Post 9lfuWWg4hUPLfDCdge by gemlog@mastodonten.de
 (DIR) More posts by gemlog@mastodonten.de
 (DIR) Post #9lfuVZXAaxECEVaC7E by gemlog@mastodonten.de
       2019-08-07T21:36:35Z
       
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       "Billionaire" isn't a qualification.It's the description of a person who is hoarding more resources than they could use in 100 lifetimes, while other people are starving.It's the name for a human dragon sleeping on its pile of rubies and gold.-- @Shakestweetz (?)
       
 (DIR) Post #9lfuVZjvpVR6s5YO0W by bjarni@bre.klaki.net
       2019-08-07T21:50:40.809051Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @gemlog This is really thought provoking to me. I don't think it's actually true, but I'm going to sleep on why (or why not).
       
 (DIR) Post #9lfuWWg4hUPLfDCdge by gemlog@mastodonten.de
       2019-08-07T22:01:24Z
       
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       @bjarni I took the '100 liftimes' stuff as figurative. It's certainly more than is needed for one lifetime.
       
 (DIR) Post #9lfuWWr42dCMDILPoe by bjarni@bre.klaki.net
       2019-08-07T23:30:33.155386Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @gemlog That's not the part I'm questioning. I'm questioning the "hoarding" and "resources" bits...Most billionaires are billionaires on paper.They have influence over a mixture of physical property and virtual, which they could exchange for actual resources, but they're not hogging the resources themselves. The resources are out there being used in some way, not sitting in the billionaire's basement.Who nominally owns a resource matters a great deal less than how the resource is utilized. And some scarcity is artificial...There's a bunch more to this, but as I said... sleep.
       
 (DIR) Post #9lgwFQ46qrX4yWqi3s by clacke@libranet.de
       2019-08-08T23:31:37Z
       
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       @bjarni @gemlog Yes. I wrote something along these lines when I saw this quote the other week. My response then was too knee-jerky and too somebody-is-wrong-on-the-internet. I'm going to be more constructive this time around.So, "hoarding" is not unheard of. There's ghost apartments and ghost land, held by people for unproductive non-use, pure speculation on a rising price.mastodon.social/users/natecull…I guess living in a house too big for you to really make use of all the rooms qualifies as hoarding as well.But most of the capital held is productive. There are examples of a perfectly fine factory being dismantled and put into boxes and then never unpacked again, but it's not typical. If you own the capital you want to earn from it, which means putting it to productive use.But then within productive capital there are still issues, uniquely caused by capitalism. As Bjarni points out there's artificial scarcity, which is a special case of rent-seeking. There's activity that *seems* productive, like most marketing, because it increases the profit generated by the business, but it does this by removing profit from a competing business. Some marketing is probably genuinely productive, because it brings attention to a solution that people having a suitable problem otherwise might not know about.I think these failure modes, and there are others that don't come to me off the cuff, are more serious than any "hoarding" aspect, which mostly is true only on paper.
       
 (DIR) Post #9lgxB9Lv9BMJwBhyDI by clacke@libranet.de
       2019-08-08T23:42:03Z
       
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       Ah, someone commented on it, so I found it. My comment 3 weeks ago: libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-1…
       
 (DIR) Post #9lgyrkGqNPZUYOCz8y by gemlog@mastodonten.de
       2019-08-08T23:50:45Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @clacke Thank you for weighing in. I will wait for bjarni now.