[AFAIK]

This video offers a thorough deconstruction of 'accidental billionaire' and Patagonia founder Yvon Chounaird's efforts to preserve his wealth and expand his power whilst presenting his actions as philanthropic.

[Godstud]

There are good billionaires. I'd say they are the minority, however. How do you determine what is good, or not?

You have guys like Elon Musk who use their money to try to advance human science, or people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Then you have others like Trumps who just want to stroke their egos.

Mind you, Trump was born into money, so there's a difference between people who are self-made billionaires, and those who aren't.

[AFAIK]

I'd recommend watching the video rather than focusing on the title.

[Godstud]

I don't have time to watch it, but at the same time, if a billionaire spends millions helping people, can he really be bad if the results are positive?

My opinion would stand, regardless of what the video says. I've seen this guy and he's very entertaining, but he also sometimes gets things wrong.

A. Carnegie was an example of what I am talking about.

[Fasces]

The very act of making that billion dollars is dependent on the unethical exploitation of labor. Carnegie didn't share profits with his workers, he ruthlessly wrung them for every last cent. "If you watch costs, profits take care of themselves."

Carnegie is famous for undermining the rights of labor unions in his factories, and getting rid of them as soon as possible, and for deploying 300 members of the Pinkerton and state militias against workers striking for a 12 hour work day. (Homestead Strike)

In more broad ethics, he manipulated the market and formed cartels with railroads and other steel producers to maximize profit.

when you look at where it originated in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century the OG evil monopolist Andrew Carnegie wrote an essay called The Gospel of wealth in which he famously argued that is the responsibility of the wealthy to give away their fortunes during their lifetimes he even argued that as the duty of a rich man to set into an example of modest unostentatious living shunning display or extravagance

so [billionaire] and Walton weren't radicals by driving beat up old cars they were literally taking their instructions from Daddy Carnegie now critically Carnegie argued for that kind of Charity because he believed that the system that gave him such unimaginable wealth was a good thing and that it was inevitable it was just the way of the universe

but even at the time in the late 19th century Americans knew that this was they knew that Carnegie's wealth was the result of a broken system and that it came at the expense of the customers he gouged the workers he exploited and the political system he dominated a political system that insured workers had no right to organize no minimum wage and allowed plutocrats to hire thugs to beat the out of them whenever they asked for their fair share Carnegie's Gilded Age concealed a rot at the core of the economy and in the years after his death the country went through a little something called the Great Depression huh turns out letting so much wealth accumulate in so few hands wasn't a great idea

[Godstud]

OK, @Fasces. I will bow to your greater knowledge. I was basing it more on the image he left than hard, cold facts.

[Fasces]

As one Carnegie steel worker said in 1900: “After working 12 hours, how can a man go to a library?”

[senor boogie woogie]

I don’t know about hatred of all billionaires but it seems that some of them got that way on the backs of poorly paid employees with little chance of advancement.

Jeff Bezos is my biggest example of this. The man is worth nearly $200 BILLION DOLLARS. For the fun of it and for future reference, I looked up the wealth of the A List actor Tom Hanks who has been in A List films for about thirty years, and himself very, very wealthy.

Looking on Google the wealth of Bezos and Tom Hanks, Bezos is about the 400 TIMES wealthier than Tom Hanks. The actual figure is closer to 500, but safe to use 400.

Imagine as a normal person, even an upper middle class person or a small millionaire worth two million dollars (which is more than enough for a person to live) that someone can be worth 400X more than a wealthy A List actor in Hollywood. 400 times the wealth of Tom Hanks, a man who has enough wealth for many generations.

Bezos runs numerous sweatshops in the United States. He is so awful that he demands that workers are fired after three years of service even if they have done well with no problems because they will “in his words” become complacent. He places near impossible levels of work on his workers and if they can complete it will make it higher and higher. You can look it up online that workers in his warehouse sweatshops will actually urinate in bottles (don’t know about women) so they can keep up with the volume. Or how worker breaks are so short because workers have to walk a long distance from their work area to the break room, all computerized, all operated.

Not to mention his “drivers” who have to make almost impossible deliveries to people all being watched by a camera and “app”location. The thing is, he has set it up where the drivers are not legal employees of his shit company. They are “contractors”, they legally are independent people but they all wear the erect penis uniform, the truck is an erect penis and the driver has a time to make all of their deliveries on time no matter what but are fired.

This bastard has hired so many people to make sure than his workers never ever become Unionized. Just a huge union buster from hell. Because a union would demand a more humane work environment environment in his sweat shops and in th trucks (although they are not his enployees).

For me, fuck Amazon in the ass. I don’t care if it sells gold bricks for ten cents a piece. Bezos is a bastard who lives a God Life on the backs of poorly employed people.

Now, lastly, the same could be said about the Waltons and Walmart. I agree so what especially the Unionization aspect. I have a cousin who works and slaves for them to make these billionaire bastards one more dollar. She isn’t happy, she is 56 years old probably not much savings and maybe will work there until she is 70 and he kids take care of her but Walmart doesn’t screw their employees like Amazon. Amazon is like North Korea to their America.

I hate Amazon. The only thing I hate worse than Amazon is killers and child molesters. I am serious, if Amazon sold gold bricks for a dime, couldn’t do it. I want the people to be free.

[late]

This is about income inequality. Don't blame me, economists came up with that name.

TR fought high levels of income inequality over a hundred years ago, this is not new. And it creates all manner of problems. I'm reading a book right now, Broken Ladder, that talks about that.

But the book I bought, the one I keep trying to get people to read (your public library can get you a copy, just ask) is The Price of Inequality by Stiglitz. What this is doing is terrible for people, it's terrible for the country, and it is leading us down a dark and dangerous path.

You can get a used copy from Amazon for $5:

https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequality-Divided-Society-Endangers/dp/0393345068/ref=sr_1_1?crid=30V9DYP4RV8WI&keywords=the+price+of+inequality+joseph+stiglitz&qid=1683910181&sprefix=stiglitz%2Caps%2C105&sr=8-1

[Godstud]

Income equality is just reality. Some people are more inspired, more motivated, work harder, etc., than other people. I'd love to be a billionaire, but I am not sure I'd love the effort, hours, stress, and work required to get there. There's a reason there's so few of them.

There are good billionaires. What you do with your money, and how you make it, is part of it. Bezos isn't one of the good ones, as he's well known for exploiting his workers.

I prefer Lazada, anyways.

@senor boogie woogie You're in China, right? Whereabouts? I am only about 400 km from China, in NE Thailand.

[Unthinking Majority]

The very act of making that billion dollars is dependent on the unethical exploitation of labor.

And when a new worker gets hired at a big corporation and shows up for their first day who are they exploiting when a successful functioning business they had absolutely nothing to do with is already set up and served to them on a silver platter for them to simply show up to work and start making money, and where investors risked a ton of money to pay for the offices, factories, materials, warehouses, shipping trucks etc and other workers had to build all of these things and the now-billionaire had to think of and execute the initial business idea and risk their own time and money and find the other investors?

Carnegie didn't share profits with his workers, he ruthlessly wrung them for every last cent. "If you watch costs, profits take care of themselves."

In a democracy with basic human rights nobody is forced to work for any billionaire or anyone else. The worker agrees to sign the contract at the wage and other conditions set out in the contract and it is a 100% voluntary and consensual agreement for both parties that either can refuse or often end at just about any time. If the worker thinks they can do better elsewhere or on their own they're free to do as they please. They aren't a slave and there is no such thing as "wage slavery" since it is all voluntary. The worker can open a lemonade stand or sell someone on another brilliant idea of theirs, or start their own worker-owned co-op. You can't call yourself a "wage slave" while feeling entitled to the product of other people's labor at zero cost.

For an employer or employee the only duty of either party is the follow the law, including the stipulations of the contract they both signed.

And maybe Steve Jobs is not evil for paying some engineer a salary to invent the idea for the iPod and make him and investors a ton of money, maybe the engineer is a fool for choosing to voluntarily sell his idea to Steve Jobs' company for 150k or whatever salary he agreed to be hired for.

But of course in China the government and many businesses & entrepreneurial people don't care about laws or contracts or "ethics" and they just go out and steal the ideas of other businesses/people like a bunch of snakes and turn around and sell cheap counterfeits/copies and are able to undercut the prices of their global competition because they never had to pay for the R&D etc needed to create it in the first place. So who is exploiting who exactly?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/insi ... on-nortel/

[late]

Income equality is just reality.

It's the wrong reality.

[Rich]

Inequality is like Goldilocks's porridge. Some level of inequality is a very good thing, but we're now way past the optimum. Population density makes a huge contribution to inequality. Obliviously this has to be approached with some intelligence. Different technological eras and different places can support radically different population densities. Europe doesn't need to return to the population density of 1000AD. But still the same law applies in 2023 as it did in 1023, other things being equal a higher population density makes the mean poorer and it makes it more unequal. This is a double whammy for the poorer 80% of the population, less wealth to go around per person and less of a fraction of that wealth for the large majority of people.

There is a fixed lump of land, and although the supply of housing and other infrastructure may not seem to be limited in the same way that land is, in practice the supply of these things is much less elastic than most people will want to pretend. When people talk about immigration they almost always obsess about jobs. Yes increasing the labour supply will push down wages and conditions and make the rich, the owners of capital richer. But the labour market is actually the more elastic commodity here and long term its not the big issue people should focus on. If people are spoilt as children it can lead to narcissism in adulthood. In its childhood as a nation, the United States was very badly spoilt by having such vast amounts of land available. This has led to narcissism in the adulthood of the United States nation.

[Godstud]

@late The wrong reality?
In what reality does everyone work just as hard as each other? In what one are they similarly motivated, skilled and talented?

Reality means there will always be income inequality. A doctor does not have the same value, in society, as a dishwasher.

[late]

double post, sorry.

[late]

When you get high levels of income equality, things get screwed up.

There's a long list of things that get screwed up; you'll have to read the book.

One thing is that the rich pay roughly 8% while you are I pay 3 or 4 times that much...

For another, a bunch of rich guys can band together and try to run the government from the shadows. Koch may yet get there. Even if they don't, they have dragged the country so far to the Right that things are nuts.

Look at the Robber Baron era...

[Godstud]

I'd like to see CEO wages as a multiple of the lowest paid worker in their company, and have a wage CAP. I am not sure how you'd get this done, however. The rich run things and they sure aren't going to change it, and they do a great job of still selling "The American Dream".

[Pants-of-dog]

And when a new worker gets hired at a big corporation and shows up for their first day who are they exploiting when a successful functioning business they had absolutely nothing to do with is already set up and served to them on a silver platter for them to simply show up to work and start making money, and where investors risked a ton of money to pay for the offices, factories, materials, warehouses, shipping trucks etc and other workers had to build all of these things and the now-billionaire had to think of and execute the initial business idea and risk their own time and money and find the other investors?

This is an entirely theoretical and imaginary way of looking at things.

Take Musk, for example. He did not risk anything. He can apparently lose billions of dollars and still be a billionaire. He did not come up with the idea of electric cars. He does not even run the business, since he hires others to do it.

All he had to do was inherit and invest, and even the latter was done as risk free as possible.

Meanwhile, Tesla employees are dealing with racism, sexual harassment, and other exploitations.

In a democracy with basic human rights nobody is forced to work for any billionaire or anyone else.

This is incorrect. In capitalism, people have to pay for food and housing, and this requires a job.

The worker agrees to sign the contract at the wage and other conditions set out in the contract and it is a 100% voluntary and consensual agreement for both parties that either can refuse or often end at just about any time. If the worker thinks they can do better elsewhere or on their own they're free to do as they please. They aren't a slave and there is no such thing as "wage slavery" since it is all voluntary. The worker can open a lemonade stand or sell someone on another brilliant idea of theirs, or start their own worker-owned co-op. You can't call yourself a "wage slave" while feeling entitled to the product of other people's labor at zero cost.

For an employer or employee the only duty of either party is the follow the law, including the stipulations of the contract they both signed.

And maybe Steve Jobs is not evil for paying some engineer a salary to invent the idea for the iPod and make him and investors a ton of money, maybe the engineer is a fool for choosing to voluntarily sell his idea to Steve Jobs' company for 150k or whatever salary he agreed to be hired for.

But of course in China the government and many businesses & entrepreneurial people don't care about laws or contracts or "ethics" and they just go out and steal the ideas of other businesses/people like a bunch of snakes and turn around and sell cheap counterfeits/copies and are able to undercut the prices of their global competition because they never had to pay for the R&D etc needed to create it in the first place. So who is exploiting who exactly?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/insi ... on-nortel/

And yet exploitation happens all the time.

[late]

I'd like to see CEO wages as a multiple of the lowest paid worker in their company, and have a wage CAP.

I am not sure how you'd get this done, however.

The rich run things and they sure aren't going to change it, and they do a great job of still selling "The American Dream".

When I was a kid, they got paid a small fraction of what they get today.

Tax.

One of the American dreams was escaping poverty. Used to happen all the time, now it's rare.

[Unthinking Majority]

This is an entirely theoretical and imaginary way of looking at things.

Take Musk, for example. He did not risk anything. He can apparently lose billions of dollars and still be a billionaire. He did not come up with the idea of electric cars. He does not even run the business, since he hires others to do it.

All he had to do was inherit and invest, and even the latter was done as risk free as possible.

Musk has made a lot of technological innovations in the EV space. Are you saying he stole patents? You can say he did nothing, meanwhile he's pushed EV tech and consumer usage more than anyone ever has, regardless of your oddly targeted resentment. And yeah, he can still lose billions and still be worth billions because people have voluntarily given him their money because they like his ideas and believe in them enough to buy his products and invest in his companies. If you don't like him you're free to not invest and to not buy his products. The market is democratic that way. People complain about Walmart and Amazon all the time, which is fine....and yet they keep shopping there. People vote with their wallets. If you don't like a company then put your money where your mouth is, but you also don't have control over other people's choices.

If Musk has done anything to break the law towards his employees he should be punished by the law. The guy has been sued a gazillion times, including by women claiming sexual harassment at his companies.

And what do you mean he never risked anything? He's took all his money and created extremely risky companies for which there was virtually no market. He almost failed on many of his companies many times, he would have been financially ruined. You don't even know what you're talking about, it's all based on resentment.

This is incorrect. In capitalism, people have to pay for food and housing, and this requires a job.

Name a time in human history where most people didn't have to engage in labour to survive? It has never existed. If you don't want to work for another company go mow lawns or trim hedges or a gazillion other jobs where you work for yourself.

For people who don't want to bother setting up and running their own company there's a lot of jobs being offered from companies where the entire business infrastructure is already set up for them and they just have to show up to work and do their job and go home. Again, who is exploiting who?

Why do you think you're entitled to the product of other people's labour, whether its growing and picking veggies or having a dwelling built or owning companies you had no part in creating or investing or working to make successful?