> actually, people having or making different amounts of money is inherently wrong” (war on inequality).
This is a misrepresentation though. There isn't anything inherently wrong with people having or making different amounts of money. The complaint, as I see it usually, is that the degree of inequality is unacceptable. That is, millionares aren't inherently unethical, heck people who make millions annually aren't inherently unethical. But people who make billions a week, might be.
That is, I can comfortably and easily donate enough each year to support a few working families. Bezos could match the Child Poverty Tax Credit to every child in poverty in the US each year and still turn a profit.
(For the math here, its ~$3000 * 11 million children, which comes out to ~35 billion, or half his income this year). And remember: he could do that every year and his wealth would increase.
The key issue is that personal wealth, after a point is wasted. Creation of vast personal wealth doesn't really serve society, so why should society encourage it? That, again, doesn't mean that no one should have any personal wealth, just that the ROI, after a point, should lessen.
How much do you really care after your second billion anyway?
> The key issue is that personal wealth, after a point is wasted. Creation of vast personal wealth doesn't really serve society ... How much do you really care after your second billion anyway?
What do you think the billionaires' billions are doing? Sitting in a bank account? I think the majority of their wealth is invested, i.e. it is funding industry, which is a good thing. If we assume for illustration that billionaires will spend $1B on things like private jets and invest the rest, then if we have $1T divided among 10 billionaires, we'll have $10B spent on jets and $990B invested, while if we have $1T divided among 1000 billionaires, we'll have $1T spent on jets and $0 invested. Given that, at least for the concern of "how it's being spent", it's actually best to have the megawealth concentrated among a relative few.
"Its invested" can mean a lot of things. And in general (as another user notes) the velocity of "invested" money is lower than the velocity of money spent. In other words, the 1T spent on jets is actually better for the economy.
Invested money is usually in things like the stock market, which doesn't directly support a company (buying a share of AMZN doesn't put money in Amazon's pocket, although it does, amusingly, make Bezos wealthier on paper). Angel investing might actually be better here from a velocity perspective, I don't actually know for sure.
So, let's take Jeff Bezos. Googling a bit, an article allegedly updated Mar 13 says he has 55.5M shares, which at AMZN's price of $3379 is $187 billion; I'm sure both multiplicands have changed but that's probably not far off from the truth. What bank accounts is the $187 billion sitting in? If he sold all his stock, where would that money come from? If he then spent it all on a fleet of private jets, how would that impact the economy?
And if we split Jeff Bezos into 1000 individuals, each of which had about $200 million, and each of which spent half of it on mansions and yachts and invested the rest... would that be an improvement?
Those few would, however, have proportionally much more power and are not going to use that power to threaten the structures which made them their money. I don't think it's by any measure a good idea to have a few billionaires set the course of society; deciding what gets invented and produced, what kinds of ventures get supported, what programs enabled. That is just autocracy with extra steps.
This is a misrepresentation though. There isn't anything inherently wrong with people having or making different amounts of money. The complaint, as I see it usually, is that the degree of inequality is unacceptable. That is, millionares aren't inherently unethical, heck people who make millions annually aren't inherently unethical. But people who make billions a week, might be.
That is, I can comfortably and easily donate enough each year to support a few working families. Bezos could match the Child Poverty Tax Credit to every child in poverty in the US each year and still turn a profit.
(For the math here, its ~$3000 * 11 million children, which comes out to ~35 billion, or half his income this year). And remember: he could do that every year and his wealth would increase.
The key issue is that personal wealth, after a point is wasted. Creation of vast personal wealth doesn't really serve society, so why should society encourage it? That, again, doesn't mean that no one should have any personal wealth, just that the ROI, after a point, should lessen.
How much do you really care after your second billion anyway?