A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality • Hacker News Board

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#101

Post by marshray » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:28 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #95

marshray wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries in Western Europe have been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times since the 19th century when slavery was practiced.

> Many countries in Western Europe have been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times This doesn't change the fact that the current economic status of Denmark and Sweden today is directly linked to their status as colonial powers and slaveholders from the 17th-20th century. > since the 19th century when slavery was practiced. This entire subthread began with the claim that being "low-class" in the US is tantamount to sla…

So perhaps you can explain why, whatever this wealth was providing Denmark's 'economic status' the Nazi's didn't plunder it when they occupied it during WWII?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark_in_World_War_II

AFAICT, Denmark (and Germany, Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, and everybody else) have whatever 'economic status' they have due to a lot more to what happened during the post WWII years than to colonial times.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#102

Post by dnautics » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #91

dnautics wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're presenting a false choice. You could have a 1970 real wage and buy the stuff of today? My point is exactly the fact that we don't have that is a result of inflation. Please explain, mechanistically, why you believe that there are only two options here.

I'm simply presenting a thought experiment, not an actual choice. The thought experiment demonstrates that purchasing power has increased from 1970 to 2016 (at least, if you prefer 2016 wages and products to 1970 wages and products). If you'd like to argue that "purchasing power should have increased more if it wasn't for XYZ..." then that's fine, but it's separate from the point that I was debunking: > but the purch…

Sure, I agree that the products in my life seem better than the products I would have had in the 70s. I am just wary of this argument because it becomes an argument for substitution (which is one way that government fudges the effect of inflation on the poor)... There are also a lot of things you aren't taking into account. In 2016, your phone costs $100 and has to be replaced every two years. Your phone in the 70s might probably still work today (I think most PBXs still support rotary). Has the improvement in quality of life tracked this increased cost?

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#103

Post by beccasanchez » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #94

quxbar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd take options 1 in a heartbeat, my student debt would vanish and my rent in NYC would be almost nothing.

Are you sure? You wouldn't have a personal computer, a cell phone, or the Internet. You'd have a rotary telephone in your house only. You'd have a TV that looks something like this: http://www.rewindmuseum.com/images3/hmv2647side.gif On that TV you can watch 1970s programming only. A 25" TV in 1970 cost $850 dollars ('77 Sylvania), which is equivalent to $5200 dollars today. I can hardly even find a TV that costs $5k…

None of those things make people happy.

Childcare, healthcare, education, shelter, world travel, free time, organic food.

Keep your trinkets and baubles.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#104

Post by ubernostrum » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #29

phaus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the question PG needs to address is this: what is the justification for non-founder executives getting paid tens of millions of dollars at the expense of other employees? What is the justification for those top-level salaries to exist even when the company is doing badly and regular employees don't see a dime in raises or bonuses that year? I definitely agree that its a shitty situation. However, as far as I…

That's the convenient dodge. The source of the problem whereby the trustees of publically owned companies both determine and benefit from high salaries is plainly obvious as a principal-agent problem.

There's a reason why in the US, the federal Constitution contains explicit clauses to stop things like Congress voting themselves an unaccountable salary increase (it can't take effect for any individual member until after their next election) or creating/giving raises to other government positions they'll switch into (after creating or raising the pay of a position, they become ineligible to hold it until after their term in Congress expires -- which led to some interesting debates over whether it's legal to reduce a previously-raised salary to its original level in order to appoint a current member of Congress to it).

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#105

Post by clarkmoody » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:40 PM UTC

djur wrote: post #98

clarkmoody wrote: post #75

> Now: none of the above, and families often consist of two breadwinners (& no children) with a hearty amount of debt, nothing owned, and few savings. All of this is by choice on the part of the families. People choose to seek employment. People choose to go into debt. People choose to spend rather than save. > The family unit itself may even be weaker because of less shared ownership. "The death of the family is the…

Which "State" are you referring to? I'm not aware of an organization by that name. > Imagine perfectly egalitarian society, in terms of wealth. The "perfect egalitarianism" strawman is, at this point, barely recognizable as either man or straw for all the beatings it's suffered. It is as useless a hypothetical in discussing the appropriate distribution of resources as would be "imagine the entire universe was owned b…

> Which "State" are you referring to? I'm not aware of an organization by that name.

The State is the entity within society that holds a monopoly on the use of force. It uses that power to coerce members of society to fund its exploits through legal theft called "taxation."

You probably know it by a different name, depending on where you live :-)

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#106

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:45 PM UTC

beccasanchez wrote: post #103

Pyxl101 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? You wouldn't have a personal computer, a cell phone, or the Internet. You'd have a rotary telephone in your house only. You'd have a TV that looks something like this: http://www.rewindmuseum.com/images3/hmv2647side.gif On that TV you can watch 1970s programming only. A 25" TV in 1970 cost $850 dollars ('77 Sylvania), which is equivalent to $5200 dollars today. I can hardly even find a TV that costs $5k…

None of those things make people happy. Childcare, healthcare, education, shelter, world travel, free time, organic food. Keep your trinkets and baubles.

[deleted]

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#107

Post by enraged_camel » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:45 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #15

enraged_camel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, content like this is better served in an article format, rather than a comment to an existing (and already very crowded) discussion. We have had many submissions in the past that were responses to another submission. In my opinion, this submission was wrongfully flagged, and should be unflagged so that it can go back to the top where it belongs.

The limited space of the front page is the defining constraint of HN. We often treat follow-up articles as duplicates for that reason, so the flags are acting in a moderation capacity here. Some users would like to see two heated discussions about income inequality on the front page, but I can assure you that many others would not.

>>Some users would like to see two heated discussions about income inequality on the front page, but I can assure you that many others would not.

Yeah, but how many? We know how many people upvote a submission. We can't see how many people flag it. And flags seem to carry far more weight than upvotes, so we have a situation where a dissident minority squashes the will of the majority and censors discussion.

The other issue of course is how crowded conversations get and how difficult it is for newcomers to join. If a submission has 300+ comments, good luck having your voice heard. Whereas "response" submissions give voice to second and third wave commenters who don't have the luxury of refreshing HN every 10 minutes to catch conversations that are on the upswing.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#108

Post by jazzyk » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:45 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #92

mwcampbell wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, just as "All Lives Matter" is not a good response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement, It's tangential, but can you please explain this part? It seems to me that "All Lives Matter" really is the more apt phrase, because it shifts the focus from an us-versus-them conflict to actual justice. Edit: Got it. I'll stop being part of the problem. The only remaining question is this: What's the most effective way to b…

It goes a little further than what the other people are saying. It's not just that the reply "All Lives Matter" is ignoring the issue of police violence against African Americans. It's being used as a defense of the police officers who did the killings, an apologistic post-hoc rationalization that the cop was defending himself. When a person uses "All Lives Matter", what they really mean is "cop's lives matter more".…

>When a person uses "All Lives Matter", what they really >mean is "cop's lives matter more"

No, I understand it to be "police can sometimes use force unjustifiably towards anyone, of any race." If a cop murders someone, s/he should be held responsible (sadly, they are not). The reason that more black people get murdered by police is that they (blacks) get in trouble more often (which is NOT a justification to kill them)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#109

Post by roymurdock » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:46 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #97

roymurdock wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piketty's suggested policy response is simple: high taxes on aggregated wealth. You need to go one step further and outline where and how the federal government should put this new tax revenue to work. How much should we raise taxes? Which brackets? What form of wealth do we tax? Why taxation rather than issuing bonds? What percent of gov revenue should we allocate to the DoD? How much to Social Security and Medica…

It's easy to say "raise taxes". It's hard to say where the new revenue should be invested, by whom, and how. It's also easy, when someone proposes solving one problem, to say "well, you're not allowed to solve that one until you've solved every other problem in the world first". It's hard to say "OK, you seem to be prioritizing this problem, let's both make our arguments and because we live in a democracy whoever swa…

I'm not saying OP should not be allowed to think about or solve this problem - rather, I am pushing him to think harder and deeper about his solution and its possible consequences.

It's easy to provide a possible step 1 of the solution to a complex problem. Brilliance and wisdom lies in explaining why your proposed step 1 is the best way to get to steps 2,3, and 4.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#110

Post by leaveyou » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 10:47 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #78

ryandamm wrote: post #20

I think it's useful to draw a bright line around the 'value creation' that PG is referring to, also. It's not just creating chairs, it's aggregating great wealth by 'disrupting' traditional industries. Those traditional industries have workers and shareholders who lose out. What makes successful startups so profitable is they displace a large and less-efficient system with a small, efficient one. Efficient in terms o…

> Piketty's suggested policy response is simple: high taxes on aggregated wealth. You need to go one step further and outline where and how the federal government should put this new tax revenue to work. How much should we raise taxes? Which brackets? What form of wealth do we tax? Why taxation rather than issuing bonds? What percent of gov revenue should we allocate to the DoD? How much to Social Security and Medica…

yes, we should do all the thinking, impact analysis and projections for the government because they are too busy not wanting to change the status quo. ridiculous.