Zone1 Should A Handful Of Billionaires Own More Wealth Than The Bottom 50% Of All Americans?

[Woodznutz]

The employees produce everything. Workers. We can take the millionaire leech out of the way and just keep the workers and managers (who are also employees). That's all. See how easy that was? Get rid of the millionaire middleman/parasite.

That's how people become millionaires; by cutting out the middlemen, who are most often (Yikes!) other workers.

Some furniture I made for the spare bedroom. Think of all the 'middlemen' I cut out by making them myself. I even transported the material in the backseat of my car.

I'm making another set for my granddaughter's room this winter. More middlemen out of luck.

I make my own bread. Sorry bakers.

Had to make my own utility cart. The 'middlemen' can't produce one that works for me. I also made large 'leaf cart', also an original.

I had to make my own weedless fishhooks. Commercially produced ones are junk.

I could show you a dozen other things that I have had to make myself because there are no such products on the market, but you get the picture (and yes, I'm showing off a bit).

 

[initforme]

The billionaires will have a very tough time explaining to God why they needed all that material wealth.

 

[Woodznutz]

View attachment 741142

The father of modern capitalism, didn't have much good to say about landlords who collect rent. Lazy parasites.




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Except that I worked my ass off for that property, while keeping rents low.

Also worthy of note is that many people prefer to rent. What say you to that? In my city alone there are 45,000 university students and most rent their dwellings, and most will leave the state upon graduation.

The U.S. government is the biggest landlord in the country, also the biggest renter.

 

[Red Front]

That's how people become millionaires; by cutting out the middlemen, who are most often (Yikes!) other workers.

Some furniture I made for the spare bedroom. Think of all the 'middlemen' I cut out by making them myself. I even transported the material in the backseat of my car.

I'm making another set for my granddaughter's room this winter. More middlemen out of luck.
View attachment 741147

View attachment 741150
I make my own bread. Sorry bakers.View attachment 741156

Had to make my own utility cart. The 'middlemen' can't produce one that works for me. I also made large 'leaf cart', also an original.
View attachment 741157

I had to make my own weedless fishhooks. Commercially produced ones are junk.
View attachment 741158

I could show you a dozen other things that I have had to make myself because there are no such products on the market, but you get the picture (and yes, I'm showing off a bit).

The workers will get rid of the landlord parasites, and own their own housing in high-communism.

 

[Ralph Norton]

The billionaires will have a very tough time explaining to God why they needed all that material wealth.

So you've said.

 

[Woodznutz]

The workers will get rid of the landlord parasites, and own their own housing in high-communism.

They should start saving now.

High density, landless (no gardens), cooperative housing will fit right into your plan.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The workers will get rid of the landlord parasites, and own their own housing in high-communism.

That'll make the gulags and the oppression worth it.

 

[Woodznutz]

The workers will get rid of the landlord parasites, and own their own housing in high-communism.

That was tried in South Africa.
There was a large white-owned dairy farm that provided milk, meat, leather, fertilizer, and many jobs for the local blacks. When the blacks took over they butchered all of the cows and distributed the meat among their people. A decades old sustainable business that enriched everyone was destroyed by ignorant people that had no sense of its value.

That's what awaits your plan.

 

[expat_panama]

The employees produce everything. Workers. We can take the millionaire leech out of the way and just keep the workers and managers (who are also employees). That's all. See how easy that was? Get rid of the millionaire middleman/parasite.

First, please accept my apology for my past abrasiveness. You have a complex understanding that I was ignoring and since the differences in our opinions were inevitable I should not have considered them to be something bad that was your fault.

Second, lets consider the role of capital and labor in the market place. It is impossible to have one w/o the other. A man running an backhoe can dig more than a man w/ a shovel. That's capital at work with both cases because both the backhoe and the shovel are capital.

Some people work very hard in the labor markets and production is impossible w/o their efforts. Consider that others work very hard in the capital markets and production is equally impossible w/o their efforts too..

Please tell me ur thoughts on this.

 

[Woodznutz]

First, please accept my apology for my past abrasiveness. You have a complex understanding that I was ignoring and since the differences in our opinions were inevitable I should not have considered them to be something bad that was your fault.

Second, lets consider the role of capital and labor in the market place. It is impossible to have one w/o the other. A man running an backhoe can dig more than a man w/ a shovel. That's capital at work with both cases because both the backhoe and the shovel are capital.

Some people work very hard in the labor markets and production is impossible w/o their efforts. Consider that others work very hard in the capital markets and production is equally impossible w/o their efforts too..

Please tell me ur thoughts on this.

He intends to eliminate capital. Machines will provide all our needs.

 

[there4eyeM]

1. The difference between people in different economic classes is not a measure of the happiness of the people.
2. Free markets are a theoretical concept. Markets are either highly influenced, if not controlled, by those with the greatest market effects of they are highly influenced, if not controlled, by legislative effects.
3. Most rich people give little thought to most other people.
4. Those who seek simply to subtract wealth from those who have it to hand over to those who don't are either poor students of history and economics or are simply deluded.
5. Freedom is almost entirely a state of mind.

 

[Woodznutz]

5. Freedom is almost entirely a state of mind.

Like dogs our freedom is only limited by the length of our chains.

 

[Batcat]

We have more in common than you might think. No interest in electric vehicle whatsoever and have never been on Twitter once, or FB for that matter.

I doubt Elon noticed though.

I do have a Facebook account as some of my relatives and a couple friends message me on Facebook or post pictures of their kids.

 

[Red Front]

They should start saving now.

High density, landless, cooperative housing will fit right into your plan.

That only exists in your deluded, decrepit brain. They don't need to save, they just organize society in a way where everyone is housed. In democratic, high-tech communism, anyone can also own a plot of land for personal use. That's considered personal property.

Here is the original definition of high-communism:

"Communist society also involves the absence of private property,[1] social classes, money,[9] and the state.[10][11][12] Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a constitutional socialist state followed by the withering away of the state.[13]" Source:

Communism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Private property unlike personal property is when you own something that is used to exploit others or something that is scarce and vital to people's survival that most people can't own, due to a lack of resources. You "lord" ("landlord") yourself over others who need that vital resource (housing) to survive, through your ownership of that housing (because the state protects your control over that resource). You rent out housing (you don't use the housing for yourself), and make a profit off of other people's wages.

You have the power to raise their rent, you can do a lot of things to them because you own their housing (housing that you're not using for your own personal use but rather as a source of profits, and capital). You supposedly being a good landlord, doesn't make landlordism good, any more than the institution of slavery was good because there were good, decent slave owners.

Were there good, nice slave owners? Yeah, maybe. The motif of the "house slave", who is treated almost like a member of the family, The "Aunt Jemima", taking care of the white children of her white master.

Some black slave women even breastfed white babies. Sure, but nonetheless, human beings shouldn't own other human beings. It doesn't matter how "nice" the slave owner is, he shouldn't own human beings. Christianity fails to condemn slavery, it even makes provision for it, that's why right-wing conservatives are so indifferent to the abuse of the working class by the wealthy employer, capitalist class. Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, called employers "masters":

"What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen." (Book I, Chapter VIII - The Wealth Of Nations)

Adam Smith sounds more like a communist. He was a Marxist before Marx.

It doesn't matter how benevolent and considerate the landlord is, everyone in society should have their own housing as a right, not as a mere tenant on someone else's property. Every member of society, even in a capitalist-run one, like ours, should have the right to at least some basic housing, that way we eliminate the great expense and destructive consequences of homelessness.

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What you saw in that video is extremely expensive. Much more than just housing people and preventing them from becoming homeless and strung-out on drugs. Housing should be considered a basic right.

 

[WinterBorn]

They obviously did something to earn those billions. Should their money be given away to people who did nothing to earn it?

Certain things have value. Skills have value. The more common the skill, typically, the lower the value. If people coast through school and don't have a marketable skill, why would they be paid substantial money?

 

[Red Front]

They obviously did something to earn those billions. Should their money be given away to people who did nothing to earn it?

Certain things have value. Skills have value. The more common the skill, typically, the lower the value. If people coast through school and don't have a marketable skill, why would they be paid substantial money?

No one with respect to productive output is worth millions, much less billions of dollars. They need the working-class and the state to protect and bail them out every few years, when the economy busts as it usually does. Look at the history of capitalism in America. It's a series of boom and bust cycles where the state has to intervene with public funds, to save the capitalists. The rich privatize their profits and make public their losses. The public has to bear the burden of their losses and investments as well. They send weapons to Ukraine, for example, and the American people have to buy those weapons and incur the cost of war by sending their sons and daughters to die on some remote hill thousands of miles away.

The capitalists have us right on he precipice of fighting WW3 with Russia and China, because they see war as a lucrative business opportunity. ​

 

[WinterBorn]

No one with respect to productive output is worth millions, much less billions of dollars. They need the working-class and the state to protect and bail them out every few years, when the economy busts as it usually does. Look at the history of capitalism in America. It's a series of boom and bust cycles where the state has to intervene with public funds, to save the capitalists. The rich privatize their profits and make public their losses. The public has to bear the burden of their losses and investments as well. They send weapons to Ukraine, for example, and the American people have to buy those weapons and incur the cost of war by sending their sons and daughters to die on some remote hill thousands of miles away.

View attachment 741229


The capitalists have us right ont he precipice of fighting WW3 with Russia and China. ​

Most billionaires have provided innovations, or built major businesses. The people that I know that are seriously rich are always working. They get to work in the dark and it is dark when they leave.

Bill Gates bought an interesting hobby program from a dentist. He turned that into a billion dollar industry. And changed the world.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold and old VW Beetle and working in Job's garage to build the first Apple computer. Before that, virtually the only computer a person could buy was a Heathkit thing. They started the home computer market. They risked their own capital and put their own time into it. Why should someone else get paid for what they did?

 

[DukeU]

Housing should be considered a basic right.

If everyone who believes this would pony up, there wouldn't be a homeless problem.

Why are you waiting on someone else to do it?

 

[Red Front]

Most billionaires have provided innovations, or built major businesses. The people that I know that are seriously rich are always working. They get to work in the dark and it is dark when they leave.

Bill Gates bought an interesting hobby program from a dentist. He turned that into a billion dollar industry. And changed the world.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold and old VW Beetle and working in Job's garage to build the first Apple computer. Before that, virtually the only computer a person could buy was a Heathkit thing. They started the home computer market. They risked their own capital and put their own time into it. Why should someone else get paid for what they did?

First of all, all of the technology that they capitalized on was researched and developed with public funding. Their wealth is highly dependent upon the public through the state and yet what is produced isn't publicly owned, as it should be. Many of these billionaires were born into wealthy families and had plenty of help from both their families and the government:

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Production is a social endeavor, it takes many people to produce everything that we consume and use. Even if the rich people that you know work hard, they wouldn't produce the millions or billions that they have without their employees and the working-class in general (who mine, process, manufacture, build and produce everything in this world). There is no reason why society should allow one person or family amass so much money and power. It undermines our democracy and safety, when so much power is concentrated in one person or small group of wealthy elites.

It's easy to take risks and invest when if you lose your investment you're still filthy rich.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

If everyone who believes this would pony up, there wouldn't be a homeless problem.

Why are you waiting on someone else to do it?

Like most commies, he has very little to pony up.