The Case Against Billionaires
So if it were true that the worlds economies rely on their super-rich to do well, as todays oligarch-inspired, right-wing economics argues, then why are world's "austerity" economies doing so poorly?
Its because billionaires are not job creators, they are somewhere between symbiotes and parasites. Thats not meant as a personal insult against billionaires, many of whom are decent people. But its meant as a statement of common sense. If vast fortunes are being hoarded in the hands of very few people who cant possibly spend that much money in their lifetime or their kids lifetime or even their kids, kids, kids, kids, lifetime, then its essentially being wasted.
This is the point billionaire Nick Hanauer was making in his recent TED talk explaining why rich people arent job creators (He also said the same thing on The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann). As he said, There can never be enough super-rich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the median American, but we don't buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff.
If the 400 richest billionaires in America could generate just as much economy activity alone as the rest of us can, then maybe there'd be an argument for such vast wealth. But they cant. The typical billionaire doesnt buy thousands of more pairs of pants, or dine out thousands of more times, or buy thousands of more cars typical working class American.
Hanauer concludes, I can't buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can't buy any new clothes or cars or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the vast majority of American families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13698-the-case-against-billionaires
leveymg
(36,418 posts)pansypoo53219
(20,955 posts)they can't buy enough yachts, houses, etc.
longship
(40,416 posts)They would be immediately pillaried, or tarred and feathered. Certainly they would be labelled communist.
This is one of those dangerous ideas that highlights just how out of whack things are.
R&K
daleanime
(17,796 posts)what the most over represented minority in congress?
Millionaires and billionaires.
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)Amonester
(11,541 posts)But a few subsidized Big-Oil billionaires stand in the way.
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)At the end of the day our transportation networks are based on the car and fossil fuel consumption, not around walking or bicycle. So if we were to expand our production of solar cells and wind generators enough to have an impact on unemployment this would spike domestic fuel oil consumption (powerplants, manufacturing lubrication, transit), pollution due to raw materials mining, pollution due to freight/personnel shipping shipping to install sites. Then we run into the upper bound of peak oil (which we hit in 2008), which causes a massive oil price spike (not helped by the Koch brothers buying up oil futures and parking them in freighters off shore), which then crashes the economy again and would likely lead to a reactionary takeover which would proceed to undo all of the work that was just done.
Or too long; didn't read, we're screwed.