General Discussion

kentuck

(111,110 posts) Mon Oct 7, 2013, 01:42 PM Oct 2013

Billionaires should be banned in order to save capitalism

Capitalism has a built-in mechanism that assures its own destruction. That is that wealth always concentrates at the top. It is like a gambling establishment - the house always wins.

The top 1% has more wealth than ever in the history of the world. There are more billionaires than ever in history.

Who needs more than a billion dollars? That wealth needs to be put back into our economy in a productive way. When 4 families have as much wealth as half our entire country, something is very awry.

Capitalism is destroying itself. We need to end the vast accumulations of weath if we want to survive as a capitalist country. We are well on our way to this end.

4 replies

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Highlight:

Billionaires should be banned in order to save capitalism (Original Post) kentuck Oct 2013 OP

All on board with that. NuclearDem Oct 2013 #1

How many of today's billionaires were descended from billionaires? FreeJoe Oct 2013 #2

I would wager most... ElboRuum Oct 2013 #4

Civilization accumulates resources into the hands of a single species The2ndWheel Oct 2013 #3

NuclearDem

(16,184 posts)

1. All on board with that.

Reply to kentuck (Original post)

Mon Oct 7, 2013, 01:44 PM

Oct 2013

Hoarding millions of dollars does absolutely nothing to help the economy.

FreeJoe

(1,039 posts)

2. How many of today's billionaires were descended from billionaires?

Reply to kentuck (Original post)

Mon Oct 7, 2013, 01:46 PM

Oct 2013

It's not an area I've studied much, but I thought that a lot of the old super-rich (Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Rockefellers) were now just the regular rich and that most of today's super rich (Gates, Buffett, Ellison) were barely rich when they started. I have great faith in the ability of children and grand-children to squander their inheritances.

ElboRuum

(4,717 posts)

4. I would wager most...

Reply to FreeJoe (Reply #2)

Mon Oct 7, 2013, 01:57 PM

Oct 2013

Consider the amount that a billion is.

$1,000,000,000.00.

That's nine zeroes to the left of the decimal. Now consider your average paycheck size. Divide that amount into the above number and that is the number of pay periods you would have to work to achieve earning a billion dollars... Chances are good that this number exceeds even the greatest expectation of the human lifespan by at least 1 or 2 orders of magnitude.

Even people amassing a billion from company ownership are rare. Sure, your tech giants like Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg managed, but largely, even in fertile tech territory billionaires are exceedingly rare. So where do all the billionaires come from? Billionaire parents.

The2ndWheel

(7,947 posts)

3. Civilization accumulates resources into the hands of a single species

Reply to kentuck (Original post)

Mon Oct 7, 2013, 01:55 PM

Oct 2013

Billionaires want to let go of their money as much as humanity wants to give up civilization.

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