derekheldDon’t threaten me with a good time
Epic Null@derekheld would it be a rough few years? Yes. Would it be better for everyone once we finish transitioning? Yes.
Yaoi Box Balloon@Epic_Null @derekheld Just what I was thinking.
Slyence@Epic_Null @derekheld transitioning into what?
didn't exactly usher prosperity into any nation
Bolt@Slyence Socialism, a system where workers would be fairly entitled to the profits of their labor.
Instead of x% of a company's profits being paid to shareholders via dividends or used on stock buybacks to benefit the shareholders too, it would either go back to R&D, or to employee paychecks. No stock market necessary.
Companies keep running, employees keep getting paid, Everyone now gets paid more, higher taxes on higher income brackets can generate more revenue for public services.
@Slyence And even if it just stayed as capitalism, it's harder for the owners of companies to justify them alone getting a $5B paycheck in cash as it is to justify paying "the shareholders" an amorphous entity of unknown size and distribution to most, $5B.
This would still lead to more reinvestment into the company, and higher paychecks for workers, though on a smaller scale.
J LouThere could still be a stock market under postcapitalism. It would just be in non-voting preferred shares.
If you look at property rights, the contrast is even greater. Workers as employees get 0% of what they produce in terms of property rights. Employers’ own 100% of the whole product of the firm despite worker being responsible for creating them.
@boltx I think you just don't appreciate how much money stuff costs to develop and how much money you can raise with equity sales.
BioNTech's mRNA vaccines and CRISPR technology was all funded by equity sales.
The entire world of tech startups rely on equity sales (that's what venture cap firms are buying.)
And that isn't touching the world of bonds, which is larger than equity by an order of magnitude.
@Slyence Equity is not the only way to fund things, especially in a system where both workers and companies keep more money in both banks (which can then provide lower cost loans) and R&D budgets.
BioNTech would have had more money available if banks were used for loans instead, if the government in a socialist economy understood the benefit of public investment over private profit, if it didn't choose to allocate money to dividends/buybacks, and... 1/2
@Slyence If BioNTech didn't give its CEO hundreds of millions in stock options, which would have, in a sane economy, simply been repayments on the initial loan, rather than a permanent drain that the company now has to appease the owner(s) of through capital extraction of dollars from both workers and customers. 2/2
@Slyence Oh, and additionally, the money from equity sales doesn't appear from nowhere.
That's money taken from paychecks and bonuses workers never got from their workplaces, owned by equity owners there, and people's retirement funds buying back the equity that took their money in the first place.
In a same economy, those with the most would be taxed more, and that money would be used for PUBLIC investment, without a demand for permanent ownership of profit from *other people's labor.*
@Slyence @Epic_Null @derekheld
Transitioning to an economy of worker co-ops. These worker co-ops would form larger multi-stakeholder associations for the purpose of funding cross-firm public goods more efficiently than capitalism. Markets would continue to exist. Land and natural resource would be commonly-owned.
Marx isn’t the only anti-capitalist thinker. Marx got wrong that capitalism is efficient.
@ NovaNaturalist HAS ALSO MOVED@Slyence @Epic_Null @derekheld ah yes - the Stalinism-didn't-work-so-therefore-unfettered-capitalism-is-our-only-option school of economics.
Have you found your way round wikipedia "list of fallacies" article yet?
derptron@Epic_Null @derekheld A controlled, regulated transition (which it would have to be) might not even be that painful.
Imagine: we fire all the billionaires and take all their shit and give it to educated, socially minded people.
That's going to cause more hardship than these random fucking crashes they throw down to boost their betting returns?
Sure. Whatever. I can't see the future to say you're wrong but...
KinguCool! Let's do it!!
Ainsley Lowbeer@derekheld Destroying the stock market is stupid.
Chris RealRelying on the stock market is MORE stupid.
It's like a rigged casino, that routinely goes bankrupt anyway.
(Before you give me the "are you better off?" argument; we've never HAD the alternative, and we've never opportunity to try it, because capitalists ALWAYS back fascists when their chips are down.)
@derekheld Here are a bunch of people that don't understand even the fundamentals of economics or human behavior.
Economics doesn’t correctly model human behavior. Economics describes itself as non-normative. No amount of facts about economic models can generate a normative conclusion or contradict a normative conclusion.
@jlou Great. Put that in your portfolio.
@AinsleyLowbeer Criticism of the stock market (in voting shares) as an institution isn’t a critique of most people participating in the institution. The argument is that shares traded ought to be non-voting preferred shares with workers in control of their own destiny in the firm.
@jlou Amazing.
Violet MadderDestroying the entire fucking world and the planet's ability to support life is much, MUCH stupider.
Maddad ☑️Whats a stock?😂
Goth Jessica@derekheld all these stocks are just what rich people spending their inherited fortunes THINK is valuable
its a hype factory that destroys businesses, jobs, real peoples lives
fuck em all
PetterOfCats@derekheld well at least they understand the goal.
Tomás Hradcky@derekheld It just proves the point that the market is just a playground with slidy slides for these people. Their playground, no one else’s.
The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉@derekheld So wait, ending billionaires would also end the thing that made them billionaires in the first place (not to mention keeps crashing the global economy)?
These men really can't grasp that the rest of society doesn't share their inflated sense of self-importance, can they? 🙄
Pete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫@derekheld
Thus admitting that the "stock market" is part of a high-stakes gambling game for rich people, not a thing with a use in itself that would continue or be re-created by the needs of the market for goods and services that constitutes "the economy" for 99.9% of people.
Thus admitting that the "stock market" is part of a high-stakes gambling game for rich people, not a thing with a use in itself that would continue or be re-created by the needs of the market for goods and services that constitutes "the economy" for 99.9% of people.
Jonathansounds like a twofer actually eh
Some Guy@derekheld Ending #billionaires would be great.
PeachMcD 📣 #PSA
I love to remind folks that yhe #StockMarket is NOT the #Economy
Watching the #NYSE burgeon as #Democracy is demolished ought to be a major tell
arcadus (fuckaas edition)@derekheld @burritozen what’s the downside?
Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏@derekheld In other words:
DOUBLE BONUS!
DOUBLE BONUS!
Amro has been@derekheld
Can I have your largest Zoidberg's Why Not Both? on a stick, please
Can I have your largest Zoidberg's Why Not Both? on a stick, please
The Great Llama 
@derekheld
Stop selling it Mark, I was already on board.
Stop selling it Mark, I was already on board.
Andreas K@derekheld That's a risk I'm willing to take.
It might hurt a bit the stupid countries that have based things like their pensions on the stock market, but well, if they were so stupid to drink from the neoliberal well without a proper water filter.
MasterMischief@derekheld Lives are being destroyed BY billionaires.
Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴♂️📷 🗺️So much for the idea of the stock market as a place where individuals could buy shares in company so they were not just privately oweed and dominated by a few billionaires, but then again it never really worked that way,
Chantaru@the5thColumnist @derekheld I agree with your take.
David 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️NB they/them
Brielle Labingi
ЯØ81И@derekheld Didn't take long for the greed to show its dirty face ..take their money, take it all!
Steve Hersey@derekheld
Are we sure of this? We'd better run a live test so we know for certain.
Are we sure of this? We'd better run a live test so we know for certain.
webhat@derekheld if billionaires are so smart they would start a business selling guillotines. Give the people what they want 😉
George BI am reminded of @futurebird 's stock market thread from a couple of days ago:
myrmepropagandist (@[email protected])
Ever since I decided I should "learn more about the stock market" I've been having a rolling, ongoing multi-week crisis. I'm just... shook. "Girl? You live like this?" The most interesting thing I've learned is how there are fewer public companies on the market. This is also responsible for market inflation. Everyone seems to nod and agree that ideally a market shouldn't be a speculative thing, but based on the value the companies generate, but everyone vested benefits from dislocation.
Jeremy Mallin@derekheld
It's acknowledging that the stock market is not the economy. It's only rich people.
It's acknowledging that the stock market is not the economy. It's only rich people.
(roll m3tti)@derekheld i don't get that? people playing with money and food and supplies will get destroyed. Isn't that a good thing
Mike MC@derekheld weird that a billionaire would side with the billionaires
lj·rk@derekheld fuck yes and just replace stock options with syndicates and worker ownership.
@derekheld The stock market is rigged for billionaires. Of course it would get destroyed.
Dani (she/her)@derekheld So, two birds with one stone, then?
Frank Bennett 🇯🇵@derekheld That sounds very efficient.
Burning Joint USAThis week on double dare...
Justin Fitzsimmons@derekheld Billionaires are well on their way to destroying the stock market anyway, so...
HowToPhil (Phillip R)@derekheld I'm fine with that
Jerome@derekheld Thank you, captain obvious.
HTPC NZ@derekheld ah the dude who supported Harris while lobbying to get Khan fired from FTC. No billionaire is ever on "your" side .