• Datz@szmer.info
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    3 days ago

    We had a wealth gap between the poor and rich, and now we’re getting a wealth gap between the rich and super rich?

    • vapordays@leminal.space
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      3 days ago

      “Libertarians” and BaSiC eCoNoMiCs guys blame inflation on “printing money,” but they don’t like to talk about who the printed money went to, which is the real problem. Wall Street and big corporate was bailed out in 2008, that’s where the expanded money supply was concentrated into.

      • RosaLuxemburgsGhost@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        To continue…and liberals don’t like to talk about how capitalism requires the theft of wealth from the working class via surplus value and that in order to get rid of this class subjugation and oppression we need to get rid of the system that breeds it - capitalism. The workers need to take back the very thing that is oppressing them - the means of production/private property. When in private hands it benefits the private individuals. When in the hands of the working class - it benefits all….and the formerly bourgeois class are absorbed into the working class (aka there are no more classes)….which is the thing they fear most. This is why they teach you to parrot anti-communist propaganda through all of their propaganda channels.

        • justaman123@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          The problem still seems to be governance. Like even in that system some of the workers are involved in regulating the infrastructure of production and that necessarily means that one person is telling a lot of people what they can and can’t do. We don’t really have a way to do this that doesn’t involve hierarchy. And our little monkey brains love a hierarchy.

          So that’s the real problem of communism. Because otherwise it is a better system and it should beat capitalism. Unfortunately because capitalism is better at concentrating resources into fewer hands it’s better at defending itself from fairer systems.

          Also the US having had little physical damage after ww2 meant that the capitalist had a much better base from which to perpetuate itself.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      A lifetime ago I heard that “inflation is good actually, because it allows for economic mobility” as in people without a lot of money get more of the “new” money and so get to join the “middle class” (not a real class, but an income bracket).

      Turns out the rich plugged up that little leak in tiny bit of wealth that actually did trickle down.

  • borQue@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    how can this be possible!? it almost looks like they printed an enormeous amount of money extra! this cant be true, else devaluation of the dollar would be immense! (/cynical)

  • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    Nah the wealthiest people aren’t on the list, and they are much wealthier than any of these guys. The family of Saud is way up there but keep most of their wealth hidden.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      5 days ago

      They’re a big family though, none of which have more than Musk INDIVIDUALLY.

      You’d be right about Putin and other despots with de facto one person ownership of entire countries worth of wealth and resources, though.

      • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        Yes if you think what they report officially is correct. Most everyone is aware they only report a small fraction of their wealth. Musk is by far not the first trillionair, he is the first one publicly.

              • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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                4 days ago

                I mean you said it, not me. They are like the most infamous for hiding their wealth. Maybe them and Major CPC party members are another. Of course characters like Putin and Kim (and associated upper brass) also hide the vast majority of their wealth. Like it kinda goes without saying, they have no reason to tell anyone and there is zero benefits in telling anyone.

        • Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone
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          4 days ago

          The weird guy who always hangs at my local train station once told me he’s a trillionaire. Now you’re telling me it might be true???

    • justaman123@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah I suspect this doesn’t account for “old money” at all. That class of people is so entrenched they own such foundational layers of society that nothing touches them at all. If anyone knew what they owned it could be taxed away from them.

      • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Security through obscurity is a very valuable lesson. It’s the king who rules in public who gets his head chopped off. This is why some find these more public personas to be placeholders for the real movers and shakers. If one stays out of the limelight they can weather changes and maintain control.

  • HubertManne@piefed.social
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    3 days ago

    how is dell in the top 5? Seriously though only buffet at least has the financial accumen to actually be there. Decades of lowering taxes has made it so that even if you lose bilions like musk did you still won’t lose your fortune. Its barely a rounding curve for him.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      3 days ago

      how is dell in the top 5?

      Market manipulation.

      Trump “truthed” (🤮) out of nowhere that everyone should buy a Dell, and the market value skyrocketed.

  • GMac@feddit.org
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    4 days ago

    Sorry that it’s a youtube link, but this is a brilliant analysis from Gary Stevenson with pretty sobering conclusions… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd0gmxd36FI

    Basically at this point the continyed concentration of wealth is increasing exponentially as a logical inevitability.

    We need wealth taxes, breakup of monopolies and a far larger willingness of the population to boycot companies that prioritise short term growth and unethical business practices over the delivery of effective, repairable products and honest services for fair prices.

    • kylie_kraft@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      a far larger willingness of the population to boycot companies that prioritise short term growth and unethical business practices over the delivery of effective, repairable products and honest services for fair prices.

      yeah but gay hockey though

      /s

    • justaman123@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Remember occupy wallstreet? The wealth inequality in 2006-2007 was so bad there were tons of videos going around exposing with easily verifiable information about just how much more money the 1 percent had than everyone else. Then the recession happened and then suddenly when you went back to look at that information it had been cleaned up to make it look like the 1 percent didn’t really own that much more. I think it was right around the time that Google dropped “don’t be evil”

  • Kaligalis@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Looks like buying Twitter was a great investment. Being able to change the outcome of an election definitely beats ad revenue.

  • vane@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    It all depends on people who are working in their companies. If they stop working in their companies the wealth will fade away.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 days ago

      You’d have to create a threat linked to the money, so that Luigis went after anyone who kept their inheritance or dared to keep the wealth consolidated.

      Eventually, someone would disseminate the money to survive.

      On a related note, someone needs to hunt down private equity brokers and unethical venture capitalists the way Nazi hunters went after escaped Nazi officers after WWII, either to Luigi them or to bring them to international tribunal. Although, since nations can be influenced by ultra-wealthy oligarchs, it might not be possible to form such a tribunal. And that brings us back to the frontier justice of goomba-stomping plumbers.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    !twnw@fedia.io their wealth must be taxed. It’s not even an issue of “can we survive without a wealth tax” but “how long”. These people are gluttons and will never stop hoarding.