Time for a wealth tax in the USA!

Based on the GINI coefficient, only African countries are more unequal than USA.

USA is number 160 in the world, below them are 35 thirds world countries and amove them the rest of the third world.

It's very strange for me Americans are looking at third world country-type of statistics and then being like "yes let us emulate that".

There's a reason why it's third world countries that are that unequal. Because it doesn't work. Crazy unequality does not make you prosperous and wealthy in the long run. Because when rich people get that much power, they start bending all the rules and the courts and everything to their purposes, and then the country suffers.

Anybody that wonders if it is a good idea to have the sort of inequaliy USA has can just look it up. Go see for yourself which countries are that unequal, and if you don't know how good they're doing, also look them up.

You can start with the list collected on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_inequality

But off course there are many, many other reports on this topic you can look at.

It's weird for me that Americans just do not seem to want to look at the facts.

For me it's just like thus

"Guy says a craxy high amount of unequality is good"

"We look it up"

"Nah, isn't"-

Done in five minutes.

Americans instead IDK how the thought process is. It's like Americans feel like looking at information is cheating or something?

For one Elon Musk with $1.3 trillion, there are 745,652 homeless people in the USA.

Oh, how people crave a free ride—anything at all. Tax the rich and share the spoils among everyone. It would be nice to just play chess and collect a welfare check. Let the rich foot the bill. Off with their heads! But then, who would organize businesses, take risks, launch creative projects, or create jobs? Would everyone conscientiously work and produce material wealth, just like under communism? That’s been tried time and again; does the lesson still not sink in, even for the dimmest among us? Where would the money come from, then? Dropped from the heavens by the Almighty? Let us pray.

@Grizzli_1953 said ^

Oh, how people crave a free ride—anything at all. Tax the rich and share the spoils among everyone. It would be nice to just play chess and collect a welfare check. Let the rich foot the bill. Off with their heads! But then, who would organize businesses, take risks, launch creative projects, or create jobs? Would everyone conscientiously work and produce material wealth, just like under communism...

Do you know what USA has gotten to the level of unequality only seen in the poor part of third world countries?

Do you think it is a good or a bad idea to go in the direction of the poorest thirld world countries and mold your society like theirs?

"Do you know what USA has gotten to the level of unequality only seen in the poor part of third world countries?"

• The sick, homeless, unemployed, poor are left behind.

See the move Sicko
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicko
American firefighters who responded to the the 9/11 attack are ill from inhaling smoke, and cannot afford medical treatment.
They sail to Cuba and there get medical treatment for free.

"The stock market is one giant lottery."

"Yes, but speculation concentrates wealth."

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Both of these statements were written by someone who seems bright to me. So, I find them to be very puzzling.

They seem to cast shade upon, and don't seem to reflect the real-world purpose or utility of, share ownership and markets. They seem more like bumper-aphorisms being taught to able students who don't yet have experience.

Share ownership (generally, as a possibility) and markets are fundamental and highly useful. The relatively high average net worth of aged Americans may be a testament to their utility, in fact. And pension funds don't typically invest only in tulips.

Speculation is a surprisingly flexible English word. So, addressing any statements about it are somewhat .... speculative. Some of its many usages suggest acting without adequate knowledge and taking unjustified risk, while sometimes it is used less disapprovingly.

In one sense -- using one of the more benign meanings of "speculation" -- I suppose we can truthfully say that nearly every investment or other transaction is somewhat "speculative." After all, we rarely get the pleasure of acting upon perfect information about both present condition and future performance.

If we buy a new sort of frozen pizza for the first time, for example, we are "speculating" that we will be pleased with the product obtained and will not later find that its crust is oddly tasteless and of an unpleasant consistency. A possibility, I will assure my chess brothers and sisters, that is not impossible.

Is our purchase of that pizza "concentrating" wealth? Well -- assuming that the pizza maker has cost under control, each purchase WILL increase his, her or more likely its net worth.

But we can hardly conclude that this increase in net worth will be permanent until a bit MORE can be assured.

If the pizza meets pleasant expectation, if it fulfills hopes, if it provides genuine utility, then the maker's net worth probably WILL be increased enduringly, so long as marketing efforts manage to spread the word of expectations likely to be fulfilled!

But if the pizza disappoints? Then an enduring increase in net worth for the maker is likely to be but a chimera that once appeared on the edge of possibility and then faded away, to be replaced by disappointment but (hopefully) a plucky determination to carry on, as good Brits always seem to do!

So, what is it that really creates enduring wealth, in most cases, at least? The fulfillment of needs and wants!

Value arises in something that can give people what they want or need (not always the same thing). It is not usually the mere act of speculation itself that creates value (although compuslive gamblers might disagree). Not in any enduring, general way (although, when discussing an entire world, counterexamples to almost ANY assertion can likely be found).

Now if this post is too quickly read by any who wish, on principle, to refute it, the first thought might be (approximately) "oooh, like, what does pizza have to do with investment in the stock market?"

Well, stocks are typically bought in the hope that they will yield, for their price, adequate amounts (in some combination) of growth in value and income (which may come in the form of dividends). Pizza has the potential to fulfill certain needs, or at least wants, and so do some stocks.

With stocks, their ultimate value will be influenced by the underlying performance of the company for which they stand. If that company is able to reliably, dependably, efficiently and economically fulfil wants and needs (like good pizza!) I would expect an enduring increase in its value and ability to pay dividends.

But if the company is not so able, my expectations would be to the contrary. And I refer to my own expectations here not out of narcissism but simply because I do not intend to advise others in any post. Readers are left to form for themselves their own, individual expectations.

I think most wise investors try to minimize the extent to which their investments are speculative, even if some speculation seems inevitable unless we find some dependable way to see into the future. I don't believe that it is typically the "speculation" itself that holds allure for most investors (assuming that most are not compulsive gamblers), but rather the possibility of hooking part of their own futures to a company capable of reliably, dependably, efficiently and economically fulfilling wants and needs.

Which, in most cases, is a wonderful thing to do!

But before a company can do that. there must first be a company. And companies don't just pop into existence, as if by magic! They first acquire assets --they are somehow capitalized.

And one way they can achieve this is to sell shares. Which implies the need for and value of a market for shares.

Yes, I think that stock markets are not merely "giant lotteries" that beguile the mathematically naive. I think the existence of stock markets helps to support the creation of companies with the possibility (although of course not the guaranty) of fulfilling wants and needs.

And that hardly seems to be something bad, to be dismissively disparaged.

@greatJaromie said ^

Of course Bernie has always been correct, with just about everything
1000027629.jpg (https://image.lichess1.org/display?fmt=webp&h=0&op=resize&path=yskkXAFm4wfh.jpg&w=864&sig=7aa124c934b24dcbe7922b6eeebc55d3e378dba7)

In the old times, conservatives fought for their family, for their children's wealth.

Now, they sacrifice themselves and "lick the nuts" of some compulsive liars, that become billionaires because of the collective licking.

I am shocked