[ExI] dead weight

[John Clark]

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 10:34 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:



> >> The richest 8 people in the world have more wealth than the entire
>> poorest half of the entire human race, that's 3.8 billion people. Think of
>> it, 8 people versus 3.8 *BILLION*. …John K Clark
>
>
>
>  *John I have heard that statistic before but I don’t believe it.  Wealth
> isn’t just currency or gold or any arbitrary measure of wealth.  *
>

The money you have is a measure of how much control over the wealth
generating machinery you have, and 8 people have as much control as where
to point it as 3.8 BILLION people. Far from slowing down the concentration
of wealth trend is acceleration, and no matter how you try to spin it that
just ain't healthy. It is a mathematical certainty this trend will not
continue, the only uncertainty is how much blood will be spilled when it
does.


> *> Imagine if the 8 richest people pooled their funds and tried to buy the
> land occupied by the 3.8 billion poorest people.*
>

In the modern world land is no longer the principle wealth generating
mechanism and its importance will decline even more in the coming years.
But Imagine if the poorest 3.8 billion people tried to buy control of real
wealth like Apple Corporation for example..They would fail


> *> What fraction of that land could they buy?  Not much.*
>

I don't know why those super ultra mega rich people would want all that
slum land, but if they did and tried to evict the people living there
they'd get their throats cut.


> > Shrugs.  I see no evidence of instability from it.
>

I sure do, I see democracies declining all over the world. I think MASSIVE
inequality is the fundamental  reason unhappy people in the USA elected a
creature like Donald Trump to be the most powerful man in the world, and I
think its the reason for the recent worldwide rise in  fascism from the
Philippines to South America to Europe. Even Russia, which briefly flirted
with something that might almost be called freedom has now, with Putin's
help, sunk back into totalitarianism.

*> If 8 people have more gold than 3.8 billion poor, that isn’t a problem.*


i think that's ignoring the lessons of history.



 John K Clark

>

>
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