Forum Overview :: Motherfucking News :: Re: Fine

[quote name="ydrt"][quote name="Senor Barborito"][quote name="FABIO"][quote name="Senor Barborito"] Of <i>course</i> it does nobody any harm the Bill Gates is wealthy, that much is obvious. But if his wealth was reduced 99% and that 99% redistributed to <b>working</b> Americans below the poverty line relative to how far below the poverty line they are, he'd still have half a billion dollars and millions of people who cannot otherwise support themselves despite contributing to society would be able to do so. Stripped of example: it does nobody anybody harm for one to be rich, but it does many good for one to be substantially less rich.[/quote] Everyone who has taken intro to Economics is laughing at you.[/quote] I've taken into to econ. I'm not laughing. Perhaps you'd care to explain why you are? --SB[/quote] Unless you instigate some sort of social modification program along with your wealth distribution, what becomes the incentive to make wealth and do well any more? In the long run you'd wind up with a huge black market and a lot more commercial and industrial corruption. Let's say we have a group of three people, INC, ydrt, and George Broussard. Let's also say that right now INC makes seven delicious apple pies every day and ydrt and tubby only make one each day. This plainly is not fair, so Chairman Barborito comes along taking four of INC's pies and gives two to me and Broussard. INC is now pissed the fuck off and decides that if he's only going to get three pies anyway, he's only going to make three and spend the rest of the day trolling internet forums. CB is bewildered but still determined to make certain that tubs and I get our fair share of pie and now everyone is down to 1 2/3 of a pie. Now if we cut off the experiment here we can see that we have two people happier than before and one less happy so the situation appears to be better. The only problem is that this spiral of laziness will likely continue to descend the entire pie-eating community into famine, especially if Georgie figures out that he might be able to get some pie even if he doesn't make any pies of his own. Can you argue that such a situation (or one very similar to it) wouldn't happen if you take a whole lot of the rich people's bling bling? Is it any wonder that it's the super-rich who spend the most on tax accountants? Obviously not everyone is as evil or lazy as INC or George Broussard, but I think this example points the way toward how a large degree of wealth distribution creates more problems than it solves. Secondly, I'd like to challenge your assumption that the many would be that much better off with the extra wealth. Once you get past having decent living conditions and medical treatment are rich people really that much happier? I for one think universal health care should be a program we institute in some minimal level here in the U.S., but that's a different discussion. Don't get me wrong, I think that unions, environmental and other public and special interest groups have a huge place in our society. The role of the business sector is primarily to earn the most profit over the short run. The role of the government (being prodded by the unions and environmentalists) is to make sure that outside short-term and long-term consequences of reaching those profits are either paid for or taken into consideration. [/quote]