?

Capitalism is NOT a zero-sum game.

It literally is. Wealth and resources aren't created from literally nothing. They HAVE to come from somewhere else.

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pure_temper posted...

i wont take you seriously if you expect me to change good advice because of the pandemic

Saying "If you can go to college, get a good job" is not good advice lol.

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pure_temper posted...

If you live in America or Europe and can go to college/university, leverage that to land into a well-paying career.

any well-paying career

Any recent college-grad will tell you how useless this advice is

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ROOTFayth posted...

you need to take risks though, most people are not willing to lose money

And the rich are willing to take bigger risks because losing money isn't as crippling for them as it is for others.

Amazon would not be where it is today if Bezos didn't have a family that was willing to loan him $300,000 to fund his idea

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kage_53 posted...

Actually it is. People just need to have a skill set. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are good at math and engineering.

A lot of people are good at math and engineering, but they aren't billionaires.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

Our system rewards innovation over task, yes. Because the first actually makes society wealthier overall.

This is not true. You can be a millionaire without ever having an original idea in your life, so long as you own things that make money.

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s0nicfan posted...

Nearly 2/3 of Bezos' wealth is from the value of the Amazon stock he owns. Comparing what he's worth to working a minimum wage job is kind of pointless, because the wealth was generated in a completely different way.

That's the whole point.

Our system rewards ownership more than it rewards hard-work. That inherently favors those who are already wealthy.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

imagine thinking Trump to Biden was a slide to the right lol

some people really need to get off the internet

Democratic president Biden is further right than Democratic president Obama was, which was the whole point of bringing up the political spectrum

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kage_53 posted...

The list goes on..The system is designed for people to take risks by forming their own business instead of working for others.

Which means the system isn't designed to benefit the vast majority of people living under it.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

Ending a pandemic is not a moot point lol

We haven't ended it yet.

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Key posted...

To me it's more that it's unavoidable to have a .01% I'm society's history they've always existed. Not always through money but maybe through royal heritage or government power and position.

So one person having all that power doesn't bother me much because it's not something I can change and I've always focused on making the improvements I can in my life to be in a situation I'm happy in.

Why not fight to improve everyone's situation?

Our country has the means to do it.

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ZeroX91 posted...

Brink of collapse...lol

Crumbling healthcare infrastructure, rapidly growing income disparity, an entire generation left with less opportunity than their parents and grandparents, a political spectrum that slides further right with each election, constant mass shootings and riots, a growing police state, more and more jobs being sent overseas and a tanking reputation on the global stage

Yeah, brink of collapse.

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The Ayatollah C posted...

As a Brit who's traveled to the US most years for 20 years and seen how all the infrastructure used to be great and now all stinks of piss, I can't see how you guys don't notice it.

National pride.

Even when the U.S. is on the brink of collapse, we're forced to pretend like we're still the best nation on Earth

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Key posted...

Actually I'm serious. Like I just don't get why people are bothered by it

1. Obscene amounts of wealth like what we see from Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk has to come from somewhere. The billions of dollars they have is billions of dollars in value extracted from the working class. Capitalism is a zero-sum game, after all.

2. Wealth leads to socioeconomic power when there isn't a strong enough government to counterbalance it. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos have an obscene amount of power when it comes to shaping the global landscape and as Kanye West said, no one man should have all that power.

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MildEnergy posted...

Now they are a declining nation of moderate wealth. Nations and the world change. No living American lol is responsible for those great inventions.

What's funny is that the people that cry about identity politics all the time are the same people that take "national pride" in a country they didn't help build and whose biggest achievements they likely weren't even alive for.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

But when you point out that this was a self-own from Norway and we're actually handling vaccination better than they are they get deeply offended and start calling people nationalist lol

A moot point when Norway has fared the pandemic overall far better than us

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ZeroX91 posted...

An olive branch would be a nice change of pace instead of begging us to bail others out.

Why do Americans think other countries should extend an olive branch to us after WE fuck them up?

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pure_temper posted...

my view is that $1 billion should be the cap on individual net worth (adjusted for inflation)

maybe next time do me the service of responding to the entire post?

I responded to the part that matters.

This topic is about Jeff Bezos, not about what other people do with their money.

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M_Live posted...

Amazon is really shitting the bed on Twitter recently huh

Yeah, why does this read like a more coherent version of a Trump tweet?

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Squall28 posted...

Held accountable? I don't care for your purity tests. You can fail me for it if you want, not like your opinion is worth anything.

I mean that's cool.

But don't act like people are out of line for calling you out for saying something stupid

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Companies taking to social media to brag about what an awesome employer they are when we have well-documented evidence of their shitty work environment sounds like some dystopian shit.

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pure_temper posted...

Do you believe every case of having shares in a company is exploitation?

No, but if you have 181 billion dollars, probably, yeah.

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Why are you arguing with Broseph_Stalin?

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pure_temper posted...

No one gets that rich except by owning shares in a company that grows in value.

Nobody gets that rich except through exploitation.

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Squall28 posted...

I said it in the same post where I made the statement, and I'm not surprised you guys don't understand mixed feelings. It's all black and white with you guys.

Lol you can still be held accountable for saying shitty things, even if you claim to not believe in said shitty thing.

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PoundGarden posted...

I'm still waiting to hear who still pays minimum wage. Seems like an awful lot of melting down over a complete nonissue

The point of the post doesn't change even if we talk about jobs paying $15/hr.


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ZeroX91 posted...

Why should we help people that dont want our help, isnt that why people hate us? Team america and all that?

People hate us because we invade and destabilize poor countries, and then brag about how awesome we are.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

B-b-but...he's a self made man! He earned that by working that hard!

$300,000 loans from mommy and daddy also help

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Nah, the wealth disparity is perfectly reasonable and capitalism is working as intended.

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Squall28 posted...

Rofl. Way to fail understanding the English language. I couldn't have been more clear that I actually don't want that.

Just more CEman chomping at the bits to feel self righteous again

You did the equivalent of "It's just a prank, bro!"

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Squall28 posted...

There's a petty part of me that hopes US doesn't sell vaccines or other new healthcare discoveries to these other countries. Talk so much shit while benefiting from us.

And to be crystal clear, I'm not calling for that.

And this is why other countries don't like Americans

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