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[Descan]

I would like to keep capitalism just so that the responses to consumer needs can be automated, and black swan ideas (like computers and the internet, and Amazon and Paypal and etc) can come out of nowhere and fill a niche no one knew existed.

It's possible that once and if we develop a powerful enough AI that can predict and respond to consumer needs better than a bureaucracy, as well as notice those niches, that it would render capitalism redundant, but when that happens, society would change so much that it'd strange to even talk about capitalism any more, the idea just wouldn't fit the times. Like trying to fit capitalism onto a stone-age society, only in the other direction. Might not have money any more, might not have PEOPLE any more (at least in the "has basic needs beyond electricity and material" way), might not be constrained to Earth and would have access to asteroid material, making it cheaper than dirt. A lot of differences are available once and if we're not constrained by human intelligence.

[smeeprocket]

Not being a capitalist society doesn't mean getting rid of ALL privately owned businesses. In a communist society, the government owns industry. Socialist societies exhibit less of that, while putting more towards social programs. Capitalism tends to want to let the market figure things out, so you have to heavily regulate it for it to work. It doesn't seem as efficient to me.

[Descan]

Even something as simple as 3D printing and cheap-and-easy 3D modelling would change that, pulling industry out of factories and into homes or small businesses.

[smeeprocket]

I always think of it (perhaps incorrectly, I don't know) as larger industries like the energy industries, heavy duty factory work, the larger agriculture industry, etc. I suppose that would also be ranching and fishing but I like to pretend, in my perfect future utopia, that those wouldn't be necessary.

Absolutely any govt needs an engaged populace. Also, while I feel that sometimes democracy really sucks, it is an important part of it all. Communism and socialism are economic models. For either to work, it would need to be democratic.

[Antsan]

Upper 2-3%? I'm fairly sure that includes my parents. My mom's a headmaster, my dad's a physicist - that's two big paychecks, especially when you take into account that as Europeans they get benefits that need to be taken into account when comparing against the American situation. As to my parents' stance on oppressing the poor, look at my previous post.

I am pretty sure that a headmaster and a physicist might be in the upper 50% but not ever in the upper 10%. I think you have a severe misunderstanding about how big the income differences actually are if you believe a headmaster and physicist to be up there.

Combined income of ~ €170k? If that's not upper 10% I'll eat my hat - at least when sampling among the people I know from school they were rather well-off. Here's an article, in German though, since we need to correct for our respective countries' differing inequalities- it appears that the 10% (and 1%) are much more broad than commonly assumed. It's the top .1-.5% that is truly wealthy.

Oh. Then I'll have to correct my assessment to an even more bleak picture, where it's not 5% who are excessively rich but only 0.1%-0.5%.

Die Forscher des Instituts folgern daraus: "Anders als landläufig angenommen wird, beziehen die Reichen ihr Einkommen nicht vorwiegend aus Kapitalanlagen und Vermögen. Sie verdienen ihr Geld oft als leitende Angestellte."

One problem I see with that article that it doesn't link its source (or am I blind?). Once again, yesterday in "Die Anstalt" they made fun of the "Wirtschaftsweisen", who came to that exact conclusion by only considering wages and not income as a whole. If this article is based on what they did the conclusion is a bit... circular.

[smeeprocket]

Upper 2-3%? I'm fairly sure that includes my parents. My mom's a headmaster, my dad's a physicist - that's two big paychecks, especially when you take into account that as Europeans they get benefits that need to be taken into account when comparing against the American situation. As to my parents' stance on oppressing the poor, look at my previous post.

I am pretty sure that a headmaster and a physicist might be in the upper 50% but not ever in the upper 10%. I think you have a severe misunderstanding about how big the income differences actually are if you believe a headmaster and physicist to be up there.

Combined income of ~ €170k? If that's not upper 10% I'll eat my hat - at least when sampling among the people I know from school they were rather well-off. Here's an article, in German though, since we need to correct for our respective countries' differing inequalities- it appears that the 10% (and 1%) are much more broad than commonly assumed. It's the top .1-.5% that is truly wealthy.

Oh. Then I'll have to correct my assessment to an even more bleak picture, where it's not 5% who are excessively rich but only 0.1%-0.5%.

Die Forscher des Instituts folgern daraus: "Anders als landläufig angenommen wird, beziehen die Reichen ihr Einkommen nicht vorwiegend aus Kapitalanlagen und Vermögen. Sie verdienen ihr Geld oft als leitende Angestellte."

One problem I see with that article that it doesn't link its source (or am I blind?). Once again, yesterday in "Die Anstalt" they made fun of the "Wirtschaftsweisen", who came to that exact conclusion by only considering wages and not income as a whole. If this article is based on what they did the conclusion is a bit... circular.

I'll look for more sources, I suppose. I was getting inequality measurements and stuff like that mostly. Which I struggled to understand, tbh.

I consider millionaires to be ridiculously rich enough either way. If you have one million, it's not going very far ultimately, but 50 or so million and you are well into ridiculous category.

hmm having difficulty pinning down exact numbers via other sources. I still think we can agree on the top 2-3% being "ridiculously rich" either way, and definitely not in the 100-200k income category. I am not looking for an exact line, because I couldn't begin to know what the exact line was, I would assume it is more of a grey area, or a spectrum of required societal commitment based on wealth.

the thing is, this small percentage owns more wealth that quite a few countries out there. Their influence is larger than the rest of the populace by a significant degree, especially with the changes the supreme court made to donations and superpacs.

[palsch]

A quick calculator showing income percentiles, etc.

Also keep in mind why the rich feel poor.

[smeeprocket]

I'm not going to bash people with 170k combined income either way since I think we have bigger fish to fry, but were I to get 170k at some point, I could live off that for a very long time.

The richer you get, the high quality of life you have and the more money you spend. But that does not mean the importance of your expenditures is equivalent to that of the poor. You could survive with less, if you lose some money, you have room to step back, but the poorest members of our society, whose numbers are swiftly growing, can only fall back to homelessness and starvation.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

so a girl in Oporto got beat up by a taxi driver for kissing another girl. A bunch of my friends, only some of which are gay, are organising a gay make-out orgy in the area where that happened and are really pumped up for a violent confrontation

[smeeprocket]

I wouldn't worry too much, taxi drivers probably aren't the upper echelons of behavior in that area.

on the other hand, be careful, if things do get violent, someone might end up dead.

Homophobes and bigots in general don't fuck around.

[wobbly]

The rich do consume less as a proportion of their income. After all, if you can't afford to save, it's fairly obvious you're spending 100% of your income.

Are savings really that bad for the economy? If your money is in an American bank, isn't it circulating and being used by the bank? That's how they make money.

To some extent. Money "sitting" in a bank isn't really sitting there because the bank loans it to someone else to make money. If everyone tried to withdraw at the same time the money wouldn't actually be there. Of course it is a potential bottleneck. If everyone is saving and no-one's borrowing you've got something similar to a dam in the flow and the economy is liable to slow, at least temporary. Long term it's a bit trickier.

[smeeprocket]

that money doesn't usually go to economy boosting sources. And if it goes into loans, it generally loses any economic value when said lenders do shady things with the loan or mortgage like trading it off to other people, increasing interest, knowing that the people they are lending it to will be unable to pay it back.

All that stuff is ridiculously crooked and skewed in a way to make the bank richer and everyone else poorer.

I sometimes wonder if these big banks were given the opportunity to make themselves richer along with everyone else, or make themselves richer and everyone else poorer, what would they pick?

The poorer option I think, because to them, the money would be worth less if other people had any of it.

[wobbly]

Hence the long term it's a bit tricker bit. If I build a house then knock it down continuously lots of money flows and in the short term it's good for the economy. But in real terms I'm achieving nothing so it's going to have a cost somewhere down the track. It's really all in the dynamics of where the money goes.

[Graknorke]

so a girl in Oporto got beat up by a taxi driver for kissing another girl. A bunch of my friends, only some of which are gay, are organising a gay make-out orgy in the area where that happened and are really pumped up for a violent confrontation

If you're legitimately excited for violence, it's probably going to end up violent.

[TD1]

Yea, it sounds like you're deliberately going out of your way for confrontation. That's what your friends seem to want, so they'll probably make one. Wouldn't like to be in the area when it's happening, sounds like anyone may be caught up in it.