I just found this out about Michael Bloomberg: He is a "self made billionare"

[Stuart G]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/heres-why-mike-bloomberg-is-so-rich.html

...To make a long story short, Bloomberg came up with some kind of computer idea that allowed users to instantly access other users and information that could be used for financial transactions. (in what is called "real time" in the financial community, or in other words, RIGHT NOW!!!!)
.... A financer needs this information in order to make more money, Evidently, Bloomberg's ideas changed financial investments, and according to the article above, his system really "works." And Michael is willing to share his wealth with other candidates running for the office of President of the U.S.A. He has donated a lot of his wealth to various charities and other causes. He does not appear to be a selfish ass**le like someone who he is running against.

[highplainsdem]

1. I'm liking Bloomberg more and more. I won't like him if he hurts Biden too much, but I love how

Bloomberg is going after Trump.

[Stuart G]

5. I also love "how Bloomberg is going after Trump." (your words)..

...And my guess is that Michael Bloomberg knows a whole lot about Donald Trump that most people do not know. As mayor of New York City, with Trump as a resident and not liking NYC, the mayor would have had lots of opportunities to meet and get to know Donald Trump. Perhaps Bloomberg knows a whole lot about Trump that cannot be shared with the rest of the world. So instead of the information, Bloomberg is sharing lots of his money to defeat Mr. Trump instead. Sounds honest to me.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Do recall Bloomberg

doing sales calls on various Stock Brokerages that were my B to B Sales and Service Accounts in the late 80's and early 90's,selling his real time stock market software package. Believe it was fee based via subscription and he supplied the monitors with the service. Seems to me he offered three different levels and the going rate was about twelve hundred per month.

[thesquanderer]

3. OTOH, he has almost no known positions.

NY Times invited all candidates for interviews before endorsing anyone. They wrote:

Still, Mr. Bloomberg’s current campaign approach reveals more about America’s broken system than his likelihood of fixing it. Rather than build support through his ideas and experience, Mr. Bloomberg has spent at least $217 million to date to circumvent the hard, uncomfortable work of actual campaigning. He’s also avoided difficult questions — going so far as to bar his own news organization from investigating him, and declining to meet with The Times’s editorial board under the pretext that he didn’t yet have positions on enough issues. What’s worse, Mr. Bloomberg refuses to allow several women with whom he has nondisclosure settlements to speak freely.

They called it a pretext to avoid a tough interview, I think it may simply be fact, but neither explanation is very reassuring.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html

[brooklynite]

8. He has plenty of know positions

https://www.mikebloomberg.com/getting-it-done

[thesquanderer]

12. So then the NYT was right and it was a pretext to avoid hard questions?

I'm not sure which is better.

[Stuart G]

11. I just learned some more about Mr. Bloomberg just now from your post.

...A little here and a little there from Democratic Underground...A learning station on the railroad of truth, honesty, and the American Way. A stop many make on the "track of sanity and truth" as the train moves forward.

[squirecam]

17. Not sure about the interview

But if he has legal nondisclosure agreements, he doesn’t have to speak about them. Or allow anyone else to either. That’s the point of them.

[dubyadiprecession]

4. He's an actual billionaire, unlike that...

Lying, Sniveling, thin skinned a-hole with his name starting with a t and ending in RUMP.

[C_U_L8R]

6. From Medford, Mass

Those are humble roots and he's done a lot of good. Not my first pick for Prez, but I respect him a lot.

[left-of-center2012]

7. My friends in CA see a lot of his ads ...

My friends in CA see a lot of his ads
and like him more and more.

[unblock]

9. just to be clear, there's no such thing as a "self-made" billionaire

it's true that bloomberg didn't inherit it, and it's true that he made some interesting innovations.

but anyone who is a billionaire found a way to direct a huge stream of money their way and failed to adequately share it with the many people around them who helped make it happen.

one can argue that that's the nature of our economic system, fine. but there's nothing "self-made" about it. he had a huge team that helped him, to say nothing of government help and the structure of our economy.

[brooklynite]

14. Tell us all how J.K. Rowling failed to share her billions with others...

If you have specific evidence that Bloomberg (or Rowling) underpaid staff, feel free to share it. Otherwise this comes across as income resentment.

[Sloumeau]

15. You might want to read up on the Labor History of the United States.

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States|]

[brooklynite]

16. We're not talking about labor history in general; we're talking about one candidate in particular

If you have evidence that his business behavior was inappropriate, please share it.

[squirecam]

19. Good point

Nt

[Sloumeau]

22. unblock wrote the following:

it's true that bloomberg didn't inherit it, and it's true that he made some interesting innovations.

but anyone who is a billionaire found a way to direct a huge stream of money their way and failed to adequately share it with the many people around them who helped make it happen.

one can argue that that's the nature of our economic system, fine. but there's nothing "self-made" about it. he had a huge team that helped him, to say nothing of government help and the structure of our economy.

Now, perhaps you might want to request that someone produce some specific evidence that a particular individual underpaid someone, but I sincerely doubt that this is what unblock was talking about. It seems from what he said that he is talking about the systemic underpaying of workers that has occurred because of decades of union-busting and right to work laws. It seems he is talking about how companies game the system to hire H-1B workers from foreign countries so that they can pay them less than they would pay equivalent foreign workers, and how things like this and weak unions lower wages for everyone.

I have never heard of someone who underpays his or her workers writing down something like "I am deliberately underpaying my workers", so I am not sure what possible evidence you might be talking about. Exactly what kind of evidence would you be looking for?

[brooklynite]

24. "anyone who is a billionaire found a way to direct a huge stream of money their way..."

"...and failed to adequately share it". That is a reference to the economic morality Bloomberg specifically. If you want to point to generic labor history as a cause, you should then argue that any candidate who had a business, whether a billionaire or not, was doing the same.

[Sloumeau]

26. I see things differently.

When unblock wrote the following phrase...

"anyone who is a billionaire found a way to direct a huge stream of money their way..." "...and failed to adequately share it"

He did not say "Michael Bloomberg did this". Instead, he was talking about any billionaire who did not adequately share their wealth. He's talking about people who get super-wealthy and do not share it. He's talking about economic inequality. The fact that you say this...

If you want to point to generic labor history as a cause, you should then argue that any candidate who had a business, whether a billionaire or not, was doing the same.

...means that you are not getting what he, or I, am talking about. We're talking about how people get super wealthy without adequately compensating people along the way. This means we would be talking about billionaires, but we would not be talking about anyone who owned had a business whether they were a billionaire or not.

[brooklynite]

28. "There's no such thing as a self-made billionaire"

IOW Bloomberg is lumped in with other "evil" billionaires. If you have evidence that Bloomberg didn't adequately compensate his employees, provide it. Otherwise you seem to be saying that it's simply not "fair" for someone with an innovative idea to make substantially more than his staff, even if they were paid commensurate with their skills and effort.

[Sloumeau]

29. You wrote:

IOW Bloomberg is lumped in with other "evil" billionaires.

Yes. Billionaires are basically evil. Now you are getting it.

If you have evidence that Bloomberg didn't adequately compensate his employees, provide it.

I have no idea why you keep saying this. I asked you what kind of evidence you were referring to but you failed to indicate what you are talking about. Are you asking for a piece of paper where Bloomberg wrote, "I deliberately underpay my people?"

Otherwise you seem to be saying that it's simply not "fair" for someone with an innovative idea to make substantially more than his staff, even if they were paid commensurate with their skills and effort.

No, that is what I am saying. I am saying that the odds are that as he was becoming a billionaire, almost no one at the lower levels of each business that he participated in was adequately compensated. This is what tends to happen when an entire economic system is built on low wages, weak unions, and weak labor laws.

[brooklynite]

31. J.K. Rowling is "evil". got it.

" I am saying that the odds are that as he was becoming a billionaire, almost no one at the lower levels of each business that he participated in was adequately compensated."

In which case it should be easy to provide actual evidence.

What, by the way, is an acceptable amount of wealth to establish that the person isn't "evil"? 100 Million? 10? 1? (actually, that level would make everyone evil except Buttigieg).

[Sloumeau]

32. Yes, it is evil when some people have a billion dollars while so many people starve. eom

[brooklynite]

34. Did Biden announce a wealth redistribution policy which I missed?

FWIW - Bloomberg supports progressive taxation.

[Sloumeau]

35. Do you think that Biden is a billionaire? eom

[brooklynite]

37. No, he's a multimillionaire ($9 M)...

...who doesn't seem to share your opinion on the merits of wealth redistribution.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2019/08/14/heres-the-net-worth-of-every-2020-presidential-candidate/#363bb00037c5

[Sloumeau]

39. I have never met a politician who supported all of my views.

I doubt that I ever will.

[TwilightZone]

33. "Billionaires are basically evil"

Well, no, they're not. Lumping them all together makes no more sense than lumping any other demographic group together. They're not all the same.

Warren Buffett, for example, is giving away 99% of his fortune to charity and has encouraged a group of 175+ other billionaires to similarly donate a majority of their fortunes.

That makes him slightly different than Donald Trump, who, on the other hand, may not be a billionaire at all.

[Sloumeau]

36. You wrote:

"Billionaires are basically evil"

Well, no, they're not. Lumping them all together makes no more sense than lumping any other demographic group together. They're not all the same.

Well yes, they are. Also, we talk about demographic groups all of the time. In addition, there are degrees of evil.

Warren Buffett, for example, is giving away 99% of his fortune to charity and has encouraged a group of 175+ other billionaires to similarly donate a majority of their fortunes.

That makes him slightly different than Donald Trump, who, on the other hand, may not be a billionaire at all.

As I said, there are degrees of evil.

[The Mouth]

73. And there are degrees of stupidity

Demonizing successful people is one of them.

Provide some solid evidence of something specifically illegal or unethical that Bloomberg did to make his money.

Nothing wrong at ALL with being rich and making lots of money, anyone saying otherwise is a whiny loser. It's wrong to mistreat and exploit people regardless of if you have a billion in the bank, or ten bucks, and the amount you have in the bank is no proof, or indicator of sociopathy or dishonesty.

The day you do anywhere near for the world what Gates or Buffett have done is the day people who think there's no such thing as a 'self made billionaire' will have any credibility.

Go ahead, give a few billion to helping to end AIDS or world hunger.

I don't like Bloomie, not one whit, but I don't suffer from disconsolate envy, either.

Nothing wrong with making a few million, or billion, as long as you don't exploit anyone else.

[Sloumeau]

78. Your last post may have violated the DU terms of service

about personal attacks or flaming. When you start implying that anyone here on DU might be stupid, a fools, or a loser, you may be violating that policy. In addition, I have generally found that people who cannot make their arguments without insulting other people are often having a really bad day and sometimes need to take a break from the Internet. Please enjoy the rest of your day.

[The Mouth]

98. It is an idiotic idea

Please go ahead and alert if you wish.

the idea that anyone who has amassed a fortune has, without any uncertainty, done so through criminality and/or exploitation of others is not only a direct attack on a Democratic candidate but an utterly moronic idea.

I am not attacking any person except through saying that if they really believe and propagate this they are being, in that case, wrong to the point of ridiculousness.

This is Democratic Underground, not Marxist Underground.

[Sloumeau]

99. The modern Democratic Party was built from FDR's legacy.

That means minimum wage, and strong labor unions, and Social Security. It means subsidizing farmers not to grow food so that farmers do not overproduce and then starve. It means Socialistic programs like free public education, fire and police protection. It means publicly built roads and schools. It means the Tennesee Valley Authority, and the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and the Department of Labor. It was minimum wage and unions that built the middle class. It was the government subsidizing colleges that allowed America to produce so many teachers, scientists, and engineers. The two world superpowers of the 1960s, the Soviet Union and the United States were built through mixes of Capitalism and Socialism. For about the last 10 years, China has been growing its GDP by about 6% a year through a blend of Capitalism and Socialism.

Apparently, someone along the way taught you that Capitalism is good and Communism is bad. I assume that because of this, you think that Socialism is bad too. Communism is generally how the Government of some countries is run. However, the economic systems are often more of a Capitalist/Socialistic blend than Communism in places like China today or the old Soviet Union. The U.S. has had tons of Socialism from the beginning when the first group of schoolhouses and roads were built. Democratic Underground but not Marxist Underground? Do you even know the difference between Socialism and Communism? Also, do you even know how much of a role Socialism mixed with Capitalism has played in growing this country?

Do you not realize that Bernie Sanders calls himself a Socialist? That Elizabeth Warren's ideas are almost as socialistic as Bernie Sanders' ideas are? Do you not realize that all of the leading candidates want to expand government medical care in the U.S? I think that you see phrases like the "means of production" and you see Communists everywhere, when the same terms can be used to talk about Socialism or Capitalism.

There is no pure Capitalism anywhere in the world. There are only blends of things like Capitalism and Socialism or Capitalism/Socialism/Communism. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez call themselves Democratic Socialists. Have you noticed this? They might as well call themselves Captialistic Socialists because while they believe in Democracy, they also believe in adding lots of Socialism to their Capitalism.

As for Andrew Yang, the guy that you apparently support, he wants to give $1000 a month to everyone. That is Socialism, and Socialism is supposed to be on the way to Communism, according to Karl Marx, the guy who apparently scares you.

So tell me, just how much Socialism can you handle before it looks too much like Communism? Republicans have been calling Democrats "Communists" and "Socialists" ever since FDR took office, or did you never notice that? Didn't you have a year of Government and a year of History in high school like I did, or did you just sleep through those classes?

[The Mouth]

100. That is not at all what I was replying to

I was, and am, simply saying that stating that "everyone, in the absolute sense, who attains great wealth, did so through criminality and/or the exploitation of other people" is moronic, dishonest, and unsupportable.

That is idiotic, antithetical to the principles of the United States of America, a direct attack upon both the great FDR and one current Democratic candidate, and in general, a view that could only be held by someone who is woefully ignorant of many things and/or a piteous whiner.

Marx had quite interesting and valid analyses of the failures of capitalism, and many of us rather like Democratic Socialism. Many fo the northern European countries do it quite well.

I think you need to acquaint yourself with the differences between "Socialism", and "Democratic Socialism", they are not the same.

[Sloumeau]

103. Who, exactly, are you quoting here?:

"everyone, in the absolute sense, who attains great wealth, did so through criminality and/or the exploitation of other people"

The following is just wrong:

That is idiotic, antithetical to the principles of the United States of America, a direct attack upon both the great FDR and one current Democratic candidate, and in general, a view that could only be held by someone who is woefully ignorant of many things and/or a piteous whiner.

The United States of America was founded on the idea of freedom of ideas and protection from tyranny. The U.S. was designed to allow different ideas to thrive, to let the good ideas rise, and the poor ideas fail. In the 18th century. when the U.S. was born, it was largely an agrarian society. The 19th century marked the rise of the Industrial Revolution whereby various inventions created jobs in areas like building railroads and working in steel mills. I'll post an article from history.com about the differences between Communism and Socialism so that we have it as a reference:

[link:https://www.history.com/news/socialism-communism-differences|]

How Are Socialism and Communism Different?

Both socialism and communism are essentially economic philosophies advocating public rather than private ownership, especially of the means of production, distribution and exchange of goods (i.e. making money) in a society. Both aim to fix the problems they see as created by a free-market capitalist system, including the exploitation of workers and a widening gulf between rich and poor.

But while socialism and communism share some basic similarities, there are also important differences between them.

Karl Marx and the Origins of Communism

Socialism emerged in response to the extreme economic and social changes caused by the Industrial Revolution, and particularly the struggles of workers. Many workers grew increasingly poor even as factory owners and other industrialists accrued massive wealth.

In the first half of the 19th century, early socialist thinkers like Henri de Saint-Simon, Robert Owen and Charles Fourier presented their own models for reorganizing society along the lines of cooperation and community, rather than the competition inherent in capitalism, where the free market controlled the supply and demand of goods.

Then came Karl Marx, the German political philosopher and economist who would become one of the most influential socialist thinkers in history. With his collaborator, Friedrich Engels, Marx published The Communist Manifesto in 1848, which included a chapter criticizing those earlier socialist models as utterly unrealistic “utopian” dreams.

Marx argued that all history was a history of class struggles, and that the working class (or proletariat) would inevitably triumph over the capital class (bourgeoisie) and win control over the means of production, forever erasing all classes.

Communism, sometimes referred to as revolutionary socialism, also originated as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, and came to be defined by Marx’s theories—taken to their extreme end. In fact, Marxists often refer to socialism as the first, necessary phase on the way from capitalism to communism. Marx and Engels themselves didn’t consistently or clearly differentiate communism from socialism, which helped ensure lasting confusion between the two terms.

Key Differences Between Communism and Socialism

Communism

Communist propaganda from China entitled 'Be Ready to Defend or Fight,' circa 1950s.

Under communism, there is no such thing as private property. All property is communally owned, and each person receives a portion based on what they need. A strong central government—the state—controls all aspects of economic production, and provides citizens with their basic necessities, including food, housing, medical care and education.

[Socialism (title should probably be here, but is not in original aritcle)]

By contrast, under socialism, individuals can still own property. But industrial production, or the chief means of generating wealth, is communally owned and managed by a democratically elected government.

Another key difference between socialism and communism is the means of achieving them. In communism, a violent revolution in which the workers rise up against the middle and upper classes is seen as an inevitable part of achieving a pure communist state. Socialism is a less rigid, more flexible ideology. Its adherents seek change and reform, but insist on making these changes through democratic processes within the existing social and political structure, not overthrowing that structure.

You see, both Socialism and Communism arose in direct response to the Industrial Revolution. Specifically, they arose because a few people were getting incredibly wealthy while thousands upon thousands of people were barely eating. If one does not understand this, then one really does not understand the relationship between Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism. As the Industrial Revolution continued, men like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Carnegie amassed giant fortunes while most of their workers worked themselves to death, barely had enough to eat, and lived in shacks. It was this very problem that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to change. It was through all of the New Deal programs that FDR created that things did change for all of America.

President Roosevelt's programs were called Communistic and Socialistic by the Republicans of the time because they sought to remedy the problem of a few people getting incredibly wealthy while most people could barely afford food. In fact, it was the very laissez-faire attitude of the Republicans, whereby they thought it was great that a few were getting so wealthy while so many people starved that caused the Great Depression to happen in the first place.

They too thought that there was nothing exploitative about the super-rich industrialists making countless millions of dollars while their workers went hungry. However, the great economist John Maynard Keynes knew there was a problem with this type of thinking. Keynes recognized that when too many people in society get too poor, the economy collapses. This is because he had learned that economies are mostly demand-driven rather than supply-driven. If too many people have no money, then they purchase no goods or services, and the economy collapses. The massive income inequality of the 1920s created a situation where an incredible portion of the U.S. wealth was in the hands of very few people. This meant that slowly, year by year, not enough people were purchasing food. This eventually led the farms in America to collapse. As the farms collapsed, the farmers could no longer pay their mortgages and the banks repossessed them.

Soon, banks all over America owned farms that they really did not want, while the farmers who really wanted to work their farms had no farms to work. Now we had a whole lot of poor people without money to buy food, and we had a whole lot of farms that were no longer in the hands of the farmers who wanted to work.

So, we had millions of industrial workers with barely any food to eat, and we had all kinds of farms that could not even produce food because no one was working them. The fewer farms that were still in business tried to overproduce food in order to try to make more of a profit, but since no one was buying their food (because no one had any money) the prices that the farmers were receiving for their food dropped. Now the remaining farmers were not making any money, whether they produced a lot of food or a little food. They had no money to pay their mortgages, and the banks ended up with even more farms. This was terrible for the banks because no one wanted to buy the farms. In addition, the regular payments the farmers used to make to the banks that had held their mortgages were no longer coming in.

The banks started collapsing as well. So now we had starving people, food that sold for nothing that no one was buying, farmers not working, banks owning farms they didn't want, and banks collapsing because they were no longer getting payments. The pain soon spread everywhere in the country, and one after another, businesses started to collapse.

Things got worse every year from the stock market crash of 1929 until FDR took office in 1933. FDR believed that he needed to do two main things: 1) give people jobs with a paycheck to stimulate demand and 2) get farmers back on their feet so that they could produce food for the workers that would now have money in their pockets. He created all kinds of jobs programs to put people back to work and give people a paycheck. He also set up a farm loan program to get the farms out of the hands of banks and back into the hands of the farmers. He set up a system to make sure that farmers grew only the amount of each type of food needed and no more to help keep prices up. The good prices that farmers got for their products enabled the farmers to repay their loans. FDR also paid certain farmers *not* to grow food just to make sure that not too much food was grown.

The unemployed started working again. They started purchasing all of the food that the farms were now producing. Farms were able to make a profit and repay their loans. One by one, businesses recovered.

One of the clearest signals that you can have that an economy is getting close to collapse is economic inequality. When too much money is in the hands of two few people, eventually demand collapses, and so does the economy. Not only is this terrible for the entire economy, but it is especially bad for poor people. When economic equality gets too high, the economy always collapses, sooner or late. We have seen this over and over again. We saw this not just with the Great Depression of 1929, but with the painful recession of 1991 and the Great Recession of 2007.

So, to sum up things so far. Socialists don't like the super-rich like existing while people care barely eat. Communists didn't like the super-rich existing while people poor people cannot eat. Also, FDR didn't like the super-rich existing while poor people could barely eat. You know how we know? Look at the tax rate that he set up. Check out the chart at the link below:

[link:|]

OK, from looking at the chart, guess which President taxed the richest people the most of any U.S. President in history? Yes, that would be FDR. He was taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

What about the Democratic Socialists? OK, let's look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most well known Democratic Socialists in America. Here's what she said regarding billionaires:

[link:https://news.yahoo.com/no-one-ever-makes-billion-122106844.html|]

'No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars': Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams billionaires for exploiting workers

AOC doesn't like the billionaires getting rich while people go hungry. Neither does Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, or Amy Klobuchar. Yang wants to give everyone $1000 a month, which is not just traditional Socialism but halfway to the main idea of Communism:

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs|]

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"

"This is Democratic Underground, not Marxist Underground."

Hahahaha. That is really funny. It is clear that you really can learn a lot more about Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Democratic-Socialism, FDR, income inequality, the history of the Democratic Party, the problem with billionaires, and why recessions and depressions happen. Personally, I think Communism is both a very poor governmental system and a very poor economic system. However, since you obviously know very little about Communism, Socialism, or Democratic-Socialism, you'd never really be able to pick that up until you knew the subject matter better.

[in2herbs]

79. Your post reminded me of a discussion I had with a friend's husband several years ago. He is very

wealthy and claims that only he made all his money. I reminded him that he was in no physical condition to do the heavy labor, including ditch digging, that laborers performed to further his invention and that without their labor his invention would still be on the paper it was drawn on. All these years later he still does not understand that without the help of labor he would be an unknown.

Our current tax system is too rigged. No one becomes rich on their own. They need our infrastructure, a healthy labor force, and government loans/tax breaks.

[Sloumeau]

89. in2herbs, that was a great post.

Due to my parents both being teachers, I ended up being pretty intelligent. They had my siblings and I learning to read when we were one-year-olds.

Over my lifetime, I have acquired a very solid education, and I have amassed quite a number of skills. However, I would not be where I am today without literally tens of thousands of people, and I can prove it. For about five years, I worked technical support for an Internet company. On average, I talked to 60 people a day, 300 people a week, 1200 people a month, 14,400 people a year. I helped all of those people, but all of those people, paying their bills, helped pay my salary. So, in five years, that's about 72,000 people who helped me, and who I helped.

My education and my skills are also the product of all of the people who wrote, edited, manufactured, and shipped all of the books that I have read. My skills are the product of all of the people that have worked on all of the documentaries I have seen. They are the product of all of the people who created all of the computers that I have worked on, and of all of the people who created all of the programming languages that I have learned. I know as much as I do because of the thousands of different people that I have written to on the internet and who have written me back. I know so much because of the thousands of people who created and maintain the internet that allows me to Google any question hat I want. There are probably more than 100,000 people who are responsible for all of the things that I know today.

So, when someone tries to tell me that someone is a self-made man, that they did it all by themselves, I just want to laugh. Someone just mentioned Bill Gates to me and all of the things that he did. I have read two biographies on Bill Gates, and lots of articles on him. I know exactly how he made his money, and it would not have been possible for him to make all of that money without thousands of people writing all of the versions of MS-DOS and Windows, without thousands of people building IBM PC's and compatibles, and without all of the thousands of other people writing programs that could run on Dos and Windows. If there is anyone in the history of the world who did no make his fortune all by himself it is Bill Gates, and I bet you Bill Gates would be the first person to agree with that.

I have some problems with how Bill Gates did things, but I also give him credit for some other things. Bill Gates gave out stock options like they were candy for a long time, and because of that, a lot of great hard-working people got rich working at Microsoft. For things like that, I give him praise. For the truly awful way that Microsoft worked to destroy competitors like Intuit and Borland, I give him a lot of brickbats. As I wrote earlier, there are degrees of evil.

Bill Gates should not be as rich as he is, and if there were stronger labor laws and stronger unions, he would not be. So, if he only had $1 billion for every $2 billion that he has right now, he would still be perfectly fine. I don't worry about the billionaires having less. I worry about the people who cannot afford to eat. I worry about the people who cannot afford their medicine.

We live in a society where Republicans try to tell us that the rich are the job creators, when, in reality, whenever the economy crashes, it always gets restored by the government giving jobs to regular people. Republicans are in love with Adam Smith economics and Supply-Side Economics, when, in actuality, the U.S. became a superpower based on Keynesian Economics, and it was Keynesian economics that gave us the U.S. recovery from the Great Depression, that gave us Bill Clinton's economy, and that gave us Barack Obama's Recovery. The U.S. always comes back to Keynesian economics because everything else fails--sooner or later.

Because of this, I want to laugh when someone says that I am a Marxist. In reality, I am actually an FDR capitalist who loves Keynes and thinks that Adam Smith still had things to learn when he died in 1790. Wanting strong unions and strong labor laws does not send a nation into Soviet Union-style Communism/Socialism or even the current Chinese Communist/Socialist/Capitalist blend. It *prevents* countries from that by helping the people at the bottom another way--so that they don't have to resort to Communist/Socialist blends.

I always try to assume that whoever I am chatting with is really intelligent. I can generally find brilliance in just about anyone if I really look. It is only very rarely that I cannot find it. When that happens, that is OK too. I generally enjoy spending time with people of any intellect level unless they are rude.

When people write great posts to me, as you did, I sometimes like to write long posts like this. When someone is rude to me, why should I waste my time with them? They do not seem to be enjoying themselves, so why should I prolong the conversation when odds are noone will enjoy themselves? Thanks again for the great post, and have a great day.

[in2herbs]

93. Thank you. I forgot to add that supportive parents and teachers or mentors are also very necessary

for anyone's success. I read Bill Gates' book and his well-to-do parents were financially and emotionally supportive to his endeavors. Additionally, some of the $$$ that Bill Gates controls is distributed from a trust controlled by Warren Buffet. Yes, Gates is supposed to do "good" with the money, but he is also allowed compensation.

[Blue_true]

51. He was not talking about labor history. The charge the poster made

was against a specific person. There are lots of rich people in this country, some of them are bastards, some of them are excellent people who have become rich treating people (employees and customers) fairly.

[unblock]

43. Income resentment. Yeah whatever, lol.

Look, I've benefited from the structure of this messed-up economy quite a bit, and while I'm nowhere near billionaire status, I'm very much aware that I've gotten a lot of income while other hard-working contributors around me have gotten dramatically less.

Now, of course I'd like to think that I contributed more than them, and probably I did. But the scale is the problem. People like Bloomberg no doubt contributed more than anyone else to their company, they deserve to be rich. But rich and billionaire are different concepts. There's plenty of room to be wildly compensated for your contributions and not be close to being a billionaire.

[unblock]

44. As for j.k.rowlings,

Publishers, marketers, distributors, book retailers, actors, movie production staff and crew, theater owners and operators, etc.

People look at inventors, innovators, people with that great idea, whatever, and think that's all there is to it. That's rarely, if ever, the case. There's a whole lot of stuff involved in getting her products to consumers and getting that money to her.

I will agree, though, that someone like a j.k.rowling is perhaps the closest thing we have to a "self-made" billionaire. Once upon a time, someone could explore and discover a literal gold mine, that might do it, assuming they also do the mining and transportation themselves....

[marybourg]

27. I have a close family member who

works for the Bloomberg Company, and I assure you he is VERY well compensated.

[unblock]

42. The finance industry pays rather well

And Bloomberg pays, if anything, above average.

I once was offered a job at Bloomberg. turned It down for other reasons, but the money they offered was good.

But that's not the point. I'm not saying he's better or worse than average. The whole economic system we have that enables top-heavy businesses to concentrate profits into the hands of relatively few people is the problem.

My use of the word "adequate" was not meant to suggest "below-market".

[marybourg]

45. No, she's IT.

[unblock]

47. Whatever her role, if she's working at Bloomberg,

she's working in the finance industry.

They pay their it people better than most industries do.

[marybourg]

49. Being paid very well is generally thought of as being somewhat more than

adequately compensating those who work under you.

[unblock]

59. confusing a few concepts.

first, there's what the market price is. "people in the finance industry are well-paid" basically just means that the market price in that industry is better than the market price in other industries.

second, there's whether bloomberg pays above market price for the industry. my guess is, on the margins, probably yes. at least that was my perception based on the offer i got, though that was about 25 years ago.

third, there's whether or not the market price itself is "adequate". this question goes to the structure of our economy and the way businesses are run, with a hierarchical arrangement that usually boils down to one person at the top with enormous authority, with compensation often far more dependent on station within the hierarchy than actual achievement. it also goes to the role of ownership in business compensation, as ownership allows uneconomical rents to be extracted from businesses.

he was part of a team that produced a lot of value. he was able to extract over a billion out of it because of his role at the top of the hierarchy and his ownership. i don't object to him getting more than anyone else on that team. my point is just that it's a bit absurd to think he contributed, say, 10,000 times as much value as someone else on his team who only was paid $100,000.

[Blue_true]

52. A business owner can share 80% of net profits with employees,

and still wealth will concentrate in the hands of the owner of the business is profitable. The nonsense that a business owner has to be an asshole to concentrate wealth is uninformed bullshit.

[PETRUS]

53. You responded to something in your head that was the exact opposite of his point.

You wrote:

"The nonsense that a business owner has to be an asshole to concentrate wealth is uninformed bullshit."

Yet in the post to which you responded, unbock wrote:

"Bloomberg pays, if anything, above average.

I once was offered a job at Bloomberg. turned It down for other reasons, but the money they offered was good.

But that's not the point. I'm not saying he's better or worse than average. The whole economic system we have that enables top-heavy businesses to concentrate profits into the hands of relatively few people is the problem."

Do you see your error?

[Blue_true]

60. No, I did not make an error. Business can be a sole owner, as well as many stockholders.

The poster is talking nonsense regardless of the ownership classification of the business, uninformed nonsense.

[PETRUS]

83. unblock knows what he or she (?) meant

But based on his/her subsequent responses, my interpretation was more accurate than yours.

[unblock]

56. you clearly didn't even read my post.

i never called him an *sshole. as ceos go, and as billionaires go, my guess, in fact, is that he's probably nicer than most.

i merely objected to the term "self-made billionaire".

he had a lot of help getting there. and i'm willing to bet he'd readily acknowledge that.

[Blue_true]

61. He is just as much a self-made billionaire as you are a self-made person.

You need roads to get to work and law to have a safe society around you, YOU ALONE, made none of that, as Bloomberg alone didn't make his company, BUT he had the idea for the company, an idea which most if not all of his employees didn't have, so he did in a sense "make" his company, which "made" his wealth.

[unblock]

65. not sure what your point is here.

i readily acknowledge that i have benefited from the contributions of others. i don't claim to be a "self-made" anything.

but as for ideas, well, those are a dime a dozen. the people who make billions may have had ideas, but that is rarely, if ever, the reason they were able to make billions. the guy who invented the world wide web? i'm not sure he's even a millionaire.

convincing investors that you are the person to turn the idea into a business is a whole different kettle of fish, and one where things like wealth and privilege come heavily into play. rich white men feel a lot more comfortable investing in other rich white men. how stupid is that?

but then, but bloomberg and i have benefited from such nonsense. well, not the rich part in my case, but certainly the white and male part....

[Blue_true]

71. I disagree with you that ideas are a dime a dozen.

Last edited Fri Jan 24, 2020, 05:56 PM - Edit history (1)

If that was the case, we would most likely be living in a world that has no problems, that clearly isn't the case. There will always be someone who will fund a good idea.

I do agree that POC have a more difficult time finding funding, that is an issue that requires fruitful action, I do think that people like Jay-Z are tackling that problem by setting up venture capital funds that focus of funding startups that are minority owned, or where minorities are critical principals.

[unblock]

74. there will always be people who will fund a good idea?

oh, no, not at all.

funding a business requires a great deal of trust and faith not just in the idea, but in the people involved being able to execute on it, generate a profit from it, return it to investors in spades, and it even requires faith that the people involved will be able to maintain investor confidence along the way.

go through any big business you will find the rank and file have hundreds of good ideas that never get acted upon. a lot of poor people never get close to getting venture funding even with great ideas. and as a side note, many people could develop great ideas if only they had exposure to large stream of wealth. it's hard to come up with ideas in a vacuum, but if you are in a position to observe a process or a market up close, you may be able to figure out how to do it better. but that's hard if you don't have the privilege of being able to observe the problem in the first place.

but, again, making big money in america is only partially about hard work and good ideas.

if the idea comes from someone who is white and male and has enough money to put a meaningful chunk into the business, that goes a long way to getting investors comfortable, even though it has zero to do with how good the idea is. it also helps to have useful contacts, which itself is often a function of wealth and other privilege.



ordinary people are paid based on work effort and the occasional good idea. but the really big bucks go to people who leverage ownership of production and distribution and financing.

look at how much money mitt romney made. mostly he took other companies and exploited management's desire to own the company, so he funded leveraged buyouts where rmoney's firm would be paid back with huge interest first, and the management had to hope and pray that they could generate enough profit quickly enough to repay rmoney's firm before time ran out. (different deals were structured differently, but mostly with a similar concept.)

so whatever great idea management had, rmoney was able to extract a huge profit, sometimes even when the company with the good idea failed, because they didn't succeed wildly *enough* to both pay off rmoney's firm and also survive themselves.

there are many examples of good economic, good business ideas, that fail because the financing was wrong or the corporate structure was wrong or whatever. that's economically silly, but more to the point, it means the people with the good ideas often don't wind up with much money, in fact, sometimes they go bankrupt, while the people with the financing and production and distribution make a ton of money off that idea.

[Blue_true]

81. No person that have any business experience will argue with you that scale matters.

Even if a mom and pop burger shop sold pink-slime burgers like the big players, the fact that the big players can buy a five million pounds of beef in one setting does matter big in the end

I disagree that having employees popping up new ideas is a good thing, it most likely causes chaos. Businesses that succeed run to a business plan and they stick with that plan as long as it is working adequately. I do think that a smart and wise company or business owner can prosper and have employees prosper by sorting through and finding good employee ideas that don't fit the business plan but are good ideas, funding and promoting them. Amazon is trying something similar by setting up employees to deliver packages, but people here on DU hammer the company, making big complaints about the routine startup problems that come with such a concept.

[Blue_true]

50. It is totally possible for him to pay his staff well, provide good benefits,

and give them 30% of net profits as bonuses on top of salaries and benefits, and he would STILL end up as a billionaire. Two things, I challenge you and anyone that think like you to open a business. If you have a business, I challenge you to work out what is "fair" to pay employees. The logistics aren't as simple and plain as you make them out to be.

[unblock]

64. what on earth makes you think i'm making it out to be simple and plain to change things?

much of the problem has to do with the way companies are run with a ceo who wields massive influence, learns a ton of sensitive information, and therefore can command huge compensation. idiotic things like white privilege, male privilege, and proximity to wealth factor in as well.

if businesses were run in a more decentralized fashion, there wouldn't be nearly as much upward flow of income because there's no single focal point for the company, or at least the single focal point doesn't make all the decisions. but it would take a massive cultural change to have businesses run differently from the authoritarian hierarchy that's so prevalent in america.

nothing remotely easy about changing that.


that said, it's not at all difficult for a ceo so inclined to refuse to be paid more than a certain multiple of the lowest paid worker at the company. it's just that this is not a normal thing in america. again, it would take a massive cultural shift for this to happen. nothing simple or plain about that, either.

[Blue_true]

77. Some of your ideas are noble, but they totally fly in the face of lots of history.

Name one situation where a decentralized effort succeeded for any neaningful amount of time? History has shown that efforts may start out decentralized, but they quickly develop a hierarchical structure because that is the only way for them to have a chance at longterm success.

[unblock]

80. my experience working with global businesses is that few are as hierarchical as in america

most of the european businesses i've worked with seem to leave a good deal more control with division managers. it's actually a challenge for us when working with their central treasury group as they don't seem to be able to compel their own divisions to cooperate. that said, it has other upsides for them, just not for us....

[Blue_true]

82. You pointed to European companies having a flatter structure than American

companies, but the fact is they are still hierarchical. I can promise you that one call from the CEO to a division head would end any resistance a division has.

[brush]

66. FDR, everyone's favorite Dem, was extremely wealthy too compared to the...

Last edited Fri Jan 24, 2020, 03:22 AM - Edit history (1)

average worker back then but he's considered almost a saint by most Dems.

What's up with that?

Roosevelt was a saint but Bloomberg is evil? Be consistent. And Roosevelt inherited his money.How do you rate that fact?

Anybody who's spending millions to get rid of trump (and says he'll keep doing it even if he doesn't win the nomination), has to be something different than the typical evil rich guy who is always a repug grinding his heel on the necks of his workers—at least the "grinding part" is the usual spin put on it by some leftists.

And I'm no moderate. i've always been left--leaning, even voted for the Gus Hall/AngelaDavis ticket in my first presidential vote.

[unblock]

67. I didn't say he was evil

Only that the concept of a "self-made" billionaire is ridiculous.

Ok, I left out the inheritance path to becoming a billionaire.

Regardless, every billionaire has taken advantage of a wacky system that concentrates wealth into the hands of an inappropriately small number of people.

Some might share a bit more than others along the way, and some may work to change the system and the world for the better. But regardless, they're not "self-made".

[brush]

68. "...the concept of a 'self-made' billionaire is ridiculous."

So what are you advocating, socialism, or regulated capitalism with a generous safety net, keeping in mind that there has never been a successful implementation of socialism in history as it's human nature to want to be rewarded for singular creativity and ground-breaking innovation?

And even with regulated capitalism, a billionaire can still arise, alhough not as quickly or often as in the system we have now.

[unblock]

70. none of what you're asking has anything to do with the term "self-made billionaire"

really, all i'm advocating is that people acknowledge that every billionaire had a lot of help, directly or indirectly, from a lot of people getting there.

generally speaking, though our system is messed up in a lot of ways. good ideas are worth legitimately worth millions. but getting billions takes a number of problematic things that go way beyond good ideas and may well have nothing to do with good ideas.

microsoft is famous for making billions upon billions with bad ideas, from ms-dos to their version of a windows operating system to excel and so on. much of what they have done has been to take inferior products and leverage their operating system and distribution power to push other out of business or get them to surrender by acquisition.

conversely, tim berners-lee invented the world wide web. he's worth around all of $10 million today. great idea, vastly useful to oodles of people for oodles of things the world round, yet he's worth only 1% of a billionaire.

musical acts may make a ton of money, yet they still have to fork over an insane amount of money to ticketmaster for the fairly mundane service of providing tickets to customers.

there are many, many problems with our economy that fly in the face of the notion that wealth is legitimately earned through hard work and good ideas alone. yes, hard work and good ideas certainly matter, but unfortunately, so does skin color and ethnicity and gender and proximity to wealth and control of production and distribution channels and so on.


i'm not at all a socialist, whatever solutions there are would have to come after there's a sea change in attitudes towards extreme wealth. people have no sense of proportion. bloomberg may have had a great idea and he may have worked hard, but if he wound up with a measly $50 million, how on earth could anyone see that as wrong in any way? from an economic perspective, it simply doesn't make sense for him to have been able to amass over a billion dollars. there's economic and social utility in having him generously rewarded for his contributions, but there's no justification for absurdly high numbers like that.

rather it's a sign that something is deeply wrong with our economy.

[Blue_true]

75. Bloomberg is worth over $50 billion dollars, after giving a lot of it away.

You are a worthy adversary, you slip well-timed punches aimed squarely at your chin.

I don't agree with a lot of what you are saying, but no sane person should disagree with your point that scale (big companies taking over and making big bucks off other's ideas, i.e. The WWW and Linux software original source code), and the point that you make that POC don't get funding (although there is an increasing number of POC billionaires). What I soundly disagree with is your contention that in some "ideal" system, billionaires won't exist, that is just incomprehensible when one looks at history.

[Blue_true]

72. FDR was a scion of the then very wealthy (same as today's multi-billion dollar families)

Roosevelt clan that made it's money from robber-baronery). Believe me, FDR's granddad had the heads of a lot of workers who were striking for better pay busted, if he didn't outright have them killed by the so-called lawmen of that era.

[brush]

88. Yet FDR himself was a progressive Democrat back then,...

proving that a wealthy person, even one who inherited the wealth, can transcend classism, have empathy for those less fortunate and enact measures on their behalf. That is not evil.

This isn't about FDR's robber baron grandfather.

i'd say the jury is still out on Bloomberg.

And what about the Kennedys?

[Blue_true]

90. The Kennedys.

I have read that Papa Kennedy was a piece of work, into all type of illegal stuff and bought a sizeable stake in Standard Oil with his ill gotten gains. Yet the Kennedys are liberal icons.

[brush]

91. Aren't we talking about FDR and JFK and their progressivism,...

not their fathers or grandfathers?

And in Bloomberg's case, he didn't inherit his money.

[Blue_true]

94. The point that I unartfully tried to make is having money doesn't make a progressive

or even moderate person evil. There seems to be a mindset among some on DU that a person being very rich automatically indicates that they have taken advantage of people and hence shouldn't be trusted.

[brush]

96. I agree with you.

[dewsgirl]

10. I wish he had a better marijuana policy, other than that I have

to admit, he's growing on me.

[LeftTurn3623]

13. I wont lie

I like him more than I did when he first got in. His ads are really good and the more I learn about him.

[MH1]

18. I can't make him my first choice, but he's a credible option

unlike a couple others in the race.

I do worry about how he does with AA's after the infamous "stop and frisk"?

I don't think one issue area should define a candidate necessarily, but I worry if we drop off too much with the AA vote, we are toast. The only way to carry PA, probably, is high turnout in the cities, for example.

[progressoid]

20. And how is that helpful for the average American voter?

[randr]

21. My question

Why isn't there such a system to count votes?

[Devil Child]

23. Just say no to billionaires

The presidency deserves better than Bloomberg IMO.

[melman]

25. There is no such thing as a self-made billionaire

[Stuart G]

30. ...Ok here is an example of "self made"...Let's say you start a business..

any kind that you feel good with. The bank loans you $50,000 to get started. You have saved from your hard work, an additional $50,000. The business is very successful, and you expand the business. So now you have a five locations of your business. Very successful. Cash flow is outstanding. Very good employees where are treated very well with much better than average salaries for the business you are in.
...More expansion and more locations. Now you have 20 locations, with each worth $500,000 each. So, now the business is worth, $10,000,000. And so on.
...If this is a relatively new business, and a new industry, and there is huge pent -up demand for the product or service, then this particular business, could be ..."the one" that does it...and makes that much money...Oh, you say that can't happen?....Well well and well...

...Where I grew up there was a drive in place that opened up a business about 1/2 mile away from where I lived..This was the mid 50s or later, like 57 or 58. I had never heard of that business, but that business sold hamburgers, and they were cheap. 15 cents per burger...Now, this was fairly new deal in Chicago, driving in and getting your burgers. I think there were 10-to 15 of these places around, and the original one was in a near western suburb.
(The McDonald's #1 Store Museum was housed in a replica of the former McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, opened by Ray Kroc in April 1955)
...Well they expanded and expanded and expanded some more. Perhaps you have heard of this company. It is now known as McDonalds Hamburgers.. Yes, that is all true. YOu can look it up if you want.

At this link below is a picture of the original franchise Mc Donalds that is mentioned above. :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_No._1_Store_Museum

[Blue_true]

54. The idea that there should not be billionaires is a fantasy.

Given the problems we now have, you heard it here, we are likely to have a trillionaire within the next 50 years.

Good ideas that are well executed make the owner(s) plenty of money. That has been the case through history. An owner doesn't have to abuse employees and customers to get rich, that is true in some cases, but not most.

[PETRUS]

57. A tautology?

There are billionaires in the world. Therefore, the idea of a world without billionaires is, at least in some sense of the word, a "fantasy." So what? It's a moral assertion, and it can't be dismissed with a wave of the hand. Both the proposition that "a world with billionaires is more desirable than a world without billionaires" and the reverse, "a world without billionaires is more desirable than a world with billionaires" are matters of opinion, and (to me at least) require some justification.

[Blue_true]

62. My point is that any person that comes up with a unique idea that a lot of other

people need is going to become rich if there is enough people needing the outcome(s) of the idea, maybe the person becomes a billionaire or richer. Don't twist my words, I am not saying that the world NEEDS billionaires, I just think the concept that billionaires should not exist, as Bernie Sanders seem to desire, is bunk. There are going to be billionaires, simple creativity of people's minds insures that.

[PETRUS]

84. You're assuming some things that can't be assumed.

You state: "any person that comes up with a unique idea that a lot of other people need is going to become rich." Not necessarily. Depending on the person's social connections and access to resources, the idea could die in the womb, or it could come to fruition but make someone else rich. These two outcomes happen with some frequency. Also, the possibility of any one person getting rich off the idea (as opposed to, say, the wealth being broadly distributed) depends on the nature of society's property institutions.

[Blue_true]

87. "society's property institutions"? Sounds like an endorsement for socialism, which has never worked

In socialist systems there is more income and wealth inequality than in capitalist systems, far more. Don't make the common jump and try to conflate socialism or it's butt-close brother democratic socialism with social democracy, that is like comparing a banana to a rock.

I will use an example of a person that you most likely love to hate. Jeff Bezos. I can see can feel the rage from here, but listen. Bezos started out selling and re-selling books online from his home. He figured that many people were too busy to go to Waldenbook or Borders and buy books, but if the books were delivered to their door!!!? So he and his former wife started filling orders. Then someone that made bookmarks said, hey, can you sell my bookmarks on your site? Then someone else that made specialty book covers sold on the site, and so forth. Now Amazon sells stuff that have NOTHING to do with books and Bezos, post divorce, is worth over $100 billion dollars. According to your premise, a piss little online bookseller had no prayer against the giants of that time, Waldenbooks and Borders, yet look who is standing now. The giants early on had the financing AND connections that you claim small players need to succeed, even with good ideas, Bezos and his wife had some financing, but nothing remotely like the giants had.

We are off topic from the OP, so I will stop now.

[PETRUS]

95. You can stop anytime you want, of course.

But I don't always mind a meandering conversation, and the subjects we're discussing are interesting to me, so we can continue if you'd like.

Anyway... regarding the phrase "society's property institutions": I'm just making an observation that these are continually in flux, and occasionally undergo major changes. For example, a full time minimum-wage worker in the US in 1950 earned half the average national income (total national income divided by the adult population). Today, a full time minimum wage worker in the US earns around one fifth the average national income (and today's minimum wage worker is taxed more heavily than his or her 1950 counterpart). That's one example to illustrate how "society's property institutions" change, but there are many others. Capitalism was a radical departure from feudalism, to provide an example of a major change. Things will not always be the way they are now. Given the current distribution of wealth and power (both within nations and around the globe), there are significant political challenges to a more radically egalitarian program, but (I would contend) there are no economic impediments.

What socialism is, and what "works" is a major conversation, but we can have that if you want.

I don't know what you're referring to when you wrote "According to your premise, a piss little online bookseller had no prayer against the giants of that time." That's not something I asserted, directly or indirectly, nor is it something I would say. What premise are you imagining?

[Blue_true]

97. You and the other poster have written several times about the power

of a person with a good idea having capital. The premise that you and the other poster seemed to make is that if a person with a good idea has limited capital, that person or company does not stand much of a chance against better financed, better connected rivals.
The story of how Jeff Bezos segwayed into Amazon and the richest person in the world blows massive holes in that premise. Borders Books and Waldenbooks had a stranglehold on the book selling and re-selling industry when Bezos and his former wife started up Amazon as an online bookseller in their home. I don't know whether he invisioned it from the start, but Amazon had an advantage in it's online concept that allowed it to flawlessly expand into many products, the dominant booksellers of the time didn't.

[PETRUS]

101. I don't think you understand what I'm saying.

The case of Jeff Bezos and Amazon does far more to support my point than it does to contradict it. I'll get into that in a moment, but first I want to point out that there's nothing in my argument that implies that new technology does not emerge, that new modes of production and distribution don't arise, and that new fortunes are not made in the process. Of course this happens. To think this has any bearing is to have missed the point. (Also, while this isn't pertinent to our discussion, Amazon had a competitive advantage vs. a retailer like Waldenbooks because of tax policy - which, by the way, deprived states of a not insignificant amount of revenue - and capital markets weren't interested in funding Waldenbooks at a loss (unlike Amazon) so it could enter new markets - it wanted that operation to continue making money.)

Regarding the point about connections and access to capital (which you've interpreted more narrowly than I meant it): Bezos went to Princeton and worked in finance. He had ties to venture capital. Amazon operated at a loss for some time. This wasn't Joe Schmoe starting a business in his garage, this was an operation with serious financial backing. Those doors were open for Bezos before he even started Amazon.

Further to that point is the fact the world is not short on good ideas or capable people, but there isn't even remotely equality of opportunity, and even if there was the system only allows so many "winners" at any given time. There's a somewhat famous quote by the scientist Stephen Jay Gould quote that goes "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." Have you heard it before? Bezos wasn't the only person with the idea of selling things online, and he wasn't even the first. He happened to win that lottery, but I can say with something close to 100% confidence that we'd still have internet commerce today even if Bezos had drowned in the second grade.

Another critical aspect of what we're discussing is the tendency (within capitalism) of capital and industry to consolidate, unless fiscal and regulatory policy provides a counter-balance. There's a reason why there are only a few major players in any given market. Concentrated capital is a source of incredible power, it can dictate how people spend their time, what resources are deployed and to what ends, exert influence on the political system (do you have any idea how much damage the Koch brothers have done?), and it allows the holders to extract enormous economic rents. Nobody makes a billion dollars working alone (Amazon employs thousands of people and consumes incredible amounts of resources), the system just allows a small number of people to capture an out-sized share of the proceeds from what are, in actual fact, large-scale collective enterprises.

[Blue_true]

102. You keep reframing the landscape everytime that I destroy a central claim that you made.

So, it is pointless to debate.

You brought up state sales tax, that is an adder to a sales amount, it helps only if people are sensitive to the added price. Books used to go for prices in the range of $30-$70 when Amazon entered the market, I doubt that serious readers that paid those prices worried about a 4% charge added on. Plus, Amazon added handling and shipping charges to the base price, that was a disadvantage because dominant book sellers of the time didn't let the customer see that added (it was couched in the price).

Your claim that finance companies don't put money into money losing enterprises also has holes in it because that happens all the time, companies get "restructured" almost endlessly until it becomes clear there is no path for survival. Finance companies most likely didn't dump money into Amazon until it became clear that there was a workable business plan.

You mentioned Bezos' education and career before he and his wife started Amazon. The profile that you gave is common for CEOs of large companies, like Waldenbooks and Borders were at the time. The higher levels of corporations is an incesstrous world, they appoint people to the highend jobs that have degrees from a tiny number of elite universities, if you see someone else in those rolls, he or she started up the company. So the point that you made about Bezos' education and connections is pretty much irrelevant, the CEOs that his company competed against most likely had the very same or even broader professional profile. The idea behind Amazon was simply conceived better than and better executed than rivals. Yes, there were many online booksellers, some of them well financed, but they didn't have ideas that allowed them to grow.

There are plenty of ideas in the world, as you pointed out, but a select few people have the patience, foresight and creativity to make those ideas a reality. I don't dispute the role of fate, a person working in a cotton field versus Einstein, but the point that I make is there were many people that had Einstein's education and opportunities that died unknowns because they didn't have the vision and creativity that he had - so, again, an observation by you is basically irrelevant to why one person succeeds wildly while others with the same opportunities don't.

[PETRUS]

104. Not so.

First, you haven't "destroyed" anything about my claims, nor am I re-framing the landscape. It's clear you and I see the world very differently. I make a remark, and you interpret it through your own lens (as to be expected). So far, you have either misinterpreted the thrust of what I'm saying, or understood it only partially, and I'm forced to clarify or elaborate. I don't think this reflects poorly on either one of us; it's what happens in a discussion of a complex issue when the participants don't share a common understanding or a common vocabulary. Add to that the general challenges of communication. I remember years a linguists book years ago, and there was a quote in it about the difficulty of putting one's thoughts into words that other people will understand correct, that went something like "whatever it is I mean to say, I probably didn't say exactly that." This can make certain conversations frustrating, but I think it's worth persisting anyway.

Also, I suspect the misunderstandings go both ways - I don't get at all how what you just wrote has much of anything to do with what I'm trying to talk about. It's like we're having two different conversations. (Perhaps you'd like to clarify?)

That said, I'll respond to some of what you wrote:

I think you underestimate the impact of sales tax. Respected economists agree with me. From Dean Baker of the CEPR writing in 2014: "Not having to collect sales tax is a huge subsidy to Amazon. (Yes, it is a subsidy. States and cities collect revenue -- if Bezos gets out of paying it, then everyone else pays more. It is the same thing as if the governments sent Jeff Bezos a big fat welfare check every year.) And it mattered a huge amount to Amazon's growth and survival. If it thought it could have raised prices by 4-8 percent (the amount of state sales tax) without hitting its market share, it would have done so. The fact that the company has generally operated with near zero profits indicates that collecting sales tax would have been a very big hit." Consider also that The size of the sales tax in many cases is close to standard profit margins.

I did not claim that finance companies do not tolerate losses. I said pretty much the opposite, noting that Amazon was funded at a loss (with the expectations of future profits, naturally). My point was that capital markets chose not to make the same gamble with established brick-and-mortar competitors. Both this and the sales tax issue are irrelevant to the larger discussion. I only mentioned them because this is a case study I've spent time on and happen to know a little bit about, and I thought it was interesting. But it was just an aside, and not important with respect to the main issues I'm addressing.

I brought up the background and connections of Jeff Bezos not because I'm comparing him to other executives and claiming he had some kind of personal advantage over the CEOs of Walmart or Waldenbooks or whatever, but because it made it much easier for him to secure financing vs. someone who has as much intelligence, insight, and discipline but with a more humble pedigree and social network. You seem to agree with this observation ("I don't dispute the role of fate, a person working in a cotton field versus Einstein&quot , so there's no need to belabor the point.

In your final paragraph, you write: "There are plenty of ideas in the world ... but a select few people have the patience, foresight and creativity to make those ideas a reality." I don't entirely agree. It's certainly true that talent, intelligence, and wherewithal vary from person to person, but I think the opportunity for that to flourish in any given person depends a great deal on circumstances outside of an individual's control. I also think that it's true that not everyone has "the patience, foresight and creativity to make those ideas a reality," but that it's far more than "a select few." It's my opinion that the market, as currently constructed, only allows room for a "select few," and the results we see have to do with the legal framework in place, rather than native individual ability or effort. It's worth noting that just a few decades ago, when the tax code was much more progressive, antitrust enforcement was more vigorous, intellectual property was handled differently, the financial sector was more tightly regulated, and a number of other aspects of our property institutions were structured along more egalitarian lines, there was innovation, robust economic growth, and much more broadly shared prosperity. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and people like that aren't obscenely wealthy because their individual contributions are that much more valuable that those of others, they're obscenely wealthy because we've structured the economy to reward a few people extraordinarily well (and others very poorly), and I find that impossible to justify on moral or utilitarian or any other grounds.

[brooklynite]

38. Who did J.K. Rowling screw over on her way to the 1%?

Having written more than 10 Harry Potternovels and companion books—not to mention her works outside of the Wizarding World under the alias Robert Galbraith—one would assume that ​JK Rowling is worth a pretty penny. But even then, you probably underestimated just how much the acclaimed author is worth.

Using a Revealing Charm (and ​Celebrity Net Worth), we've discovered Rowling's true net worth, and after the books, the films, the Cursed Child play, and the never-ending merchandise, it comes in at $1 billion.

Just to put that in perspective: Stephen King is estimated to have a net worth of $400 million; Danielle Steel comes in at $385 million; and John Grisham is worth an estimated $350 million. Basically, Rowling is the richest author at the moment—and she wins by a landslide. She is also the first author in the world to hit the $1 billion mark.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/563592/jk-rowling-net-worth-harry-potter

Her publisher? The printing crew? The Fedex guy delivering her books? The popcorn seller at the movie theater?

[PETRUS]

46. I think you're unclear on some things here.

First, Melman's only comment was "there is no such thing as a self-made billionaire." (Which is a true statement.) It's not logical to jump to the conclusion that this must mean J.K. Rowling has personally screwed people over. It's also not logical to conclude that he means anyone is screwing anyone over. It could be a simple observation that nobody can ever make a billion dollar fortune outside of a particular social context. That said, I do think he probably believes amassing an individual billion dollar fortune has always involved people getting screwed over. Then there's the question of agency: J.K. Rowling could be the beneficiary of an exploitative system without personally screwing anyone over, and also without even necessarily supporting or agreeing with the system, or having much of anything to do with its architecture.

[Blue_true]

63. On your last sentence.

That statement can be made about all of us, even the ones setting themselves off as "pure". When you drive or ride your bicycle (or whatever), things you use came from sonewhere, even the pavement that you ride on. When you eat, regardless of what you eat, that food originated somewhere. As agency applies to you and me, were the people that made your transport or food, or whatever exploited? The mindset that you and another poster take is that there invariably is exploitation, anyone not agreeing with your full narrative cannot prove that there was no exploitation, but a claim that there may have been is pure speculation that has it's origin in how a person chooses to see the world around him or her.

[PETRUS]

85. Except there *is* exploitation, and there's no real controversy about that.

An sincere argument can be made that some level of exploitation is beneficial, that in the long run society is better off, including the conditions of the exploited. But there's no question that the system involves exploitation.

[patricia92243]

40. I can't remember which dues Bloomberg has paid for the USA.

He has paid for years and years. United Nations??? Anybody know?

[TreasonousBastard]

41. This thread is so much fun...

Billionaires are all evil!

Well, one of my favorites is Andrew Carnegie-- as miserable a robber baron as you will find. OK, not the murderous bastard Jim Fisk was, but bad enough. It was his company that the Homestead Strike was about when the union wanted raise because profits were up and partner Henry Frick offered then a reduction-- take or leave it.

He was also there for the Johnstown Flood.

But, he absolutely believed that one should become rich in order to have more to give away. He said wealth should be distributed, and Carnegie Hall is just one crowning jewel in what he gave away. Carnegie University, Carnegie libraries...

He gave away over 300 million, about all of his worth, and all to good causes. (See what he did with Booker T. Washington)

How do we value a man lie that? Do we destroy what he built because we don't like the way he financed it? Do we tear down the remains of US Steel and ignore the benefits of the industries he fostered or built directly?

He's been dead for over a hundred years, so it's easy to demonize him; but is it necessary? Must we also demonize Steve Jobs?

[Blue_true]

48. He was born solidly, but middleclass in Massachusetts. nt

[SMC22307]

55. Did Bloomberg inherit big bucks from Daddy like Fat Nixon?

He's not my top Dem candidate, but it would be fun to see Bloomberg pummel Trump over that.

I know nothing about his positions on SS and Medicare and as I near retirement, those are by far my top issues.

[Lucky Luciano]

58. I use a BBG terminal every day at work.

[Autumn]

69. Steyr is also self made. Two billionaires in the race. Both donate to Democrats but only one also

donates to republicans.That one is Bloomberg. I will never support a billionaire who donates to republicans, that shows a real lack of judgment and is disqualifying IMO.

[samnsara]

76. wow!!!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

86. Yeah, Bloomberg is a self made billionaire.

But the structure that was in place in our nation made it possible. As long as a billionaire made his or her money honestly and is willing to pay their fair share of taxes I'm fine with them.

[MicaelS]

92. At this point, anyone is better than Trump.

If Bloomberg can win, go for it.

[Vinca]

105. There's one thing about Bloomberg that's a big positive. He could buy and sell Trump

a thousand times over and that would drive Trump nuts . . . or nuttier . . . whatever. Not saying I'm supporting him (under 3 weeks and counting and I still haven't decided who to vote for in the primary), but I could vote for him. Just being a billionaire isn't enough of a reason to disqualify someone and, unlike Dear Leader, he has actual experience and doesn't appear to need a psychiatric facility.

[andym]

106. Bloomberg's financial success is impressive

Of course, he needed help, but it appears that many who helped were well-rewarded. When the term self-made ...-aire is used it typically stands in contrast to someone who inherited a fortune like Trump. It doesn't mean they did it ALL themselves.