Safety Net

The rich are so fucking stingy with their money that they have a private island and private city with no septic system and instead want to pump it into the nearby community at the other community's expense.

Like what the hell is the point of all that money if they are so utterly unwilling to spend any of it?

Next on Ask a Dragon!
How do you think they get rich?

The ultra wealthy have a tendency to just hoard it, accumulating far more than they will even use, and act like that is normal and the purpose of it.

you’re supposed to put it into shady cryptocurrencies. that’s your money making money for you, homeless people haven’t unlocked nft strats yet

The current situation is one I've been wracking my brain over for more than a decade.

What happens when there's no more money to firehose from the poor to the rich. When all the blood is squeezed out of the stone.

By the definition of money, that cannot happen. If all the money is owned by one person, then it is not money. If all of the money is owned by one group of people and another group of people have no access to it, then that will bifurcate the economy between those two groups and the second group will use something else as a substitute. No matter how little people have, there will always be some form of trade and commerce between them. Even North Koreans today (where private trade is largely forbidden) and enslaved Africans in the pre-Civil War US (who for the most part were not legally allowed to own anything) had some form of trade amongst themselves.
Each successive dollar (or euro, pound, yen...) gets successively more difficult to extract because as people have less and less to spend they get tighter and tighter with their spending. Without state intervention, there will always be a floor to how poor you can possibly make someone, because at some point they will realise that breaking the rules and risking the punishment is a better idea than continuing to play by them. And when enough people think this way, well... just ask Louis XVI or Nicholas II how that went.
Even if a communist revolution does not occur, this happens already to a lesser extent in the impoverished areas of cities worldwide, where people would rather turn to crime than work for starvation wages. So if you are someone on the side of the political spectrum which likes to talk against crime and socialism, the policies you should champion are those which prevent the poor from needing to resort to those things (not that any such people are likely to exist on Lemmy).
Neo-feudalism. People who don't live off of investments (i.e., most of us) need to sell our labor to buy the necessities of life. Once the rich own everything and everyone else is poor, we will continue to sell our labor to pay off debts and make the lives of the wealthy comfortable in new and innovative ways.
You give billions of credit to rich people companies and create inflation. Companies go bankrupt, they create new companies and the process repeats. You stand no chance.

Conservatives are mad at poor people for uuuh... (checks notes): Using government aid to increase the GDP.

GDP isn't inherently a useful measure for this though. If I pay you 100$ to eat a dog turd, then you pay me 100$ to eat the next dog turd we see. We created 200$ worth of GDP and ate two dog turds. Yet neither of us profited in any way.

Cool, so be super responsible on their part instead. If they can't be trusted to save up themselves, do the saving up of all the money yourself, o wise conservative. And let's put all that money in a trust fund for them and just give them the dividends. Let's call those dividends a "Universal Basic Dividend".

Stimulating the economy baby

They explicitly don't want it but the right thing to do would be to spend some money on the means of production.

Create a cooperative and start accumulating capital for the proletarians.

How dare those communist scum create a small business, and become independent of welfare! Steaming

Their argument for not paying taxes is old. And boring.

"they'll just spend it on drugs and drinking"

That's all I was going to spend it on...

(Paraphrased from Steve Hughes)

My favorite story was when a Karen told someone to not give money to the homeless man because he was going to use it to buy drugs and the man just that, "That's what i was going to spend it on anyway."

Among economists, this is actually a solid consensus and why many of them are in favor of policies that benefit the less wealthy parts of society. Politicians who oppose these policies often do so against scientific consensus.

more importantly, it's not just scientific consensus. Remember that trump voters don't care about the science. they care about the economy. You have to make it about the economy.
- Hoarding money and never spending it is good for the economy... Somehow, give me a minute I need to see what Fox news says so I can just repeat that.
- Lol it's not about economy
Is this true? I know there has been research on the consensus among climate scientists (Oreskes, 2004), is there something similar for economists?
- It’s not really a consensus, it drives higher inflation (people are spending more) and a lot of stimulus vs tight purse economics are just doing the opposite of what they did in response to the last crash
  What I think they are talking about is UBI which in limited pilot projects haven’t impacted inflation
  The real benefit of uplifting the poor is that it creates a safer society for everyone and faster innovation in that society because people have time/money to do things. When flying was in it’s infancy a lot of farmers in the US had hobby planes and gliding/eventually flying was built off being accessible. Aviation laws get in the way but it’s completely foreign to think of some poor farmer in rural USA being a hobby pilot today
- The consensus is strong with regards to the question "What happens with money that you give to poor people?" and naturally becomes less strong with regards to specific effects on the economy or what policies to implement. But most economists would agree that stuff like food stamps or certain types of tax credits or (conditional) transfer payments geared towards very low-income households are often a net positive because of the immediate spending and investment in human capital. The downside is of course that these programs typically increase inflation. I don't think the consensus is anywhere near as strong as the one about climate (but few are).

We're in one of the richest countries in the world and the minimum wage is lower now than it was thirty-five years ago.

There are homeless people everywhere...

This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.

I was about to give it to him and then I thought he's just going to use it on drugs or alcohol.

And then I thought: "That's what I'm going to use it on!"

"Why am I judging this poor bastard?"

People love to judge homeless guys.

Like if you give him the money he's just going to waste it. He's going to waste the money.

Well, he lives in a box, what do you want him to do? Save it up and buy a wall unit?

Take a little run to the store for a throw rug and a CD rack?

He's homeless!

I walked behind this guy the other day. A homeless guy asked him for money.

He looks right at the homeless guy and goes: "Why don't you go get a job, you bum?"

People always say that to homeless guys, "Get a job", like it's always that easy.

This homeless guy was wearing his underwear outside his pants.

I'm guessing his resume ain't all up to date.

I'm predicting some problems during the interview process.

I'm pretty sure even McDonald's has a "Underwear Go Inside The Pants" policy.

Not that they enforce it really strictly, but technically, I'm sure it is on the books.

I'm also very tired of people saying that pan handlers are all millionaires because they heard or read some anecdote somewhere.
Like yeah I'm sure there are scammer pan handlers, but even in that 0.0001% case it's because begging for money is easier or better than getting a job.
- I recall a time back around 2008 or 2009, when my smartest coworker left Fox News on in the breakroom. (He knew better than to trust their bias, but we had few channels available and he just wanted to hear the news.) My stupidest coworker walked through the breakroom, heard some news about "Obama giving away cars to poor people" and came back into the lab ranting and raving about it.
  I had a talk with that smart coworker and gently asked him not to leave that channel on again, because some of the people we work with are highly suggestable. Just then, the stupid coworker came into the room to rant the news at him.
  He instantly understood.
Steve Hughes?
Lazyboy - Underwear Goes Inside the Pants
what do you want him to do?
Use it for food.
- It's weird to give someone money and care what they do with it unless you're expecting them to pay you back someday. You're giving it away, so it's expendable to you, and you'll probably never interact with the person again, so it's odd to care about the specifics beyond "I hope this helps."
  You'll never give them enough money to actually change their situation, and that's not your fault but it's also not your problem, it's theirs. If they think they need a cigarette more than a sandwich, who am I to tell them they are wrong? It's their money now, not mine.

Your suppose to shove the money to the closest representatives asshole.

My friend's dad once told me that studies have shown that if you give $1,000,000 to someone without money and the same to a rich person that almost all the money will be gone from the poor person and will have increased when left with the rich person, because poor people don't know how to manage money and that's why they're poor.

My reaction was shock followed by, "it costs more than half a million dollars to pull someone out of poverty??? And won't putting a million dollars in the bank almost always gain interest? I wonder why people without money don't know how to put their money in the bank instead of starving!!"

It's also been known by economists for time immemorial that the best way to improve the economy is to give money to poor people, nothing else required. Literally just giving poor people money to spend skyrockets the velocity of money, whereas the hoarders just put it in an account to do nothing but gain interest.
It's not a fair comparison. Someone in poverty will use that million in order to lift themselves out of material poverty. Which means they will pay off debts, buy property, pay college tuition for themselves and/or their descendants, possibly start a business, and a whole bunch of other things I can't think of. That would easily cost half a million. Someone who's already rich will already have all that.
Because your dad is wrong.
Many of the UBI-type (universal basic income) studies show that most people continue to work and in many cases they are able to increase their income from work in short order.
Turns out relief from chronic money stress liberates mental resources that increase personal resilience and that translates into better employment for many.
- My dad is dead, tyvm. He was pretty sure he wasn't having a heart attack, so you're right that he was wrong.
  But also my friend's dad is wrong about a lot of stuff, including when his son's and I are being sarcastic by saying "thanks Obama," and that it's an invitation for him to shit on social safety nets.
- Has there ever been a UBI study that lasted the person's entire life?
It's stupid in even more ways. The economy needs people to buy things to keep going and allow people like your friend's dad to have jobs and act condescending to people who don't have jobs.
So if everybody was "smart" like that theoretical rich person and kept all their money, there wouldn't be an economy for them to leech passive income from.
- Nuh uh. The economy needs billionaires to peepee money on me.
If you water a dying plant, it will drink. It's almost like people without enough money need it for something

Boil it, mash it, stick it in a stew.

Money should have an expiration date. There, I said it.

That is literally what inflation is for. Central banks try to keep inflation at around 2% to discourage hoarding money.
- This is not what im talking about and they are not 1 for 1 analogous.
My knee-jerk reaction is to agree with you, because it seems like this policy would punish money hoarding and therefore keep money circulating.
Then I thought about what I would do if I had a sudden large influx of expiring cash, and quickly decided on buying illiquid assets (stocks, bonds, property, a couple fast food franchises in an underserved-but-growing area, etc) which is pretty much what the wealthy already do. The World's Richest Manchild doesn't have $300 billion in cold hard cash sitting around, he has maybe a few million in easily-accessible funds and the rest is tied up in investments (that's why he had to borrow so desperately to get the $44 billion to buy twitter - he couldn't quickly cash out his stock investments without cratering their value).
If money expired, the rich would continue to do what they already do - turn their money into long-term investment vehicles. The worst off would be the people who are in the middle - not doing so bad they have to spend every penny they make right away just to stay afloat, but not doing so well that they can invest in illiquid assets (either because they don't have enough left over after the bills are spent to realistically be able to invest or because they need a safety net in case the car needs to be replaced in a hurry or a tree falls through the roof or the hot water heater busts and ruins the floor).
'Expiring wealth' is something that would do society good by forcing the wealthy class to re-invest in their communities and peoples, whereas 'expiring cash' would just hurt those who would otherwise be on a path to being able to retire someday
- Billionaires have tons of debt they would have to rectify before they stabilize. Then you assume their liquid assets would be reduced and they would have to find ways to generate more liquidity to maintenance their properties.
- Generational wealth is an area where this money hoarding really, really goes wrong, because then it's lifetime after lifetime of the accumulation and hoarding of wealth. So obviously one change I would strongly support is extremely high tax on inheritance income.
  But we need to separate money from wealth, I think. Because if it takes all of us working together to generate that wealth in the first place, there is simply no possible excuse for not sharing that wealth equitably. As long as money=wealth, I'm just not sure we'll ever really accomplish that, though.
I’ve had an idea for a book, where the protagonist is a “classic build your fortune” type dismayed at the way capitalism is failing, who ends up making a currency like this; wanting everyone to make money and then spend it by the end of the month; somehow allowing the recipient to get a new extended deadline.
I have some curiosity for where the concept would go. In the story as well it’s imagined that some oligarchs will find ways to abuse the system and hoard it, but in some other cases it might trigger interesting movements.
Many indigenous americans including the Aztec and Mayan cultural groups used cacao as currency. I can't say if it was intentionally a method to reduce wealth hoarding but it did have that effect.
money kinda already does expire. if you just let it sit around for long enough, it will devalue over time, typically around 2% per year. It's called inflation.
Nobody really hoards wealth by hoarding lots of paper money. Except maybe foolish people trying to save up for retirement that way. (they will make bitter experiences)
Wealthy people invest all their money into company shares, houses/apartments, or gold. That's actually why we see the price of these things constantly increase: Because the wealthy don't know where else to put their money, and so they buy these things, which creates demand for these things, which constantly increases the price for these things (by the rule of supply and demand).

Maybe somebody should explain to them that the economy is supposed to be made of people spending money on goods and services, not hoarding it in the bank with their billions of other dollars.

Yep learned that crazy enough from my maga dad. He got mad at his sister in 2008 during the crash because she was hoarding the money instead of stimulating the economy. Why also was pissed Obama bailed out the banks. If he just gave all the poor people a check they will go out and spend it. Why we have the whole tax season. Technical when you get a tax refund just means you paid more in then you should have. But it's by design. Because poor people will go spend all the money. Buying cars, furniture etc. Shit they normally couldn't afford to do.
Why drives me nut. Fucking Regan his trickle down economics. It needs to be reversed. Trickle up economy does work.
- I mean Nixon started the car, But Regan shifted it into drive and threw a brick on the pedal. It's one thing to save enough money for emergencies, even major ones. But once you're up into the tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and billions, it's just greed and fuck you. Go invest in solar or build homeless shelters or something you parasites.
- Your sentences could do with a few more words each
- And yes that works to slowly trickle money up the wealthy while the poor get something for their spending.
  But today that doesn't need to happen. Now the billionaires have bought enough politicians so that they get all the money without having to deal with the poors. They just get bills written (and passed) that trickle up everyone else's tax money directly to them.

I agreed! We can't just give them things, they won't be poor anymore! What's next, taxing the rich?

I mean that's kinda the point though. Giving poor people money sothat they spend it, it's called consumerism. It's what makes the economy go round.

While true, they are worried that people will spend money on drugs and those aren't taxable, that's what they're really talking about.

Upvoting not for the political meme but to encourage the spread of She-ra content

Man I got a few episodes into that and it already felt formulaic…
And I could never get used to people, even villains, using the word “Princesses” as some entity of fear and cautious reverence.
- It is pretty formulaic for the most part (it does have some more nuanced and unusual dynamics later on )but I still enjoyed it. It's like a Saturday morning cartoon you would watch while eating cereal as a kid. It's just a cozy, chill sort of show you can watch when you feel like some nostalgic, cheesy, easy watching. It takes me back to a simpler time, if that simpler time was more also more culturally progressive, and that's very comforting.

Is that She Ra in the meme? Forgive me im less aware of stuff than I used to be.

That's Adora, who turns into She-ra but is not currently She-ra. From the show She-ra.
Yes. She can defeat any enemy except geometry.
- That DOES sound like Adora...
That's Adora.

Poor people don't bribe the politicians making these decisions, so it's not in the best interest of the politicians.

Invest it, of course! If you just invest a million per year into private equity, soon you'll be able to afford your own private jet. But those stupid poor people will rather buy avocado toast and iPhones.

Automatic upvote for She-Ra.

Spend it on things that people don’t consider spending; despite literally being spending in the cash on hand sense…

Like buying bonds, stocks, cryptocurrencies or other such commodities.

Yeah, I think this is what they mean. It is a form of poor bashing: poor people don’t invest their money to create jobs, grow the economy, etc. I have a friend who is very susceptible to this type of right-wing propaganda, and i had to point out that rich people can only invest a large portion of their income because their basic needs are (abundantly) met.
- Buying things is literally the economy. People spending money into it improves the economy directly. The velocity of money is a key part of a working market, and the rich impart very little of their wealth into it.

You're supposed to give it back to them in the form of investments.

invest it

Yes exactly, this is a fundamental aspect of monetary policy and is one of the best ways to explain the concept and value of the velocity of money.

Maybe they need to eat, for example?

Not sure if that was ever the issue? I don't think I've seen people taking issue with that.

I think it's two different conservative talking points morphed together:
"If we give homeless people money, they will just spend it on drugs and alcohol"
"Poor people are poor because they spend their money rather than investing it."
- ”If we give homeless people money, they won't want to work to earn it. I earned my way!"
  "Poor people are bad with money. That's why they are poor."
Republicans will trot out the 'ol "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day" line.

You do need to be careful about what people spend that money on. Soooo many people just funnelled their covid stimulus into cryptocurrency or NFTs or Gamestop stock in the vague hope they'll get rich, only to lose everything.

I mean, there's always going to be scams. You probably want to address that with education more than expensive "you're not allowed to buy salsa with your government money" stuff.