O/T:- Trump Presidency 2.0 [hic sunt dracones]

[BigFatPie]

Zuckerberg did advance the field of social media massively. Bezos pioneered online retail and maintained it in the fact of ridicule in the early days. Musk brought electric motor vehicles back into the mainstream.

And all of them made mistakes. Musk appears to be an insufferable git of epic proportions.

But I ask, what is the alternative? Do you advocate total wealth equality? Everyone has to have the same income and assets? Who decides what businesses invest in? Who decides who runs the businesses? Some government board? I think the results would be far worse.

For all its faults, free market capitalism does operate more as a meritocracy than any bureaucracy or democracy I've ever witnessed. Of course there's the problem of inherited wealth and I think you could argue that doing away with that would be of benefit.

There?s no doubt those three gentlemen have done things that benefit us all in the process of acquiring their wealth, but that?s not what you originally proposed. What have they done with the wealth they?ve acquired? I suppose some my say Musk has somewhat stepped into the void that has been left by US governments refusing to fund space exploration to the tune that they did, and the starlink program is good, but whether they?re done for altruistic purposes or whether that matters is another question.

No I?m by no means advocating total wealth equality, far from it. But the historic gains we made during the course of the 20th century in partially levelling up to use that awful phrase are in danger of being totally lost by unchecked capitalism, if they haven?t already done so. It will take brave politicians to grasp the nettle, and we?ve already seen the pushback even to the very modest proposals made by Starmer?s government, I?m not sure if he has the stomach to go further. People are easily seduced by demagoguery and easy solutions, and wealth is fantastically efficient at protecting wealth.

[Jampie]

There?s no doubt those three gentlemen have done things that benefit us all in the process of acquiring their wealth, but that?s not what you originally proposed. What have they done with the wealth they?ve acquired? I suppose some my say Musk has somewhat stepped into the void that has been left by US governments refusing to fund space exploration to the tune that they did, and the starlink program is good, but whether they?re done for altruistic purposes or whether that matters is another question.

That is what they did with their wealth. Musk made his money with Paypal (itself a great innovation) and rolled that into Tesla where he made most of his money. Starlink and spacex etc are also what he did with his money. Admittedly he also spaffed a bunch up the wall buying Twitter and running it into the ground, but AFAIK this too was a public service. If he could just take out Tiktok too that would be great.

Amazon employs 1.6 million people. That's a bit more than I do. Bezos doing his bit. Sure conditions could be better, but I refer back to worker's bargaining power being eroded etc.

META only has 67k employees apparently but that's still a lot of jobs. Facebook also did a bunch of cutting edge stuff with web tech that we're still using to this day. In fact, we're using it right now to communicate on this forum.

These guys also do things with their wealth I don't approve of, of course. Superyachts and the like. But, that's the problem with freedom. People do things I don't like. I have to accept it, so long as they aren't harming anyone. These guys didn't steal their wealth, they built it. They inherited a bunch first tho of course. Still, if you want to point to evil capitalists they're pretty bad examples. Of course, the good examples stay in the shadows as much as they can while these poor fools tapdance in the spotlight 24x7. Well musk does, anyway.

No I?m by no means advocating total wealth equality, far from it. But the historic gains we made during the course of the 20th century in partially levelling up to use that awful phrase are in danger of being totally lost by unchecked capitalism, if they haven?t already done so. It will take brave politicians to grasp the nettle, and we?ve already seen the pushback even to the very modest proposals made by Starmer?s government, I?m not sure if he has the stomach to go further. People are easily seduced by demagoguery and easy solutions, and wealth is fantastically efficient at protecting wealth.

I feel like we're on the same page here except I don't follow UK politics at all so this is kinda greek to me. Everyone should pay tax, wealthier people should pay more (%) than poorer. No issues with what you're saying I don't think. Democratically elected governments need to be stronger than corporations and stay stronger. People need to see through the BS and propaganda spewed at them by media corps and actually vote in their interests.

IMO free market capitalism benefits from strong regulation. Markets with no regulation result in criminal cabals running things and don't benefit anyone in the long run.

[BigFatPie]

That is what they did with their wealth. Musk made his money with Paypal (itself a great innovation) and rolled that into Tesla where he made most of his money. Starlink and spacex etc are also what he did with his money. Admittedly he also spaffed a bunch up the wall buying Twitter and running it into the ground, but AFAIK this too was a public service. If he could just take out Tiktok too that would be great.

Amazon employs 1.6 million people. That's a bit more than I do. Bezos doing his bit. Sure conditions could be better, but I refer back to worker's bargaining power being eroded etc.

META only has 67k employees apparently but that's still a lot of jobs. Facebook also did a bunch of cutting edge stuff with web tech that we're still using to this day. In fact, we're using it right now to communicate on this forum.

These guys also do things with their wealth I don't approve of, of course. Superyachts and the like. But, that's the problem with freedom. People do things I don't like. I have to accept it, so long as they aren't harming anyone. These guys didn't steal their wealth, they built it. They inherited a bunch first tho of course. Still, if you want to point to evil capitalists they're pretty bad examples. Of course, the good examples stay in the shadows as much as they can while these poor fools tapdance in the spotlight 24x7. Well musk does, anyway.



I feel like we're on the same page here except I don't follow UK politics at all so this is kinda greek to me. Everyone should pay tax, wealthier people should pay more (%) than poorer. No issues with what you're saying I don't think. Democratically elected governments need to be stronger than corporations and stay stronger. People need to see through the BS and propaganda spewed at them by media corps and actually vote in their interests.

IMO free market capitalism benefits from strong regulation. Markets with no regulation result in criminal cabals running things and don't benefit anyone in the long run.

The newish internet companies were great opportunities with their economies of scale and lower overheads to radically improve the working conditions of the people they employ. I don?t know enough about Meta to comment, but I know working at an Amazon warehouse is generally appalling. There?s a really good piece on how they?re a case study in union busting tactics here;

https://www.ier.org.uk/comments/trad...nd-a-new-deal/

Very relevant to your comment about the erosion of worker?s rights. In a fairer society Bezos and others like him would be initially taxed at a requisite level and then be held to much higher standards on the rights of the people they employ before they become billionaires.

[BigFatPie]

I

Don't agree about inherited wealth though. A big part of the motivation for me to save money and build wealth is so that I can pass it on to my kids. It's my money, so it's their money, not the state's.

I 100% understand the notion of wanting to leave stuff to your kids. At the end of the of the day though, the vast majority of inherited wealth is unearned property wealth, a happy co-incidence of being able to buy a house at a good time and sitting back watching its value grow. I got on the ladder aged 27 with a 110% mortgage. Many young people will now never be in that situation, at least partially due to housing being concentrated in ever fewer hands, and inherited wealth reinforces that inequality.

Inheritance tax is deeply unpopular, even amongst people whose estate will never pay any, but it’s interesting that even after 14 years the Tories never got rid of it. The current system certainly needs reforming, but it’s a very fair method of redistributing wealth.

[Med Pie]

I 100% understand the notion of wanting to leave stuff to your kids. At the end of the of the day though, the vast majority of inherited wealth is unearned property wealth, a happy co-incidence of being able to buy a house at a good time and sitting back watching its value grow. I got on the ladder aged 27 with a 110% mortgage. Many young people will now never be in that situation, at least partially due to housing being concentrated in ever fewer hands, and inherited wealth reinforces that inequality.

Inheritance tax is deeply unpopular, even amongst people whose estate will never pay any, but it?’s interesting that even after 14 years the Tories never got rid of it. The current system certainly needs reforming, but it?’s a very fair method of redistributing wealth.

This fixation with owning property is relatively recent, very few, working class people owned property when I was growing up, in fact, I can only think of two, of my contemporaries whose parents owned their house. When I bought my first house, I was paying 15% interest on the loan so it wasn't as easy as some of you seem to think it was.

Many people only got on the property ladder when Thatcher started giving council houses away for almost nothing, depending on how long you'd lived there.

One of the reasons for the crazy rise in house prices, is the massive, increase in population which hasn't been matched by house building. The fact that some people were lucky enough to have been alive when opportunity knocked, seems to be a constant source of revulsion and jealousy to some here.

[Old_pie]

This fixation with owning property is relatively recent, very few, working class people owned property when I was growing up, in fact, I can only think of two, of my contemporaries whose parents owned their house. When I bought my first house, I was paying 15% interest on the loan so it wasn't as easy as some of you seem to think it was.

Really? I seem to remember quite a few working class people aspiring to their own property from after the post-war years. Every other house in our 1950s council estate was privately owned by the time I left there in the mid-60s. It was easy to tell in those days because all of the council houses had the same colour scheme (green IIRC), and of course every privately owned house was painted any colour other than green. I did the newspaper rounds so I became reasonably familiar with the housing.

[Med Pie]

Really? I seem to remember quite a few working class people aspiring to their own property from after the post-war years. Every other house in our 1950s council estate was privately owned by the time I left there in the mid-60s. It was easy to tell in those days because all of the council houses had the same colour scheme (green IIRC), and of course every privately owned house was painted any colour other than green. I did the newspaper rounds so I became reasonably familiar with the housing.

You clearly lived in a more affluent place than me, in the early 60's, I'd struggle to know anybody who owned their own house and growing up in Aspley, that percentage would be less that 1%. I'm wracking my brain now and genuinely, cannot recall a single house in my area, which I could identify as privately owned.

There were obviously the privately built homes such as those on e.g Bagnall Lane or Robinswood Drive but cross Aspley Lane and they were all, council houses and it was a very large area, over to Strelley, Broxtowe Lane and Bells Lane, all the way down to Nuthall Rd. This is without mentioning Basford, Balloon Woods or Blenheim flats, all gone now of course. We moved in to a brand new, council house as late as 1974 in Bulwell, my parents bought their first house in 1978.

[Old_pie]

You clearly lived in a more affluent place than me, in the early 60's, I'd struggle to know anybody who owned their own house and growing up in Aspley, that percentage would be less that 1%. I'm wracking my brain now and genuinely, cannot recall a single house in my area, which I could identify as privately owned.

You may be right - one of the large Hucknall estates compared to Aspley! Maybe it was the decade difference.

[BigFatPie]

This fixation with owning property is relatively recent, very few, working class people owned property when I was growing up, in fact, I can only think of two, of my contemporaries whose parents owned their house. When I bought my first house, I was paying 15% interest on the loan so it wasn't as easy as some of you seem to think it was.

Many people only got on the property ladder when Thatcher started giving council houses away for almost nothing, depending on how long you'd lived there.

One of the reasons for the crazy rise in house prices, is the massive, increase in population which hasn't been matched by house building. The fact that some people were lucky enough to have been alive when opportunity knocked, seems to be a constant source of revulsion and jealousy to some here.

Right to buy wasn?t a massively bad policy, and it?s one I would have taken advantage of if I?d have been old enough. The problem was that didn?t build nearly enough houses to replace the stock lost to the private sector, and they didn?t put big enough restrictions on selling them on.

[Lullapie]

One of the reasons for the crazy rise in house prices, is the massive, increase in population which hasn't been matched by house building.

The fact that some people were lucky enough to have been alive when opportunity knocked, seems to be a constant source of revulsion and jealousy to some here.

Another accelerant to high house prices is the availability of cheap money. Before I bought my first house, it was nearly impossible to get a mortgage (indeed credit of any kind). Then as the years have gone on, every mailer is an attempt to lend people more money.

I remember having to struggle to get my first mortgage because I was a business owner, plus being 22 years old didn't help either. There were no self-certificating mortgages then.

When my girlfriend (now wife) and I eventually managed to get a mortgage, the interest rates were really high. It was a form of financial slavery, but if you wanted to get on in life, the first thing to do was to buy your own bit of the world.

I was made to sign up for an endowment mortgage at 16 and had three, by the time I bought my first house. The Co-Op insurance salesman must have loved coming around our house.

Cheap money is the root of many evils. Some people can handle it and indeed flourish with the availability of it, but the vast majority struggle and never really manage to unlock the shackles. We were never taught at school about financial responsibility and only by making mistakes or being lucky and having people close to you to educate you on personal finance, do we come to terms with it.