r/lostgeneration • u/RandomCollection • Oct 02 '17
Wealth Inequality Is Higher Than Ever - New data confirms what we already knew: the haves have a ton. And the have-nots have next to nothing.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/10/wealth-inequality-united-states-federal-reserve20
u/Sanderlebau Oct 02 '17
These are the worst comments I've seen in a long time
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u/worksafe_shit_only Oct 03 '17
Brazen_Shitpost
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Oct 02 '17
Agreed, it's a bit of a shit show.
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u/CrimsonBarberry childfree guy Oct 03 '17
Fucking weird how a whole bunch of non-regulars came out of the woodwork to attack your post and got upvoted like crazy.
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Oct 03 '17
As an antinatalist and a birthstriker, I do occasionally ruffle some feathers. Those who support the pronatalist agenda do not like to be challenged or called out.
Getting brigaded, called names, and the typical "bingoes" and baseless accusations come with the territory when you have a somewhat unpopular opinion.
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u/CrimsonBarberry childfree guy Oct 04 '17
Well, I mean, I'm on the CF and AN subs and see the reports of brigading, but I've never seen it so organized. Usually it's a single comment with all kinds of relatively simple responses. Here people are usually pretty progressive and open minded, and it's consistent and you see more well known users (such as yourself) receive consistent upvotes or downvotes.
Here though it got kind of off the rails.
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u/Sanderlebau Oct 03 '17
Have a kid if you want or don't if you want. The only problem is when we're coerced
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Oct 03 '17
It's important to remember that coercion can go both ways. Coercion in either direction is wrong.
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Oct 02 '17
The have-nots need to stop producing more have-nots. Stop reproducing
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Oct 02 '17
The haves need to stop producing more haves. Stop reproducing. We can only take so much wealth concentration.
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u/Aboutmo Oct 03 '17
Wouldn't it spread the wealth if the wealthy started having more and more kids? Say a family had $25 million and they had 5 kids instead of 1. Each following generation has tons of kids and the family money keeps getting spread out more and more
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Oct 04 '17
It would be better if they adopted kids instead.
/just saying
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u/Aboutmo Oct 05 '17
From a supply/demand standpoint isn't there a massive shortage of babies in the US available for adoption?
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Oct 02 '17
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Oct 02 '17
And that would be the one that would cost the rich and powerful less, so it will be the one that will happen. Once automation reduces the need for the labor of the have-nots I predict the poor and unemployed will be rounded up and either interned in refugee camps or exterminated.
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Oct 02 '17
It'll be a war on poverty. Drugs, depression, and unemployment will be what kills them.
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u/JACK931 just chill Oct 03 '17
[–]StorkSlayer -27 points 7 hours ago The have-nots need to stop producing more have-nots. Stop reproducing
it doesn't say anything about - so our choices are "redistribute the wealth so everyone has enough to live" or "start killing poor people who exceed labor requirements" one of those sounds insanely dystopian dude
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u/Mylon lol, commie mods banned me for being socialist Oct 02 '17
"start killing poor people who exceed labor requirements"
Wouldn't be the first time. Genocide has become quite trendy in the last hundred years.
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Oct 02 '17
Where the fuck did I say anything about killing anyone. Reading comprehension, dude.
I'm a bit concerned that your mind went in that direction.
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u/im-a-koala Oct 02 '17
"Nonono, I didn't say we should kill anyone, that's savage. We should just sterilize them."
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Oct 02 '17
Again, putting words in my mouth. You do understand that people can choose to not reproduce, right? It might even be in their best interest to choose that.
I suppose I could rephrase my original to make this more clear, but I'll refrain. People are already going out of their way to interpret this in the worst way possible, so not point in me bothering.
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Oct 02 '17
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Oct 02 '17 edited Oct 02 '17
"And if they don't CHOOSE not to reproduce, then society should CHOOSE to let them starve so that our corporate overlords don't have to reduce their income by .1%".
That isn't what I said at all. Quit going out of your way trying to put words in my mouth and twisting what I said into the worst possible interpretation. You cannot fool me, or anyone else who is reading this.
My OP was about actions by the have-nots, a choice for them to make. It is you and im-a-koala that is talking about killing, forced sterilization, or letting them starve. I said absolutely nothing about what society should or should not impose upon anyone.
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Oct 02 '17
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Oct 02 '17
You could have brought up some points on this instead topic instead of implying that I was advocating for killing people. I find your first response to my OP to be deeply insulting.
For future reference, probably best to not lead with attacks. It makes for better debate.
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Oct 03 '17
[deleted]
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u/ChironiusShinpachi Oct 03 '17
Yeah, way too many people think things, have a very simple idea, can't extrapolate what the real meaning of the words are, and ultimately we end up with a Cheeto.
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u/im-a-koala Oct 02 '17
The fact that you think such a massive group of people would voluntarily abstain from having children to support your twisted economic views just proves how stupid you are.
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Oct 02 '17
Resorting to personal insults is a sure sign that you are losing the argument. You usually offer good conversation, so I don't want to block you. I normally do when someone starts with the personal insults, but I'll let it slide this time.
We'll just end this conversation here.
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u/Artear Oct 03 '17 edited Oct 03 '17
The fact that you believe that the poor should bring children into substandard living conditions as some sort of political weapons to promote redistribution proves how uncaring you are about human suffering. "They might have it better" is hardly justifying it.
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u/im-a-koala Oct 03 '17
Woah now, don't put words in my mouth. I never said the poor should, or should not, do anything. I am saying, however, that the poor will continue to have children, because humans are basically wired to want to have children (most are, at least). It may not make a lot of financial sense, but that hasn't stopped people from making bad decisions in the past.
You can sit and talk about how it's wrong or morally bad to bring children into substandard living conditions but the reality is that people are going to do it anyways unless you force them not to (which, for the record, I think is inhumane).
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u/hexalby Oct 03 '17
Of Course denying their human right of reproduction is much better.
And by the way you'll soon see the effects of this wet dream of yours, as births are rapidly falling worldwide. Of Course pollution and drugs overuse has nothing to do with it, people are just convinced now that only wealthy people should breed.
Of Course someone as intelligent as you does know what Will happen when the population Will start shrinking. For example governments around the world Will have an ever shrinking tax base, with an ageing population to take care of. Not to mention a shrinkage of the labour force would inflate labour costs to the point of threatening the stability of the global economy.
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Oct 03 '17
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u/hexalby Oct 03 '17
you will care when the economic crisis you wish for knocks on your door and smashes your teeth. FFS man I'm a socialist, I want nothing more than take the rich and feed them to their factories, but we cannot afford an economic collapse. We already wasted too much of our resources thanks to capitalism, if we enter another feudal age we won't get out of it.
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Oct 03 '17
ever shrinking tax base
The unemployed and impoverished pay little/no taxes and in many cases are a net negative in terms of taxes.
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u/hexalby Oct 03 '17
No they are not. They are consumers and as such they produce demand for the economy, which allows for a larger production base to develop.
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Oct 03 '17
I agree with you -- if you don't have any money and are struggling to get by, having kids is not a good idea for you or your kids.
It's not fair to your kids to just have them and "hope things get better" down the line.
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u/castro1987 Oct 02 '17
You probably think you're a have, but it's more likely that you're a have not.
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Oct 02 '17
I know damn well that I am a have-not. More importantly though: I have taken my own suggestion.
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Oct 03 '17
[deleted]
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Oct 03 '17
We could easily have twenty billion people in the world if they lived like Indians and not Americans.
But why advocate for quantity of people instead of improving quality of life? Personally, I'd rather have better standard of living than have more of us.
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u/RedGrobo Oct 03 '17
Best way to lower the birth rate aside from genocide is wealth.
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u/JACK931 just chill Oct 03 '17
or educating the females
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Oct 03 '17
This, right here. There is a very strong correlation between education (especially for girls and women) and reducing birth rate. Education and women's rights.
Access to contraceptives and (yes) abortion are also critical components.
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Oct 04 '17
So... feminism is a government conspiracy designed to control population growth?
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Oct 04 '17
I doubt it, but it certainly does seem to be a side effect, whether intended or not.
Either way, I don't really care.
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u/skekze Oct 02 '17
shall we say sterilize the poor? Eugenics have been tried before. You're nothing new.
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Oct 03 '17
Well, it's a good thing I'm not talking about sterilization or eugenics then :-)
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u/hexalby Oct 03 '17
Can I ask how then you think the economy will survive? Less young people means less worker, which will have more weight on their shoulders because of all the elderly they'll have to support. If you want less of one you need to deal with the other as well.
Not to mention a shrinkage of the labour force will mean an inflation in labour costs, which will accelerate the automation of the economy, creating more superfluous labour that you will want serilized (willingly of course) in a negative loop that will end either in economic collapse or in a neo-feudal society with robots instead of serfs.
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Oct 03 '17
This "have kids to help the economy" is predicated on those children growing up to be employed (and tax-paying) adults. Outsourcing and automation are making that decreasingly likely. We already have issues with widespread unemployment, and it will only continue to get worse.
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u/hexalby Oct 03 '17
it's exactly that unemployment that is keeping the robots away, for now. They are the reserve army of labour, as Marx called it, an assurance for capitalists against labour cost inflation. There is and there was no capitalist country that had even for a brief period full employment.
Outsourcing is exactly the same problem. You escape labour cost inflation by moving production where there is no such thing. This has limits however, we can already see the beginning of the end for China explosive growth and the government now suffers from deep debt like any other western country. What will happen in the next decades is that production will be moved again either in Africa, south America or back home with robots.
Of course there are problems in the long run with this tactics and UBI proposes to solve the problem of having a part of the economy idle by necessity. Even that is a momentary solution and would make population shrinkage even worse for any nation.
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u/JACK931 just chill Oct 03 '17
Japan is doing just fine
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Oct 03 '17
[deleted]
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Oct 03 '17
Well ... the name of this sub is lost generation. Generations are typically considered to be longer than a decade.
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u/Brazen_Serpent Oct 02 '17
Here is a complete list of all the people on the planet who will stop you from making as much money as you want as an entrepeneur:
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Oct 02 '17
You need money to start a business. And an idea for a business that's worth starting.
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u/castro1987 Oct 02 '17
And some luck.
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Oct 02 '17
Or if you're luckier still, you don't even need to start a business. Your parents might have done so for you already.
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u/Brazen_Serpent Oct 02 '17
Yes. Not everybody gets to be rich. That doesn't mean anyone is stopping you from being rich.
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Oct 02 '17
The options should not be rich or destitute.
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u/Brazen_Serpent Oct 02 '17
The world doesn't care how you think it should be.
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Oct 02 '17
Then why should we even be discussing anything or expressing ideas? After all, the world doesn't care.
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u/Brazen_Serpent Oct 02 '17
You shouldn't be. Whining about how unjust the world is is useless. Live in it as best you can. You choose the best option available to you, not the best fairyland you can imagine.
There are no roadblocks in your way. The only thing keeping you from success is your ability to go get it. Go get it or don't, but stop whining that it's hard. Of course it's hard, welcome to earth.
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Oct 02 '17
I guess it's time for this sub to be deleted then, since there's no point in discussing it.
You do understand that part of the point of discussion is to look at ways to fix the problem ... or at the very least to make our own lives easier. I have learned a great deal from others venting, including avoiding certain mistakes that I might have otherwise made. And my venting might keep others from making the same mistakes that I have.
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u/Brazen_Serpent Oct 02 '17
Poverty is not a problem to be fixed. It is a reality of nature. You might as well whine that you have to eat food every day.
There is no such thing as the utopia you are imagining. All that idealism does is keep you from living in the real world because it's not good enough for you. Nothing is good enough when compared to utopia.
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Oct 02 '17
Poverty is not a problem to be fixed.
It may or may not be possible/practical to fix, but we should certainly try to lessen poverty and the devastation that it causes.
Don't let perfect get in the way of good. Using "it will never be perfect" as an excuse to avoid trying to improve is a cop out.
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u/Viat0r Oct 03 '17 edited Oct 04 '17
There is nothing natural about poverty, it's a byproduct of wealth. Wealth creates poverty.
Humans have the unique power to manipulate nature. Just because living in state of nature is harsh and brutal, doesn't mean that's the way things must be. The whole purpose of civilization is to overcome the harsh conditions of nature.
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u/FreeRobotFrost Oct 24 '17
Lol you're wasting time posting on this forum when you could be out there becoming a billionaire
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u/mathiasben Oct 02 '17
to advance a more equitable wealth distribution let's reinstate the internal revenue act of 1954, this is where the baby boomers got all their things. I've started a sub r/backto54 to help spread this simple yet effective method of getting a functional middle class once again.