# Should we allow individuals to hold billions of dollars in their pockets? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 29, 2019, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614 "2019-01-29T11:30:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/101 "2019-01-30T17:48:13Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > You pay $X for Windows and the money flows to people like Bill Gates. If the price of Windows were less, you would have more money and Bill Gates would have less money. Is that simple enough for you? > > Now, if you think Windows is worth $119 or more, then Mr. Gates has done you a service just like the butcher that sold you your T-bone this morning. In economic terms, it’s probably should be priced a lot more than $119. It’s the one mass-market operating system for PC-compatible computers that there is- there’s a little bit of a Linux market, but outside of that, Windows is all there is. Microsoft could legitimately charge a shitload for it without much recourse- there are no substitutes and it’s a critical component. Not charging a price that’s in the same league as the rest of the computer is literally leaving money on the table. People would grumble, but they’d pay $300 for Windows. Whether or not we think it’s “worth” it in the sense of craftsmanship and what-not, is a separate story. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/102 "2019-01-30T17:53:14Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > You pay $X for Windows and the money flows to people like Bill Gates. If the price of Windows were less, you would have more money and Bill Gates would have less money. Is that simple enough for you? > > Now, if you think Windows is worth $119 or more, then Mr. Gates has done you a service just like the butcher that sold you your T-bone this morning. Fine. Obviously you think it is worth $119 or you wouldn’t buy it. > [@](#): > > But to state _as a general rule_ > _“Someone else having more than me doesn’t make me worse off. The pie isn’t fixed; it’s not like they took all that wealth from me…”_ > implies that you think _every_ rent-collector has provided $X of “value” for the $X you’ve paid him. I hold that to be counterfactual. It is not only not counterfactual, it is obvious. In any voluntary exchange, the buyer and seller both give up something they value less for something they value more. I want a copy of Windows more than I want $119, Microsoft wants $119 more than a copy of Window. We exchange, both come out with something that they value more than what they had. If you don’t think something is worth what is being asked, you don’t buy it. So yes - in every voluntary exchange, the buyer thinks the seller is providing something of more value than that for which it was exchanged. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/103 "2019-01-30T17:54:50Z")
[Here’s an article estimating the number of lives saved by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/14/bill-gates-philanthropy-warren-buffett-vaccines-infant-mortality). 122 million lives saved by a couple who can afford an IMAX theater in their house, if they don’t already [have one](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates'_house). Altruism is a good quality, but you have to be mature about it. You should want to live in a political and economic system that would allow you to accumulate enough wealth to make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/104 "2019-01-30T18:01:29Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Obviously you think it is worth $119 or you wouldn’t buy it.It is not only not counterfactual, it is obvious. In any voluntary exchange, the buyer and seller both give up something they value less for something they value more. I want a copy of Windows more than I want $119, Microsoft wants $119 more than a copy of Window. We exchange, both come out with something that they value more than what they had. If you don’t think something is worth what is being asked, you don’t buy it. > > So yes - in every voluntary exchange, the buyer thinks the seller is providing something of more value than that for which it was exchanged. > > Regards, > Shodan Y’know, when you come into a discussion like this with “any exchange is necessarily voluntary and beneficial for both parties”, it’s really not particularly helpful. Oh, so you’ve heard of homo economicus? That’s _great_. But if we have to explain the absolute basics every time this comes up, it’s just kind of annoying. [You’re coming into a discussion on relativity with the “racecar on a train” thought experiment](https://xkcd.com/675/). If you’re not going to take a crash course in behavioral economics, maybe at least start [here](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/#economic_issues), read through at least section A, and then come back and try again. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/105 "2019-01-30T18:17:10Z")
Are you complaining to me? **septimus** is the one who doesn’t seem to understand this very basic idea. And neither of your cites refute anything I’ve said. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/106 "2019-01-30T18:24:47Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > But to state _as a general rule_ > _“Someone else having more than me doesn’t make me worse off. The pie isn’t fixed; it’s not like they took all that wealth from me…”_ > implies that you think _every_ rent-collector has provided $X of “value” for the $X you’ve paid him. It does not and I do not. They did not take all that money from me. Or you. Or anyone. They may have taken some of it. Doubtless you can find a few individual wealthy scoundrels whose wealth is primarily the result of transactional profits, compensation, dividends, but simply being wealthy does not require you to have decreased anyone else’s piece of the pie or taken that wealth from others. The drop in total real US net worth 2007-2009 and the increase since then don’t represent transfers of wealth out of and into the country of tens of trillions of dollars. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/107 "2019-01-30T19:01:50Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > … but simply being wealthy does not **require** you to have decreased anyone else’s piece of the pie … > [my emphasis] Perhaps we’re in agreement all along. I did not intend to imply that EVERY dollar collected by billionaires was useless rent on “the pie.” And it appears you may be in agreement that SOME of those dollars ARE useless rent. OK? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/108 "2019-01-30T19:04:28Z")
Some nonzero amount of those dollars is useless rents. If we have a problem with useless rents, then we address the useless rents. ---
**Author:** ![BeenJammin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beenjammin/32/448_2.png) [@BeenJammin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeenJammin)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/109 "2019-01-30T19:14:18Z")
I’d just like to know who is “we,” and why do “we” care about other people’s money? The truth of the matter lies in the correct answers to those questions. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/110 "2019-01-30T19:30:29Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > Should the gov allow a small % of the population to to concrete a large amount of wealth? The problem is, the question becomes, “As opposed to what?” Do the wealth owners get the choice, or is it forced upon them by one or more governments? “Uh, no, you’re not investing $1 billion in More Hotels In Downtown Indianapolis So We Don’t Go Through The GenCon Crisis Every Year, or a Private Manned Mission to Mars; we’ve already decided that you have to spend it on the New Green Deal first, then implementing Single-Payer Health Care, then the rest of our laundry list.” ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/111 "2019-01-30T19:35:15Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > If you portray center left policy like progressive taxes as communism, all you do is make communism seem desirable to people. > > These scare tactics don’t work on people under age 40. And it’s absurd to compare an estate tax or wealth tax to putting land owning farmers in concentration camps. > > If every time the Republicans supported private schools or right to work laws, the left said ‘this is what the nazis did’, all it does it make the nazis seem non threatening. I have nothing against progressive taxes. I think we should tax the shit out of rich people. My complaint is in the idea that it is _morally wrong_ to be rich. Suggesting that the rich people are inherently evil for being rich is a very dangerous path to go down. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/112 "2019-01-30T19:44:08Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Some nonzero amount of those dollars is useless rents. If we have a problem with useless rents, then we address the useless rents. I’ve already mentioned the tens of billions siphoned off annually by the financial sector with little or no gain to the real economy. (Whether these are called “rents” or not is irrelevant.) The Lamborghinis driven by Wall Street traders don’t grow on trees, nor do they reward the traders for any contribution to the _real_ economy. Those luxury items are a “share of the pie” no longer available to those who do contribute. The transfer of wealth is hidden — the traders in effect get a tiny percentage of financial trades. _ **And that’s just one example.** _ Perhaps some useless rent-collecting could be attacked legislatively, but it’s very hard to do in general. To address the Wall Street example, small transaction taxes might have merit. Of course this discussion is going down the wrong road. The real reason to tax the rich is NOT because their gains were ill-gotten, but _ **because that’s where the money is.** _ And, since much taxation ends up in the form of income transfers, society may make a judgement that food and medicine for children is a better value dollar-for-dollar than Lamborghinis. We don’t take away that billionaire’s extra sports-car to punish him! The whole point is to put the wealth or income to “better” use. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/113 "2019-01-30T20:02:15Z")
> [@JB99](#): > > … My complaint is in the idea that it is _morally wrong_ to be rich. Suggesting that the rich people are inherently evil for being rich is a very dangerous path to go down. That’s exactly what Democrats have been doing lately: > [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > … The way I see it is, is that it’s unethical for there to be billionaires while there is still poverty in the US. … [Salon - As usual, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right: There should be no billionaires](https://www.salon.com/2019/01/22/as-usual-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-is-right-there-should-be-no-billionaires/) > [@](#): > > Ocasio-Cortez argues that billionaires have no reason to exist. She’s right, both morally and economically > > … > > On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez attended a symposium where author Ta-Nehisi Coates asked her if it was moral to have “a world that allows for billionaires.” Ocasio-Cortez swiftly said it was not. She hastened to note that individual billionaires, such as Bill Gates, may well be good people. But “a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong.” > > AOC continued to hammer this point home later the same night on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert, explaining (yet again) that her proposed 70 percent marginal income tax rate would only be on money made above the first $10 million a year – and that a similar marginal tax rate reached 90% when Dwight Eisenhower was president. > > “Do we want to live in a city where billionaires have their own personal Uber helipads,” she asked, “in the same city and same society as people who are working 80-hour weeks and can’t feed their kids?” > > … ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/114 "2019-01-30T20:17:10Z")
BTW, the idea that there’s some significant number of “people who are working 80-hour weeks and can’t feed their kids” is laughable. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/115 "2019-01-30T20:25:51Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > BTW, the idea that there’s some significant number of “people who are working 80-hour weeks and can’t feed their kids” is laughable. I would bet that out of the 7.5 Billion people on the planet, a significant amount work 80 hour weeks and can’t feed their kids. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/116 "2019-01-30T20:34:53Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I’ll be honest, I do not have a good intuitive understanding of what a CEO actually _does_. But I do know that CEO compensation and company performance do not correlate well, and I know that CEO performance in one branch may not correlate well with the same CEO’s performance in another branch. The idea that these CEOs are somehow special, unique superbrains that create all this value just seems borderline untenable for me. Sure, what they do is probably a fair bit more involved and difficult than the actions of any given day laborer. But this deification is utterly unwarranted. Well it is nice that you admit that you don’t know what CEO’s do but odd that you still feel qualified to have an opinion on whether they are worth the money they get paid to do what they do. CEOs can have a huge impact on a business, when Jack Welch took over as CEO of GE it had a market cap of 15 billion dollars, when he retired 20 years later it was worth 594 billion dollars. Almost 20 years after he retired the company is worth about 75 billion dollars. When Steve Ballmer announced that he was retiring as CEO of Microsoft the stock went up 18 billion dollars in one day. CEOs are not nearly deities but clearly a good one or a bad one can make a huge difference in the success or failure of a company. A [research](https://eml.berkeley.edu/~yagan/Capitalists.pdf)paper found that in founder run firms, the profit falls 75% after the owner retires or dies. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/117 "2019-01-30T20:49:12Z")
> [@JB99](#): > > My complaint is in the idea that it is _morally wrong_ to be rich. Suggesting that the rich people are inherently evil for being rich is a very dangerous path to go down. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > That’s exactly what Democrats have been doing lately: aaaaand, we have to waste yet another post to correct your reading comprehension, or correct your deliberate misinformation. AOC did not say that it was immoral to try and become rich, or to be rich, or that rich people were evil. She did say that it is wrong to have > [@](#): > > a system that allows billionaires to exist while so many were struggling to make ends meet. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/118 "2019-01-30T20:57:31Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I and most people know something about this Earth; the pie isn’t fixed. Neither wealth nor the economy in general is zero sum. If you disagree, let’s hear it … > > … He’s worth some $140B, and he didn’t take that from me or, for the most part, from anyone at all I just want to address this “non-zero-sum” argument about the economy that seems to have come up here quite a lot in defense of billionaires. Of course the economy is not zero-sum. And of course a few rich innovators have contributed to it and to our general well-being (though many have not). And of course innovators and sensible risk-takers doing useful things deserve to be rewarded. If they become millionaires, more power to them, though they should be subject to responsible progressive taxation. But when a single person is able to amass $140 billion in personal wealth, that is a figure of such staggering magnitude – an amount much larger than the entire GDP of Hungary, Kuwait, and at least 132 other countries – that it should be seen as a red flag of a systemic national problem. That kind of money doesn’t come primarily from “growing the pie” or anything else; it comes from other people, and in Bezos’ case, a big part of it comes from all those other retailers that Amazon has put out of business and millions of their employees that it has put out of jobs. I thought I saw $147 billion somewhere as Bezos’ net worth, and used that figure below, but what’s a few tens of billions between friends! That there is a systemic national problem should be fairly self-evident: the US is the only developed country in the world without universal health care, which it claims it cannot afford, despite being the richest country in the world. According to UNICEF, in 2013 the US had the second highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world, despite being the richest country in the world. At least 43 million Americans live in poverty, including about 16.7 million children living in what are considered “food insecure” households. Bezos could afford to give every single one of those 16.7 million hungry children $8000, and still have more money left than any human could possibly know what do with; for instance, with the leftover money after giving away 91% of his wealth, he could still buy around 60 brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliners. I think it’s pointless to argue whether possessing such wealth is “moral” or not, though it seems hard to justify such an unimaginably vast difference in putative value between one human being and another. But there is an important and pragmatic argument to be had about the extreme economic inequalities and ills that it’s symptomatic of, and the social tensions and divisiveness that it creates. ETA: > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > AOC did not say that it was immoral to try and become rich, or to be rich, or that rich people were evil. She did say that it is wrong to have > > > [@](#): > > > > a system that allows billionaires to exist > > while so many were struggling to make ends meet. I didn’t see your post at the time I made mine, nor was I aware of what AOC had said, but this systemic argument is exactly the point I was making. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/119 "2019-01-30T21:01:06Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I would bet that out of the 7.5 Billion people on the planet, a significant amount work 80 hour weeks and can’t feed their kids. AOC wasn’t talking about “the 7.5 Billion people on the planet”: > [@](#): > > “Do we want to live in a city where billionaires have their own personal Uber helipads,” she asked, “in the same city and same society as people who are working 80-hour weeks and can’t feed their kids?” Given that she represents New York City, I think it’s a reasonable assumption that that’s the city she was referring to. I’m open to the possibility that various socialist states (Venezuela, in particular, comes to mind right now) have failed so badly that people might “work 80 hour weeks and can’t feed feed their kids”, but here in America? In New York City? C’mon man, virtually nobody starves to death in America, and certainly not any significant number of people working 80 hours a week can’t afford food. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614/120 "2019-01-30T21:03:08Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The real reason to tax the rich is NOT because their gains were ill-gotten, but _ **because that’s where the money is.** _ Already said it: > [@Ruken](#): > > That doesn’t mean that tax policy shouldn’t consider marginal benefit or where the money is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-allow-individuals-to-hold-billions-of-dollars-in-their-pockets/828614.md?page=7)