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Just a reminder, wealth is **not** a zero sum game. If it were we would still be living in caves.
@freemo No, but wealth is a marker of exploitation. A certain degree of wealth can be legitimately earned, but above that point, the wealth is grossly disproportionate to the value created for the economy and can only be obtained through some degree of systemic exploitation of the labor of others. Stock trading is the classic example of this.
So, in that sense, the sign in the OP is accurate.
@LouisIngenthron Nah, that sounds just as incorrect to me. Having a lot of wealth just means you you may have longer-term do-gooder plans as well (just as you may have long-term evil plans). For example if you spend a lot of your money starting charities, you might recognize you do more good with their money than most. But if you spend all your money in one go doing charities then that is all the good you will do.. However if you invest some of your money in doing good, and the rest in generating more wealth, then long term you can do much more good.
So no, having wealth, even in the billions, is never an indication or red flag at all.. It means nothing on its own, you have to look at the persons overall choices.
@freemo Also, for the long-term thing: The longest term that should matter for wealth, in my opinion, is one human lifetime. Inherited wealth just seems to create assholes.
@LouisIngenthron Its a short sighted view of money.. most people who inherit wealtyh d0ont go and stick it in a large vault.. the vast majority is invested, meaning it is working to create more wealth. So there is no reason to see it as a bad thing in and of itself.
@freemo Investment, in its most basic form (i.e. finding a prospective business that seems like it could be profitable and investing to buy a stake and help it thrive) does work to create actual value in the economy (i.e. more diverse businesses, more innovation).
However, investment abstracted to the point of the modern stock market is just horse betting for the rich. The "value" created is ephemeral, based more on confidence than actual products or services created for consumers. It incentivizes companies to seek short term profits to please investors, to the detriment of everything else. It encourages a race-to-the-bottom in our overall economic model, and incentivizes companies to buy out and squash their competition instead of beating them in the field. Besides these many systemic problems, the stock market also creates an avenue for even more money to flow upward, from those who actually perform the labor, to those who sit on their asses and contribute nothing to society but that which their parents earned for them a generation ago.
> However, investment abstracted to the point of the modern stock market is just horse betting for the rich.
That is just completely ignorant of how it works (but common).. I just finished 2 years running a company going public and know the process intimately both before and after being public (going on the stock market)... It is literally the same as when you invest privately except it is regulated so you have some guarantees you arent being lied to.
It has all the same properties...
* By investing you get physical ownership of a precentage
*You get to vote in general assemblies for any company you own shares in.
* You have all the same power over the day to day operations and the board as you would in a private company
* The comp can buy back public shares or issues new ones, meaning it acts as an investment in the growth of existing companies.
@freemo The difference is that a private company (generally) gets to choose who invests. They can choose to only work with people who have the long-term good of the company in mind.
In a publicly-traded company, there is no such control. Anyone with the cash can invest. And stock market investors tend to have zero interest in the long-term good of the company; all they care about is getting a return on their investment as quickly as possible (see, for example, the very existence of arbitrage trading). After all, they can sell their stake any time almost effortlessly, so that, along with the massive dilution, doesn't create a sense of genuine ownership.
> The difference is that a private company (generally) gets to choose who invests. They can choose to only work with people who have the long-term good of the company in mind.
No not really, if I invest in your company privately, much like the stock market, I can share my ownership to someone else regardless of what the company wants (usually).
> In a publicly-traded company, there is no such control. Anyone with the cash can invest.
No a public company can, to some degree (they are more limited though). If a public company makes more shares they can choose to offer it to the investor they want at a discount from public. So they still get some level of control.
@freemo
> I can share my ownership to someone else regardless of what the company wants
As I understand it, many private companies require board approval for major share sales for exactly this reason.
> they can choose to offer it to the investor they want at a discount from public
And they almost inevitably choose to use this power to offer it to fellow rich people or past investors, rather than use it to impose any kind of litmus test for positive intentions. Thus helping to rigidify the existing wealth structure.