[ExI] millionaires and billionaires

[Dennis May]

Spike wrote:
 
"We here in the states are in the middle of an unfolding scandal which may
well take down our current government."
 
The main stream media will likely let the story die so the pressure on
the current government will not reach levels required to bring down
the administration.  The DOJ has had a number of scandals going on
that would have brought down other governments.
 
Dennis 
 
From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 7:43 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] millionaires and billionaires


> On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] millionaires and billionaires

2011/9/17 Dennis May wrote:
>>... You meet millionaires all the time and likely don't know it...

>...Agreed. Millionaires are not considered really rich these days.
Especially if you include property and pension funds and other assets not
readily available for spending. And yes, most ordinary millionaires are just
like the people next door. (Us ordinary millionaires must stick together,
after all).  ;)

Ja.  Thousandaires stick together, billionaires stick together, why not the
middle guys?  Our government is telling us millionaires and billionaires
need to pay more taxes.  Presumably thousandaires and millionaires need to
pay less.  Somewhere in the middle should be a break-even.

>...I was referring to people whose annual *income* is in the billions,
never mind their total assets...

BillK, this commentary really goes off into the bizarre from here.  I see
conflation of assets with income, which is a common thing actually, but
needs careful reasoning.

>... These people don't even think about the cost of something...

People who have a ton of money definitely think about the cost of something.
That's why they have a ton of money.  Consider high production
manufacturing.  If someone thinks carefully about the cost of something, and
develops a slightly cheaper way of making that item, they make a ton of
money.  The rest of us benefit from getting the item cheaper.

>...(But I suppose there must be some nice guys in there as well. All
generalisations have exceptions. Not all lawyers or parking officials are
totally evil).

Lawyers and parking officials?  Come now, me lad.

>...But even the coal and oil corporations are slowly diversifying into
renewable resources. The problem that society has is that they are
deliberately diversifying slowly, so as to extract the maximum profit from
dwindling resources... BillK

Indeed?  

We here in the states are in the middle of an unfolding scandal which may
well take down our current government. The company is right up the street,
Solyndra.  I applied to work there two days before it all collapsed.  My
neighbor across the street was a mid-level manager.  He was struggling to
get people to man a third shift at the plant when he came in to find
everything locked and the feds carrying out boxes of paper and hard discs.
Now we hear there is a second local company which took government guaranteed
loans to develop solar power, and it too is busted, and it too is apparently
corrupt.  Stay tuned.  Perhaps the widespread public perception that energy
companies are intentionally diversifying slowly is enabling corruption in
the green energy industry.  The corrupt schemes are making it more difficult
for the honest smart guys, because it soaks up capital into losing schemes
that would otherwise be invested in good profitable ones.

A profitable company is a good company.

Watch the unfolding Solyndra and LightSquared stories.  Both are examples of
what happens when governments get involved in the investment biz.

spike

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