Point taken, but FYI billionaires don’t “earn” a billion dollars regardless, it’s almost exclusively because their net worth due to stock ownership makes them a billionaire.
If you bought a house somewhere cheap, and then the eyesore old factory down the road gets torn down, and the land around your house explodes in value, you did not make a million dollars in income, even though your house is now worth that much.
As well, most billionaires live off money they borrow at stupid low interest rates because that doesn’t count as income. An accountant would be able to explain in depth but that’s one of the way they dodge taxes.
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Ya know, workers can own stocks too. There’s even companies that give stocks to employees. Stocks themselves are not the problem.
Workers may hold stocks, but anyone who holds a sufficient value of stocks is by virtue of such holdings not a worker. Therefore, stocks support the stratification of society into workers, who may hold stocks but remain workers, and owners, whose ownership of stocks is sufficient that they are not workers.
Stocks are just an abstracted way of exploiting workers.
No they are a way of sharing ownership in a company. It is the speculation that occurs in stock exchanges than can lead to negative outcomes for employees.
Speculation has been a relatively insignificant factor overall in the trade of stocks compared to growth in their intrinsic value.
Stocks carry and accrue value due to the work of others than those who hold them.
That simply is not true. The value of publicly traded stocks is based upon the speculation that the value of the stock will rise or decline which is often not related to the productivity of the workers.
The notion that all value cones from labor is fundamentally incorrect. Value can be created by scarcity and speculation which has been demonstrated time and again. For example all those recent finds of lithium potential mines have impacted the price of lithium world wide despite not a single mine being approved or any work being done to obtain it. Just knowing it is there has created that change.
All theories of value are lacking in one way or another, but you’re definitely in the wrong community if you fundamentally disagree with the labor theory of value. Intrinsically, an item has value based on demand and usefulness. However, no items exist without labor. The value of an item is disconnected from the wage exchanged to create it, and this theft of value is what we call “profit”.
Speculation depends on a belief that value will rise in the future, which depends on, except in a few extreme cases of investors being scammed, the recognition of other value not speculative.
Land speculators know that land has usefulness, for development, agriculture, or resources. Stock speculators know that stocks have value generated by work. Even if market value has some component that is speculative, always some component is due to intrinsic value.
Your assertion, that “value of publicly traded stocks is based upon the speculation that the value of the stock will rise or decline”, is refuted by the contradictions it itself implies.
An asset class whose value is purely speculative necessarily will collapse eventually. Generally in such cases the speculative value is generated through hype created by a nefarious actor who originally created the asset. Such is the nature of Ponzi schemes.
You seem to be confused by my comment if you think it is contradictory.
I think APPL is overvalued so Im selling its stock while someone else believes that the stock will go up during the time they plan to hold onto the stock thus while I think it will decline someone else perceives for their reasons it will increase.
Considering you literally claimed Marx LVT as if it were gospel maybe consider you aren’t going to have a good grasp on how stock markets work as that’s not something you’ve studied.
A particular stock cannot be meaningfully considered overvalued if its entire value is speculative.
Such is the contradiction.
Perhaps you are not understanding speculation, confusing it with any investment purchase, any purchase based on expectation of rising value.
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Yes.
Have you heard of other publicly traded companies that are not Gamestop?
I am sorry, but your use of the one example to negate my position is sloppy and ridiculous.
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No. I just have not made any claims that are negated by the events related to trading Gamestop.
Ya know, workers can own stocks too. There’s even companies that give stocks to employees. Stocks themselves are not the problem.
And what percentage of stocks are held by the working class?
As much as they wish. Also there’s no working class, that’s not 18th century anymore.
The working class is not defined in terms of historical dates.
The working class is everyone who lacks sufficient income to survive solely from owned assets such as businesses or rented properties.
Obviously, ability to purchase stocks is limited by wealth and income remaining after meeting other expenses.
Sorry, but the working class exists, and cannot own as much stock as it pleases.
A constructive response to the question would be of providing an actual percentage, as was asked, rather than returning an absurd deflection.
There are no classes in a capitalist system.
Ability to make investments is not limited by wealth, this is not a 19th century anymore.
Not sure which percentages you want.
Not enough, but that doesn’t mean that stocks are the problem. The current system that allows billionaires to exist is the problem, not stocks themselves. Stocks could just as easily be used to fairly share ownership of a business amongst its workers.
Stocks themselves do allow billionaires to exist.
Almost always stocks is understood to represent tradable assets.
No dude.
You could get rid of stocks and replace them with a big book written in crayon that keeps track of what percentage of a company someone owns, but if you changed nothing else, billionaires would still exist.
It’s the current financial and tax laws that allow billionaires to amass so much wealth, nothing else.
I am becoming confused about your overall position on the subject.
Nevertheless, it seems plain that as long as company shares remain tradable, some holders will accumulate fortunes allowing them to survive merely by virtue of their holdings, through profit generated by the work of others.
The trading of stocks itself, not particular laws or codes, supports the stratification of society into workers and owners, even if some workers own some stocks.
If only there was a way to convert that stock into yachts… 🤔
Oh I’m not arguing against the absurdity of someone having a networth in the billions, I’m just trying to add clarity that it’s the financial industry and tax laws that allow it to happen.
As opposed to just grunting “BILLIONAIRES BAAAAAAAAD!!!”
You are not adding clarity.
Your understanding is misguided.
Terse messages are used not because the broader messages lack substantive justification, but rather because repetition helps them gain enough attention that more of society will feel motivated to investigate and to reflect.
Kanye: Am I a joke to you?
Yes?
