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Good numbers and bad numbers

If I’m in a room with nine other people and nine of us decide we want almost everything from the richest one, should that one just surrender it?  If I’m in a country with 310 million people and 300 million decide they want almost everything from the richest 10 million, should they just surrender it?  If I’m on a planet with 7 billion people and 6.5 billion decide they want almost everything from the richest .5 billion, should those .5 billion just surrender it?  What’s different between these scenarios besides the numbers?  Why do so many act as though the first an third scenarios are unjust, but the middle one is just?

Posted in Musings.


One Response

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  1. Joseph Harden says

    There is no difference between the scenarios and redistribution of wealth by other than charity would be wrong, but… what is right about the top 25 wall street fund managers ‘earning’ an average of a billion dollars each last year. That is not capital gains on investments or value added to building a business, that is wages and bonuses. I understand that if they increase their employer’s bottom line they should be compensated. The question, though, is where does that fat bottom line and those outrageous salaries come from? It derives from the companies’ customers. If my retirement fund owns stock in those customers then their bottom line is reduced as is the return on my investments. Instead of earning 7% I earn 5%. Instead of retiring at age 62 I retire at age 67. Instead of a nice vacation every couple of years we spend a weekend or two at the lake four hours away. So, how did that scenario go again?



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