Wealthy Australians are worried we might realise how rigged the system is in their favour
Wealthy Australians are worried we might realise how rigged the system is in their favour
The discussions around the absurdly small changes to tax on superannuation should be the start to addressing the growing wealth inequality in this country
We like to think of how backward our ancient ancestors were to praise sun gods, believe the world was flat, that plagues happened because we didn't sacrifice animals or people or that a saviour is going to some day arrive and end the world.
We live in a global civilization right now that believes in infinite monetary wealth with numbers growing ever higher backed by nothing but belief and trust. There is so much imaginary wealth right now that it is way beyond what can actually exist. The last time I read about it was about ten or 15 years ago ... it was an article that estimated that if all debt, all over the world was stopped at the time and everyone just spent time paying everything off, it would take thousands of years to repay everything. Yet in that time, all we've done is keep increasing debt and imaginary wealth.
The whole system is built on our belief in the system. The belief that eventually things will be paid off or that finances will be balanced. It is all built on trust and promises.
If at any point, enough people in parts of the world stop believing or trusting this system ... it will all come crashing down.
Money is our new religion and we all believe in it and praise it and put all our hopes in it.
It exists because we praise it and worship it.
As soon as we stop believing in our gods of finance ..... the whole thing will end.
Just like what happened to our ancient ancestors who believed in sun gods, god kings or powerful beings sitting in clouds in the sky.
The Bible warned about worshiping money two thousand years ago but you all want to bitch about magical sky wizards
People stopping believing in religion doesn't affect much. People stopping believing in money would collapse countries/the world. That alone will keep people believing in it. At the end of the day I can really take money and get real food with it, no matter how fake you claim it is.
Fundamentally money is just fancy IOUs. You trade bread for eggs. One day the neighbour broke all their eggs so they give you an IOU. You don't really need more eggs at that time so you give another person the egg token for some milk. He can then go get eggs.
That's all money is. Transferable, universal IOUs. And if you think about it, there doesn't need to be a limit to the amount of IOUs in existence. Yes, it's all built on trust and promises, that the egg farmer will honour the token and give you the eggs, but the IOU is just a concept, nothing needs to physically exist for the IOU to be valuable beyond the idea it will be followed through on.
So to me, it doesn't matter if money is "imaginary", because that's kind of the point. The only reason we ever had something backing it was to ensure the person could actually follow through with the IOU they gave out. Because if the chicken farmer gives IOUs out en masse so that they can get a bunch of stuff from their neighbours immediately, they're gonna have a problem if everyone comes to claim them at once.
But if you're happy to accept the idea he can eventually make good on it in some way, and the people of the village all agree to it, there's no reason he can't do this and give out the eggs over time. The fact it's built on trust doesn't automatically make it not real.
That said, there's definitely valid concern about how speculative bubbles and extreme wealth concentration can distort the system. But that's a problem with how the IOUs are distributed and manipulated, not with the idea of money itself.
And honestly when we look at the scale of the world today, what's the alternative? You want to go back to trading? How is that going to work for obtaining a TV, smartphone, internet? A variety of foods? Etc etc etc. I'm interested what alternatives could exist for a global or even national market.
Your idea works great as described. The system has grown beyond that though. Capitalists receive these IOUs because they own a portion of a company that owns a thing that neither the company nor the capitalist has ever had anything to do with. They receive these IOUs in perpetuty, but they never provided any contribution to the creation of anything.
Then you stack this a billion times, with IOUs servicing IOUs, amplifying the amount of IOUs, and skimming IOUs at every point from people who actually do the work, just to increase the number of IOUs held by a handful of people, until those people who contribute nothing, now hold the majority of the worlds IOUs.
This is fucked.
I realised a long time ago that economics is a faith based religion. And I'm an atheist.
All her life my Aunt looked like she was on top of her business. Owned multiple houses around the world, travelled regularly, lived in the inner city of a top tier European city. She was found dead at home in her 70s. As the finances were unwound to deal with her estate, she's flat broke, everything was loans on loans, her sister who rented one of her apartments is set to lose her housing. One of my family members commented "I thought she was good at business", I replied that she was, she died without ever having to clean up the mess she made, her finances were a disaster and now they're someone else's problem.
It's pretty obvious, it's right there in the name, capitalism.
Shit sucks.
Isn't it the same all over the world ? Work gets taxed more than sitting on wealth ?! Maybe let us know if you figured out how to make it more fair.
Maybe let us know if you figured out how to make it more fair.
https://patrioticmillionaires.uk/ have ideas. Gary Stevenson in particular.
Make $100,000 from selling your labor. 2024-25 FY: $20,788 (not including deductions)
Make $100,000 from selling your appreciating assets: $5,788.00
Gotta love that capital gains discount...
Based on how we vote, the articles headline seems unlikely.
It's tricky how we value things. That is the key determinate of wealth. In any given year, maybe 1 in 30 dwellings get sold. Yet we assume all other dwellings are priced the same as those.