He earned it thru hard work!!!

[PlanktonSideburns]

is it possible to have less money than 0?

yes

[popcorn]

Conservatives in the UK tend to dislike nurses because they don't generate money but save lives instead.

Is that actually true, that conservatives think this? I would have hoped most actual elected tories would be smart enough to know that having more people alive and healthy means a bigger economy. In fact I would have thought that saving the life of an otherwise healthy youngish person would be a very good money-generating investment.

This is a bit like the false dichotomy of "economy vs health" we're facing with covid right now. If you hurt the economy enough you kill more people than the virus. I have no idea where that tipping point lies on the scale but presenting the debate purely as if it's "CAPITALISM VS LIVES" is wrong.

[Icehaven]

In the US, this attitude is (barely) excusable because they have it drummed into them that they will be the next millionaire/billionaire too with enough elbow grease.

But you get this attitude here too, what the fuco is our excuse?

Yeah there's that saying credited to John Steinbeck:
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

[popcorn]

Yeah there's that saying credited to I forget now, something like "Socialism would never work in America because most people don't think of themselves as poor, they consider themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

It's purely anecdotal bullshit but on my one visit to Silicon Valley this seemed to be the attitude of every Uber driver. One driver talked about how nice billionaires are and how he'd cancelled his health insurance because he wasn't gonna get sick. Another kept telling me about his startup, and at one point pointed out the Tesla model he was going to buy once the business took off.

I'd never actually taken any Ubers in my life before (and this was only Jan this year) and was struggling the whole time with terrible liberal guilt while at the same time being fascinated by how they work

[TrenterPercenter]

Basically they still believe in the lie that America is Meritocracy.

Psychologist answer incoming.....

Not as simple, they live vicariously via these people "feeling" not thinking that they could be that person, which is preferrable than living in the real world in which they are not and their lives (in this sense of accumalation based importance) are essentially meaningless.

All the thinking, rationalising part of a meritocracy just becomes the scaffolding in order to keep the fantasy alive.  It is a similar mindset to cults in which the accolyte feels closer to top of the hierachy via their adoration.

Thanks.

[Icehaven]

It's terrible too as the rarity of massive success means an awful lot of people live their entire lives in anticipation of their big break/their ship coming in etc., and feel that their 'real' life won't start until they're rich. Then when they reach a point where it becomes obvious they're never going to be, they end up feeling like failures.

[touchingcloth]

is it possible to have less money than 0?

Kanye West had minus a billion dollars that time.

[Captain Z]

Amazon's just great though innit👍

It's Amazin'

[TrenterPercenter]

It's terrible too as the rarity of massive success means an awful lot of people live their entire lives in anticipation of their big break/their ship coming in etc., and feel that their 'real' life won't start until they're rich. Then when they reach a point where it becomes obvious they're never going to be, they end up feeling like failures.

Yes and then the rightwing come along and tell them it wasn't them but the commies, wimmin and brown people that did it! Which again is a psychologically preferrable fantasy to live in than accept they weren't good enough or had been duped. 

It is almost as if the right have gameplanned this through on how people fundementally psychologically operate....

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

yes

Despite a lucrative career at Iceland, Kerry katona has made bankruptcy thrice.  As a result she is extremely unwealthly to the tune of £ -300,000

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

What about nice men like Warren Buffett and his mate Bill Microsoft?  They seem to give lots of money away through philanthropy. 

Soon every African child will have a CD-ROM copy of Microsoft Encarta 95, thanks to Bill.

[Ferris]

is it possible to have less money than 0?

Yes, for about 6 years.

Not in crippling debt now though am I?! Check mate!!

[zomgmouse]

What is most amount of money\wealth anyone should be able to possess at any sort of ethical level then?

a friend of mine put it like this:

let's say you earn $100,000 a year (which is already a lot), every year of your life, and let's say you live for 100 years (which is also a lot). that gives you $10million. (and that's over one lifetime)

to me that's a pretty good baseline level of "the most amount of money someone should have".

[Fambo Number Mive]

Is that actually true, that conservatives think this? I would have hoped most actual elected tories would be smart enough to know that having more people alive and healthy means a bigger economy. In fact I would have thought that saving the life of an otherwise healthy youngish person would be a very good money-generating investment.

This is a bit like the false dichotomy of "economy vs health" we're facing with covid right now. If you hurt the economy enough you kill more people than the virus. I have no idea where that tipping point lies on the scale but presenting the debate purely as if it's "CAPITALISM VS LIVES" is wrong.

It feels like it given the response to the Covid pandemic. I think that conservatives assume that given there are many more people looking for jobs than actual jobs, it doesnt matter if healthcare is underfunded as long as there are a certain amount of young people alive to keep things going. Many of them are doing ok financially at the moment while the rest of us struggle.

The Tories really didn't want a lockdown and gave us a somewhat half-arsed one (albeit one that was still very difficult for the majority of people, in particular those who stuck to the rules). If they really cared about a healthy population they'd have locked down earlier and more strictly. I think they are more worried about consumer confidence that having healthy workers- they'd like to scrap sick pay and make people work no matter how sick they are but they really need people to buy stuff.

[evilcommiedictator]

a friend of mine put it like this:

let's say you earn $100,000 a year (which is already a lot), every year of your life, and let's say you live for 100 years (which is also a lot). that gives you $10million. (and that's over one lifetime)

to me that's a pretty good baseline level of "the most amount of money someone should have".

An even better way of putting it is asking someone "how much money would you like to be able to spend a week?"
Hypothetically speaking, I'll say, $5000. Really live it up. That's 5,000 * 52 = 260,000 a year, and let's say I live for 50 years, that's 13 million dollars.

We're talking about billionaires, right, that's the wealth of 100 people spending $5000 a week.

CEOs around the western world are being paid more than $5000/week for the rest of their lives in one year's worth of bonuses.

[wooders1978]

I take it no one in this thread earns a decent crust

[popcorn]

We have never worked a day in our lives

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I take it no one in this thread earns a decent crust

No more than the average salary, but if I 'worked harder' I wouldn't either (it might actually expose a few of my colleagues to redundancy) . As it happens I can survive ably on what I earn. I have just had to give up any thoughts of children, a house, a car, a pension. Oh wait hang on, that's bullshit.

[greenman]

I think it is linked to people's desire to think that what they have is a result of their own hard work and sage wisdom, when mainly it's just luck. It's the same resistance to Black Lives Matter - people don't generally want to accept that they have what they have because they're white or because of some other advantage, so they get angry when people say things that might force them to acknowledge this.

If you grow up black or brown / poor / around addiction, abuse, neglect / on a shit estate / in care, etc. you will do less well on average. If you do well you'll have to work harder than those with the advantages. People don't like hearing this because they assume you are personally attacking them for their privilege when that's not necessarily the case.

I do alright despite my lack of ambition. Partly that's because I make good decisions, but that's because I grew up in a way that helped me recognise good and bad decisions. Ditto for lots of other things I do that work out well for me. If my dad had sexually abused me or my mum been on the skag I'm sure it would have been different. That's why I give away what I can, because I know I just got lucky, not because of anything that I did.

Playing to ego is really much more effective than just deference to authority, with the latter its much easier for people to change their view on authority figures but if you can build someone's world view around the idea they've earnt their advantage over others that needs a much greater degree of self awareness to back down from.

[wooders1978]

No more than the average salary, but if I 'worked harder' I wouldn't either (it might actually expose a few of my colleagues to redundancy) . As it happens I can survive ably on what I earn. I have just had to give up any thoughts of children, a house, a car, a pension. Oh wait hang on, that's bullshit.

I'm no massive earner myself but increasingly I am paying more and more tax and it gets a bit galling

[Mr_Simnock]

I take it no one in this thread earns a decent crust

what would you consider to be that?

[Pingers]

what would you consider to be that?

Depends where you live I think. I earn just under £30k, which for Sheffield is plenty. Although that is the most I've earned in my 34 years of paid employment

[Sebastian Cobb]

is it possible to have less money than 0?

Depends on how much you like your knee-caps.

[Cuellar]

I take it no one in this thread earns a decent crust

I earn fuck loads pal

[Icehaven]

No more than the average salary, but if I 'worked harder' I wouldn't either (it might actually expose a few of my colleagues to redundancy) . As it happens I can survive ably on what I earn. I have just had to give up any thoughts of children, a house, a car, a pension. Oh wait hang on, that's bullshit.

Yes I feel like I'm on a reasonable wage until I realise by reasonable that means enough to cover the rent and bills on a small one bedroom flat with a bit of disposable income left over to partly enjoy and partly save. It'd take me decades to save the large amounts required for a deposit to buy, I don't have kids, I don't drive and I don't take holidays abroad, so when I realise I'd struggle to do any of those supposedly normal things on my salary (well I could probably stretch to a very cheap foreign holiday but I'm scared of flying anyway) it seems a bit less reasonable.

[gilbertharding]

Every time there is an article about Bezos, Musk or said other cunt and their wealth (which seems to be increasingly often) this results in a discussion about their right to hold such sums of money.

Invariably some responses will, with all earnest Protestant ethics, claim that it is simply entirely due to his own input and hard work, and the money is therefore his to enjoy.

No amount of reasoning can apparently overcome this mentality. Even if you use an analogy of limited oxygen, and Bezos finding a way to ensure he stockpiles most of the oxygen, by making other people work for him for oxygen rations... even with this plain and simple example, they don't get it.

You can go on to explain how removing this money from the economy gradually damages people. Democratically, their working conditions, their quality of life, their health and well being, and how it is ultimately unsustainable, leading not only to economic but ecological collapse.

But why worry about that because IT HIS MONEY HE EARNT IT

What sort of brain disease is this, and can it be treated?

I only dabble in economics (read - I know next to jack-shit about it), but is this right? I don't think there's a finite amount of money in the world, is there? I thought it was virtually limitless. The Billionaires aren't 'hoarding all the money' - the fact that most people don't have enough isn't their fault (well, it might be their fault, but not for that reason).

I think it would be one thing if these Billionaires could SPEND their vast sums. After all, then everyone would have a share. But of course, they have too much to spend all, or even most of it - so the only people who get to share it are people who make solid gold diamond encrusted Rolls Royces or Yachts, or work as butlers.

What they don't like having pointed out to them, is that none of them got rich through their own hard work.

Even the ones who didn't inherit a fortune, or had parents who sent them to the best schools and introduced them to the right people - even the ones who 'started from nothing' didn't get there on their own. Your typical Billionaire tax-avoider relies on people - thousands of people, of course - who all have to have been educated in schools these people haven't paid for, and be treated in hospitals they're not paying for, and their goods travel on roads we built for them, and the rule of law, stable governments, and structures of commerce and market regulation have to prevail, which we all contribute to. That's before you consider that the Billionaire relies on us all to be sufficiently well off and happy to buy their product. You'd think they'd want us all to be happier and richer for that reason alone.

So even if you're arguing 'everything in capitalism is fine, it just needs adjustment maybe', you need to acknowledge that.

[Pingers]

Hey folks! Capitalism here. Remember when the world was a common treasury for all, and you took what you needed and shared it among you? And then we sent men with sharp things to tell you it all belongs to us now and if you didn't agree then they'd hack your head off - fucking lol! Good job too, cos now you have to work for us in exchange for money that's less than what you've made for us, just to have the basics. No more grazing your pigs in the Forest of Dean and pleasing yourselves, or whatever the fuck. Remember, yeah? We're the good guys right, cos we're giving you jobs, isn't that lovely.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I don't think there's a finite amount of money in the world, is there? I thought it was virtually limitless.

Not a straightforward answer but at any given moment or second there is a quantifiable sum of money which every human individual on earth owns/owes. Likewise assets, the value of which can be approximately ascertained. This is of course constantly in flux.

Money can be and is invented from thin air, quantitative easing is such an example, but it is usually subject to inflation, ie the value of each unit decreases the more is created, and measures have to be undertaken to reduce the speed and rate of inflation.

The oxygen analogy is a simplistic one but it serves to labour a basic moral point about sharing wealth and resources.

You state the fact most people don't have money isn't billionaires fault? Ok, so who lobbies for reduced labour rights and working conditions, who suppresses wages, who extracts rent, who chains people to service debt? It isn't poor people, is it? It's extremely wealthy individuals and entities.

[Endicott]

I'm no massive earner myself but increasingly I am paying more and more tax and it gets a bit galling

If the billionaires and corporations paid their proper contributions, you wouldn't have to pay as much as you do now.

[gilbertharding]

You state the fact most people don't have money isn't billionaires fault? Ok, so who lobbies for reduced labour rights and working conditions, who suppresses wages, who extracts rent, who chains people to service debt? It isn't poor people, is it? It's extremely wealthy individuals and entities.

I don't think I did. If I gave you that impression, I'm sorry.

In fact, I said, in the same paragraph, that 'it might be their fault' (and 'might' means 'almost certainly'), but maybe not for the reason that they've 'hoarded all the money'.