Majority of people are consumers and will effectively destroy wealth with bad economic/financial decisions. There's a reason why what you call the select few are the select few. They're going the end up with the bulk of the wealth the way.

So how do you suppose the economy meets the extra demand for consumption that all these radical, non saving, low class workers foist upon it ?

Some people are better with money than others.

Let's stick with the economic debate. How does consumption destroy wealth ?

With smart people appropriating capital.

I wish you would stop trying to oversimplify things... It's not only consumption. If you can not make $1 grow at the rate of inflation, you're destroying wealth. If a wider swath of people are using capital to consume, rather than invest, or making poor investments, you're destroying wealth.

There is a UBI thread that people continue to ignore.

If there's one thing that's bad for the economy it's high demand

The issue is you need capital to fuel that demand. The people who are normally smart enough to leverage that capital no longer have as much of it, that is instead in the hands of the consumers. But you're right somebody is going to fill the demand.

Inflation has to do with the value of currency.

You said wealth would be destroyed by consumption. When a product is consumed the value that has been added on to it is realized and investments are returned. It's the opposite of destroying wealth, consumption is the ultimate goal. No consumption means no economy.

Consumption requires investment to happen but they're part of the same cycle. They aren't either/or zero sum events.

You can't have those hippies spending their nickles.

Also, get off my lawn !!!

If a guy with an IQ of 90 had a mother who left him ten million dollars and I took a loan from him to start my coop, would it fail because he isn't smart and owns the capital ?

Again with oversimplification. of course consumption is required for economic activity. however what you're proposing is removing a significant proportion of investment dollars and put it into the hands of the consumer, who isn't as wise when it comes to investment decisions. If you want a simple answer, you lose innovation, you lose new products, at a macro level. Further, countries with a larger investor class will fill that demand.

None of those are relevant factors for determining a successful business plan.

Socialists have already thought of this. The rich, almost by definition, comsume more than the poor. Best to ratchet down on excessive consumption by the rich, the better to put more into investment.

Yea, that's where we're all at. It's keeping capital and consumption in balance. You can have too much consumption and too little capital, but that's not the situation the US seems to be in. We're doing deficit spending and we can't even reach max employement, or the edge of production for potential consumption, all the while the cost of capital, or interest rates, are nearly zero. In other words we have too much capital chasing too little consumption.

You've already been given numerous examples of co-ops that generated successful business plans and expanded their businesses through investment in capital expenditures, but you're still out here preaching some Great Man Theory of economics, as if most most rich people got rich through singular genius.

It's hard for me to buy into that. You have an overwhelming majority of smartphone users spending 1K for a smartphone. That's one example. What people pay for sneakers is another.

Being an investor is based on a variety of skills, knowledge, and wisdom. Being an entrepreneur is based on a variety off skills, knowledge and wisdom. Being a good entrepreneur doesn't make you a good investor, and vice versa. You need investors to take risk with their capital on new products and entrepreneurs. Less investors means less new products and less entrepreneurs getting funding. Or, you have to go find a hundred people willing to risk their labor and capital before you are able to even start your business, and then you no longer have any say in the business you started. You could get kicked out of it. Worse yet, you essentially just bought yourself a job that you can be fired from, instead of owning a company.

Just create a sovereign wealth fund and pay investors to make investments decisions but instead of investors taking rents from capital income it's the wealth fund and by extention the state and its citizens, and now you have socialism, investment, and wealth creation.

Well I'm using the top line macro numbers, the ever lowering unemployment numbers (before COVID) and the nearly zero to negative interest rates and other times when capital needs to be bought and not antidotes about who spends what on phones.

Household and government consumption make up 85% of the US GDP. (68% for household, 17% for government)

You said demand must be met by a smart person with capital.

Now you're moving the goal posts and saying it requires a person to have a successful business plan.

Make up your mind. Is it important that the smart person with the business plan and the person with the capital be the same person or not ?

Because if not you're making my point that a tiny investor class isn't needed in a modern economy.

How does freeing up money for consumption remove it from investment when investment and consumption are a part of the same cycle ?

That's like saying if you make more snow cones it will stop raining.

I mean sure. If you hoard wealth (like a tiny investor class is wont to do) it actually takes it out of the system but consumption IS the system. You need demand or all your capital is worthless.

Cool? Again, we're supposed to be looking at consumption, demand, and investment. The percentage of GDP doesn't tell you much. Is 50% investment and 50% consumption the right proportion? Who knows, maybe that's too much investment, maybe too little? That why you need metrics to tell you if capital is costing a lot or if it's relatively cheap compared to the the consumption, etc.

I appreciate the discussion, but my time is up.