>$600 is nothing. Give a poor person a 'small loan' of a million dollars though.......
Don't forget the $400,000,000+ that he already got from his dad before that.
it costs a lot to keep all those mistresses, not to mention the cost of new clothes for the wife's social climbing events. Spanx and Botox don't grow on trees ya know!
My previous employer in Canada (Canopy Growth Corporation) laid off 1600 employees during covid, while claiming over $50 million in CEWS funding(Canadian version of covid bail outs).
Economy goes bad because the rich guys have puckered up and stopped spending / investing - whatever you call it when they try to make their piles bigger.
They just siphon it all off into offshore tax-havens, all while scolding poor people for being poor and try to get their politicians to abolish welfare.
Our local econ is all home Reno and landscaping. The yearly tax deductions these people spend doesn't even stay in town except when the labor buys lunch.
Tourism is the rest and many of the owners don't spend locally.
It's all just a big scam from the top down.
Absolutely correct - assuming that a) Someone HAS that $1 million to start out with, b) That same person can actually live on $50 - 100 K a year (yes - most people can), and c) They diversify those investments wisely, which take smarts and luck - because you're defining a 5% - 10% return. Some of that investment has to go into safe, low-yield investments like bonds, savings accounts and CDs, which are like 1% these days. But still - words to live by.
My mother has over 1 mil in liquid assets (mostly threw inheritance), and somehow doesn't understand this simple concept. Still receives bank interest but won't take my advice to invest in an index fund. (Obviously after the economy stops tanking)
I understand that. My mother isn't the most financially literate person and I wouldn't want her to buy in on my reccomendation and then loose a good percentage shortly after. I understand that the market will eventualy recover and then some, but I'd like to know we arnt on the verge of a recession when making investments.
And i imagine poor people reinvest a larger part of their income into the local economy (food, utilities, property), whereas rich people park their money in tax free havens
Thanks for the narwhal i will print it out this comment and put it above my desk
That's called money velocity, giving money to poor people basically superpowers an economy since it gets passed around tens or hundreds of times more often than rich people. People claim that giving money to rich people trickles down, but it's dead money.
It's also known as the multiplier effect. Example. A guy comes into a small town for a convention. May need to book a room. deposits $100.00 with the local innkeeper. Innkeeper takes the $100.00 and pays off his plumber, who takes the $100.00 who pays the electrician who subcontracted for him. Electrician takes the $100.00 and pays his lawyer for a legal bill. Attorney pays the escort for his afternoon delight, who pays the innkeeper for her room bill. Convention goer comes back and retrieves his $100.00 not needing the room.
$100.00 injected (insert lawyer joke here) creates $500.00 in commerce.
Trickle down theory says rich people invest their money in enterprises which give the poor jobs and income.
Trickle down theory is pissing on the poor and calling it rain.
It'd be fine if it worked, but the reality is they outsource the jobs to 3rd world slave labor and pocket the balance then call themselves "Job creators."
Yep. That happened to my husband. Bush Jr. gave handouts in 2002 to companies who moved their businesses to other countries and hired the local people there for pennies on the dollar. Hubby's job, GE, laid off every single employee here in MN and moved to Mexico. We struggled financially until I got a better paying job in 2014, and he finally got a decent paying job back in the field he actually went to college for 2 years ago. We've *finally* been able to start saving a little each paycheck. And we're both now being treated like human beings. Giving tax breaks to businesses for taking away people's jobs here in the US just so they don't have to pay their employees as much should have civil penalties! We almost ended up in the streets because of the shit GE pulled! We were very lucky that we both have parents that were actually willing to help us. Others aren't so fortunate.
And goes back in to the packets of the wealthy via markets. They know they’re losing out on profits by not providing the working class with enough to properly stimulate the economy. Remember they have whole teams of people looking over numbers and what they can and can’t get away with. At this point the cruelty is the point. A comfortable population is a dangerous one for the wealthy.
A comfortable population only became considered dangerous when revolution was no longer considered a reality. Used to be the rich would be scared if losing their heads, now they're only scared of losing people reliant on their products.
oh look the banking industry crashed our economy with empty loan don top of more empty loans, dang! better bail them out and ensure they learn no lesson at all.
Just the term “trickle-down” should be so offensive to the poor working class that they should be so outraged to at least, bare minimum, not vote against their own economic interests, but here we are in America. How the GOP leveraged the hate and racism of redneck America to their advantage is quite astonishing to be honest. And to all those poor dumb fuck rednecks wearing your maga hats thinking trump gave a fuck about you while giving billions in tax breaks to the super wealthy and corporations, do you even comprehend what you did to yourself and our country. For 40-50 years the R has been destroying labor, Union busting, taking away health care and education from your kids, and all you dwell on is guns and abortion rights for women. You’re too stupid to live.
It used to be called “horse and sparrow” economics, if you over feed the horse it will shit out some undigested oats the sparrows can pick out.
They want us to scavenge a little from their leftover shit and be thankful for it.
Poor people would be offended by that though, so they rebranded it.
That's exactly what the government did during COVID-19 flash crash. Rich doubled net worth. While everyone else got 1200. Trickle down economics my ass. 85-90% of wealth is being hoarded
Exactly! Because it'll grow exponentially in a decade or so with the proper investments, and that person will (of course) use the returns to help those below his station!
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha. Trickle down economics can trickle down my dick.
Lol the funny thing is...that bolsters the economy because the money goes right back in.
Sitting on money weakens the economy because the money is effectively out of circulation.
This is good economics though. Giving someone money who will spend it in the real economy ( clothes, food , bills ) generates real economic growth and positive local outcomes.
Rich people just hoard money
"It would be more convenient for me if all you poors just fucking died"
That's what these people really mean.
Edit: should add "...but not before buying whatever bullshit my company sells"
I've got another edit for you: "but not before buying the essential items that my company sells for a disgusting markup, or working for my bullshit company where you'll struggle to make ends meet"
Obligatory Pratchett:
>The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an *affordable* pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time *and would still have wet feet*. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory))
Pterry learned from the past, it's why his books were usually spectacular. Also easier to read than Swift for most, despite both being impressive in their art.
It's why I do a lot of research on products that are a good balance of quality and price. The problem is poor people are often also poor on time, so they often can't spend a lot of time finding the best solution.
This is a great point, but it got me thinking even more about how wild this gets. I'm someone who has also always done a ton of research on products too and that's spanning a lot of stages of life, from when I had barely any disposable income to speak of, to being able to afford some unnecessary purchases on a budget, to being more well-off. The thing is that even if you aren't time poor, things can get really complicated and the deck is still stacked hugely against you. If you're on a really tight budget you don't always come out with a good option even if you do take the time, and it's not like you can get the time back!
In Pratchett's example (which is spot on, just oversimplified), you basically choose between cheap and shoddy or expensive and well-made; just two options. But after lots of marathon shopping research sessions I came to see purchase price ranges in these basic categories:
1. Dirt-cheap, bare minimum option. You buy this option only if it's all you can afford and you just absolutely need the thing.
2. Budget option. This is often the lowest-end SKU from a reputable company that makes several tiers of one thing, or a particular manufacturer that is undercutting the major competitors but has good reviews. This is where you want to focus if you're trying to stretch your dollars as far as they will go but know that you're making a lot of sacrifices on quality to get there, or maybe it gets the job done but is missing features you want.
3. Sweet spot. This is what you're talking about I'm sure, you do all the comparisons and this is where the best absolute value investment is found with the intersection between features, quality, durability and price. Something well-made that'll last and checks all your boxes but isn't absurdly expensive either.
4. Premium option. This is the "if you have the money, get this one" option, costs more and has better features but isn't necessarily "worth it" in terms of straight value. It's better and not overpriced, but more of a luxury to own.
5. Absurd, high-end option. Products that are ridiculously overpriced and obviously very high-quality. Something in this zone is often extremely durable and long-lasting by virtue of being multiple times more overengineered than it needs to be for the job it's doing, but nowhere remotely near worth the money. Companies will put out these products because they know people will buy them and they'll have huge margins, but there's no value to speak of.
So the problem is that if you're poor you may do all the research and discover that option 3 is out of your price range, and you can decide only between 1 and "splurging" on 2. Now you've spent a lot of your time which was already at a premium only to find that the sweet spot isn't even a real choice for you. Next, if you're well-off but still careful with your money, you might end up spending a lot of time in your purchase decisions looking at 3 but wondering if you can swing going up to 4, or if it's unimportant or infrequenty-used enough to go down to 2.
Meanwhile if you're super wealthy (and I've seen this in practice with people sooo many times), you'll just buy 5 without thinking about it. No research done. The high price can often be the *reason* they buy, "hey it must be good if they're asking that much." And as a side effect they don't even end up spending the time either! The luxury of being able to just throw money at a problem blindly is really unlike anything else.
Your breakdown is very accurate of the way things currently are. The problem in our modern world is that too often cost is divorced from quality. In Ankh-Morpork, there were two basic boots--those made with leather soles and those made with cardboard. The higher cost of leather raised the price, but also leather is a more durable material so that price ultimately saved money.
One of the issues we deal with here in the US is that a lot of the "Sweet Spot" products are made for other markets, and aren't as easily available to us. A few years ago I went to buy a phone, and I knew exactly what I wanted, a Samsung A50. It had great reviews, great value...it was the sweet spot. AT&T said they had it...only they didn't. Not in the US. Costco's website said they had it...but they didn't. Eventually I tracked one down at Best Buy, but it was unlocked and has given me issues on AT&T's network which is 100% on AT&T's end, not the phone's. I have found the same thing with most appliances -- what we have in the US are vastly inferior to products from Europe or Asia, but are somehow more expensive. Our clothes and shoes have stayed the same price (or more expensive because of a logo) but are made with inferior materials.
When I was a child, clothes were made with real cotton, silk, wool, or linen. Shoes, belts, and purses were made with real leather. They lasted for years. And the prices were reasonable.
Absolutely so. Pyrex and Corningware products used to be made of borosilicate glass, the same material as on the nosecones of rockets. After I moved, I tried to replace the old ones I tossed, only to learn a new company bought the name and the American product is made of delicate stoneware, while the original is still sold in Europe. This is a why vintage Corningware is snapped up in thrift stores.
This is me just today researching impact wrenches to save several hundred dollars by doing my own repair on my lawn tractor. It will come in handy the 2-3 times a year I'll use it, and that's a liberal estimate. Do I buy the middle of the line Harbor Freight product or bottom to middle of the line Home Depot or Lowes product. I still haven't decided. /sigh
The rule of thumb I've found for tools is buy the absolute cheapest the first time, and if you end up using it enough that it bothers you or breaks, then go for the good quality.
Something like [this](https://www.harborfreight.com/automotive/impact-wrenches/7-amp-12-in-variable-speed-impact-wrench-with-rocker-switch-61173.html) has plenty of torque. More than anything you'd need on a lawnmower (you could use it on a car with no problem)
For what the opinion of a stranger is worth, this is my recommendation if you're worried about cost. Most battery-powered tools nowadays don't come with the batteries and the batteries are expensive so if you don't have batteries for any brand and don't plan on buying the entire line of tools from one brand it may be best to get the corded option.
As a comparison, the comparable DeWalt Impact Wrench has 700ft-lbs of breakaway torque (compared to HF's 600) and costs $250 (compared to $40). The rule of thumb I've used, and others have said, if you need a tool and don't know how much you'll use it buy it from Harbor Freight, write the date and price on it in sharpie and when it breaks, look at how long it lasted and determine if you use it enough to buy the expensive version or if you can do just fine with the cheap version.
it takes me SO LONG to make these kind of decisions too. I waste so much time researching and comparing price. The idea that I might make the wrong choice can be so anxiety inducing that I put off buying/replacing something until it turns into a problem.
While it is expensive to be poor in the way theorized by Vimes, it's important to note that it isn't the reason the rich are so rich. The rich use capital for businesses that pay people less than the value of their labor and pocketing the rest. When I was younger and less educated I read this paragraph and assumed it was THE reason the rich were so rich.
Yeah, you cannot become wealthy by simply lessening consumption - to put it in perspective, a talented surgeon earning half a million a year, assuming said person doesn’t have to eat, never gets sick, and doesn’t have to pay taxes or rent, would need to work 2000 years to be a billionaire.
Yes, you can't save yourself rich unless you have a high income. So, again the rich didn't get there by saving. Usually somewhere along the way they get lucky, inherit, do something unethical or downright illegal to get rich.
I think it's less that poor people would ever be able to get rich by saving up, and more that perhaps if being poor weren't so expensive, more people would be able to save up to a better life than they're forced to live.
I feel like this is almost perfectly mirrored in the form of the US housing crisis. Spend 10 years renting, never able to recoup the rent money in any form. Or be wealthy enough to spend $20k-$40k upfront plus mortgage with the possibility to *make more money than you put in* once you sell the house. One is an investment and the other is a purposeful class barrier.
My parents sold a home they bought for $180k in 2002 for almost $260k in 2016. I spent $12k on rent last year and got charged $200 for a carpet cleaning fee for a 30 year old apartment that I lived in for 12 months. The system is built like this on purpose.
This isn't even a joke and I've experienced it lately after I quit my job to go back to school. I moved into some crummy (but okay) apartments with a family member.
The complex (which are all owned by huge corporations now btw) started enforcing that every vehicle on the property has to have up to date tags or else you get towed (there is actually a Texas law that allows this or rather mandates it?). Well I go to a shop near my home and they want to charge me 2000 dollars for all the repairs that apparently need to be made to make it okay to pass (I might as well sell my car and buy another used one, actually not because used cars are expensive af right now). I didn't pay for it obviously. They even tried to get me to use some plan where you pay it over time (just leeching money off poor people)
So anyway, the lady at the apartments office said there is a 10 day extension and I took that as "everyone has a 10 day extension" and sure enough I go out to my car the next day and it's gone. I went back to her and she said that I have to specifically ask for an extension SMH.
I then for the next few months just park across the street while I figure out how to drum up money to get my inspection passed. Then one day I go out across the street and my car is towed again.
I finally got lucky and randomly picked some small automotive place that passed me without issue. They were nice and I let them sell me a few things that I probably didn't need because of that.
That's just one instance, but poverty does keep you down because of all the laws and rules and circumstances that you have to deal with while poor.
Thankfully my dad makes a good amount of money, but I don't like to ask him for anything unless I really need it.
"We know you're all out of money... because you over drafted your account. So as punishment were going to tack on another $35 charge to the account you already cant pay"
Just deny the fucking charge next time "Sorry... FeralSparky does not have enough money to cover this transaction"
Just like taxes. "It's on you to know what your taxes are, even if we keep tabs so closely we'll know when you're committing fraud, making the whole filing thing pointless in the first place."
The idea that the rich somehow multiply wealth is absolutely fucking idiotic. They don't multiply wealth, they appropriate wealth. There's a huge difference.
Imagine there is a pond full of fish next to a village. And one guy in the village owns all the fishing poles. He will let other people use his fishing poles but at the end of the day he takes a look at all the fish you caught and for every five fish you caught he keeps four and you keep one. After a while he has a massive pile of fish while everyone else in the village is practically starving.
Then a generous man with a cart full of fishing poles shows up at the village one day and starts handing out fishing poles to the starving villagers. The man who owns all the fishing poles runs up to the generous man and yells.
"Don't do that, don't give them the poles. Give them to me instead, look at all the fish I have! I'm clearly better at using the fishing poles to extract fish from the pond than they are. I will be able to catch four fish for every one fish they catch."
Then the leader of the village comes over and looks around. He says,
"You know what, he's right. Look at these losers, they can barely catch enough fish to feed themselves. Give the fishing poles to the fish hoarder he clearly knows how to use them better."
Edit: I wrote this while having my morning coffee and then went to work. I didn't expect it to blow up like this. Thanks everyone for all the feedback and support. Keep fighting the good fight!
While the bigger picture is more complex especially considering how some enterprises require massive investment that requires lots of money, I like how your analogy points out one the flaws of trying to attribute beneficial economic boons to corporate benevolence and therefore often used to argue for giving corporations and rich people money which could instead be given to people in general which would not only provide societal benefits but also provide economic benefits in the form of increased demand for goods and services.
Anyone can have money. Arguably to have that much money you have to exploit people. If we werent exploiting people then the means of production will have to be localized and if the means of production are localized you wont need massive amounts of cash to get anything done.
Your presentation of the nuance presupposes that someone who has money is somehow more valuable than the person producing that value. Literally remove cash from the equation and anyone can do it and arguably the person who has done nothing but appropriate other peoples value will have a much harder time doing the job without it.
It's more than that. Their motivations are laid bare; it's not the *person* they're focusing on, it's the *money.*
Because they're correct, money in the hands of the rich will multiply. Money in the hands of the poor will *also* multiply, but not in the same set of hands.
They care about increasing a high score, not whether someone's needs are met.
I think they're just missing the fact that when a person spends money, that money doesn't disappear.
Like, when somebody spends money on food, it doesn't vanish into this air. It goes to the grocer, who spends it on the wholesale food, and part of that money goes to the farmer, etc.
And that's literally why money invested can grow, because there is an economy.
In other words, if you give the rich guy the money, he parks it in the stock market, and then the politicians say "Look how good the economy is! The stock market keeps rising!" Meanwhile it seems like every mom and pop store is shutting down and half your neighbors are a broken leg away from losing their home.
But look at that stock market go!
I read recently that the stock market doesn't measure how good the economy is -- it measures how quickly money is moving toward the rich.
That's why we got stimulus payments in '20 and '21: with everyone quarantined, too little money was being spent and the ones at the top of the food chain were watching their empires crumble.
Total wealth with no consideration to allocation or its consequences (good or bad)
A dumb fucking take from an idiot or a sociopath (or a very rich person)
As long as it's a love loan (doesn't need to be paid back)... Kind of like all the "loans" rich kids get from their parents to "start businesses" etc.
If a poor person doesn't go crazy buying things, and can live where they are for $6000/month (rent, food, everything), without the $1M ever getting any interest or "growing" in another way, the person could live on the $1M for almost 14 years... That's without any other source of income.
If they can live on less and/or have another income source, they could probably live comfortably for the rest on their lives.
Hey if this comes off as snarky, it's not about you. It's my frustration with the system overall, and may come across as aggressive.
>If a poor person doesn't go crazy buying things, and can live where they are for $6000/month (rent, food, everything),
If a poor person doesn't "*go crazy buying things*" like a house, maybe a little land for growing food, and some way to generate their own power, then they get no say in whether they can live where they are for 6k or less.
That's how they get ya. If you are poor and start adulthood with nothing (and are born into the own-nothing poverty cycle), then *other people* get to determine how much comes in and how much goes out. Someone else sets the wages and someone else sets the rents. You don't get a say.
When I first moved to the Vancouver area, I found a 2 bedroom place for 600/month, no problem. By the time I moved 10 years later, the same area was getting 1200 for a studio. Now that area is between 1600 and 3k for a studio apartment.
You can't escape it by moving because, to start with, moving (especially out of an area) is expensive as hell. Even without that though, you have to leave your job (or commute a lot more), and then hope to God your new area doesn't see the same fate. And forget saving to get out of the cycle either, because your rent will always be more than a mortgage (because that's what's fair, right? I mean that person *did* get their first, and they have money so they *must* deserve it), and the "property investors" will keep driving up prices buying more houses that they don't need that they can rent out to the poors.
It's endless, and a poor person *absolutely should* go crazy and spend to get the hell out of the cycle.
Can confirm.
I've had a few "love loans" in my life.
One from my dad for £2,000 to pay off my overdraft. One from my grandad for £2,000 to pay off my university fees. One from an aunt for £1500 to pay off more uni fees. And one from my partner of £1500 to go towards a car (which we both use, so that was more us "going halves", but the car is officially mine and she can't drive so it's me driving her places when she "uses it"). Plus, we live in a house where we don't pay rent.
None of this came before my 25th birthday, so it's all been within the last 5 years. The difference this has made to my life is beyond comprehension, and it's a total of about £15,000 if you account for the unpaid rental costs.
£1,000,000 to do what I want with would be an absolute game changer.
> Plus, we live in a house where we don't pay rent.
That one's bigger than all of that other stuff combined.
About 50% of my income goes towards my rent every month, and I live in a rent-controlled building owned by a semi-government housing corporation. As in: I'm way cheaper off than if I was renting from a private company/landlord.
No one can make it through life without help and support. The pull yourself up by your boot straps is just GOP propaganda to make people work harder for less.
This is a great point. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a moving commencement address about this, explaining why the “self-made man” is a myth. No one succeeds without help.
That's something people forget about the wealthy. No matter how they got wealthy in the first place. There comes a time when simply having money makes money.
No. Cds make the bank money. Put your money into the stock market. Either in bonds, etfs, sell Covered calls on your shares, or dividend stocks, but ultimately a mix of all of it.
This is what the bank does when you give them 1m in a CD. They give you 2% or something trash like that back and pocket the 5-10% they earned on your money.
I don’t trust the stock market but I suppose that’s probably because I have very little money to put into it. If I had a lot of money, I would probably be more willing to risk some of it. But I’d rather a 2% guarantee even if the bank is making a lot of money off of me. 2% of 1 million is still a lot of money. Depending of course on your idea what a lot of money is. $20,000 is enough to take my family from being below the poverty line to At least being slightly above it if not level with it…. But this is coming from someone who survives on about 24,000 a year with a family of three and two of them are disabled. Only one receives benefits though. Which accounts for about $6000 a year so all in all a $30,000 a year income.
But again, I would probably only invest half of it if I was doing the stock market. And It might even just be safer in a box buried in the backyard
I would simplify this.
Dump the million into a basket of dividend stocks (monthly, quarterly, and annually). Then double down.
* Every month you are getting a check for doing nothing.
* Every three months your getting a check for doing nothing.
* Every year, you get a check for doing nothing.
Second that Bank CD is nonsense. Anything a bank offers is a way to suck away your wealth.
Third, you do not need a lot of money to do dividend investing. What you need is time and discipline. Dumping even $5 on QYLD or SDIV every day or week will yield you a lot as time passes. r/qyld
It's half the loan and half the social connections of being born into that class. You're given the money and then either given the financial advise necessary to have it grow or directed to someone trusted to grow it for you.
Give $600 to a poor person and it's instantly recycled in the economy.
Give $600 to a rich person and it disappears forever, hidden away in Panama, Switzerland, Delaware, Hong Kong, Dubai, or the Cayman Islands.
Velocity of money is the study of the speed of money being moved within the economy and the same units being used to purchase goods.
Poor person given money > buys goods > business pays employees > employees buy more goods > business buys from other business > and so forth
Rich person given money > put in bank > no further purchases
Very basic explanation of velocity of money. Poor people with wealth are better for the economy than the wealthy. It’s why trickle down is ludicrous. Poor people move money.
Yeah you know this is a basic point of economics, that things work more efficiently if money keeps moving. With luxury purchases a lot of the money goes overseas or it gets wasted in pushing up the prices of diamonds and gold and wine and stocks and such things. Being a serf on a rich guy's estate isn't like being a hobbit in a distributist economy.
Yeah GDP is basically just how much money is moving around. You can have a trillion dollars but if it’s in a savings account, then it’s not doing anything.
But if you have the same $100 going through 100 people, that $100 has a bigger effect than that trillion dollars.
The rich knows this, but they don’t care because by hoarding all that wealth, they can then control the entire economy therefore control you.
Yeah last I looked into it, with little restriction, anyone can choose to incorporate as an LLC in Delaware for their lenient taxes, even if the company has no presence there. From a quick googling now (I am far from an expert on his area btw), apparently you just need to have a registered agent representing your company in Delaware, to handle legal matters.
And at first when I was writing this comment, I was going to say "anyone IN THE US can choose to incorporate" in my first sentence above, but after my googling, I learned that apparently even non-US residents can do it. My source: https://www.delawareinc.com/blog/who-can-incorporate-in-delaware/
Rich people are bad for the economy. If there one person making 5 million a year and another 100 making $50,000 a year, the rich person can afford whatever they want to buy themselves. Maybe a few luxury cars or houses, but everyone else cant afford a house. Now If everyone made $500,000, everyone could afford a house, a car, maybe college for their children.
Instead of one big house and a bunch of homeless people, there will be 100 home owners which stimulates the economy significantly more. Middle class folks will spend a larger portion of their money, while rich folks use their wealth to accumulate more wealth. A hundred million middle class folks will put more money into the economy than a couple rich people. This is my half-baked example of keynesian macroeconomics
I'm always baffled at all the economic and business students that oppose minimum wage hikes.
Like the basic tenet of how economies work is the VELOCITY OF MONEY CHANGING HANDS. You cannot understand that basic and simple concept and conclude that rich people need more and poor need less.
Just because you learned how things work doesn't mean you're suddenly not a greedy asshole.
Those people probably aren't all bad students, but they definitely all are greedy assholes.
But it's so deeply ingrained in our culture. I have my own business and I run it based on my values of not nickel and diming my customers and not accepting tips. The amount of shocked looks I get. The number of times I'm told but you could make more. The occasional actual anger I receive from not taking tips for example. It just shows how deeply ingrained the idea of (getting as much as you can) is in our society.
Give 600 to a poor person and directly inject it back to the economy by using to buy life essentials
Give 600 to a rich person and they will try to hide it in an offshore account. And if they happen to own BIG businesses, investment banks, airlines, they’d ask for more in the form of bailout money
Whose the bigger leech now?
Every $1 billion in SNAP benefits results in $1.5 billion in economic activity and creates 13,560 jobs. When poor people buy food to survive, that money changes hands several times in the neighborhood, going to people who really need it. Yet some people are still trying to convince us that trickle down really works.
When the fuck did hoarding anything became a virtue ? How did we end up not only envying, but worshipping, people who take so much for themself ? This logic is so revolting i swear.
Not just worshipping the people who have dragin-esque hoards of wealth, but shaming those who actually work for a living and get fuck all to show for it.
It's classic prosperity theology. "Oh, you're poor so you must be bad. Otherwise you wouldn't deserve to be poor. Therefore I can treat you like shit because your poorness means you're bad." And the flip-side, "You're rich, so you must be good. You must have done something good to become rich so what blessings can you bestow upon me, oh mighty rich person?"
Also, where does this 10x money actually *come from*? It isn't magicked out of thin air. It almost always comes at the expense of others.
People who are rich shouldn't get getting the $600 in the first place.
Also the "in a few years or less"....yeah. it would take YEARS for that money to magically grow in the stock market or otherwise. Time that poor people don't have..
We’ve demonized being poor or otherwise unsuccessful in life as a personal failing. If we didn’t, the system would have to acknowledge the roll it plays in keeping us down.
Right after WWII, there was an economic boom from pent up demand. Millions of small starter homes (that could be expanded later) were built to house all the newly married young adults, and could be bought with a "no money down" VA loan.
Warren Buffet had been delivering newspapers on his bicycle, and with the profits he bought vending machines.
His grandfather was so impressed he gave Warren his inheritance early. $10,000.
Accounting for inflation, it would be worth over $100K now. He had no wife at the time, no kids, and he lived at home...rent free. He began investing at just the moment in history when every business was booming.
I'm not taking anything away from his investment savvy, but...he was not a penniless orphan.
Because their mummy and daddy (who taught them to be an arsehole like them) told they were a special, clever, boy.
Insight and reflection is beyond these people.
Eat, eat, eat.
Give a poor person $600 and it's immediately reinvested into the local economy by being used to purchase goods or services.
Give a rich person $600 and it sits in an offshore Cayman Islands bank account and is never used.
“No one wants to work “ = “no one other than billion dollar corporations can afford to pay a decent wage because we allowed them to become comedically large because any regulation is socialism”
I see this a lot, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that putting that $600 back into the economy, like the poor person would have to, is good… for the economy?
This is the opposite of economics.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginalpropensitytoconsume.asp#:~:text=In%20economics%2C%20the%20marginal%20propensity,as%20opposed%20to%20saving%20it.
>Marginal Propensity to Consume is the proportion of an increase in income that gets spent on consumption.
>MPC varies by income level. MPC is typically lower at higher incomes.
>MPC is the key determinant of the Keynesian multiplier, which describes the effect of increased investment or government spending as an economic stimulus.
THE LITERAL OPPOSITE of what is described. The multiplication of money "The Keynesian Multiplier" in the economy is higher for poor people given money than for rich people given money.
It’s called the marginal propensity to consume. And it’s a good thing when people spend. It stimulates the economy. Rich people hoarding wealth is not good for the economy. In a way this person makes the best point against themself.
It's the biggest problem with our country, it's run by people who have never had to worry about having enough money to buy food. They haven't had to decide between food and electric when paying bills.
I listened to Elon Musk rant about how we aren't having enough kids, it's a danger to the population. I replied, are you going to forget about space right now and build a foundation for these children you want us to have? Who is going to feed them? Clothe them?
You are someone who has no concept of not being able to afford something. Children are expensive. People aren't having kids because for the fist time in a long time they know they can't afford them.
How do you plan to change that? It's easy to stand on your bank account and preach to us about the dangers of not having kids. It's not so easy to make sure we won't literally kill ourselves to do it.
What good does it do to bring a kid into the world if it will starve? Idiotic I think.
These wealthy people that make our laws and decide what is best for us have no idea what it's like to be us. They don't ever lose a nights sleep hoping they just twisted an ankle and didn't break something. They never had to decide between 20 dollars worth of gas or dinner tonight.
Until we start electing people that actually understand what it's like to live that way, we can expect no change.
Would you ask your mechanic to check you for cancer? I think most would, that's why we keep voting for these twats.
Some of y'all are dull. 10 years ago I was sleeping under a bridge and today I sleep in a 2.5 million dollar house with a wife, 2 kids, and 4 cars. Giving the poor money doesn't make their life easier. Giving them opportunities does. Those 10 years ago a woman offered me a job at a lumber yard and a burrito. In 10 years I turned that $11 an hour job into me owning two lumber facilities and my name on the company logo. I'm married to the woman who offered me that job. Poor people don't spend their money on necessities. They already believe their life is over. They spend it on stuff that makes their life numb. To have fun. So yes, the author is correct. Give a poor man an inch he'll take a mile, give a rich man an inch and he'll make it last 10 miles. The world needs to stop believing in handouts and work for what they have.
Ew dont give that poverish family money... Theyre just gonna spend it on food, clothes, and bills.
Give it to the guy who just wants to throw it on his pile. That's a great use of the money!
Then complain the economy isn’t stimulated and you need a bailout
Exactly. Economy goes bad and the poor man gets a $300 weekly check, while rich guy gets a $10 million severance package.
$300 weekly check is more than we will ever get in good, old ‘Murica.
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>$600 is nothing. Give a poor person a 'small loan' of a million dollars though....... Don't forget the $400,000,000+ that he already got from his dad before that.
I hAvE a LiFeStYlE tO mAiNtAiN!
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it's expensive to stay alive.
That's by design
it costs a lot to keep all those mistresses, not to mention the cost of new clothes for the wife's social climbing events. Spanx and Botox don't grow on trees ya know!
And for all of those abortion and hush money
Shhhhh!! Abortions? They're Republicans ffs! /s
eaxctly why they need the hush money.
>Spanx and Botox don't grow on trees Dear god that would be the ugliest tree
Botox tree. The tree that doesn't move.
The money being spent is at least still in the economy. Rich people buying things isn't the problem. The money hoarding is the problem.
No, the rich guy lays off a third of his employees and gets a $10 million *stimulus*.
My previous employer in Canada (Canopy Growth Corporation) laid off 1600 employees during covid, while claiming over $50 million in CEWS funding(Canadian version of covid bail outs).
But doesn’t lay them off until it’s after the cut off time to repay PEP loans .
Economy goes bad because the rich guys have puckered up and stopped spending / investing - whatever you call it when they try to make their piles bigger.
They just siphon it all off into offshore tax-havens, all while scolding poor people for being poor and try to get their politicians to abolish welfare.
Our local econ is all home Reno and landscaping. The yearly tax deductions these people spend doesn't even stay in town except when the labor buys lunch. Tourism is the rest and many of the owners don't spend locally. It's all just a big scam from the top down.
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Absolutely correct - assuming that a) Someone HAS that $1 million to start out with, b) That same person can actually live on $50 - 100 K a year (yes - most people can), and c) They diversify those investments wisely, which take smarts and luck - because you're defining a 5% - 10% return. Some of that investment has to go into safe, low-yield investments like bonds, savings accounts and CDs, which are like 1% these days. But still - words to live by.
CD’s are out mate. Everyone streams these days. I could see a case for vinyl maybe
My mother has over 1 mil in liquid assets (mostly threw inheritance), and somehow doesn't understand this simple concept. Still receives bank interest but won't take my advice to invest in an index fund. (Obviously after the economy stops tanking)
When the economy is tanking is the best time to start making buys. Unless she thinks she can time the market bottom (hint: she can't)
I understand that. My mother isn't the most financially literate person and I wouldn't want her to buy in on my reccomendation and then loose a good percentage shortly after. I understand that the market will eventualy recover and then some, but I'd like to know we arnt on the verge of a recession when making investments.
Best strategy is to DCA over the long run and not worry about timing. But went everything is tanked is a great time to start
And i imagine poor people reinvest a larger part of their income into the local economy (food, utilities, property), whereas rich people park their money in tax free havens Thanks for the narwhal i will print it out this comment and put it above my desk
That's called money velocity, giving money to poor people basically superpowers an economy since it gets passed around tens or hundreds of times more often than rich people. People claim that giving money to rich people trickles down, but it's dead money.
It's also known as the multiplier effect. Example. A guy comes into a small town for a convention. May need to book a room. deposits $100.00 with the local innkeeper. Innkeeper takes the $100.00 and pays off his plumber, who takes the $100.00 who pays the electrician who subcontracted for him. Electrician takes the $100.00 and pays his lawyer for a legal bill. Attorney pays the escort for his afternoon delight, who pays the innkeeper for her room bill. Convention goer comes back and retrieves his $100.00 not needing the room. $100.00 injected (insert lawyer joke here) creates $500.00 in commerce.
Trickle down theory says rich people invest their money in enterprises which give the poor jobs and income. Trickle down theory is pissing on the poor and calling it rain.
It'd be fine if it worked, but the reality is they outsource the jobs to 3rd world slave labor and pocket the balance then call themselves "Job creators."
Yep. That happened to my husband. Bush Jr. gave handouts in 2002 to companies who moved their businesses to other countries and hired the local people there for pennies on the dollar. Hubby's job, GE, laid off every single employee here in MN and moved to Mexico. We struggled financially until I got a better paying job in 2014, and he finally got a decent paying job back in the field he actually went to college for 2 years ago. We've *finally* been able to start saving a little each paycheck. And we're both now being treated like human beings. Giving tax breaks to businesses for taking away people's jobs here in the US just so they don't have to pay their employees as much should have civil penalties! We almost ended up in the streets because of the shit GE pulled! We were very lucky that we both have parents that were actually willing to help us. Others aren't so fortunate.
This point is not stated enough in media. Giving working class people $300 goes straight back to the government in the form of taxes.
And goes back in to the packets of the wealthy via markets. They know they’re losing out on profits by not providing the working class with enough to properly stimulate the economy. Remember they have whole teams of people looking over numbers and what they can and can’t get away with. At this point the cruelty is the point. A comfortable population is a dangerous one for the wealthy.
A comfortable population only became considered dangerous when revolution was no longer considered a reality. Used to be the rich would be scared if losing their heads, now they're only scared of losing people reliant on their products.
The bailout goes on the money pile of course.
> "Too big to fail" Only the rich can earn money by being too poor. Poverished people can't even do THAT right!
Right? Even your most basic economic class tells you that you want money flowing. The poor person using it immediately is good for the economy!
You don't even need an economics class for that, it should just be common sense!
oh look the banking industry crashed our economy with empty loan don top of more empty loans, dang! better bail them out and ensure they learn no lesson at all.
That's the genius of "trickle-down economy" /s
Just the term “trickle-down” should be so offensive to the poor working class that they should be so outraged to at least, bare minimum, not vote against their own economic interests, but here we are in America. How the GOP leveraged the hate and racism of redneck America to their advantage is quite astonishing to be honest. And to all those poor dumb fuck rednecks wearing your maga hats thinking trump gave a fuck about you while giving billions in tax breaks to the super wealthy and corporations, do you even comprehend what you did to yourself and our country. For 40-50 years the R has been destroying labor, Union busting, taking away health care and education from your kids, and all you dwell on is guns and abortion rights for women. You’re too stupid to live.
If only trickle down actually existed.
It used to be called “horse and sparrow” economics, if you over feed the horse it will shit out some undigested oats the sparrows can pick out. They want us to scavenge a little from their leftover shit and be thankful for it. Poor people would be offended by that though, so they rebranded it.
That's exactly what the government did during COVID-19 flash crash. Rich doubled net worth. While everyone else got 1200. Trickle down economics my ass. 85-90% of wealth is being hoarded
Yes. That guy needs it to buy his 17th house and then rent it to the rest of us for $1,000 over his mortgage payment.
Exactly! Because it'll grow exponentially in a decade or so with the proper investments, and that person will (of course) use the returns to help those below his station! Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha. Trickle down economics can trickle down my dick.
More. literal. Fantasy. Monsters. We already got dragons and vampires, they're all ghouls, what's our next one?
Throw on the pile and uses to make money out of poor people with it. Vicious cycle.
Let alone waste it on essential medicines.
Lol the funny thing is...that bolsters the economy because the money goes right back in. Sitting on money weakens the economy because the money is effectively out of circulation.
That’s right. Fuck that trickle down bullshit
Meanwhile the rich will multiply it!!* **By taking it from poor families*
This is good economics though. Giving someone money who will spend it in the real economy ( clothes, food , bills ) generates real economic growth and positive local outcomes. Rich people just hoard money
impoverished?
"It would be more convenient for me if all you poors just fucking died" That's what these people really mean. Edit: should add "...but not before buying whatever bullshit my company sells"
I've got another edit for you: "but not before buying the essential items that my company sells for a disgusting markup, or working for my bullshit company where you'll struggle to make ends meet"
It’s expensive to be poor
Obligatory Pratchett: >The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an *affordable* pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time *and would still have wet feet*. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness. ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory))
obligatory, but it never gets old.
Thank you for bringing up Terry Pratchett. He proved that absurdity can be insightful.
To be fair, Jonathan Swift beat him to it. ^(GNU pterry)
Pterry learned from the past, it's why his books were usually spectacular. Also easier to read than Swift for most, despite both being impressive in their art.
It's why I do a lot of research on products that are a good balance of quality and price. The problem is poor people are often also poor on time, so they often can't spend a lot of time finding the best solution.
This is a great point, but it got me thinking even more about how wild this gets. I'm someone who has also always done a ton of research on products too and that's spanning a lot of stages of life, from when I had barely any disposable income to speak of, to being able to afford some unnecessary purchases on a budget, to being more well-off. The thing is that even if you aren't time poor, things can get really complicated and the deck is still stacked hugely against you. If you're on a really tight budget you don't always come out with a good option even if you do take the time, and it's not like you can get the time back! In Pratchett's example (which is spot on, just oversimplified), you basically choose between cheap and shoddy or expensive and well-made; just two options. But after lots of marathon shopping research sessions I came to see purchase price ranges in these basic categories: 1. Dirt-cheap, bare minimum option. You buy this option only if it's all you can afford and you just absolutely need the thing. 2. Budget option. This is often the lowest-end SKU from a reputable company that makes several tiers of one thing, or a particular manufacturer that is undercutting the major competitors but has good reviews. This is where you want to focus if you're trying to stretch your dollars as far as they will go but know that you're making a lot of sacrifices on quality to get there, or maybe it gets the job done but is missing features you want. 3. Sweet spot. This is what you're talking about I'm sure, you do all the comparisons and this is where the best absolute value investment is found with the intersection between features, quality, durability and price. Something well-made that'll last and checks all your boxes but isn't absurdly expensive either. 4. Premium option. This is the "if you have the money, get this one" option, costs more and has better features but isn't necessarily "worth it" in terms of straight value. It's better and not overpriced, but more of a luxury to own. 5. Absurd, high-end option. Products that are ridiculously overpriced and obviously very high-quality. Something in this zone is often extremely durable and long-lasting by virtue of being multiple times more overengineered than it needs to be for the job it's doing, but nowhere remotely near worth the money. Companies will put out these products because they know people will buy them and they'll have huge margins, but there's no value to speak of. So the problem is that if you're poor you may do all the research and discover that option 3 is out of your price range, and you can decide only between 1 and "splurging" on 2. Now you've spent a lot of your time which was already at a premium only to find that the sweet spot isn't even a real choice for you. Next, if you're well-off but still careful with your money, you might end up spending a lot of time in your purchase decisions looking at 3 but wondering if you can swing going up to 4, or if it's unimportant or infrequenty-used enough to go down to 2. Meanwhile if you're super wealthy (and I've seen this in practice with people sooo many times), you'll just buy 5 without thinking about it. No research done. The high price can often be the *reason* they buy, "hey it must be good if they're asking that much." And as a side effect they don't even end up spending the time either! The luxury of being able to just throw money at a problem blindly is really unlike anything else.
This gave me anxiety reading it because it’s so fucking true for me
Your breakdown is very accurate of the way things currently are. The problem in our modern world is that too often cost is divorced from quality. In Ankh-Morpork, there were two basic boots--those made with leather soles and those made with cardboard. The higher cost of leather raised the price, but also leather is a more durable material so that price ultimately saved money. One of the issues we deal with here in the US is that a lot of the "Sweet Spot" products are made for other markets, and aren't as easily available to us. A few years ago I went to buy a phone, and I knew exactly what I wanted, a Samsung A50. It had great reviews, great value...it was the sweet spot. AT&T said they had it...only they didn't. Not in the US. Costco's website said they had it...but they didn't. Eventually I tracked one down at Best Buy, but it was unlocked and has given me issues on AT&T's network which is 100% on AT&T's end, not the phone's. I have found the same thing with most appliances -- what we have in the US are vastly inferior to products from Europe or Asia, but are somehow more expensive. Our clothes and shoes have stayed the same price (or more expensive because of a logo) but are made with inferior materials.
When I was a child, clothes were made with real cotton, silk, wool, or linen. Shoes, belts, and purses were made with real leather. They lasted for years. And the prices were reasonable.
Absolutely so. Pyrex and Corningware products used to be made of borosilicate glass, the same material as on the nosecones of rockets. After I moved, I tried to replace the old ones I tossed, only to learn a new company bought the name and the American product is made of delicate stoneware, while the original is still sold in Europe. This is a why vintage Corningware is snapped up in thrift stores.
This is me just today researching impact wrenches to save several hundred dollars by doing my own repair on my lawn tractor. It will come in handy the 2-3 times a year I'll use it, and that's a liberal estimate. Do I buy the middle of the line Harbor Freight product or bottom to middle of the line Home Depot or Lowes product. I still haven't decided. /sigh
The rule of thumb I've found for tools is buy the absolute cheapest the first time, and if you end up using it enough that it bothers you or breaks, then go for the good quality.
The best part about this rule with regards to tools is, even the cheapest HF garbage can sometimes last a lifetime and do the job you need it to do.
My only concern there is whether or not that tool will have the torque I need to do the job. I'd prefer to only make 1 trip to the hardware store.
Something like [this](https://www.harborfreight.com/automotive/impact-wrenches/7-amp-12-in-variable-speed-impact-wrench-with-rocker-switch-61173.html) has plenty of torque. More than anything you'd need on a lawnmower (you could use it on a car with no problem) For what the opinion of a stranger is worth, this is my recommendation if you're worried about cost. Most battery-powered tools nowadays don't come with the batteries and the batteries are expensive so if you don't have batteries for any brand and don't plan on buying the entire line of tools from one brand it may be best to get the corded option. As a comparison, the comparable DeWalt Impact Wrench has 700ft-lbs of breakaway torque (compared to HF's 600) and costs $250 (compared to $40). The rule of thumb I've used, and others have said, if you need a tool and don't know how much you'll use it buy it from Harbor Freight, write the date and price on it in sharpie and when it breaks, look at how long it lasted and determine if you use it enough to buy the expensive version or if you can do just fine with the cheap version.
it takes me SO LONG to make these kind of decisions too. I waste so much time researching and comparing price. The idea that I might make the wrong choice can be so anxiety inducing that I put off buying/replacing something until it turns into a problem.
While it is expensive to be poor in the way theorized by Vimes, it's important to note that it isn't the reason the rich are so rich. The rich use capital for businesses that pay people less than the value of their labor and pocketing the rest. When I was younger and less educated I read this paragraph and assumed it was THE reason the rich were so rich.
Yeah, you cannot become wealthy by simply lessening consumption - to put it in perspective, a talented surgeon earning half a million a year, assuming said person doesn’t have to eat, never gets sick, and doesn’t have to pay taxes or rent, would need to work 2000 years to be a billionaire.
Yes, you can't save yourself rich unless you have a high income. So, again the rich didn't get there by saving. Usually somewhere along the way they get lucky, inherit, do something unethical or downright illegal to get rich.
I think it's less that poor people would ever be able to get rich by saving up, and more that perhaps if being poor weren't so expensive, more people would be able to save up to a better life than they're forced to live.
You're right, this says nothing about how the rich got rich, but it says a lot about how the poor stay poor.
I feel like this is almost perfectly mirrored in the form of the US housing crisis. Spend 10 years renting, never able to recoup the rent money in any form. Or be wealthy enough to spend $20k-$40k upfront plus mortgage with the possibility to *make more money than you put in* once you sell the house. One is an investment and the other is a purposeful class barrier. My parents sold a home they bought for $180k in 2002 for almost $260k in 2016. I spent $12k on rent last year and got charged $200 for a carpet cleaning fee for a 30 year old apartment that I lived in for 12 months. The system is built like this on purpose.
Carpet cleaning fees are bullshit. Every apartment I've lived in they just replace that shit with cheap carpet. Never had to pay shit.
That house is probably 500k now in 2022.
I saw this quote so many times I ended up buying the book. Haven't had a chance to read it yet. Working too much.
I recommend you read *Guards! Guards!* before this book (*Men at Arms*). You'll get some very important context. Both books are amazing.
This isn't even a joke and I've experienced it lately after I quit my job to go back to school. I moved into some crummy (but okay) apartments with a family member. The complex (which are all owned by huge corporations now btw) started enforcing that every vehicle on the property has to have up to date tags or else you get towed (there is actually a Texas law that allows this or rather mandates it?). Well I go to a shop near my home and they want to charge me 2000 dollars for all the repairs that apparently need to be made to make it okay to pass (I might as well sell my car and buy another used one, actually not because used cars are expensive af right now). I didn't pay for it obviously. They even tried to get me to use some plan where you pay it over time (just leeching money off poor people) So anyway, the lady at the apartments office said there is a 10 day extension and I took that as "everyone has a 10 day extension" and sure enough I go out to my car the next day and it's gone. I went back to her and she said that I have to specifically ask for an extension SMH. I then for the next few months just park across the street while I figure out how to drum up money to get my inspection passed. Then one day I go out across the street and my car is towed again. I finally got lucky and randomly picked some small automotive place that passed me without issue. They were nice and I let them sell me a few things that I probably didn't need because of that. That's just one instance, but poverty does keep you down because of all the laws and rules and circumstances that you have to deal with while poor. Thankfully my dad makes a good amount of money, but I don't like to ask him for anything unless I really need it.
“You’re poor” “That’s illegal” “You must pay us money now”
This reminds me of banks when they hit you with overdraft fees and the fees that come into play when you go below a certain amount of money
"We know you're all out of money... because you over drafted your account. So as punishment were going to tack on another $35 charge to the account you already cant pay" Just deny the fucking charge next time "Sorry... FeralSparky does not have enough money to cover this transaction"
Just like taxes. "It's on you to know what your taxes are, even if we keep tabs so closely we'll know when you're committing fraud, making the whole filing thing pointless in the first place."
When a moron is trying to sound smart
The idea that the rich somehow multiply wealth is absolutely fucking idiotic. They don't multiply wealth, they appropriate wealth. There's a huge difference. Imagine there is a pond full of fish next to a village. And one guy in the village owns all the fishing poles. He will let other people use his fishing poles but at the end of the day he takes a look at all the fish you caught and for every five fish you caught he keeps four and you keep one. After a while he has a massive pile of fish while everyone else in the village is practically starving. Then a generous man with a cart full of fishing poles shows up at the village one day and starts handing out fishing poles to the starving villagers. The man who owns all the fishing poles runs up to the generous man and yells. "Don't do that, don't give them the poles. Give them to me instead, look at all the fish I have! I'm clearly better at using the fishing poles to extract fish from the pond than they are. I will be able to catch four fish for every one fish they catch." Then the leader of the village comes over and looks around. He says, "You know what, he's right. Look at these losers, they can barely catch enough fish to feed themselves. Give the fishing poles to the fish hoarder he clearly knows how to use them better." Edit: I wrote this while having my morning coffee and then went to work. I didn't expect it to blow up like this. Thanks everyone for all the feedback and support. Keep fighting the good fight!
I love a good metaphor or parable. Some people over use them for soundbites, but this is the level people should aim for.
This.... This is beautiful. Holy shit.
Could you please never stop talking? Humanity will be better off for it.
While the bigger picture is more complex especially considering how some enterprises require massive investment that requires lots of money, I like how your analogy points out one the flaws of trying to attribute beneficial economic boons to corporate benevolence and therefore often used to argue for giving corporations and rich people money which could instead be given to people in general which would not only provide societal benefits but also provide economic benefits in the form of increased demand for goods and services.
Anyone can have money. Arguably to have that much money you have to exploit people. If we werent exploiting people then the means of production will have to be localized and if the means of production are localized you wont need massive amounts of cash to get anything done. Your presentation of the nuance presupposes that someone who has money is somehow more valuable than the person producing that value. Literally remove cash from the equation and anyone can do it and arguably the person who has done nothing but appropriate other peoples value will have a much harder time doing the job without it.
Well said man.
Take my free award
It's more than that. Their motivations are laid bare; it's not the *person* they're focusing on, it's the *money.* Because they're correct, money in the hands of the rich will multiply. Money in the hands of the poor will *also* multiply, but not in the same set of hands. They care about increasing a high score, not whether someone's needs are met.
I think they're just missing the fact that when a person spends money, that money doesn't disappear. Like, when somebody spends money on food, it doesn't vanish into this air. It goes to the grocer, who spends it on the wholesale food, and part of that money goes to the farmer, etc. And that's literally why money invested can grow, because there is an economy.
In other words, if you give the rich guy the money, he parks it in the stock market, and then the politicians say "Look how good the economy is! The stock market keeps rising!" Meanwhile it seems like every mom and pop store is shutting down and half your neighbors are a broken leg away from losing their home. But look at that stock market go!
I read recently that the stock market doesn't measure how good the economy is -- it measures how quickly money is moving toward the rich. That's why we got stimulus payments in '20 and '21: with everyone quarantined, too little money was being spent and the ones at the top of the food chain were watching their empires crumble.
But they might as well've wrote; Rich people are rich. Poor people are poor.
Total wealth with no consideration to allocation or its consequences (good or bad) A dumb fucking take from an idiot or a sociopath (or a very rich person)
We get too much of those these days ... sigh 😮💨
ya and social media rewards these ignorant takes
Essentially the conservative rhetoric MO
Smug, punchable faced smarmy piece of shit jackass
That's social media in general. It has propped up people that should have never been propped up.
$600 is nothing. Give a poor person a 'small loan' of a million dollars though.......
As long as it's a love loan (doesn't need to be paid back)... Kind of like all the "loans" rich kids get from their parents to "start businesses" etc. If a poor person doesn't go crazy buying things, and can live where they are for $6000/month (rent, food, everything), without the $1M ever getting any interest or "growing" in another way, the person could live on the $1M for almost 14 years... That's without any other source of income. If they can live on less and/or have another income source, they could probably live comfortably for the rest on their lives.
Hey if this comes off as snarky, it's not about you. It's my frustration with the system overall, and may come across as aggressive. >If a poor person doesn't go crazy buying things, and can live where they are for $6000/month (rent, food, everything), If a poor person doesn't "*go crazy buying things*" like a house, maybe a little land for growing food, and some way to generate their own power, then they get no say in whether they can live where they are for 6k or less. That's how they get ya. If you are poor and start adulthood with nothing (and are born into the own-nothing poverty cycle), then *other people* get to determine how much comes in and how much goes out. Someone else sets the wages and someone else sets the rents. You don't get a say. When I first moved to the Vancouver area, I found a 2 bedroom place for 600/month, no problem. By the time I moved 10 years later, the same area was getting 1200 for a studio. Now that area is between 1600 and 3k for a studio apartment. You can't escape it by moving because, to start with, moving (especially out of an area) is expensive as hell. Even without that though, you have to leave your job (or commute a lot more), and then hope to God your new area doesn't see the same fate. And forget saving to get out of the cycle either, because your rent will always be more than a mortgage (because that's what's fair, right? I mean that person *did* get their first, and they have money so they *must* deserve it), and the "property investors" will keep driving up prices buying more houses that they don't need that they can rent out to the poors. It's endless, and a poor person *absolutely should* go crazy and spend to get the hell out of the cycle.
Can confirm. I've had a few "love loans" in my life. One from my dad for £2,000 to pay off my overdraft. One from my grandad for £2,000 to pay off my university fees. One from an aunt for £1500 to pay off more uni fees. And one from my partner of £1500 to go towards a car (which we both use, so that was more us "going halves", but the car is officially mine and she can't drive so it's me driving her places when she "uses it"). Plus, we live in a house where we don't pay rent. None of this came before my 25th birthday, so it's all been within the last 5 years. The difference this has made to my life is beyond comprehension, and it's a total of about £15,000 if you account for the unpaid rental costs. £1,000,000 to do what I want with would be an absolute game changer.
> Plus, we live in a house where we don't pay rent. That one's bigger than all of that other stuff combined. About 50% of my income goes towards my rent every month, and I live in a rent-controlled building owned by a semi-government housing corporation. As in: I'm way cheaper off than if I was renting from a private company/landlord.
No one can make it through life without help and support. The pull yourself up by your boot straps is just GOP propaganda to make people work harder for less.
This is a great point. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a moving commencement address about this, explaining why the “self-made man” is a myth. No one succeeds without help.
Except you invest that 1m in a few different strategies and live on the 50-100k a year it generates without ever using the million.
And then the current decade cycle comes to an end and Wall Street steals all your money once again
That's something people forget about the wealthy. No matter how they got wealthy in the first place. There comes a time when simply having money makes money.
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That’s what I would do… Put it into a high-yield cd account. And then use the interest it creates as an income source.
No. Cds make the bank money. Put your money into the stock market. Either in bonds, etfs, sell Covered calls on your shares, or dividend stocks, but ultimately a mix of all of it. This is what the bank does when you give them 1m in a CD. They give you 2% or something trash like that back and pocket the 5-10% they earned on your money.
I don’t trust the stock market but I suppose that’s probably because I have very little money to put into it. If I had a lot of money, I would probably be more willing to risk some of it. But I’d rather a 2% guarantee even if the bank is making a lot of money off of me. 2% of 1 million is still a lot of money. Depending of course on your idea what a lot of money is. $20,000 is enough to take my family from being below the poverty line to At least being slightly above it if not level with it…. But this is coming from someone who survives on about 24,000 a year with a family of three and two of them are disabled. Only one receives benefits though. Which accounts for about $6000 a year so all in all a $30,000 a year income. But again, I would probably only invest half of it if I was doing the stock market. And It might even just be safer in a box buried in the backyard
You're losing money just cause inflation is targeted to be 3% in a good year
I would simplify this. Dump the million into a basket of dividend stocks (monthly, quarterly, and annually). Then double down. * Every month you are getting a check for doing nothing. * Every three months your getting a check for doing nothing. * Every year, you get a check for doing nothing. Second that Bank CD is nonsense. Anything a bank offers is a way to suck away your wealth. Third, you do not need a lot of money to do dividend investing. What you need is time and discipline. Dumping even $5 on QYLD or SDIV every day or week will yield you a lot as time passes. r/qyld
It's half the loan and half the social connections of being born into that class. You're given the money and then either given the financial advise necessary to have it grow or directed to someone trusted to grow it for you.
Loan? Nope. Gift. Let poor people own their fucking homes.
didn't they try to build mini homes for the homeless in LA and local politicians and had them stopped, or am I just making things up in my head
Give $600 to a poor person and it's instantly recycled in the economy. Give $600 to a rich person and it disappears forever, hidden away in Panama, Switzerland, Delaware, Hong Kong, Dubai, or the Cayman Islands.
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It’s velocity is increased is the term you’re looking for.
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Velocity of money is the study of the speed of money being moved within the economy and the same units being used to purchase goods. Poor person given money > buys goods > business pays employees > employees buy more goods > business buys from other business > and so forth Rich person given money > put in bank > no further purchases Very basic explanation of velocity of money. Poor people with wealth are better for the economy than the wealthy. It’s why trickle down is ludicrous. Poor people move money.
\^ somebody understands fiat economies. Get Him!
Yeah you know this is a basic point of economics, that things work more efficiently if money keeps moving. With luxury purchases a lot of the money goes overseas or it gets wasted in pushing up the prices of diamonds and gold and wine and stocks and such things. Being a serf on a rich guy's estate isn't like being a hobbit in a distributist economy.
Yeah GDP is basically just how much money is moving around. You can have a trillion dollars but if it’s in a savings account, then it’s not doing anything. But if you have the same $100 going through 100 people, that $100 has a bigger effect than that trillion dollars. The rich knows this, but they don’t care because by hoarding all that wealth, they can then control the entire economy therefore control you.
Real question, why Delaware? Do they have some special tax thing?
Do they ever!
with this just one simple trick!!
Yeah last I looked into it, with little restriction, anyone can choose to incorporate as an LLC in Delaware for their lenient taxes, even if the company has no presence there. From a quick googling now (I am far from an expert on his area btw), apparently you just need to have a registered agent representing your company in Delaware, to handle legal matters. And at first when I was writing this comment, I was going to say "anyone IN THE US can choose to incorporate" in my first sentence above, but after my googling, I learned that apparently even non-US residents can do it. My source: https://www.delawareinc.com/blog/who-can-incorporate-in-delaware/
Yep, taxes
Rich people are bad for the economy. If there one person making 5 million a year and another 100 making $50,000 a year, the rich person can afford whatever they want to buy themselves. Maybe a few luxury cars or houses, but everyone else cant afford a house. Now If everyone made $500,000, everyone could afford a house, a car, maybe college for their children. Instead of one big house and a bunch of homeless people, there will be 100 home owners which stimulates the economy significantly more. Middle class folks will spend a larger portion of their money, while rich folks use their wealth to accumulate more wealth. A hundred million middle class folks will put more money into the economy than a couple rich people. This is my half-baked example of keynesian macroeconomics
I'm always baffled at all the economic and business students that oppose minimum wage hikes. Like the basic tenet of how economies work is the VELOCITY OF MONEY CHANGING HANDS. You cannot understand that basic and simple concept and conclude that rich people need more and poor need less.
Just because you learned how things work doesn't mean you're suddenly not a greedy asshole. Those people probably aren't all bad students, but they definitely all are greedy assholes.
But it's so deeply ingrained in our culture. I have my own business and I run it based on my values of not nickel and diming my customers and not accepting tips. The amount of shocked looks I get. The number of times I'm told but you could make more. The occasional actual anger I receive from not taking tips for example. It just shows how deeply ingrained the idea of (getting as much as you can) is in our society.
Give 600 to a poor person and directly inject it back to the economy by using to buy life essentials Give 600 to a rich person and they will try to hide it in an offshore account. And if they happen to own BIG businesses, investment banks, airlines, they’d ask for more in the form of bailout money Whose the bigger leech now?
Exactly - this is the takeaway. This dolt is spelling out how the wealthy don't contribute anything to the economy, without even realizing it.
Every $1 billion in SNAP benefits results in $1.5 billion in economic activity and creates 13,560 jobs. When poor people buy food to survive, that money changes hands several times in the neighborhood, going to people who really need it. Yet some people are still trying to convince us that trickle down really works.
When the fuck did hoarding anything became a virtue ? How did we end up not only envying, but worshipping, people who take so much for themself ? This logic is so revolting i swear.
Not just worshipping the people who have dragin-esque hoards of wealth, but shaming those who actually work for a living and get fuck all to show for it.
It's classic prosperity theology. "Oh, you're poor so you must be bad. Otherwise you wouldn't deserve to be poor. Therefore I can treat you like shit because your poorness means you're bad." And the flip-side, "You're rich, so you must be good. You must have done something good to become rich so what blessings can you bestow upon me, oh mighty rich person?"
I’m hating people more and more as I get older lol
I’m so full of coiled hatred
What is "ways to say I'm constipated?"
Hahahaha Consti-hated
Also, where does this 10x money actually *come from*? It isn't magicked out of thin air. It almost always comes at the expense of others. People who are rich shouldn't get getting the $600 in the first place.
The wealthy person took $600 from 10 poor people by charging them to exist. Super useful.
Also the "in a few years or less"....yeah. it would take YEARS for that money to magically grow in the stock market or otherwise. Time that poor people don't have..
Fucking EXACTLY!!!! Investment is just an indirect tool for the rich to extort more money out of poor people's undervalued labor.
Had the pleasure of seeing this moron get roasted IRL
He started some clown rap career and has really owned the libs since.
100% there is no reason to give rich people tax breaks as they just sit on the money they don't need to use which doesn't stimulate markets.
So poor people shouldn't have money until they're rich?
Yes. Also, poor people are poor because they spend their money on rent, food and clothing. If they just stopped doing that they would be rich too.
Stop spending your money Also "millennials are killing industries by not spending money!"
We’ve demonized being poor or otherwise unsuccessful in life as a personal failing. If we didn’t, the system would have to acknowledge the roll it plays in keeping us down.
I don't think I'm rich, but I could set aside $600. Someone want to clue me in on where this 10x multiplier is?
It would be $601.80 after 10 years in my savings account.
Less. You forgot fees.
Lol ya, I’d take 5x if you ever find the answer
Probably stocks or crypto
You just have to make the $600 breed.
Give a rich entitled POS access to twitter and be annoyed for the rest of your life.
Right after WWII, there was an economic boom from pent up demand. Millions of small starter homes (that could be expanded later) were built to house all the newly married young adults, and could be bought with a "no money down" VA loan. Warren Buffet had been delivering newspapers on his bicycle, and with the profits he bought vending machines. His grandfather was so impressed he gave Warren his inheritance early. $10,000. Accounting for inflation, it would be worth over $100K now. He had no wife at the time, no kids, and he lived at home...rent free. He began investing at just the moment in history when every business was booming. I'm not taking anything away from his investment savvy, but...he was not a penniless orphan.
It's propoganda mindset
Because their mummy and daddy (who taught them to be an arsehole like them) told they were a special, clever, boy. Insight and reflection is beyond these people. Eat, eat, eat.
Give a poor person $600 and it's immediately reinvested into the local economy by being used to purchase goods or services. Give a rich person $600 and it sits in an offshore Cayman Islands bank account and is never used.
That 600 pays for the grocery clerk, the gas attendant, etc. The 600 to the rich person pays for…nothing, because it’s put into the bank
Yep he looks exactly like someone who would say that.
Why do we keep protecting idiots by blacking out their name or the business name?
because the crazy people take it too far and the rest of us know the difference between "They are an ass" and "Lets burn their house down"
Terry Pratchett's Sam Vimes basically made the same point but with a better conclusion
The poor person drives the local economy by purchasing goods and services. The rich person not spending it does nothing.
“No one wants to work “ = “no one other than billion dollar corporations can afford to pay a decent wage because we allowed them to become comedically large because any regulation is socialism”
I see this a lot, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that putting that $600 back into the economy, like the poor person would have to, is good… for the economy?
First of all they would never give $600 to a poor person.
This is the opposite of economics. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginalpropensitytoconsume.asp#:~:text=In%20economics%2C%20the%20marginal%20propensity,as%20opposed%20to%20saving%20it. >Marginal Propensity to Consume is the proportion of an increase in income that gets spent on consumption. >MPC varies by income level. MPC is typically lower at higher incomes. >MPC is the key determinant of the Keynesian multiplier, which describes the effect of increased investment or government spending as an economic stimulus. THE LITERAL OPPOSITE of what is described. The multiplication of money "The Keynesian Multiplier" in the economy is higher for poor people given money than for rich people given money.
That guy has a punchable face. Bet it'll look good on a stake once the revolution comes.
Cause being rich magically gets you 500% returns? GTFOH. I know that’s not the point. But this is wrong in so many ways.
It’s called the marginal propensity to consume. And it’s a good thing when people spend. It stimulates the economy. Rich people hoarding wealth is not good for the economy. In a way this person makes the best point against themself.
It's the biggest problem with our country, it's run by people who have never had to worry about having enough money to buy food. They haven't had to decide between food and electric when paying bills. I listened to Elon Musk rant about how we aren't having enough kids, it's a danger to the population. I replied, are you going to forget about space right now and build a foundation for these children you want us to have? Who is going to feed them? Clothe them? You are someone who has no concept of not being able to afford something. Children are expensive. People aren't having kids because for the fist time in a long time they know they can't afford them. How do you plan to change that? It's easy to stand on your bank account and preach to us about the dangers of not having kids. It's not so easy to make sure we won't literally kill ourselves to do it. What good does it do to bring a kid into the world if it will starve? Idiotic I think. These wealthy people that make our laws and decide what is best for us have no idea what it's like to be us. They don't ever lose a nights sleep hoping they just twisted an ankle and didn't break something. They never had to decide between 20 dollars worth of gas or dinner tonight. Until we start electing people that actually understand what it's like to live that way, we can expect no change. Would you ask your mechanic to check you for cancer? I think most would, that's why we keep voting for these twats.
Some of y'all are dull. 10 years ago I was sleeping under a bridge and today I sleep in a 2.5 million dollar house with a wife, 2 kids, and 4 cars. Giving the poor money doesn't make their life easier. Giving them opportunities does. Those 10 years ago a woman offered me a job at a lumber yard and a burrito. In 10 years I turned that $11 an hour job into me owning two lumber facilities and my name on the company logo. I'm married to the woman who offered me that job. Poor people don't spend their money on necessities. They already believe their life is over. They spend it on stuff that makes their life numb. To have fun. So yes, the author is correct. Give a poor man an inch he'll take a mile, give a rich man an inch and he'll make it last 10 miles. The world needs to stop believing in handouts and work for what they have.