Poll of the Day > I feel like there needs to be a limit on wealth.

(+) Yeah! (+)

A wealth limit is fucking stupid since it generally includes speculative evaluations and things with fluctuating value. Jeff Bezos is the perfect example since he's the "wealthiest" man on the planet, but most of that wealth is just Amazon stock. And how do you cap that? Do you set maximum evaluations for companies? Do you just hand control of his company over to the government and let it run things into the ground (while gutting the company for profit)?

adjl posted...

Rather than a hard cap, if you want to cut down on wealth disparity, minimum wage should instead be defined as a percentage of the highest wage (including bonuses) in the company. If a CEO wants to make more money, they must first pay all of their bottom-rung staff more money as well (and, by extension, everyone else in between). Growth remains possible, just not to the explosive, exploitative degree that's currently standard, and that growth benefits everybody that contributes to it.

Which is also a stupid idea, considering that it punishes companies for having more workers. The secondary idiocy is that this is often brought up in relation to fast food, despite the fact that most major fast food chains are franchises so the super-rich CEO is completely unrelated to somebody working for a franchisee.

adjl posted...

This is always the response to such ideas, but I think it fundamentally misrepresents the issue. The vast majority of people saying such things do feel that, for the most part, the financial elite have earned the privilege to live the rest of their lives in complete luxury. Nobody's saying they don't deserve to be rich. The problem is that they've often hoarded enough money to live thousands of such lives, more money than can ever possibly be justified as useful or meaningful for a single person, and their removal of that money from the economy is very bad for it.

Again, given that the "wealth" is often tied to stock and generally shares needed to maintain control over their company, they aren't hoarding shit. Unless you're really arguing that once a company hits a certain value, the owners should be forced to sell.

Not to mention that changes in share value when shares don't change hands has no real impact on the economy as a whole (at least until they go to sell).

WastelandCowboy posted...

Hell, the elite rich buy entire apartment buildings or apartment floors and never live there, with the sole purpose being to hide money in investments to avoid taxes. They do this with land, too. Invest and just let the money sit so it goes unnoticed.

That's more of an issue. However, you can't really solve that with a wealth tax, you'd need to limit what people could buy and then they'd just get around it.

faramir77 posted...

If everyone had a full conceptual understanding of how much one billion dollars is for one person to own, there would be an uprising.

Your wealth is closer to Elon Musk's wealth than Bill Gates is to Jeff Bezos.

And if people actually understood what wealth entailed, they'd shrug their shoulders and go back to their boring lives. Almost all of Jeff Bezo's wealth is stock in his own company, yet people keep thinking he has a money vault he likes to swim in.

Trespasser2003 posted...

Allowing Jeff Bezos to amass TRILLIONS while millions of Americans starve is criminal. He could buy everyone on the planet a years supply of food and not even notice anything was spent.

And the guy has done NOTHING that warrants hoarding that much. Nothing, unless you count screwing over everyone who works for him.

This post takes stupidity to an entirely new level. Again, Bezos's wealth is almost entirely in STOCK. It's not just cash sitting around around. You have him confused with Scrooge McDuck. Even if Bezos wanted to sell every single share he owned, he wouldn't get a fraction of its full value because the stock would very quickly tank as he flooded the market. And all of his "hoarding" right now is just shares in his company which allow him to maintain control of his company.

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I actually dont understanding selling stock plummeting the value that quickly. I do understand if he sold half then it would plummet the next day, but not that he cant sell it all and get the value and no longer have his company. But he has to find someone willing to buy which would then lower the price because of the news hes selling maybe?

I guess stocks work different at that point. I just put money into my account and hit the buy button and the sell button, indexing all the way. (I dont actually hit the sell button)

Trespasser2003 posted...

Not true at all. A wealth tax has worked in the past and would again. The problem is that Americans cant seem to wrap their brains around what taxing 90% of money made over x amount means. They see 90% and go into heart failure without reading the rest of the damn sentence.

A wealth tax didn't work in the past, the idea is so fundamentally stupid that almost no nations have it, and you've stupidly conflated wealth with income. Jeff Bezos's could double in a year and he could make no income. So unless you'd want to start taxing him shares when the shares are worth more (and would you give shares back when the value falls?), you don't have a solution, you just have foolishness. Not unsurprising, given that your conception of wealth is ripped straight from Duck Tales. (Woohoo!)

SunWuKung420 posted...

The biggest problem is that American children are indoctrinated into a belief system that tells them anyone could make 500 billion dollars a year if they worked hard enough, even though 99% of all American's struggle to stay afloat financially. They are also told that it's ok that a guy that sits in meetings all day deserves a salary far greater than their needs while those keeping those companies running, those doing the actual work (ceo's don't keep a company running: janitors, technicians, processors, administrators, managers, etc,. those doing the daily toil do) have to worry if they are making enough money.

The biggest problem is that American children are indoctrinated into believing that wealth is a giant vault of coins with a huge dollar sign on the front, so they ignorantly spout nonsense about people hoarding vast sums of money when much of the time almost all of a rich person's wealth is in his company and, when it involves shares, he needs to hold onto a certain amount to control his company.

And given that the CEO is frequently the company's founder and chief investor, they should stand to gain far more.

SunWuKung420 posted...

If one ceo took a 25% pay cut, you could pay every employee of that company 50% more. (I made this up but I bet the truth is far more shocking and glaring.)

You will be shocked... considering that even if you took 100% of a CEO's salary in many companies, it wouldn't even translate to a $1 wage increase for their employees. Take Walmart, for example. Everybody bitches that the CEO makes $22m (and it gets even better than that, trust me). However, Wal-Mart has 2.2m employees. If you took 100% of his money, all the employees would get is $10 each -- not $10 more per hour, just $10. But wait, there's more! That $22m is total compensation, it's not even all cash -- in fact, only about $5m was cash.

It's just one more example of why the CEO hate is based on stupidity and ignorance.

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blu posted...

I actually dont understanding selling stock plummeting the value that quickly. I do understand if he sold half then it would plummet the next day, but not that he cant sell it all and get the value and no longer have his company. But he has to find someone willing to buy which would then lower the price because of the news hes selling maybe?

I guess stocks work different at that point. I just put money into my account and hit the buy button and the sell button, indexing all the way. (I dont actually hit the sell button)

Sure, if he could find one buyer and unlock his whole position, he'd get the full amount... but who the fuck has that kind of money? Considering Bezos is the richest man in the world, the answer is nobody.

So instead he'd start selling off his shares. The early sales he'd get full price for, but the more he sells, the more the prices will start to drop as he floods the stock market and, of course, prices will also drop because of a loss in investor confidence. However, and here's the more important part: When he sells, he's taxed. Because those shares have risen in value since he got them, that's all taxable income. So his wealth would shrink greatly once from selling the stock (assuming he can even unload all of it), then it'd take another huge hit from taxes. But that's largely academic because it's doubtful he'd ever even try to unload his position, which is why his "wealth" is largely virtual. He sells off parts from time-to-time, which gives him a huge amount of money, but most of it will always be tied up in stock.

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Watch out guys Revelation knows what every means.

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adjl posted...

Eh, not quite. A year's supply of food is somewhere on the order of $3500-4000, even if you're reasonably frugal about it (that's $70-75 per week), so feeding the entire planet for a year would cost somewhere in the realm of 25 trillion. He's not quite THAT rich. Maybe try saying that again in 3-4 years and it'll be more accurate.

Out of the countless things that are glaringly wrong with his post, I love that you've chosen to highlight that.

blu posted... He made an online business which revolutionized how people shop worldwide and also hosts half of the internet. The man changed was able to organize a fundamental change in the lives of almost everyone in a developed nation on the planet.

Someone else wouldve done it if he didnt, but same with Einsteins discoveries...took advantage of right place right time.

Yeah, he profits from a business he created and works slavishly upon. Plus he created countless other millionaires in the process

https://www.wyattresearch.com/article/amazon-stores-jeff-bezos-millionaires/

Revelation34 posted...

Citation needed.

That's not even going into the fact that Mead has a profound misunderstanding of cause and effect.

Muscles posted...

Both extremes can be bad in a situation, I never implied the rich hording money is a good thing just that going to such extreme measures in the opposite direction is bad too

I love how Mead remarks that wealth inequality leads to authoritarianism and then has the gall to accuse you of not knowing what you're talking about. That's so him!

SunWuKung420 posted...

Mead and I are on the same page but he's blocking me...rofl.

He's got half the board blocked at this point.

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Zeus pretty much already explained it, but yeah, you can't just sell off all your stock. You can only sell as much as you can find buyers for the stock, and people watch the stock market like hawks, if you unload even 5% of your shares, the value is gonna start to plummet.

It's not just your shares in the stock that would get sold, other people are going to panic and start selling as well, before you know it your stock isn't gonna be worth crap, and your wealth will go poof.

That isn't to say Jeff Bezos doesn't have a ton of money not in stocks, he does, but the money wrapped up in his own company isn't easy for him to "withdraw". If he really wanted cash fast, he could just sell amazon.

That being said, from what I have heard amazon has been able to pretty much avoid paying taxes at all, so selling it would be a horrible idea for him. He's basically making massive amounts of money each year and paying very little in taxes.

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That makes sense. In my mind a corporation like Apple was buying all of his shares at once, but splitting it up would definitely cause a drop before he could sell all.

The other issue I want to address -- which I saw brought up several times but don't feel like digging around for the relevant portion of a post -- is the stupidity and misunderstandings regarding "hoarding," inherited wealth, etc.

There's a generally well-known concept called the Third-Generation Rule. Basically 7/10 wealthy families lose their fortune by the second generation, and that number jumps to 90% by the third generation. (And historically this has been the case as well; to try to prevent *some* of the issues, you began to see laws restricting inheritance to the eldest son to avoid the fragmentation of wealth, but even that didn't solve things completely.)

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-wealth%3A-why-do-70-of-families-lose-their-wealth-in-the-2nd-generation-2018-10

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-90-of-rich-people-squander-their-fortunes-2017-04-23

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/why-wealth-barely-lasts-for-3-generations-d409e5f28106

The idea that somebody just accumulates all this money and it doesn't go anywhere is generally absolute bullshit.

Not to mention that, while a greater share of the economy might be in the hands of the few, the economy as a whole has constantly been growing. Then there's the fact that wealth isn't the same thing as cash (which I already discussed to some extent) and cash isn't the same thing as resources. The fact that somebody else is rich doesn't necessarily (on its own merits) impact the day-to-day lives of others. And when workers collectively make more, oftentimes everything winds up just getting more expensive.

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Zeus posted...

Which is also a stupid idea, considering that it punishes companies for having more workers.

Not at all. Presuming hiring a new worker is a sensible business move that will make more money for the company than their wages will cost, you still come out ahead even if you have to give all of your employees a raise to match the one you give yourself. That's just math. It won't be as large a raise as you could get if you didn't have to do that, obviously, but that's the whole point.

It's also really not the end of the world to discourage companies from becoming massive. That helps to prevent monopolistic situations, which in turn also helps prevent the concentration of wealth (which is the end goal here). You lose out on the cost benefits of larger-scale operations, meaning goods are going to be more expensive all around, but you'll see greater personal purchasing power to match as local economies are more capable of competing with larger corporations that would otherwise take money out of communities.

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Zeus, we often don't agree on things, but i'm curious on your take on profit sharing.

I'm a strong believer that it would help fix most of the problems we have. Even a small amount of profit sharing would improve productivity, and ensure every worker had enough money to live comfortably. While it would obviously be much better for some than others, it would allow a total increase in profits for the actual workers (not just the ones making min wage etc), it would boost the actual profits of the company (possibly even compensating for the entire amount being used for profit sharing), and it would increase employee loyalty and satisfaction.

It would require some safeguard to ensure large companies like...oh say amazon...didn't declare no profits at all for the year they made billions in profits (but re-invested it). In fact, I believe the profit sharing should be based on gross profits before any re-investments etc, meaning a company could not use that money to invest with as it already had to go to the employees.

Something like a 5% share of profits with all employees (equally), is what I'm thinking. I did the research once and for most low paying jobs that would just about double their income.

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if you think people shouldn't have "too much" then i hope you are donating any money that you don't "need"
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adjl posted...

Not at all. Presuming hiring a new worker is a sensible business move that will make more money for the company than their wages will cost, you still come out ahead even if you have to give all of your employees a raise to match the one you give yourself. That's just math. It won't be as large a raise as you could get if you didn't have to do that, obviously, but that's the whole point.

Large companies that require lots of workers and operate on tight margins need to pay keep wages low. Again, Walmart is the perfect example. The company has 2.2m employees. Even if you took everything the CEO makes -- if you really hated CEOs -- it still doesn't mean dickall for the employees.

That idea only really works with small companies where wages are *already* very likely to be higher than average.

wolfy42 posted...

Zeus, we often don't agree on things, but i'm curious on your take on profit sharing.

Depends. Are you talking about a company where the employees put in seed money to run the company? Because that's very practical for profit-sharing and the employees have a fiscal stake vis-a-vis their investment.

Are you talking about a company where management decided to profit-share? Because that's their choice.

wolfy42 posted...

I'm a strong believer that it would help fix most of the problems we have. Even a small amount of profit sharing would improve productivity, and ensure every worker had enough money to live comfortably. While it would obviously be much better for some than others, it would allow a total increase in profits for the actual workers (not just the ones making min wage etc), it would boost the actual profits of the company (possibly even compensating for the entire amount being used for profit sharing), and it would increase employee loyalty and satisfaction.

No, it probably wouldn't. Individual rewards tend to be a greater motivator than collective rewards because individuals have more control. It's one reason why communism frequently fails, there's no strong individual motive.

And keep in mind that performance-driven jobs *already* pay better than minimum wage. Conversely, most minimum wage jobs either aren't performance-driven or differences in performance tend to be marginal. Most people in retail are just warm bodies. They do pretty basic, bare-bones work that mostly just requires somebody being present.

Likewise, a lot of businesses just don't generate enough profit to pay workers substantially more, particularly in the case of retail and fast food. Even if the company collectively makes a good amount of money, a lot of locations tend to be operate barely above water because that's the nature of the industry.

wolfy42 posted...

It would require some safeguard to ensure large companies like...oh say amazon...didn't declare no profits at all for the year they made billions in profits (but re-invested it). In fact, I believe the profit sharing should be based on gross profits before any re-investments etc, meaning a company could not use that money to invest with as it already had to go to the employees.

The company constantly reinvests for growth. Coincidentally, it's one reason why I don't take the evaluation all that seriously. It feels like a house of cards.

As for profit sharing, it should *never* be done off gross profit, it needs to be done on *net* profit. Gross profit doesn't take all expenses into account, mostly just the cost of product and distribution.

wolfy42 posted...

Something like a 5% share of profits with all employees (equally), is what I'm thinking. I did the research once and for most low paying jobs that would just about double their income.

5% of profits from what, Amazon? Amazon has 840k employees. The net income in 2019 was 11.588b. 5% would be $579.4m, spread across 840k employees... that'd be $689 each. Hardly "doubling" their income. On a per-hour basis, it would only be another 34-cents.

And keep in mind that "low paying" for Amazon is $15 per hour. That's twice the federal minimum wage ($7.25). And a lot of low-end Amazon jobs pay even better than the minimum $15 -- iirc, I think I saw a listing for pickers starting at $18/hr (although many of those jobs are fucking brutal and absolutely performance-driven, so the higher compensation is understandable).

Did you confuse profit with operating revenue? The revenue was $280b, but that includes costs of product, distro, wages, etc. If you took that, you'd come up with $16.6k per employee, which *still* wouldn't double their salary, but it would be significant. Of course, 5% of $280b is $14b, which is more than the company's net income so it'd go into the red.

And in general even if half the net profits of a business went back to the workers, it often wouldn't double their salaries because there's only so much profit and generally so many workers.

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Revelation34 posted...

What crime did he break?

You dont break crimes. You break laws. Also, look up the definition of criminal. Informally, it means deplorable and shocking.

Now hush, adults are talking.

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Krazy_Kirby posted...

if you think people shouldn't have "too much" then i hope you are donating any money that you don't "need"

So you clearly have absolutely no concept of how much a trillion dollars is. Literally no one needs trillions. Nobody even needs billions. If you need to own an entire fleet of yachts to live, youre doing something wrong.

I feel like a lot of people here dont really get that money isnt just some infinite resources that comes out of nowhere.

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Zeus posted...

5% of profits from what, Amazon? Amazon has 840k employees. The net income in 2019 was 11.588b. 5% would be $579.4m, spread across 840k employees... that'd be $689 each. Hardly "doubling" their income. On a per-hour basis, it would only be another 34-cents.

See, that is my point, the "profits" are what they are taxed on, so it makes sense to downplay it and "re-invest" as much as you can.

I think a profit sharing approach would be far better, and it certainly would give more then $579 per employee if done fairly. The problem is setting it up to be both fair, and still make the company profitable etc.

I've seen it done before and work very well (and employees got quite a bit more than $600 a year, but not double their base salary). I would say that you should even factor it into your base pricing, and that people would be willing to pay a bit more if they knew a company used profit sharing for their employees (which I think ben an jerry's did and a few other companies in the past and they did get more buisiness because of it).

I believe for instance that each mc donalds brach averaged over 3 million in sales last year (on average). While I would not say employees should split 5% of 3 million, I would say increasing prices in order to have 5% profit sharing (and you wouldn't need to increase them by 5% even due to the way that works for taxes etc), would have a massive impact on how happy and motivated your employees were, more people would shop there because they know about the profit sharing and the cost of a burger would go up 1 or 2 cents.

Meanwhile, when they boosted min wage, Mc D's boosted prices by 30-50% across the board, while not actually boosting the employees wages unless forced to (and certainly never boosted them 30-50%). Even if they HAD boosted employees wages that much, it wouldn't have made such a large price increase neccesary.

Profit sharing IS taxes, but it's taxed from the employees, not the company itself as it's a form of wages. It should not come out of the end net profit, and because of the tax rate the companies SHOULD be paying, it ends up actually being even less than 5%.

It also works a bit better when a company doesn't have thousands and thousands of employees to split the profit with (although even there it can at least be a decent bonus).

If you have say 3 shifts at a mc D's, and a manager (so 10 employees on average 40 hours a week), and the revenue is 3 mill per year, 5% of that would be 150k or 15k extra income a year, basically double the base salary of those employees. Meanwhile you boost the price of burgers by 3% or so to compensate (might be 4% not gonna do the math).

Now a 3$ burger costs a while 3.03 cents, but your employees are making 2x as much money, your franchise owners are making just as much profit, and everybody is happy.

Those employees who were making $10/hr (if they were lucky) before, and netting about $1000-$1200 a month, are now making double that....$2100-$2500 per month. And all of that only costs the customer a tiny amount more (and even that could probably be avoided because of additional sales/profit from selling more, higher productivity, happier more positive employees etc).

Companies have specials and deals etc, that give way more then 5% off on items, with little effect. Giving 5% (technically less) of the sale price to the employees is minor in comparison, but would have a much larger impact all around.


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Trespasser2003 posted...

So you clearly have absolutely no concept of how much a trillion dollars is. Literally no one needs trillions. Nobody even needs billions. If you need to own an entire fleet of yachts to live, youre doing something wrong.

I feel like a lot of people here dont really get that money isnt just some infinite resources that comes out of nowhere.

sell most of your possessions then, and give the money to charities. you don't need them.
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

sell most of your possessions then, and give the money to charities. you don't need them.

I gave them away (some were stolen), but already done.

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Any country that imposes a limit on wealth will quickly turn into a socialist shit hole that will fail miserably like the rest of the socialist shit holes that failed before it.

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Yeah, Ive been saying this for years. Put a limit on accounts, and anything that goes over that limit could go into a fund where people making less than a certain salary could spend up to a certain amount per month on food and clothing. But hey, lets not try anything new. The current system works perfectly, right?

Trespasser2003 posted...

I feel like a lot of people here dont really get that money isnt just some infinite resources that comes out of nowhere.

When it becomes electronic, it is. And I know of way too many businesses going cashless after COVID.

wolfy42 posted...

Meanwhile, when they boosted min wage, Mc D's boosted prices by 30-50% across the board, while not actually boosting the employees wages unless forced to (and certainly never boosted them 30-50%). Even if they HAD boosted employees wages that much, it wouldn't have made such a large price increase neccesary.

A simple fix would be to increase tax exemptions rather than minimum wage. But you know, government wants its share.

Companies paying only what they have to is the exact reason why I do just what I have to to keep my job.

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This is not a proper solution to wealth hoarding; not hard at all to dodge this kind of law.

If you want to rectify wealth inequality then you must put in ground up changes; to softball random examples.... CEOs and investors are not permitted to be paid more than eight times the lowest wage worker. Bonuses are equally distributed among employees. Employees are guaranteed stock shares of the company they work at and a baseline % of shares that employees must own should be set to curtail worker abuse. Etc... Or you're just going to end up with more convoluted variations of extreme wealth disparities caused by the wealthiest people having more or less complete control.

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rexcrk posted...

Tag

lol

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Alot of wealthy people hide their wealth in plain site with art work, and put that art in storage in a tax haven warehouse

https://youtu.be/vsA_L1t4vXY


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zebatov posted...

When it becomes electronic, it is. And I know of way too many businesses going cashless after COVID.

If this were true there would be no economy. Are you ten?

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Krazy_Kirby posted...

sell most of your possessions then, and give the money to charities. you don't need them.

Absolutely ridiculous and a good example of a person who doesnt have an understanding of how a single trillionaire can severely damage a functioning economy..

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Trespasser2003 posted...

You dont break crimes. You break laws. Also, look up the definition of criminal. Informally, it means deplorable and shocking.

Now hush, adults are talking.

"Informally" Urban Dictionary isn't a real dictionary.
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Trespasser2003 posted...

If this were true there would be no economy. Are you ten?

Are you?

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SpeeDLeemon posted...

lol

I knew it was gonna be good lol.

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Trespasser2003 posted...

If this were true there would be no economy. Are you ten?

Cash is just an agreed upon representation of value. It has no intrinsic value. No different from numbers in an account.

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Clench281 posted...

Cash is just an agreed upon representation of value. It has no intrinsic value. No different from numbers in an account.

No shit. I didnt say there couldnt be infinite cash. But there isnt anyway; they only print the amount we as a country have. Why do you think they have numbers (Im not talking about the value) on them? This is literally why so many people live in poverty: the 1% hoard money and that money CANT be earned by others because its sitting in their accounts. Its not like everyone can be a billionaire. Its literally not possible.

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Revelation34 posted...

"Informally" Urban Dictionary isn't a real dictionary.

That definition was from the Oxford dictionary. GOOD LORD what are they teaching you children these days?? You dont know what informal definitions are??

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Trespasser2003 posted...

That definition was from the Oxford dictionary. GOOD LORD what are they teaching you children these days?? You dont know what informal definitions are??

The Oxford dictionary also has the wrong definition of the word literally in it.
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Revelation34 posted...

The Oxford dictionary also has the wrong definition of the word literally in it.

It doesnt. Language evolves.

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Trespasser2003 posted...

It doesnt. Language evolves.

It definitely does.
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Revelation34 posted...

It definitely does.

Thank you, Im glad you are in agreement that language evolves and that informal definitions are still correct definitions. Im literally over the moon about it.

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adjl posted...

Rather than a hard cap, if you want to cut down on wealth disparity, minimum wage should instead be defined as a percentage of the highest wage (including bonuses) in the company. If a CEO wants to make more money, they must first pay all of their bottom-rung staff more money as well (and, by extension, everyone else in between). Growth remains possible, just not to the explosive, exploitative degree that's currently standard, and that growth benefits everybody that contributes to it.

Dude, that's like... so fucking smart!

Mead posted...

The collapse of every major civilization in the history of the world has been preceded by a period of sharp wealth inequality. Folks are literally willing to let our nation crumble to pieces so that a handful of billionaires can save a couple million dollars a year.

That's humanity for you, it only thinks in the short term.

Clench281 posted...

I eat about 3k calories/day

Ugh...

Ogurisama posted...

Alot of wealthy people hide their wealth in plain site with art work, and put that art in storage in a tax haven warehouse

Yep, it's also great for money laundering.

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I'm sorry does my eating offend you

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Clench281 posted...

I'm sorry does my eating offend you

Offend me? No. Disgust me? Yes.

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Accrovideogames posted...

Offend me? No. Disgust me? Yes.

The whole "2000 calories/day" thing is largely nonsense, lingering from WWII-era nutrational recommendations. Actual caloric needs depend on height, weight, and physical activity level. I've calculated my own, based on moderate activity, and I came in at ~3400, which is purely a consequence of being 6'4" and 190 pounds. If memory serves, Clench is about that height and probably quite a bit heavier due to all the powerlifting, and definitely qualifies as being highly active, so 3000 is perfectly reasonable. If anything, I'd expect quite a bit higher than that.

https://globalrph.com/medcalcs/estimated-energy-requirement-eer-equation/

You can calculate your own there, if you're interested.

Clench281 posted...

$4000 per year? Are you sure that's not including eating out every week or something? I eat about 3k calories/day and spend about $200 USD a month ($2400 per year) on personal groceries.

It's based mostly on my Canadian experiences. Two of us spend ~$150-200 per week on groceries, which would be $75-100 each, or $56-75 USD ($2900-3900/year). So my mental math on the currency conversion was a bit off. Toss in that we just don't have the freezer space to take full advantage of Costco prices for perishables like meat and whatnot, plus the fact that Canadian meat and dairy (especially dairy. 2L of milk is consistently ~$4, the rough equivalent of $5.50-6/gal) is generally more expensive than American, and that explains my estimate being high. Even so, even if we say $2-3k instead, that's still an extra two orders of magnitude over Bezos' current net worth, so the point stands.

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adjl posted...

The whole "2000 calories/day" thing is largely nonsense, lingering from WWII-era nutrational recommendations. Actual caloric needs depend on height, weight, and physical activity level. I've calculated my own, based on moderate activity, and I came in at ~3400, which is purely a consequence of being 6'4" and 190 pounds. If memory serves, Clench is about that height and probably quite a bit heavier due to all the powerlifting, and definitely qualifies as being highly active, so 3000 is perfectly reasonable. If anything, I'd expect quite a bit higher than that.

https://globalrph.com/medcalcs/estimated-energy-requirement-eer-equation/

Yes and no, and that website is bullshit. It says you should eat more the fatter you are. Of course calorie intake depends on your level of activity and size, but eating 3000 calories a day is NOT healthy for the vast majority of people. It also doesn't matter if you're power lifting or bodybuilding, BMI applies anyway and that is what really counts. Bodybuilders suffer the same health risks as obese people. The only time BMI doesn't apply is when you're amputated. In such a case, you must recalculate the proportions and it varies on a case by case basis.

Here, let me show you how bullshit that website is:

Age: 25
Gender: Male
Height: 170 cm (the average)
Weight: 250 kg (very morbidly obese)
Activity: Sedentary (can't even walk)

Your estimated energy requirement (EER) or average dietary energy intake that is predicted to maintain energy balance in healthy, normal weight individuals with the current age, gender, weight, height, and level of physical activity indicated above in order to be consistent with good health is: 5318.6 kcal/day.

With good health? LMAO!!! This example of a man shouldn't even be alive! For fuck sake, he has a BMI of 86.5! That's more than twice the threshold for morbid obesity. No, what this website shows is how much you should eat in order to maintain your current weight and "health" level. What that website really does is guessing how much you're eating. It should not be an indication of how much you should eat, unless your BMI is in the normal range. This appears to be your case, so you're right to say that eating that much is good for you. However, this doesn't apply to everyone, you're a very special case. If you become sedentary but keep eating that much however, you'll become obese real fast.

It says that mine is 2623 a day, but I actually aim lower than that because I'm trying to lower my BMI even further. Right now it's 24, which while normal, is too close to being in the overweight range. Not too long ago, I had a BMI of 38.2 and yes I ate over 3000 calories a day. I still have some flaps I'm trying to get rid of.

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Accrovideogames posted...

It says you should eat more the fatter you are.

And that's true, if you're looking for a maintenance value. If you want to lose weight healthily and without messing up your BMR, aim for 5-10% lower than that maintenance value and re-evaluate your requirements periodically. It won't be fast weight loss, but it'll be stable and you won't risk causing any other health problems along the way.

Yes, it seems absurd to suggest that your hypothetical morbidly obese guy "should" be eating 5318 calories a day, but that calculator isn't making any suggestions about broader health. It's just saying how much energy your body needs to run properly at your current size/activity level. Getting significantly less (or more) than that will mess with your metabolism and cause further problems on top of whatever risks are associated with your current weight.

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^ Yes, I know that. This is why shows like The Biggest Loser are actually dangerous to public health. But no one, unless you're a giant and/or burning a lot of calories for being extremely active, should eat 3,000 calories a day. As a former fat, I did exactly that and paid the price.

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An hour of lifting plus 5 mile walk per day, at 200 lbs, 3000 kcal is not that bizarre

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Clench281 posted...

An hour of lifting plus 5 mile walk per day, at 200 lbs, 3000 kcal is not that bizarre

This sounds pretty good actually, but what's your height?

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6'3"

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Clench281 posted...

6'3"

So you're overweight! Only barely though, lose just a single pound and your BMI is in the normal range. Phew, for a second I thought you were another special case...

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wolfy42 posted...

Zeus pretty much already explained it, but yeah, you can't just sell off all your stock. You can only sell as much as you can find buyers for the stock, and people watch the stock market like hawks, if you unload even 5% of your shares, the value is gonna start to plummet.

its hilarious how this arg gets repeated over and over again when its completely trivial to debunk

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The rothschild family is estimated at 500 trillion in worth.

With that money they could give every single american citizen 1mill and still have 200trillion left.

Please, make the argument that that sort of wealth hoarding isnt immoral.

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adjl posted...

The whole "2000 calories/day" thing is largely nonsense, lingering from WWII-era nutrational recommendations. Actual caloric needs depend on height, weight, and physical activity level. I've calculated my own, based on moderate activity, and I came in at ~3400, which is purely a consequence of being 6'4" and 190 pounds. If memory serves, Clench is about that height and probably quite a bit heavier due to all the powerlifting, and definitely qualifies as being highly active, so 3000 is perfectly reasonable. If anything, I'd expect quite a bit higher than that.

When I was in Jr high school we had to do a dietary thing with a professional program and everything for a week or two.

According to it just to maintain my already underweight weight I needed to consume 5k calories a day.

My metabolism has shifted some finally, but I'm still slightly underweight.

Trespasser2003 posted...

The rothschild family is estimated at 500 trillion in worth.

With that money they could give every single american citizen 1mill and still have 200trillion left.

Please, make the argument that that sort of wealth hoarding isnt immoral.

Sounds like jealousy to me.
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