I've said some stuff. You say some stuff, and then we'll compare. But try not to create a straw man argument based on the virtue of the poor. — unenlightened

?

I'm not trying to bully you. I just wanted to ask a question about how economic growth and the rise of prosperity do fit to the traditional narrative.

In our lifetime we have witnessed the largest expansion of wealth and prosperity and the decline of absolute povetry especially with the rapid historical economic growth in China, but also the growth in South East Asia in general. Also India has made rapid progress.

Yet where do we see this in the discourse about global povetry? Usually nowhere.

There's a lesson in these comparisons:

Do you know that the GDP of China was equivalent of the Netherlands in the 1990's? It actually was and earlier it was far lower as the Chinese really had to fight off the possibility of famine. — ssu

By "fight off possibility of famine", do you mean the great leap forward?

And now the GDP is second to the US. There is no possibility of famine in China. So what happened? Did Bob Geldof save the Chinese? No? — ssu

At least for now.

As for what happened, the US cut a deal with the Chinese to open up their economy so multi-national corporations could employ wage and environmental arbitrage to move union factory jobs from the West to China and produce at a fraction of the cost. In exchange for a stable political climate (i.e. no unions allowed communist China) to carry out the outsourcing, China can control their currency, never be bothered by the West about human rights, and keep developing world status even with the second largest GDP as you mention.

Another key factor is China has burned large amounts of coal to power their growth. So, to reduce things to trade and capitalism "working" to lift up the Chinese peasantry, is not the full picture.

To measure societal progress to begin with, of only one metric of being less vulnerable to famine (for now), reducible to GDP, I don't think is a very good approach. To compare China before and after economic opening, is also a false dichotomy; trade rules that would have avoided, at least, environmental arbitrage would have been easy to implement (that things must be produced to the same environmental standards as would be in the West).

Also, in terms of global perspective, industries were starting to clean up and become more efficient with all the environmental regulations coming online. Had industry been unable to simply sidestep those regulations by outsourcing to China, there would have been much more pressure on efficiency and alternative energies much sooner, and we'd be in a better position vis-a-vis climate change today with less total emissions and a more efficient industrial system (both in terms how things are produced and what things are produced).

In terms of an example of capitalism succeeding, it's not necessarily straightforward task to argue that Communist China is exemplary. Though, I'm not sure that's your intention.

In our lifetime we have witnessed the largest expansion of wealth and prosperity and the decline of absolute poverty especially with the rapid historical economic growth in China, but also the growth in South East Asia in general. Also India has made rapid progress.

Yet where do we see this in the discourse about global poverty? Usually nowhere. — ssu

Pointing to (dollar measured) poverty decreases as the ultimate sign of progress of validation of the global economic system and neoliberal ideology that has been running things for the last decades, seems to me very much the mainstream.

I'd say the most popular author on these issues in mainstream is Steven Pinker who basically argues that everything is fine and dandy, heavily relying on decreases in dollar measured poverty which has been mostly in China, and the naysayers are wrong because naysayers have been wrong in the past. At least in English media. And I'd say most people offering criticism (allowed to talk) in the mainstream will still accept this general framework, and then offer a few worries about sustainability and human rights and some potential tweaks to address those issues. Serious deviation I don't think you will find in the mainstream, US and British media at least.

Criticism of this framework is more widespread in environmental and development aid circles, where the China model is not a desirable system for either humans or the environment; that permanent normalized WTO trade relations with China was a mistake on all fronts.

Prometheus Unchained

Corporate patents steal from inventors, the real creators of wealth. After awhile, geniuses get sick of being Cash Cows for Corporate Cowboys and creativity stops. There have always been concentrations of wealth, but material progress only came with the advancement of science the past few hundred years.

Investment is necessary but not decisive. It's like an ignition key: you can't go anywhere without it, but it's only worth a few dollars. It is not the motor. Therefore Capitalism has nothing to brag about, but it controls the broadcast of brag.

The flip side of that is that it controls the way High IQs are treated, as freaks and social losers. Submitting to this by becoming a nerd is self-destructive; it is an insult to intelligence. Straight-A students must become Alpha Males; only then will they stand up to the King Apes and tame them. They must get at least 50% of the value of corporate patents. With the wealth they created and deserve, they will soon drive out the investors whom we are so foolishly dependent on today.

Socialite Socialism


Marx was an upper-class snob who had nothing but contempt for the proletariat. He married a Patty Hearst type countess and was put under her spell of post-guillotine hereditary power's scheme to take over democratic movements and impose its own Born to Rule tyranny on the workers. Communism is State Capitalism, nothing more than a Capitalist hostile takeover, with the workers screwed either way.

The true revolution should be to abolish all birth privileges, the true source of this evil and fake alternative. No inheritance, no trust funds, no living off an allowance in college. Notice that the university is the cradle of Communism, which proves that it itself is for richkids with "independent incomes."

"Prep school" is short for PREPare for college. Instead, all students should be paid a higher salary than they can expect anywhere else at that age, and free tuition. That will get the most talented, not the bluebloods and their boytoys who represent the student body in this decadent society.

thats a better idea of how things should work than most.

People with money are more likely to have family members who become lawyers and politicians. People who can write laws a certain way (detailed a certain way) can have alot of power in how the economics of a particular society play out. I do think there are practical laws at the state level that could greatly help the poor without raising taxes. I know a guy who has a software based assisted bartering website idea. If it worked it could reduce (keyword reduce) the reliance on money. Many businesses already use some forms of bartering.

Couldn't have said it any better.

Yeah Bitter Crank really did add something to the conversation. (no sarcasm)

These things are relative, and I'm a miserable old whinger. But it depends where you come from. It's very hard to get away from the drone of traffic, and in most of the cities the air pollution is bad. Public transport is poor, and to be a pedestrian or cyclist in the city is dangerous and unpleasant. When I were a lad, most children walked to school. Now hardly any do. I imagine a visitor heads for the beauty spots and historic attractions that are well maintained rather than the abandoned steelworks and docks and the mouldering terraced houses of the old industrial towns. — Unenlightened

Well, on a global scale the UK is certainly on the low end of the scale in regards to pollution, traffic and danger. Most people never really get the chance to see this though.

The flip side of that is that it controls the way High IQs are treated, as freaks and social losers. Submitting to this by becoming a nerd is self-destructive; it is an insult to intelligence. Straight-A students must become Alpha Males; only then will they stand up to the King Apes and tame them. They must get at least 50% of the value of corporate patents. With the wealth they created and deserve, they will soon drive out the investors whom we are so foolishly dependent on today. — TheSageOfMainStreet

How do you suggest the High IQs get this 50% value? The low IQ's should just vote in laws to hand it to them?

Though I understand your frustrations with the patent system, perhaps consider it is a symptom and not a small defect that can be fixed as you describe.

Also, the people running the corporations didn't muscle their way to the top, they are generally among the High IQs you wish to benefit.

When people with straight-A's are ostracized it's, in my experience, because of either intense family pressure to perform academically, to the exclusion of other things conducive to socialization (in the context of values that are not conducive to socialization to begin with); and/or simply the time commitment required excludes socialization; and/or a competitive drive so strong with one's peers that it is self-ostracizing mixed with a submission to authority and obsession with institutional value signaling that is also self-ostracizing (to most high-school students, who are generally in some level of confrontation or rebellion, either because they see there is something wrong with the whole system or because they are building and asserting their identity which is likely to nor fully aline with family or institutional expectations); and/or a sense of superiority and entitlement beliefs (for instance, that people who work for corporations for an agreed wage and agreed contractual terms simply deserve 50% of the patent profits, without any consideration of whether other parts of the system upon which patent-value depends are fair for inferior Low IQs or less privileged people) that are again self-ostracizing.

However, if the person in question is really that smart, then in graduate level education they will finally be among peers they can respect and who have equal reverence for intellectual performances and institutional value signalling.

By "fight off possibility of famine", do you mean the great leap forward? — boethius

Well, that "great leap" indeed caused a famine that killed officially 15 million, and perhaps twice the number, yet I meant to say that after the last death rattles of Maoism, Communist China still had to be really careful in avoiding famine in the 1970's.

In terms of an example of capitalism succeeding, it's not necessarily straightforward task to argue that Communist China is exemplary. Though, I'm not sure that's your intention — boethius

Deng Xiaoping's famous argument, "It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white; as long as it catches mice, it’s a good cat." explains quite well the Chinese Communists approach to Capitalism. Of course communists living in the West don't at all see it in the same way.

. And I'd say most people offering criticism (allowed to talk) in the mainstream will still accept this general framework, and then offer a few worries about sustainability and human rights and some potential tweaks to address those issues. — boethius

Yet here's the problem: look at what they really embrace for their 'more responsible' and 'just' economic growth.

Usually they aren't at all inspired if a country embraces liberalism and capitalism and starts working up the steps in the globalized market. No, the most ardent critical commentators see the as the 'positive' approach Venezuela of Hugo Chávez (before the problems were evident) or other socialist countries. I even remember this praise about Eritrea, which is a really odd dictatorship.

I think the reason is that because the whole perspective about capitalism and free market economy is negative, then those economies that not only curb the excesses, but actual obstruct the market mechanism are hailed as something good.

Well, that "great leap" indeed caused a famine that killed officially 15 million, and perhaps twice the number, yet I said that after the last deathrattles of Maoism Communist China was still had to avoid famine in the 1970's. — ssu

Agreed. I just wanted it to be clear, to anyone unfamiliar, that large famines did occur.

Deng Xiaoping's famous argument, "It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white; as long as it catches mice, it’s a good cat." explains quite well the Chinese Communists approach to Capitalism. Of course communists living in the West don't at all see it in the same way. — ssu

The problem I was alluding to was not that engaging in global capitalism has not been good for Chinese Deng Xiaoping and other elites, but rather that, for Western neoliberal or neoconservative commentators, that using it as an example of capitalism working must deal with the very large state interventions in every sector as well as the uncomfortable efficiency of capitalism (according to neoliberal/conservative metrics) under a completely totalitarian state; for instance, I remember, I believe Bloomberg article, a while discussing how it's a close race this century to see if capitalism runs better under despotic regimes than democratic and investors are reevaluating the assumption of last century that capitalism needed democracy. For the bloomberg context there's nothing else to say, but these issues I think are serious problem for someone, for instance in a philosophy context, using China as an example of how capitalism is "good".

Yet here's the problem: look at what they really embrace for their 'more responsible' and 'just' economic growth. Usually they aren't at all inspired if a country embraces liberalism and capitalism and starts working up the steps in the globalized market. No, usually the most ardent critical commentators see the as the 'positive' approach Venezuela of Hugo Chávez (before the problems were evident) or other socialist countries. I even remember this praise about Eritrea, which is a really odd dictatorship. — ssu

I'd invite you to view this as possibly a strawman projection; this is not in my experience what the "ardent critical commentators", at least the informed one's, argue; though please point me to sources that make these claims if I have simply missed this literature.

In terms of Chavez, the main issue is with American imperialism in South America and opposition to that. So, in this framework, Chavez was good vis-a-vis showing US interests could be opposed, but I don't think many informed commentators believed Chavez's plans were guaranteed to work. There's the strong impact of the price of oil on Venezuelan state finances as well as US actions (intelligence or economic) that could easily frustrate Chavez's policies.

There was of course defense of Venezuelan's right to self determination and to vote for a "socialist" and right to be left alone in implementing those policies, vis-a-vis fairly open talk in US neoconservative circles that it's time for a coup and assassination of Chavez. People in the West defending Chavez, while he was alive, was mostly with respect to US hawks calls to kill him, and then of course immediately being branded by such hawks as communist sympathizers. Likewise, anyone with an interest in South American politics is keenly aware revolutions for democracy and social progress can easily turn to despotism, either in reaction to US policy or because of the personalities involved. Whether it's a "step in the right direction" when things go wrong is always debatable.

However, I am very doubtful any ardent commentator was pointing to Venezuela as the example of "social democracy done right" and a soon-to-be great model to follow, but rather as examples of national mineral resource revenue distributed to the poor as obviously better than simply being pocketed by elites and foreign companies (without implying it's a long term economic strategy); Chavez was extremely popular for a reason.

In any-case, I agree with the comment that "they aren't at all inspired if a country embraces liberalism and capitalism and starts working up the steps in the globalized market". In an ecological framework, if the global economic system isn't sustainable, becoming more dependent on that system and destroying wholesale natural resources isn't a good thing. For instance, increasing GDP by cutting down the Amazon for cattle and corn, or killing a river with a damn, or unregulated highly polluting mining, is not a real benefit to anyone. Furthermore, the single biggest contributor to sustained economic growth in impoverished places is education; this is a pretty strong consensus in the development aid sector and it is not supplied by embracing Western capitalism. Of course, embracing democracy, education, valuing the environment (and policies can follow from these things that create sustainable economic Growth) can seem like embracing Western values, and some extent it is, but I would not say it's embracing liberalism and capitalism as it is really practiced (privatization, no environmental regulations for poor countries, no nationalization of resources, lot's of corruption); an example of a the "third way" model would be Costa Rica.

In our lifetime we have witnessed the largest expansion of wealth and prosperity and the decline of absolute povetry especially with the rapid historical economic growth in China, but also the growth in South East Asia in general. Also India has made rapid progress. — ssu

Expansion of wealth, economic growth, rapid progress. Are these all the same thing? Are they the thing that matters? I wonder if we could talk about the concept of 'enough'?

Enough is a variable feast that I have been trying to point towards above. Growth and progress are antagonistic to enough. It is natural, and normal, that one grows, and then becomes full grown, that one makes progress and then arrives.

I'm just watching a program about beard products. Sales have quadrupled in the last year. Beard oil sells for £40 per 100 ml. I have had a beard for fifty years, and once bought a pair of scissors. Nobody needs beard oil. Nobody is happier for beard oil. This is not growth or progress, it is insanity gone mad It has happened because after putting five blades on the razor, there was nowhere left to go.

When you are starving, and there are dirt roads, there is progress to be made, but once there is enough to eat, more food is not progress, and once the roads are paved, covering everyone's garden in slabs and tarmac is not progress.

t these issues I think are serious problem for someone, for instance in a philosophy context, using China as an example of how capitalism is "good". — boethius

Capitalism has come always in many flavors. Yet the amount of Chinese billionaires shows that indeed the Chinese system is a hybrid. To me modern China is more of an example of fascism than socialism.
What has been especially problematic has been the insistence that 'capitalism' has to go with a liberal democracy or that they somehow are intrinsically together. Earlier it was the German Empire, then the Third Reich, which were capitalist at some level, yet not at all liberal.

In terms of Chavez, the main issue is with American imperialism in South America and opposition to that. So, in this framework, Chavez was good vis-a-vis showing US interests could be opposed, but I don't think many informed commentators believed Chavez's plans were guaranteed to work. - However, I am very doubtful any ardent commentator was pointing to Venezuela as the example of "social democracy done right" and a soon-to-be great model to follow — boethius

You think so? Just look at what people said before the problems were totally evident.

Just to give one example of a multitude of commentaries, here is Richard Gott of the Guardian in May 2005:

Something amazing has been taking place in Latin America in recent years that deserves wider attention than the continent has been accustomed to attract. The chrysalis of the Venezuelan revolution led by Chávez, often attacked and derided as the incoherent vision of an authoritarian leader, has finally emerged as a resplendent butterfly whose image and example will radiate for decades to come.
-
The Chávez government, for its part, has forged ahead with various spectacular social projects, assisted by the huge jump in oil prices, from $10 to $50 a barrel over the past six years. Instead of gushing into the coffers of the already wealthy, the oil pipelines have been picked up and directed into the shanty towns, funding health, education and cheap food. Foreign leaders from Spain and Brazil, Chile and Cuba, have come on pilgrimage to Caracas to establish links with the man now perceived as the leader of new emerging forces in Latin America, with popularity ratings to match. This extensive external support has stymied the plans of the US government to rally the countries of Latin America against Venezuela. They are not listening, and Washington is left without a policy.
-
So, what does his Bolivarian revolution consist of? He is friendly with Castro - indeed, they are close allies - yet he is no out-of-fashion state socialist. Capitalism is alive and well in Venezuela - and secure. There have been no illegal land seizures, no nationalisations of private companies. Chávez seeks to curb the excesses of what he terms "savage neo-liberalism", and he wants the state to play an intelligent and enabling role in the economy, but he has no desire to crush small businesses, as has happened in Cuba. International oil companies have fallen over themselves to provide fresh investment, even after the government increased the royalties that they have to pay. Venezuela remains a golden goose that cannot be ignored.

See Chávez leads the way

And there you see it. The Chavez worshipper assures us that Capitalism is alive and well in Venezuela, denies that Chavez is an out-of-fashion state socialist and is only curbing the "savage neo-liberalism". Yes, a golden goose that cannot be ignored indeed.

This is what I'm talking about. From earlier times I have books written by Westerners who praise the Maoist cultural revolution against the decadent capitalist West. So my point again: look at what the critics give as examples of positive approaches to solving the problems. What are they enthusiastic about. It's quite telling.

When you are starving, and there are dirt roads, there is progress to be made, but once there is enough to eat, more food is not progress, and once the roads are paved, covering everyone's garden in slabs and tarmac is not progress. — unenlightened

But wouldn't you agree, unenlightened, that what has happened in China is that kind of progress that you do accept? It genuinely has been about turning dirt roads to highways, creating the World's biggest high-speed rail system and an impressive effort in renewable energy resources among other things. The scale of the development is at first hard to understand.

If I would have born as a Chinese person, the country at my birth (1971) was something totally different than now. My actual country is a lot more similar to the one it was in 1971 than China then compared to the country today. I don't like the Chinese communists, but they sure have done quite a historical job.

But wouldn't you agree, unenlightened, that what has happened in China is that kind of progress that you do accept? — ssu

Have I not made fairly clear what I approve of and disapprove of? I not going to endorse "what happened in China" in some absolute sense. Good things have happened, and a high price has been paid in other bad things happening. To some extent they have been able because of the lateness of development to make a very speedy change from a peasant farming economy to a high tech post-industrial one, but it is the lateness rather than any special political talent that allowed them to bypass the steam age, for example.

I get the feeling that for most of the people, life has become better overall, though it is hard to judge. Endless toil in the field has been replaced with toil in the factory; food and health has improved but so has stress and environmental degradation. But it is not communism, you needn't worry; China has reverted to its traditional form of government - a bureaucracy. Mandarins rule ok.

The Constitution Is Democracy's Suicide Note

The self-declared "supreme law of the land" was devised behind closed doors by lawyers for the Colonial 1%.

Inferior Minds Are Incapable of Making Analogies

In order to get paid what they're worth, superior minds must copy the successful change made by superior athletes, who earn as much as a thousand times what they did before they unionized. Besides being properly rewarded as a kid, at age 18 Derek Jeter got almost a million dollars to put himself through baseball's equivalent of college education. Over and above that and his salary for twenty years, the Yankees got 250 times what they had invested in him.

Likewise, apply what you claim about the effects of parental pressure and focusing on one goal to student athletes. Despite all that, they become popular social players anyway. They don't get intimidated by blowhard club owners. The difference is that only a few members of the hereditary plutocracy get richer off them, whereas High IQs create all the surplus wealth of the rest of the parasite regime.

Don't expect the solution to come from those who propose and control our false options. What you say in objection is a misinterpretation that benefits the status quo. Education, from K to PhD must be changed to imitate the success America has had in developing athletic talent. As it is slowly going sterile times, we are set up like some small island that gets its prosperity from how many athletes it can develop fully.

but it is the lateness rather than any special political talent that allowed them to bypass the steam age, for example. — unenlightened

Taken what you said literally would be very condescending. They still were in the same Century, you know.

I get the feeling that for most of the people, life has become better overall, though it is hard to judge. — unenlightened

Even if I'm not a huge fan of Stephen Pinker, on this issue I do agree with him (even if he ignores the first and second Congo Wars in his statistics).

A lot of things have indeed got better. Looking at the lives of my grandparents who saw a civil war when they were children and were young adults WW2, a lot has been better. We haven't had WW3 as people in the 1980's feared. Violence has fallen, medicine has improved and life expectancy has gone up. At least in my country life expectancy has gone up as in other OECD countries.



And I know saying the above annoys people because we should be critical, we shouldn't stop in trying to make things better and improve the current. Yet that desire to be critical about the present shouldn't make us blind to the improvements that have happened.

Yet that desire to be critical about the present shouldn't make us blind to the improvements that have happened. — ssu

...and the observation that the USA seems to have fallen behind the other countries in recent times, and the UK may be showing the same trait.

...and the observation that the USA seems to have fallen behind the other countries in recent times, and the UK may be showing the same trait. — Pattern-chaser

Yeah well, not actually intended as a jab. :roll:

But actually your point is one reason why we have this disparity. Things have gotten better especially in China and India, it has been somewhat OK like in my country and the US it has been bad for everyone else than just the upper class. Who haven't seen improvement are the blue-collar class, the lower mddle class. I think the support for Trump is one symptom of this.

Make Every Dynasty Die Nasty

Until hereditary privileges are identified as the perpetual cause of societal decline, we will keep sliding into the pit. Those born in the 1% have an incredibly illogical twenty times the representation in the present 1% that a rational distribution would result in. Bootlickers will point out, instead, that 80% got there on their own, but such a lopsided structure has to mean that they got there by methods created to serve the hereditary 1%, without unbiased merit and without any benefit to the 99%.

Until hereditary privileges are identified as the perpetual cause of societal decline, we will keep sliding into the pit. — TheSageOfMainStreet

There was a time when you did have actual hereditary privileges. Yet there is a difference with having classes and having a caste-system. The problem is the meritocratic nature of our society. Even if meritocracy has it obvious positive sides, it does have also the negative sides.

Those born in the 1% have an incredibly illogical twenty times the representation in the present 1% that a rational distribution would result in. — TheSageOfMainStreet

I don't understand exactly what your point is here. Please elaborate.

Why Enter a Race Where the 1% Sets Up Its Sons Halfway to the Finish LIne?

For example, the San Diego area also represents 1% of our population. What if one out of five Senators, one out of five network CEOs, etc. had been born in that area? How could you possibly state honestly that we live in a meritocracy unless you actually believed that the weather in Southern California produced superior individuals? What makes your delusion even more submissive is that such overwhelming representation at the top would necessitate that people class-climb based on pleasing that clique rather than on merit. If one out of five major-league baseball players were from there, it would logically imply that only rare individuals played that game in the rest of the country and would probably have to move there to develop their natural skills. So we have to insert ourselves into flattering the conceited born-rich dominating dumbos.

How could you possibly state honestly that we live in a meritocracy unless you actually believed that the weather in Southern California produced superior individuals? — TheSageOfMainStreet

You obviously don't understand meritocracy and basic economics and actually my point about meritocracy. You see, a meritocracy doesn't mean every is just fine.

First: Wealth,business, good education possibilities and higher income earning usually concentrate. It's not a phenomenon just related to the United States, you see it nearly in every country where typically the Capital region is this giant magnet for commerce and wealth. In the US this is evident too (even if Washington DC isn't so important). Just look a these maps:

Where the Gross Domestic Product is made, with the size by GDP, not geographical size:


Where the top universities are:


Where the billionaires live in the US:



Do you notice the pattern? With the exception of Texas and perhaps Illinois, everything else between California and New York (and the North-East) is fly-over country where people vote Trump. Yet, all of the above are totally possible in a meritocracy. A meritocracy means that there is the possibility of social mobility, it isn't denied, but it surely doesn't mean that the possibilities would be the same everywhere. You likely have to move away from the countryside, if you have been born as a child to some farmers. And here kicks in all the things where a meritocracy starts to get similar to a class system with lower social mobility. There's a multitude of factors why this can indeed happen.

If the educational system breaks down and the school were the poor put their children are a lot worse than where the rich put their own, the end result is obvious. A meritocracy looks for ability, not for representation of the whole population.

I alwys laugh till tears roll down my goiter when I read yanks discussing Marxism.

Conversation I had with a Bircher Granny in Lake Forest, Illinois.
'Do you believe in socialised medicine?'
'Well, ma'am, I would not be here without it!'
'So you want the soviets to take over the world!'
'Wuh?'

Any upholder of peace that had to choose between the Orange Baboon and Hilarious Hilary should call a moratorium on all political discussion for at least a year.

The Unnatural Status Quo Is a Paradise for Preppie Parasites

Similar to the Free Market fallacy, it is a distortion of the way things have to be for continuous prosperity. We don't have to accept the self-serving propaganda that things just naturally fall into such a distribution. It is all by design, and will lead to our downfall. If we have to do it on our own, so must the children of the rich. They block our way and must be removed. The race must go to the fastest, not to the "fatherest."

Ridiculous argument of the day.

Property and money are social constructs.
Therefore to be a capitalist is to be a socialist.

I alwys laugh till tears roll down my goiter when I read yanks discussing Marxism. — Ricardoc

Virgins can talk about sex too, you know.

And why not?

The irony about this, as revealed in another thread, is that just a fraction of the wealth of the few richest people in the world is enough to provide for the global poor, and the fraction is easily recovered as the same fraction leads to more sales of goods and services. And yet the rich will not agree. How does one explain this illogical view?

I recall one article explain it this way: imagine a situation where the 200 richest people in the world now find themselves amidst hundreds of millions of billionaires, and all of them want access to the most exclusive beach resorts. It is highly unlikely that they will get in line for many months together with the rest to access such.

Another article offered another explanation, as it depicted one billionaire despairing that his wealth decreased from $20 billion to $19 billion while his rivals did better.

In short, the rich will not give up even part of their wealth because wealth gives them a type of power that allows them to lord it over others. Also, for them, this is a game of numbers, where the one with the highest numbers wins.