Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

[Wade Garrett]

If the rich didn’t create all that wealth-– who would the liberals take it from?

[trader_4]

Cite for us the many examples of American billionaires where they stole it.

[trader_4]

WTF?

wtF?

You have the monopoly on stupid.

[Bill]

Hate to correct you, but a billion is a *million* thousands.

[Ralph Mowery]

Gates did with Microsoft.

He sold IBM on a system that he did not really have.

He markeded his system for $ 49.99 or so and Digital Research was about $ 150.

He proceeded to almost steal much other softwear.

Walmart is doing similar things. They will make a contract with a company to buy much more than the company can produce. The company borrows money to expand. The next time Walmart cuts the price of the contract. The company has to take that reduced price as they have to pay back a big load.

If you look at the history of the 'giants' around the start of the century you can see how they sort of stole the millions then which would convet to billions now.

[rbowman]

That's just good business on the way to another billion.

[rbowman]

I worked for a trucking company that hauled freight for Walmart. Walmart has its own fleet but they have to bid against outside carriers and the cheapest one wins. The company eventually lost the contracts. It didn't matter how well you performed just how cheaply you would work.

In another context, I worked for a company that supplied the styrofoam clamshells to McDonalds. If the price of crystal styrene dropped a penny a pound, MickeyD was on the phone looking for a price cut.

I'm always curious where exactly the billions came from. Take Bill Gates. I picking him since there's every indication he's a decent guy that won the lottery. I believe most of his billions are in the form of Microsoft stock. Exactly what does that mean? What does it mean when Microsoft gets the JEDI contract and Gates' wealth goes up 3% while Bezos' goes down 1%?

[rbowman]

So have 'most' created jobs and kept the economy in good shape? What were they doing when the Fed had to bail out Wall Street? That is as accurate as saying most Irishmen are drunks.

At one point, maybe in the last century, I would agree with you. However currently the money is in the FIRE sector, most of which is unproductive churning. The DOW sets new record; what does that mean?

[rbowman]

If the wealth is derived from trading in repos, where did it come from? If the wealth came from manufacturing and selling umbrellas, where did it come from? If a person made a billion selling umbrellas, maybe the umbrellas are a little overpriced?

[Ed Pawlowski]

It means my 401k is looking good today. Could turn to crap tomorrow though.

Even the billionaires are a lot of paper value, not real hard cash. If there is a walth tax some will have a hard time making the payment.

I'm sure though, the lawyers and accountants are making plans to get around it all. Suddenly some of the assets will be spun off to trusts or some other organization that will become the owner of record for the $20 million house. Maybe some guy in the Cayman Islands will own it.

[Thomas]

Remove money from the picture. All. What do you have?

[Clare Snyder]

It is inaccurate to say the rich "create" wealth. They "accumulate" wealth

[Ray]

Some like Gates and Bezos do create wealth by producing what some choose to use or consume.

[Rod Speed]

Nope.

That's not stealing, that's just good business practice.

That's not stealing either, just good business practice.

Nope, just bought that operation, again just good business practice.

Nope, just very aggressive business practice.

That's not stealing either.

< millions then which would convet to billions now.

Even the most flagrant monopolistic practices arent really stealing.

[Clare Snyder]

And they are the minority. Gates is also in the minority in how he uses his wealth.

[rbowman]

Back before the dotcom bubble burst I had a friend who was checking his

401 about every hour and rubbing his hands. He told me I was stupid to have a stodgy old traditional IRA. I didn't even have to tell him to STFU when the roller coaster started down. I didn't lose a dime.

Fact is I've never paid to much attention to money matters.

[Ray]

Yes, billionaires will always be a tiny minority.

It isnt clear that only a minority of billionaires do create wealth.

That's true, plenty of billionaires are only billionaires in the sense that they own lots of stock in the operation they produced. But producing that operation did produce lots of wealth and almost always lots of jobs too.

Yes, some like Soros and Koch brats didn't.

[rbowman]

With the exception of some of the Amazon sponsored shows, Bezos doesn't produce a damn thing. Don't get me wrong -- Amazon is my go-to source for many things but they are just a highly efficient retailer. Even AWS doesn't add anything to the mix other than a service.

Yeah, I'm a dinosaur and I never quite got the whole service economy thing. Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software. Even that is very intangible. I've been in the software game for about 40 years and I'm not sure anything I've done was all that necessary or even had a positive effect.

[rbowman]

I don't know if a lot of Mom & Pop operations would say Bezos is creating much wealth.

[Ray]

He did produce a very viable market place that many choose to use.

They are in fact much more than just that with their third party stuff.

That’s not true of kindles and ebooks alone.

It is in fact the vast bulk of modern first world economies.

And some hardware. So has amazon.

No more intangible than a book or movie or doco. Or music in the case of the Beatles or Beethoven etc.

You say the same thing about all entertainment, books, movies, docos, music or pictures or sculpture or sports.