Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Voting yourself someone else's money

Journal by DannyB

If you bring up UBI, or other reforms, you'll inevitably get someone who brings up: "voting yourself someone else's money".

You could convince me, except that things have gotten to an absurd state.

I look at some graphs of wealth inequality and it is unimaginably shocking. I never dreamed it could be this bad. More than 50% of the US wealth is owned by 5% of the people. [1] 35% is owned by only 1% of the population.

This image from this article also tells the story.

I'm not going to argue how accurate those numbers are. Rather, I will extrapolate the trend.

Let's continue the current trend to its logical absurd conclusion. The entire planet is owned by one single person. You (and everyone else) are one of the wage slaves in the bottom 99.99999999 % of the population (at least 8 decimal places). [7.5 billion people, minus that one person who owns everything, then divided by 7.5 billion people.]

Naturally, we should respect property ownership. Somehow this one person deserves and "earned" the wealth of the entire planet through his hard and diligent efforts and deserves to own everything and everyone. It is absurd on its face.

At this logical endpoint, it clearly seems that the rest of the planet should seize the wealth of the one person.

Wealth transfer has already happened. And is still happening. Republicans are just fine with this as long as it is all trickling upward.

Yes, "voting yourself someone else's money" involves taking away some of the absurd amounts of wealth hoarded up by a few. Amounts of individual wealth that one person couldn't spend in a lifetime; then leaves to others, who themselves can't spend it in their lifetime.

Not as a proposal, but just to make a point, hypothetically, if all of these people who exceed this threshold had their net worth capped at $100 Million, they would still be just fine. Yes, really! They would still live in fabulous homes, drive fabulous cars, and eat whatever they wanted, travel wherever and whenever they wanted -- for the rest of their natural lives.

In case my "one man owns the world" didn't get the idea across, I'll be more blunt. Any time too few people have owned way, way too much, and too many had nothing, there is always an uprising. I'm not proposing an uprising. I'm merely warning it is inevitable. Hopefully not in my lifetime. Maybe it would be better to solve this peacefully where the wealthiest, while heavily taxed, still end up, after taxes, fabulously wealthy beyond the dreams of most everyone else. I'm not proposing reducing all the rich people's wealth to some cap. Just that they should pay their fair share. Why are they the ones who get the tax cuts?

 

Reply to: worldwide

    (Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 27 2020, @10:58PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) on Tuesday October 27 2020, @10:58PM (#1069542) Homepage

    There has been a common "meme" I guess you could call it for years now. 1000 people control some outrageous percentage of the world's wealth.

    How about a mere 8 men who control half of the world's wealth?

    https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/meet-the-8-men-who-control-half-the-worlds-wealth.html [inc.com]

    These 8 Men Control Half the Wealth on EarthThey hold the equivalent of the wealth of 3.6 billion people. Can you guess who they are?

    In capitalist nations, it can feel like there is no greater measure of success than financial wealth. While the mystics and common sense tell us otherwise (love and spiritual wealth are ultimately far greater), the fact remains that material wealth is still a major yardstick in terms of measuring who is getting ahead in the modern world.

    It is therefore concerning when that wealth is as concentrated as it has become.

    A year ago, poverty-fighting organization Oxfam came out with a report stating that 62 individuals controlled half the world's wealth.

    This year, that number dropped to 8.

    Oxfam presented its findings on the eve of the World Economic Forum, the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) gathering in Davos, Switzerland of the most powerful political and business minds from around the world. On the findings, Oxfam's Executive Director Winnie Byanyima had this to say:

    "It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when one in ten people survive on less than $2 a day ... Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy."

    According to Oxfam, the wealthiest individuals in the world are:

    Bill Gates
    Amancio Ortega (Spanish founder of Inditex)
    Warren Buffett
    Carlos Slim (Mexican businessman)
    Jeff Bezos
    Mark Zuckerberg
    Larry Ellison
    Michael Bloomberg

    Now consider something remarkable: six of the eight individuals are American, and four of the eight (half the list) come from the American tech community -- Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Ellison.

    Depending on your perspective, this is cause for either alarm or hope. Alarm because of the extreme power conferred upon the uber wealthy in the form of these four men. Hope because if innovation is truly a foundational tenet of tech leaders, perhaps such wealth can be put to good use.

    It's also interesting to consider that four of the arguably most powerful people on the planet weren't elected, and some of them work actively to fight poverty and injustice. Again there is that question of perspective.

    At the end of the day, this is about something larger than a few wealthy individuals. If people don't have a real living wage, they can't build wealth. If they spend their lives in debt because of a shortage of affordable healthcare, they can't build wealth. If they struggle just to get a job in the first place due to discrimination, they can't build wealth.

    Now, while people are digesting that, I need to remind everyone that the poorest person in America seems fabulously wealthy to millions of people in Africa, and millions more in Asia, and millions more in South America. Nations where people actually starve to death look at us, and think we live in paradise.

Post Comment

Edit Comment You are not logged in. You can log in now using the convenient form below, or Create an Account, or post as Anonymous Coward.

Public Terminal

Anonymous Coward [ Create an Account ]

Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!


Logged-in users aren't forced to preview their comments. Create an Account!

Allowed HTML
<b|i|p|br|a|ol|ul|li|dl|dt|dd|em|strong|tt|blockquote|div|ecode|quote|sup|sub|abbr|sarc|sarcasm|user|spoiler|del>

URLs
<URL:http://example.com/> will auto-link a URL

Important Stuff

  • Please try to keep posts on topic.
  • Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads.
  • Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
  • Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
  • Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
  • If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.

If you are having a problem with accounts or comment posting, please yell for help.