How the rich get richer and why it works

[paxmao]

Ok, this applies mostly to democracies but just follow me for a moment... I am going to think as I write

This is very simple - TO KEEP WEALTH YOU JUST HAVE TO AVOID GIVING IT AWAY TO OTHERS

- To have rule a country you need: (a) A way of enforcing power (military, police, judiciary,...) (b) Some form of structure of government (c) Sufficient amount of votes
- In most democracies the military are aligned with democracy in general terms. You throw them some money, keep an eye on what the generals are doing and have someone of trust heading all that.
- In most democracies, and even in most countries I dare to say, you do have some structure of government with public workers, ministers, judges of short,... Sometimes this structure is better, sometimes is not really good, but it is there.

Now, you need the votes. If you are in the 10% of the richest you have a problem: You have something that everyone else would like to take from you. They cannot do this directly because the right to private property / ownership is normally granted and enforced. However, in a democracy, you run the very serious risk of people asking for laws that would force you to distribute wealth. This is the outline strategy on how the rich prevent that from happening:

- You can count on the votes of the 10% that is rich just as you to vote for politicians that will keep it that way.
- You can easily create a "choir" or "court of sycophants" that will play your game. They will be cunning, smart, educated and you will make sure that you will pay them well. You can add another 10% of votes, if not more, on that. Their names are "KMPG", "Bearing Point", "Morgan Stanley", "Goldman Sach" and so many others that work day after day for you and do not want to end. Let´s make this a 15% of the quite well-to-do classes.

How do you get another 25% of convinced voters to ensure that the laws maintain your privileges:

- Hate: You will get another 5% that are simply to angry to vote to "that party who is this and that"... you know, they vote with their guts not with their brains.
- Hopelessness: Discourage poor people from voting. Ensure they think their vote is meaningless or make it meaningless by Gerrymandering or similar, put a difficult process for registering,...
- Mislead: Ensure that they are not educated in alternative ways of thinking:  bitcoin is risky, the communists are taking over, this is the best country in the world, you have to trust the government,...
- Fear: Create an external and internal enemy (e.g. China) and place yourself as only alternative.
- Mislead: Ensure you have a public image of ingenuity and hard work, even if you basically spend your days smoking weed and tweeting.
- Hopelessness: The system cannot be changed. If you do something different it won´t work.
- Fear and disinformation: If you cannot oppose and argument, attack the messenger (AKA ad-hominem).
- Mislead: Be cute, nice, speak well, ... people tend to think positively of shit if shit is presented as food.
- Mislead: Poor are poor out of their choice, or because life is just like that, or because they have made bad choices or... you choose.
- Make sure to include a good number of public media in your "tournee". You will need them for all of the above.

All this costs money, but it is money well spent is it not?

[Bttzed03]

(image from the internet)

[Gozie51]

I consider your post and analysis to relating to Africa kind of democracy

How do you get another 25% of convinced voters to ensure that the laws maintain your privileges:

- Hate: You will get another 5% that are simply to angry to vote to "that party who is this and that"... you know, they vote with their guts not with their brains.
- Hopelessness: Discourage poor people from voting. Ensure they think their vote is meaningless or make it meaningless by Gerrymandering or similar, put a difficult process for registering,...
- Mislead: Ensure that they are not educated in alternative ways of thinking:  bitcoin is risky, the communists are taking over, this is the best country in the world, you have to trust the government,...
- Fear: Create an external and internal enemy (e.g. China) and place yourself as only alternative.
- Mislead: Ensure you have a public image of ingenuity and hard work, even if you basically spend your days smoking weed and tweeting.
- Hopelessness: The system cannot be changed. If you do something different it won´t work.
- Fear and disinformation: If you cannot oppose and argument, attack the messenger (AKA ad-hominem).
- Mislead: Be cute, nice, speak well, ... people tend to think positively of shit if shit is presented as food.
- Mislead: Poor are poor out of their choice, or because life is just like that, or because they have made bad choices or... you choose.
- Make sure to include a good number of public media in your "tournee". You will need them for all of the above.

I consider your post and analysis to relating to Africa kind of democracy because in more developed countries I don't think this happens...

- Hopelessness: Discourage poor people from voting. Ensure they think their vote is meaningless or make it meaningless by Gerrymandering or similar, put a difficult process for registering,...

Moreover education or not, the people know there right in developed democracy and they ensure nobody tramples upon it.

And all the above can unfortunately be present in African or Nigerian democracy.

Now, you need the votes. If you are in the 10% of the richest you have a problem: You have something that everyone else would like to take from you. They cannot do this directly because the right to private property / ownership is normally granted and enforced. However, in a democracy, you run the very serious risk of people asking for laws that would force you to distribute wealth. This is the outline strategy on how the rich prevent that from happening:

To analysis this again using the African and Nigerian model, this is the reason many people turn politicians because they want to get in there to be able to have influence on policies that will better their businesses. Is a system of distrust basically or some times you can also see such traces in developed economy too.

Politics gives you political power, so having an economic power( that is wealth) , some still strive for political power to protect their businesses because that level is where the control of the economy is. Majorly, politics affects the economy because that is where policies are generated. For example in Nigeria, many business men and women run into politics to gain a kind of protection, at a time in Nigeria , a wealthy Nigerian (name with held) was vying for such aspiration but at the whole of it, he didn't succeed but died at the process which almost saw Nigeria into civil unrest.

Surely the rich get richer by making themselves relevant in power. Even after them, their families want to keep going that way but things are no longer that easy for them.

[paxmao]

...

This is not a conspiracy theory and I not paranoid, this is how the world works. You probably live in your candy mountain full of fluffy sugar clouds. I don´t.

You can simply google "lobby groups" in the USA (or Europe for that matter) to see that this is not only real, it is not even hidden. Ask yourself why it took 50 years to put restrictions on tobacco?

I consider your post and analysis to relating to Africa kind of democracy

Quite the opposite. You can see here the stats for the USA:

https://econofact.org/voting-and-income

As you can see, there is a direct relation between turnout and income. This is not a coincidence. In fact the money involved in developed countries is such that there is much more interest in manipulation.

To analysis this again using the African and Nigerian model, this is the reason many people turn politicians because they want to get in there to be able to have influence on policies that will better their businesses. Is a system of distrust basically or some times you can also see such traces in developed economy too.

...

Surely the rich get richer by making themselves relevant in power. Even after them, their families want to keep going that way but things are no longer that easy for them.

No traces, is the whole system at work. News, society, workplace, ethics,... all in place to preserve the few.

[Hydrogen]

This is very simple - TO KEEP WEALTH YOU JUST HAVE TO AVOID GIVING IT AWAY TO OTHERS

Imagine being an american paid $20 an hour wage in 2020 with $1 trillion US currency in circulation.

For sake of discussion, let's say the money supply doubles to $2 trillion in circulation. Is your $20 an hour worth the same, or does it devalue as the money supply expands? Imagine decades of inflation and money expansion, with the wages of average workers a flatline over time. I don't think anyone would argue the money supply is always inflating. The question is whether its being distributed evenly or fairly.

This is a topic europe and others have tried to address with inflation adjusted wages. A topic which appears to fly beneath the radar considering the lack of attention it receives. There is always a healthy minimum wage debate in the united states. It doesn't normally amount to more than "give me more money". Which could make progress a difficult thing to achieve.

[Darker45]

I agree with some of it. However, I don't think the rich are this threatened by the poor. As a matter of fact, I don't think the rich are aggressively or even directly creating or spreading hate, hopelessness, fear, and so on simply for the sake of protecting their wealth against the poor.

If I look around, there is a certain level of freedom amidst hindrances and obstacles. Meaning, a poor person can actually get past all this and become somebody. The rich does not directly hinder this. One could actually rise from being a poor boy and become a CEO of a large company, and become rich himself/herself.

The more heated competition is happening among the rich. The 90% below are all under their payroll.

[davis196]

Your post should be titled "How the oligarchs get richer and why it works."
Do you think that the only way to become rich is to get political power?Money>Power>More money
You seem kinda inspired by Machiavelli.Is this some kind of guide about how to divide and manipulate the people,in order for you to achieve wealth,power and influence?
The rich get richer because they are investing and all their money works for them 24/7.
Also it's way easier to increase your wealth significantly,when you are already rich.

[NeuroticFish]

Now, you need the votes.

No. Here you went to wrong direction, hence I stopped reading.
Many wealthy people don't care about politics.
Many wealthy people don't do politics directly. Instead they have politicians on their payroll - in many cases from multiple parties - politicians that will protect the interests of these wealthy people.

And for the title, it's simple: wealthy people can afford to lose huge amounts of money, hence they can do much more than us.

[Mauser]

Now, you need the votes. If you are in the 10% of the richest you have a problem: You have something that everyone else would like to take from you. They cannot do this directly because the right to private property / ownership is normally granted and enforced. However, in a democracy, you run the very serious risk of people asking for laws that would force you to distribute wealth. This is the outline strategy on how the rich prevent that from happening:

I don't think that distribution of wealth is a likely scenario in western countries. The problem ist that most rich people have their wealth invested in companies all around the world, so taking away ownership of a company or acquiring the company by the government wouldn't work well for a country. All the big companies would instantly switch their headquarters out of the country if there such a high political risk involved. The same goes for the rich families. You could just give back your citizenship and immigrate to Switzerland, or another Tax / Rich friendly country. Or even better, you just buy a super yacht and start living in international waters. Nationalising industries and wealth of rich people is a very dangerous idea that could ruin the whole economy.

[Kittygalore]

You might be right about them not making a circulation of their wealth unless it is their circle but the other reason is that they have privileges like they can do tax write offs if they donate some of their money to a charity which we all know are just a fancy hub for making the money not get out of their grasp. And they can also evade their taxes if they want to and they can lobby politicians to create laws that will favor their businesses.

[pinggoki]

The rich becomes more richer simply because they have the chance to invest whenever they want and earn more profit than those people who doesn't have any money to invest on some good projects and good investments. The rich has the resources they want in order to make them richer the most and  the poor doesn't have the resources to make them rich. That's the wheel of life and the reason why rich get more richer than anyone else.

[stompix]

If you are in the 10% of the richest you have a problem: You have something that everyone else would like to take from you. They cannot do this directly because the right to private property / ownership is normally granted and enforced.

So basically, what your saying is that the rich have a problem and BTC solves this problem.  

However, in a democracy, you run the very serious risk of people asking for laws that would force you to distribute wealth.

Nice finding out that the blockchain doesn't care about democracy and what a majority of hungry jackals vote for.
I always find it funny how people who claim to be bitcoiners and are saying how bitcoin is such a great thing are always finding fault in the current social order but ignoring that bitcoins do the same and stand for. My keys, my decisions, my money, NOT your business!

I don't think that distribution of wealth is a likely scenario in western countries. The problem ist that most rich people have their wealth invested in companies all around the world, so taking away ownership of a company or acquiring the company by the government wouldn't work well for a country.
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Nationalising industries and wealth of rich people is a very dangerous idea that could ruin the whole economy.

Common, let's try it again, I mean it has failed a hundred times in hundred countries already but maybe this time we will be lucky and ocne the planet align we will somehow not end all poor as all others did.

[Darkelf11]

The rich can handle their money properly because they want to make it more their money there are rich who can stable their mindset to earn more and there is some rich that if they had a lot of money they spend to all those things they want even though they didn't need. As you see people are getting rich because they know how it handles and make a double safe their money if they don't need it they didn't spend that's all. We don't need to spend too much money on those things we did not need. It depends on the person at the end of the day.

[amishmanish]

- You can easily create a "choir" or "court of sycophants" that will play your game. They will be cunning, smart, educated and you will make sure that you will pay them well. You can add another 10% of votes, if not more, on that. Their names are "KMPG", "Bearing Point", "Morgan Stanley", "Goldman Sach" and so many others that work day after day for you and do not want to end. Let´s make this a 15% of the quite well-to-do classes.

While it maybe true that the rich control the world, I cannot really agree that elite institutions purposefully exclude any body from rising to the top. Or that they purposefully train people to work in certain ways. We have enough examples of rags-to-riches in every society of the world.

Most of this is random in my opinion. The rich work very hard to preserve and prolong their wealth. A lot of poor people work hard and, indeed regularly break the glass ceiling to rich places where their earlier generations couldn't. This whole idea of a "game rigged against the common man" is little more than our own way of coping to our relative poverties.

[dothebeats]

You also got to have friends in high places, and maintain that friendship for as long as you can in order for it to be beneficial for you. One who is rich can just skip the "being a politician" part and just let these public officials work under their payroll and they'd still be rich. This is what the elites are doing right now and so far it's working since most of them are still on the top. The current societal setup is so bad that most people will accept any job you give them provided that the payment is big fat stacks of cash, that's why these rich will even be richer as time goes since they have the capacity to pay people to do odd jobs for them so they don't have to do it themselves.

[mu_enrico]

This is very simple - TO KEEP WEALTH YOU JUST HAVE TO AVOID GIVING IT AWAY TO OTHERS

This very first statement is already wrong. Let's not get into politics

First, "you need to spend money to make money." - I'm quoting this since this statement should be there somewhere on the internet. It means two things: (1) spending for productivity (direct economic result) and (2) spending for purposes (indirect economic result). You can be generous to neighbors, and they will give you protection, help you, etc.

Second, "if you hate rich people, or being rich, you will never be rich." Hate obscure your vision, so you can't learn. You think everything is because of outside/uncontrolled force, but in reality, it's the quality of you as a man that decides. Therefore, the rich (because of business) won't be afraid of fair competition.

But there are these rich politicians, rich supreme leaders, etc., who are basically criminals. The true entrepreneurs afraid of these types of rich people, and they must flee or become one of them to survive.

[michellee]

The rich becomes more richer simply because they have the chance to invest whenever they want and earn more profit than those people who doesn't have any money to invest on some good projects and good investments. The rich has the resources they want in order to make them richer the most and  the poor doesn't have the resources to make them rich. That's the wheel of life and the reason why rich get more richer than anyone else.

It is true, but that does not mean the poor can not invest like the richer. If the poor can save their money, they will get some benefits for doing that even for just small money. Maybe you already heard about the case that the poor have a lot of money going to the bank with that money. That poor man is saving his money day by day from what he did, and after doing that for some time, he can have a lot of money. Maybe that is different from the rich person who can use his money anytime he wants. It will depend on how we can manage our money to see the opportunity to make money.

[iamsheikhadil]

This is a very interesting post with a unique perspective and I agree on every point. What many would say that it's unethical, I would say it's very ethical because, the world is full of evil people, and in a democracy, the voice of majority (and since all are evil and selfish) is enforced which means one needs to dodge these majority's voice. But I have a question, why would anyone really have to do all these stuffs? Let the majority decide whom they are gonna vote, and get their leader, and just buy the leader and tell them what laws to make? That works with a much lower budget as well!

[Fortify]

You make a lot of good points but seem to turn it into a political discussion, rather than a financial discussion as the thread title implies. I guess it depends what we are defining as "rich" in this scenario and it will vary a lot by where you live. 1 million dollars in San Francisco might not buy you a lot of property, but it could buy a huge estate in others. Regardless of that, the real driving force between the rich getting richer is how their money generates more money. At a certain point these people will be living off dividends generated by their stock portfolios and if they can live below that amount, the compounding effect on anything reinvested will increase their wealth while they still have cash to live.

[just_Alice]

Great analysis, I think it really is how things work. The saddest thing about is - is that nowadays democracy is basically an illusion of choice. And it wouldn't be that way if people weren't that stupid or gullible. There really is a lot of manipulation going on in politics, especially during the voting period and people make the same old mistakes each time!
The problem is that when there is an election and the government is very corrupted - not much will change and it doesn't matter who you vote for. There's aמ established practice, a whole working system in there and several people can't change it.
So the first 25% can't be changed in any way, the rich will root for the rich.
However, the other 25% depends on the people and how well they filter the information that the mass media feeds them. Unfortunately, for now, in many countries people are easily manipulated.