I Wish This Was A Joke

[Mister Agenda]

Yeah....dummy....if you borrow money from a bank you might be using some of Bill Gates billions of dollars. If he isn't using those dollars, and you aren't using those dollars.....someone else is. And if Bill Gates has taken those billions of dollars out of circulation by stuffing them under his mattress, well that just makes all the other dollars in circulation worth a little bit more while his are out of circulation.

I would be hesitant to call someone a dummy when my reply is a non sequitur, but that's just me.

It would be like he gave everyone in the world a small interest free loan which is called when he pulls those dollars out from under his mattress and puts them back into circulation. There is absolutely nothing Bill can do that prevents other people from using his monetary resources when he isn't using them.

So take some of his zeroes away from him and see what happens. His money being in circulation obliterates your point rather than supporting it.

He only has control over real wealth like cars, homes, etc that he hordes. Guess what....he doesn't horde enough real stuff to make a difference in the lives of everyone else.

His foundation has brought resources to bear against health problems in impoverished countries comparable to the efforts of the World Health Organization. Millions of people will live longer, healthier lives thanks to his fortune. And that's not taking into account the green revolution he is helping to fund in Africa, or the efforts he's making to help American students be prepared for college.

And your fixation on dividing his stuff up 'among everyone' continues to so bizarrely miss the point as to constitute deliberate obtuseness.

Money is just a tool humans use to exchange goods and services.

No shit, Sherlock. That's what we're trying to drum through YOUR thick skull.

If the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation buys a water well drilling rig and sends it from Kansas to sub sarahan africa....more water wells will be produced in Africa but less water wells will be produced in Kansas.

Because Kansans can't afford to dig wells? Because Bill Gate's money comes out of their pockets? Are you on drugs? Bill Gates won't be able to produce as many wells in Kansas. But he's not digging wells in Kansas now anyway, he's floating on MicroSoft stock.

The Africans are better off at the expense of the Kansans. On the whole is the world really better off?

The whole world does not need to be fucking better off. The worst off need to be better off. How in the world can this be too complicated for you?

Wanting to take Bill Gate's money and give it to the people you choose is simply you deciding that things would be better if resources were allocated based on your whim or opinion instead of letting the market allocate resources.

Personalizing the thought experiment again, I see. The argument isn't that this is necessarily the best way to make poor people better off, it's that the resources are there. You've been arguing the resources are not there, and apparently you are dimly aware of having lost that argument, so now you want to bring ethics into it, as though anyone was seriously proposing sending in jack-booted accountants to take away all Bill's assets.

Taking money away from Bill Gates does not magically produce more stuff.

No kidding. It only moves it around. If you can't argue with what we're actually saying instead of what you're making up to put in our mouths as we go along, maybe your thoughts aren't worth the electrons you're wasting posting them.

It is only a "resource" in the sense that it a tool used to facilitate barter.

I really hate to call people morons, but you're tempting me. Give me all the zeroes in your net worth and we'll see who has more resources then. And by the way, barter is when you don't use money.

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Actually, if the bank has loaned his money out, they still have to give it back to him when he demands it. It is still his money, because money is fungible. If I borrow a ten-spot from you, I don't have to clear my debt using the same ten-dollar bill.

This is why your point is not convincing.

Money represents the power to buy something. Controlling half the world's money means controlling half the world's purchasing power, and that is power whether or not you choose to recognize it.

Power is one thing, real wealth is another. I thought we were talking about wealth but if you want to talk about power for a minute that is fine. The rich have always had the power....nothing new here.

And what do they use to buy that power? Apparently all their money is worthless unless it's tangible property in their possession, so there seems to be a contradiction between you recognizing their source of power, which they, for the most part, buy with their money, and you going on and on about only 'stuff' mattering.

Some of you guys are talking like the rich are hording all the stuff which makes life pleasant(like food, shelter, and clothing) and another Bastille Day is coming.

No, we're not. You're projecting that position on to us, because you're too fucking intellectually lazy to address what we're really saying.

Such claims are utter bull shit peddled by soothsayers in an attempt to influence your vote.

I can think of no incidence ever where that thinking has influenced any vote of mine in the slightest degree.

The fact that you allow yourself to be manipulated so easily gives people more power over you than numbers in a ledger ever have.

The fact that you think you understand economics although all you can do is parrot Misesian talking points makes you the one who has been successfully manipulated. And the fact that you can't even understand what our actual position is, because it's not what's under discussion, what's under discussion is whether the wealth of the world's richest people is sufficient to effect real progress for the poorest people, and since it is, you want to talk about something else. We haven't even started talking about what we should really be doing.

Let me ask you this: Do you think the rich are wielding more power today than they were 100 years ago?

Another subject change. No. Rich people were very powerful a hundred years ago, as well.

If you were honest, you would admit that the developed world's top .01% richest people have sufficent resources that if their fortunes were intelligently and carefully redistributed, it would be enough to change the situation of the 10% poorest people in the world for the better dramatically. THEN, you can talk about the ethics of it. Because if you're not honest enough to concede a fucking point, you're in no position to be taken seriously on ethical matters in the first place.