It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor people.
People who are beating the drum about inequality are arguing this; isn't this what the elephant chart shows? For the American middle and working class they are as poor, if not poorer than their contemporaries in the 60s.
The plain argument is that productivity growth has exploded since the 70s, but wage growth has stagnated. People are producing more but being paid less; that might not be outright theft but I think people are beginning to understand that something isn't right.
A third, though this is much more an ideological standpoint and I don't expect everyone to agree with it, is the marginal value of money. If an increase in income has a greater marginal effect on the health/wellbeing/happiness of people who have less of it, isn't it better to prioritize growing their incomes rather than people who already have their entire hierarchy of needs met?
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/653597466/amazon-sets-15-mini...
It’s a number based on the value of his ownership stake of the business itself.
It’s not a zero sum game. A successful Amazon creates jobs. Presumably if there were better jobs elsewhere, people would not work for Amazon.
It’s also part of the reason that low paid workers can shop at Amazon themselves.
Certainly not. We're semi-returning to fiefdom where the wealthy make the decisions for the masses, who they also happen to employ and market their goods to.
Sure, some good things can come of this, look at what Bill Gates has done for vaccines in the past decade or so, which is now making an actual difference when it comes to covid vaccination development and deployment.
You also have questionable things though, look at the Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments. We've seen company towns before, it generlaly didn't work out very well for the masses... I mean, look at the Battle of Blair Mountain where mining interests went as far as to hire private planes and drop bombs on miners in the United States in retalliatin to a labor uprising https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
I love what extreme wealth can do for a given cause, but do I really want a handful of individuals making the decisions? Ehhhh probably not.
And if he could have held Microsoft to making money through engineering more so than anti-recycling it would have been massively better for the environment rather than relatively destructive too.
Up to a point I definitely agree with this, but the issue with some people being billionaires is not that they can drive around in Cadillacs made of gold, it's that they can and do control government policies, and use that power to the detriment of common people.
> Adjusted for inflation using the CPI, the numbers are even worse: half of all full-time workers (those at or below the median income of $50,000 a year) now earn less than half what they would have had incomes across the distribution continued to keep pace with economic growth.
Another aspect is the power that comes with money. People aren’t focusing on inequality in a pure “that’s unfair” view, there are also issues on how these ultra-rich people are completely outside of the reach of most rules and can sway whole economies basically at will.
Bezos’ fortune is equivalent to whole PIBs, that’s a lot of power concentrated in a single man.
the gov't isn't known to be a good resource allocator when it comes to efficiency.
but did those workers' productivity grew in line with the same economic growth? If said workers were _still_ doing the same jobs as they did before, and had the same output, does it make sense that their wage growth should keep pace with the economic growth?
Of course the world can become more productive and thus make everyone (in average) more "wealthy", but only for certain things.
Yes it is, but a few hundred billionaires with mansions and yachts don't really matter in the context of the broader economy.
It's the upper middle class yuppies with substantial amounts of discretionary income driving up the prices on things that makes people poorer in the relative sense. There simply aren't enough billionaires to move the needle on the goods and services people living paycheck to paycheck spend on.
We didn't have a toilet paper shortage because Warren Buffet stocked up. The used car market isn't all jacked because of Bill Gate's insatiable desire for compact pickup trucks.
The gulf between the "I can afford to care about what school district a house is in" class and everyone below them is the important one.
Billionaires buying up "stores of wealth" housing in the city I live in has driven up the price of property inordinately and almost priced me out. What you are saying here is not "they don't matter" but "I don't matter".
Then they tell people who grew up in these cities to just leave if they can't afford it.
Political power is also zero sum and they're buying up that too. This is the most terrifying part. I don't particularly want my country to become like Ukraine with two sets of oligarchs battling it out with their propaganda arms. That is what is happening.
They are not buying up toilet paper but then again toilet paper shortages only happened for about a week, didnt it?
Are you sure they are billionaires and not just millionaires? There are millions of people in USA with millions of wealth, they are what matters, and they can each buy up a large chunk of real estate in mid cost neighbourhoods.
All of the above also buy up rental property. And wealthy foreign criminals andtax evaders get in on the act by buying up property sight unseen as a foreign bolthole.
This is how we end up with cleaners and baristas having to share a room and commute 1 hour each wayway and property prices that are, like, 17x the average wage.
It's weird how so many people are apparently in denial about this.
It's worrying how many people think it's the way things should be.
I don't mind that at all. (Well OK I wish that rich people today would have more taste, and build Sistine Chapels instead of Mar-a-lagos) The problem is that when some people control more assets than entire countries, they will end up controlling government policies.
You could also afford to give away your time better than ever if you were so inclined.
It seems pointless right up to the moment that those on the losing side of the equation start baying for blood. High inequality is often correlated with violent revolution[1].
This is precisely the reason why Dengist reforms happened in China -- to foster getting a billion people out of poverty by market reforms that yes, would make a few hundred billionaires.
The thing is, America is getting poorer. And as poor America gets poorer, rich America gets richer -- and, coincidentally, everywhere in the world, rising inequality means higher societal instability, less cohesion, less happiness and, absolutely, more poverty for poor people.
So the question we need to ask ourselves -- is it a coincidence that rich people getting richer and poor people getting poorer go hand in hand? Or is it a law of nature? I'm not sure either way. But you shouldn't so quickly dismiss people that actually do think these are correlated.
It does. Bezos and Musk can influence Policy. They can influence for their own ends. Also, it depends on HOW they make their money too. Do they create things? or do they buy up everything such as Real Estate and then jack up the price. There's different kinds of "Capitalism". Rent-seeking is the worst kind. Producing goods that people can use is much better. Why are most people using Windows computers? Is it because it was so much better than other operating systems? Did Bill Gates make his $Billions because his operating system was so good? or did he use other "techniques?
If Amazon suddenly was nationalised with no compensation for shareholders, what would Bezos' assets be? I'm sure he wouldn't be destitute, but it's not like someone who's become wealthy by shuffling money around (like wall street billionaires).