Are the rich the problem?

[knarf]

I really am not sure. Maybe it all started since we began to trade resources by barter? 

(which also stirred up some "unfairness".)

from wikipedia

"Economists since the times of Adam Smith (1723-1790), looking at

non-specific pre-modern societies as examples, have used the

inefficiency of barter to explain the emergence of money, of

"the" economy, and hence of the discipline of economics itself.

[3] However, ethnographic studies have shown that no present or

past society has used barter without any other medium of

exchange or measurement, nor have anthropologists found evidence

that money emerged from barter, instead finding that gift-giving

(credit extended on a personal basis with an inter-personal

balance maintained over the long term) was the most usual means

of exchange of goods and services.[4]"

 So when did the idea of money start?

from wikipedia

"The use of barter-like methods may date back to at least 100,000

years ago, though there is no evidence of a society or economy

that relied primarily on barter.[12] Instead, non-monetary

societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy

and debt.[13][14] When barter did in fact occur, it was usually

between either complete strangers or potential enemies.[15]

Many cultures around the world eventually developed the use of

commodity money. The Mesopotamian shekel was a unit of weight,

and relied on the mass of something like 160 grains of barley.

[16] The first usage of the term came from Mesopotamia circa

3000 BC. Societies in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia

used shell money – often, the shells of the cowry (Cypraea

moneta L. or C. annulus L.). According to Herodotus, the Lydians

were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver

coins.[17] It is thought by modern scholars that these first

stamped coins were minted around 650–600 BC.[18]
Song Dynasty Jiaozi, the world's earliest paper money

The system of commodity money eventually evolved into a system

of representative money."

  At any "true" way that now we have potential value of resources

(money). God only knows(sure)! It is a monstrous problem.

  When did the rise in accumulation of money start to become

uneven and we had a wealthy, middle, and lower incoming of

money?

from wikipedia

"After World War II and the Bretton Woods Conference, most

countries adopted fiat currencies that were fixed to the U.S.

dollar. The U.S. dollar was in turn fixed to gold. In 1971 the

U.S. government suspended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar

to gold. After this many countries de-pegged their currencies

from the U.S. dollar, and most of the world's currencies became

unbacked by anything except the governments' fiat of legal

tender and the ability to convert the money into goods via

payment. According to proponents of modern money theory, fiat

money is also backed by taxes. By imposing taxes, states create

demand for the currency they issue.[21]"

and this article.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110215/brief-history-income-inequality-united-states.asp

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110215/brief-

history-income-inequality-united-states.asp

  I have the ability to imagine a scale

and when the scales become uneven by gravity and the "material"

you put on it, at a certain point of adding to one side more and more you get a

speeding up of drop , on the weighted side, where it just collapses to the ground/table.

So maybe the saying "The rich are robbing ( criminal offense )

from the poor.   I guess evolution put selfish needs ahead of

community needs in the Homo Erectus

That's why I have become a rebel, a Robin Hood of modern day. 

War has been declared , but it is just beginning. The masses are

beginning to rebel against this humongous unevenness and the choices

the wealthy make. Like Corporation /Government, Military

industrial complex, use of energy, and abrupt climate change.

“Give me liberty or give me death."
― Patrick Henry

• Tweet

[RE]

Yes.

RE

• Tweet

[Eddie]

I really am not sure. Maybe it all started since we began to trade resources by barter? 

(which also stirred up some "unfairness".)

from wikipedia

"Economists since the times of Adam Smith (1723-1790), looking at

non-specific pre-modern societies as examples, have used the

inefficiency of barter to explain the emergence of money, of

"the" economy, and hence of the discipline of economics itself.

[3] However, ethnographic studies have shown that no present or

past society has used barter without any other medium of

exchange or measurement, nor have anthropologists found evidence

that money emerged from barter, instead finding that gift-giving

(credit extended on a personal basis with an inter-personal

balance maintained over the long term) was the most usual means

of exchange of goods and services.[4]"

 So when did the idea of money start?

from wikipedia

"The use of barter-like methods may date back to at least 100,000

years ago, though there is no evidence of a society or economy

that relied primarily on barter.[12] Instead, non-monetary

societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy

and debt.[13][14] When barter did in fact occur, it was usually

between either complete strangers or potential enemies.[15]

Many cultures around the world eventually developed the use of

commodity money. The Mesopotamian shekel was a unit of weight,

and relied on the mass of something like 160 grains of barley.

[16] The first usage of the term came from Mesopotamia circa

3000 BC. Societies in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia

used shell money – often, the shells of the cowry (Cypraea

moneta L. or C. annulus L.). According to Herodotus, the Lydians

were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver

coins.[17] It is thought by modern scholars that these first

stamped coins were minted around 650–600 BC.[18]
Song Dynasty Jiaozi, the world's earliest paper money

The system of commodity money eventually evolved into a system

of representative money."

  At any "true" way that now we have potential value of resources

(money). God only knows(sure)! It is a monstrous problem.

  When did the rise in accumulation of money start to become

uneven and we had a wealthy, middle, and lower incoming of

money?

from wikipedia

"After World War II and the Bretton Woods Conference, most

countries adopted fiat currencies that were fixed to the U.S.

dollar. The U.S. dollar was in turn fixed to gold. In 1971 the

U.S. government suspended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar

to gold. After this many countries de-pegged their currencies

from the U.S. dollar, and most of the world's currencies became

unbacked by anything except the governments' fiat of legal

tender and the ability to convert the money into goods via

payment. According to proponents of modern money theory, fiat

money is also backed by taxes. By imposing taxes, states create

demand for the currency they issue.[21]"

and this article.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110215/brief-history-income-inequality-united-states.asp

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110215/brief-

history-income-inequality-united-states.asp

  I have the ability to imagine a scale

and when the scales become uneven by gravity and the "material"

you put on it, at a certain point of adding to one side more and more you get a

speeding up of drop , on the weighted side, where it just collapses to the ground/table.

So maybe the saying "The rich are robbing ( criminal offense )

from the poor.   I guess evolution put selfish needs ahead of

community needs in the Homo Erectus

That's why I have become a rebel, a Robin Hood of modern day. 

War has been declared , but it is just beginning. The masses are

beginning to rebel against this humongous unevenness and the choices

the wealthy make. Like Corporation /Government, Military

industrial complex, use of energy, and abrupt climate change.

“Give me liberty or give me death."
― Patrick Henry

I love posts like this. Original thinking. Not cut and paste from the Greaneville Post.

Answers start from asking the right questions. And really diving deep into the problem set. Everyday, on the net I see 1000 bullshit repetitions of what can be considered "common knowledge", most of which is highly suspect in my book. Mixed with those is maybe one piece with something like an original thought.

The cut-and-pasters are the herd, and their truth is the herd mentality. They gather these days, not in the streets, but on Facebook, where they re-inforce each other's stupidity and edge the world closer to idiocracy.

I do see some irony here, though my friend. You've spent half a lifetime completely rejecting everything to do with acquiring money, and your complaint is that it's all concentrated in the wrong hands.  Can you see the Koan?

• Tweet

[RE]

I do see some irony here, though my friend. You've spent half a lifetime completely rejecting everything to do with acquiring money, and your complaint is that it's all concentrated in the wrong hands.  Can you see the Koan?

The complaint is that it is concentrated in any hands at all.  Do you see that Eddie?

RE

• Tweet

[Eddie]

I do see some irony here, though my friend. You've spent half a lifetime completely rejecting everything to do with acquiring money, and your complaint is that it's all concentrated in the wrong hands.  Can you see the Koan?

The complaint is that it is concentrated in any hands at all.  Do you see that Eddie?

RE

Don't ask me what I see. You are incredibly simple minded in your approach to what is a fairy difficult subject.

Because you are so sure of yourself ,even when you're wrong, other people line up behind you.

That makes you part of the problem, from where I stand.

You parrot bullshit from the sketchiest sources imaginable, just because it fits your world view. I don't have the least respect for your thinking anymore. You're one of those people who says "It's such a simple problem. Just tear everything down and start over."

"Communism good because potlatch." That's the extent of your thinking, and you don't really even understand what potlatch was, because you haven't crefully studied it.

• Tweet

[RE]

You are incredibly simple minded

Now I am "Simple Minded"?  Holy Fuck.  Why don't you just get it over with and call me Stupid?  

I can't have a conversation with you without you going Ad Hom.  You simply have no ability to argue to the topic without disparaging the person making the argument.  Goodbye on this one buddy.

RE

• Tweet

[g]

Knarf, I would like to voice my objection to this robbing from the poor and selfish notion.

While admitting there are some very bad folks among the wealthy it is hardly all of them.

Being among the wealthy myself gives me some authority to speak about the subject. Both myself and a number of extremely wealthy people in my group of friends have never robbed anyone and in my case am not a selfish person. 

Having the ability to live like a king is mine but my choice has been to save and continue in my vocation way past retirement for the sake of my heirs and their well being. My goal is to try my best to keep them out of the clutches of banksters with their usury credit bondage and give them a start in life where hopefully they will be citizens of value and contribution.

I will admit to having next to no concern for folks who are poor who did not have to be that way but arrived at that state through bad choices and lack of any self discipline. A guy with no legs selling pencils on a street corner is the kind of poor I feel sorry for or the poor dolt that for some reason has always escaped me the Good Lord gave a brain unable to comprehend things in a normal fashion.

Truth is I have been robbed by the wealthy myself. It is well documented here in previous posting a few years ago how I woke up one morning and half the money in my commodity account went missing courtesy of a worthless bankster prick.

You are placing me and others who worked saved and sacrificed as well as were both lucky and smart in trying to invest our savings as wisely as we thought possible in the same group as the scuzz ball who stole my money.

Some of the rich robbed and stole and are selfish would be a better way to put it than a blanket statement "The Wealthy". As the Poor are different in type and morality, so are the rich.     

• Tweet

[Eddie]

Dude, you weren't arguing the topic. You were asking ME if I understood....which is pretty insulting, coming from you. I've heard all your arguments, more than once.

You want to argue the topic? Sure, lets argue.

Neither one of us is dumb. But you think rich people are evil. I think lots of people are evil......and a lot of them aren't rich.

You think money is evil. I don't.

You think I'm a rich SOB who just says what justifies my own POV. I don't.

• Tweet

[RE]

You were asking ME if I understood....

You started it by asking Knarf if he understood.

RE

• Tweet

[Eddie]

I asked him if he could understand the IRONY. Which I know damn good and well you understand just fine. And he can too, because he's a smart guy.

He's a Buddhist monk who took a vow of voluntary poverty. That was a choice. To reject money outright.

First and foremost, I don't like the wealth inequality that exists that puts half the worlds assets in the hands of what?  A few hundred people. I don't like that. I do view it as a problem, and talking about how to fix it is a legitimate topic. And I laud Knarf for trying to figure it out. He's looking at it from a rational, sensible POV.

But I see the irony. Shoot me.

I also see the irony in rich-as-fuck Chris Hedges being the poster boy for socialism. You'd have to be stupid not to...

My thesis, not that you ever paid one damn bit of attention anything I ever said on the subject, is that people to whom money is important often find ways to get some, and that a whole lot of the people who complain about other people having way too much? They never, ever, pursued a decent strategy to accumulate any wealth....so it doesn't NOT surprise me they they live paycheck to paycheck.

You conflate modest wealth, accumulated through careful savings and legitimate investments, with the huge inter-generational wealth of America's Four Hundred Familes . Or European royalty.  Those things aren't the same, as I've demonstrated over and over. You don't fix wealth inequality by taking away from the middle class.

That's exactly what HAS been going on for the last 30 or more years, and the middle class is just about gone. Try something else.

Until you begin to be able to see reality, you're chance of fixing anything is exactly zero.

• Tweet

[Eddie]

Forget all the rah rah bullshit in this video, and look just at the three illustrations he makes on the  white board. Forget the part about incorporating, that doesn't even matter.

Other than that, his little scenario is almost exactly correct.

He says it's 5/15/80. Probably not too far wrong.

The stupid little diagrams on "strategy"? It's 100% correct, and THAT is the reason 80% of people out there have little or nothing in the way of wealth.

(Unless some employer sets them up a 401K without them even asking, which is a bonus. And most of those will be eaten up by divorce.)



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wJB90G-tsgo&fs=1" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/wJB90G-tsgo&fs=1</a>

• Tweet

[RE]

You conflate modest wealth, accumulated through careful savings and legitimate investments, with the huge inter-generational wealth of America's Four Hundred Familes . Or European royalty.  Those things aren't the same, as I've demonstrated over and over. You don't fix wealth inequality by taking away from the middle class.

I don't conflate anything at all.  It is strictly a matter of numbers.  If you have more money than 99% of the rest of the population you are $RICH$ 🤑,  It doesn't matter how you got it, whether it was inherited or you loaded 16 Tons of #9 Coal every day for 50 years and saved your pennies.  It is you who have a warped idea of what "middle class" is.  It's NOT owning a vacation Lake House, a Ranch and a McMansion in an upscale Austin suburb, I'll tell you that for sure.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Joo90ZWrUkU" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/Joo90ZWrUkU</a>

RE

• Tweet

[knarf]

I asked him if he could understand the IRONY. Which I know damn good and well you understand just fine. And he can too, because he's a smart guy.

He's a Buddhist monk who took a vow of voluntary poverty. That was a choice. To reject money outright.

First and foremost, I don't like the wealth inequality that exists that puts half the worlds assets in the hands of what?  A few hundred people. I don't like that. I do view it as a problem, and talking about how to fix it is a legitimate topic. And I laud Knarf for trying to figure it out. He's looking at it from a rational, sensible POV.

But I see the irony. Shoot me.

I also see the irony in rich-as-fuck Chris Hedges being the poster boy for socialism. You'd have to be stupid not to...

My thesis, not that you ever paid one damn bit of attention anything I ever said on the subject, is that people to whom money is important often find ways to get some, and that a whole lot of the people who complain about other people having way too much? They never, ever, pursued a decent strategy to accumulate any wealth....so it doesn't NOT surprise me they they live paycheck to paycheck.

You conflate modest wealth, accumulated through careful savings and legitimate investments, with the huge inter-generational wealth of America's Four Hundred Familes . Or European royalty.  Those things aren't the same, as I've demonstrated over and over. You don't fix wealth inequality by taking away from the middle class.

That's exactly what HAS been going on for the last 30 or more years, and the middle class is just about gone. Try something else.

Until you begin to be able to see reality, you're chance of fixing anything is exactly zero.

For me, this goes back to my confrontation with the Military Industrial complex. Elsberg wrote "The Pentagon Papers", and I  began to see through the propaganda story "Viet Nam" police action is to protect the poor s. Vietnamese."  I came to the conclusion that viet nam was just one of the countries over their that we were intent on overtaking so we could keep China from swallowing up the rest of Asia. Then they could control the whole world instead of us US.
  Then came the horrible pictures streaming in from embedded film hero's who were filming this madness of what we were doing to s. viet nam but especially how crazy with rage the soldiers had will fighting there.
  I began to think that there was a secret Gov. covertly financed by the wealthy in this country. That had some different plan for world domination either by Chinese or the United States.
  I didn't buy any part of those who brought us all the "REASONS" WE ARE DOING ALL THE murdering OF INNOCENT CIVILIANS FOR COVERT REASON FOR ALL OUR PRESENT WARS. thIS IS A DISASTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE. wE WILL BE INCREASING THE USE OF FOSSIL FUELS TO BE THE DOMINATE NATION AGAINST ANY CONTENDER OF WORLD DOMINATION AND THAT IS TAKING A LOT OF MONEY. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM. we WILL BE THE gIANT AND KEEP THE mILITYARY 100 TIMES AS STRONG AS IT'S NEAREST COMPETITOR. ( rEMINDS ME OF the bOXING GAME OF WHO WAS THE king OF HEAVY WEIGHT bOXING.  tHE WEALTHY ARE CREATING A CRISIS THAT HUMANITY HAS NEVER FACED. tHAT BY THIS STUPID ROC  - OOPS CAPS OFF throwing contest story of what the Gov. tells me it is doing. I don't believe the propaganda. I helps me understand myself and the need for domination of others around me. Of which was kicked out of me early in my Buddhist "learning period." So I began to see clearly I was behaving with the propagandic paradigm of domination with the other monks and myself, and I needed to rid my self of any vestige of it. which happened my many kicks to the rear end when I ventured into zombie man behaving in a competitive way. Down boy! 
   GO I love you, but you are among the wealthy. With a big heart and a compassionate state of being. Your not being lumped in with the other wealthy people how still the domination game. ( except in private -  ). The establishment is waking up about the "Irony" in the wealthy having become the problem, but all wealthy people are not the same. In fact some are independent and many choose the real scenario of Abrupt global warming or the wealthy are destroying our planet. . I see a mass rising of ordinary folks hitting the streets with millions of people world wide, protesting the domination game.
 

• Tweet

[knarf]

Forget all the rah rah bullshit in this video, and look just at the three illustrations he makes on the  white board. Forget the part about incorporating, that doesn't even matter.

Other than that, his little scenario is almost exactly correct.

He says it's 5/15/80. Probably not too far wrong.

The stupid little diagrams on "strategy"? It's 100% correct, and THAT is the reason 80% of people out there have little or nothing in the way of wealth.

(Unless some employer sets them up a 401K without them even asking, which is a bonus. And most of those will be eaten up by divorce.)



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/wJB90G-tsgo&fs=1" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/wJB90G-tsgo&fs=1</a>

 I get the impression that you might think this kind of strategy will work in today's modern society. Correct me if I am wrong.
  But if it would work, I am all for it. Then people would have more weight when it comes time to tell the system it has got to change QUICK, and BIG TIME.

• Tweet

[Eddie]

Look, no strategy is guaranteed to work, and my view is that it's been getting harder to make it in this country since I was a kid in college, and that it's far harder now than it's ever been. I personally experienced it myself, and I see my kids and their friends.....and I KNOW.

At the same time, the LACK of discipline around money is the NORM, not the exception, and WITHOUT a strategy and a lot of discipline, failure is pretty much bound to happen. It's baked into the cake.

But what he showed on that white board, IS what makes the difference, as far as whether people accrue wealth. You MUST do those things.
A lot of people don't care much about money when they're young. My kids didn't. Now, my daughter the teacher struggles to keep her house. Now, my two younger kids are married to tens of thousands in student debt they took on for grad school. They will always have to struggle if they don't figure out to spend a little less than what they make, and build a stash and make a few decent investments.

That's true even if the arctic ocean goes blue tomorrow, or the USD goes to zero. There are rules for money, and you either learn them and use them, or you don't pass Go. Just the way it is. Nobody falls off the turnip truck and ends up well off financially in this world today.

I'm talking about regular people. I don't even know anybody with real wealth, the kind RE pretends is the same as what I'm talking about. RE is full of shit.

I don't know any Rockefellers or Mellons. No Rothschilds. No DeVosses. No Sam Zells.

I do know people who own their own businesses and work on cars (my brother). I know people who make a lot of money selling things (my other brother). The brother who sells things (oil rigs now) has his own plane and flies from Texas to Alabama every other Friday to tailgate at his kid's college football games. Guess what. Both those guys have plenty of money, they never screwed anybody out of anything, and neither one even has a college degree.

Here's a true story.

I was at the Mall once with my little brothers when they were maybe 10 or 12 years old. I might have been 20. The younger one got caught shoplifting, but the mall security guy didn't turn him in. Guy said he knew my old man, and just make sure the kid stayed out of trouble. White privilege? Maybe. My dad had a lot of friends, and many of them were NOT white.

When we were alone I got right in my little brother's face. I told him our family name meant something. It was honorable. And that we didn't have to steal, because we knew how to make money so we could buy whatever we wanted. I told him if he saw something he just had to have and couldn't pay for...... to come to me, and we'd figure out a way to get it. And I meant it.

He's probably worth 10 million bucks, and we grew up in a fucking trailer. I KNOW how hard it is.

Nobody, especially not RE, is gonna talk shit to me about money or the rules of money. I went the school of hard fuckin' knocks. I know what I know, and I don't take shit off half-ass people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

• Tweet