• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    No. Back when all wealth was physically represented like the caricature your strawman is claiming, wealth and income concentration and inequality was much less severe than it is now. That you can’t differentiate between the hoard of Smaug and the hoard of Musk isn’t my fault.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      That you can’t differentiate between the hoard of Smaug and the hoard of Musk isn’t my fault.

      This isn’t how wealth works, so I’m pretty good at differentiating between them.

      Did you mean to say “if I can’t see the similarities between them?” You’d still be just as incorrect, factually, but the sentence would make more sense.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        What I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to be physical hoarding to be hoarding and detrimental to the rest of society.

        For example, wealth that stays with the bottom 90% wealth-wise circulate throughout society, benefiting everyone.

        Conversely, once it reaches the 10% wealthiest people, the vast majority goes towards nothing but accumulation of more wealth for the top 10%, effectively removing it from the larger economy and thus making the 90% poorer.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Conversely, once it reaches the 10% wealthiest people, the vast majority goes towards nothing but accumulation of more wealth for the top 10%

          How?

          Through investment. Meaning it is back circulating.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            To quote a self-aware billionaire:

            I earn about 1,000 times the median American annually, but I don’t buy thousands of times more stuff. My family purchased three cars over the past few years, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. I bought two pairs of the fancy wool pants I am wearing as I write, what my partner Mike calls my “manager pants.” I guess I could have bought 1,000 pairs. But why would I? Instead, I sock my extra money away in savings, where it doesn’t do the country much good.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Well I guess not everyone is good with money, but this is hardly an exception that invalidates anything.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                He’s not an exception, you utter buffoon, he’s the rule! 🤦

                One of these days I’m gonna learn to just leave it alone when I see your username or just block your Dunning Kruger poster boy ass. This is somewhere between the 3rd and 5th argument we’ve had in the last 5 or so months and you’ve been arrogantly obtuse every single time 😮‍💨

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              That’s, by definition, not removing wealth from the economy.

              What if I told you that you could support taxing wealthy people more and know how basic facts of the economy work.

              Personally I’m for dramatic progressive tax increases on the top 3 quintiles. That doesn’t change basic facts.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                That’s, by definition, not removing wealth from the economy.

                It is when there’s such a disconnect that there’s two economies: the one of most of society, in which money circulates and then most of it rises to the second one, the one of the top 10% where almost none of it finds its way down.

                It’s kinda like a 16 lane highway going one direction and an overgrown footpath with bear traps in the other direction.

                What if I told you that you could support taxing wealthy people more and know how basic facts of the economy work.

                With you on the first part, way ahead of you on the other.