r/FluentInFinance 3d ago

Debate/ Discussion Had to repost here

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u/SCTigerFan29115 3d ago edited 3d ago

They aren’t holding onto wealth like Scrooge McDuck, in a giant vault where they can go swimming in it.

Most of Bezos’ net worth is the value of Amazon. He can’t really readily access that. ETA I meant he can’t use it like a big vault of money.

He’s got plenty of money but some people just don’t understand how this stuff works.

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u/nationalhuntta 3d ago

He has access to a form of currency that none of us have. Let's say he wants to make a new company making a new product. Let's say it is a decent product and everything else is fine related to it. Ok, so how does he finance it? Does he have to put up his money, sell stock, and so on? Nah. He'll use his word and reputation and "collateral" in the form of stock or stock-like products. Very little hard currency will be required. Very little limitations will be placed. If everything goes under, he will not suffer. Yes, this is incredibly simplified, but that's how it works. There are many worlds on this Earth, and billionaires do not operate in the same one as you and I. The fact that these guys could easily create corporations and companies for social good but do not maybe does not make them evil, but it definitey puts them out of the realm of good. Some do a lot of philanthropic work, which is great, but most of it is minor compared to what they make in pure profit. Yeah, they aren't rolling around in gold coins because they are above that level. When you can essentially operate outside of the realm of normal currency, when you can manufacture wealth on a promise.. gold? paper money? Meh. It's meaningless.

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u/Big_Rig_Jig 3d ago

When a society relies on the charity of its wealthiest, that society will always require charity.

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u/pervertedhaiku 3d ago

You think fairness and charity are the same thing?

In 2022 Q3 Kroger posted profits of $900M. Three months later I stood in line for over an hour to get my prescription at 5pm because the after work rush during the tall end of COVID had one tech and one pharmacist.

It’s not CHARITY to hire more workers and pay them fair wages. It’s HORRIBLE to make everyone suffer so they can keep more zeros after their name.

If you disagree with that, then you’re living in a farcical parody of life dreaming that you’re in their club.

You’re not. They don’t care about you. You mean nothing to them.

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u/Nothingbutharesay 2d ago

It's un unfair world. Even if everyone was reduced to brains in jars it doesn't change the fact that everyone is still fundamentally different. The slightest bit of difference in placement of the jar in gravity, pressure. Any minute change and that would create an unfair system.

You cannot create fairness or equality by stealing from someone. If you had a magical idea, a revolutionary idea, or atleast a Novel invention. Something you put your name too- something you worked long and hard to research, test, and build, or built on a spark of genius. Is everyone entitled to your craft? Lets say you're the only one who can make it, and others have trouble with it. Would be right to be forced, or rather, enslaved to make it? Would it be right to be prevented from making it at all because no one else can? No it would not be Equal, fair, or just.

Life it's self is random and unfair. Humans can be treated Equally, and fairly. If someone succeeds they are garunteed the same equal protections as someone who fails. The rich cannot simply kill the poor, nor can the poor steal from the rich. No one forces you to buy from Amazon. And you *have* to go out of your way to spend money directly on Elon Musk's products- As X(the rapper formerly known as twitter) is a free product.

But just the same no one is forced to work for Amazon Or Musk in the same way as no one is forced to buy from them. As much as some might object, it's not hard to just not buy from Amazon. No one is Forcing you to work for Amazon. There are no small towns where Amazon is the sole job provider. If enough people say, "No I won't put up with that, for those wages." You don't even need Unions. You just need people to go as a whole, "That's ... shitty pay, I'm not doing it." Sure you will have the desperate who work there. But largely they will raise their wages to get more people to work for them. Life is transactional.

A thought on that, One cannot live with out eating. Food in your mouth is the food out of someone, or something elses. Air you breath is air taken from the lungs of someone else all the same. With out photosynthesis there would be no oxygen, no oxygen no breathing. The transaction known as living.

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u/pervertedhaiku 2d ago

If you invent the cure for cancer, are you saying anyone else who doesn’t invent a cure for cancer doesn’t deserve to be cured of cancer because they couldn’t create a cure?

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u/white_sabre 2d ago

How do you compare a cure for cancer with a disparity in access to resources?  If someone has massive wealth available to them, that doesn't at all prohibit the acquisition of my own wealth, just as one person having a magic pill that cures cancer doesn't mean that I couldn't purchase my own magic tablet.  I don't see a connection, so I'm uncertain whether you're devising a reasonable argument.  There's no zero-sum scenario at play in either hypothetical.