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Economic Inequality
131–140 of 580 posts
Re: Economic Inequality
#132fits nicely with the stuff @pmarca has been tweeting and retweeting recently. taking absolutely asinine stuff from the likes the national review (everything the left ever did was wrong, starting with the french revolution) to grover norquist (government employees get more money from the government than they pay in taxes, this is disgraceful).
there is some massive headfuck going on, don't know if its because of the upcoming presidential election or what. the ghost of ayn rand is wandering the halls of rich white guys again.
Re: Economic Inequality
#133Graham is arguing against an enormous straw man. Nobody is suggesting that we “prevent people from getting rich” or “end all economic inequality”. The most extreme proposals I’ve seen in America are ones like, “institute an unconditional basic income as an alternative to means-tested welfare programs,” or “allow every citizen/resident into a single-payer healthcare system,” or “go back to the tax structure of the 195…
There's nothing wrong with someone getting rich provided they contribute a proportional amount of value to society. Problem is that since the post-WII period (also called the Golden Age of Capitalism) such rewards have been happening less and less [1,2]. In fact, I think reducing inequality is essential for promoting productivity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_econ... [2] https://upload.…
Also how many of these people are preserving their wealth by diverting their justly earned income into rentier activity, such as property?
In addition many patents are rentier activity. They are taking collected human knowledge and ring-fencing an area to derive economic rent.
I'm not even sure I'm interested in Graham's writings on lisp. Economics, forget it.
Re: Economic Inequality
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank You. Paul Graham says: 'Louis Brandeis said "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." That sounds plausible. But if I have to choose between ignoring him and ignoring a polynomial curve that has been operating for thousands of years, I'll bet on the curve.' You mention a very important argument which Mr. Graham seems to have missed, or simply writ…
"Democracy can be destroyed by wealth inequalities which then create power inequalities" : citation?
I'd not have thought that this would be a controversial statement given the current nature of US politics. Both parties are highly dependent on enormously wealthy donors. It's hard to believe that these people are getting nothing in return for their money. Graham's surprisingly naive about this. He simply says "The great concentrations of wealth I see around me in Silicon Valley don't seem to be destroying democracy." I couldn't quite believe he said this after we've seen the complicity of Facebook, Google etc. in the surveillance state.
Re: Economic Inequality
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
On that note: the most offensive economic inequality isn't the 1% vs. the 99%, which successful startup founders would find themselves on the wrong side of. It's more about the 80 individuals with more wealth than half the world's population [1] – which, yes, does include "startup founders" such as Gates, Ellison, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Page & Brin, etc. But the vast majority of successful startup founders aren't in this…
> "More wealth than half the world's population" That's such a disingenuous statistic. A huge number of people, including a huge number of very well off people, have a negative net worth due to debt. I don't have a car payment or a mortgage, so I have more wealth than at least 30% of America, over 100 million people, combined! It's disappointing to see that FiveThirtyEight has now become just another outfit twisting…
It's more complicated than that. You need to live in a cheap part of town to afford rent but your city is un-walkable and has poor public transportation? Buy or lease a car so you can reliably get to work on time. You have a family and want to send your children to the best (or even decent) public schools? Live in a more expensive area - you have to buy access to good schools in many places, and the monthly payment on a mortgage for a house is cheaper than renting. You want a college education? Pay up. You want health care? Better have good insurance.
There are many reasons that people have debt, and it's not all exorbitant spending. At the same time SOMEONE is profiting off that debt, and they have a vested interest in keeping that debt alive. This is a good talk that discusses nonintuitive pains the middle class is experiencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
Re: Economic Inequality
#136I don’t think “income inequality” has much to do with the rich getting richer, especially startups. I think the concern has to do with whether those same startups make the poor, poorer. Some do, some don’t. I believe that Github, for example, makes it easier for the world’s poor to become richer. Amazon or Walmart, on the other hand... Some of these disruptive industries make a lot of people poorer by driving busines…
> Amazon or Walmart, on the other hand... Some of these disruptive industries make a lot of people poorer by driving businesses into bankruptcy. Amazon and Walmart make the poor richer, because they need spend a smaller proportion of their incomes on food & goods. That's why Amazon & Walmart out-competed the mom-and-pops of a generation ago. This was bad for the owners of the mom-and-pop stores, but it was good for t…
I have been hearing for YEARS how much better off we all are, thanks to Walmart, Amazon, and so on. I have been hearing for YEARS how it’s only a few mom-and-pop stores who suffered, and some overpaid auto manufacturing jobs that went overboard, and so on.
And yet... People outside of our cozy little tech industry do not think they are better off.
Re: Economic Inequality
#137Am I the only one that is totally fine with startup culture disappearing? All it has ever really meant is the rich deciding through funding rounds which technology deserves to survive (often with stupid results). Paul Graham is just a blind startup optimist, there is no real substance to his argument.
Re: Economic Inequality
#138Graham is arguing against an enormous straw man. Nobody is suggesting that we “prevent people from getting rich” or “end all economic inequality”. The most extreme proposals I’ve seen in America are ones like, “institute an unconditional basic income as an alternative to means-tested welfare programs,” or “allow every citizen/resident into a single-payer healthcare system,” or “go back to the tax structure of the 195…
On paper, the tax rates were higher in the 50s. What isn't mentioned is that was the age of the tax shelter, the 3 martini lunch, etc. It is doubtful anyone actually paid those rates. Reagan's deal to lower the tax rates included repealing all those deductions and tax shelters.
Right, it just meant (as mention in pg's parallel article today) that more compenation got rebranded as a corporate expense or non-taxable fringe benefit.
Re: Economic Inequality
#139[deleted]
Re: Economic Inequality
#140PG is an amazing writer and the wood worker analogy is very smart, but I am just amazed at how biased he is against finance.
I do not know a single person who gets in to finance because 'they want to be rich'. Most people go in to finance because it is viewed as a meritocracy where all your coworkers are really smart. I'm disappointed that someone as smart and experienced as PG has not taken the time to understand such a large a diverse industry.