World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

Re:World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this... by charlesdm on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @01:07PM (#16016606)

Maybe. I don't want this to come off bad, but maybe the work a lot of people do just isn't that important and thus doesn't warrant increases in salary? If a company needs someone to do X, and 5 viable candidates can be found for $Y -- there really is no reason to increase wages.

Anyone with some capital could've invested in Netflix, Facebook or Google several years ago and would have achieved a good return on their money.

Even if some sort of global wealth tax would be introduced (that's a big IF) to fix the accumulation of extreme wealth, would people be better off? The amounts collected, spread out over the entire population, would be relatively small. And most of this new wealth is mostly paper wealth -- the headline next year could very well be: "World's richest lost $3tn of their wealth".

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Re:World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this... by nofilter on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @01:10PM (#16016617)

How well does that argument hold up tho'? I mean, there is always _someone_ who does it cheaper. Always. In fact I know of a web developer, who actually does quite decent work and is available for as little as $5 per hour. Does that mean everyone in that skill level should get paid so little?

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Re:World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this... by bko on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @01:17PM (#16016655)

How would you allocate work? Suppose you are paying a “fair” wage above the market wage, so you have 5 equally qualified candidates apply. They are not allowed to compete on price since you already decided to pay what you consider a fair wage.

How do you decide who gets the work?

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Re:World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this... by nofilter on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @03:46PM (#16017879)

I would hire whoever produces the best quality of work for that amount of money, but if they all produce the exact same quality of work, I would hire the one who takes the least amount of money.

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Re:World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this... by dclowd9901 on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @02:04PM (#16017048)

The reason anyone can make this kind of wage work is through consumer credit. Eliminate consumer credit, and wages will go up/prices will go down, I would bet my life on it.

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Re:World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this... by charlesdm on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @01:12PM (#16016627)

Cheaper yes, but perhaps not better. I'd be happy to demand a few million a year for high quality development work from an employer, but the laws of supply and demand do apply.

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