BS: World's Richest People Get Richer

Subject: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: olddude
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 03:47 PM

Doesn't it just warm your heart to know that despite the economic problems and high unemployment, and people losing their homes that according to all the stats , the richest people can no only maintain their standard of living but can go shopping for more toys ..

read this

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Lox
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 04:09 PM

In the UK the new Austerity measures mean 20% VAT.

In other words, punish the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 04:14 PM

What`s new!

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 04:52 PM

It would be interesting to see how much the wealthy benefited from the government stimulus spending as opposed to the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 04:53 PM

I haven't seen anything about this on Mudcat so far, but I heard a discussion on NPR that a number of America's (and the world's?) richest people--Bill Gates, Soros, Oprah, and Buffet, that I remember being mentioned--had a meeting and announced a joint intention/recommendation/urging that people in their super-rich league should GIVE AWAY a half of their net worth, either currently or at death. Seems to me there was mention of one or two other super-rich people from other countries were part of the meeting and announcement, too.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 04:55 PM

Only half? - cheap buggers.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 05:05 PM

Sheesh "Only half"? I assume that you, bobad, are not having any trouble keeping food on the table and that the shelter over your head is sound. Therefore, I think you should give away half of your income.

I realize the disparity - but people who think they should have a say in how the filthy rich should dispose of their money and in what amounts bugs me. Human nature governs us all; you, no less.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 05:24 PM

I was being only partly facetious, Ebbie. I would not be able to live on half my income but I am sure that Bill Gates, although he might have to tighten his belt somewhat, would manage to get by on only 25 or so billion dollars.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Leadfingers
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 05:31 PM

It must be terrible when you go out for a snack to have to make do with a Fifty Pound bottle of wine instead of the £100 bottle you were having last year !
Last time I went out for a meal , it was a take way fish and chips , without ANY wine !

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 06:03 PM

Gates and Buffett have been giving away quite a bit already via the Gates Foundation (Buffett tossed in a few billion a couple years back). As Andrew Carnegie said, wealth should only be a means by with others can be helped to achieve wealth.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Paul Burke
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 06:19 PM

Let's be grateful for the rich people who create the good things of this world and are generous enough to let us have some. They should be made Saints. Soon.

Saints of course are dead....

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 06:28 PM

"It's the same the whole world over,
Over the whole world it's the same...."

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 06:41 PM

old dude 60 is the new 59 so I am sure that you are aware that the rich get richer.

Here are some other ways in which they are advancing beyond belief.

In order to preserve CEO and CFO bonus and salary decisions to only thmselves they now have a new law which makes it impossible for shareholders to voice any actionable dissent to executive pay. They did this by decreasing the percent of control by shareholders to 1% from 5%.

The business of America is business so it is no surprose that the conservative court gave Corporations unlimited monetary contributions to political candidates of their choice.

The GO'B'P is all lathered up about BP and are heard saying things like "Obama's treatment of BP is UNAMERICAN! Well BP isn't American so at least it is a true satement. Lately some of the twisted notions of total corporate power unencumbered by any laws is far more important than civilian lives, wildlife, the air, the water and the plantet itself. There was a time when republicans could sport a bumper sticker that said "Save the Whales". Now they can't.

Instead they have a Don;t tread on me sticker on one side and on the other "Save the Wells"

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 07:29 PM

I love this quote from one of our illustrious Mudcatters, KenM: "Money is like manure..........pile it up and it smells like hell. Spread it around and it helps things grow."

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 08:24 PM

Maybe they got there by working for it. Top dozen in order (Forbes):

Carlos Slim Helu- American Movil, Latin America's biggest mobile phone company.
Bill Gates- Microsoft.
Warren Buffet, American Hathaway and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
Muskesh Ambani- petrochemicals, Reliance Industries.
Lakshmi Mittal- Arcelon Mittal, world's biggest steel maker.
Lawrence Ellison- founder, Oracle data base company.
Bernard Arnault- Vuitton, Moet et Chandon, Chinese real estate.
Eike Batista- Vale do Rio Doce Mining, gold.
Amancio Ortega- Inditex fashion concerns, 4500 stores in 73 countries.
Karl Albrecht- German supermarkets, 1000 stores in U. S., etc.
Ingvar Kamprad- Ikea
Christy Walton & family- She is no. 12; Wal-Mart and Sam's Club (Jim Walton is no. 15 on list, Alice Walton no. 16, S. R. Walton no. 18).
Top Saudi no. 19- Saudi, Four Seasons, Citigroup, Fairmont and other investments.
David Thompson- Top Canadian at no. 20, Reuters and other media.
Michael Bloomberg, mayor of NYC, is no. 23.

Sergei Brin and Larry Page of Google are climbing fast.


Soros and Oprah are pikers, way down the list somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 12:22 AM

Bobad, I didn't know how you meant it so I wasn't actually attacking you for saying it, but I find it disturbing when we 'small people' show ourselves as mean-spirited, envious and grasping as any of the really rich ones. There are rich people who hoard their money and chortle over the pile in the night; there are also rich people who use what they don't need to help the helpless. There are rich people who fund research, people who are whole-hearted in their efforts to eradicate simple diseases that need only funding to make it happen. In other words, there are rich people who are trying to make the world a better place.

There are also poor people who try to make their own sphere a better place; there are poor people who are mean-spirited, envious and grasping.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 12:41 AM

Define "earning it".

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 10:17 AM

Earning it, in the old fashoined way, could be defined as
- we take it prerearably from those who can't fight back.


The spokesmen for the rich say that there is nothing wrong with great wealth and that poverty is the seat of evil.

They never mention that the concentration of wealth almost always requires the contributions , if not the exploitation, of the poor.

$48 billion dollars a year is "earned" from using a card to purchase items and is paid by both buyers and sellers to the banks. As long as we pay a third party to use our own money the banks will take take advantage.
The more inconvienient banks make it to get and use our own cash, the more they promote the card system.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 11:49 AM

At least there is equity in 'some' things.

"The law, in its infinite wisdom, forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges." - Anatole France .

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 01:04 PM

There are x dollars to go around. It ain`t rocket surgery. If anyone is getting richer, ipso facto some other person (or persons) is getting poorer.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 02:55 PM

I don't worry if the rich have 2 houses or 40 but I just think those at the bottom of the pay scale -who are no less hard working than the baseball players, superstars, corrupt CEOS, etc- people such as health care aides, security workers at airports, miners, farmers, not to mention artists and writers-should at least be able to pay their bills and live adequately. FDR had similar thoughts, would like to see it all come to fruition some day.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 04:35 PM

"x dollars to go round" is nonsense. Enterprise creates money. Look in an economic text if you didn't learn that in school. Even Wikipedia tells the basics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jun 10 - 04:48 PM

"Enterprise creates money."

Umm...but the current financial crisis was fueled by false money... 'enterprising' financial "geniuses" creating paper empires thru complex buying & selling of bets & debts to each other and hoping to guess right. When 'enterprise' creates no goods OR services, but nothing but pyramid schemes, we all suffer.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 01:43 PM

Q, bologna. The Earth is a closed system. Enterprise reallocates money, it doesn`t create it. You go do some thinking about it--withOUT an economic text.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 02:11 PM

In simple terms-

Commercial banking system-
A simple formula gives the maximum amount of money that an initial deposit can be expanded to, with a specified reserve.

Let reserve be R. then the money multiplier is m= 1/R, and is the maximum amount of money that commercoial banks can create for a given quantity of reserves.

Scroll down in the Wiki article Money Creation (which is pretty good but simplified) to Money Multiplier.

There are problems if the reserve rate is too low or banks make risky loans. Some of these are discussed briefly in the article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 05:51 PM

""In the UK the new Austerity measures mean 20% VAT.""

I just love the way that the naysayers use the emotive "twenty percent", when they are actually talking about "plus two and one half percent".

In case they haven't noticed, we've been paying seventeen and one half percent for a long time past.

Now we pay 25p extra on a ten pounds purchase.

Truly devastating?.......Well no! Not really!.....Not even for us low earners.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 06:05 PM

I really have a problem with this culture of envy. So many people take the line that being rich is per se wrong.

Even stupid little joyriding teenagers when asked why they keep taking other folkss' cars said "Why should he have a car and I don't?"" Because he worked for it, twerp.

I simply do not care that others are rich. I care that I'm not, but not enough to be unhappy about it.

I have riches enough in my life, that lack of funds isn't of paramount importance.

I have yet to see a truly rich person who looked all that happy. Maybe there's a moral in that, somewhere.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 06:37 PM

Well, yeah, and it can all be traced to the first president that was purchased by the monied class: their hero, Ronnie Reagan, da' man who began to dismantle the regulatory checks and balences that had been put in place after the Great Depression... Yup, that's when it bagan... But it wasn't just one man... It was much of Congress who were being purchased by the monied class... And that's purdy much what it has been ever since... Less regs... More letting the corpoartion write their own rules anf the fleecing of the working class... And it ain't over yet and might never be over until Boss Hog has squeezed too much and for too long and then historically, things can get very, very ugly...

But Boss Hog knows nothin' about history... He thinks that he and his buddies are exempt... Ha!!! That is just how dumb Boss Hog is...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: DougR
Date: 25 Jun 10 - 01:20 AM

Careful, Ebbie, you are beginning to sound a bit like a conservative in your posts to Bobab. :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 10 - 02:50 AM

In my opinion, DougR, we are all a mixture of conservatism and liberalism. As we should be. Even you. :)

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 10 - 07:37 AM

Yeah, Eb... Isn't it interesting that the Repubs drag out that same worn out bull every election about wanting smaller government but when they get in power that make the Dems look like novices when it comes to makin' the government even bigger??? And isn't interetsing that the Rpubs go into their deficit hawk posture 'round election time but when they get in power they spend like drunken sailors... It also very interesting to look at a bar graph of deficits over the last 3 decades... Repubs in the deficits go up... Dems in they go down???

But really the most interesting - No, make that sad - part of the deal is that the Repubs have lived at the Dems-want-big-government post so long that the American people have been completely duped into believing the Repub's "BIG LIE"... Yeah, that is very sad and does not bode well for Tom Jefferson's assertion that for democracy to work it would require an "informed electorate"... Guess that explains how the corporations wrestled any sembelance of democracy away from the masses...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: bobad
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 07:51 AM

Buffett donates $1.93bn in shares to charities

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 09:03 AM

"Let's be grateful for the rich people who create the good things of this world ......."


Are you referring to those who are fabulously rich tossing burgers in MacDonalds, or those who are fabulously rich creaming the profits of those tossing burgers in MacDonalds?

Hats of to those who are benevolent with the proceeds of other peoples labour.....

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 10:42 AM

If people were paid living wages for their work, it wouldn`t matter that some folks are richer than others. However, when those riches come from toil in which the worker is paid substandard remuneration, it`s no longer a system of equity--it is usury. The people dissing the rich are I think doing so from that perspective--and I hope they continue to do so. Our multi-nationals at work.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 11:38 AM

Isn't that what I said, ironically speaking?

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: DougR
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 03:06 PM

Right on, I say! I sure would enjoy being one of them.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 01:38 PM

...there are also rich people who use what they don't need to help the helpless.

If they did that they wouldn't be "rich" any more, they'd just be comfortably well off. Why would any sane person want more than that? (That's not a rhetorical question either, it's something that really puzzles me.)

There probably are some people who actually have done that, but I think they are pretty far and few.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 01:45 PM

Why would any sane person not want to be comfortably off and think that nobody else should be?

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 01:48 PM

Any reason to think that any sane person does think that, bonzo?

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: John P
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 02:11 PM

My problem with the super rich is that, every time, the people who are in a position to decide how to divide up the money decide to keep the lion's share of it for themselves. To my way of thinking, that makes them untrustworthy to be in that position. No one who has made a billion dollars making widgets actually made those widgets themselves. They got super rich by deciding to keep everyone else in the organization poor. It's not so much a matter of how much money there is in the system as how it gets spread around.

I agree that enterprise is good for the economy. People who have a great idea or who work really hard should make more than others. I also think no one needs to have income of more than about $500,000 per year. Someone who doesn't work as hard could make $40,000 and the hard worker/inventor/business owner would still make eight times as much and have enough money to spend and spend and never have to work again. While people are working full time and still starving, not able to own a home, not able to get health care, and not able to get an education, then we are making bad choices about how to divide up the money. And don't even get me started on Americans fostering slave labor in third world countries, and our economic and health care systems being destroyed thereby.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 04:56 PM

There are more millionaires in the US than ever before. Even if a good share of their wealth is comprised of their home and personal property, that is rich, because of its worth as collateral. With a million-dollar net worth, it can't be that difficult to make the second million, and I would guess it would get proportionately easier from then on.

I'm not sure where I made my wrong turn. :)

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 06:19 PM

Warren Buffet has just donated $2 billion to charities.
Most went to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which concerns itself with health, education and poverty problems.
The Gates Foundation employs more than 800 people; its gifts so far total over $8 billion.
Both Gates and Buffet have called on billionaires to donate at least half of their wealth. The Walmart owners are another donor of billions.

The man who made billions in widgets set up the company and employed many workers; he made this employment possible through his inventiveness and his enterprise; he generally works more hours than any of his employees. Without his kind, few people would have the standard of living most of us enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: John P
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 06:59 PM

All the donations being made are a drop in the bucket of the wealth that is being hoarded by others, as well as by the folks making the donations.

I agree that the widget factory owner created the situation where lots of folks have jobs, and that none of us would have the standard of living we enjoy without the efforts of him and his peers. However, he still made billions while keeping other people in poverty. Hundreds of thousands would pay his bills and allow him to live in luxury. Why does he need billions?

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 07:47 PM

"keeping other people in poverty" is nonsense.
Even sitting in a bank, the money is collateral for loans, mortgages, car purchases, and all the other things we enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: GUEST,Riginslinger
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 08:05 PM

I read on a blog over the course of the last few days where some guy had determined that we're drawing the line the wrong way.
            He says we're drawing a perpendicular line and fighting right to left, when we should be drawing a horizontal line and fighting between rich and poor.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: John P
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 10:04 AM

Q,
What money sitting in banks are you talking about? The rich folks' money or the poor folks'? The rich folks are also buying multiple multi-million dollar homes, private jetliners, yachts the size of Manhattan, and senators.

Poor folks, on the other hand, don't get to have things like mortgages and cars that require financing.

What you are suggesting sounds remarkably like trickle-down economics. I've been trickled on enough, thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: bobad
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 10:12 AM

John Kenneth Galbraith describes trickle-down economics:

'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 10:24 AM

Yeah, we have some serious voodoo economics going on right now... Just last night it was reported that the corporations are flush with cash... I mean, bigass money here... Yep, pushing $2 Trillion andf, yeah, it is just sitting there... And the folks who have it opening say they are not interested in doing anything with it but let it sit there while the Titanic goes down???

Normal... No one ever said that rich people were smart... They'd rather see the ship sink (with them on it) than to put a few peas in the pot to fix it???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 01:04 PM

"I really have a problem with this culture of envy. So many people take the line that being rich is per se wrong."

So do I, these people also seem to have a problem with inheritance - and I'm yet to receive a proper explanation as to why. But as with any battle of wits - they do have in their numbers a great number of unarmed men and ladies!!!

Subject: RE: BS: World's Richest People Get Richer
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 01:17 PM

Jobs are created by the rich building those large homes, building planes and yachts, the rewards of their enterprise.