World's richest 26 people wealth equals lower half of planet

This is a natural consequence of capitalism, where private interests become more powerful than the regulatory mechanisms of governments.

some concept like socialism where less is distributed more evenly

as long as they’re not taking it from me

The world's richest 26 people are just pigs.

If you can take it into your next life then you are rich .....

What is interesting to me is that some people seem to think that people who are rich didn't earn their money. Why is that so?

Please explain what's wrong with inherited wealth.

Please explain what's wrong with inherited wealth.

If you are responding to my post, I never said there was anything wrong with anything.

The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced. Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor.

For anything more than 100x the average annual salary the death tax should be, 75%$ or more. You can't take it with you and you can't give it to your no count sons either.

We're taking it back.

as envisioned in the founding of this nation

The problem with inherited wealth is most of the wealth is stolen.

I can understand people that would rather be on welfare than work for $10/h.

Lituya, it's quite simple. For $10/h you can't rent an appartment, have a car, buy food and clothes, etc. but you have to do go to work and do your sh!ty job every day of the week.
Why bother?

Moose

For $10/h you can't rent an appartment, have a car, buy food and clothes, etc. but you have to do go to work and do your sh!ty job every day of the week.

Why bother?

The whole liberal mindset revolves around a pity-party. "Why bother" to work for $10 per hour, because you can't enjoy a particular lifestyle right out of the gate. "Better to be on welfare." Well, THAT is what's wrong with welfare!

MadB, you still don't understand that some people were born not smart enough to do anytimg else but simple jobs.

Should we help each other? Of course! "Should" the government forcibly extract arbitrary amounts of "help" from the "better off"? Well, as I say, I have yet to hear the moral theory (and I've studied 'em!) that sustains THAT notion.

One year, I paid more in federal income tax than the average American makes(gross pay not net) in their entire life.

One year, I paid more in federal income tax than the average American makes(gross pay not net) in their entire life.

You did more work in one year than the average person does in their life?

B.S. I know of no cops that ever got rich on what they were paid.

I think I come back to these topics because I am so conflicted.

The left is indeed slowly winning, and I believe that it will finally get the sweeping power it is seeking.

The richest 26 billionaires on earth own a combine . . .

lower half of planet

Meanwhile the poorest are becoming increasingly worse off, and the wealth of the middle class has dwindled as well.

Global poverty has fallen to a record low. The World Bank says 10 percent of the world’s population lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2015, down from 11.2 percent in 2013. That means 735.9 million people lived below the poverty threshold in 2015, down from 804.2 million.

Poverty dropped everywhere but the Middle East and North Africa, where conflicts in Syria and Yemen pushed the poverty rate up to 5 percent in 2015 from 2.6 percent in 2013.

The poverty rate was 41.1 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 12.4 percent in South Asia, 4.1 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2.3 percent in East Asia and the Pacific and 1.5 percent in Europe and Central Asia.

If you make $32,400 per year, you're in the top one percent of earners. Do you feel wealthy?

"I don't see confiscating wealth as an effective tool."

we could adequately feed cloth shelter educate and doctor EVERYONE and we will STILL have poor among us

Wow! So much sympathy for those poor, poor, rich people & the big income taxes they pay.

It makes me feel bad, sad, & guilty as hell, that I'd enjoy seeing the rich taxed at a higher % rate than present.

But that aside, think how the American rich suffered from 1950 - 1963, when the top income tax bracket was 91%.

And from 1965 to 1981, when the top income tax bracket was 70% to 77%!

Most of the top earners must have quit working during those dark tax years, or moved to other lower-tax countries.

One question?

How did America pay down much of the huge public debt from WWII, fight the Cold War & Vietnam, build the Interstate Highway System, & enjoy what I remember as the good-times of the 1950's & 60's, despite various recessions along the way?

Really! How did they manage that with such onerous high tax rates?

And of course, the financial stimulus given by the multiple income tax reductions since 1981, seem to have been very successful in growing America’s budget deficit.


Right?

But think of how much more disposable income the rich now have, to give to charity.
If they want.

offering them hope by letting them own on paper, property they couldn't afford.

Nothing you advocate is near reality in any large, functioning society.

Please state the revenue source in lieu of taxation for education, military, food safety, NOAA, Roads, foreign aid, law enforcement and so on.

But I am trying to enforce that everyone is responsible for contributing to the welfare of each other,

to create a circumstance that everyone is afforded the opportunity to maximize their potential

to be a net contributor to society

ultimately deadly to the host

Nothing you advocate is near reality in any large, functioning society.

Please state the revenue source in lieu of taxation for education, military, food safety, NOAA, Roads, foreign aid, law enforcement and so on.

the world DOES NOT have better living condition due to capitalism at all
poverty in the world was about 7 percent before capitalism. capitalism shot it into the 30's and 40's

can you succinctly define the concept of "ownership"

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA

Jan 24, 2019 - 08:41am PT
Spent a lot of time waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it didn't.

interesting perspective, you thought you were told this was all going to end in disaster, it didn't, so you conclude that those you thought had told you that were wrong.

Of course, it is also possible that a lot of work went into avoiding that particular scenario, work that you were unaware of.

However, the threat persists, and is real (in that particular case, nuclear war) and much more should be done to avoid possible catastrophe.

You will reply that this is misplaced pessimism, but either you have forgotten what nuclear weapons could do, or you never really understood the peril in the first place, and you believe that this current time in history will persist indefinitely (at least as far as you are concerned).

Globalism resulted in rich Americans becoming richer, and the working class getting nowhere.

"But when I offer a genuine solution that would eliminate the government's ability to manipulate the way it does, I'm told things like, "That can't work," and "But what about roads and human services?" etc., etc."

Many examples, but Fritz (as usual) offers a classic example when he says that I favor a sales tax, but, of course, the poor have to buy food and then pay tax on it.

I EXPLICITLY said that food is an obvious exemption and one that even States and local governments already recognize in their sales taxes.

you have a right to a decent job just as you have a right to life

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA

Jan 24, 2019 - 09:31am PT

But you do not refute the logic, that is: you believe you were told something was going to happen, it didn't happen, therefore the tellers lied.

You use this argument on many other examples to refute the "authority" of "experts," all in the support of your self interests. You should just own up to that.

Jan 24, 2019 - 10:34am PT
Gary, oh Gary. In EVERY thread you post the same, sad, old saw. Apparently Debs is the only "thinker" you've been exposed to.

EVERY place what you advocate has been tried, that place economically implodes. Even China doesn't abide by Debs anymore.

Wake up and smell the reality.

Oh, and as I've asked EVERY time you've posted your old saw, I'll ask again: What do the two catch-phrases even mean?

Let me rephrase: a person gets to keep the wealth he produces, and a person gets no more wealth than that which he produces.

what is it about "self" that you own? you are not free to sell your self as you are your property.

you did not have any control in it's creation, and you have little control of its natural end... which is assured regardless of your actions.

much of your self is inherited. much of your self is learned from others, first off, your parents (or guardians).

it is clear that other living creatures have a sense of self, does that entitle them to ownership too? what are the ethics regarding their treatment?

I own a car, does that mean I have a right to the resources required to run the car? you would argue that since I own my self, I have a right to the resources required to sustain myself?

the connection is not clear. there seems no such "right" in the evolution of the species.

you cannot sell yourself

but you can sell your labor

so if there is a market for your labor you can be paid for its use, you might reach an agreement with others who pool their labor together, and negotiate as a group for the price of that collective labor.

if you generalize labor to your capabilities, it would seem a similar arrangement could be made with others to band together to negotiate the price of those collective capabilities.

it would seem that making such collective arrangements is legitimate, an expression of self.

I always viewed the Declaration of Independence as essentially a position paper questioning the authority of a monarch.

The "endowment" argument is a pure conjecture (as is the divine right of monarchs).

a person gets to keep the wealth he produces, and a person gets no more wealth than that which he produces.

First, what you really mean is "A person SHOULD get no more wealth than that which he produces." That must be what you mean, because by YOUR lights, at present the filthy capitalists take MORE wealth than that which they produce. Right?

NEW YORK (AP) — A billionaire hedge fund founder has purchased a penthouse in New York for roughly $238 million.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the deal sets a record for the highest-priced home ever sold in the U.S.

Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin purchased the Manhattan penthouse at an under-construction high-rise, 220 Central Park South.

Griffin is no stranger to multi-million dollar homes. He bought several floors of a Chicago condominium this year for $58.75 million, setting a record for the most expensive home ever bought in Chicago. In 2015, he bought a Miami penthouse for $60 million, setting the record for a Miami condo. And earlier this month, he acquired a London home for $122 million.

The Journal reports that Griffin began investing at 19 in his Harvard dorm.

Taking more than that which they produce. There's a word for that: theft.

OK, so Griffin is a good example of a tilted playing field

But the idea that he crawled up from the dirt without any help from others is false.

Anecdote is not data

That’s because poor Americans make very bad life choices. I spend a lot of time at health care facilities and they are full of recent immigrants from the Phillipines and China who made good life choices in getting educations that pay. Lots of Filipino nurses are making $100K or more here and I’ve met a number who are getting their RNP and/or Masters while they make their $100K. They’ll be making $150K soon.

So Did Our Founders.

Those god damn liberals....!!!!

We "feed the poor" via welfare, damn the consequences... Should we have more government?

We "feed the poor" via welfare

can you succinctly define the concept of "ownership"

And the answer no one wants to hear is: No one f*#king cares about West Virginia.