When you think about it, at that point at least the rich are spending their money again in order to buy another yacht, actually putting money into the economy.
It’s like trickle down economics, but we gotta shoot some holes in the water tower to make it trickle down.
This is actually an example in The Wealth of Nations; Adam Smith considers whether a hooligan smashing a window is a benefit to society because it creates work for the glazier.
Smith concluded that no, it isn’t a net benefit because the glazier could have made a new window instead.
However, given that megayachts are net negative to society, I’m not sure how he’d view this case.
Building a super yacht means that dozens or hundreds of people work for the benefit of one person. As craftsmen, they could have improved the lives of tens of thousands in their community instead. As engineers, they could have built products serving millions.
Not to mention the natural resources used for one person’s benefit.
There’s nothing positive about super yachts (and mansions, private jets,…) being built. Don’t let the flow of money confuse you.
And here’s another aspect: all those craftsmen are taxed at a higher rate to cover for the losses incurred by tax cuts on the wealthy who hire them…literally working to pay someone else’s taxes. Rush Limbaugh kept selling this as “job creation”: if the rich get tax cuts “they’ll buy a private jet and someone has to wash it!” So the jet washer gets no security in a gig economy and has to pay his clients’ taxes.
When you think about it, at that point at least the rich are spending their money again in order to buy another yacht, actually putting money into the economy.
People who think the rich just have vaults full of money are so fucking ridiculous.
Poor people sit on cash. Poor people hide cash in their house. Almost the entirety of any rich person’s wealth is invested, because rich people generally pay smart people to handle their money.
The working class makes gains when our work helps us as a class, not when we are forced to serve.
If the wealthy are able to support the creation of wasteful luxuries for their own vanity, then they must be able to support activities that help the working class.
The difference is that the latter may require some encouragement.
Many comments being posted are intended as satirical, but the actual apologia resembles satire so much that I think the intentional satire is rather creating confusion above all else.
Creating confusion for you maybe. Nobody else took my comment that seriously.
I said “shooting holes in a water tower to make trickle-down economics work” as a reply to someone making an obvious quip. IDK if you’ve just never been around leftist discussions, but joking about how fucked trickle-down economics is isn’t an endorsement of building megayachts that wreck the environment and provide no good to society.
Stop being intentionally obtuse and don’t blame others for your inability to read between the lines.
So leading with “the argument is sloppy” is a nice friendly way of opening a conversation?
Please tell me exactly what I’m broadly extrapolating or distorting here, because your comment makes broad accusations without actually talking specifics, while mine does exactly the opposite. If anything, ur the one extrapolating bs.
You’re the one that chose to make a useless comment in the first place, don’t bitch when you get called out for it.
You just literally don’t know how to accept/respond to satire, and when you realized you took satire seriously, instead of saying “oh okay” u got defensive and offended.
Grow tf up dude. Let satire exist. Read other replies before adding to meaningless drivel like you did.