Are you under the impression that the wealthy keep their money in a savings account?
They have more money than they can spend so they invest it, what do you think investment does?
Money is not a tangible thing, you can't eat or drink it. Instead it is a signalling protocol for resource allocation. If the very wealthy have many empty homes, when many people are homeless or inadequately housed, then that signalling protocol has failed (from a social justice point of view), and 'trickle down' is not working.
So your claim is that wealthy people aren't interested in generating more wealth for themselves? What exactly is it you are claiming? Sounds like something a populist youtuber would say.
The claim is that wealthy folks aren't typically interested in generating more wealth for other, non-rich folks
Also you didn't address what he said, possibly because it's complete nonsense?
> A lot of rich people just buy shares (other than at an IPO) and just move money around each other's pockets rather than investing in something wealth creating, or just swap already-existing overpriced properties around each other.
I mean, there are a bunch of direct mechanisms for that, from the legal (preferred stock classes), through the grey (letting your buddies invest pre-IPO), to the less-legal (insider trading)
Sitting on a bunch of real estate in a desirable location like NYC isn't a bad mechanism either.
Acquire it from other people. That's how I do it; my day job pays me less money than me just swapping stocks around. The companies whose stock I buy and sell have never seen a penny from me; never received from me a single penny of investment in their business. I harvest wealth without having ever invested in any company and my actions create no new wealth; I harvest wealth I did not create.
They're interested in getting more wealth for themselves. The easiest way to do that is not to generate new wealth.
Accrue more money pretty much indefinitely?
If you invest in $AMZN, much less so.
But that's only because there are other people who will happily move money into your control to get that share from you. Doesn't change the fact that the money you spent acquiring it has moved out of your control onward in the economy.
Liquidity doesn't matter? Huh.
That's a Nobel Prize in Economics waiting to be awarded, if true.
> Accrue more money pretty much indefinitely?
You changed the subject. Wealth wasn't it.
Yes, a lot of economic activity is predicated on the availability of investment capital, but only investing in already-successful firms doesn't generate new economic activity. And static, unused real estate generates basically none at all.