Nah the wealthiest people aren't on the list, and they are much wealthier than any of these guys. The family of Saud is way up there but keep most of their wealth hidden.
Yes if you think what they report officially is correct. Most everyone is aware they only report a small fraction of their wealth. Musk is by far not the first trillionair, he is the first one publicly.
I mean you said it, not me. They are like the most infamous for hiding their wealth. Maybe them and Major CPC party members are another. Of course characters like Putin and Kim (and associated upper brass) also hide the vast majority of their wealth. Like it kinda goes without saying, they have no reason to tell anyone and there is zero benefits in telling anyone.
Yeah I suspect this doesn't account for "old money" at all. That class of people is so entrenched they own such foundational layers of society that nothing touches them at all. If anyone knew what they owned it could be taxed away from them.
Security through obscurity is a very valuable lesson. It's the king who rules in public who gets his head chopped off. This is why some find these more public personas to be placeholders for the real movers and shakers. If one stays out of the limelight they can weather changes and maintain control.
Remember occupy wallstreet? The wealth inequality in 2006-2007 was so bad there were tons of videos going around exposing with easily verifiable information about just how much more money the 1 percent had than everyone else. Then the recession happened and then suddenly when you went back to look at that information it had been cleaned up to make it look like the 1 percent didn't really own that much more. I think it was right around the time that Google dropped "don't be evil"
Basically at this point the continyed concentration of wealth is increasing exponentially as a logical inevitability.
We need wealth taxes, breakup of monopolies and a far larger willingness of the population to boycot companies that prioritise short term growth and unethical business practices over the delivery of effective, repairable products and honest services for fair prices.
You'd have to create a threat linked to the money, so that Luigis went after anyone who kept their inheritance or dared to keep the wealth consolidated.
Eventually, someone would disseminate the money to survive.
On a related note, someone needs to hunt down private equity brokers and unethical venture capitalists the way Nazi hunters went after escaped Nazi officers after WWII, either to Luigi them or to bring them to international tribunal. Although, since nations can be influenced by ultra-wealthy oligarchs, it might not be possible to form such a tribunal. And that brings us back to the frontier justice of goomba-stomping plumbers.
"Libertarians" and BaSiC eCoNoMiCs guys blame inflation on "printing money," but they don't like to talk about who the printed money went to, which is the real problem. Wall Street and big corporate was bailed out in 2008, that's where the expanded money supply was concentrated into.
To continue…and liberals don’t like to talk about how capitalism requires the theft of wealth from the working class via surplus value and that in order to get rid of this class subjugation and oppression we need to get rid of the system that breeds it - capitalism. The workers need to take back the very thing that is oppressing them - the means of production/private property. When in private hands it benefits the private individuals. When in the hands of the working class - it benefits all….and the formerly bourgeois class are absorbed into the working class (aka there are no more classes)….which is the thing they fear most. This is why they teach you to parrot anti-communist propaganda through all of their propaganda channels.
The problem still seems to be governance. Like even in that system some of the workers are involved in regulating the infrastructure of production and that necessarily means that one person is telling a lot of people what they can and can't do. We don't really have a way to do this that doesn't involve hierarchy. And our little monkey brains love a hierarchy.
So that's the real problem of communism. Because otherwise it is a better system and it should beat capitalism. Unfortunately because capitalism is better at concentrating resources into fewer hands it's better at defending itself from fairer systems.
Also the US having had little physical damage after ww2 meant that the capitalist had a much better base from which to perpetuate itself.
A lifetime ago I heard that "inflation is good actually, because it allows for economic mobility" as in people without a lot of money get more of the "new" money and so get to join the "middle class" (not a real class, but an income bracket).
Turns out the rich plugged up that little leak in tiny bit of wealth that actually did trickle down.
!twnw@fedia.io their wealth must be taxed. It's not even an issue of "can we survive without a wealth tax" but "how long". These people are gluttons and will never stop hoarding.
how is dell in the top 5? Seriously though only buffet at least has the financial accumen to actually be there. Decades of lowering taxes has made it so that even if you lose bilions like musk did you still won't lose your fortune. Its barely a rounding curve for him.
how can this be possible!? it almost looks like they printed an enormeous amount of money extra! this cant be true, else devaluation of the dollar would be immense! (/cynical)
Not just capitalism, but every human system almost, will have those in power--by whatever philosophy--to continue to expand their power until things start to break down/heads start rolling.
There's temptation to think we're living in a unique point of history, but we're just the fresh turn of the wheel.
The point of criticizing capitalism is to address the inherent flaws in the current system, and to supplant it with a different system that inherently limits the wealth/power of the people at "the top" of it (or if there even could be a "top").
It definitely is a unique point in history as well, even if it rhymes with previous points and we're still humans all along.
supplant it with a different system that inherently limits the wealth/power of the people at "the top" of it
If Inherently limiting the power of people in any LARGE society isn't utopic, please let me know when it's ever been done before and how it it was achieved; and remember I specified large society. Humans fare better in smaller societies... until they get invaded by a larger one.
I wonder what would happen if we just stopped printing money. Told the fed to just "turn off the tap" so to speak. I'd love to hear the conversation with their accountant: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN '[I] HAVE ALL THE MONEY!?!!?'"
Capping currency reserves is a better standard of value than debt ever was. Perhaps you should go look up WHY money has value in the first place because you seem to be unaware that this is all made up anyway. It also makes cutting off money gluttons like one cuts a drunk off at a bar a lot easier to justify.
63 Comments
DarkFuture@lemmy.world · 59 pts · 71d
Broken system y'all.
vapordays@leminal.space · 5 pts · 69d
It works incredibly well (so far), just not for most people
justaman123@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
For the top 2000 people or so the world is a resort, the rest of us are just staff
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 46 pts · 71d
Nah the wealthiest people aren't on the list, and they are much wealthier than any of these guys. The family of Saud is way up there but keep most of their wealth hidden.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 49 pts · 71d
They're a big family though, none of which have more than Musk INDIVIDUALLY.
You'd be right about Putin and other despots with de facto one person ownership of entire countries worth of wealth and resources, though.
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 71d
Yes if you think what they report officially is correct. Most everyone is aware they only report a small fraction of their wealth. Musk is by far not the first trillionair, he is the first one publicly.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 10 pts · 71d
Evidently not true if you have to insist on it being true.
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · -5 pts · 71d
Most != All
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 5 pts · 71d
Ah yes, I'm just part of that small, stupid minority. Gotcha.
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · -3 pts · 71d
I mean you said it, not me. They are like the most infamous for hiding their wealth. Maybe them and Major CPC party members are another. Of course characters like Putin and Kim (and associated upper brass) also hide the vast majority of their wealth. Like it kinda goes without saying, they have no reason to tell anyone and there is zero benefits in telling anyone.
Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 71d
The weird guy who always hangs at my local train station once told me he's a trillionaire. Now you're telling me it might be true???
Pronell@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 71d
Maybe he was slurring 'train engineer'.
justaman123@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
Yeah I suspect this doesn't account for "old money" at all. That class of people is so entrenched they own such foundational layers of society that nothing touches them at all. If anyone knew what they owned it could be taxed away from them.
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 69d
Security through obscurity is a very valuable lesson. It's the king who rules in public who gets his head chopped off. This is why some find these more public personas to be placeholders for the real movers and shakers. If one stays out of the limelight they can weather changes and maintain control.
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works · 29 pts · 71d
The wealth gap was already so heinously egregious in 2016 too.
justaman123@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 69d
Remember occupy wallstreet? The wealth inequality in 2006-2007 was so bad there were tons of videos going around exposing with easily verifiable information about just how much more money the 1 percent had than everyone else. Then the recession happened and then suddenly when you went back to look at that information it had been cleaned up to make it look like the 1 percent didn't really own that much more. I think it was right around the time that Google dropped "don't be evil"
Kaligalis@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 71d
Looks like buying Twitter was a great investment. Being able to change the outcome of an election definitely beats ad revenue.
solrize@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 71d
Don't forget Bezos had a 2 for 1 split when he got divorced.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 70d
I know you're being humerous, but I can't resist pointing out a 2 for 1 split doesn't change the value.
solrize@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 69d
The split decreases the value of 1 share.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 69d
Right, but now you have 2 shares that you still own, so Bezos undergoing a 2 for 1 split would still be worth the same.
solrize@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 68d
Bezos's ex got the other share.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 68d
Kinda more like a spinoff
GMac@feddit.org · 20 pts · 71d
Sorry that it's a youtube link, but this is a brilliant analysis from Gary Stevenson with pretty sobering conclusions... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd0gmxd36FI
Basically at this point the continyed concentration of wealth is increasing exponentially as a logical inevitability.
We need wealth taxes, breakup of monopolies and a far larger willingness of the population to boycot companies that prioritise short term growth and unethical business practices over the delivery of effective, repairable products and honest services for fair prices.
kylie_kraft@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 69d
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 71d
Pulling more Luigis could stop them.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 71d
You'd have to create a threat linked to the money, so that Luigis went after anyone who kept their inheritance or dared to keep the wealth consolidated.
Eventually, someone would disseminate the money to survive.
On a related note, someone needs to hunt down private equity brokers and unethical venture capitalists the way Nazi hunters went after escaped Nazi officers after WWII, either to Luigi them or to bring them to international tribunal. Although, since nations can be influenced by ultra-wealthy oligarchs, it might not be possible to form such a tribunal. And that brings us back to the frontier justice of goomba-stomping plumbers.
TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 70d
This is the fucking hilarious part of inflation.
Yeah. There’s more money. And nobody has it except a handful of scum.
vapordays@leminal.space · 10 pts · 69d
"Libertarians" and BaSiC eCoNoMiCs guys blame inflation on "printing money," but they don't like to talk about who the printed money went to, which is the real problem. Wall Street and big corporate was bailed out in 2008, that's where the expanded money supply was concentrated into.
RosaLuxemburgsGhost@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 69d
To continue…and liberals don’t like to talk about how capitalism requires the theft of wealth from the working class via surplus value and that in order to get rid of this class subjugation and oppression we need to get rid of the system that breeds it - capitalism. The workers need to take back the very thing that is oppressing them - the means of production/private property. When in private hands it benefits the private individuals. When in the hands of the working class - it benefits all….and the formerly bourgeois class are absorbed into the working class (aka there are no more classes)….which is the thing they fear most. This is why they teach you to parrot anti-communist propaganda through all of their propaganda channels.
justaman123@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
The problem still seems to be governance. Like even in that system some of the workers are involved in regulating the infrastructure of production and that necessarily means that one person is telling a lot of people what they can and can't do. We don't really have a way to do this that doesn't involve hierarchy. And our little monkey brains love a hierarchy.
So that's the real problem of communism. Because otherwise it is a better system and it should beat capitalism. Unfortunately because capitalism is better at concentrating resources into fewer hands it's better at defending itself from fairer systems.
Also the US having had little physical damage after ww2 meant that the capitalist had a much better base from which to perpetuate itself.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 70d
A lifetime ago I heard that "inflation is good actually, because it allows for economic mobility" as in people without a lot of money get more of the "new" money and so get to join the "middle class" (not a real class, but an income bracket).
Turns out the rich plugged up that little leak in tiny bit of wealth that actually did trickle down.
Datz@szmer.info · 16 pts · 70d
We had a wealth gap between the poor and rich, and now we're getting a wealth gap between the rich and super rich?
saimen@feddit.org · 8 pts · 70d
More like between the extremely super duper rich and the one even absurdely unbelievable massively hyper cyper more rich.
Beeen132@feddit.org · 5 pts · 69d
It's called fucking rich, since nothing about it is super...
vapordays@leminal.space · 4 pts · 69d
Always has been
atro_city@fedia.io · 13 pts · 71d
!twnw@fedia.io their wealth must be taxed. It's not even an issue of "can we survive without a wealth tax" but "how long". These people are gluttons and will never stop hoarding.
Grass@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 71d
More like 5 biggest criminals
ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 71d
Way to hang in there Mr bezos
aeronmelon@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 71d
Michael Dell charting again is the most hilarious part.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 71d
Yes, he's truly going through tough times.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 9 pts · 70d
how is dell in the top 5? Seriously though only buffet at least has the financial accumen to actually be there. Decades of lowering taxes has made it so that even if you lose bilions like musk did you still won't lose your fortune. Its barely a rounding curve for him.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 70d
Market manipulation.
Trump "truthed" (🤮) out of nowhere that everyone should buy a Dell, and the market value skyrocketed.
kibblebits@quokk.au · 6 pts · 71d
Not until we kill them all
hardcoreufo@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 69d
Well at least elon is no longer a trillionaire.
borQue@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 69d
how can this be possible!? it almost looks like they printed an enormeous amount of money extra! this cant be true, else devaluation of the dollar would be immense! (/cynical)
Innerworld@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
Capitalism is inherently expansionist.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 69d
Not just capitalism, but every human system almost, will have those in power--by whatever philosophy--to continue to expand their power until things start to break down/heads start rolling.
There's temptation to think we're living in a unique point of history, but we're just the fresh turn of the wheel.
vapordays@leminal.space · 1 pts · 69d
The point of criticizing capitalism is to address the inherent flaws in the current system, and to supplant it with a different system that inherently limits the wealth/power of the people at "the top" of it (or if there even could be a "top").
It definitely is a unique point in history as well, even if it rhymes with previous points and we're still humans all along.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 69d
You're espousing a fantasy future permanent utopia, a common article of faith among progressives.
justaman123@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
I'd argue aiming for the perfect future utopia helps make things better here.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 69d
Sure. It has utility, just like believing in God has utility; doesn't make it any more true.
vapordays@leminal.space · 1 pts · 68d
You're misunderstanding entirely and making a strawman argument
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 67d
If Inherently limiting the power of people in any LARGE society isn't utopic, please let me know when it's ever been done before and how it it was achieved; and remember I specified large society. Humans fare better in smaller societies... until they get invaded by a larger one.
vane@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
It all depends on people who are working in their companies. If they stop working in their companies the wealth will fade away.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 1 pts · 71d
Nice to see some people are doing fine in this economy.
rozlav@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 71d
anyway getting more from 2026 ?
LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 69d
TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 69d
I wonder what would happen if we just stopped printing money. Told the fed to just "turn off the tap" so to speak. I'd love to hear the conversation with their accountant: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN '[I] HAVE ALL THE MONEY!?!!?'"
Nalivai@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 69d
That's not how economy works
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 69d
If the entire world just stopped working for a few weeks it might.
TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 69d
I WONDER What would happen if we stopped printing money. Explore the idea ANYWAY. Ever hear the saying "It's so crazy it just might work?"
Nalivai@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 67d
I wonder what if instead of a dick you had a sepulka, what the implications of that?
The answer is nothing, that's not how any of that works.
TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 67d
Capping currency reserves is a better standard of value than debt ever was. Perhaps you should go look up WHY money has value in the first place because you seem to be unaware that this is all made up anyway. It also makes cutting off money gluttons like one cuts a drunk off at a bar a lot easier to justify.
Nalivai@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 64d
It is so far from the "stop printing money bro", you're really doing yourself a disservice by using this language