WTF? You going on about. I own 3 building in Brooklyn. My point is if he thinks being a landlord is "a guy who makes money w/o lifting a finger", then he is a naive child. Being a landlord is A LOT of work.
Sorry mate, you do not even rate on the scale of landownership:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/worlds-biggest-landowners-2011-3?op=1 Below those people are the aristocrats. Below them are other very large land owners. Then maybe you fit in below them. Then the ordinary workers who have zero chance of getting anywhere.
Please, less personal insults. It's a sign of maturity.
Who said I was an aristocrat? You say landlords don't need to work. I'm saying they do.
Banks also take risk when they create loans. There is few instances where people make money without lifting a finger. Maybe BTC speculators can be said to do that. But they'll tell you they are taking risk as early adopters
You just sound envious
I don't think you understand. Banks do take risk when they make loans, this is true. The problem comes from the fact that the managers/owners of the bank don't take much of that risk, and the laws & regulations that are supposedly making a more stable economy really serve to reduce this risk.
Let me quickly explain how banks work these days: There's three "tiers" really, of ownership that is. Managers, who run the bank, and whose job is basically to make the bank as risky as possible; creditors & investors, whose job is to provide the bank with capital, and depositors, whose job it is to be screwed.
The
Managers try to get the bank to be as risky as possible because with more risk, comes more reward. This causes higher profits for the bank, which means bigger bonuses for him. Then there's the investors and creditors, who get a relatively fixed cut of the bank's profit. Finally there's the depositors, who just get a percentage far less than what the bank is making, even during good economic times. The moment there's a problem, borrowers default. Depositors think they will be out of money, but the government steps in, prints them some money to pay them back. The investors and creditors lose some money, and the managers don't lose anything.
What's the result? Depositors think they haven't lost anything, but in reality they've lost to inflation. Creditors and investors have made a bit more than inflation, but lost most of that profit when the bank experienced problems and the government bailed it out. Over the long run they should end up in profit a bit relative to inflation. And the managers made the most, because they got the bonuses proportional to the profits of the company (like an investor) without taking any of the investors' loss when the company went under.