Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators • Hacker News Board

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#61

Post by themartorana » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #54

adwhit wrote: post #35

HN tends to be extremely reactionary to posts like this. Perhaps because the tech/startup scene is all about getting rich quick, or perhaps because HN has come to partially reflect the personal views of PG. There will be a reckoning. The world is 'unsustainably unequal' at the moment. There are huge problems on the horizon - superbugs, climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation, overpopulation. The…

Why does government have to do something? Don't you suppose it's part of the problem? We have an economic system imposed on us that is unsustainable and redistributes from the poor to the wealthy in the name of economic stability, "growth" and "creating jobs" as if optimizing those metrics will necessarily be to the benefit of anyone but the top.

Because in the end, the "government" is the only thing maintaining some order. There is no civilization without it - and anyone that tells you differently just can't visualize where "government" exists in their example.

When the rules of society get out of whack, government can either help solve the issue, or double down on bad policies. When they do the latter, they eventually become chapters in history books.

Yes, certain (many) actors in government now are reinforcing the problems, but to solve many of them at scale, you need government to be involved, if not in charge.

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#62

Post by ams6110 » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

moultano wrote: post #40

hueving wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless subsidized or losing money, the rent is more than a mortgage payment would be. If we had low enough transaction costs it would be better if everyone just owned their homes via mortgage for even short time frames.

>Unless subsidized or losing money, the rent is more than a mortgage payment would be. That is demonstrably false. Renting is more than a mortgage interest payment would be. Unless you feel like you have some special knowledge about the local real estate market, your capital is likely better off in the stock market.

Mortgage paymenets are almost entirely interest in the early years. So in many cases there's little difference.

Rental real estate works on leverage to a greater degree than is possible with stocks. Most banks won't make loans to invest in the stock market. They will make loans for investment property. So if you have $100,000 you can buy maybe 4 or 5 $100,000 rental properties, and have your tenants pay off the loans. Not as likely that you can take $100,000 and buy $400,000 - $500,000 of stocks, at least not as an unsophisticated individual investor.

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#63

Post by mac01021 » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

ghufran_syed wrote: post #18

Does "unjust and dysfunctional" = "u r a fag" [DH0]? http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html Let me try and do a little better: I would argue that this kind of rhetoric is not significantly different from social movements in various countries of the 20th century, the end results were not quite as benign as its supporters anticipated: 'During the land reform, a significant numbers of landlords and well-to-do peasants were…

> Does "unjust and dysfunctional" = "u r a fag"?

I would say referring to a person or set of people as unjust is a little bit of a category error, like saying "gravity is purple".

The correct thing is probably to chalk this up to lazy writing (it's not the only grammatical error in the piece) and interpret the author as actually meaning "A society or legal framework that allows rent seeking behavior is unjust and dysfunctional."

If we can agree approximately on criteria for "justice" and "dysfunctionality" (probably involving fairness and sustainability in one way or another) then this is a claim that's amenable to rational discussion and debate, and maybe even a little bit testable empirically.

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#64

Post by ommunist » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #51

ams6110 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people at all levels of society who's agenda is "make them selves as rich as possible" from drug dealers and pimps to restaurant owners, car dealers, realtors, lawyers, doctors, you name it. Nothing special about corporate executives.

The scale of their power is what makes them special. Tell me, when was the last time you made a decision than tanked an entire regional economy, or perhaps ruined the finances of a thousand families while lining your pockets? When was the last time you decided to simply ignore the law and then had the government come to you shaking how to change it to make you legal again? When was the last time you had law changed f…

Exactly. I saw such things with my own eyes.

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#65

Post by EliRivers » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

oconnor663 wrote: post #39

> If you buy some shares in M&S or BP on the stock market, the money you pay goes to the previous owner, not the company. You are what Keynes called a ‘functionless investor.’ When such so-called ‘investments’ pay off they extract wealth from the economy without creating anything in return. This doesn't seem very coherent. How could a company ever sell stock to raise capital, if the people who bought that stock didn'…

How could a company ever sell stock to raise capital, if the people who bought that stock didn't have a functioning market to resell it on?

It could be a lifetime or time-limited right to a dividend, with voting rights attached. This would prioritise sustainable profit generation with a long-term view, and eliminate the current malaise of seeking short-term spikes in share price.

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#66

Post by snowwindwaves » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

ommunist wrote: post #33

sbuttgereit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many millions of innocents dead.

Hardly thousands. 240 000 people die every year in car accidents and no one prohibits cars. Millions died in WW2, but it is not the USSR to blame for it. How many Indians were killed for the US to prosper? We are speaking about fhe better system you never tried. No rich, no poor, everyone has a job.

>Everyone has a job

I visited cuba in 1998 for a few weeks. I was staying with a family who hosted visitors like my father and myself for a little extra foreign currency on the side. The father of the family that we were staying with was a chief economist in Castro's government.

I will never forget riding the elevator at the university in Havana. There was a woman whose job it was to press the buttons in the elevator after you told her what floor you wanted to go to. She was there every day.

I can't imagine that was a very fulfilling job for her, as there was clearly no point as people could just press the buttons themselves.

Jobs still need to be productive on some level

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#67

Post by physicalist » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:33 PM UTC

mtrn wrote: post #55

From a developer perspective many aspects of the current system (with respect to resource usage and allocation) look like technical debt. Governments may try to make ends meet with limited budgets and come up with sometimes nonsensical or just not really thought out solutions to problems. Meanwhile the world learns about the Panama papers and related things, getting the impression, that not everybody is happy with co…

...but in the world of software, everyone wants programs that work better. The very rich have no short term interest in a system that's hard to game. Therefore they're going to use their considerable influence to prevent just that.

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#68

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:35 PM UTC

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #52

ommunist wrote: post #15

remember 1917 in Russia, and how much the SovietUnion did for the world and its nations until 1991, by just removing the rich and concentrating power with government, led by proper ideology. Stalin got the country of illiterate peasants with ploughs and left it with 100% literacy, and the nukes.

> remember 1917 in Russia, Yep. 'Someone' tossed a Bolshevik grenade at Russia, and made sure that Eurasia would be knocked out for the rest of the century. Worked brilliantly.

Just out of curiosity, who is that "someone"?

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#69

Post by ommunist » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #52

ommunist wrote: post #15

remember 1917 in Russia, and how much the SovietUnion did for the world and its nations until 1991, by just removing the rich and concentrating power with government, led by proper ideology. Stalin got the country of illiterate peasants with ploughs and left it with 100% literacy, and the nukes.

> remember 1917 in Russia, Yep. 'Someone' tossed a Bolshevik grenade at Russia, and made sure that Eurasia would be knocked out for the rest of the century. Worked brilliantly.

What do you mean 'knocked out'? The social justice maintenance system in the USSR worked. There were no rich, but your honest labour and intellectual efforts were properly rewarded there up to end of the 60-ies. That was foundation for prosperity of the 80-ies. But elites betrayed the country and in 90-ies it was over.

Re: Challenging the myth that the rich are specially-talented wealth creators

#70

Post by ams6110 » Sun, May 29, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

ommunist wrote: post #25

skolos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like good old propaganda. Looks like a citation from "Pravda".

'Pravda' stands for 'The Truth'. If you have rich, there will be a lot of poor. Maintain the lifestyle when being rich is immoral, you have no poor, everyone has a job and the streets are safe. This is my impression of the USSR of the 80-ies.

Did you live there?