I Wish This Was A Joke

[Mister Agenda]

It's true that merely redistributing wealth is problematic. $241 trillion is about $50,000 for each of us, and you'd have to liquidate all assets to get the cash, but this is a thought experiment, so I won't worry about that. The average American's net worth averages about $45,000; so the average American would be roughly $5,000 ahead in this deal. The median (I couldn't quickly find an average) net worth of a human being is about $4,000; but the average is probably much lower than than that because of millions of millionaires and billionaires propping up the median. It's probably pretty safe to say that the average person in the bottom 50% would be getting over $45,000.

I think more people would be better off with that even distribution, but I can see issues with arriving at it, problems maintaining it, and problems growing it; not to mention likely economic instability from poor regions having ten times as much wealth. It's a lot easier for most people to lose tens of thousands of dollars than grow it, but I think a lot of it would be spent wisely to improve their lives in the long run. We shouldn't underestimate people's ability to understand their own interests. Still, I suspect much of the money would be effectively lost or find its way back into the hands of pretty much the same people ten years later. It's much easier to make everyone poor than to make everyone wealthy.

And the figure of 1% owning half the world's wealth is pretty massaged to begin with since that total is based on aggregate wealth, so an American with a net worth of minus $10,000 because of debt is considered poorer than a subsistence farmer in Mali who is not in debt. By that standard, the net worth of the bottom 30% is minus a trillion or so. The money in my pocket would make me wealthier than the poorest 3 billion people in the world by this measure. But it's not a good measure, because someone who is a milllion dollars in debt is very rarely materially worse off than someone who is trying to dig a living out of the dirt with hand tools. Wealth and net worth work fine for figuring out the top 50%, not so good for figuring out the bottom 10%, as exemplified by the same statistics showing Chinese (low debt, high savings) to be wealthier on average than Americans (high debt, low savings) despite China having a much higher (though improving) poverty rate than the USA.

And after all that, I still can't figure out how much of the world's wealth the top 1% REALLY own, because it's too complex for my meager ability to analyze economics. But I would place the world's wealth much higher than $241 trillion, so the top 1%'s 111-or-so trillion is probably significantly less than half of the total wealth of the world. But it's pretty much a given that the top 1% has a lot more than it really needs even if it 'only' owns a quarter of the world's wealth, so the exact number may not be important, just pointing out the 1% owning half the world's wealth is more a sound bite than a fact.

That said, improving the quality of primary education and reducing the cost of basic healthcare and housing and advanced education is a way of reducing the gap that's much less problematic. I don't think of it as charity, but as a wise investment. It's a net benefit to society to have more healthy, productive, and educated people. I don't like to rob Peter to pay Paul, but there are probably small changes in taxes on income and capital gains and reductions in certain areas of government spending where there's a lot of waste that wouldn't be a terrible or unfair cost to anyone that would be a great benefit to the USA's bottom 50%. And we should take a good look at what we can spare to help the world's bottom 50%. For some reason most USAians think the USA spends about 28% of its budget on foriegn aid when it's actually more like 1%. Sounds like we could double it and most USAians would still be surprised at how little it is.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[Davka]

Tax the rich, feed and educate the poor. Wealth redistribution is easy.

This seems to be a cycle. The last time the wealthy cornered this much wealth was just before the Great Depression. The bastards squeeze and squeeze until the system just won't take any more, and after a decade or so of poverty, Murcinz finally wake the hell up and tax the bastards.

It takes a lot to overcome the propaganda put out by the money-hungry.

[popeyespappy]

Real wealth is stuff not numbers in a ledger. If you killed every millionaire and took their stuff and divided it up among the rest. Peoples lives would not change by very much. Rich people just don't have enough stuff.

Bullshit! Less than 1/3 of the annual earnings of the world's richest 100 people would be enough to end extreme poverty everywhere. For less than $70B everyone on the planet could have clean water to drink, food to eat, a roof over their head and basic medical services. In 2012 the world's richest 100 people earned an additional $240B. If those 100 people gave 30% of their earnings for one year everybody on the planet could have basic necessities and the rich would still be filthy fucking rich.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/billionaire...ll/5318471

http://topics.bloomberg.com/bloomberg-bi...res-index/

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/researc...chandy.pdf

[Thumpalumpacus]

[dyresand]

instead of a fair example of how the mother-fuckers think.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-...NDczMDM0S0

Richest One Per Cent Disappointed to Possess Only Half of World’s Wealth

“Quite frankly, a lot of us thought that by buying politicians, rewriting tax laws, and hiding money overseas, we were getting it done,” said Dorrinson, who owns the hedge fund Garrote Capital. “If, at the end of the day, all we control is a measly half of the world’s wealth, clearly we need to do more—much more.”

If i had that much money what is there to be upset about. Their jimmies are clearly rustled.

[Heywood]

Real wealth is stuff not numbers in a ledger. If you killed every millionaire and took their stuff and divided it up among the rest. Peoples lives would not change by very much. Rich people just don't have enough stuff.

Bullshit! Less than 1/3 of the annual earnings of the world's richest 100 people would be enough to end extreme poverty everywhere. For less than $70B everyone on the planet could have clean water to drink, food to eat, a roof over their head and basic medical services. In 2012 the world's richest 100 people earned an additional $240B. If those 100 people gave 30% of their earnings for one year everybody on the planet could have basic necessities and the rich would still be filthy fucking rich.

Money and numbers in a ledger do not make people better off....real stuff does. Here is a thought experiment. Imagine Gilligans Island. Mr and Mrs Howell have suit cases full of money. Lets say they have 99% of all the money on the island(by your thinking they have 99% of the wealth). Now suppose those suitcases of money are opened up and the money is all divided equally among the 7 castaways. Are the castaways now going to be better off? Nope.

Suppose a pallet containing food, generators, tools, furniture, medicine, ky jelly, etc washed up on shore. Now would the castaways be much better off? Yes they would because real wealth is stuff....not money or 0s in a ledger.

If you want to improve the lives of poor people. You need to produce more stuff.

Now, I am all for re-distributing money. I advocated more than most here I think. I'm just not stupid enough to fall for the claim that the richest people own most of the wealth when they do not.

[Cato]

Money and numbers in a ledger do not make people better off....real stuff does. Here is a thought experiment. Imagine Gilligans Island. Mr and Mrs Howell have suit cases full of money. Lets say they have 99% of all the money on the island(by your thinking they have 99% of the wealth). Now suppose those suitcases of money are opened up and the money is all divided equally among the 7 castaways. Are the castaways now going to be better off? Nope.

Suppose a pallet containing food, generators, tools, furniture, medicine, ky jelly, etc washed up on shore. Now would the castaways be much better off? Yes they would because real wealth is stuff....not money or 0s in a ledger.

If you want to improve the lives of poor people. You need to produce more stuff.

Now, I am all for re-distributing money. I advocated more than most here I think. I'm just not stupid enough to fall for the claim that the richest people own most of the wealth when they do not.

Tortured language and willful ignorance; or, perhaps, intentional deception. You act as if it's difficult to convert money or 0s in a ledger into real goods (stuff). You also have to ignore that money is the market's method of choice for wealth distribution, not stuff. The Gilligan's Island example is pathetic. Money is simply a means of exchange and would serve little purpose in any environment with seven people and limited resources. This line of reasoning is a non-starter as a means of comparison to a global market.

How exactly are the downtrodden expected to magically create more stuff? This is the solution you seem to suggest, right? They own no land, have no capital, and lack access to natural resources. Again, where precisely do you think more stuff is going to come from?

[Exian]

Put the food, generators, tool, furniture, and medicine in separated pad-locked cages and replace the money with keys.

[Mister Agenda]

Real wealth is stuff not numbers in a ledger. If you killed every millionaire and took their stuff and divided it up among the rest. Peoples lives would not change by very much. Rich people just don't have enough stuff.

Bullshit! Less than 1/3 of the annual earnings of the world's richest 100 people would be enough to end extreme poverty everywhere. For less than $70B everyone on the planet could have clean water to drink, food to eat, a roof over their head and basic medical services. In 2012 the world's richest 100 people earned an additional $240B. If those 100 people gave 30% of their earnings for one year everybody on the planet could have basic necessities and the rich would still be filthy fucking rich.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/billionaire...ll/5318471

http://topics.bloomberg.com/bloomberg-bi...res-index/

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/researc...chandy.pdf

Cheaper than a war. In many ways.

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Bullshit! Less than 1/3 of the annual earnings of the world's richest 100 people would be enough to end extreme poverty everywhere. For less than $70B everyone on the planet could have clean water to drink, food to eat, a roof over their head and basic medical services. In 2012 the world's richest 100 people earned an additional $240B. If those 100 people gave 30% of their earnings for one year everybody on the planet could have basic necessities and the rich would still be filthy fucking rich.

Money and numbers in a ledger do not make people better off....real stuff does. Here is a thought experiment. Imagine Gilligans Island. Mr and Mrs Howell have suit cases full of money. Lets say they have 99% of all the money on the island(by your thinking they have 99% of the wealth). Now suppose those suitcases of money are opened up and the money is all divided equally among the 7 castaways. Are the castaways now going to be better off? Nope.

Suppose a pallet containing food, generators, tools, furniture, medicine, ky jelly, etc washed up on shore. Now would the castaways be much better off? Yes they would because real wealth is stuff....not money or 0s in a ledger.

If you want to improve the lives of poor people. You need to produce more stuff.

Now, I am all for re-distributing money. I advocated more than most here I think. I'm just not stupid enough to fall for the claim that the richest people own most of the wealth when they do not.

We don't live on Gilligan's island. We live in a world where Mr. and Mrs. Howell can use that money to get all the stuff they want. And a lot of power, too.

I agree that it's more complex than just moving money around. For some reason, we seem to be averse to testing social schemes on a small scale before trying them out on everyone over whom we have power, but I think it would be smarter to try different ideas in different places and compare results before settling on one plan to rule them all. You'd think the USA's state structure would be more conducive to this kind of experimentation than it is.

Still, it does occur. For example, Utah has made great progress towards reducing homelessness by providing them housing, and saved money in the process. Other states shouldn't need a federal mandate to seriously consider imitating Utah in this regard.