jsseven777 t1_j5bjmb2 wrote
Reply to comment by Frumpagumpus in What do you think an ordinary, non-billionaire non-PhD person should be doing, preparing, or looking out for? by Six-headed_dogma_man
He can’t run Twitter. He’s not building a Mars colony. Could you imagine him banning people from the colony and yeeting them into space for questioning his decisions?
bobbib14 t1_j5doszy wrote
Like Josh Gad in Avenue 5!!!!
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bjr48 wrote
lol twitter has cut like over half it's staff and it still hasn't fallen over yet. haven't even really seen fail whales for the most part.
pretty sure their user base has grown
that's a big success from a corporate point of view
edit in response to edit and no i wouldnt want to live on mars (and especially not under musk government) or work for elon musk but I'm not bent on commandeering his money lol (in particular I think if you do commandeer it, it will be in such a way that sets up a bunch of perverse incentives and you'll probably waste almost all of it worse than musk would, by a lot)
wealth tax bad, land value tax good, also land value tax basically taxes "unjust wealth" (maybe eliminate copyright and do pigovian tax like carbon tax and cig tax and their might not even be much if any unjust wealth)
jsseven777 t1_j5bl6ca wrote
Yup, a business has its revenue from advertising fall 40%+ and you call that a big success from a corporate point of view.
Why do people always defend billionaires. Every penny of their fortune comes from paying a person below a living wage. We are past the point that capitalism doesn’t need all of us to work anymore, and over the next 10 years if we don’t start pulling people out of the workforce by lowering the retirement age and increasing retirement benefits to a living wage the unemployment rate is going to skyrocket.
If we want a mars colony it should be run by the government like any other city. You want corporate cities now? What kind of propaganda have you been watching?
It’s not commandeering his money, it’s fixing our society so it’s not possible to steal quality of living from people anymore. We are capable of providing a living wage.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bles2 wrote
the government are the baddies. along with landowners©right&ip holders.
billionaires in modern society have paper fortunes. the wealthiest don't even have physical wealth at all almost, all they have is control of the corporations whose profits they drive, there is nothing for you to take from them... except for control.
and once you take that control and hand it over to the government, you will live in squalor.
(source - observation, on the contrary you are the one who is drinking in propaganda, media, including social media, harps on all your talking points 24/7 lol)
jsseven777 t1_j5bmvmf wrote
The government part was my literal point. You are the one who brought up Elon. Lol. And no, you don’t live in squalor from consumer protection and worker protection laws. That’s not true.
There are lots of countries with better standard of living than USA that have more vacation days, health care, strong minimum wages.
Capitalism tells you every day that doing anything to hurt corporate profits will lower your standard of living while you sit there with a literal low standard of living.
Amazon workers pee in bottles. I’m pretty sure a world where they get proper break is possible. If Jeff Bezos won’t give his employees bathroom breaks what makes you think he will help take care of all the workers that get laid off when all of his fleets flip to self-driving cars?
It’s amazing that people defend billionaires. Do you own your own home? Do you make a living wage? Do you have a six month cushion if you lose your job? If you can’t answer yes to these three questions then why do you defend this?
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bpshp wrote
i also think it's REALLY telling the very first question you ask is do you own your own home?
who do i think are the baddies? well, homeowners mostly lol. landowners in general but that's mostly homeowners and the government, with a little bit of bezos and gates sprinkled in (but only a little)
homeowners interests are not compatible with any kind of productivity. (free example, it KILLS labor mobility)
jsseven777 t1_j5br2vs wrote
Homeowners are bad, but landlords are good? I can’t even imagine how one might twist logic to get to this conclusion… and a home can be a condo in a skyscraper too. You don’t need to monopolize a plot of land here. People should own their homes. You are advocating for feudalism here.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5br76u wrote
NO. Landowners are bad. including homeowners. and also banks (banks effectively own land from issuing mortgages).
But, in an ideal world, probably most people would rent from a "building owner", yes. (because all land rent would be paid directly to the government and any excess after basic functions like public infrastructure and military spending paid out as ubi) (practically speaking, you would have to still have some private land wealth at least at first so you could get a market price for land rent).
In fact, our current system is basically feudalism. Barons (banks&boomer homeowners), guilds (american medical assocation, the bar association, professors&peer review), and serfs (amazon workers). Combined with fascism (federal bureaucracies and public schools and public/private parternships like microsoft, amazon, and lockheed martin).
this all works okay, but it could be a lot better. but if you just totally socialize the corporations idk how you can predict anything but catastrophe. whoever is in charge of distributing the wealth will take their cut and give it out in such a way it will only misalign incentives. incentives are obviously really important.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bn16m wrote
countries with better standard of living than USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
Luxembourg *
Liechtenstein *
Singapore *
Ireland *
Monaco *
Qatar *
Bermuda *
Isle of Man *
Switzerland *
Norway
United Arab Emirates *
basically you need oil wealth or to be a tax haven
i agree US healthcare is a shitshow, but it would be way better if it was a free market... also USA ppl are obese partly cuz we have to drive everywhere cuz of zoning regulations, cuz government (which we kind've vote for... sort of, but that's just the tyranny of democracy (which i think is better than autocracy for the record, but I would prefer it if every country had open borders and we could easily switch between countries)
Do you own your own home?
No, and I think home ownership is by far the most toxic part of pretty much every society. We should NOT encourage home ownership. homes are a huge freaking time sink. and you do NOT want to have everyone voting for their land to appreciate. that is why we are in the mess we are in.
Do you make a living wage?
yes
Do you have a six month cushion if you lose your job?
yes
jsseven777 t1_j5bnfsa wrote
Your own article says it’s a bad measure. That doesn’t account for inequalities in distribution which was the entire point here.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bp7vm wrote
> This is why GDP (PPP) per capita is often considered one of the indicators of a country's standard of living,[3][4] although this can be problematic because GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income
far from "it's a bad measure"
nathanielKay t1_j5e2mdx wrote
Ah, true. Its the worst measure.
If I have a billion dollars, and you have a thousand friends with nothing, GDP says we're all millionaires.
Yeah nah, one of us is doing fine, the other 999 are living in abject squalor. Which is to say, almost everyone.
Also, there is already a formula for determining QoL, with a dozen or so markers, and the US usually places around 16th or so.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5eh1iu wrote
huh, that sounds awful similar, except it puts slightly more emphasis on egalitarianism over raw industrial capacity...
everything_in_sync t1_j5fs15c wrote
Not sure why you're being downvoted, that's exactly how China works. No separation from corporation and government.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bp1nc wrote
> advertising fall 40%+
temporarily cuz a bunch of leftist controlled corporations (which you seem to hate corporations?) are trying to cancel him lol
AllCommiesRFascists t1_j5d7jrz wrote
> Why do people always defend billionaires.
Correcting misinformation is bad if it is against undesirable people now?
> Every penny of their fortune comes from paying a person below a living wage.
Labor theory of value BS. This has been debunked over a century ago
> We are past the point that capitalism doesn’t need all of us to work anymore
We are not at that point. Maybe by the end of the decade though
> If we want a mars colony it should be run by the government like any other city.
The people on the Mars colony will form their own government, likely a direct democracy since the population will be so low
> We are capable of providing a living wage
Every westerner makes a living wage. You guys are so privileged and don’t realize it
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