But you see solar energy is finite and the resources that you were referring to are considerably more finite. There is a big scale issue with your example.
“Socialism” vs. “Capitalism” debate
- Thread starter Kinsella
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But you see solar energy is finite and the resources that you were referring to are considerably more finite. There is a big scale issue with your example.
EAP is clearly saying that the amount of wealth can be increased, not that the wealth is infinite.
It's pretty clear what you are trying to say is "wealth is not fixed". That's really what you mean, at least for your posts to a modicum of grounding in reality and empirical economics rather than just being crazy talk.
Your first statement makes it clear you shouldn't be confident in your opinions.
If it was as nonsense as imply then this wouldn't have happened over the last 40 years:
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no, that would make your posts more memorable than in reality.
this thread, especially this page itself, i can safely say that the "socialist" side has taken a lot of trouble to come up with data, explain their reasoning, etc. it is far more good faith than the actual thread OP.
It's like Laws of Physics and Point of Singularity. It may have a theoritical finite point, but for practical purposes it's useless. Current economical models will collapse long before we reach the finite point of sun running out to make whole argument moot. Same with complete depletion of natural resources. Time before we reach that point where we don't have natural resources, economy as we know it now won't exist. We're talking theory in a near post apocalyptic scenario. We'd have wars and wiped each other out the moment resources got scarse so point of zero resources is just for those who ignore practical reasons.
Yet Cook replaced him and Apple are a trillion dollar company. Yes, why do you bother?
I wonder where all those metals that are used in assembly come from... I didn't realize these resources just grow in trees for companies to buy at cheap rates.
Maybe I missed it but you are the only one talking about "zero resources", people simply suggested that wealth and resources are realistically finite which for some reason you indirectly admitted in your attempt to argue against a point that no one else made. If you recognize that wars can be the fruit of scarcity then surely you realize that in realistic terms resources infinity or wealth is a silly concept as is your zero resources point.
Wealth is not finite means wealth is infinite. Does wealth increase forever or no?
Now if he said that wealth is not at a fixed point, that's a bit different. It's economics 101.
So we ignore zero resources argument. In current today's situation what is the finite point where you deem wealth stops? And no more wealth can be created?
where did physics come into an economics debate. You're all over the place man.I'll just ignore you in this thread, Florida Man. Prefer to reply to others who at least make sensible arguments. If you can't identify an analogy, it useless to reply to you.
I don't know, it depends entirely on the concept of wealth, it depends on which resources we are talking about. For example lands can be considered as wealth and it's clearly finite, raw materials are also clearly finite. Where it gets trickier is when we are talking about dematerialized resources in theory they could be infinite but in reality are they? You still need land to sell and create everything, the internet relies on computers and servers, on factories that build these servers and the outlets that allow us to use it, so we are still physically limited to the simple concept of space.
preciousThe 'finite limit' is something none can work out. Could be anything.
As I said before, wealth is not tied to resources. You have a stamp or comic book that costs a few pence some decades back. The same is worth considerably more. I've seen sports cards (baseball cards) and comic books being sold for 100s of thousands of dollars. The are worth far more just by passage of time. We are creating wealth just by passage of time. Absolutely nothing to do with resources. Same with market conditions (apple shares , bitcoins etc). There really is no limit that can be determined to how much these could shoot or drop. Wealthy before, nope. Wealthy now...yeah!
Simply put, of you asked anyone to quantify these changes, they'd not be able to. Saying it's finite but having no threshold seems like a paradoxical argument to me.
Dammit dude, I'm ignoring you.
I guess different people see things differently (and to be fair I appreciate your points, unlike those to the majority of 'socialists' in the forum, you at least are making an effort).
Case in point, EAP says that 'making is easy, selling is hard' followed by a meme in reply. Come on, that is not having a discussion in good faith.
Admit it, you missed me.Dammit dude, I'm ignoring you.
Silly claims get silly responses. Making stuff, in terms of the resources to make tech gadgets is fecking hard work in brutal conditions.
For practical problems, it kind of is infinite. I mean, you need to deplete the resources of the entire universe for it to reach to a point that cannot be increased.
In any case, his point was pretty clear: wealth can be always increased and is not a zero-sum game. I don't totally agree with him in many things, but in either case, the artificial caps that have been proposed here won't ever work (and have been tried). A (much) fairer system should be the goal. Sure, increase the taxes, a lot of people would be fine with that (I already said that I would be fine with Bernie's plan - assuming that I decide to continue in the US in the first place - despite that I will pay a shitload of money more in taxes and health insurance), and from what I see talking with people, a lot of them feel the same. And increase even more for the rich. And try to block the loopholes in the law. This is what should be discussed, not variants of 'put 900m cap' or 'kill the billionaires'.
You kind of lost me here, you realize that everything you mentioned here is based on scarcity not infinity. I think that I see how your brain works, basically you only see things from a finance standpoint not realizing that these things are linked to resources, it's as if Apple shares weren't linked to Apple products which use raw materials. To you it's just a line on a screen.
And selling them is much much harder. As he said, phones much better than iPhone who cost less than half of it, cannot get a fraction of its market.
Apple can decide tomorrow to gradually replace 90% of its employees during the next 2 years, and it won't affect it at all.
Go try and labor for metals for 12 hours or more a day for less than minimum wage and tell me sales is harder.
Jeez no. Fundamental point was wealth and resources are not directly correlated. You can increase wealth to x factor with no impact to resources. I'll just go back and quote my original opinion. The examples above support this.
Of course, it is harder. Everyone can labor for metals for 12 hours, not everyone can create the brand of Apple.
If you're talking about monetary benefits, it certainly is. Getting people to pound iron for 10 hrs a day is easy. Getting someone to turn around a failing company (Jobs and Apple) is difficult.
Just to note.. all discussions here are in context of monetary benefits which is the scale we are debating here.
Simple hard labor ≠ more remuneration
So following your stamp example, you think that the stamp wich in this case is the resource isn't linked to the increase of wealth, in other word you don't think that the quantity of such stamps is the reason behind a potential increase? For example if there was an infinite amount of the same stamps, their worth would still increase over time?
First off, I can discuss any idea I feel like as long as it is confined within the rules of the forum and thread.
A $900 million (I picked an arbitrary number) cap, while I'm in favor of the notion, is not something that happens overnight. It may not have to necessarily come to that if we fix the conditions that lead to that kind of wealth in the first place. A goal I'd like to see is a world where you can't have a billion dollars. It's too much power for any one individual and it's imperative that we reduce the influence these kinds of people have over governments if we wish to continue in a true democratic fashion.
Aside from that, we're still faced with an existential crisis in climate change, which no billionaire or government is doing enough to combat, with perhaps the exception of Scandinavian countries and some Pacific nations. Are we really trying to rely on the good faith of billionaires to help us fight climate change? You talk about ideas that suck here, so how does this not suck? These types are vested in industries that led to climate change in the first place.
Also, a cap does not mean they lose control of their companies, which you claimed and used as your counter argument. It's simple a transfer of wealth from private to public. I didn't say anything about nationalizing companies, though that can be a policy at a future date. Governments need to be upgraded to a people-first version. The politicians we have now suck too much to do anything useful with the hypothetical increase in funds from taxing billionaires to millionaire status.
You tell me. It's a postage stamp and a comic book. When created it's the same quality as any other stamp. The increase in wealth is due to scarcity not natural resources.
All I'm saying is increase in wealth is more complex to simply equate it to natural resources. Creation of new wealth has no relation to natural resources. Cost of paper or labor to create a stamp or comic book has no relevance here.
If you don't like the word infinite, let's put it this way.... amount of wealth creation is not quantifiable.
We talking about sales or trying to create the most valuable company in history? Because based on my understanding of simple English, I thought we were talking about sales. Sales is much easier than that form of labor.
First bolded - Norway, the country who is mentioned here to be ruled in a right way, are the third biggest producers of oil (per capita). Only Saudi Arabia and UAE produce more, in both cases the difference is less than 10%. Save us Spaghetti Monster, if Norway is gonna combat the climate change.
Second bolded - Considering that the vast majority of wealth the billionaires own is in shares of the companies, you are essentially advocating to nationalize the companies. Been tried, it didn't work.
1 billion is too much power for a person, but some government bureaucrat managing much more (after you get the money from the billionaires) is not too much power, right? The only difference is that you are replacing a talented person with an untalented one. Again, been tried, it didn't work.
Good that not many people outside of a vocal minority doesn't want a Chinese revolution in western society. Not in the US, not in Norway.
You said sales. Not is it easier to turn around a failing company and transform it into the most valuable in history. Getting people to pound iron is easy in a sense because they are in conditions where they have little to no choice for earning income. These are poor areas of Africa, Asia, and South America we're talking about. The actual hard part is doing the work. If it all paid the same, I guarantee most if not all of you all would prefer the sales route.
Remove sales from Apple, and they are worth less than a dime.
It is not. How many phone companies are there now? How many are equal to Apple?
What differentiates these companies? Is it technology? Nope as many Taiwanese phone are equal if not superior to Apple. Is it labor? Definitely not. Everyone produces in Asia. So what is the difference? Marketing and Sales. Just that. Marketing and Sales are the difference between a OnePlus and Apple. Marketing and sales differentiate between a $3m company and a $1 trillion company.
True. Should have just said no one is doing enough. Point still stands.
It's not nationalizing, it's a transfer of wealth. Imagine it as a 100% tax after a certain point. The finer details to implement it would have to be democratically worked out — I'm just discussing this from a 10,000 foot view.
A government of the people. Not one government bureaucrat. I think you misread what I said as I've not advocated for one government official to control it all. I'm in favor of a far more democratic way to use public funds.
Yes, Chinese revolution. That's exactly what I'm advocating for. From all the posts I've posted, that's the conclusion you came to
Remove engineers from Apple, and they are blah blah blah. A technology company is more than just sales. I don't even know if I should spend time explaining why. Yet you complain about others not arguing in good faith.
Yes, that is the thing I am also saying. Sergey Brinn and Larry Page have almost their entire wealth in Google (a company they built from scratch, starting with the genius idea of PageRank to a great management for 2 decades). Tax them after 900m, you are getting close to 120billion worth of stocks from them and giving it to the government. Suddenly, either of them has less than 0.3% of the shares in their company).True. Should have just said no one is doing enough. Point still stands.
It's not nationalizing, it's a transfer of wealth. Imagine it as a 100% tax after a certain point. The finer details to implement it would have to be democratically worked out — I'm just discussing this from a 10,000 foot view.
A government of the people. Not one government bureaucrat. I think you misread what I said as I've not advocated for one government official to control it all. I'm in favor of a far more democratic way to use public funds.
Yes, Chinese revolution. That's exactly what I'm advocating for. From all the posts I've posted, that's the conclusion you came to
Replace their names and the company's names with Zuckerberg and Facebook, with Buffet and BH, with Huang and Nvidia etc. The same result, nationalizing of companies.
Economics (/ɛkəˈnɒmɪks, iːkə-/)[1][2][3] is the social science that studies how individuals, organizations, and societies manage the scarce resources under their control for the satisfaction of their needs and desires.
It's what I was taught on day 1. Day 1. All of economics only makes sense under scarcity.
It's what I was taught on day 1. Day 1. All of economics only makes sense under scarcity.
I've lived in China for 3 years. Worked there. And no sane person who believes in freedom of thought and expression would ever support or advocate a Chinese revolution. The cost of such Chinese revolution is something no one should pay. You are absolutely wrong if you think it's any good.
Easily replaceable.
There are 10x engineers who are hard to replace, but the majority of engineers can be easily replaced.