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BS: Who has all The Money?

28 Nov 10 - 04:18 PM (#3042247)
Subject: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

SOMEONE has it all, SOMEWHERE.

So who has it?

Where is it?

And....how do we find it?


28 Nov 10 - 04:31 PM (#3042257)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Arthur_itus

Only wish I knew.

Maybe all the money is in the folk world, by performers that own several very expensive musical instruments?


28 Nov 10 - 04:51 PM (#3042270)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Georgiansilver

Strange as it might sound... In the UK.. 85% (approx) of all money is owned by 15% of the people......... The problem is.. finding out who to take it from!!


28 Nov 10 - 04:58 PM (#3042276)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Arthur_itus

That must be the Bwankers then.


28 Nov 10 - 05:14 PM (#3042289)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Jim Dixon

All the people who bought low and sold high during the housing bubble got a lot of it. I just can't figure a way to get it back.


28 Nov 10 - 05:16 PM (#3042290)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Smokey.

Most of it never existed.


28 Nov 10 - 05:39 PM (#3042307)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: JohnInKansas

There are numerous sources who regularly publish reasonably accurate reports of who has all the money. One that I see fairly frequently quoted is Forbes Magazine. The New York Times syndicate also has frequent comments.

I can't find the original report in my files, but within the past year, one apparently reliable report was that 90% of all UK capital assets were held within one square mile in central London (presumably owned by persons who worked(?) there if the "context" of the report is considered).

Although Forbes is respected for its accuracy, a decade or two ago when they listed an acquaintance as the "ninth highest paid attorney in the US" his comment was "well, they found about a third of it." It may be assumed that those who have the most money also have the most undiscovered money, so estimates of the "percent of the money" in the hands of the very rich are inevitably on the low side (IMO).

John


28 Nov 10 - 06:27 PM (#3042348)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

A son has regularly invested in the market. He lost about 1/3 when the bubble burst, but now is ahead, as gains strong this year. Most is Canadian, so the swings not as strong as in the States; less pain and worry.


28 Nov 10 - 10:29 PM (#3042464)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Little Hawk

Do you mean the real money or the imaginary money? I don't have much of either, but things could be a lot worse. ;-)


29 Nov 10 - 03:42 AM (#3042547)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Dave Hanson

Come back Robin Hood.

Dave H


29 Nov 10 - 03:54 AM (#3042556)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie

Smokey got it right.

Most of it never existed.

There is a difference between stock shares / property values etc and real money. Most of the "listed wealth" cannot be turned into beer tokens. It can only exist on a balance sheet.

In terms of the real money; most of it was, before the banks squandered it for us (and turned it into balance sheet money), in the hands of those who worked hard, saved a little and lived within their means.

Not the sort of people Robin Hood should be visiting , methinks? I didn't know old green tights supported the idea of something for nothing...


29 Nov 10 - 05:04 AM (#3042581)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: theleveller

In the UK, 75% of wealth is owned by people over 50. Unfortunatley, as I keep tellng my children, I'm not one of them.


29 Nov 10 - 08:46 AM (#3042698)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,Patsy

It certainly isn't me, if I did I would be sat here typing this in a cardboard box ho ho.


29 Nov 10 - 10:03 AM (#3042744)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Bill D

here it is


29 Nov 10 - 10:26 AM (#3042761)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,Dáithí

Yep..I'm a simple soul, but it seems to me that as so many nations semms to owe so many billions ...they must owe it to somebody.

We never hear about to whom it is owed.

Of course, as money doesn't really exist, except as a human social construct, we could maybe just abolish this so called debt anyway. The only reason you want me to pay you back, is cos you need it to pay somebody else back.

What if we all just said let's ALL call it quits, and start again.
Or maybe not...

D


29 Nov 10 - 12:40 PM (#3042860)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

If one can spend it and build on it, it's real.

Just how do you define 'real money'?


29 Nov 10 - 01:05 PM (#3042874)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Little Hawk

Real money is money that is either in the form of a valuable material (such as gold, silver, etc) or money that is backed up by some sort of real collateral. Most of the money now in circulation is not backed up by real collateral, because it was created with the stroke of a computer key...or it was printed arbitrarily...but most of it was created with the stroke of a computer key when a loan was made to someone.

That's not real money, it's imaginary money. It's a pyramid scheme.

However, as long as people continue to spend it and build on it, as you suggested, Q, then it appears to be real money and seems to perform the function of real money. The problem, however, is the ever larger bubble of debt that is created by all this lent money and the interest charged on this lent money. As the pool of imaginary money grows ever larger in a finite world, the value of the unit of currency grows ever smaller. That produces inflation. Prices go up. People on fixed incomes become impoverished. Finally the debt becomes so enormous that the entire society starts going bankrupt. We are experiencing all these things because of imaginary money that's being treated as if it were real money, and it has happened because the banks have been allowed to lend out vastly more money than they ever had on deposit...thus running a pyramid scheme. All pyramid schemes finally collapse and implode, and when they do, those with the debts are screwed.

Banks should never have been allowed to lend out more money than they had on deposit. That practice started several hundred years ago, it really got going with the goldsmiths in England, and then it spread everywhere. It made the bankers rich, but it has put us all in great jeopardy.

It has also been used to finance wars, because wars are terribly costly, and yield nothing but destruction and waste of human and other resources.


29 Nov 10 - 02:41 PM (#3042971)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Amos

Geeze Little Hack, you need to get real here. If you have 100,000 euros in a credit account you can write checks on it and get people to do work for you in exchange; they have enough confidence in it to accept it as exchange. Nothing unreal about it. Money is just an idea that is backed with confidence whether it is gold, seashells, or electronic switches in motion.


A


29 Nov 10 - 06:34 PM (#3043147)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Smokey.

'Fraid you're wrong, Amos - LH's picture is one of grim reality. Most 'real' wealth is actually in the form of land.


29 Nov 10 - 07:48 PM (#3043189)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: kendall

The 10 billion dollars that disappeared in Iraq was real.


29 Nov 10 - 07:59 PM (#3043203)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Bobert

Actually, Amos is right... Gold is no more valuable than anything else... Why not sharks teeth or bird nests??? I mean, when you have to have yer currency backed with something someone has to come up with the "standard" by which currencies are valued... That standard is always going to be arbitrary... Okay, it may be temporarily valuable at best...

There is a concept called "paradox of value"... I mean, take a glass of water and put it next to a glass of gold... To most folks the glass of gold has greater value... Now take those two same glasses out to the desert where a man has been lost and not had anything to drink for three days and ask him which one is more valuable...

So, yeah, something might seem like the perfect "standard" but then circumstances can change and it is not longer that perfect standard folks thought it to be...

I other words, it's rather silly to have currency backed by anything... All it does is set up one's currency to fail if the standard becomes more, or less, valuable in the eyes of the folks who elevated it to standard status...

We, as Earthlings, have progressed a little further down the road than that primitive kinda thinking...

B~

p.s. I do understand that there are folks out there who disagree, regardless of logic, and want standards... Doesn't change anything...


29 Nov 10 - 07:59 PM (#3043204)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Amos

Smokey:

I am sorry, but if I have a bank account with Eu. 100,000 in it, I most certainly can write checks and buy goods or hire labor with it.

Especially in today's market.

I can even buy diamonds or gold if I want to be showy, which I do not.

A


29 Nov 10 - 08:47 PM (#3043227)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

Lizzy - YOU "Have All The Money"

If you witnessed, experienced, connected, had a soul.

You would KNOW that YOU are sucking on the biggest magnanomous mammulary in historical humanity.

What more do YOU want...that those "who has all The Money" have deprived you?

Worms
Typhus
A fever to avoid
Encephalitis
Diarrhea
Are you getting paranoid?
Meningitis
Laragitis
Paratonitis
Wee Eeeee Eeee
Giardiasis
Hepititius A-B-C and G

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Count your many blessings - name them - one by one...


30 Nov 10 - 05:52 AM (#3043408)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Donuel

The US has 305,568 multi millionaires and about 25 multi billionares.
The multibillionaires are the part owners of virtually everything in the USA. They own or share ownership of all the biggest banks, but you will not see their family name on any sheet of paper except for those hidden in vaults. The CEO's and hedge fund managers are merely the front men for the true wealth behind the scenes.

They have their clubs and sometimes meet or have their people meet at Bilderburg conferences and such. The arrogance of their idiotic schemes could even surprise LH.


btw hawk, even the monetary value of gold or platinum is a psychological consruct that is only as real as the minds of people make it.

The life sustaining monetary value of food, air and water derived from land and climate are actually more real than gold.


The myth of the value of gold and diamonds makes people feel better. In that way it is similar to the form and function of religion.


30 Nov 10 - 06:39 AM (#3043436)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: MikeL2

hi Lizzie

A good question.

IF EVERYONE OWES SO MUCH MONEY.....WHO DO THEY OWE IT TO ???

Because as I understand it Ireland ( and others ) are broke so they need bailing out. So we -UK- are helping bailing out. BUT we are supposed to be broke also - according to the ConDems.

So we are going to hhave to borrow money to pay other countries who cannot guarantee that they wil be able to pay it back.

Isn't this how the whole process started in the first place ???

Confused

Mikel2


30 Nov 10 - 06:50 AM (#3043442)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Arnie

Well recently someone in the UK became £80,000 wealthier. A pensioner carried his life savings around with him as he didn't trust the banks. Unfortunately he forgot that he'd left his bag of cash on his car roof when he drove off! One week later no-one has returned his money and I doubt they ever will.

As regards not paying back the multi-billion pound/dollar debts, didn't the Irish opposition threaten to simply default on Ireland's debt mountain? I'm not sure what would happen in those circumstances but presume that no-one would ever again lend money to Irish banks or the Gov't and the country would be bankrupt.


30 Nov 10 - 07:08 AM (#3043448)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Donuel

No, it started with Wall St. USA.

They made bets (CDOs) that certain bonds would default.
Special Insurance companies took the bets.
Wall St. helped make certain bonds default by deliberately short selling them.
THe bonds went bust and the huge insurance pay offs came due.
The Insurance Companies did not have the $ to pay.
The US middle class was made to pay for the insurance payouts in a stunning bail out.

Wall St. sold fruadulent bundled mortgages worldwide.
They sold Credit Default Swaps worldwide.
They sold derivitives (which are merely a swindle via advanced math) worldwide.
They sold purified bull shit by "bribing" the Bond Rating Companies to give junk a triple A rating.

The owners of the FInance banks and the agents of the finance banks made about 15 to 20 cents on every insurance bet and other swindles even if there were huge losses. They did not get all the money from all the bets because the 93 trillion dollar total amounts of outstanding bets is more money than exists on the planet earth.
Goldman Sachs got first dibbs on all the bail out money. It first went to AIG, then to Goldman Sachs.

So there are real bets that will go unpaid while the working class is saddled with the gambling losses of the rich.

NOTE the rich did not get all the money lost. They only got a small percentage from various investment schemes but 15% of a trillion is still a big piece of change.

For a crooked financier to make $700 million dollars by betting on bond failure, the total amount of money lost to everyone else is about 9 billion.

The reason Wall St. could do this was due to recent deregulation and a 60 year entrenchment with money to buy the laws they wrote themselves to be passed by Congress.

Is it fair? Of course not.

The last biug fiancial rip off was the savings and loan scandel which landed nearly 1000 people in jail
Wall St. learned what laws to repeal to steal with impunity and has thus far had ZERO people go to jail despite the fact that this current financial rip off is 40 times bigger than the savings and loan scandel.

PS
I once worked for BS. Bear Stearns.


30 Nov 10 - 07:22 AM (#3043454)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Donuel

edit:
they made 15 to 20 cents on the dollar for every...


30 Nov 10 - 08:13 AM (#3043486)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie

Hang on, just checked under the mattress, down the settee etc.

It would appear I have all the money after all! (Or at least, some of it.)

Must go and buy (in no particular order) a pint, an iPad, new socks, new strings, new car, dental floss and oh, get the pointing redone on my ivory tower.

Capital bloke that Adam Smith. Or at least, not bad for a Jock.


30 Nov 10 - 09:28 AM (#3043521)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,Dáithí

No money is "real"in the way that mountains, seas, weather, crops are.

Money is a human construct. So your $100k or whatever only buys anything as long as everybody agrees it will.

You/we only owe huge debts (to whom, I ask again) as long as we all agree we do.
SO... if we all agree nobody owes anybody anything then we can abolish this so-called debt - and start thinking about how best to manage our finite resources ...
Instead - we are so wedded to this imaginary economics that we cancel hospital buildings, cut resources , let people die and starve, and become "wealthy"...because it suits us to do so. It doesn't have any objective reality other than that which we give it. So why not stop?
D


30 Nov 10 - 10:13 AM (#3043547)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: VirginiaTam

this guy has it


30 Nov 10 - 10:34 AM (#3043562)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,Patsy

Scrooge?


30 Nov 10 - 11:34 AM (#3043592)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Bee-dubya-ell

I have it!

Well, I don't actually have it, but if you need someone to blame it on I'm already on enough Mudcatters' shit lists that a few more won't matter.


30 Nov 10 - 04:55 PM (#3043830)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Food, crops, not all that good an investment.
Over the last 10 years, on the futures markets
pork bellies have doubled
Coffee has doubled

Copper has more than sextupled
Silver has gained over 5 times, from $5 to $27.50/oz
Gold has done almost as well


01 Dec 10 - 02:53 PM (#3044361)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Jim Dixon

Of course money has value. For those who claim it has no value, there is only one course of action that is consistent with that belief: You must hereafter refuse to do any work in exchange for money. You must insist on being paid only with stuff you can use: food you can eat, booze you can drink, fuel you can burn, etc. And no gold. Gold is useful only if you make it into jewelry and wear it (or fill your teeth with it, etc.). How much gold do you want to wear?

If you have any cash, or any money in the bank, then you are one of the people to whom something is owed.

If you have a $20 bill in your pocket, it means the world owes you $20 worth of groceries (or whatever).

Cancelling debts essentially means cancelling the value of whatever money you have.


01 Dec 10 - 03:21 PM (#3044381)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: mousethief

This is a graph of income, not wealth, but since the income that goes to the uberrich seldom leaves them, and they work harder day by day to see that it doesn't (lowering wages, closing shops in high-wage countries to re-open shops in slave-wage countries, buying senators to ensure their taxes are increasingly lowered, etc), we've seen a huge shift in the % of wealth held by the pigs at the deep end of the trough.


01 Dec 10 - 05:12 PM (#3044468)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Smokey.

If you have a $20 bill in your pocket, it means the world owes you $20 worth of groceries (or whatever).

Only if you're not in debt. The vast majority of people in the UK are perpetually in debt of some kind, including many who are living very nicely indeed. That's half the problem; expectations way beyond true means.


01 Dec 10 - 05:28 PM (#3044476)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Smokey.

Someone suggested just wiping all the debts. The problem with that is that most of the 'money' (or its value) would disappear instantly, as the very notion of it was created by those debts in the first place. Also, of course, those who had been the most irresponsible (by borrowing the most) would be the most highly rewarded.


01 Dec 10 - 06:35 PM (#3044516)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Unfortunate, but many jobs are gone and will never come back.
-Many jobs have gone to less-developed countries where costs are lower.
-Technical advances, esp. automation in factories, have eliminated many jobs.
-New ways of doing business, esp. in retailing, are cutting the number of stores on the street and the employees who work in them.
Shopping on line is already strong- the number of catalogues one receives in the mail increases evry month. Why leave the house to shop when the 'shop' will come to you?
-Advances in the dissemination of information are cutting publishing and library services, and changing teaching methods in schools.
This is only beginning, but in the next ten years the job situation in these fields will be greatly changed.

The upheavel in employment is world-wide. To avoid falling behind, strong control is necessary; this is lacking in the West at this time.


01 Dec 10 - 08:16 PM (#3044555)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Smokey.

UK debt statistics

"Total UK personal debt at the end of October 2010 stood at £1,452bn. The twelve-month growth rate increased 0.1% to 0.8%. Individuals owe more than what the whole country produces in a year.

Total lending in October 2010 rose by £1.3bn; secured lending increased by £1.0bn in the month; consumer credit lending increased by £0.3bn (total lending in Jan 2008 grew by £8.4bn).

Total secured lending on dwellings at the end of October 2010 stood at £1,236bn. The twelve-month growth rate remained at 0.8%.

Total consumer credit lending to individuals at the end of October 2010 was £216bn. The annual growth rate of consumer credit increased 0.4% to 0.6%.

UK banks and building societies wrote off £9.9bn of loans to individuals in the last 12 months to end Q3 2010. In Q3 2010 they wrote off £1.83bn (£740m of that was credit card debt). This amounts to a write-off of £20.10m a day.

Average household debt in the UK is ~ £8,556 (excluding mortgages)."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


So what do the government do?

They lower interest rates to encourage more spending. Wonderful.


01 Dec 10 - 08:52 PM (#3044567)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Leadfingers

I MUST have SOME of it ! I own a LOT more of my house than the Building Society does , and have more Cash in hand than I owe !!


Does that mean I can have a quiet gloat ? Or else that I am the ultimate mug ?


02 Dec 10 - 02:41 PM (#3045118)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: gnu

If you have cash in hand and pay interest on what you owe, well...


02 Dec 10 - 03:43 PM (#3045163)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Smokey.

Unless the cash in hand is earning a greater rate of interest than that which is being paid on the debt, in which case there may be justification for a sly gloat.


02 Dec 10 - 05:25 PM (#3045214)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

The old dynasties have the money in Canada. Five of the top ten anyway.

1. Thompson clan (Thompson-Reuters Media)
3. Irving clan (industrials)
4. Rogers clan (media)
9. Saputo clan (cheese)
10. Mannix clan (building, materials, etc.)

2. Galen Weston (Loblaws; markets, food)
5. Pattison (Vancouver entrepreneur)
6. Paul Desmarais (Power Corporation CEO
7. Bernard Sherman (pharmaceuticals)
8. Jeff Skoll (Ebay 'employee')

2 and 5 are long term money makers; might as well call them dynastic as well.
The top 50 all have over one billion.


02 Dec 10 - 10:54 PM (#3045353)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Donuel

I did not comapre food investment with gold.
I was making the point that...

IF you trade all your food for gold
you will starve to death.


02 Dec 10 - 11:08 PM (#3045359)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: The Fooles Troupe

Have you heard of

Crash J P Morgan - Buy Silver?

:-)


03 Dec 10 - 12:53 PM (#3045667)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie

Watch out leadfinger!

You are not allowed to run your affairs efficiently in these threads. You get those who say "redistribute wealth" and mean "gimme what's yours" come crawling out of the woodwork.

Good on you. It is not a matter of being smug or feeling you have to keep quiet. Far from it. if more were like you, we wouldn't have governments messing up by 2.3%. (Just to put an average G8 GDP gap over the last three years into perspective.)


03 Dec 10 - 01:16 PM (#3045683)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: GUEST,999

Who has all what money . . .


03 Dec 10 - 04:35 PM (#3045793)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Slag

Quite simply, the bankers and the banks...and right now, they ain't sharing it.

Oh, and BTW, it has ALWAYS been the bankers and the banks. They make the stuff. They like to see you struggle to get it. The delight in snatching it away from you. They play with it and they play with you. They curse you and hunt you down if you discover some way around it like "barter" or "bank robbery" (all the same in the bankers' minds). No wonder Christ was such and enemy and marked for death when He said, "render unto Ceaser the things that ARE CEASER'S and unto God, the things that are God's."


04 Dec 10 - 12:43 PM (#3046284)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: mousethief

Slag, railroad magnates in the late 19th century had a fair pile, too.


04 Dec 10 - 02:36 PM (#3046353)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Awkwright and the other big wheels of the late Industrial revolution.
The Medici, etc, etc.


04 Dec 10 - 05:11 PM (#3046460)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: JohnInKansas

Some posts above have cited evidence that XX% of the money is now in the hands of .000Y% of the population, but similar distributions seem to be prevalent among companies as well.

While the statement is rather non-specific, a recent NY Times article -
Silicon bubble shows signs of reinflating - includes:

"Microsoft, Apple ... Google … Those three companies have about $90 billion in cash on their books. McKinsey & Company calculates that the largest software and hardware companies have enough excess cash on hand to buy nearly all of the tech industry's medium-sized companies." (italics added)

Quite obviously, those cash reserves are not being used to create jobs for burger flippers in order to share the wealth.

It would have been helpful had the commentator said the largest (N - some number) companies might buy (K - another number) of the (Y - number of companies extant) but that commentator is obviously an advisor to the wealthy and doesn't need "real numbers" to speak to the rest of us.

John


04 Dec 10 - 08:32 PM (#3046576)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

These tech industries are pretty large, but are well down in the corporate rankngs.
To digress further-
Apple in number 75, although it has a market value of $190 billion.

The largest in market value is Petrochina, $334 billion, although it ranks number 12 on the list.
In order of market value, if you are thinking of buying a corporation-

PetroChina
ExxonMobil
ICBC (China, banking)
Wal-Mart
China Mobile
Petrobras (Brazil) and Berkshire Hathaway, tied

Forbes rank-
JPMorganChase
General Electric
Bank of America
ExxonMobil
ICBC
Santander (Spain)
Wells Fargo
HSBC (UK)
Royal Dutch Shell
BP

(Above rankings all from Forbes)


04 Dec 10 - 09:50 PM (#3046618)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: The Fooles Troupe

Q - those are only the Public Companies which have public shares. No mention of the Real Wealth held by Private Companies & Private Trusts - these days most rich individuals hive off most of their wealth to Private Trusts, about which we will never find out much that they don;t want us to know.


05 Dec 10 - 01:35 AM (#3046689)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Slag

Yup on the railroaders and other industrialists. And what did they do with their loot? The smart ones went into banking. Bankers can make money literally out of nothing with the illusion of having tangible assets and making loans accordingly. This is well documented for those willing to discover it. Caution, you will see red and be irate when you learn their tricks.


05 Dec 10 - 08:23 AM (#3046804)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: JohnInKansas

As Foolestroupe notes, only publicly traded companies are required to tell anyone what they're worth. As an example, the small local company named Koch Industries (maybe some of you have heard of it) is privately owned - and hence one of the "small businesses" that the Repugnocrats say must be protected from paying any taxes.

They have a really impressive big office here, and they appear to be prosperous enough to be making at least a little bit of money.

John


05 Dec 10 - 08:41 AM (#3046808)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Bobert

It has been reported by several sources that the Fortune 500 corporations are sitting on $1.7T in un-invested cash...

That is not good... The GNP (growth, employment, recovery, etc) is dependent on people/companies spending money, not hording it...

That is the best argument against extending the Bush tax cuts to the rich... They won't spend it either... They'll sit on it and not spend it...

Neither create any jobs...

B~


05 Dec 10 - 12:38 PM (#3046922)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Arthur_itus

I still think folkies have the money.

You just have to look at the instruments they all own.

I know I couldn't afford to buy all those expensive instruments.

In which case, the people that make the instruments must be pretty well off as well.

And just look at the number of people that attend Folk Festivals that cost a fortune. Where does all that money come from.

Discuss


05 Dec 10 - 03:04 PM (#3047004)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Un-invested cash loses value, as a result of changing conditions, inflation, currency re-evaluation in relation to other currencies, etc.
Only the stupid sit on their holdings.

Koch is a good example of a company, private it may be, that knows how to invest and progress.
Koch produces 800,000 bbl oil/day. Its company ownerships includes fertilizers, polution equipment, forest, pipeline, financial trading, fibers and polymers, paper and ranching entities among others, either in whole or in partnerships.
It has some 85,000 well-trained employees to handle its operations.

Its revenue in 2007 was $98 billion; I have not looked into its profit share or what was necessary to the operation of its many businesses.
Data from Forbes, NY Times, etc.

The company has a poor rating on environment, with fines for spills and other shortcomings, lobbys for oil and gas interests, maintains several conservative think tanks and contributes to conservative politicians.


05 Dec 10 - 07:43 PM (#3047152)
Subject: RE: BS: Who has all The Money?
From: Slag

Just a tiny footnote Q, There is not an oil company that has not had spills. It just goes with the territory. More important is how often and how good a clean up they do.