We don’t need to redistribute any wealth. We only need to disappear the wealth of the billionaires, and the billionaires themselves just to be sure they do not rise again.
You gotta grease the wheels. Americans are very self-centered, they won’t put in effort for somebody else’s profit (knowingly), but if they’re told they themselves can get almost $500k they’ll be more inclined to do it.
Except the wealth you’re talking about is ownership, not actual money. Redistributing it won’t give everybody a pile of Scrooge McDuck coins, it will give them stocks and other asset ownership worth half a million. To spend any of that, they would have to sell shares to somebody for cash and spend the cash, which they can only do once. After a flurry of liquidating and spending, you’d end up with a lot of people who have more stuff but are otherwise back where they were, and other people who spend less and gradually accumulate a ton of shares to become rich.
Well, if everyone has equal shares, and trading them becomes as common as exchanging money, you could just use your shares (or fractions of it) to buy something at the grocery.
I am sure that people will find solutions for what you describe, if they want to.
But sure if you don’t effectively prevent developing wealth-inequality after you redistributed it, it will slowly move back to a similar situation, but not sure what your point here is, you cannot simply fix capitalism by redistributing wealth one time and not changing the underlying incentive structure. But that is not what is expressed here.
Fine then, create a mechanism that lets people spend shares at the grocery store. Some people will spend all or most of theirs and others will focus on accumulating more, which will result in a repeat of wealth inequity. I think dangling a big number with a dollar sign in front of it as a marketing tool is playing to the spending mentality, which bothers me. I would rather inspire people to look for an end of the scarcity era, when money will be either mostly or entirely irrelevant. I think making profits and greed obsolete through innovation is more realistic than proposing to take wealth away from the class that has almost all the power to resist that.
Sure, but you might be missing the point of the post in the picture. This isn’t about solving wealthy inequality, it is about demonstrating how bad the inequality is.
You have to develop better tax policies to fight it, policies that takes more money from the rich and feeds it into the government, for it to redistribute where it is needed most, the social security and welfare services.
His point is that a lot of people are really stupid and financially irresponsible and it doesn’t matter if you give them the wealth in stocks or assets or cash it’s going to be used up fast. Meanwhile those who are smart with their money will use it to accumulate more and in a few years you’ll be back at square one.
Are you saying the solution for this is to continually redistribute wealth? Do you understand what you are saying?
“people would just have a little bit of more stuff, don’t give the poors anything, they’re not responsible with their money”
you’re labouring under the just world fallacy
science disagrees, buddy
You could see it that way, but those are your words you’re putting in my mouth, not mine. The point is that most people (not just “the poors” as you choose to call them) aren’t used to thinking like wealthy people. When most of us, including myself, see a number like $471,465 we think of things we would buy. Maybe move into a nicer place, for example. Why do you think OP is saying we should be promoting redistribution this way?
I’ve quoted multiple studies like the one you linked that demonstrate that most people who get Basic Income don’t even quit their jobs. In one case the only ones who did were single moms with young children at home, and teenagers who went back to school because they had dropped out to work to help support their families. But I would be shocked if those people didn’t buy more stuff with their newfound income, because that’s what people do. The wealthy do that too, they just also think in terms of acquiring assets that produce more money. There are definitely people with that mindset (not even necessarily previously wealthy ones) who would focus on asset acquisition, and after a while they would end up accumulating most of the assets.
I’m not putting words in your mouth. I’m saying that’s the rhetoric used by people usually saying things of that nature.
I’m not saying you think that.
(not just “the poors” as you choose to call them)
In the bit where I’m writing in a sarcastic tone about people who are prejudiced toward the financially less well off?
Maybe don’t get so upset at people discussing things you bring up. Not everything is a fucking personal attack bro. Go alone a bowl and eat something. Have you been getting enough sun? Low vitamin D can cause irritation and moodiness.
“I would be shocked if they don’t buy new stuff because that’s what people do.”
Your implication being? That the money is wasted on… “stuff”? What if that “stuff” is clothes, bikes, tools, a car, a washing machine, etc etc? I know for a fact that there’s purchase I’ve put off for literally years. Purchases which maybe have enabled me to do a lot more than I have. They’re would’ve systematically build my life up. A new vacuum cleaner for one. That would help me clean which would help not only psychologically, but with my breathing problems.
And if someone doesn’t need those and can invest in a home…?
What are you against here, exactly? What is you implication with “just buy stuff”, because it sounds an awful lot like the people who complain about social programs because they don’t think poor people deserve money because “they’re poor because they haven’t worked hard enough, so they’re lazy and wasteful and thus giving them money is a waste”.
I’m not saying you’re saying that. I’m saying that “they just buy stuff” sounds a lot like it.
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Hmmm . . . as a lump sum the market would then react and everything would cost 1 million dollars. Money isn’t real. Food, Land, and property are.
I think money’s value is directly tied to its velocity of trade vs the scarcity of the item it’s being traded for.
However
IMO: What you are owed is 500,000$ worth of government services per person. The costs of things like public education, infrastructure, healthcare , social security and other social services should be covered by this.
This is what they want to take from you.
No one said it would be 500k in money/cash. It could very well be real estate, gold, shares, bonds, or a mix thereof.
I assumed it was cash by “each couple would have a million dollars”.
… Of networth. Given that we’re taking about the wealth of the US, most of which is NOT cash, assuming the post-redistribution would be all in cash is ridiculous.
Upvote to the moon. Lots of leftists seem to intellectually understand that money is a fiction that’s sometimes useful, but are bad at putting that into practice.
I’ll stick my neck out on something here: this includes donating to individual people in Gaza, even if they’re coming to you from a verified source on Blue Sky. Yes, a kilo of flour might cost $600. Giving someone $600 to buy flour might feed that family, but there’s some other family who isn’t getting that flour. You’re just choosing who starves today. The fundamental issue is that there isn’t enough flour or any other food. There is no way to solve that by donating to individuals. It can only be solved by telling the government of Israel to go fuck itself.
It can only be solved by telling the government of Israel to go fuck itself.
I wrote them a strongly worded email. Is it solved now?
I get the general point you’re making. But you’re not even recommending the money be spent on something else that will help. We can do both things. If you are going to donate money because you have spare and want to help, and then don’t on the basis you’re choosing who starves, you’re still just making an additional family starve.
I dunno. I haven’t thought too much about this. Convince me why it’s not better to try to enact change and donate money at the same time.
“Tell Israel to go fuck itself” in a broad sense. Yes, donating money to a cause that directly tells Israel to go fuck itself, in something more than a strongly worded letter, is worthwhile.
Your definition is pretty close to theory.
V_{T} M = P T
V_{T} is the velocity of money for all transactions in a given time frame;
P is the price level;
T is the amount of transactions occurring in a given time frame;
M is the total nominal amount of money in circulation on average in the economy
If 20 strangers get 1/20 of a 10 million dollar mansion what do they do? The most anyone could pay for it is $500,000.
Everyone is on here talking about how this would cause inflation, but I don’t think it would. A vast majority of this value is not in cash but in stocks bonds and property. I am more sure how you would divide up who gets apples shares and who gets 5% of their neighbors $600,000 home. But even if you were able, what is sure is that most people would want to convert their stock/bonds/property to cash so they can eat. Only problem is that no one in America would have any cash to buy up the assets. So in a market full of sellers and no buyers the value of everything will plummet.
I think there’s a lot of distraction discussing the particulars of this hypothetical, when it’s clear that it couldn’t work that way in practice.
It’s really only helpful to illustrate the equity imbalance and just how much equity is in the system that most people don’t see.
I don’t disagree that the commenter was not calling for all wealth to be seized and redistributed. But I didn’t want to post my disagreement with all the other people who said this would cause inflation.
To be honest we could use a little deflation right about now.
I just want billionaires and churches to pay their fair share and end citizens united. That’s a great start
People who are complaining real life lacks money sinks need to be taxed more, not less as they still have endless amount of money no matter if they pay 1% tax or 30% tax. Religion is a glorified hobby, it should not be except from tax.
I have no interest in stealing what someone has earned one way or another rather them not paying for their upkeep in a proportional way. Someone who makes 1000 a month losing 30% of that income hurts a lot when rent is 500. Someone who makes 10,000,000 a month, losing 3 mil doesnt hurt when most of that money should be free capital anyway that can easily be used to generate more income.
Governments should find a way to make a cost of living adjustment.
each person would have that exactly once… over time the concentration would happen again
Doing it over world wealth/population (454385÷8.2) gives 55,412 USD per capita, which tell how skewed is wealth in the US.
If we could figure out how to distribute food efficiently and how to build housing units efficiently – in the sense of actually getting that done – $55k ought to be a perfectly acceptable amount of money for everyone.
That’s not rocket science, we already have that figured out, we can supply food and housing to anywhere in the world.
We don’t because capitalism.
That’s why I said “in the sense of actually getting that done.” We haven’t figured out how to coordinate the effort to actually do it.
Now you know why redistribution won’t happpen. The fucking tankies won’t be happy with limiting redistribution to the nation. They don’t want national, they want international socialism.
In that scenario, it’s better to keep going as before. Whatever people have now, the ones who can implement the change have more than 55,412 USD.
Tankies even have a word for it, if workers earn more than the average: Labor aristocracy.
What is this obsession with the term “tankies” on Lemmy nowadays? Fled here from Reddit because it had turned into a quagmire of American politics, rage and misery. The others fleeing seem to have brought it with them.
What is this obsession with the term “tankies” on Lemmy nowadays? Fled here from Reddit because it had turned into a quagmire of American politics, rage and misery. The others fleeing seem to have brought it with them.
First, welcome to your second month on Lemmy!
Second, a cool part about Lemmy/fediverse isn’t that it is only one place with one core ideology. You and I are both on Lemmy.world which is a mildly left leaning general topics and population instance. However, federation means users from other instances post in lemmy.world communities ( = subreddits) like the one we’re in right now commenting on Bluesky posts. Many of those other lemmy instances were created specifically to cultivate a particular ideology or mindsets. Just because a user is from a different instance with a known ideological slant doesn’t mean that user subscribes to all the ideas, but its usually a good starting indication. When users from some of these more “passionate” instances post to communities outside of their instance, they frequently bring their ideology with them and turn or twist the conversations unrelated to their ideology to their ideology.
So back to your question on “tankies”, there is an instance or two that are highly correlated with socialist ideas and are frequently accused of painting authoritarianism with socialism. This isn’t an American thing either, most are unrelated to any US Politics.
Since many instances were specifcally created around political ideology (again, not American), I don’t think you’ll fully escape political ideas here on Lemmy. However, if that is a concern for you, instances can block posts from instances known to only be focused on those political ideologies. After that you won’t see posts from those communities or users.
Thanks for the explanation, it’s really helpful. Though I do appreciate open fora where all ideologies and viewpoints can converge and discuss in a peaceful manner, what I don’t like is the otherization, polarization and labeling of those not sharing someone’s opinions. I hope the discourse climate will move in the right direction soon.
I hope the discourse climate will move in the right direction soon.
I hope so too, but with the number of bad faith arguments I see on a regular basis, I don’t hold much hope.
The creator of Lemmy is a tankie. Lemmy.ml is full of tankie losers.
People who unironically think the DPRK is a successful nation.
It’s not hard to detect your animosity towards tankies, I’d venture to say you identify them as enemies. Question is: What are your criteria for someone else to be defined as what you call a “tankie loser”? Have those criteria gradually narrowed over the years?
What are you some tankie loser?
There is nothing acceptable about their ideology, just like Nazis but on the “leftist” spectrum.
Anybody that supports the DPRK as a successful nation is a fucking moron. Period.
I am sorry. It was meant as a dark joke but totally flopped.
The link is still helpful. There is not much room for improvement if the current situation is good enough for most people.
No worries, I’ve told my fair share of compete flops, many of them in front of everyone at work. 😆
I think the phrase we’re looking for is panem et circenses; bread and circus. That’s the delicate balance the powers that be are using to keep the general populace complacent. Any developed society is three meals away from collapse, but when we have a steady supply of junk food and Netflix binges coming our way, we’re just too comfortable to care.
Yep.
“Tankies” are a propagandist bogeyman to con fence-sitters into siding with brownshirts.
Tankies are fascist worshippers who claim to also hate capitalism. They LIKE brownshirts
Mathematically, I think it’s hard for people to truly understand the obscene wealth that some people have accumulated. 100 billion doesn’t sound that different than 100 million.
100 million is magnitudes closer to ZERO than it is to 100 billion.
The net worths are outdated but it’s still a shocking way to show how much billions are…
Wealth shown to scale
The difference between 1 million and 1 billion is roughly 1 billion.
No. It’s a thousand. Which is closer to zero than a billion.Edit: You’re talking absolute values so the difference is 999 million.
While I was talking ratios hence the ratio being 1:1000. My bad.
lol. I think your post shows just how hard it is to fathom a billion better than any numbers could.
It’s the best way I’ve found to illustrate to regular people how fucking massive the wealth accumulation is.
If you count 1 number per second it takes TWO WEEKS to count to a million.
However, it would take 33 YEARS to count to 1 billion.
Imagine life was a game. You lived for 2025 years. You worked 260 days / year. You made the median US salary.
You would need to relive that process 3,145 times to match an Oligarch.
That amount of wealth is unethical while humanity suffers. No one can really fathom “1b dollars.”
Without spending
I found people are receptive to the idea that $1 billion is 10,000 $100,000s.
… … … … … … … … … …
This represents 1 Billion.
Each dot . represents 1 Million.
Now for the question: how many hours a day would you work to get more dots if you already had one Billion?
If I had 6 of those dots I would retire and have still have 12 dots leftover when I die.
I think it helps to convert the same ratios to easily understood dollars.
So $1 is to $1000 (one thousand) what $1000 dollars is to $1,000,000 (one million) is what $1,000,000 (one million) is to 1,000,000,000 (one billion).
Best illustration I had read was the “stairwell” analogy.
Each step is a net worth of +$100k.
10 steps on the staircase, you have $1M. Imagine being 10 steps up on the stairs - higher than most, but really you can still see them, relate…
Now if 10 stpes = 1M, 10,000 steps = 1B.
The empire state building is ~1500 steps. 1B is about 6.5 Empire State buildings of height.
Musk has a net worth of 450B.
That’s 450 x 10,000, that’s 4,500,000 steps, or about 3,000 Empire State buildings, or comfortably in low earth orbit.
So when you look down at those on ground floor or those 10 steps above ground, the difference to you is not only inconsequential, it’s literally unnoticeable
That’s a good one as well.
If the Empire State building has 1,500 steps, then 6.5 Empire State buildings would have 9750 steps
Hence why he said about
9750 ~ 10k
The USA will nod and smile at this simple and straightforward explanation then complain that no system can possibly be intuitive if it’s based on multiples of 10
Give me 5280 feet to the mile and units that may represent weight or volume depending on context, or give me death
Even with all of the examples here and that I’ve seen around, it’s still something I know I don’t fully grasp. I’m also confident this is the same kind of limitation that flat earthers use when they say “Well I can’t comprehend the Earth being a sphere, it just looks flat to me.”
Just to be pedantic isn’t magnitudes in this case referring to order of magnitude that basically means in this case 1E X so 100 million would be 1E8 and 100 billion would be 1E11 so a difference of only 3 while difference to 1 would be 8 and to zero the difference is infinite
Yes, 100 billion is 3 orders of magnitude bigger than 100 million.
I’m curious to know, if the wealth was redistributed like this, but with no modifications to the underlying system, how long before the existing Pareto-style distribution returns?
If it’s a one time thing, it wouldn’t take very long. Redistribution would have to be a continuous process.
Markets inherently create inequalities. You can also verify this for yourself by playing something like Eco (where all players start with the same wealth) for a like a week and then watching everyone complain about inequality.
Like a week.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that if given a windfall of nearly half a million dollars, most people would instantly fritter it away on useless nonsense like drugs, alcohol, and luxury goods. Just look at the average outcome for lottery winners: nearly one third of them ends up declaring bankruptcy within five years.
You will get hate but you are correct.
I don’t know that lottery winners are a good representative sample. Playing the lottery isn’t exactly sound financial planning.
…but hoping for completely egalitarian wealth distribution someday is?
Who said they were planning on it? The real economic implications of that scale of payout are basically unknowable.
Contrary to pithy internet comments, cash windfalls have been shown to unlock the economic potential of that money very efficiently. Replacing food aid with one-time direct cash aid leads to higher quality of life for the poor. They actually do invest it in housing repair, transportation for jobs, necessary clothing, etc…
Yeah some people are just gonna do $400k worth of cocaine, but the myopic view of a stereotype lottery winner is pretty unfounded.
Which is it, is the outcome basically unknowable or almost certainly positive? Can’t be both, can it.
And what makes you think that the results of Bangladeshi or Malawian subsistence farmers facing the potential sale of their cows due to short-term economic shocks would directly translate to, say, homeless people in the US?
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that if given a windfall of nearly half a million dollars, most people would instantly fritter it away on useless nonsense like drugs, alcohol, and luxury goods
You made an over generalized statement that “most people” waste a windfall, which clearly isn’t true with our current evidence. Yeah nothing as outlandish as this hypothetical has ever happened, but I feel more comfortable projecting that ~173 million people getting a wealth bump will look more like those large scale programs than a few dozen lottery winners.
BTW there’s no evidence to even support your lottery bankruptcy stat. Multiple studies confirm that winning the lottery improves long term quality of life and most people spend their winnings over time with no evidence of extravagant waste.
there’s no evidence to even support your lottery bankruptcy stat
Literally the first article you cited makes note of the fact that all of the previously published literature found no evidence that people became significantly happier after winning the lottery (links are provided there so I won’t repeat them here). Unfortunately I cannot read the rest of the article since it’s paywalled.
In the second study, the vast majority of the sample consists of people winning smaller sums (over 80% won less than $200k, which is certainly enough to fix the most pressing issues in your life, like a leaking roof or being behind on rent, but likely not enough to build a foundation for long-term wealth). Also, consider that this happened in an environment where the average person did NOT win the lottery, which is important because a massive shift in wealth distribution could have a significant effect on demand curves and would likely cause a huge change in market prices for nearly every good on the market.
This comment has big “The poor can’t be trusted with money” vibes.
We need better financial education. On top of better wages
It’s not surprising that people who don’t have money never have an opportunity to figure out how to handle money properly.
The vast majority of them can’t. Those who can be trusted with it generally don’t stay poor for long.
Check the YT videos of people who said the same and voluntarily tried to escape a life at the bottom. It’s a comforting illusion that one could hustle onself back into ‘normal’ life. I have seen two attempts, and both gave up.
Yeah, because N=2 is definitely a statistically significant sample. Especially when it comes to YouTubers.
It’s enough to show that escaping poverty is not trivial.
Yes, just like two black people moving in is proof that the neighborhood is going to shit.
🙄
🙄
I dont want the money evenly distributed anymore. Now I want things to change entirely.
I don’t want their capital. I want their heads.
I am on your side, Bortus
Synthesizers for everyone
That would be in equity, not in cash, but it would mean each person would have secure housing, a secure retirement, reliable transportation, and reliable healthcare
Imagine how much less stressful life would be if the average person didn’t have to worry about paying rent and whether or not they will retire at the end of their life.
I work in mental health and I guarantee you a lot of mental illness is not “mental illness” but resource management issues masquerading as such
Imagine how much less stressful life would be if the average person didn’t have to worry about paying rent and whether or not they will retire at the end of their life.
“That sounds horrible, we can’t make money in those conditions” is what the people standing in the way would say.
It’s a damn shame they won’t be around to see what happens to their children if this keeps up.
All that “generational wealth” isn’t going to go where they think it is.
Oh nah, I’m convinced some of them will definitely get got by their own private security forces. Whatever they pay them, it’s not enough to stop someone saying “hey if we drop this guy and take his hands for fingerprints, I’m betting we could withdraw an ass load of cash and disappear before anyone knew.”
Not sure how you get secure housing out of that. If everyone is in the market for housing then prices are going through the roof.
I’ve got a wild idea, maybe if there is demand we can increase supply. Surely in this hypothetical communist world, we can also build some housing without every rich asshole trying to stop it in the name of maintaining their property value through scarcity.
We can’t solve that at a national level. That’s city (and state/province) government’s domain. City governments put roadblocks in the way of development because it’s popular with homeowners who want to see their investment grow.
A lot of countries are facing this issue, not just the US. I’m in Canada and in our big cities (especially Vancouver and Toronto) we arguably have it worse than the US. I don’t know how to solve it. It’s going to require convincing homeowners to let the value of their homes go down. Not exactly a winning political strategy!
Increase supply if housing isn’t a commodity, reduce pricing if housing is no longer a vehicle for retirement, end housing as a vehicle for capital so there are far less empty homes doing nothing, etc
It doesn’t solve the problem overnight (zoning reform is a big issue to address, for one) but it would alleviate a lot of key issues
Wealth inequality is our #1 issue in the world, and the root of all our other issues, climate change, politics, all issues. But y’all understand money doesn’t work like the meme, right?
Tried explaining this to my stoner friend back in the 90s. Mike was appalled that the government shredded worn out bills. “Man! They could just give that to people like us!”
OK Mike, you understand that the US government could give each one of $1,000,000, today? And you know I charge $20 to mow a lawn? If we both had a million bucks, I wouldn’t mow your lawn for $20. I’d want $20,000. I already have a million simoleans, what’s $20?! “You could still get a righteous meal at McDonald’s!”
If we all woke up with $417,465 tomorrow, we would instantly be broke. As dad used to say, “If getting money was easy, it wouldn’t be money.” We obviously need to tilt the table, radically, but just smearing all the money around is a childish idea.
Call me a downer, but I don’t see any hope of clawing anything back from the rich short of guillotines. Every one of our institutions is bought and paid for, and that’s still not enough. They rape us more everyday and demand yet more. (Call me bitter. Lowe’s is pulling this shit on me daily. Stock must have gone down a nickle.)
If we all woke up with $417,465 tomorrow, we would instantly be broke
That’s not true, though, fully equal wealth redistribution does create an incentive problem, but tax based redistribution, such as UBI, allows for ROI and Return On Time/Work. It’s fair that the slaver class must pay more for work if the structural desperation of accepting slave level wages is eliminated, but there is direct economic growth from UBI/tax redistribution, from higher money flow/velocity, and so Return on slave’s work can be positive, and certainly, the slaver/capital class still has all income/wealth trickle up to them.
I wouldn’t mow your lawn for $20
You might like me, or like society enough, to help me/society for a fair price. You don’t need to travel far if you’re my neighbour. The $20 might be equivalent to a few beers. But even if you will only do it for $40, that is more beer sales, and more brewing workers/income, and more demand for lawn mowing.
It’s not like the best way to do wealth redistribution is to just give the lump sum to every person. A significantly better way is to fund public goods: such as public infrastructure, universal healthcare, mass transit, social housing, public education, subsidies for healthy food, expanded protections for workers, and UBI to assist everyone’s cost of living. Jobs would focus on the quality of their output over the overexploitation of the workers.
It says wealth, not money. Redistribution would not look like printing dollars, it would be ownership of 471k worth of assets and securities.
You’re correct, anything communist of even socialist would take centuries to fully adapt to, even in USSR and China, it was state capitalism, not socialism
So if that’s the median, you need about half a million to be considered “Middle class” now?
Looks at housing prices… Yeah, sounds about right.
Incorrectly conflating class with income level is exactly why working class Americans have believed they’re “middle class” for decades.
Eat the rich, embrace socialism, basically become a millionaire at some point
Vs whatever the fuck Reagan’s neoliberalism has got you
But the consequences - how we tell who is elite vs who is not? /S
People who do great works will earn prestige, honor and renown.
Yea
People could still be famous for being good actors, make good music or play sports well
They just wouldn’t be incredibly rich or multiple orders of magnitude richer than the common person
