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Money Hoarding

The CEO of a very successful hip hop record label just finished building himself the biggest house in South Florida. His name is Ronald Slim Williams and he’s worth an estimated 300 million. I read an article where he talks about his success and at the end of that article he says hard work does pay off and if people are willing to work hard they can have the same kind of wealth and success he has. I understand the need to inspire people, especially young African-Americans, but I take issue with the idea that his wealth (and anyone else at his level) is a result of hard work. The super wealthy are always dangling this proverbial carrot in front of the less fortunate even though they know it’s a lie. That kind of wealth has absolutely nothing to do with hard work. More than anything it’s a result of pure luck, being in the right place at the right time, or being born into a family with wealth. I’m sure he works hard and he seems to have a very good mind for business and I know he’s very well versed in the workings of the music industry. All of that is a talent and I recognize that, so I’m not saying this to take anything away from him. All I’m saying is there are a million other people with those same talents who has worked just as hard but all of that didn’t produce hundreds of millions of dollars for them.

Birdman and Slim Money Hoarding

Baby & Slim Williams owners of Cash Money

The chances of someone becoming that wealthy is 1 in a billion. Less than 1% of this country holds this kind of wealth and over the last two decades the super wealthy have actively pushed legislation that makes sure no one else has opportunities to build wealth, and are currently blocking avenues for the poor to lift themselves out of poverty. I’m not saying that Slim is doing this but I look at it like this, if someone with his power, influence, and political access stays silent while benefiting from the system that creates wealth inequality, they are just as responsible as the people who are marshaling their resources to rig the system in their favor (Koch Brothers, Art Pope, Sheldon Adelson etc are money hoarding pros).

Here’s something that a lot of people don’t understand. For every person who’s worth 9 figures and up (100,000,000+), they aren’t doing anything with their money. 99% of what they spend is money from tax breaks, capital investments, and bank interest. They don’t have to touch a dime of their money because that’s the way the system they created works. Essentially they are hoarders of wealth. It sits in a bank making them richer with interest. Our financial system creates a finite amount of money. In order for mega millionaires and billionaires to exist, there has to be extreme poverty. Children have to starve. Families have to be homeless. To put it in simpler terms lets say I created my own world and named it “Socurb”. In Socurb I print out 100 dollars and that’s all the money in my fictitious world. Socurb has a population of 11 people (including myself). I can distribute that 100 dollars anyway I’d like. So let’s say I decide to keep 99 dollars for myself and let the other 10 inhabitants divide the rest among themselves.

Slim's House in Miami Money Hoarding

Slim Williams House

As long I sit on my 99 dollars no one else has an opportunity to get anywhere close to my kind of wealth, and in order for me to keep my wealth I know some of the inhabitants will starve, some will decide to use force or violence to steal money from other inhabitants, and every other negative outcome that poverty produces will occur. My wealth will protect me because I can afford security and my house will be very far away from the poor people. So any crimes committed will most likely be poor people stealing from other poor people. If I see all of this going on as a result of my wealth hording and continue to hoard my wealth, what kind of person does that make me?

I believe we should look at wealth inequality as a moral issue because that’s exactly what it is. It’s completely amoral for anyone to aspire to be a billionaire. Every single person who obtains great wealth and parks it in a bank or somewhere offshore is without question amoral and is personally responsible for every child who goes to bed hungry every night, for every homeless person they pass on the street, for every death that occurs as a result of a treatable disease, every inner-city neighborhood where crime flourishes and hopelessness abounds, for every dehumanizing hoop we make the poor jump through to receive any kind of assistance. That is the cost of their wealth. So this blog is not about envy.Vulture chart of Income Disparity evidence of Money Hoarding I do not envy billionaires and I have no interest in obtaining that kind of wealth. I could not enjoy the perks of that lifestyle knowing that my money is drenched in blood. I couldn’t live with that on my conscience. Of course I’d love to be rich and I’m not knocking rich people at all. There’s a huge difference between rich and wealthy. 7 or 8 figures is rich and is a sign of a healthy meritorious financial system. Those who are creating new technology, or finding cures for disease deserve a bigger piece of the financial pie. But when a system creates consolidated wealth and distributes it to a few, that is the sign of a very unhealthy system. The larger that gap grows, the more instability and restlessness you’ll see among the 99%.

 

VOTE NOVEMBER 4
Just in case I don’t get a chance to write another blog before the coming election this week (November 4), I want to remind everyone to VOTE! This is the most important thing you’ll ever do this year because if republicans win a majority in the Senate the first thing they’ll do is start impeachment hearings to remove President Obama, and continue their crusade to stop minorities from voting. THIS ELECTION IS IMPORTANT so do the right thing and VOTE!

 

Proud supporter of Kay Hagan for North Carolina Senate. She represents the constituents of North Carolina with integrity and I believe she has earned another term in office.

 

 

Economic Incest

Socially Urban Blog

As surely as rape is about power, not sex, income inequality is about power, not money. Forcing women to have babies against their will is about power, not babies. Forcing women to have babies even if it endangers the mother is about absolute power. Controlling who can vote and who cannot is about power, not political ideals. And forcing hungry people to starve is about about power, not tax dollars. Perhaps that was the allure and the ongoing attraction from  racists regarding African Americans. Whites had power, and even the most down-trodden, poor white racist in 1860 “thought” he was better than the best black man. The KKK continued this abomination for power, nothing else.  Power over someone else…to do as you please, when you please, regardless of the pain it causes someone else. But for today at least, I’ll stick to the economic aspect of income inequality if for no other reason but to keep my blood from boiling over at the inane stupidity, hatred and fear that drives the Tbagger faithful to be blind to the fact that a handful of the economic elite are using them as human shields in the same way cowardly dictators use civilians in times of war.  The Koch Brothers and ALEC already have more money than they could ever spend in ten lifetimes, but what they want is power, because if you can buy anything you want material things lose their allure and the only thrill left is obtaining ever more power. They are economic terrorists using the hatred and a few choice causes that they could actually care less about (see 2nd Amendment “rights”) to effectuate their obsession with power. A new Census Bureau report released recently showed that since 2009 economic gains have accumulated to only the top 5 percent of households in the U.S.; the other 95 percent have gained virtually nothing; poverty remains high and income  inequality has worsened. Yet libertarians still don’t understand that they’re next, or if they do, they simply don’t see light through that haze of hate that clouds their judgement and magnifies their inability to see the big picture. So, the meaningful question remains, does inequality matter in the overall economics of the United States or is it simply another liberal whining point? Is our desire for equality good economics or does it stand in the way of creativity, hard work and overall economic rewards for the entire population? Economists have debated, written and proselytized about this for more than 200 years. Adam Smith, that premier proponent of the free market meme, saw the political danger of inequality, and expressed it succinctly: “Wealth is power, as Mr. Hobbes says.” John Maynard Keynes, the bane of every libertarian’s xenophobic existence, wrote of the Victorian era: “It was precisely the inequality of the distribution of wealth which made possible those vast accumulations of fixed wealth and of capital improvements which distinguished that age from all others.” Even Thomas Jefferson, the darling of so-called libertarians (often referred to as“Lazy Marxists”)and Tea Party “Patriots” alike, had this to say regarding income inequality: “Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation.  If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment, but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.” On the other hand, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that inequality is the force behind technical advance. According to Schumpeter, progress is a lottery. And if the prizes are really big, more people will try to win them.  Of course, many will try and fail, but many new advances will be the result. So tell me succinctly, so that I can understand, “Why have there been no libertarian countries…..EVER?” The Effects of Increasing Inequality faded during most of the 20th century, to Schumpeter’s extreme discomfort. But by 1958, even John Kenneth Galbraith could write, “few things are more evident in modern social history than the decline of interest in inequality as an economic issue.” In the 1980s and 1990s, though, inequality shot up and renewed interest in the condition revitalized. The political atmosphere leading up to the 2008 Bush Economic Meltdown was the result of deregulation, foolish unfunded wars, the assumption that the banking industry could regulate itself–despite the catastrophic failures of Enron, WorldCom, The Savings and Loan meltdown, and countless other indicators that business could NOT regulate itself any better than Congress can regulate itself–and rising income inequality causing the debate and enmity to escalate. Of course, market outcomes have always been unequal. And to liberals’ irritation, inequality is intensified in good times. In the late 1990s, under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. had four years of full employment, and income inequality hit levels not seen since 1929. The reason is simple: Inequality is driven mainly by capital gains–essentially, the income derived from owning something rather than producing something–stock options and the proceeds of venture capital and initial public offerings, all of which exploded during the information-technology boom. But do more unequal countries, generally, work better? In Europe, “labor market flexibility” has been the mantra of conservative reformers for years. According to them, skilled workers were paid too little and unskilled workers too much. The hypothetical tonic was to weaken unions, cut pensions and reduce state benefits for working people. Recently Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain carried out such “reforms.” To the conservatives dismay and denial, competitiveness didn’t return and unemployment rose. Here are two facts:

  1. First, rich countries are usually more equal than poor ones. For a country to be opulent and technically developed, it must — by definition — have a large and thriving middle class.
  2. Second, inequality and unemployment rise and fall together. If pay gaps are outsized, people will quit low-paying jobs (on farms, for example) and move to factory towns (or technology centers) where the jobs are better — but also more scarce. Those who can’t get the good jobs stay unemployed.

It’s really fairly pretty simple stuff. Also, if wage laws discourage low pay, then businesses innovate more rapidly and productivity increases. Decades ago the Scandinavians grasped this relationship, and since then, those countries have become some of the richest on earth. In short, economics is analogous to human’s blood sugar levels. There’s a healthy range. Within that range, lower is better but too low can be dangerous as well and zero puts you in the morgue with a toe tag as your only accouterment. When inequality rises, the symptoms aren’t necessarily immediate but they are just a deadly. It may not notice it until your brain—or the economy–panics; credit booms feel great. But rising inequality is a sign of a crisis on the horizon. Ignore it at your own, as well as those directly affected, peril. We saw this dynamic in 1930, in 2000 and again in 2008. You can’t eliminate inequality, and we don’t want to. But it should be kept within the “safe” range for everyone’s benefit. The Role of Minimum Wages on the Overall Economy I’ve established that on one hand, we want the lure of large rewards to help drive innovation through investment and entrepreneurial enticement. On the other hand, we need a stable and secure middle class. Are they mutually exclusive or can we have our pie and eat it too? Would raising the minimum hourly wage — let’s say to $12– threaten innovation? Of course it wouldn’t. More money in the middle class means more goods being purchased and less government assistance for those out of work. Neither would a more generous Social Security system, easier terms on student loans or a vigorous public jobs program. Quite the opposite has been proven time and time again. The lure of big rewards isn’t diminished by having to pay a little more in taxes. Realistically, it’s as significant as a gnat on a boar’s butt. Another key, though, is that innovation’s big rewards not fund family empires. The second and third generations never replicate the genius  of the first(see Wal-Mart’s stark deterioration after the passing of Sam Walton). Instead, the descendants go into politics, or become speculators or tax evaders. An effective estate-and-gift tax works to prevent this. With a high rate and a generous exemption or even a full deduction for qualified altruism, those who have won great fortunes will give most of them away to promote themselves or their cause de jeur. We can stomach inequality, in other words, as long as we meet two conditions.

  1. First, there must be a strong, stable foundation for middle-class life with protection from poverty to keep profits and money circulating rather than stagnating in the hands of the few.
  2. Second, great fortunes can pile up but they must have an avenue to be circulated.

In a democracy, no one should rule by inherited wealth — or it’s really not a democracy at all is it?.  – Harvey Gold

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