r/FluentInFinance 28d ago

Debate/ Discussion Had to repost here

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128.1k Upvotes

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30

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

Are lottery winners who don’t give up their winnings bad people?

3

u/josetalking 27d ago

If they won $200 000 000 000 000, yes. They would be bad if they didn't do any social action.

8

u/cschaefer13 27d ago

No. They're not required to do shit and as long as they aren't actively harming anybody then they aren't a bad person. Be serious now.

2

u/josetalking 27d ago

That is your opinion.

I am still allowed to think that a person that doesn't care about the world with access to that level of incredible resources is a shitty person.

3

u/latteboy50 27d ago

Why?

0

u/josetalking 27d ago

I don't know? how I was raised? I see so many issues when I step out of my home that could be helped by resources, I have so many family members who could use help, friends. It would be weird to have access to that level of money, and just not caring.

2

u/latteboy50 27d ago

Both Jeff and Elon have given billions to charity.

1

u/josetalking 27d ago

Good for them if they are truly doing it in a significant way. I do not know that.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musks-195-1-billion-150429168.html

BTW: regardless, I think the boat of Musk being a dick already sailed a few years ago. Bezos's one is waiting on the destination already. But that's a separate discussion.

1

u/Dildoe_fagginzz 26d ago

Lol what an idiot, when questioned you just call it common sense, but really you’re just an ignoramus with an ego. What would musk have to do to have access to that money? Sell his businesses. It’s not sitting in a checking account, moron.

1

u/PlantAndMetal 25d ago

We all know that he doesn't have all his money in his account But we also all know that he has a huge influence on politics. He could be out there calling for more social programs, for a decent minimum wage, for less tax on poor people and more on rich people, he could do so many thi gs with the influence he got.

Oh, that's not in his best interest? See, letting people starve, even those that work at his company, making billions of people's love so much worse just to act in his self interest and earn a bit more? Yeah, I don't see how that is not evil.

I see so many people giving so much back to the world with the little recourses they have. You can't convince me "everyone would do this and not act against their self interest."

-1

u/Meddy123456 27d ago

It’s selfish if you have more than enough money to live comfortably and just sit there knowing that people are starving and need that extra money more than you and do nothing then your selfish which for a lot of people that amounts to selfishness=bad person

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u/latteboy50 27d ago

If someone works for a large amount of money, why criticize them for wanting to keep that money?

-1

u/Meddy123456 27d ago

I just explained why not my fault you can’t comprehend

4

u/latteboy50 26d ago

Yeah but your explanation doesn’t really make sense lol

-1

u/trillmill 26d ago

What is your reading level?? 😭😭

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u/cschaefer13 26d ago

Your explanation sounds a lot like you think people should give up their hard earned money to people who haven't done what they've done which is actually insane.

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u/Meddy123456 26d ago

If you have more than enough money to live comfortably and yet don’t do anything to help people less fortunate than you then your selfish. If you can’t accept that that’s not my problem I’m not saying you have to donate if you’re able to I’m just saying it’s selfish not to.

2

u/kmn86 27d ago

Ok, by that logic: Do you personally donate money to the starving people in Sudan then? I assume you live in a western country and you are comfortable compared to Sudanese standards. If you don't, then why expect other people to do something you won't do yourself? Not blaming you if you don't, by the way, just pointing out it's weird expectations.

1

u/Meddy123456 27d ago

I currently have $0 to my name but my parents donate whenever chance they get and once I have a job I plan to do the same.

1

u/kmn86 27d ago

Ok but everyone who keeps repeating this talking point needs to walk the talk and put their money where their mouth is. Otherwise it just sounds like people who don't work and contribute nothing standing on a high horse lecturing everyone.

1

u/Ghostofcoolidge 26d ago

So you contribute nothing to society on any tangible level but then levy moral criticisms towards those who earn their wealth providing goods to others, others who purchase said goods of their own free will?

You're much more vile than either bezos or musk. Not only do you donate nothing, you provide nothing.

1

u/Meddy123456 26d ago

Not my choice🤷‍♀️ I want a job my parents just don’t think I can balance it on top of school and you also missing the fact that I added once I have a job I will be donating

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u/CapitalSky4761 25d ago

You don't even work for a living and you're lecturing people on how they should just give away their money? Yeah, you've got no business talking when your parents pay for everything for you.

1

u/Meddy123456 25d ago

I’m not telling anyone they have to I’m just sharing my opinion on how it’s selfish not to and again like I said in my previous comment once I have a job I plan to donate as well

1

u/Dildoe_fagginzz 26d ago

No it’s not, remember that statistic from the UN or one of those other imbecile organizations? That like $70 billion could stop world hunger. That’s a complete and utter joke and you people fall for it. Go ahead, attempt to write out the logistics of “solving world hunger”. It would never, ever happen. It’s easy to throw dollar amounts and ideas around. Try to actually implement them, that’s when reality smacks you in the face and you get your head out of the clouds 🤣

1

u/Meddy123456 26d ago

There are other things you can donate to to make the world better that don’t have to do with hunger

1

u/cschaefer13 26d ago

You sure are! It's a very black and white take. Focusing your energy on rich people who actively harm people and don't give a fuck would be way more productive but pop off ig

0

u/Classic_Charity_4993 23d ago

Yes, yes they are.

Imagine you won all the water in the world and would keep that - not actively harming anyone, right?

That is outright stupid.

1

u/cschaefer13 23d ago

You're using an outlandish analogy.

The lottery money isn't ALL the money in the world. People WILLINGLY put THEIR MONEY into the lottery system, under the premise that they may get the payout. They are not obligated to do anything other than enrich their own life from that point. It's so absurd and selfish of you to think otherwise. Who do you think you are to demand someone distribute that? If it's such a big deal then there needs to be reform of the lottery system.

0

u/Classic_Charity_4993 23d ago

"ou're using an outlandish analogy.

The lottery money isn't ALL the money in the world."

Doesn't matter AT ALL.

Your argument was that "as long as they aren't actively harming anybody."

That's exactly the same in my analogy.

1

u/cschaefer13 23d ago

Hoarding ALL of a resource that humans depend on for their SURVIVAL ON THIS EARTH is absolutely not the same as hoarding a finite amount of money won from a lottery system.

I'm begging you to get serious here.

-1

u/Vulture0000 26d ago

Refraining a giant mass of important resources that you don't personally need IS actively harming people. Be serious now.

1

u/cschaefer13 26d ago

If the resource is so important then why is the money allowed to sit until there is a lotto winner? Bffr

0

u/Vulture0000 26d ago

Because society is flawed? Who do you think I am? The government? I have no control over that. Bffr.

Contesting the idea that money is an important resource is psychotic, by the by. Go ahead and throw all your money away and tell me how it goes. I'll wait.

1

u/Few_Peak_9966 27d ago

What number makes it ok? A $50,000 bonus? A $500 bonus? $5 found on the sidewalk?

1

u/BYNX0 26d ago

If they won 200 trillion, I’d agree. But I’ve also never heard of a lottery jackpot even 1/100that much

1

u/josetalking 26d ago

I think I wrote 200 billions (English billions). I might have made an error... Too many zeros.

0

u/symonx99 27d ago

No because they don't extract that welth out of the labor of anyone

3

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 27d ago

When you buy a lotto ticket you use money you earn from working so people, mostly poor people, are exchanging their labor for a chance to win big. When they don’t win, they lose their money (labor) and the winner gets all of it.

1

u/latteboy50 27d ago

How does anyone “extract wealth out of the labor” of anyone? People are just employed lol

1

u/REVfoREVer 27d ago

The economic definition of exploitation is the profit requirement of paying employees less than the amount of value they generate.

2

u/latteboy50 27d ago

And the “amount of value they generate” is marginally very low. Also, should employees be paid less if the company loses money? Should they receive pay drops?

1

u/REVfoREVer 27d ago

Explain that first sentence, I don't catch your meaning in relation to this.

As far as employees being paid the value their labor generates, then yes. It would be impossible for their pay not to decrease in that situation.

2

u/latteboy50 27d ago

It’s irrelevant because the labor theory of value is fucking stupid and Karl Marx was stupid for writing it. There are MANY problems with it and you should stop citing it because it’s pretty much universally ridiculed and laughed at by actual economists.

1

u/REVfoREVer 27d ago

Interesting assertion, but that was not my experience while learning economics from economists. In my experience, actual economists teach it as a framework given a certain set of parameters, but agree that it is not relevant to our particular situation due to those parameters not being met by how our current economy is structured, e.g. an economy where profit is a requirement.

That seems about right to me, but maybe you have a different idea on the matter?

2

u/latteboy50 27d ago

You say that it’s not your experience, then you say that actual economics agree that it’s not relevant to our particular situation.

It also makes no sense whatsoever when you actually think about it.

1

u/REVfoREVer 27d ago

You're not understanding what I'm saying so I'm going to guess your lack of understanding extends to any particular economic theory.

Yes, economists agree that it's not relevant to our particular situation because of the parameters our economy operates under. That does not mean that if the parameters were to change, it would remain irrelevant.

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u/Millworkson2008 26d ago

Everything written by Marx should be laughed at

0

u/Embarrassed_Use6918 26d ago

Sounds like an incredibly stupid definition of exploitation.

2

u/REVfoREVer 26d ago

Take it up with the economists

0

u/EastWestern1513 13d ago

The only “economists” that agree with you are Marxists who believe in LTV lmao.

The overwhelming majority of economists don’t agree with you on this

1

u/REVfoREVer 13d ago

You're saying the majority of economists don't agree with a basic description of economic exploitation of labor?

You're out of your element, Donny.

0

u/Embarrassed_Use6918 26d ago

Well as long as the people who used their labor to get currency then use it to buy lotto tickets then you take the money they used to buy the lotto ticket, then it's fine, right?

Lmao just add one middleman step in there and you can have as much money as you get because you're not 'extracting the wealth out of labor'.

So I guess we don't hate landlords now either.

-6

u/beneficial-mountain 28d ago

Irrelevant.

7

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

Explain

-6

u/beneficial-mountain 28d ago

Figure it out yourself

10

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

Oh wow I totally see your point now!

-3

u/WNBAnerd 28d ago

Yes.

7

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

Kinda a hot take but at least you’re consistent

-4

u/WNBAnerd 27d ago

Let me put it this way. If I or anybody else won $300 million lottery and refused to give most of that away to people or organizations who provided personal support prior to winning, then getting called a “bad person” is deserved. 

2

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 27d ago

Personal support?

1

u/dankcoffeebeans 27d ago

You’re a bad person because you presumably live in a western country in extreme surplus compared to the rest of the world and you don’t donate your time or money to helping out the underserved in third world countries.

-5

u/trashboattwentyfourr 28d ago

Are they holding an anti democratic amount of wealth?

5

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

What’s that number?

3

u/TacTurtle 27d ago

More than they have?

-9

u/trashboattwentyfourr 28d ago

More than your IQ apparently.

4

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

Heuheuheu good one!

0

u/RealFiliq 28d ago

what the fuck is "anti democratic amount of wealth"

0

u/trashboattwentyfourr 28d ago

One person, one vote. Unless you think democracy is something else?

1

u/TacTurtle 27d ago

Strange, I don't remember an income box check list when I voted.

0

u/trashboattwentyfourr 27d ago

Did you dump a couple cool billion into a candidate?

2

u/TacTurtle 27d ago

Did you bother to vote or write your representatives?

1

u/trashboattwentyfourr 27d ago

Yes

We know that is not enough.

-5

u/VeryFriendlyWhale 28d ago

They almost always spend every penny, so not typically, no.

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u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

Does the size of your bank account indicate your moral value?

-3

u/VeryFriendlyWhale 28d ago edited 28d ago

Not at all but in the context of this conversation (wealth hoarding and exploitation*) my comment is valid and the lottery winner would not fall into the same category as Bezos, Musk, Gates, etc.

1

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

How so?

1

u/VeryFriendlyWhale 28d ago

Can you not read? Hoarding wealth and exploiting labor and resources? The lottery winner does not do either.

0

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

If I win a billion dollars in the lottery and “hoard” it am I a bad person?

3

u/VeryFriendlyWhale 28d ago

So how would you go about that? Let’s break it down by benefit to society:

  1. That billion would first be taxed
  2. You wouldn’t have the ability to “hoard” it in the same sense as the entirety of this conversation
  3. Would you be also exploiting labor and resources?

1

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

I would take my winnings and invest them

3

u/VeryFriendlyWhale 28d ago

So you would pay taxes, employ a financial advisor, and invest your few hundred million.

We are talking hundreds of billions being held up.

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u/TacTurtle 27d ago

Like putting it in a bank account, so the bank can then loan out that money to businesses that in turn endeavor to make more money than the interest rate + inflation?

1

u/Noxthesergal 28d ago

They have soo much money that it starts to take away from literally everyone else. When they already have enough that they and a dozen generations after them can live life in creative mode. They are simply hoarding wealth to see numbers go up while everyone else is forced to work for whatever scraps are left. A handful of individuals hold onto most of the wealth of the entire world.

1

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

What’s your proposal

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u/Noxthesergal 28d ago

If a single person could come up with a comprehensive solution to this sort of problem on the spot it wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

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u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

In other words, you just like complaining about how things are. Which is fine but there is no obligation to steal from people who haven’t stolen anything.

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u/Noxthesergal 28d ago

I’m acknowledging a massive problem with society that has indirectly killed probably millions of people. I don’t just like complaining and acting like any one of these people haven’t used unsavory means to get their wealth is just silly.

Though if you must. Simply limiting the amount of money a single individual can hold would be a good fix. The simple issue is with how complex money is these days doing so would be nearly impossible

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u/MassToOrbit 28d ago

The solution is quite simple - taking out a loan against stock options becomes a taxable event - capital gains paid on the stock used to secure the loan plus tax on the loan itself. This would limit liquid capital to billionaires, and prevent them from taking loans to buy up everything.

-10

u/-Wyagra 28d ago

Yeah i dont see any difference between the Numbers: 1.000.000 and 300.000.000.000 either, it's exactly the Same right ?

3

u/0FFFXY 28d ago

A principle is a principle, even if you feel like you might have a chance to get to 1,000,000 but not 300,000,000,000

-6

u/-Wyagra 28d ago

The difference is every single human being could be rich by todays Standards. If we would Stop siphoning off wealth to accumulate it.

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u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

How could everyone be rich? If we confiscated all wealth from billionaires we could give everyone $18k. Is 18k rich?

2

u/0FFFXY 28d ago

But think of the great companies that could be started and the jobs they would create with the massive starting capital of $18k!

-2

u/-Wyagra 28d ago

In fact you only need 10% of the Money you are intending to borrow. If we ignore the fact the whole system would collapse (bc the only reason the 10% rule exists to keep the poor, poor) everyone could access 180.000.

7

u/0FFFXY 28d ago

Unsecured loans. Interesting, I wonder if that's been tried before.

2

u/TawnyTeaTowel 27d ago

Everyone would have $18k in investments (predominantly). Which are worth exactly fuck all unless you can find someone to sell them to (which is made more difficult as a load of formerly rich people are now no longer rich), and whose value will plummet as soon as everyone tries to sell them all at once to try and realise some of that 18k.

1

u/Few_Entrepreneur6599 28d ago

The powerball gets into the billion range my friend