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by brigadier132 961 days ago
Learn what deadweight loss is. These costs are born by everyone, what percent of the cost is born by which parties is determined by the competitiveness of markets. Normal, law abiding, people are absolutely bearing the cost of bad actors.

We bear the cost in the form of needing to pay for police, surveillance cameras, security guards, security software, the justice system, lawyers, jail cells. The money lost from each stolen good is spread across all other goods in the form of price increases, etcetera.

> shareholders who contribute nothing of value

They are shareholders because someone presumably at some point contributed something to society which resulted in them earning money to invest.

1 comments

> someone presumably at some point contributed something to society

Even if that is true, which it’s not: in a shockingly high number of cases it is actually harming society that got people money. Even if it is true in a specific case - this premise implies that someone at one point contributing something to society entitles them to drain money from everybody else forever.

We all understand how we bear the cost of theft, but i don’t believe that theft is caused by bad people - it’s an inherent byproduct of a system that REQUIRES poverty to function.

> Even if that is true, which it’s not

It is absolutely true for the vast majority of capital owners.

> entitles them to drain money from everybody else forever

They are not "draining money" by owning capital that produces goods that are then sold for money.