Bill and Melinda Gates on income inequality

Thing is, the ultra rich have their hands on a LOT of pots. They have to. And it's pretty much impossible for all (I'd say even most) of these things to be productive or in any way beneficial to society. I remember reading this article last year:

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140501-how-the-rich-stay-rich

Just on the second slide, there's this disgrace:


Hey, there'll be a food shortage, people will be hungry... let me cash in on that!

I'd venture to say that the vast majority of these investments aren't made to create a new product or technology (and much less one that's actually needed, instead of new iPhones), but are rather speculative in nature. Let me find out what people will need a lot in the future so I can gauge them.

Of course, this is a basic premise with ANY sort of investing, but when the very richest and powerful people in the world are doing it, it can be harmful.

I assume you mean "gouge them"? If they make a lot of money they were simply better at predicting the value of the land than the guy they bought from.

This (like your other real estate example) is basically a criticism of arbitrage as not adding any value through producing anything, which is true in a sense, sure. They still serve a purpose. In the land case, that land was apparently being undervalued by not taking it's future use into account sufficiently, which means it could be wasted on something else. Presumably those speculators won't allow a toxic waste dump or something to be stuck there making it useless for future food production, so there is some value to a smart speculator owning it. Meh. Yes arbitrage traders they are mostly parasites but actually do serve the overarching purpose of improving efficiency.
 
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