Financial markets don't "generate wealth". Comparing the world's GDP with the volume of transactions on financial markets is meaningless. If I, using entity A, sell $300 billion to entity B (which is also owned by me), and then entity B sells $300 billion back to entity A that counts as $600 billion worth of trading in terms of volume. What does that have to do with how much entity A and entity B produce (which does impact GDP)?Didn't know that about the Forex market, nice. How does it change things? — fdrake
You talked about the generation of wealth though.I don't think I implied much about how people get rich. — fdrake
Those are tools though. Money can flow for different reasons, such as avoiding taxation, getting ready to do business with another country, etc.What I care about is what makes money flow around, apparently this is the Forex Market then the Credit market. — fdrake
They don't generate wealth, they generate capital when selling their stock. Capital isn't the same as wealth.Companies can also sell their shares to generate wealth, the credit market is implicated in business start ups too (most of which fail, as was already pointed out). — fdrake
Significant sums of money.Where is the real money? What does 'real money' mean? — fdrake
Wealth = production + servicesFinancial speculation generates no wealth, but the credit market is the second biggest, and the first biggest contains currency speculation and exchange. What conception of wealth are you working with? — fdrake
What data do you want? Take a copy of Forbes for example, and tally up how many billionaires made their fortune from starting a business and how many from the financial markets.This paragraph is dataless assertion anyway. — fdrake
There are arguments there, and they are based on data. It is a fact that most rich people make their fortune from starting a business. I told you what exercise you can do if you don't believe me.You've provided mostly dataless counterpoints with no arguments. — fdrake
I think there comes a point though when more money doesn't make a difference in terms of personal power. If you have $100 million, you're pretty much as powerful as someone who has $20 billion for the most part. There's not much you can do in terms of personal power with more money. So I don't think personal power can be a source of motivation beyond that level. — Agustino
Financial markets don't "generate wealth". Comparing the world's GDP with the volume of transactions on financial markets is meaningless. If I, using entity A, sell $300 billion to entity B (which is also owned by me), and then entity B sells $300 billion back to entity A that counts as $600 billion worth of trading in terms of volume. What does that have to do with how much entity A and entity B produce (which does impact GDP)?
Significant sums of money.
I think power is only to a certain degree financial. Mostly power comes in the form of controlling important decision makers through different means, whether political, economic or even militarily.This would seem to be a difficult thing to determine. Is Bill Gates more powerful than Rupert Murdoch? Does the degree of power, and kind of power, one possesses, depend on where one's wealth is invested as much as the extent of that wealth? Could Bill gates, for example, buy out Rupert Murdoch and appropriate the power the latter presumably wields via whatever control he exercises of the news media he owns? — Janus
No - those are repeated transactions using mostly the same pool of money.The significant sums of money aren't contained in the two markets which dwarf all goods production and services many times over? — fdrake
Money flows around just to facilitate production of goods and services for the most part - there's also pure financial speculation.The disjunction between the production of goods and services and the amount of money flowing around shows that production and services have a smaller impact on money flow than the exchange of securities. — fdrake
I already said that wealth is the production of goods and services.What conception of wealth are you using then? — fdrake
I think it's neither, but people make it so.it is now is a good thing or a bad thing. — fdrake
Wealth isn't simply money. Wealth = Value x Quantity of Goods or Services Sold. I can have no money for example, but if I control a valuable service or product, I can sell it and make the money I don't have in no time. So just because the money isn't currently in my pocket, would it follow that I'm not wealthy in the above scenario?The important thing is that a typical person will not have access to these money amplification effects, so they cannot benefit from them. — fdrake
:-d It's quite tiring talking when you don't bother to read and take in what I've said.I don't see the difference between what you're saying and 'if everyone was just in the situation I was in, everything would be OK, therefore it's the poor's fault that they are poor'. — fdrake
(not in the West - refering to really poor people, who don't have access to schooling, electricity, hot water, etc.)I can see how those people need external help in other areas of the world — Agustino
Yes, they also had access to basic education, even if not higher education, and also any additional education they need through the internet, libraries, etc.since they had access to education, hot water and electricity. — fdrake
The harder it is, the greater the accomplishment of succeeding!Because inequality makes it a lot less likely that someone is able to do those things! — fdrake
And actually, I don't think inequality has anything to do with someone being able to do this, granted they are in the circumstances I've outlined above. Why does it matter someone has more money than me? Again, go back to the wealth equation. The additional money isn't of much help to him or her unless he or she knows what to do with it.
No, I'm not down with that idea except in the case of people who are really really poor. I asked you before, how does someone having more money than me prohibit me from becoming wealthy?So you're down with the idea that social mobility is impeded by inequality. — fdrake
Right, what does this have to do with the individual becoming wealthy which is the topic, granting that we were discussing social mobility?Inequality makes crime more likely — fdrake
What benefits? What's the relationship between these benefits and becoming wealthy?it entrenches poverty by locking people out of the benefits of economic growth — fdrake
What things? How?or other things which can generate greater income — fdrake
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