This was a bizarre article. I assume PG is a very smart guy so it baffles me when he writes something which so obviously has blinders on. Did he not stop to think what are the consequences of economic inequality and then quickly realize why people worry about it? No its not about poverty, it really is about inequality. Wealth is power, and in any society where power is distributed so unevenly, people will take actions, very often unknowingly, and without malicious intent, that still result in hardship for others. To use an analogy - if the world were just elephants and ants, when the elephants came out to play, there would be a lot of dead ants even though this was not the intent of the elephants
Economic Inequality
491–500 of 580 posts
Re: Economic Inequality
#492> Almost by definition, if a startup succeeds its founders become rich. And while getting rich is not the only goal of most startup founders, few would do it if one couldn't. As usual, the investors and founders are teamed up, with employees in the background. In contrast with founders, there is no certainty that employees will get any life-changing financial gain from working at a successful startup. The only certai…
That quote stuck out for me as well. It assumes there are no models where value can be created unless the value creators can become rich. At the very least, the typical Kickstarter project is one where value is created and the creators don't become rich. Or that no one would try to create value in the absence of potential riches.
To say that "few would do it" without the prospect of becoming rich is bogus. Describe the world in which these motivated founders roll over and give up the essence of who they are.
Even repressive, dictatorial regimes have entrepreneurs. The will to innovate and create value won't disappear if the rules change. It never has.
Re: Economic Inequality
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the case for their motivation being affected makes sense in a physical-goods economy. If a woodworker sells $500M of chairs, sure, there's suddenly much less motivation to spend the same amount of parts and labor on the next chair for 1% of the profit. But for other kinds of revenue that makes less sense. The 5 millionth copy of Windows does as much good for that particular customer as every previous one, at…
Analogies aside, there is a moral component here. Everyone has a moral claim to the fruits of their labor, however rich or poor they are. You need some amount of tax to pay for our collective defense, police, courts, and mandatory education, but much more than that is immoral. Remember what taxation ultimately is: the police coming to your door and picking your pocket at gunpoint. It rarely comes to that, but that's…
Remember what capitalism is: a warehouse full of food at marked up prices where the hungry can't eat because they don't have the gold. There's tyranny in the market too, libertarian.
Re: Economic Inequality
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
I explicitly mentioned "(and other reform for areas outside of politics like higher education, etc.)" So all those things you've mentioned are the real direct causes (that should be fixed) of the problems you blame on wealth inequality.
I'm sorry, I don't follow. You cannot reduce social distance without reducing income inequality. If those other things include "reduce income inequality", then yes, we're in agreement. If those other things do not include that, then we're not in agreement - those things are ultimately eating around the edges (and we should do them. 100% we should do them because they matter, too) and not attacking the core problem. I…
You're confusing proximate and ultimate causes.
> Income inequality is ... a cause of the problem (inequality itself causes vertical social distance, causing unresponsive elites, causing people to get elected that favor the preferences of other elites, which causes..) It's self-reinforcing.
You state the problem is elites in office who have biases in their preferences, and claim that inequality causes this. The links you provide list political polarization, class warfare, etc. as "effects" of income inequality. However, nowhere do you show this is the ultimate cause of the problem rather than a proximate cause.
A better use of time would be to suggest ways that one might limit undue political influence in the presence of inequality, rather than eliminating inequality itself (which would have many deleterious effects as addressed in the original post).
Re: Economic Inequality
#495The wealth that PG and his friends accumulate through app startups does not come from nowhere. The millions of dollars that make a handful of men rich depends on extracting value out of: 1) Government funding. GPS, the Internet, touch screens and the CPU. All funded by government research where the tax dollars contributed by each and every citizen is the investment capital. 2) Global cheap labour. Miners in Africa (m…
Can you ballpark for me how much more the government spent on the Internet than private industry? Because I'm pretty sure it's the reverse by at least two orders of magnitude.
Some classic examples:
* TCP/IP (USDOD)
* HTTP and HTML (CERN)
* The initial research for the Google algorithm (NSF)
* Compaq and Intel’s early stage funds (SBIR)
* Tesla was launched with a $500m guaranteed government loan
In fact, 77 out of the most important 88 innovations between 1971 and 2006 (rated by R&D Magazine’s annual awards) were fully dependent on US federal government support (1)
Re: Economic Inequality
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Welfare discouraging work has largely been refuted Did you read your own link? Your own link says: " There is little doubt that welfare can discourage employment , particularly when recipients lose benefits quickly as their earnings from work rise. Still, the effects are muted."
Yup. > largely > the effects are muted
The first does not follow from the second.
Re: Economic Inequality
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a large problem and that's exactly why the high frequency trading industry is tiny. You only think it's big because it gets disproportionate attention in the media.
I guess it depends on how you bracket the problem and how you define "large". According to http://www.marketswiki.com/mwiki/High-frequency_trading , "It was estimated that as of 2010, high-frequency trading accounted for an estimated 50 to 70 percent of trading."
Yes, that's absolutely natural. That's like saying 50 to 70 of Internet traffic went through an ISP.
Re: Economic Inequality
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
Selling something that people want isn't equal to providing value. Let me be pessimistic: coffee doesn't provide a positive value, because it's a drug that get's people addicted however little and subliminal. Maybe that is a value to society in general, but it isn't to the individual. The car definitely is an economic nessecity in some parts. I don't know what refridgerator oligarchy you are refering to and it specif…
>" Selling something that people want isn't equal to providing value. Let me be pessimistic: coffee doesn't provide a positive value, because it's a drug that get's people addicted however little and subliminal. Maybe that is a value to society in general, but it isn't to the individual. " If you don't think someone selling you coffee that you want is providing value, then perhaps you should try make your own. Once y…
That's just sad how much you are missing my point, all the while defending the coffee that your text kind of reads like you had too much before reading.
Re: Economic Inequality
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it depends on how you bracket the problem and how you define "large". According to http://www.marketswiki.com/mwiki/High-frequency_trading , "It was estimated that as of 2010, high-frequency trading accounted for an estimated 50 to 70 percent of trading."
Yes, that's absolutely natural. That's like saying 50 to 70 of Internet traffic went through an ISP.
I suppose. I mean, I get the difference between quality and quantity, but if we're talking about the gravity of the problem, the knowledge that 50-70% of trades are HFT/automated tells us something about the nature of our securities, commodities, etc. markets. Doesn't it?
Re: Economic Inequality
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ironic thing is that the wealthiest now try to live a rather stoic, normal life with a focus on whole, local foods and simple agrarian pleasures. Sure, they don't fly coach, but honestly, they don't exactly live extraordinary lives when compared to that of the middle class in America. Reminds me of a Warhol quote: > What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers…
This correlation of equality breaks down in regards to the justice system however, where the poor are systematically curb-stomped and viewed as revenue generators for local governments while the rich can literally destroy the world economy through fraudulent mechanisms and walk away scot free.
No they can't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff
If you have an example of an individual who committed large-scale fraud and got away "scot free", I'd like to see it.