Breaking: 3 Richest Americans Now Own More Wealth Than Bottom 50%

In fact, a hungry man eats energy. Food is nothing else than an energy source. In today's mechanized agriculture, we literally eat oil, since every calorie of food we consume requires input of three calories of energy generated from burning oil (much more if it is meat).

The reason economics have been decoupled from energy as the main driver is because energy is so cheap. The only reason for that is that we were lucky to come across an energy source earth has stored for us over millions of years (oil, coal and gas), which we are foolishly burning through in less than 200 years. Without coal and oil, we'd probably still be in the middle ages, limited by burning wood or human and animal labor as the main energy sources.

 

I am sure there will be popular support for breaking up Google, Amazon, and Facebook and any other anti-competitive enterprise that engages in censorship.

 

Go to work? They're millennials who feel they're entitled and shouldn't have to work. They wish to retire right after high school graduation.

 

Are you saying that restrictions are on resources or extraction or innovating new methods to utilize more prevalent resources? Whale oil is no longer in demand. Agriculture efficiency is just scratching the surface, and we are practically cavemen as far as energy production and supply chain management. The timeline of economic output being a static number due to finite resources puts us barely past zero with centuries to the right. The argument of resource limitation as support for a static economic production pie is a fallacy.

 

Maybe his true concern is whether they found a cure for the herps yet or not...

 

Agreed. Nonperishables will soon go the way of Sears in grocery stores.

 

So, what are our current energy restrictions, and why do you feel that innovative solutions for energy delivery to meet demand will fail? Historically, supply is created to meet demand. I feel that this is a fallacy to support static productivity. We are literally centuries away from resource limitations without efficiency solutions.

 

Bush had the tax cuts for the rich, why did the economy crash, why did the rich not trickle down, those tax cuts constituted for many of the Obama years, why do you think more tax cuts for the rich will help now? corps are doing well, it's the middle class that is not, we need a working class tax bill

 

Well, in the last 100 years, energy consumption has increased in the US with an average growth rate of 3%. That's a doubling of energy consumption in 23 years, not even taking into account faster growth of emerging economies.

But, reducing the growth rate to 2.3%, we are still on path to use the ENTIRE energy of the sun striking the earth in a mere 400 years. Now, you'd probably agree with me that this is not realistic, since that would make the earth appear black from space. Second, we would also reach boiling water temperatures on earth, not from global warming, but from an inability to radiate off the heat produced from the energy use.

Now, think about a 4% growth rate, and we have a lot less than 400 years. 7% growth rate means doubling in 10 years. How is that going to work?

These physical limitations are very real, not something that will occur in the very distant future in millions of years.

 

OK, so in 400 years we will determine why wealth disparity is an issue.

 

Care to address my point instead deflecting? It seems though that you agree that growth of energy consumption, and thus the economy, HAS to become limited in the future? So the idea of no limit on wealth is not correct?

 

The idea that today's pie is limited is incorrect as you have pointed out.

 

Give them a tax break!!! They need one. Ask any republican.

 

I'd agree with that. It seems that you also agree that the overall size of the pie that is attainable has limits. That renders the economic model of perpetual economic growth unworkable.

 

So your basic point, is you are trying to equate energy with currency?

With a BS in Mechanical Engineering w/ an emphasis in Thermal Systems, and a Masters in Applied Finance ..... I can tell you with utmost certainty, finance is nowhere near as neat and simple as physics is.

Not even close

 

I think the Republicans are just brainwashed a lot of times into the "My Party is always Right" thing. Lower taxes DOES promote growth, but only to a certain point.

Corporate taxes being lowered, especially to smaller non fortune 500 companies, promotes incredible growth.

I believe our progressive personal income tax system is pretty good, I actually like the idea of creating another bracket for those making $500k and another for $1M.

 

What about inflation/deflation? What about things like Bitcoin? What about the dozens of other variables that rely on human beings and not mathematically equatable physics?

There are just so many variables in finance that you cannot stem it into a nice equation like we are so used to in any physics excercises we do.

 

I am not equating energy and currency. Money is just a catalyst for entropy production (energy use).

Second, I never said that economy is as simple as physics (which often is not simple in the first place). However, since the economy operates in the real world of physical laws, it cannot violate these laws. Principles like conservation of energy and matter hold, and economic theories have to be consistent with them. If they are not, like perpetual economic growth, there is a problem.

 

Inflation/deflation affect the size of the money supply. Thus, since money is a catalyst for entropy production, these variables will have an effect on tractable physical quantities.

Bitcoin? They are generated and sustained on servers, which use energy. The more bitcoins there are, the more computing power (energy) is needed to create additional ones. Again, this can be directly traced to energy use.

 

So you're equating energy consumption with economic growth?

 

Yes, I do. The correlation between energy consumption and economic growth is very strong. Look it up.

 

no because you have no idea what is in store for the future with such a high rate of advancements I'm sure we will develop a unlimited free and clean energy supply with in the next hundred years
and yes wealth is unlimited because they majority of wealth created now days isn't based not on limited recourses but unlimited ones like ingenuity and creativity which is all based on the human mind and we have yet to reach its fullest potential

 

Bezos, Gates, and Buffett have not created jobs????? Maybe not millions, but close when the indirect jobs created by these guys. And I cannot recall these three effecting court injunctions, anti-labor laws, police repression, union busting, contract violations, sweatshops, dishonest clocking of time, safety violations, harassment and firing of resistant workers, cutbacks in wages and benefits, raids of pension funds, layoffs, and plant closings -- not any, not once.
The solutions are just great:

• Enacting higher marginal tax rates on individuals earning above $250,000 and $1 million;
  
  Straight out of the Communist Manifesto
  
  
• "Addressing the problem of hidden wealth," which often leads to an underestimation of the level of wealth inequality;
  
  Gonna check under everyone's mattresses?
  
  
  
• Instituting a tax on Wall Street financial transactions, which could bring in an estimated $350 billion in federal revenue over a decade;
  
  Good way to knock everyone's pension and IRAs for a loop. Nice
  
  
• Eliminate the carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund managers to "reclassify wage income as capital income" and pay less in taxes as a result;
  
  HEY! One that has a semblance of smarts!
  
  
• Bolstering, rather than eliminating, the estate tax, which only affects a tiny number families.
  
  Also, straight from the Communist Manifesto. And we all know how successful communism has been for the average worker.

 

Yeah, but it makes some others enraged with envy. They evidently don't care much the way they live as long as Charlie next door doesn't have a lot.

 

Far better chance that the rich can create a cure than the middle class or poor can. I wish Democrats stopped attacking those with more wealth or income.

A good test is to look at the actors. Most come from normal working class family. So when you learn they earn $5 million per year and have acted for say 10 years, you might think their net worth would be around 50 million dollars. Interest and good investments ought to hold off the taxman a bit. But a lot of them have maybe 7 million in net worth. So who taught them economics? I think they got shafted by the tax man and he kept them from being as wealthy as they deserved.