What is Occupy Wallstreet?

[eppie]

[quote='eppie' pid='192152' dateline='1323245995']
And to add to that. The american dream only works if for every winner you have a whole bunch of losers. So yes, of course there are people climbing up the socioeconomic ladder. But for every person that clims up, several fall down.

Not really, no. This isn't a zero sum game. New wealth is created nearly every year. Someone at the mean real US income today would have been very well off in the 1910s, and downright rich in the 1820s.

Your are confusing things. Socio-economic status is always relative. Of course we are living better then we lived 100 years ago or 200 years ago on average but that would also have happened with other political systems. And as as side note. I am not sure people in Somalia have a higher quality of life compared to 50, 100 or 200 years ago.

[quote='eppie' pid='192152' dateline='1323245995']
Let's take the case of warren buffet. I would like to see some probability calculation of how many people started of just like him, and then had his succes rate in choices made. (so simply, buy cheap sell for more). To become Warren you have to have say a 65% succesrate of buying/selling.

Can we distinguish the hypotheses: Warren Buffett was very lucky, vs. Warren Buffet was very good at investing? I'm not sure I have the tools to pick that apart, but this sure does seem like a staggering run of luck - especially since his investment strategy has been bland to the point of boredom. He doesn't take big risks.

That is not the point. If he had made several big wrong choices (more) nobody would have known him. Anyway I don't mind giving him the credits.


[quote='Jester' pid='192155' dateline='1323251375']
[quote='eppie' pid='192152' dateline='1323245995']

And lets say there were anothe million besides Warren that had exactlt the same intelligence, work ethics and luck.....would they all be multibiljonair as well? No of course not that is not how the system works. If one person makes a billion other loose a billion (of course you have inflation and all but basically this is a fact).

This is one right proposition, and one wrong one. The right part is that, even if there were a million Buffetts, they probably wouldn't all be multibillionaires. Some would be unlucky. Others would make the wrong choices, maybe for lack of information. And at that level of wealth, they'd compete with each other - there are not that many great deals in the investment world.

The wrong part is the zero sum game assumption. Smart investing increases the wealth available for others. It grows the economy. This is especially true for Warren Buffet, who has not generally invested in speculative "gambles," but instead puts his money in safe, well-managed companies, and holds them. Coca-cola. Gilette. Reinsurance companies. Bland, boring stuff that pays off in the long run.
-Jester

I understand the principle of investing and economic growth. But the losers in this case might be the competitors of the companies you mentioned. Or the investors in the competitors. The main driver for economic growth is however still population increase.
And the big danger of economic growth by investing (more and more) is the creation of bubbles, having money only on paper, valueing things (like houses) much higher then they are actually worth just because there is so much money 'available'.etc. But of course this is another discussion.