Investors don't actually have to own the wealth to invest the wealth. Hence investment firms. So if Jack built a company from the ground up, and Jill inherits money from Jack, who then has Sam invest that money in the markets, Jill is suddenly being a productive member of society? Except for the ownership bit, it was Jack and Sam actually doing the value adding. Jill is just a rentier
And yet without Jill, Sam would have nothing to play with and all of Jack's wealth would be wasted as far as society is concerned.
Yes, some of it would have been used to fuel Jill's lifestyle and that is useful for everyone who profits from that. But the more of Jack's wealth that Jill uses, the more society benefits from Jack's wealth.
My point is, money hiding under the mattress benefits no-one. As much as you and I both resent Jill for having access to the kind of wealth that we do not, her most biggest possible contribution to society is in fact to decide to spread that wealth.
Heaven forbid she decide to get a real job and keep the wealth stashed away. Then she's contributing no more than the rest of us even though she could.
The subthread started by the statement "those that inherited the wealth from their daddy, who have their investor spread that wealth around, what do they do? They don't even clean for themselves."
It is being argued that she is doing something. She is spreading here wealth around.
My counter argument is that she is not infact spreading it around, her investment firm is. She adds no value. Her money does.
Nowhere in the thread does it appear the idea that money should not be circulated.
> And yet without Jill, Sam would have nothing to play with
And yet in the current system, without Jill's collaboration, Sam would have nothing to play with. Ftfy. This indicates a flaw in the system, if someone who isn't a productive member of society in any sense holds the nuts and reaps the lion's share of the profits.
