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Comment on But how would they be able to live on that?

Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Ok, lets do some math. The GDP of the US is $28 trillion.

You shouldn’t be using GDP for this, as GDP is a notoriously bad metric for understanding the flow of wealth. If I pay you $100 to wash my car and you pay me $100 to wash your car, the GDP of our actions is $200 even though both of our wealth is unchanged. GDP is simply a measure of how fast money is circulating.

You need to be looking at that actual allocation of the wealth, as the rich like to use a myriad of loopholes to obfuscate their acquisitions.

en.wikipedia.org/…/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite…

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DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So you are explaining why the rich get less than what I calculated because GDP is overestimated while the way I calculated income of median people is solid.

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- Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  So you are explaining why the rich get less than what I calculated
  
  No. Not even close. I’m explaining that GDP is a terrible metric to look at this problem. You need to look at wealth holdings. And the rich own basically all wealth.
  
  The whole point is people are obsessed by the rich having ridiculous wealth on paper because of owning companies, but them owning companies does not take anything away from society.
  
  So this is wrong in two ways. The first bit with “wealth on paper” is wrong, because the rich own the wealth. Loads of it are tied up in stocks, sure, but it is still wealth. And they use it like we use other fiat currencies, so to them stocks are just as “real” as USD is “real”.
  
  The second is that the economy is an finitely expandable pool that is itself finite. So it is ultimately a zero sum game.
  
  There is a limited number of hot dogs that can be sold in a year. Every hot dog sold by vendor A is a hotdog that cannot be sold by vendor B. Every stock that is owned by rich asshat A is a stock that cannot be owned by worker B.
  
  So yes, the rich owning all the wealth directly takes away from the rest of us.
  
  The factories produce goods for people and who receive the goods is determined by who buys the goods which is determined mainly by income, not wealth.
  
  “Who is able to buy X” isn’t a relevant question to the problem of wealth inequality/hoarding.
  
  Or let me put it in different words: Let’s say you and I have the same wage across our lives.
  
  This analogy immediately falls apart, because I make about $40/hr.
  
  Bezos makes about $8,000,000/hr
  
  …yahoo.com/…/jeff-bezos-made-over-7-172628289.htm…
  
  That is grotesque. The stock market, the economy, and all the wealth is owned by the rich.
  
  Image
  
  We need to fix this.
  
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  - DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If sustainable survival is your only goal, go live in a forest. People can survive without factories.
    
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    Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    If sustainable survival is your only goal, go live in a forest.
    
    I’m saying it should be the goal of the economy instead of the current situation in which the only goal is everlasting, ever growing profit.
    
    And I would go live in the woods if I could, but I can’t afford to do that.
    
    As for your ridiculous hot dog analogy, are you saying as it is now, everyone in the world has as many hotdogs as they want? If not, there is obviously value in making more.
    
    I am saying that there is a finite amount of hotdogs that can be sold per unit of time. Therefore it is a zero sum game. Therefore acquisition of wealth means taking away wealth from others.
    
    Also, I don’t care how many times you say GDP is not a good metric because it is not fitting your narrative. It is a good upper bound on how much value is produced. You can’t wish it away just because it proves you wrong.
    
    It doesn’t prove me wrong. You’ve seen the above graph. You know the wealth is allocated in the hands of the rich. How it gets there isn’t the point.
    
    I’ve explained it to you twice now, and if it is beyond your graph then that’s on you.
    
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