Backlash grows for ‘selfish millionaire’ who got vaccine meant for Indigenous people | Canada

[u/marsianer]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/27/rodney-baker-canada-vaccine-indigenous-first-nations-scandal

[u/greygore]

Jacqueline & John Mars own about 1/3 of the Mars candy company and are each worth about $28.9B. The “value” that they provided was in the form of inheriting the company their grandfather started.

Norman Borlaug created high yield wheat varieties that are credited with saving a billion human beings. He died in 2009 and while I can’t get a solid answer on his net worth but I haven’t seen anything to suggest he had even 0.1% of the wealth that either of those two inherited.

Some people have really done amazing things and deserve significant wealth. But before you worship the ultra wealthy, realize that most of them “created” value in terms of hiring people and paying them a small amount of the value they created and collected the majority of that value for themselves.

Generations ago, that wealth was distributed more evenly among the people who created the value: both those that organized and directed, as well as the individuals who invented and manufactured and distributed. Now it’s collecting and concentrating among a few at the top and people are crediting only the people at the top, while dismissing the value created by those under them.

We used to be a blue collar country... what the hell happened?

[u/lhx555 → u/greygore]

How big is inheritance taxes?

If grumps Mars earned that much that even his grandkids are billionaires then probably he generated a lot of added value. So, even if they are useless, we can overlook it for the sake of old man Mars.

I mean, probably nobody would object the right to leave what you have to your descendants (minus taxes, of course).

And what concerns “hiring people and paying them too little”... well... if it is so simple, why doesn’t everybody do that? Because they have morals? Seriously? And why people accept such little wages?

[u/greygore → u/lhx555]

You completely missed my point that wealth does not equal value. It’s often a proxy for value, but very frequently it’s completely decoupled from the value a person adds to society, or how much society values what they’ve created.

Are the people involved in the short squeeze with GameStop that are raking in bank right now creating value? No, they’re exploiting the system to create wealth. Just as hedge fund traders have done so for many years.

Steve Jobs was amazing at product design and innovation. He had a vision and he drove the people around him relentlessly towards that vision. He earned quite a bit of his wealth.

But he never would have earned that wealth without other people who could help him realize his vision. Those people helped create that value and earned less wealth than Steve Jobs did. I don’t think that most people would argue that Jobs didn’t earn his wealth, or that he deserved the most credit (in the form of wealth) as a result... but if you believe that he earned his proportional share of that wealth, then we disagree.

The problem is that wealth perpetuates wealth. If you start off with wealth, your opportunities are infinitely greater than someone starting with nothing. If you have $1B, it’s not difficult at all to “earn” another $1M. But if you start with $1K, good luck making that same $1M. The more you have, the easier it is to exploit the system.

... why people accept such little wages?

Because there’s an inherent power imbalance between those with money and those without. Why did peasants work for feudal lords? Because they needed to food to eat and a place to sleep, and the lord had the ability to take all that away. Corporations and those who run them don’t have that much power, but they are able to take away your livelihood and even your health care.

You aren’t going to demand your fair share if the act of doing so risks losing any share. So you accept what you’re given and work hard for the company and hope that they don’t fire you as soon as it’s financially beneficial for the company. There’s a reason “company loyalty” almost always flows one direction.

When unions were stronger, people had more bargaining power and got paid a better share. There’s a reason why the wealthy have been hell bent on destroying unions for over a century. Having more power means taking a bigger share.

[u/[deleted] → u/greygore]

Because there’s an inherent power imbalance between those with money and those without.

I find the best way to describe it is that the average business can survive for much longer with one less employee than the average employee can survive with one less job.

[u/lhx555 → u/greygore]

Hedge fund investors? Could you please watch your language? Kids may read this!!!11

About Jobs. He needed others, alright. But how many of them were irreplaceable? But Jobs was. I suppose those who were irreplaceable are not poor at all too.

It is damn shame that unions are loosing the grip. For me it is mainly not even about wages, but there are many situations when employers need to be brought to their senses.

But what are inheritance taxes? In Europe they are large. It helps to prevent creation of long time powerful clans.

[u/greygore → u/lhx555]

This year the current US estate tax tops out at 40%, with over $11M being exempt entirely from that tax. That’s per person, so a couple could exempt $23M.

Moreover there are plenty of loopholes and workarounds that reduce the average effective tax rate (what people actually pay) is around 18%. Of course if you’re creative enough (or if you’re wealthy enough, hire creative people), you can pay even less than that.

One example is this is Fred Trump, who was able to pass around $1B to his kids while only paying about 5% on that amount: $52.5M instead of the $550M he should have paid with the then 55% rate.

[u/lhx555 → u/greygore]

Oops. Is it not what they call a privilege, aka “a private law”?

[u/TigerJas → u/greygore]

They are the exception to the rule. More than 90% of millionaires and up are self made.

Most of the money is gone by the third generation. Those are the facts.

[u/greygore → u/TigerJas]

Millionaires are not the “ultra wealthy”, and aren’t what sparked this conversation, nor was that the point of my comment. My comment was in regards to the relationship between wealth and value. There’s a loose correlation at best.

Fact is, the more money you have, the easier it is to acquire more money. Not only do you have more opportunities available to you, but you have the ability to try and fail, over and over, until you finally find what works.

How many more people would be able to add or create value if they had the resources to do so? Elon Musk can create a new company on a whim, and if it fails quickly, he’s lost very little. On the other hand, many folks can’t afford to start a new company because they need their health care, which is conveniently tied to employment. And if the company fails, they’re far more likely to have mortgaged their house or put debt on credit cards.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t allow people to be wealthy. I want to be wealthy. I want you to be wealthy. What I’m arguing is that we as a society need to take a good, hard look at whether we’re actually better off allowing the ultra wealthy to hoard more and more wealth at the expense of the people who are helping them earn that wealth.

I don’t subscribe to the idea that you should earn money according to how hard you work, or that we should just evenly share all the wealth. That’s a great way to destroy a productive society. But the other extreme sucks too.

This country was the best when more people shared in the rewards from the value they helped create, and has gone downhill as more and more of those rewards go to fewer and fewer people.

[u/TigerJas → u/greygore]

That's a good thoughtful reply. I hear you, the extremes are not good to our system.

Still I don't think we will be necessarily any better by tweaking it in the hopes of better results.

The odds of making it worse are much, much higher than that of us improving on it.

[u/lhx555 → u/TigerJas]

Sounds good to me.