Economic Inequality • Hacker News Board

Re: Economic Inequality

#271

Post by dang » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:36 PM UTC

hammerandtongs wrote: post #243

dang wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The all-caps sarcasm here seems predictive of the complete factual inaccuracy of what follows. PG posted the Mark Twain article in 2004.

Citation needed. Your quibble over the precise date of the post seems predictive of an inability to deal with the larger points raised.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10822640

Since you used the date to falsely justify an ad hominem—the polar opposite of a "larger point"—it's not a quibble how wrong you got it.

Re: Economic Inequality

#272

Post by jungturk » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:37 PM UTC

p23 wrote: post #206

rustynails wrote: post #166

The article is reasonable in the scope it addresses. It's ok for some to be richer than others. We get it. Where it's not fair is that the system is rigged (as other commenters have said). I'm very surprised it's missing from the article. Maybe, the author should talk about inequality of taxation and the good old Dutch Sandwich. No, the top 1% don't play fair or even remotely pay fair taxes. Pick the top 100 on NASDA…

And even if some super rich guy has a tax rate lower than 10% measured in absolute dollars he probably still pays much more than you or I. I have yet to see any kind of justification that percentage based taxation without getting more in return when you pay more (in absolute dollars) is fair in the first place - even though somehow everybody seems to believe that.

Despite the difficulty in norming on fairness, the arguments I've seen put forward are:

1) The progressive taxation stance suggests that since you're taxing the rich higher rates for money with less utility, that tax is less burdensome, so everyone is experiencing a similar or fair level of inconvenience or economic pain from the tax.

2) The disproportionate benefit stance suggests the rich should pay more because they receive a disproportionate benefit from the state through its investments in protecting their wealth, deploying the infrastructure that the rich need to get richer, negotiating trade agreements, and providing tax relief deemed corporate welfare.

Re: Economic Inequality

#273

Post by runesoerensen » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:37 PM UTC

hammerandtongs wrote: post #243

dang wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The all-caps sarcasm here seems predictive of the complete factual inaccuracy of what follows. PG posted the Mark Twain article in 2004.

Citation needed. Your quibble over the precise date of the post seems predictive of an inability to deal with the larger points raised.

> Citation needed.

Actually just a bit of research was needed, but I've done that for you: Internet Archive[1] and previous Hacker News discussion[2].

If you want people to take your points seriously I wouldn't recommend such unnecessary and unwarranted sarcasm.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.paulgraham.com/corn...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=189873

Re: Economic Inequality

#274

Post by vgoh1 » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:38 PM UTC

Yes, startup founders will become rich if they are successful, but what good does a startup founder having $10 billion in wealth vs $100 million? I don't think anyone outside of soviet russia is suggesting the hyperbole that is being discussed in this article, but let's be real - the reason for people working hard is to make more money, yes, that we know that is what keeps us from becoming an economic hell-hole, but there needs to be some limits here. At some point, the the cost of keeping so much wealth at the top is not being paid back by encouraging more and better entrepreneurs.

Also, let's not kid ourselves. It's not a zero sum game, but it's not the opposite either. He is discussing carpenters making a chair or whatever, and then comparing that to something completely different - the founders of facebook, sorry, they did not code every line of facebook themselves, they have thousands of employees that actually GENERATE the wealth. And, to be hyperbolic myself, if a wealthy founder gives away all his money to his employees, yes, that seems a little zero-sum if you look at it that way.

It get the article, he is trying to keep his founders from getting lynched, saying that they aren't a part of the problem, it's the rent seekers. But he is again trying to paint a black and white picture, saying "no, those guys are all bad, my guys are all good"

Re: Economic Inequality

#275

Post by replicatorblog » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:39 PM UTC

branchless wrote: post #133

xiler wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Patents are VERY different than property in that they expire in less than 20 years (at least in the US).

Re: Economic Inequality

#276

Post by Futurebot » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:40 PM UTC

loteck wrote: post #157

> So when I hear people saying that economic inequality is bad and should be eliminated, I feel rather like a wild animal overhearing a conversation between hunters. But the thing that strikes me most about the conversations I overhear is how confused they are. They don't even seem clear whether they want to kill me or not. Straw man aside, I continue to be deeply concerned about individuals who spend their time beli…

"It is remarkable how under siege and victimized even the most powerful members of society feel, how much they tout their own up-by-their-bootstraps story.

In fact, a basic ritual associated with entrance into the circle of winners is constructing a personal story about how it was through grit, talent, and determination that you fought your way into it.

Mitt Romney, the multimillionaire son of a car company CEO and governor of Michigan, told an audience at a 2012 Republican debate that if you squinted hard enough, he looked like a figure right out of a Horatio Alger tale. “And I—I mean—you know, my dad, as you know—born in Mexico, poor, didn’t get a college degree—became head of a car company. I could have stayed in Detroit, like him, and gotten pulled up in the car company. I went off on my own. I didn’t inherit money from my parents. What I have, I earned. I worked hard, the American way.”

Twilight of the Elites, Chapter 5 "Winners"

Re: Economic Inequality

#277

Post by nickbauman » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:41 PM UTC

civilian wrote: post #218

nickbauman wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That shit" could be interpreted this way: Having "obscene" wealth accumulate with one or a few persons means the decision-making about using that wealth becomes idiosyncratic and volatile at worst, generally misdirected at best. In market-fundamentalist terminology, huge actors cannot result in optimal results. Markets work best with broadly-held wealth and millions or billions of small bets, lowering the criticalit…

The Gates Foundations is a counterpoint to your theory. Yes they're volatile, but they've helped change the way that charities operate, with numbers and tracking progress. It feels like when single/double-digit millionaires donate their money, they're too often donating to charities which are social status symbols rather than the most effective causes. In addition, places like GiveWell are helping the direction of th…

Not entirely sure I can agree. The Gates Foundation has made important contributions, but they have also been subject of scrutiny regarding funding choices that are ideologic and self-interested.

Re: Economic Inequality

#278

Post by shasta » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:41 PM UTC

civilian wrote: post #254

cko wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it wrong for a rich person to hoard wealth, or to spend only on luxuries for themselves? Why do they have to "contribute to society"? I'm by no means wealthy, and at my age of 29 I've donated more money than many of my coworkers. And I'm all for a portion of tax dollars supporting the underprivileged. But when I read about Larry Ellison's yacht-racing hobby, I think to myself, "good for him." He can spend his…

> Why do they have to "contribute to society"? This gets to the core of the question! How did a rich startup person get wealthy anyway? They built something that people wanted. People said: "hey, that thing you built, I value it at $20 and you're giving it away at $10, so I'm happy to buy it!" Anyone who made money from business has already created wealth and contributed to society, via the market. To the people who…

> Anyone who made money from business has already created wealth and contributed to society, via the market.

Let's not get carried away. This is how the market is supposed to work, and often it does work this way, but there are plenty of businesses built on exploiting information asymmetry, bad regulation (often lobbied for by the businesses themselves), etc. Yes, markets are generally good, but there looks to be plenty of room for improvement in our implementation.

Re: Economic Inequality

#279

Post by wfo » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:42 PM UTC

pluckytree wrote: post #49

GavinMcG wrote: post #33

Earlier 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…

Why is that more offensive? What if they were all startup founders or created companies that made profound and positive change? At what point is the cross-over between being reasonably and unreasonably wealthy? If they have too much money and give most of it away, is that better than continuing to create new ventures that could make a difference? This economic inequality feels similar to racism. Why should a very wea…

There is nothing wrong with the people who have wealth, it is with people having so much wealth. Wealth is economic power; we split power in the government so it is not hyper concentrated in on person for very, very good reasons taught to us by history (power begets more power and corrupts, etc). Similarly we should be trying to split economic power. There's nothing wrong with someone having a lot of money; but there is something wrong with a person having more wealth than most of the nation combined. It's an enormous amount of concentrated power which is inherently bad in and of itself, whether it's used for good or ill currently.

And the primary method people use to get and keep this money is through exploitation and abuse generally of workers, tax systems, etc. Which is just icing on the cake beyond the original problem of wealth concentration.

Also we have the notion that people are being paid 300, 400, 1000 times as much as their employees. This is a lie; one person generally isn't worth 1000x as much as another. There are thousands of others who would be able to replace any person in any job with similar results. The money they get is through the manipulation of their wealth, power, and connections to make more, and the Rand-esque 'great man' fallacy where Americans assume industry is driven but supermen and women at the top who truly deserve what they are getting, and not primarily as a collective effort. When a company succeeds, where should the profits of that success go? The wealthy have up until now succeeded in enforcing a deeply capitalist system where all of the profits go to the wealthy and the least possible earnings are divvied up to the peasants who beg and struggle to be allowed to earn from their labor at all.

Re: Economic Inequality

#280

Post by dnautics » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 8:43 PM UTC

PG is wrong that he is a creator of economic inequality. Technology development usually brings prices down. This is deflationary; the 'big picture' way that deflation happens: that prices are discovered more efficiently, or resources are used more efficiently, or that idle labor capacity is recruited to fulfill a want or need that was not known before (esp: think uber/lyft).

Deflationary processes are inherently anti-inequality. Think of it this way. If we never changed the minimum wage, then people's incomes, especially at the bottom segment of society would make their net economic potential greater over time.

It is not the investment in technology that makes "tech drive inequality". It is the political structure around it. We have a structure where monetary policy shoves free or cheap money into the faces of banks and the investment classes in efforts to 'stimulate' the economy, where the secular (over decades, not over years) inflation drives low- and middle- class citizens into risky investment activity just to be able to sustain themselves in their later years (effectively a subsidy for the rich).