@disitinerant @BretWeinstein A 1200 apartment block of SF would most probably be owned by a REIT which, in turn, is likely to be owned by a en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_f…
The billionaires Vs the multi millionaires *doesn't affect most of us at all* - the real bleeding is lower down the pyramid.
The billionaires Vs the multi millionaires *doesn't affect most of us at all* - the real bleeding is lower down the pyramid.
@disitinerant @BretWeinstein The real damage isn't done by Bill Gates or a handful of people that own vast seas of stuff. It's all paper money, and the underlying assets are used the same way as any other PLC.
It's the vast middle class and their political power which keeps the poor poor. The rich distract
It's the vast middle class and their political power which keeps the poor poor. The rich distract
@disitinerant @BretWeinstein The System is suburbia and the local landowners with $50m in assets, not a few astroid-sized outliers. It's the vast herd of top 10% that do the real pushing and the real beating down.
That's why we need systemic politics, not just an occasional French Revolution, to fix it all.
That's why we need systemic politics, not just an occasional French Revolution, to fix it all.
@disitinerant @BretWeinstein Which is to say this:
Capital cannot be effectively personified. Systems are bigger than people, and Capitalism as a system is much bigger and more important than the few Olympians who win the financial medals in each generation.
Capitalism is the dream of financial freedom.
Capital cannot be effectively personified. Systems are bigger than people, and Capitalism as a system is much bigger and more important than the few Olympians who win the financial medals in each generation.
Capitalism is the dream of financial freedom.
@disitinerant @BretWeinstein Everybody who seeks freedom through money is Capitalist. They're buying the story that free markets make free people. But they don't: free markets exist in jails. Say rather that free people may trade and thereby make free markets.
But freedom cannot be purchased, that's a lie.
But freedom cannot be purchased, that's a lie.
@disitinerant @BretWeinstein The confusion of wealth with freedom exists because poverty is most certainly oppression. Poor people are always second class citizens. But wealth in an oppressive regime doesn't buy freedom: ask Russians, Chinese, black Americans. They are not free
Rich white American freedom?
Rich white American freedom?
@disitinerant @BretWeinstein Rich white American freedom is a tragedy. The dregs of the Old Anarchist America, pre WW1, when there was no Federal income tax, meets the late capitalist simulacrum of freedom, which is simply convenience administered as a drug.
Even the rich are mostly slaves. Very few Free.
Even the rich are mostly slaves. Very few Free.
