Comments by "Rob McCune" (@robm6645) on "Richest 20 Americans Have More Wealth Than Lowest 50% of Country" video.

  1. whyamimrpink78 Those are not mutually exclusive. You clearly don't understand that. Mortgage backed securities are a form of property. Corporations are a form of property. Both are artificial creations backed by the state that fall under rules of property designed to favor the owners of that property. I won't even start on intellectual property which puts millions at the mercy of Martin Shkreli.
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  2. +whyamimrpink78 Actually that's not true either, their pay has nothing to do with performance or skill, and study after study has shown that. What actually is happening is they are a predatory class who just choose to give themselves most of the wealth that the extract from the economy.
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  3. whyamimrpink78 Unlike you, I do not. Most of the 1% don't have much in the way skills or knowhow. What they do have is property, which they consume and extract value from. To them, creating value and having skills are for chumps.
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  4. whyamimrpink78 Sure I would, those are some of the kushiest jobs out there, with plenty of vacation time, unlike jobs which are actually hard which pay low wages.
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  5. whyamimrpink78 Apparently you are unfamiliar with the concept of property and rents. In capitalism wealth comes from ownership of property, not work or merit.
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  6. whyamimrpink78 Actually you are wrong, there is an exception to that in what Adam Smith called rents, if you are unfamiliar with the concept you might be a little behind on your economics. Rents for the purposes of our discussion are fees extracted for services which require no inputs, hence the owner of the property can extract value from it without producing anything. This raised a problem for economists because it was considered a "free lunch." Even though it's not, form the perspective of the property holder it is, and this is. Since the 1980's finance and business has shifted from development producing goods and services to extracting value through rents. A great example of this is 1980's corporate raiders who exploited laws allowing them to acquire the assets of a company without assuming it's debts. Because they weren't responsible for the debts (and you say these people are all about personal responsibility) they ran those business into the ground and sold off their property and equipment (and you say they're job creators). Mortgage backed securities were another way of assuming all the benefits while not taking responsibility for the mortgages made, though this way of extracting rents backfired. 
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  7. whyamimrpink78 Renting is a form of rent, but it is not the only form of rent. And yes, exploitation is capitalism. Capitalism only exists because of laws of the state that favor the reduced risk, low cost extraction of wealth from property. The corporation exists for that purpose, it is the use of the force of law to prevent owners from having personal liability (aka personal responsibility) in property that they own and control while entitling them to the wealth extracted from that property. They would not exist in a state of nature. 
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  8. whyamimrpink78 Sure it is. Capitalism depends on private property and ownership of that property being guaranteed by the state. Without that guarantee of the state backing that up capitalism would not exist.
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  9. whyamimrpink78 No it isn't.
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