• Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I got into it with someone I worked with [who made exactly as much as me.] Asked what would someone buy with $5 billion that they couldn’t get with $1 billion. He couldn’t come up with something, but was still going to defend someone else’s right to have it.

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        At the expense of giving 100,000 people a $1000,000 raise, which would massively stimulate the economy.

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          And those 100,000 people being the country’s industrial elite, the raise being tax breaks for those people, and the country being USA.

          You could run on a over the counter GOP ticket.

          • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If you give a billionaire money, they basically throw it on the pile.

            If you give the average American money - particularly the 57% that can’t afford a $1k emergency, they’ll spend it. That spending funds jobs, profits, and is re-spent again and again until it winds up siphoned off as shareholder profits and eventually added to the pile.

            • I_dont_believe_it@lemmynsfw.com
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              1 year ago

              Yeah but if you flood the economy with money by giving everyone a million dollars then you’ll have hyper inflation and the money will become effectively worthless and nobody will be better off.

              This is one of the ways billionaires can control countries. They have so much money they can literally affect the value of those countries currency by buying and selling vast quantities of it.

              • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Except we’re not talking about the printing money - we’re talking about the wealthy leeching off the labour of others while pulling money out of circulation, acting as a predatory handbrake on the economy to the tune of a billion dollars vs putting that money in the hands of the workers that created the value, who will also spend it in a more economically stimulative manner.

                Everyone would be better off other than a very small few, who are functionally disconnected from the society they leech off in any case.

                • I_dont_believe_it@lemmynsfw.com
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                  1 year ago

                  If you’re going to just dump the money back into the system then you may as well be printing it. Money really isn’t the issue here, it’s the availability of resources. Money won’t fix shit if the goods aren’t available.

                  If the wealthy own everything what good do you think giving the poor a bunch of inherently worthless bunch of paper notes will do?

                  • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    It’s very clear you’re not familiar with economic theory - that’s not how any of this work in theory or in practice, (for one, you need increased money supply for inflation, which simply isn’t a factor in this conversation), and the inequality is incredibly socially and economically harmful and unproductive. The inequality is one of the greatest predictors of criminality for food reason.

                    What’s your solution - or is there not a problem?

    • Azteh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The only issue I can think of is that when people reach that billion, they’ll just close up shop cause why continue if your revenue is limited to your spending habits. I’d want the answer to that question to be “out of the goodness of my heart” or “to help people” but I sadly don’t think a lot of them would do so

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Your commnet reminds be about a story I heard. A American guy graduated college and then volunteered to go out and do good in the world. After a year he checked in with some of his fellow grads and saw how much they were making. He did some calculations and decided that he should come back to the USA and get a job. He got a great job with a big salary, and by living frugally he was able to donate enough to support five aide workers.

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          That should be more common, especially among “Christians”. But people rarely act altruistically. That’s what makes it nice when they do.

          Donate to Doctors Without Borders (or something similar) people. Charities have volunteers coming out their ears.