My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay • Hacker News Board

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#141

Post by vixen99 » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #26

This is pretty silly. Also, Paul Graham's premise, I'm sorry to say, is sensationalized (by invoking concepts like "inequality" and "startups") but wrong. The premise is, basically, "inequality has bad CAUSES, but startups and technology are never one of them." Only at the end does he hint at what I believe to be the more accurate analysis: AUTOMATION and OUTSOURCING lowers demand for expensive human labor, therefore…

Europe as a whole has a fertility rate of 1.5. In other words: it is dying. Total fertility rate for the US is just below replacement value at 2.09 and the total fertility rate for the world is 2.59, down from 2.8 in 2002 and 5.0 in 1965. Any weaning that goes on will certainly have to be off welfare schemes because they are going to collapse.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#142

Post by ubercow13 » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

billions wrote: post #84

Innovation is the primary driver for improved quality of life. The kings of 1900 did not fly across the globe in hours, have access to the variety of foods of our lower class, and connect with loved ones in seconds. Basics such as a bed or filtered water came from innovation. Taxing or otherwise slowing innovation will put brakes on quality of life improvements for everyone. When have top-down mandates ever been as e…

Did you read the article?

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#143

Post by bko » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #109

bko wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this over and over again in all my comments on the subject, but wealth passed on through inheritance has fallen a lot. I don't know why its always assumed to be true that all this wealth that's driving inequality is inherited. It's not true. > Over the past 30 years, the origin of the wealth of the richest people in the United States has shifted away from old, inherited money. Our new metric, the self-made scor…

Forbes 400 represents mostly principals of public business enterprises that are super-successful, and is dominated by stock wealth. It doesn't capture private assets. It's also ephemeral -- for every Bill Gates, there are plenty of multi-billionaires who decend into the depths of multi-millionairehood when their stocks implode. Beyond that, you're going to have trouble measuring stuff. There are folks in upstate NY s…

Forbes 400 is not perfect. If you have a better measure of wealth that would suggest that inherited fortunes are a significant contributor to wealth inequality, you can cite that. Perhaps self-made wealth dominates the .001% of wealthy individuals but doesn't apply for the 0.999% of the top 1% but I don't see any evidence or better proxy for the source of wealth so I'm using the Forbes 400.

What I'm trying to say in my comment is that the belief that inherited wealth is driving inequality (as compared to self-made wealth) is not supported by anything I have read.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#144

Post by bko » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #18

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

Inheritance taxes on their own will do nothing to change the situation because then you'll simply concentrate all the wealth in corporate structures that transcend the death of their owners. Even if you make it impossible to 'pass down' these structures as property, you will have de-facto inheritance through nepotism and clan structures.

Inter-generational wealth is often wasted and doesn't last more than a few generations so perhaps it's not as big a problem as some make it out to be

> Indeed, research shows that family money rarely survives the transfer for long, with 70 percent evaporated by the end of the second generation. By the end of the third? Ninety percent [0]

[0] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873246624045783346...

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#145

Post by JackFr » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #43

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

We are all makers and takers. In elementary macroeconomics you learn it is impossible to make a profit because in a competitive market because it is rational for me to lower my price by one cent to get the deal and then it is rational for the competitors to do that until the point that profit is zero. Business, however, is all about making a profit, because even if discount personal gain, nothing can be sustainable u…

You've misinterpreted the result.

With perfect competition, long run profits do tend to zero But 'profits' in this case do not mean accounting profits, but rather economic profit, that is any residual return after all costs -- including the cost of capital in the form of interest or dividends.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#146

Post by collyw » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #87

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

The thing I would add to your comment is that inequality in productivity is increasing. And this is actually is good reason for increasing inequality of wealth distribution. Rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying political influence, monopolistic behavior, corruption and nepotism should go. I'm somewhat torn on the inheritance issue though. From the point of view of young children, inheritance is unfair. From the point…

What about inheritance from those who haven't worked especially hard to build it?

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#147

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #130

circlefavshape wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mostly everybody agrees with that What??? /me suddenly understands what's meant by "privilege"

I think tomp is saying that most everyone agrees that society should have some inequality. It could be as little as "the employee of the month gets a dollar raise!", but most people would agree that a perfectly equal society is very hard to ensure and likely not desirable.

[deleted]

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#148

Post by jdmichal » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #140

jdmichal wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country A has 5% "official" unemployment. But 20% of the population has simply given up seeking employment, lives at home with their parents, and plays video games all day. Another 30% of the population is employed part-time and barely covers their bills, even though they would like full-time work. Country B has 5% "official" unemployment. Everyone who would like to work is either employed or seeking employment. And…

The numbers are equatable, even if they don't measure what you would prefer they measure. But if you'd like to supply alternate unemployment data, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. As it is, your post is hypothetical. And anyway, unemployment has been measured the same way for decades. If the question is whether we stand on a societal precipice right now, then criticizing how unemployment is measured is not…

> The numbers are equatable, even if they don't measure what you would prefer they measure.

I never claimed otherwise. I claimed that the number as measured excludes many things that are relevant to the discussion. And, therefore, using that number as the basis of an argument is flawed.

> But if you'd like to supply alternate unemployment data, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. As it is, your post is hypothetical.

Just because someone can point out a problem does not mean that they are capable of providing a solution. This is the equivalent of labeling a ticket as invalid because someone can't tell you what line of code to change. I pointed out a problem in an argument; it is not my duty to then fix the argument.

> And anyway, unemployment has been measured the same way for decades. If the question is whether we stand on a societal precipice right now, then criticizing how unemployment is measured is not relevant. Of course it has shortcomings. But it has had the same shortcomings for a long time, so the shortcomings themselves are not proof that we stand on a precipice now.

Again, I did not claim any of that. Specifically, I did not claim that we are on a precipice. I did claim that using the official unemployment calculation is not necessarily sufficient for claiming that we are not on a precipice. Which is what the person I responded to did claim.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#149

Post by rwj » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #106

jdmichal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's the "official" unemployment number. Here's how it's calculated, cribbed directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [0]: * People with jobs are employed. * People who are jobless, looking for a job, and available for work are unemployed. * The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. * People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. Think about those points…

This is the way unemployment is calculated all over the world, so it does not affect the parent's point, which is comparative.

Sorry, but the methods and definitions used vary from country to country. The unemployment rates between countries are not directly comparable.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#150

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #18

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

Inheritance taxes on their own will do nothing to change the situation because then you'll simply concentrate all the wealth in corporate structures that transcend the death of their owners. Even if you make it impossible to 'pass down' these structures as property, you will have de-facto inheritance through nepotism and clan structures.

> Even if you make it impossible to 'pass down' these structures as property, you will have de-facto inheritance through nepotism and clan structures.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened. (credit/apologies to Douglas Adams)