I was reading today that in Finland, 1000 people account for 20% of the capital gains tax, which was placed as an example of wealth concentration - which it is. What is perhaps interesting though, is that this is probably far less concentrated than in many other countries, because it hasn't been in place for that long. Back in the 90s tax reforms in Finland, there was a separation of earned income and capital income, with capital being a lower, flat-rate tax. This has lead to a further widening of the wealth gap of course.
While I would also want to benefit from the conditions, I still find it interesting that income earned passively without doing anything is worth more than income earned from producing something. You'd think it would be the other way around, where the incentive would be to drive people to work to add value through what they do, rather than look for ways so as not to work.
Make your money work for you.
It is a funny saying, isn't it? After all, money can't work at all. Yes, that money can be used to earn on which is what is meant by the phrase, but that can mean that it doesn't matter how that money is earning. For instance, a person who invests doesn't necessarily know what they are investing into with any kind of detail, they are only looking at the return on their investment. This means that their money can be "doing work" in all kinds of areas that aren't necessarily value-adding to society, are dangerous for the environment, are coercive and abusive to employees, and are generally up to no good - but it doesn't matter, because it is the money doing the work.
The financial services market grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.7%, from $31.1 trillion in 2023 to $33.5 trillion in 2024. The industry is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 7.6% to reach $44.9 trillion in 2028.17 Dec 2024
For anyone counting, the growth of the financial sector is well above the rate of inflation, and the earnings from there attract less tax. Suffice to say, the majority of people are victims of the financial system, not beneficiaries of it. "Money work" is big business and is highly predatory, because it is always looking to expand its profit margins in any ways it can. This has an enormous effect on our daily lives, because we are all pieces of the economic engine that are screwed ever-tighter to bleed more profit.
And, the growing wealth gap is evidence of how while those growth rates and profits keep expanding, fewer and fewer people are actually sharing the benefits. Fewer hands are holding increasingly more, and the more this happens, the harder the thumb screws need to tighten to bleed a bit more value from us.
It is kind of interesting how many people believe that financial wealth will make everything okay, without recognising that in order to keep growing, it has to become increasingly draconian in its push for profit. They also forget that ultimately, there is only so much growth that can happen, because there are only so many cuts to costs that can be made. Money might be working for the wealthy, but it is a nurse who changes their bed pan at the hospital.
The problem with a lot of wealth today though, is that it is generated without having to do anything of value for it. In the past, people needed to produce something to sell, which had to meet needs, and deal with competition and the like. Now - people just invest into investing, playing a shell game without ever having to produce a product.
Isn't it strange?
Imagine if there was a tribe that loved shiny stones so much, that they used all of their resources in pursuit of more shiny stones. No matter how many shiny stones they collected, the tribe would pretty soon starve to death. And this is what we are doing at the global scale, where all parts of society are crumbling because we aren't taking enough care of maintenance and improvement. Yet, the economy keeps growing - more shiny stones are collected.
Value used to be tied to reality for the most part, where what we produced and consumed served a pretty direct purpose in our lives. Yet increasingly, we have moved away from physical value into the domain of perceived value, where something that delivers nothing, can still be highly valued, and even traded. Again, it is kind of strange to think about how we are able to fool ourselves into believing something is real - even when it is not.
I feel the world is coming to a financial head and it is going to be starkly clear to everyone involved that this system is fundamentally broken, because it is so incredibly unbalanced. It highly benefits a few, while crushing the many, even though it is the many who provide for the few. And in many places, people will keep fighting for the few to keep taking advantage of them. The prisoners fight to stay in the cage.
The wealth gap is going to keep widening and it is likely too late to do anything about it, given the current climate. So, the only way out of it is to build an entirely new system, which means - letting this one die a grizzly death.
And grizzly it shall be.
But hey, whatever we need don't worry - the money will do all the work.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
