The Haves and The Have-Yachts...

This is the inevitable next step after the oligarch super yacht outrage. When that whole thing started the first thing I thought of was this is going to trickle down and bring the mob to a boil against all “yachts” - the mob loves to over react.

Wealthy people are easy to hate. Even the liberal elite aren’t safe from the mob. They’re happy to eat their own.

There’s a gigantic cultural shift going on in the world. There are polls in the USA showing over 50% of young people with negative views of capitalism and polling over 50% with positive views of socialism.

But the mob’s outrage is about more than wealth. Private boat ownership is a selfish climate destroying extravagance after all.

And the green energy zealots are just getting started. You’ve probably heard about the SUV tire deflators/tire slashers hitting large blocks of parked vehicles. Activists leave a flyer on the windshield saying get rid of the SUV if you want it to stop. It may be just a matter of time before they decide to teach a lesson to boat owners.

Seems like there’s a dumpster fire everywhere you look. I make every effort to avoid the news media. In all forms. It has become such a destructive force. It’s really just an extension of social media at this point.

I can’t imagine what kind of a future is going to come out of the mess this world is in right now. But I am fortunate to be insulated from things for the most part. In reality, I doubt that I’ll be alive in 25 years anyway, and that doesn’t bother me at all.

Get ready for more articles like this from the so called main stream media. Journalism’s a distant memory. They don’t care about accuracy. They only care about the cause. Whichever one that may be.

I can’t believe anyone would waste all that time reading that ridiculous article. I skimmed thru the first half and gave up. And people pay $29.99 for a subscription to this rag? Oh no. Wait… it s on sale for $12. I can see why.

I wasn't aware of such polls, but I'm not surprised in the least by the results, for two very simple reasons:

First, on paper socialism is a much more efficient (hence better) system than capitalism, if we are honest.
The one and only reason why the latter historically prevailed is that it rewards smart and unscrupulous people - something socialism ain't good at.
So, these persons prefer the system which allow them to get richer, and the world is obviously ruled by smart and unscrupulous people.
Who are the real responsible for the mess we are all now complaining about, no matter how we all like to blame politicians, who aren't actually much more than puppets, whatever their Party.

Second, also the main socialism supporters (who are the only politicians who really matter) made a big mess of it so far, and were actually unable to turn into reality what socialism should really be about.
Putin is clearly the first example that pops to mind, but there are others.
I see no reason why this couldn't change though, in an historical perspective.

Al that said, I think that what those polls show is rather understandable, and even to be expected, sort of.
What this will lead to, only time will tell, of course...

VERY far from trying to be contentious either, but...
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, to name but a few in the top ranking of ultra HNWI, and I'm sure you can think of many others.
Is it "productive" the first adjective you would think of, to describe these guys?
I'm not saying they aren't, mind. Actually, I could also argue about that to some extent, depending on how we qualify productivity, but let's forget that.
The key point is, do you really think "productive" is the best way to describe these chaps? Seriously?

Hard work doesn’t equal wealth.

No, I didn't express that.
If you re-read my previous post, what I said is rather that the concept of productivity is debatable.
The world moved on since Taylor wrote The Principles of Scientific Management more than a hundred years ago, you know.
BUT, I also said let's forget that, since this is not even a different chapter, but rather a totally different book.

So, back to the point of the best adjective, actually I answered your question beforehand (actually with two adjectives, for the price of one! ): smart and unscrupolous.
Then you gave yours: productive.

Which brings us back to my previous, very simple question: if you focus on the specific persons I mentioned (as well as many others of the same ilk, and as opposed to following a purely theoretical reasoning), are you really, really sure that your description fits them better than mine?
Feel free to say you are, of course. What we are talking about is largely a matter of opinion, so there's no absolute right or wrong.

All I know is that if I try to honestly compare myself and what I did with what those guys are and what they did, I don't feel like the massive wealth difference between myself and them is down to how much more productive they have been - to the point that I would dare saying to have been comparatively productive, overall.
OTOH, I've never, ever been anywhere near as smart and unscrupolous as they were, and still are.
So, you'll forgive me for thinking that THESE are the main wealth triggers in capitalism, rather than productivity (which is rewarded also in socialism btw, though arguably to a much lesser extent).

As an aside, I have a funny feeling that you wouldn't have objected to my assertion if it didn't include the term unscrupulous, which sounds like dishonest or even illegal, sort of.
Which is not what I meant: if you'll give me a bit of slack, since EN is not my mother language, I just picked a term that I thought was the best for describing the typical attitude of these folks, with no implication of wrong doing whatsoever.
I appreciate that also Pablo Escobar could be called "unscrupulous", among many other stronger adjectives.
But I hope it's obvious that this is I neither what I meant nor implied.
Here we are talking of some of the smartest minds on the planet, possibly as smart as some Nobel prize winners, so it's a given that they are more than capable to keep their unscrupulous attitude within legal boundaries.
But being very smart has never been enough.
If it were, Albert Einstein and Marie Curie should have cumulated as much wealth as Bezos did by moving boxes around.
At the very least as much, if not even a multiple of that...!

Thanks for your appreciation of my reasoning, regardless of if and to which extent you agree.
I'm leaving the rest of your post out of my quote because (as well as the whole content of Boatbuilder's post above) I never argued with that.
BTW, I can't understand why he seem to qualify my comments as "wealth shaming", which is a completely different mindset/reasoning.

OTOH, your explanation of why HNWI can be called productive is based on the outcome of what they did, "ex-post", so to speak.
But my train of thought (as well as, I think, MYlover's when in his post #8 he disagreed with my first comment) was the other way round, sort of.
In fact, the way I would have put your very same sentence is...
Why do they take huge risks, make good innovative decisions and are successful in pleasing consumers?
Because they are smart (VERY smart, in fact!), but also unscrupulous, at the same time.

Now, leaving possible semantic debates aside, I can accept that you call them also productive, in hindsight.
But as crucial as it might be, that's "only" the outcome, not the real trigger of their success.