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posted by
martyb
on Saturday January 27 2018, @12:43PM
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017
More than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%.
That's according to a new report from Oxfam International, which estimates that the bottom 50% of the world's population saw no increase in wealth.
Oxfam says the trend shows that the global economy is skewed in favor of the rich, rewarding wealth instead of work.
"The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.
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Only 1% of World's Population Grabbed 82% of all 2017 Wealth
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squatcho, n.:
The button at the top of a baseball cap.
-- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:34PM (6 children)
to
First, we had an AC downplaying the role of capitalist - they just need to be really good at "exploiting" people. Now, you're saying that the wealthy person merely needs to be lucky (even though there is plenty [soylentnews.org] of evidence that getting lucky is far from enough). Bottom line is that actually employing people and building wealth via a business in a useful way is hard work which involves a skill set and experience that most people don't ever acquire. So why disrespect those people?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:30PM (3 children)
Yes, as the link suggests, being lucky (different from "getting lucky") is far from enough - it seems you need the mind-set from already having wealth, to be able to handle such a sudden influx of additional wealth.
So yes, someone who is already wealthy merely needs to be lucky.
Telling other people what to do is not hard work.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:01PM (1 child)
Hmmm, "mind-set" [oxforddictionaries.com]:
So being wealthy is a matter of attitude. And luck. So how much of the world has the necessary attitude? I mean there's not much point to complaining about wealth inequality if most poor are that way because of attitude. They can always get a better, wealthier attitude. That's a pretty easy fix.
So employing people and building wealth via a business in a useful way is merely a matter of telling people what to do?
Go make me a supersonic passenger jet that's more economical than the 787 in fuel usage per passenger. Yes, you're right that was pretty easy. So where's my jet parked?
I'm getting this vague idea that you might not have a clue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @03:03AM
Yes, you have the money and hire a manager and tell him like you said. Then he tells the engineers to do some work and a lot of people to do most of the work. You have the money and you tell people what to do, it is not hard work. 80 hours of office job from your manager is not hard work either when compared with getting the iron to build your jet.
I'll give you a clue: Telling a stranger in the Internet to make something and point out that magic didn't happen is not an actual point.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:24PM
Can we stop a moment, right here?
The wealthy doesn't much value the contributions of the less wealthy. The poor don't value the contributions of the wealthy. We get all of that. But - actually getting a job DONE? It isn't the wealthy, or the poor who get things done. Nor is it the CEO, or the top university graduates who get things done. Those of us with a military background were taught that officers don't do shit. Officers tell us what to do, then we get it done. "We" being the various levels of enlisted and warranted officers. (Warrant officers are almost always former NCO's who excel, and stand out from their fellow NCO's.)
Telling other people what to do, and how to do it IS INDEED HARD WORK! Good communication skills are essential to the job, as is a good understanding of the job to be done. Add in an understanding of human nature. A bit of psychology might be helpful, but we don't want to get crazy with it.
Civilian life is little different, in that respect.
Those of us who "get things done" have to manipulate money, resources, and people to achieve goals. It's an all consuming job. The level of management that gets things done never rests. On duty or off, the mind is always on the job. We're the ones who get the phone calls at 2:00 AM, "The cops stopped me, and locked me up, can you come post bail for me?" And worse. The investors don't take those calls, nor do the average laborers, unless they are close kin.
Every job looks easy, to the uninitiated. Management - I mean real management - is hard work. Those people born with silver spoons in their posterior orifices may get to sit in boardrooms, and play gods and goddesses, and be rewarded for success and failure alike. Not so, the rest of us.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:58PM (1 child)
Read the thread, think about the points I made, and then you'll know. Presumably. You'd have looked less silly if you had done that first, but hey, it's your party. :)
I am one of "those people." I'm not disrespecting them, or myself. I'm talking about the reality of starting a commercial enterprise without any financial assistance, a circumstance I am intimately familiar with.
The point I was making, counterpoint to my respondent above, was precisely that it's not as simple as earn, save, implement.
That is not in any way a coherent summary of the points I made. Welcome to the "I built a better strawman" contest.
So as to what I was actually saying: Yes, luck plays a part in how well each attempt at success turns out, no matter how well funded you might be. For the wealthy, so does managing your undertakings so that one attempt doesn't preclude a further one in the case of your attempt not working out. So does marketing, which is often very expensive. So do the caprices of the intended audience / user base. Sometimes the quality of the idea, by which I mean, its actual (or relative, when there is competition) utility, plays a part, but sometimes it does not.
Given these facts — and they are facts — the wealthy are far more enabled to pursue such a path than those that aren't, because if they do manage these attempts so the current one doesn't blow them out, they can try again, whereas a person with just enough resources to make one attempt cannot do that. Now, if you'd like to try to argue these interrelated points, which, again, serve to delineate what I was actually saying, by all means — have at it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 29 2018, @02:42AM
I disagree that the follow-on consequences are that serious. They're in a better position to start a second business than they were the first.
It's not luck that casinos don't lose money on gambling in the long run. At a certain level of certainty, it goes from getting lucky to not getting really bad luck (and even that can be tolerated).
Actually, it is that simple. "Implement" covers all the concerns you mentioned. No one was claiming business creation was easy (else why bother defending business creation?), but high level business planning is not that hard to describe.
So what? Even Paltrow's shifty business is subject to these difficulties.