Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Lazy and Flashy


A key innovation of Capitalism is the explicit recognition of the costs of Conspicuous Hoarding & Conspicuous Consumption. If “excess stuff” is Capital, then Conspicuous Hoarding is keeping more than you need or use idle, and Conspicuous Consumption is using more than you need to show what a big deal you are. Capitalism incentivizes people to put their excess to work so it will grow. To get the stuff a job doing useful things for other people. Conspicuous Hoarding is lazy Capital… it doesn’t grow. The stuff just sits there & slowly withers. Like a fully paid off shop on a High Street that the owner doesn’t need to rent… so it just sits there empty. Like an unused field that could be turned into lots of homes. Conspicuous Consumption is stupidity tax. It fires the Capital for the one who flaunts it. In the past, wealthy people would have wanted to show how wealthy they were. Capitalism means that if you do this, forces are there to shrink the amount of Capital you have. That’s why you see many Billionaires in T-Shirts and Genes. Their money is working. Capitalism sneakily takes stuff from the Rich & gives them a number on a piece of paper in exchange. Sorry Scrooge McDuck, if you have a pool full of coins, you are a moron & won’t be Rich long.



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