The Redistribution of Wealth
Posted by Gremlin in What's New on Monday, 14th July 2008 at 12.14 am Zulu Time
Anyone else getting a little tired of economic stopgap suggestions from people who can't do math? Me too. And I was reminded of that today when a gotard trolled in to assure us that Oprah's bankaccount could solve the country's problems.
To be fair, that specific moron was hoping only to divide Oprah's potential $2.5billion by twenty-five percent of twelve percent of three hundred million, based on the largest amount Oprah might have [other sources say that she's got just over a billion, not quite two and a half], granting that, of three hundred million people in the US, twelve percent are black, of which about twenty-five percent are poor enough to be homeless or on the verge. For the tl;dr crowd, by the way: get out; brevity isn't something I'm into; also, $2.5billion / [300million(12%*25%)] = ~$278. Compare that to the Earned Income Credit the IRS issue to, at this point, approximately everyone, or, worse, to the sort of money it would take, all other factors of reality being perfect, to feed and house and clothe nine million people, and someone, mathematically speaking, is an idiot.
But that's all pretty specific. And you can't be specific when telling everyone who wants to hear it or not that we need a redistribution of wealth in the US. Like, just in general. Skincolour aside. This isn't necessarily about reparations and other getrichquick schemes; this is just the emotarded interest in RobinHooding the vast wealth of the rich and dumping it all on the poor. Without any explanation of actual figures, processes, or, really, logically defensible reasons.
So, let's talk about that for a moment. Including details. Meaning numbers.
That the US are comprised, at this point, of about 300million people is a good number to start with. It's our divisor. If that doesn't make sense yet, you're probably an idiot who wants to see a redistribution of wealth. But, if you're still pretending to read all this, I'll show you something lacking big words which at the least a grownup can help you with: X/300,000,000.
Got it? To be fair, and to keep the numbers as simple as possible, we're gonna take all the money in the country [I assume; if the plan is actually to take all the money in the world, and give it equally to each of nearly seven billion people, we're each gonna be even more disappointed; whatever else the US is, it's one of the richest countries on the planet], then all the money in the country is going to be divided by three hundred million people. Right? Even democrats aren't evil and brainless enough to be thinking that we should rob the rich and leave them with exactly nothing. Are they? To keep the numbers simple, we'll suppose not.
With X/300,000,000, our task now is to find for X. And that gets a little tricky, since X isn't a real number. Well, obviously it's not: it's a letter. But, in algebraic terms, it's supposed to represent a number; what no one's certain of now is precisely what that number would be.
The first problem we run into in looking for the dividend [for the morons, that's the number we're hoping to divide by the divisor, which itself is the X] is that the sum total of all the money in the country is a bit inflated. In fact, if you add up all the money possessed by all the people...I'll put this a better way: if you went to the bank and cleared out your account, getting physical cash to hide in a shoebox in your closet, while each of 299,999,999 other people [let's pretend for the moment that every infant in the country has its own account too] do the same thing, we'll all quickly learn that, in fact, there's not enough money printed within the country to give each of us what we're told we have, all at once. So that's not gonna work. Even if it could, the sad fact is that we don't have those numbers to play with; if anyone's worked out a total number of all assets controlled by all people lumped into a total value for the US, I can't find it. So it's a dead end.
So, what's that leave? I dunno. Probably the closest we can get to a real number is the GDP. That's the Gross Domestic Product. And, as of 2007, it's $13,843,825,000,000. Which is not only a large sack of cash, but as close as I can personally think reflects the amount of money in the country not theoretically spoken for by the deficit, since at the least the twits wanting this redistribution are also heavily into whimpering about the deficit caused nearly exclusively by the army's invasion of Iraq. So those dollars are out of our equation.
So. We have numbers now. We have $13,843,825,000,000/300,000,000. Right? Anyone unclear about this? Anyone both unclear and thinking he's got a better idea? You know what: I'll allow that you might have a better idea; feel free to hit me with it on the messageboard.
So. $13,843,825,000,000/300,000,000=$46,000. Right? Get out your calculators; Start, Programmes, Accessories, Calculators. Thump in 13843825000000, hit /, thump in 300000000, and hit Enter. It's forty-six thousand bucks.
Now, before most of us laugh about this, let's allow that, to a lot of people, that sounds like a huge amount of cash. One in four people make little enough per year that making fifty thousand all at once would be a big deal. In fact, since, out of 300million people, just over 100million are kids [who probably haven't got bankaccounts], what we're really talking about is roughly $150,000 per family, to the extent that a family is on average two grownups and a parasite. But, since that's hard to guess about, and since it doesn't change anything in the actual numbers: to hell with it. We're each getting close to fifty thousand bucks, in total assets, once we've grabbed up all the wealth and handed it out all fairly.
Right? That is fair, isn't it? I mean, we're talking about fifty thousand bucks. If I get that, it's fair. I'm even kinda used to it: in adjusted dollars, it's about what I got in allowance annually as a kid. So, to get fifty grand just all at once, it's perfectly fair; people currently making more than that per year were stupid for making the effort to get paid. Fuck'em.
So. Here's your cash. Whatever money you had before we took it away from you, here's your fifty grand. It's yours. We'll even pretend that the congress didn't send the IRS after a third of it.
So. Now what. Whatcha gonna do tomorrow. Tell ya what I'm gonna do...well, actually, not a lot. I'll keep doing what I do. Write books, think up bumperstickers, and whatever; that should work out nicely, since each of you has fifty thousand bucks now: no more excuses that five bucks for a bumpersticker is something you can't afford. I'm all for this plan, suddenly.
So, you buy a bumpersticker, losing five bucks. I gain...rather less than five bucks, since a large percentage goes to all the little people who stock and market and print and mail and...are they still doing that? They each have fifty grand now. Did they quit their jobs? Surely not for fifty grand. That would be stupid. Uh...wouldn't it?
How about the people who make my coffee at Starbucks. Can I give them my four bucks for coffee, or have they retired to a beachfront property on fifty grand? How about the servers across the street at the pub? Can I give them twenty for a burger and coffee, or are they buying an island in the South Pacific somewhere? Damnit. I'm suddenly not sure I like this idea anymore.
Okay look. To be real about it, fifty grand wouldn't change anyone's life individually if he nearly won the lottery, getting five out of six numbers, and ended up with a prize this small. A few idiots would quit their jobs and go broke in a month or two; but let's assume that the country as a whole isn't that dumb. It's a stretch; but we can dream. Thusly, I can still get coffee and you can still get bumperstickers, and it's all kinda zerosum overall. So, you give me five bucks, retaining $49,995 [I'm cheating up from $46,146 now, for easier math], and I get, like, an extra dollar as my cut, pushing me to $50,001. Now I buy coffee, and I have $49,997. Works for me.
That's tomorrow.
The next day, more people buy sitckers; I buy more coffee. And so on. I make a dollar and spend four until I'm broke. Or, really, I make a dollar every time each of you buys a sticker, and buy coffee when I'm thirsty. If I keep track of that impossible equation, I'll stay at or above fifty grand in my pocket; if not, I'll be in favour of redistributing the wealth again next time, because I'm a fucking idiot who can't manage money.
Of course, next time, we won't be pretending that I don't deserve to have the sixty thousand or so that I've got by now since, while I did inherit fifty thousand effortlessly: so did you.
So. You wanna take all the money in the country, being close to fourteen trillion, and hand it to three hundred million people, giving each close to fifty thousand? Go ahead. If you can talk everyone else into it and make it happen: go ahead. But understand that, if you're currently poor because you're an idiot who thinks that All the Money in the Country somehow gets you enough to live all comfy for ever and ever, if you're currently poor because the mathemagics are beyond your little brain's ability to understand, then you're gonna be right back here again next year. And, next year, we who have more than we started with this year in our pockets are gonna play the Fool Me Once Card and tell you to go to hell.
For those who think the better system would be simply to issue fifty thousand to everyone annually, to spend without working at Starbucks on whatever you can buy at places other than Starbucks: you're stupider than the rest; please move to the United Shithead Socialist Republic and leave the rest of us alone. Or, you know, to Boulder. Whatever's closer.
Of course, that's just my opinion; now it's yours, for free.
 Time for the Spam of the Day....
Resume..Job Offer..No Fee Involved
I can't quite tell whether this is a 403 scam or not. Maybe those are evolving. I dunno. What's funny, on the subject, is that the job I didn't apply for and don't want is offering four grand a month. Times twelve? Why, that's about $48,000, innit. Apparently, I won't be needing this gig. |
More later....
