(01-24-2022, 05:13 AM)Labster Wrote: [ -> ]I think it's fairly hard to be rich and be a moral person.
There's a very simple reason for this.
Being wealthy has never had any good moral implications.
Becoming wealthy is all about exploitation, and how you can work around the currently established rules in order to do so. It's a bit like safety regulations - every time some ass-clown finds some new way around the rules (and in the process of doing so, hurts/kills themselves and/or other people), they make a new rule to close up that loop hole. Or at least one that makes the process safe (in the cases of "Great idea, horrible execution").
And the biggest issue with people like this is that nothing is ever really enough for them. They always want more. So they keep on raising the standard of what it means to be "wealthy". Which, in turn, means they keep on looking for new ways to skirt the rules - to exploit people and resources in ways that are morally ambiguous or even outright evil, but are not technically violations of the established rules. They'll gladly use these newfound loopholes to their advantage any way they can.
Until someone closes up that loophole to make it fair for everyone else. Or at least give it the appearance of being "fair".
Example:
"Yeah, sure. We got this rule about minimum wage, but since it depends on politicians to increase the minimum wage, let's buy off as many of them as we can to keep that from happening."
"But isn't that against the rules, too?"
"Oh, I got this great idea about a loop hole. You know that thing about corporate personhood? Well..."
And so it goes, where you have people like this driving the system and continually setting the bar higher and higher. And they've gotten their way for long enough now that even the ability for us to close those loopholes in the rules is being stunted and stymied. And why? Well, just so they can have it all to themselves. After all, in any economic system, if others have the ability to become wealthy, then that means that there's less to go around.
And why would they want that when they're never satisfied with what they already have? They always want more, and letting others get up to their level means the exact opposite of "more".
I don't know if this loophole will be closed up any time soon because the only ones that are really profiting off this are the tech industries and energy industries. Those that
seem to be making money off of NFTs directly aren't really. By comparison to the Rockefellers and Peabodys of this modern age, they're small potatoes. And once this particular bubble pops, it will be of no consequence to them at all. Sure, the economy will have a hiccup from it, but it will bounce back, just like the housing market did after the Great Recession.