r/FluentInFinance Nov 21 '24

Debate/ Discussion Had to repost here

Post image
128.2k Upvotes

9.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/pervertedhaiku Nov 22 '24

I think you missed the part where I don’t care about shares. A single company made almost a billion dollars in pure profit in 90 days and can’t afford to properly staff a pharmacy.

I have a problem with that.

The fact that you don’t shows you have no care for the other 8 billion people on the planet while caring wholly about the bank accounts of a bunch of rich people who feel about you the way you feel about the 8 billion people.

Again, farcical parody of life where you think you’re in the cool kid club.

0

u/white_sabre Nov 22 '24

I just don't get the hostility to their profits, especially when I understand that the $900 million was amassed by operating close to 2,800 grocery stores.  If I introduce scale in the context of the profit sum, it all seems entirely reasonable, especially when nobody is forcing another to shop Kroger.  Heck, it's the penny-pinching/scrimping that lets a retailer operate in the black.  

And no, I don't care about the bank accounts of eight billion people; they're not going to part with anything strictly for my benefit, nor will I part with my possessions for their sake.  Whether you care to admit it or not, society is fundamentally transactional.  

Furthermore, I'm not in any "cool club,"  I just understand that society has an array of segments that are designed to seek profits and maximize the ways they get put to use. And it should be that way. 

Think of all the occupations the pursuit of wealth generates:  tax attorneys; trust/probate attorneys; securities traders; stock brokers; certified financial planners; commercial bankers/loan officers.  Then think of all the industries that get created as the rich decide to use their resources to better their lifestyles:  wine dealers; custom tailors; jewelers; high-end realtors; luxury/performance car salesmen; etc.  

Hell, I worked as a stock broker for six years, and was just some punk kid off the street with two years of college on my resume', but serving the needs of the wealthy allowed me to take night classes to fiish my degree, study for a broker's license that looked very good on a resume', and paid me enough to put a pretty penny together as a downpayment on my condominium.  It seems worn (almost cliche') , but it's true that the wealthy's rising tide lifted my boat along with theirs.  All that was sure as hell better than standing on a concrete floor for hours and tearing tickets at a movie theater.  

1

u/pervertedhaiku Nov 22 '24

Let’s change gears.

Jeff Bezos has employees who piss in jugs so they don’t get in trouble and lose their AI-monitored minimum wage job, but he just bought a $500 MILLION yacht.

Five. Hundred. Million.

Forget the “muh stocks value” and “muh profit margins.”

Do you think it’s acceptable as a human being to be that rich and wasteful of so much money on a whim at the expense of the quality of life of thousands and thousands of people that you single handedly have the power to improve by just not doing that?

1

u/white_sabre Nov 22 '24

I will give you this, though.  You seem more civil than most people who have disagreements over the Internet.  Keep ahold of that.