Lexicus
Deity
Silurian said:Owning stuff would not be a productive activity if you do not get a return on your investment.
You are not producing anything merely by owning something, whether your investments are profitable or not.
Silurian said:If as you wish such people were squeezed out the governmeent would have to supply the money to invest.
As I asked before, If you owned an oil company ( or wind farm developer) would you invest your money without a return.
Yes, 'I stated' that public policy should be used to slash profits, not get rid of them completely.
I would certainly invest my money at a lower profit if that meant that workers would be well-paid, environmental standards followed, and so on.
Of course, the real issue here is that if no one is buying anything, there will be no business activity in any case and the question of whether I will invest won't even come up. Which gets us back to why we need to redistribute wealth away from profits and towards wages.
Government already supplies the money for investment over the long run in any case. The only question is who controls investment decisions and who benefits from them. The answer doesn't have to be an idle class that derives income purely from owning stuff, in other words simply by existing.
Silurian said:It has everything to do with your point. If you have a gold plated government pension and do not realise that other people have pensions that invest in the stockmarket and so need the divideneds to fund their old age if they do not want to live in poverty.
I don't have a pension at all let alone a gold-plated government one. Pensions don't actually need to earn a return to keep paying out benefits. The essence of a pension is that you set money aside to be paid out after retirement. There is no requirement that this money be invested in anything, and in my opinion placing US pension funds into the stock market was nothing but a huge sop to money-managers who now extract nice fees from the whole process.