The Bill Gates of today is not the same who started Microsoft, he has changed a lot in the last decade or so. I applaud him for his charity and growth as a human being.
But make no mistake Bill Gates made his billions by being a very ruthless businessman. He screwed anyone and everyone he could to get to where he is now. Microsoft dominated the competition through blackmail, market manipulation and legal assaults. They didn't promote innovation, they hindered it.

what about that statement is an overgeneralization? it's already been said...they got rich by
convincing people that their product is worth more than it is. perhaps people are just easily influenced to buy more than they need.
this was probably implemented in 1950's society in the US. excessive consumption was promoted, and equated to progress, humping the 'american dream'.
many of the rich made their riches off the relatively poor, nothing overgeneralizing about that.

just walk into any Wal-Mart, and take a look at the people that shop there. good ol' sam walton
must be chuckling in his grave.

The overgeneralization is that all people who are wealthy fucked over a lot of people to get where they are. This clearly doesn't have to be true as in the case of those who inherited money or the lottery or doing decent work in humanitarian organizations....perhaps winning a nobel peace prize. Using superlatives like that often leads to overgeneralizations in prejudiced thinking.

Is it ok?

Yes.

I don't think imposing limits that broadly is good.

The monetary system is inherently corrupt and controlled to create debt. Money will be meaningless when resources run out.......Wisdom is better then silver or gold.......

My best friend has a very good definition of money: that which you have taken from society that you have yet to give back.

This is not to say that you cannot make money honestly--but however you make it, it's not yours. It's society's that you currently have in your possession. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The question of whether any one person should have more than what they need in their possession is a good one. I'd say, no, in an ideal world, that would not happen. From each according to his ability, to each according to [her] need, as Karl Marx said.

All those negative connotations about money are pretty ridiculous.
In the end YOU pay for your food and need money to do A LOT of things.
Sure thing, the debt system and interest will break the neck of every monetary system sooner or later,
and $ and € are just about to collapse.

Why not have both?
Spirituality, this attitude "wisdom is better than silver or gold"
AND wealth!

Just don't limit yourselves by telling a bad story about money!

Do the rich deserve to have there money? I see know problem with it, most of them earned it and if they didn't earn it their parents, I'm sure, work hard to give there children a good life. Who out there doesn't want to leave there children something? I know thats myy goal in live. I want to leave behind some land and some money.
It is the way of the world, and will not change without a world wide disaster to make us change. I would much rather have us all on a more equal level, tradeing goods for serives or visa versa.

Back to the primitive, screw all your politics!

A lot of the rich do give to charitys as well. Most of them do it to gain respect by their comnities, which might not be the best reason to do it, but arleast their still giving money.

It would be nice if everyone would do stuff to help out our world, and I hope one day thats the way it'll be. But we are too hard wired into the system of controll we have in place now.
Honestly with our population how could things be different? What kind of System would we use?

I didn't think this thread was saying anything about making more money than someone else. Nor is it about having a business and doing well by it. I don't see anything wrong with being wealthy, its the gross accumulation of wealth that this is about. When you have billions in your personal accounts you can only spend a small fraction of it and the rest never makes it back into the market. This is HORDING!!!

Oh, and don't be too quick to thank your boss for your job, you should take some of the credit for yourself. As an employer I can tell you, I don't give anyone a job. I either need you or I don't and if I don't, you don't have a job.

It so easy. what needs to be done is to get rid of the money, all of it - the money is most corrupted commodity on this planet

Money is not needed all we need is here on this planet and it is plenty of it for all of as. We belong to the Earth and the Earth belongs to as. Just take as much as you need that's all it takes my friends.

Its because of money and greedy fucks we have this dysfunctional system here on this beautiful planet.

I REPEAT : MONEY IS NOT NEEDED.

There is a point where one man's wealth becomes the other mans burden. I don't know where exactly that point is. Maybe it is way above a million dollars, maybe it is far less.
Theoretically, one man could cause inflation just by having too much money on the bank and therefore decrease the real income of his fellow citizens, even when their income would remain the same in exact figures.
I think that this has actually happened in the united states and that it is a factor in the current economic difficulties, with the difference that it wasn't the bank acount of one man but of a group of very rich people.

The fact is that only if you stuffed CASH under your mattress would you be "taking money out of circulation." Money in a bank account is continually being used by others for loans, etc.

And even if you DID keep a tremendous amount of cash--say, a BILLION DOLLARS--it still would matter hardly at all: actual cash bills are only a TINY PORTION of the "money" in circulation (speaking in terms of the major world currencies). The vast majority of "money" exists as mere computer records of its existence. And, as I said, essentially all that money is almost continuously loaned out to others, for use (or it's loaned to the government via treasury notes, thus freeing up the money of OTHERS to be loaned out to individual users).

If reality is self-created by our consciousness, then this world is a mirror reflection of our internal self. Thus (IMO), everything we experience, first arises WITHIN, and then manifests as an external world. If universe truly is infinite, then shaping my internal reality from a perspective of Abundance can result in external monetary wealth (if one wishes so). I don't really see anything wrong in that, since imo, universe is in fact abundant. The economic structure of the current world is only a manifestation of the internal reality, and collective consciousness.

imo, money is not real. It is more like an internal reality which takes external form. It can be debated that this arises out of greed, but that doesn't have to necessarily be true. I was put on this Earth to experience whatever my heart truly desires...there is no right and wrong in the eyes of the "god"..for it is all One..

however, with power comes responsibility, and we must always give back to add to the flow of life. the more important thing is Intention. imo, i can do more good for this world by being rich, than being poor. Eventually, we will reach a point where money won't be necessary, but we are not at that point right now.

lol, too much abraham

^Truth.

^False. You think you need to pay for your food, and you think you need money to do alot of things. If you look from a more objective point of view it tells a different story. You can grow food, hunt animals, gather water, build shelter, and create life without any money. Barter, trade, sharing, and helping also eliminate the need for money. This is how it was done for thousands of years, and once we wake up to the fact that the monetary systems only purpose is to amass wealth into the hands of a few and control the majority of the populations lives, the ancient system will become adopted once again. Again, wisdom is better than silver and gold. Not "Wisdom, silver, and gold are good."

Money represents energy, we can utilize our energy without money.......In hyperspace the currency of exchange is Love

Yeeehaw back to the stoneage

Sorry but as much i like the idea of free goods exchanged by individuals, I hardly doubt it is possible !

Maybe in small communities, but never in large ones.

Maybe we can establish those little communities in every country, every city, every village - and grow in peace and love funny entheos and vegetables ;D


I'm in, but until then, it is MONEY!

Yup, and don't forget those loan funds are lent on the principle of imaginary money created from the banks' reserve funds...that's fractional reserve banking for you...violating the second law of thermodynamics to bring you Western Capitalism.

As to electronic/cash, I think it's been at 90% electronic 10% hard cash for the past 2 decades or so?

Yes, but still the fact remains that if within a system, only a few people suddenly would have tremendous amounts of money compared to the average citizen, life becomes more expensive for the average guy.
Russia is not a wealthy nation. Average income is 10% of what the average european or american makes. Moscow on the other hand is the city with the largest number of millionaires on the planet. The result: Moscow is one of the most expensive city's on earth. The average russian can no longer affort to live in moscow and ordinary citizens are being squeezed out of the city into the suburbs.
The wealth of some caused real-estate prizes to rise and as a result, prices for bread at the bakery etc.
I believe that the same thing has happened in america in the past decade, just somewhat less extreme. Average income hasn't rised, but the amount of millionaires has as well as the amount of millions those millionaires have. This has created inflation because it results in using up more of the resources available. The average american can buy less now, then 10 years ago while his income in dollars hasn't decreased in absolute numbers.
I know this is a little of a taboo issue for economists, but i realy believ it's true.

Free will basically - in my book - is defined by your own individual freedom of choice, and those choices available to you are based on the choices of others.

To address the topic at hand: I believe that the wealth you accumulate is derived from the choices of others. With that I believe the money you have is yours to share, just as the world shared with you to begin with.

I agree that we value the wrong things, and I believe money needs to be an actual resource for it to be used in a "fair-trade" system. Based on gold perhaps? Woops...

Tomatoes would be a good thing to value as a replacement for cash/credit. Even if you accumulate a populations worth of it, it won't last you forever. Literally, it will rot and become useless if you don't use it, so hoarding large amounts isn't exactly smart.

In its' current state, money is losing value. It could have worked. It hasn't.