A pot of money can be divided many ways but anything going to one person can't go to another person. The more money Zuckerberg takes the less someone else somewhere in the world gets, money spent on stocks is not new money it's just existing money being re-allocated, every bit of facebook valuation came from someone's pockets.  MRH is not taking that kind of money out of society as far as I can tell :>)  .........DaveB

If I understand what you're saying, the world would be a much better place if only we divided up all the money equally between everyone. That way everyone would be equal, right?

 No, it's not a matter of equally it's a matter of degree of un-equal ness. We need to better balance the good of all against the greed of the few.The less stratified a society the more stable and peaceful it is, think Sweden versus South Africa for example. The US is going the wrong way in these charts and has been since the 1970's......DaveB

No, it's not a matter of equally it's a matter of degree of un-equal ness. We need to better balance the good of all against the greed of the few.

Your first sentence doesn't make sense to me. It sounds to me like you are saying the same thing as, "It's not how much water, it's a matter of how little air". Air or water, it's the same thing, just a different view point. If it's not equal, it's unequal, and vice versa.

To me, greed implies that the acquisition of wealth is the only priority, to the exclusion of all else. I don't think that is an accurate reflection of our society. Ok, there may be a few entities that could be called greedy. I would put the corporations who lined up for government bailouts, then paid their management huge bonuses, in that group.

The free market allows people to purchase from companies other than the ones who do things those people don't like. If enough people do that, those greedy companies go out of business, because the public decides that the behavior of that company is not acceptable. In effect, they vote with their dollars.

Having an idea that is wildly successful and makes you more money than you know what to do with, is not greed. It's being inventive, original, and persistent, which is what I was always taught is the basis of our society. The American Dream is to be rewarded for your original idea with more money than you can spend.

Zuckerburg had enough intelligence, and luck, to achieve that dream. None of his users are paying him for his basic website. Those who bought stock, did so of Free Will. Any money that changes hands is done so voluntarily.

Facebook is undermining our culture the same way Rock & Roll did 60 years ago, which is to say, not at all.

Voluntarily doesn't mean it's a good plan. People voluntarily buy lotto tickets instead of saving for retirement and society pays for it in the end.  A free society can function better when CEO's make 40 times the workers wage than when they make 400 times the worker's wage. You have you own tolerance for inequality and I have mine. If Zuckerburg had structured facebook so he made one tenth the amount he's made and someone else got the other 90% I'd look at it in a different light.......DaveB

A pot of money can be divided many ways but anything going to one person can't go to another person ...

This assumes new wealth can never get created. Some may subscribe to this view, and they're entitled to their opinion, but others see that new wealth is getting created all the time. I believe if you truly understand how wealth and money works, you will realize that there is not a limited "pot of wealth" but that it's continually growing.

So what is weath? In the broadest terms, the more satisfied you are with your condition of life and with your possessions, the wealthier you are. This means wealth is not necessarily a limited commodity, but wealth is increasing if satisfaction is increasing. So new wealth can be created if satisfaction can be increased.

To see a very simple demonstration of wealth creation by increased satisfaction, watch this 8 minute video:

http://www.fte.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/efllessons/the-magic-of-markets-trade-creates-wealth

The total goods in the system did not change, but the satisfaction went up, thereby creating a greater sense of wealth across the entire group.

Now what if the goods and services being created are increasing? That means more goods and services in the system, so even more potential satisfaction and even more wealth.

In short, wealth is not a constant thing, so the "pot of resources" is not static. The concept that some guy getting richer means everyone else must be getting poorer doesn't fit with how economics works.

If the pot was fixed, then how could progress ever have happened? We'd all still be in the stone age and be fighting over an ever decreasing piece of the pie because it was never getting larger, but more people were coming into the world, meaning we'd have to cut the pie up into ever smaller pieces. We could never have escaped the stone age if wealth was fixed.

Not sure what this has to do with model trains, however. Although it's true that real trains are a service business - providing transportation for profit.

No ,it is recognition that although the pot can grow over time but it is fixed at any one moment in time so a surplus in one sector over a short time must come from a deficit in another sector. The total pot increases as the GDP increases so anything increasing faster than that is drawing from something else. Wealth can be viewed in monetary form or in happiness form but they are not the same.Monetary form is simply a storehouse of one's excess income over spending while happiness form is in one's mind. A well functioning society needs doses of both and a more equal society is more likely to have both. The US has been declining in the income equality metric since the 1970's and guys like Zuckerberg are the result, our GDP is getting divided up in ways that are unhealthy for the majority...DaveB , PS in the good old days railroad tycoons were the robber barons but now they seem pretty tame compared to this new crop :>)

One way a nation can produce wealth out of nothing is by invention. So don't knock the nutty professors or the backroom nerds - if they come up with a good enough idea that eventually becomes a saleable product, they will have essentially produced something out of nothing, thereby adding substantially to the national wealth. That's why it's so important to fund R&D. Another way is to grow something - if the value of the product at harvest exceeds the expenditure on material, fertiliser, water, machinery, etc, the increase in value has been provided by nature (read: the sun).

However, as you say Joe, what the heck has this to do with model railways?

Getting back to Joe's original post, I check out this MRH forum most evenings. I might take 5 minutes or I might take an hour, depending on how much interest there is. Occasionally I'll post a reply, like now. Where's the need to be on Facebook, Twitter, etc? Why would anyone want to know when you changed your socks, what you had for dinner last night, or how you went at the dentist? And where do people find time to read this twaddle and send replies? I've got heaps of more important and interesting things (like actual railway modelling) to spend my time on, and I'm retired (probably obvious from my attitude to the above!). Probably no-one really cares about this post either.

Please keep up the great work with MRH, Joe and staff. I like it.

Cheers

Tony in Gisborne, Australia

Facebook is what you make it. It isn't all "who's eating what" unless you want or allow it to be. I think MRH would be crazy to overlook the possibilities.

As well as being a good way to keep in touch with family and also friends, some of whom are rail hobbyists,  I find it very useful in my line of work. I did this by creating not a second account but by creating a separate page within my account. That page is strictly concerned with my line of work, followed only by those who are interested, and containing only comments that are relevant to it.

 Anyone can do the same thing, and have a page solely devoted to this hobby.

I doubt that they are serious readers though. When I do a google search for model railroad I don't get any facebook link till the 11th page of the results with lots of more interesting stuff including MRH it's self before facebook. Add beginner to the search and one facebook link moves up to the third page but still behind other more interesting links. My guess is the facebook numbers are just folks directed here by their facebook connections and they take a look and move on? I  can't really see model railroaders being interested in the facebook culture or in assisting Zuckerberg's agenda? We as a group seem to be social in a more positive way and not an exploitive way? ...DaveB

If you want to continue thinking of model railroaders as old people [65+], then I suppose I could see your point.  But I know quite a few who are in the 50 and under who have a Facebook, now, primarily because it is the only way they can keep in touch with their kids and their kids' lives anymore.  We don't call and sit for an hour talking on the phone, but we're pretty much guaranteed to post all the news on Facebook.

If you want to reach the kids [any one younger than 50], this is where you have to be.  Although the younger kids have probably already left for the other big social networking sites, be they twitter, imgur, reddit, or any of the others.  The thing about the kids, they DON'T WANT to be on the same sites as their parents....

You may argue with the data all you want, but at this point, this is how you reach the kids:

http://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-in-2013-user-demographics-for-twitter-facebook-pinterest-and-instagram

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/03/6-new-facts-about-facebook/

And then there's this: Comments section from the second link:

AD • 2 weeks ago

I opted out of facebook on a Sunday night, but by Monday morning a Professor required the entire class to sign up for facebook and twitter.

Facebook is a nice tool, but like anything else, people tend to misuse the technology.

It seems like one can not rid themselves of social media.

At this point, Facebook is the Automobile and whatever we had before it is a Horse.  We're never going back to the horse.  Maybe we'll go forward to a rocketship, but never backward to a horse, unless it's for leisure...

[Based on these studies, seeing how 72% of women on the internet use Facebook, it may be most valuable to MRH to look at every way possible to appeal the hobby to the modern professional creative woman.  We're not talking Pink Lionel here, we're talking the Elizabeth Allens of the future...

While I'm not a big fan of Facebook, I know dozens of people that are, and they come from all walks of life.  Sure, the demographic on Facebook may be skewed somewhat to the younger folk, but there are more and more seniors on Facebook all the time.  My parents, in their mid-70s, spend at least an hour a day or more on Facebook, whether it's looking at pictures of the grandkids, chatting with their relatives that they likely won't see anymore because of health restrictions of travel, to even playing a few games.  My Mom even sent out invitations to their 50th Anniversary party on Facebook because virtually everyone she wanted to invite were her friends on there.

It's pretty judgmental to suggest that people on Facebook would just take a quick peek and move on.  What Joe is talking about is people are coming here and downloading the magazine - that's where strong readership numbers are coming from.  It may not be your cup of tea (nor is it mine), but I'm not going to segment people who do use it and view all those users in a negative light.

Dave

The skew towards young people is by design.  In 2004, when it was started, you had to have a college email address to join facebook, and in the very beginning you had to be in a specific list of colleges to join.  Once Facebook had full college penetration down, they ran into the issue where there were kids on the site, and the people in college [freshmen] wanted to keep in touch with their high school friends, and Facebook was happily incised to compete with Myspace, which was huge when Facebook passed it.  Hence, Facebook then expanded service in 2006 to the 13+ age group as long as one had a valid email address.

Naturally, the younger people [13-18] took to quicker than the old people [40-90, whereas Myspace was dying a sweet bitter death and the college age crowd essentially used it like you might use a bulletin board - we've by and large kept it and we keep in touch with people we went to college with.  Old people were slow to join the service, which in this case is anyone who was graduated from college before the internet was started [1993].  Yes, there are the early adopters who were professors or old people within the college network, but by and large old people were not on Facebook before 2006.

That means the average Facebook user right now is in the 25-35 year old age bracket.

All that high income and inflated stock price came from some one else's pockets. Users can get a free service but it's not really free, someone some where is paying for it. I guess you could say that it's still in the 1% of society but I'd rather see the 99% keep it for more practical future needs. Over rewarding one segment of society at the expense of the masses leads to an unstable country, without a strong middle class( which is shrinking as things like facebook grow) we'd be having the same problems Mexico or other highly stratified societies have......... DaveB

Nobody is forced to buy stock.  Nobody.  Facebook started free, then advertisers started paying money to be seen.  That's how business works.  People lined up and put money in Zuckerburg's hands.

The free market rewards those who work hard, or are inventive. FB was inventive, something new. It picked up on the fact that people want to form groups and socialize (Even in the computer age), just as these forums do. This fact made FB a huge success long before stock was offered.

Facebook wasn't even inventive.  There were many like it who came around at the same time frame, the courts even bent over to support Facebook on this matter even though a couple others had very real proof that they existed first.  Myspace was "Facebook" back in 2000, it was the big thing when I was a kid.  Facebook simplified the formula and people quite frankly liked that.  Hence, now everybody is on Facebook.  How long will it last?  Until something better comes along, and then all the vinegar grumblers will cry about the new system.  Professionally, if you want a job, there's a growing strength gathering with LinkedIn, Same old game.

No, it's not a matter of equally it's a matter of degree of un-equal ness. We need to better balance the good of all against the greed of the few.The less stratified a society the more stable and peaceful it is, think Sweden versus South Africa for example. The US is going the wrong way in these charts and has been since the 1970's......DaveB

The way I see it, you're just mad because someone is getting paid billions for making something that is otherwise utterly useless and makes no sense to you, something that is too simple to be worth anything, that too many people waste far too much time using.

Guess what: he can make as much or as little money as he wants, and he's doing it despite anyone who says he shouldn't.  Learn to code and make a site of your own.

Voluntarily doesn't mean it's a good plan. People voluntarily buy lotto tickets instead of saving for retirement and society pays for it in the end.  A free society can function better when CEO's make 40 times the workers wage than when they make 400 times the worker's wage. You have you own tolerance for inequality and I have mine. If Zuckerburg had structured facebook so he made one tenth the amount he's made and someone else got the other 90% I'd look at it in a different light.......DaveB

He made the site, he can make any financial plan he wants.  What's equally impressive is how the site is free to the users.  People are putting money IN Zuckerburg's pockets without him asking to do it.  That's what happens when people make things that go places, people THROW those huge salaries at them to hitch their own wagon to the star or to MAKE THEM STAY PUT!

One way a nation can produce wealth out of nothing is by invention. So don't knock the nutty professors or the backroom nerds - if they come up with a good enough idea that eventually becomes a saleable product, they will have essentially produced something out of nothing, thereby adding substantially to the national wealth. That's why it's so important to fund R&D. Another way is to grow something - if the value of the product at harvest exceeds the expenditure on material, fertiliser, water, machinery, etc, the increase in value has been provided by nature (read: the sun).

Indeed, FUND R&D!  And what did my generation do when we got fed up with the old people's bureaucracy for deciding who and what gets funded?  We created things like KickStarter, thus inventing the idea of Crowd Sourcing.  You want to get a company to make a special locomotive or unique piece of rollingstock?  Contract with Blackstone, or Kader, find out how much a unit would cost, and CROWD-SOURCE IT!