What a bloody nice bloke

[mrmcfister]

Nice bloke .shame other billionaires dont share it around with the less fortunate.After all after your first few million how much does one family need?

[Bob Singleton]

You say "nice bloke", and it's true that it's good to see someone with such vast wealth doing some good...

HOWEVER...

... his wealth is a direct result of him gambling other people's money!!! Yours, probably.

He's been successful, but those that haven't are to blame for pensions & life insurance companies going out of business, or attempting to force policy holders to accept bonus cuts (remember Equitable Life?) or banks gambling on the sub-prime market (Northern Rock et al)

[Guilbert]

>... his wealth is a direct result of him gambling other people's money!!! Yours, probably.

It could be argued he has "stolen" the money out of the system by buying and selling things he does not want (or even own), and therefore forcing the ordinairy man in the street to pay more for things because he has made a profit.

After all, his money does not come from thin air. It may come from buying a commodity (oil, potatoes, gold or whatever) and then selling it on at a higher price (or even forcing up the price).

This higher price is then passed on to you and me.

I think these people are parasites. Because they understand the money markets they make their huge profits without contributing a single thing to the world.

[Guilbert]

I rememeber about 10 years ago two rich guys from Texas I think (twins they were) trying to corner the market in a product - a metal I think - maybe silver.

They wanted to buy up the worlds supply so they could they drive up the price.

In those days you could buy a commodity like silver (or whatever it was) without having the "real" money, you just had to prove you could pay for it (these guys were rich).

So they bought 10% of the worlds supply (but never actualy saw it).

Then on the back of the value of that they bought some more, then on the value of that they bought some more and so on.

I think it all fell around their ears in the end (not sure why) but it shows you that if you have the money you can use it to generate more money and control the price of any commodity.

[b217bravo]

Is this not what is happening to the price of oil at the moment? speculators buying up huge amounts of oil on the futures market to sell on at a huge profit at some future date.
b217bravo

[beutelwolf]

Guilbert wrote:

> I rememeber about 10 years ago two rich guys from Texas I think
> (twins they were) trying to corner the market in a product - a
> metal I think - maybe silver.

I am old enough to remember that, even the name: Lamar Hunt.

[rgb]

I think it was in the 80's when the Hunts went bankrupt trying to corner the silver market.

I was a humble instrument engineer for an oil exploration company and I happened to be working in Dallas. My boss told me to go and shake hands with a few people at this prospecting company who were thinking of hiring us to do some exploration work. It turned out the company was owned by Bunker Hunt. I remember being impressed by the lavishness of the offices - all high ceilings, marble floors, hardwood lined walls. I think that was just before he went broke.

I didn't meet him, of course - I was only a pleb.