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4 votes
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Brazil and Argentina to start preparations for a common currency
10 votes -
Battle for the nation's soul – Norway faces debate about gas and oil wealth
8 votes -
A theme park crisis is wrecking South Korea’s bond market
3 votes -
Norway-style windfall tax on energy companies could raise £33.3bn extra by 2027, plugging a hole in UK government finances, analysis has found
4 votes -
Are billionaires a market failure? And if not market, are they social failure?
I was reading this text from the Washington Post (sorry for the maybe paywall): https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/06/xi-jinping-crackdown-china-economy-change/ The opinion asserts...
I was reading this text from the Washington Post (sorry for the maybe paywall):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/06/xi-jinping-crackdown-china-economy-change/
The opinion asserts that in response to liberalization of Chinese life, driven by capitalistic economic growth, is the reason that Xi Pinjing "cracked down in every sphere imaginable — attacking the private sector, humiliating billionaires, reviving Communist ideology, purging the party of corrupt officials and ramping up nationalism (mostly anti-Western) in both word and deed."
My conspiratorial brain latched on to the humiliating billionaires line, and started thinking about a between the lines message along the lines that billionaires are good and should not be humiliated, a subtle warning-response to the progressive grumblings here in the U.S. that a failure to support capitalism will result in totalitarianism.
Then I started thinking about the questions, are billionaires good for society? I had always held the position that a billionaire is a market failure (in my econ 101 understanding of the term), much like pollution. It is improper hoarding and unfair leveraging of capital into disproportionate and un-earned degree of pesonal privilege.
It is certainly a by-product of euro-american capitalism, whereby the desires and welfare of the many are trodden on by those with the ability to fight and to shape the regulatory machine meant to protect the interests of the common-wealth.
I see a few possibilities. One, is that my understanding of economics is wrong, and producing as many billionaires as possible is the ultimate goal of capitalism and in fact good for everyone, even in theory.
Two, it is indeed as I suspect, a market failure. And the failure here is one of degree, it is not, in fact problematic to have some individuals with significantly greater wealth among us, and is, in fact, beneficial overall, but to have some with so much more than the rest of us (wealth inequaility) is a result of getting in the way of a clean functioning marketplace.
Three, economic theory is working as described, and economic theory/activity is an insufficient foundation for the maintenance and success of a whole society, and we need to find a way to constrain it to its own sphere, so that it provides us with what we need to be healthy and happy, but no more.
I turn to the bright minds of tildes: am I looking at this right?
16 votes -
UK scraps tax cut for wealthy that sparked market turmoil
11 votes -
Liz Truss's UK growth plan is nothing but a magic potion
11 votes -
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9 votes -
The new US Income-Driven Repayment system could cause some big problems
7 votes -
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4 votes -
Inflation reduction act explained by Hank Green
7 votes -
Right-wing think tank Family Research Council, a staunch opponent of abortion and LGBTQ rights, joins growing list of activist groups seeking church status to shield themselves from financial scrutiny
6 votes -
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10 votes -
Norway seeks solution to looming EU tax on car batteries – batteries produced outside the UK or the EU after 2027 face a 10% customs tax
5 votes -
A forever student loan pause? Why US President Joe Biden is likely to continue freezing payments
14 votes -
Sweden has earmarked $661 million for a temporary scheme to help the most affected households cope with high electricity bills this winter
6 votes -
The White House will freeze Federal student loan repayments until May 1
22 votes -
The Trump SPAC is doing stonk things, which is hilarious
10 votes -
Pandora Papers - Billions hidden beyond reach
26 votes -
US to erase student debt for those with severe disabilities
15 votes -
Wolin, on his coined 'inverted totalitarianism' and the motivations of citizens under it
3 votes -
Trump Organization charged in fifteen-year tax scheme. Longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg was also charged with evading taxes on $1.7 million of income.
12 votes -
What the rich don’t want to admit about the poor
26 votes -
Taxing consumption progressively is a better way to tax the wealthy
8 votes -
$45 billion in US rent relief was seen as the solution to a possible wave of evictions. It ran headfirst into reality.
10 votes -
Why was Trump’s corporate tax cut such a flop?
5 votes -
The trillion-dollar woman - A conversation with the economist Stephanie Kelton about the "deficit myth," Modern Monetary Theory for dummies, and why the age of capital may finally be ending
18 votes -
Yanis Varoufakis: Capitalism has become ‘techno-feudalism’
9 votes -
2020 US Congress insider trading scandal
7 votes -
No one knows how much the government can borrow
14 votes -
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8 votes -
When capitalists go on strike
5 votes -
China CCP to nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group
26 votes -
Democratic Sen. Manchin casts doubts on $2,000 direct payments, potentially jeopardizing passage
5 votes -
The morality of canceling student debt
17 votes -
How a $17 billion bailout fund intended for Boeing ended up in very different hands
4 votes -
Cash-strapped Oman plans income tax on wealthy starting 2022
5 votes -
Just give poor people money
22 votes -
Wisconsin denies Foxconn tax subsidies after contract negotiations fail
12 votes -
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61 votes -
The FinCen Files: Thousands of secret suspicious activity reports offer a picture of corruption and complicity - and how the government lets it flourish
11 votes -
How to think about the deficit by James Tobin
6 votes -
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13 votes -
Effective political giving
11 votes -
Brazil hands out so much Covid cash that poverty nears a low
9 votes -
Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake. It is an obsession that undermines growth, fairness and public faith in capitalism leaders
23 votes -
European Union no closer to agreeing COVID economic recovery plan
11 votes -
How Germany saved its workforce from unemployment while spending less per person than the US
12 votes -
Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5 million to build the case for a universal basic income
13 votes