Wealth 💰

wrath
64

American Exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.

Most of us are indoctrinated into incredibly toxic ideas like this from an early age:

If you simply work hard enough you will get everything you’re “entitled” to. Ergo, if you’re not getting everything you’re “entitled” to you’re simply not working hard enough.

That guy over there living under an overpass addicted to drugs doesn’t deserve your help – clearly he didn’t work hard enough. He needs to take a shower and get a job like the rest of us.

There’s a wealthy and successful person inside of every one of us just waiting to get out. If we were to help someone else be successful all it’s doing is preventing us from being successful.

If someone else needs a hand-out it’s because they failed. If you need a hand-out it’s because you deserve it.

For those who are wealthy and successful, especially the “old money” kind, “fuck you got mine” is pretty much the name of the game.

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65

The word “undeserving” does a lot of heavy lifting for American conservatives and Libertarians.

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66

In the words of one of their own favored silver screen ‘heroes’:

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67

I mean:

the means of production (also called capital goods)[1] are physical and non-financial inputs used in the production of economic value. These include raw materials, facilities, machinery and tools used in the production of goods and services.[2][3] In the terminology of classical economics, the means of production are the “factors of production” minus financial and human capital.

Almost everything you mentioned is an expendeture or liability except perhaps the generating of electricity.

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68

Is that when the latex cat suit is made out of those shiny plastic Canadian bills?

69

When a character in a fairy tale hoards orders of magnitude more wealth than they could possibly use at the expense of the peasantry that character is called a “dragon” and the person who ends their reign of terror by slaying them is deemed the “hero.”

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70

Since we are talking a lot about semantics, and the title of this thread is Wealth. What makes someone, wealthy? I am curious as to what other mutamts would comsider the bottom delimiter of “being wealthy”

71

Every thing you named is a cost. Liability is a weird word choice. It implies something negative that doesn’t contribute to the value chain - which all of those do. They’re all liabilities in the accounting sense as they’re costs not accounts receivables etc.

I’m not sure how you distinguish between water and electrical utilities.

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72

I was quoting someone, I named none of them.

73

Who are you responding too?

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74

Sorry, you but my connection is crap and the BBS choked. As far as liability is concerned I meant as a recurring cost.

75

Okay. But you’re quoting them as examples of what you believe- correct?

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76

No, I dont consider most of those parts of producion except the power generation and I guess the water as well. Kind of a value added service.

77

Then how can I possibly respond to your replying to me with something you don’t actually believe? What’s the point of posting them?

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78

I missunderstood your post then. I was speaking about who owns the means of production. You asked what I considered production. I answered with a definition and then said most of your postulations, wich I quoted, were costs as opposed to production.

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79

you first

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80

I’m sorry - you just said:

“I mean this” to me then told me that you don’t mean that - that you’re just quoting it and saying you mean it - but you don’t mean it.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at here.

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81

If it were up to me, I’d define wealth in terms of the Buddhist idea of “suchness”, or enlightenment. Where removing obstacles to the self actualization of others is essentual to one’s own enlightenment.

Basically the personal ideal of love, made public.

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82

Sure thing.

To me someone is wealthy when they have enough revenue and savings to be able to pay for all necesities like Food, Shelter, transportation, healthcare without having to wonder if it will be OK next month. This is my definitions because I was asking about financial wealth as opposed to more meta definitions.

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83

A person who has more resources than the amount required to live a life of comfort and security by the standards of their contemporaries.

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