Quote:
Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception
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Hypothetical for you.
Everyone in the world has the same amount of money, and each individual is free to spend it how they choose. When someone invents the next latest and greatest tech gadget and delivers it to the market and some people choose, on their own, willingly, to buy it, and others don't.... now you've got a group with what they wanted (and less money), a group with what they wanted (and the same amount of money as before), and a group (investors, inventors, workers for the newest inventor guy) with what they wanted (profits from sale of the latest tech device).
At what point exactly did something happen that caused this sudden inequality to be a bad thing?
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I don't think reasonable people make the argument that inequality is inherently a bad thing. There is supposed to be inequality; talented and/or hardworking people are supposed to be rewarded far more than indigents. However, at a certain point, it starts becoming harmful.
Remember that in capitalism, having capital frees you from having to sell your labor for sustenance, and your money works for you. The more money you have, the greater the share of new and existing wealth you capture. Couple that with what Raev said, Bernanke pouring gasoline into the whole thing, and the government providing a corporate safety net to offset some of the risk inherent in investment, and you have a situation where people with capital are performing tremendously well. And before you know it we're in the Gilded Age again.