Billionaires should (not) exist?

[djm]

I guess my main objection to the idea of billionaires not existing is the personal limitation it places. Whilst it is unlikely I personally would ever get to billionaire status, it is by no means impossible. And at the very least I think I should be able to get to >$100m. I do not think it is right to cap peoples ambitions. i might very well end up penniless, but I at least wish to have the agency to try not to.

[Buttrock as zen]

I guess my main objection to the idea of billionaires not existing is the personal limitation it places. Whilst it is unlikely I personally would ever get to billionaire status, it is by no means impossible. And at the very least I think I should be able to get to >$100m. I do not think it is right to cap peoples ambitions. i might very well end up penniless, but I at least wish to have the agency to try not to.

No doubt, I feel at least a version of what you feel, although my "number" is a bit lower. I can't help but to believe it's a perversion of what my natural desires and ambitions would be given something like a post-scarcity society.

Also- is it beneficial to society that everyone be made to feel the same ambition at the threat of the humiliation of poverty and misery? My life, even though I've made six figures for a decent stretch, is a constant war against the anxiety of ending up homeless. It makes me stingy and calloused. I don't think this anxiety, or the attitudes it engenders, is unique to me.

[starla]

No doubt, I feel at least a version of what you feel, although my "number" is a bit lower. I can't help but to believe it's a perversion of what my natural desires and ambitions would be given something like a post-scarcity society.

Also- is it beneficial to society that everyone be made to feel the same ambition at the threat of the humiliation of poverty and misery? My life, even though I've made six figures for a decent stretch, is a constant war against the anxiety of ending up homeless. It makes me stingy and calloused. I don't think this anxiety, or the attitudes it engenders, is unique to me.

Indeed. I continue to hoard money well beyond what I need to cover my living expenses because wealth is the only safety net available to Americans, and we have to build it ourselves. It did take a lot of introspection for me to come to this realization. I used to think I was pursuing wealth because I wanted to be wealthy, but really I have little interest in luxury, I just want to be secure, and things like universal health care and social security which actually covers living expenses would get me there probably for a lot less in taxes than what I'm saving and with more certainty. Perhaps djm will one day become a millionaire, but in the meantime he doesn't worry about getting thrown into a hole from which he could not recover due to having a health crisis while self-employed.

BTW, taxes don't cap your ambitions, unless your ambition is to just collect as much money as possible. You can still have a whole lot of impact on the world even if you don't get rich in the process.

[Catoptric]

I was posting a response to a "strong, independent men are a threat to the power structure" and I boiled the comment down to, collectivism will perpetuate a society that rewards tolerance for more organized power structures, which by design must rely on agreeableness and passive obsequiousness.

Society will always devour itself from within, just as it adapts to changes that fulfill the existing system in place, for which it must adapt. Any ontological framework that reiterates that dichotomy of "what works" can only benefit the society that seeks to identify with those desires, to collectively benefit it.

How often does vicarious attachment to belief get selected in perpetuity? What music or entertainment develops out of the need for people to identify with those characters or entertainers, and is it not an echo-chamber of self-serving co-commital, ego-syntonic ideation?

When using Facebook does it not become a filter screening for what gets allowed into 'feed' and what social identity you are a part of, much as people whittle away at the facets of social media, a constant bias of culture and beliefs get's alotted to the days jaunt.

In the same way, society has assumed that collective identity is more important than dominant independent ones (the quote, attributed to Einstein, comes to mind, “Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly,") and that by favoring pathos thinking and reiterating populist appeal, it becomes an echo chamber of repressed ennui that plays into the "reward" framework of what people are conditioned to tolerate and accept as the existing (currently popular consensus) "reality."

It shouldn't be dismissed that society has made great strides in trying to balance the social ladder (and don't let it be forgotten that the Abolitionist movement was being pushed by white male Abolitionists who shunned away the female members, who were segregated; eventually culminating in the women's movement,) and in so doing has created a more "equal" but incredibly slanted "unequal" society, where as society decides it must become more organized and less compacted, in creating bigger infrastructure and "tolerance" far more have SIGNIFICANTLY MORE, and far more have increasingly dwindled and stilted unequal outcome, with very little promise of anything outside of that unless you then bow down to the conventional tugboat of social malaise (the feedback loop of social problems makes people tied to a "fight or flight" response, unable to break away from the emotional trauma collectively spawned from the inordinate issues that are repeated over-and-over again through various outlets, so society remains in an arrested development stage where people are unable to escape the "traditional life," and keep the system going while throwing away what might otherwise be a more functional society that didn't have to obsess about things that distract us both with and away from the dysfunction.)

What is happening is things are becoming more automated and rewarding a consumer-based society, which has very little need for what are perceived to be the detritus of the "civilized world," where agreeableness and tolerance for unconventional and populist thinking can then cause people go cling to the bread and circus so as to get rewarded. Out of it people expect some recompense, and unless people are agreeable to the status-quo, they will find themselves without any bread, and just a circus to watch as it continues to devour the performers.

[djm]

No doubt, I feel at least a version of what you feel, although my "number" is a bit lower. I can't help but to believe it's a perversion of what my natural desires and ambitions would be given something like a post-scarcity society.

Also- is it beneficial to society that everyone be made to feel the same ambition at the threat of the humiliation of poverty and misery? My life, even though I've made six figures for a decent stretch, is a constant war against the anxiety of ending up homeless. It makes me stingy and calloused. I don't think this anxiety, or the attitudes it engenders, is unique to me.

Indeed. I continue to hoard money well beyond what I need to cover my living expenses because wealth is the only safety net available to Americans, and we have to build it ourselves. It did take a lot of introspection for me to come to this realization. I used to think I was pursuing wealth because I wanted to be wealthy, but really I have little interest in luxury, I just want to be secure, and things like universal health care and social security which actually covers living expenses would get me there probably for a lot less in taxes than what I'm saving and with more certainty. Perhaps djm will one day become a millionaire, but in the meantime he doesn't worry about getting thrown into a hole from which he could not recover due to having a health crisis while self-employed.

BTW, taxes don't cap your ambitions, unless your ambition is to just collect as much money as possible. You can still have a whole lot of impact on the world even if you don't get rich in the process.

Hi Starla.

Lets be clear on this. I have already been a 'paper millionaire in my 30s, when the stock in the company I founded was worth more than $5m and I was earning $200k a year. I was not happy due to lack of control and walked. The net result was my personal stock value went down to less than $500k most of which got lost in the ensuing divorce triggered by it.

In the decade since then I have been close to bankruptcy for most of it, and even now don't have more than a months salary saved and have a pension pot of less than $10k heading into my late 40s. I have had financial security for maybe 5 years of my whole life.

Currently I am on a strong upward curve, but don't have much in the way of financial security. Having said that I turn down several offers a week for my company which would instantly give me more than £10m, and wouldn't entertain selling at that price as would expect to hit $100m turnover inside 10 years.

If I wanted financial security I could have gone to a multinational years ago and earned $300k a year, but I value autonomy and lack of interference in my work higher. I have never cared much about money.

Regards tax not limiting ambition, I disagree. When I got divorced I was saddled with >25% pre tax child support, plus 40% income tax, plus national insurance. Meaning I was taking home less than a quarter of earnings which is tantamount to slavery. I really struggled. At that point it was not worth paying myself much, indeed I am not even in the tope half of earners in my own business! This is not very motivating.

My motivation for continuing to build a business under this constriction was purely intellectual and social as I believe my work could cahnge the world positively. I will plough over $50m into my own research over the next decade, which is far more than I will get close to paying out to myself. However I would be surprised if in doing this my net worth did not hit a fairly high bar regards asset value. Of course as you correctly pointed out in an earlier post, illiquid assets are not the honeypot people think they are.

However for many take away the fiscal advantage and why would they slog their guts out for 30 years to gain no appreciable difference over their neighbour. Every billionaire in the west has contributed more to society through tax than they have made for themselves. It matters not one jot wether they were worth it, it is still a net gain for society.

[jyng1]

I guess my main objection to the idea of billionaires not existing is the personal limitation it places. Whilst it is unlikely I personally would ever get to billionaire status, it is by no means impossible. And at the very least I think I should be able to get to >$100m. I do not think it is right to cap peoples ambitions. i might very well end up penniless, but I at least wish to have the agency to try not to.

Restricting how many billions a single person can hoard is more about not restricting everyone else's ambitions.

We're mainly talking about the couple of hundred 0.01 percenters that have as much money as half the world's population.

[djm]

We're mainly talking about the couple of hundred 0.01 percenters that have as much money as half the world's population.

Nietzche puts this better than I can in Thus spoke Zarathustra:

'Alas! The time of the most contemptible man is coming, the man who can no longer despise himself. Behold! I show you The Ultimate Man. "What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" – asks the Ultimate Man and blinks. The earth has then become small and on it there hops the Ultimate Man who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the Ultimate Man lives longest. "We have discovered happiness"— say the Ultimate Men and blink. They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loves one’s neighbour and rubs again him; for one needs warmth. Sickness and mistrust they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbles over stones or over men! A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And a lot of poison at the end for a pleasant death. One still works for work is a pastime. But they take care that this pastime does not weary them. No-one becomes poor or rich anymore; both are too wearying. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both are too much of a burden. No herdsman and one herd! Everyone wants the same, everyone is the same: whoever thinks otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse. "Before, the whole world was mad"— say the cleverest amongst them and blink. They are clever and know all that has ever happened: so there is no end to their mockery. People still quarrel, but are soon reconciled— otherwise indigestion would result. They have their little pleasures for the day and their little pleasures for the night: but they respect health. "We have discovered happiness "— say the Ultimate Men and blink. And here ended the first discourse of Zarathustra which is also called "The Prologue": for at this point the shouting and mirth of the crowd interrupted him. "Give us this Ultimate Man, O Zarathustra "– they shouted— "make us this Ultimate Man! You can keep the Superman!" And all the people cheered and shouted.'

[Catoptric]

$ASS Coin Billionaire: Tales From the Fringe of the Crypto Craze
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... u6m_V7BW4M

It's technically possible to be a billionaire. . . And not.

[starjots]

We're mainly talking about the couple of hundred 0.01 percenters that have as much money as half the world's population.

Nietzche puts this better than I can in Thus spoke Zarathustra:

'Alas! The time of the most contemptible man is coming, the man who can no longer despise himself. Behold! I show you The Ultimate Man. "What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" – asks the Ultimate Man and blinks. The earth has then become small and on it there hops the Ultimate Man who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the Ultimate Man lives longest. "We have discovered happiness"— say the Ultimate Men and blink. They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loves one’s neighbour and rubs again him; for one needs warmth. Sickness and mistrust they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbles over stones or over men! A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And a lot of poison at the end for a pleasant death. One still works for work is a pastime. But they take care that this pastime does not weary them. No-one becomes poor or rich anymore; both are too wearying. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both are too much of a burden. No herdsman and one herd! Everyone wants the same, everyone is the same: whoever thinks otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse. "Before, the whole world was mad"— say the cleverest amongst them and blink. They are clever and know all that has ever happened: so there is no end to their mockery. People still quarrel, but are soon reconciled— otherwise indigestion would result. They have their little pleasures for the day and their little pleasures for the night: but they respect health. "We have discovered happiness "— say the Ultimate Men and blink. And here ended the first discourse of Zarathustra which is also called "The Prologue": for at this point the shouting and mirth of the crowd interrupted him. "Give us this Ultimate Man, O Zarathustra "– they shouted— "make us this Ultimate Man! You can keep the Superman!" And all the people cheered and shouted.'

Yea, I probably resemble that quote.

As a non-sequitur counterpoint, I present the Gamestop stock story. One of my kids explained it to me thus. Once upon a time, on some reddit group in a galaxy far far away, a fellow noticed a hedge fund manipulating the price of Game Stop stock downward. The masses on the group (1 million members initially) took up a 'buy and hold' on the stock, causing the hedge fund to lose massive amounts of money.

The billionaires cried, because the little people weren't supposed to play the manipulation game, for their will was scattered even though their money was in aggregate great. When the owner of the reddit group was chastised for manipulating the stock price, he pointed out the hedge fund did it all the time.

I asked, why didn't the hedge fund people walk away? Leave Game Stop and find another stock to manipulate and make millions on?

He said, they can't let the little guy win. They have to demoralize them, and make them return to believing themselves helpless. Otherwise, all the little guys may find other times to group together and defend themselves against the depredations of the very wealthy.

Now I said, well, fuck hedge funds, those people are parasites. Actually I said this early in his story. But hedge funders aren't the only parasites in the system.

[Utisz]

Yea, I probably resemble that quote.

As a non-sequitur counterpoint, I present the Gamestop stock story. One of my kids explained it to me thus. Once upon a time, on some reddit group in a galaxy far far away, a fellow noticed a hedge fund manipulating the price of Game Stop stock downward. The masses on the group (1 million members initially) took up a 'buy and hold' on the stock, causing the hedge fund to lose massive amounts of money.

The billionaires cried, because the little people weren't supposed to play the manipulation game, for their will was scattered even though their money was in aggregate great. When the owner of the reddit group was chastised for manipulating the stock price, he pointed out the hedge fund did it all the time.

I asked, why didn't the hedge fund people walk away? Leave Game Stop and find another stock to manipulate and make millions on?

He said, they can't let the little guy win. They have to demoralize them, and make them return to believing themselves helpless. Otherwise, all the little guys may find other times to group together and defend themselves against the depredations of the very wealthy.

Now I said, well, fuck hedge funds, those people are parasites. Actually I said this early in his story. But hedge funders aren't the only parasites in the system.

That's pretty accurate. The Reddit folk played the game how the Wall Street types play it, and the Wall Street guys didn't like it.