Should there be a limitation in wealth?

[Kang Seung Jae]

Originally Posted by Lanner Falcon

Yes, you should. As co-conspirators, we should be more united. May I ask for your exact plans? Do you have a backup plan? I'd suggest an invasion. And will it be an assassination, or a bloody political revolution?

Decisions, decisions… You can count on us!

It's entirely simple: Bribes.


The thing that's holding DPRK is the military, and what's holding the military is their reliance on Kim for their luxuries.



It's all a game of interest: Know what your target wants, and go for that spot.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by boggart

Isn't the premise of controlling wealth and then distributing it to "make it more fair for everyone" a totalitarian form of communism?

Woah I made a huge error there, I meant to write

Yes I suppose, but communism it self isn't bad. And I am not really suggesting total equality like communism, but creating a limit so that there would be sort of balance between upper and lower class.

but I would like add capatalims element by allowing to people to make money much to the limit.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

That is a very dangerous line of reasoning. Sure, I can live without quad core. I can also live without central heating, and vaccinations, and properly cooked food. All of these innovations were the result of one or more people not being happy with the status quo. Someone didn't want to be chilled in the winter, and set about heating their abode. With quad core, people want to do more and do it in less time. The second you don't aspire for more, development ceases.

It also comes down to living comfortably. If you just want to live comfortably, that's totally fine. I agree with you, to live comfortably you really don't need billions of dollars. If you have expensive tastes, that's also your business. But some people want to do more with their money. Let me give you a personal example:

I was involved with a cancer research project. Government funding is currently incredibly tight, and cancer isn't the research subject that the government is currently interested in. Our funding was almost entirely derived from a multi-millionaire family. A surgeon also contributed some funds to our efforts. These people aren't just living comfortably or even luxuriously, they're giving money to people who are doing work that will probably never make them very rich and who have difficulty finding funding. Curing cancer won't get rid of poverty, but I certainly think it'd be of great benefit to humanity. Or are you OK with the status quo, and don't feel that we should be trying to cure diseases?

There are other cases as well. My university (University of Southern California) has a policy where certain schools can be named after a donor if they donate enough. The engineering school was renamed about three or four years ago: Andrew Viterbi donated around $1.2 million (if I remember right, maybe it was more) to the school. Those funds went into improving facilities, offering scholarships to engineering students, and improving the overall quality of education.

Those examples of philanthropy likely wouldn't and couldn't happen if we restricted how much people could have. You've been focusing on saying that people don't need those things that they have, but what harm is it doing? On what grounds do you think that restricting people's wealth would be of benefit?

Well no you don't need quad-core, but then you have second choice with dual-core. Though I thought we using computer part as metaphor, saying that having billions dollar is like having quad-core, it would be great to have it but you don't really need it. Also I didn't say that their restriction should be something low as $100 thousands, I really said that restriction should be around 100 millions or something around billions. So those people could donate whatever they want, and I think they would still have enough money. I am just thinking having too much money is not good.

[Lanner Falcon]

Originally Posted by Kang Seung Jae

It's entirely simple: Bribes.


The thing that's holding DPRK is the military, and what's holding the military is their reliance on Kim for their luxuries.



It's all a game of interest: Know what your target wants, and go for that spot.

So its a question of whether Tim can tax the people to death before you bribe the government? I guess there isn't really that much to tax… In any event, if you plan should fail, or only half succeed, we would need to hunker own for bloody civil war.

To this purpose, all billionaires on the forum will invest in nuclear weapons, F-22 Raptors, and Reagan-class carriers. We will name our army the IASA, and immediately prepare to defend against attack from china! Then, we shall conquer the world!!

(Laughs maniacally, before frightened forum residents bash head with post)

Or we could just use bribes. Those are fine too. (That really would be the best way…)

It just goes to show you the virtue of being a billionaire.

[Kang Seung Jae]

Originally Posted by Lanner Falcon

So its a question of weather Tim can tax the people to death before you bribe the government? I guess there isn't really that much to tax… In any event, if you plan should fail, or only half succeed, we would need to hunker own for bloody civil war.

To this purpose, all billionaires on the forum will invest in nuclear weapons, F-22 Raptors, and Reagan-class carriers. We will name our army the IASA, and immediately prepare to defend against attack from china! Then, we shall conquer the world!!

(Laughs maniacally, before frightened forum residents bash head with post)

Or we could just use bribes. Those are fine too. (That really would be the best way…)

It just goes to show you the virtue of being a billionaire.

My "virtue" is ending the suffering of our northern people.


To me, the end justifies the means.

[Lanner Falcon]

Originally Posted by Kang Seung Jae

My "virtue" is ending the suffering of our northern people.


To me, the end justifies the means.

I completely agree with you. There's an old saying: "If the end doesn't justify the means, what does?" This is the way that all men thought, before the cultural revolution. I think that way also, and always shall.

And this end, justifies almost any means.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Terrestrial Dream

Well no you don't need quad-core, but then you have second choice with dual-core. Though I thought we using computer part as metaphor, saying that having billions dollar is like having quad-core, it would be great to have it but you don't really need it. Also I didn't say that their restriction should be something low as $100 thousands, I really said that restriction should be around 100 millions or something around billions. So those people could donate whatever they want, and I think they would still have enough money. I am just thinking having too much money is not good.

The only reason I attacked your analogy relating to computing power was because it's relatively short-sighted and dangerous. I mentioned the whole quote about how "640 kb of RAM should be enough for everyone" because back then (~20 years ago) nobody could have even dreamed of the things that we're currently using computers for, and of the possibilities that have been made real due to that processing power. Had everyone said "you know, that's right, computers are perfectly fine as they are now. Why bother trying to make them faster?" a lot of possibilities would have been cut off, and I believe it'd be for the worse. Right now, by saying that quad core is more than enough for anyone, you're repeating that line of reasoning. Does anyone need it? I don't think anyone needs it, no, but it sure would be useful to some people (myself included). And because of its development, new possibilities may be born into the world.

This was really the only reason I wanted to jump into this thread. I merely wanted to point out that any time you say "this ought to be enough" you're merely experiencing a lack of creativity. Why limit ourselves to what's strictly necessary if we don't need to, and if having better things doesn't harm anyone?

But what does this have to do with money? The correlation is very narrow. In some cases, you can only do certain things with a lot of money. I can give you uses for a quad-core processor because it's what I do and what I know, but I can't give you any examples with money - however, I'm fairly certain that they exist. I think I can understand what might have led you to thinking that having too much money isn't good, and I can agree with some of them. But to make a generalization that one person having too much money is a bad thing - why? Is the alternative really any better?

[siya]

Well....If you ask me...There shouldn't be a limit towards people who have accually earned it...I mean...if you worked for $100,000,000 would there really be a reason to take it away? I would think not, you earned that money. Now, the people who earn it in illeagle was..of course not...then the people who inherit all this money...Of course there should be a limit....What did they do to earn it? All they did was be born into a rich family, make them work for that inherritence.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by siya

Well....If you ask me...There shouldn't be a limit towards people who have accually earned it...I mean...if you worked for $100,000,000 would there really be a reason to take it away? I would think not, you earned that money. Now, the people who earn it in illeagle was..of course not...

Who defines what qualifies for actual work? Who defines what's illegal?

then the people who inherit all this money...Of course there should be a limit....What did they do to earn it? All they did was be born into a rich family, make them work for that inherritence.

Should everyone be reduced to having nothing from their parents? Who's to judge when a person has worked enough for their inheritance? Why shouldn't parents be able to pass on to their children what they worked hard for?

[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by siya

Well....If you ask me...There shouldn't be a limit towards people who have accually earned it...I mean...if you worked for $100,000,000 would there really be a reason to take it away? I would think not, you earned that money. Now, the people who earn it in illeagle was..of course not...then the people who inherit all this money...Of course there should be a limit....What did they do to earn it? All they did was be born into a rich family, make them work for that inherritence.

As I worte before, it's not a matter of keeping it but how it is going to be redistributed into the real economy.
Wealth is a resource and if is just sitting there in your private vault doing nothing or if it is invested into virtual economy consisting of money game then it is not doing society any good.
I am not saying it should be all donated, placing it into a bank account, investing into stocks buying bonds are all forms of redistribution of wealth since the money is used to financing directly and indirectly other people. As long as you are not investing money for the sake of making money alone then real economy will benefit.

[User65554]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Should everyone be reduced to having nothing from their parents? Who's to judge when a person has worked enough for their inheritance? Why shouldn't parents be able to pass on to their children what they worked hard for?

Not nessisarily nothing, but certainly some limit. They havn't really done much for the large amounts of money that they own.
And you could use the same argument to ask who's to judge when someone has worked for any amount of money, regardless of where it's from. Perhaps noone is to judge, but that doesn't stop us, as it would create far more problems than it solves.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by VK-Pitt

Not nessisarily nothing, but certainly some limit. They havn't really done much for the large amounts of money that they own.
And you could use the same argument to ask who's to judge when someone has worked for any amount of money, regardless of where it's from. Perhaps noone is to judge, but that doesn't stop us, as it would create far more problems than it solves.

I ask these questions because I'm hearing a lot of politician-sounding remarks now. It's like me saying "let's switch to hydrogen technology in the next 25 years and stop using oil." Well great, but where's the policy that'll make it happen? As they say, the devil is in the details, and many people are making blanket statements that sound nice but don't analyze what they're saying.

Here's an example of what I mean. When you say that people who just inherit insane sums of money should have to work for it, I think of people like Paris Hilton and totally agree. It seems unjustified that someone like her should have so much money and be in a position of power/influence because of it. In that sense, yes - let's impose a limit. However, think about it from your end. I don't have any children yet, but if you were to cap the wealth that my children can receive from me, I'd feel very resentful. After all, I'd be working not only to ensure my own comfort and happiness, but to ensure the comfort, happiness, and success of my children. If I work very hard and make billions, and I want those billions to go to my children and my children's children, who would you be to take that away from me and tell me that it has to go back to poor people that I don't even know? It's not like we're not all paying taxes and giving back to society. Why, then, would you be stealing from my children?

I may be able to be convinced that imposing a limit could work, but not with blanket statements. When I hear the clause mentioned that "they'll get it if they work for it" I am immediately skeptical. That means that a third party is now holding the money, and if that third party determines how much work is enough then I can almost guarantee that there would come a time when no amount of work would ever be enough. Why would the third party, even if it were the government, want to give it back to the individual - especially if it were millions or billions?

[Lanner Falcon]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I ask these questions because I'm hearing a lot of politician-sounding remarks now. It's like me saying "let's switch to hydrogen technology in the next 25 years and stop using oil." Well great, but where's the policy that'll make it happen? As they say, the devil is in the details, and many people are making blanket statements that sound nice but don't analyze what they're saying.

Here's an example of what I mean. When you say that people who just inherit insane sums of money should have to work for it, I think of people like Paris Hilton and totally agree. It seems unjustified that someone like her should have so much money and be in a position of power/influence because of it. In that sense, yes - let's impose a limit. However, think about it from your end. I don't have any children yet, but if you were to cap the wealth that my children can receive from me, I'd feel very resentful. After all, I'd be working not only to ensure my own comfort and happiness, but to ensure the comfort, happiness, and success of my children. If I work very hard and make billions, and I want those billions to go to my children and my children's children, who would you be to take that away from me and tell me that it has to go back to poor people that I don't even know? It's not like we're not all paying taxes and giving back to society. Why, then, would you be stealing from my children?

I may be able to be convinced that imposing a limit could work, but not with blanket statements. When I hear the clause mentioned that "they'll get it if they work for it" I am immediately skeptical. That means that a third party is now holding the money, and if that third party determines how much work is enough then I can almost guarantee that there would come a time when no amount of work would ever be enough. Why would the third party, even if it were the government, want to give it back to the individual - especially if it were millions or billions?

The most dangerous part of the policy, is in my opinion, that the government has been given a principle by with they can limit, or confiscate money, and commit seizure of property. That is, in essence, soft communism.

And furthermore, who's to say what "to much money" means, anyway? Is it more than you can use, Or more than you need? I don't really think anyone is fit to make such a decision, and furthermore, I believe it would be entirely muttonheaded to try. There are more uses for that money than anyone could think of. If a depression were to occur, that money would keep them living comfortably, and aid the economy. That, and about ten thousand others…

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by Tri-ring

I ask to people who agreed with the above sentiment, what are you going to do with it?

What is it that you can buy with 100 billion that you can't buy with 10 billion, 1 billion, 100 million, 10 million, 1 million?

As I wrote before, the problem within our society is amount of material wealth used as measurement of success. As long as we are caught within extreme capitalist ideals human society will not move to the next stage.

A few examples of what I would/will do with all that money:

- Build schools.
- Build orphanages.
- Invest in businesses in impoverished nations/communities to spur their economy.
- Contribute to charity.
- Donate to expensive philanthropic causes, like agricultural science research.
- Build businesses that will create new jobs.
- Spend money that will create new jobs in other businesses.
- Spend less time working for others and more time working for my causes of choice.

I don't judge success by material wealth, but material wealth is necessary to accomplish nearly any good cause in the world. It's not a zero-sum game, and some one has to have it if it's created. Fortunately, the wealthy happen to do the great majority of giving. Not all rich people are as materialistic as so many assume. Even if they were, the incidental positive effect that injecting their money into the economy does an incredible amount of good.

As well, private charity/philanthropy tends to be far more direct and efficient. Personally, I put a tremendous amount of my time and money toward some very good efforts, but what I have is peanuts. When I am making more and have more free time, I will be able to accomplish FAR more than I am at my current income/free time limitations.

But beyond personal spending, big business requires big money to drive it! The fact that we are able to drive to work, shop at the supermarket, buy effective medicine at the local pharmacy, or break international barriers and communicate on this message board is the result of many levels of many very rich people/businesses investing and building to bring us to this point. If those business/social architects hadn't been so rich, we wouldn't be so well off right now.

[Diaboso]

wealth is for the wealthy and its going to stay that way. but to awnser the question no I really dont think there should be a limit.

[Aoie_Emesai]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

A few examples of what I would/will do with all that money:

- Build schools.
- Build orphanages.
- Invest in businesses in impoverished nations/communities to spur their economy.
- Contribute to charity.
- Donate to expensive philanthropic causes, like agricultural science research.
- Build businesses that will create new jobs.
- Spend money that will create new jobs in other businesses.
- Spend less time working for others and more time working for my causes of choice.

I don't judge success by material wealth, but material wealth is necessary to accomplish nearly any good cause in the world. It's not a zero-sum game, and some one has to have it if it's created. Fortunately, the wealthy happen to do the great majority of giving. Not all rich people are as materialistic as so many assume. Even if they were, the incidental positive effect that injecting their money into the economy does an incredible amount of good.

As well, private charity/philanthropy tends to be far more direct and efficient. Personally, I put a tremendous amount of my time and money toward some very good efforts, but what I have is peanuts. When I am making more and have more free time, I will be able to accomplish FAR more than I am at my current income/free time limitations.

But beyond personal spending, big business requires big money to drive it! The fact that we are able to drive to work, shop at the supermarket, buy effective medicine at the local pharmacy, or break international barriers and communicate on this message board is the result of many levels of many very rich people/businesses investing and building to bring us to this point. If those business/social architects hadn't been so rich, we wouldn't be so well off right now.

That's very honorable of you there kyuusai ^^.

But don't forget Bill Gates is one of the top philanthropist.
----
The opinions of those that are super rich is entirely up to them to do with their money, and limiting their wealth gain like Ledgem once stated and some others is illegal, well... in the United States, you are neglecting their personal rights.

[Demongod86]

Money is a measure of success. For those that can get it by legal means, then congratulations.

Sadly, it seems that too much success sets up people for a fall in almost all cases.

[@nonymous]

Putting a limit on wealth would take away all motivation to innovate, I'd think =\

It's hard to specify what is the maximum amount, due to inflation and relative economic values of money.

[raikage]

Originally Posted by Ziv

Capitalism never proposed to help the poor. It proposed to make the poor into the middle class, and abolish the idea of "poor" in the first place, and it has done just that. Even people living in poverty in the US enjoy luxuries undreamt of in other countries. Basically, there IS NO poor in the US.

And even so, tax-deductions for charitable donations DO help the poor. In fact, the United States is the most charitable country in the world. None of this would exist if the economy were given such artificial limitations.

Unchecked capitalism does lead to bigger and bigger disparities in wealth.

If you want say "you can eat, what are you complaining about" and say no one is poor, I guess that's one way to look at it, but top-level people DO make disproportionate amounts of money (some would say at the expense of the working class).

[siya]

Originally Posted by Tri-ring

As I worte before, it's not a matter of keeping it but how it is going to be redistributed into the real economy.
Wealth is a resource and if is just sitting there in your private vault doing nothing or if it is invested into virtual economy consisting of money game then it is not doing society any good.
I am not saying it should be all donated, placing it into a bank account, investing into stocks buying bonds are all forms of redistribution of wealth since the money is used to financing directly and indirectly other people. As long as you are not investing money for the sake of making money alone then real economy will benefit.

Well...Lets do basic buisness shall we. You get hired, Your average pay is $35,000 a year. That being said, you have full health benifits. Thos benifits add on about another $20,000 (this is an example just for the record.). So now, you employer must pay that $35,000 plus benifits from his own money. So, You need to work and bring in atleast $55,001 just to keep your job. You need to bring in money to pay for your check and those buisness and atleast $1 so that the buisness can make a profit. Time, itself spent working isn't the problem, it's the results. So really, it's not a matter for working as appointed to "time," it's more for "results."

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

The only reason I attacked your analogy relating to computing power was because it's relatively short-sighted and dangerous. I mentioned the whole quote about how "640 kb of RAM should be enough for everyone" because back then (~20 years ago) nobody could have even dreamed of the things that we're currently using computers for, and of the possibilities that have been made real due to that processing power. Had everyone said "you know, that's right, computers are perfectly fine as they are now. Why bother trying to make them faster?" a lot of possibilities would have been cut off, and I believe it'd be for the worse. Right now, by saying that quad core is more than enough for anyone, you're repeating that line of reasoning. Does anyone need it? I don't think anyone needs it, no, but it sure would be useful to some people (myself included). And because of its development, new possibilities may be born into the world.

This was really the only reason I wanted to jump into this thread. I merely wanted to point out that any time you say "this ought to be enough" you're merely experiencing a lack of creativity. Why limit ourselves to what's strictly necessary if we don't need to, and if having better things doesn't harm anyone?

But what does this have to do with money? The correlation is very narrow. In some cases, you can only do certain things with a lot of money. I can give you uses for a quad-core processor because it's what I do and what I know, but I can't give you any examples with money - however, I'm fairly certain that they exist. I think I can understand what might have led you to thinking that having too much money isn't good, and I can agree with some of them. But to make a generalization that one person having too much money is a bad thing - why? Is the alternative really any better?

Alright I am not saying that we should stay as we are right now with computer forever, for now stay with dual-core (which not all commuters have) at the best (but metaphorically I still myself would like a quad-core). In the future we should move on with quad-core which in the future will be like the dual-core today, by that time there will be something like octo-core. So really my limitation of wealth is let it be something like 100millions dollars or about half a billions or so, or near, which I think still would make lot of rich people happy. And I don't know if alternate will be better, but I think it could be better. And so far from this thread I really don't think that I could convince any of you guys, as most of you guys have valid point and did point out fault with my idea, but I still truly believe that individual having too much money creates unbalance. Still I suppose my idea is kinda of combination of communism and capitalism, yes both are opposite idea. But US government it self is founded by two opposite idea of Locke and Hobbe, so I don't know maybe I should try to think this more through.