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

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

#201

Post by ommunist »

ommunist wrote: post #89
physicalist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how russia proves anything. to me, what didn't work wasn't wealth redistribution, but planned economy. And planned economy has become mire viable since then, thanks to computers.

Russia after 1992 made experiment in wealth redistribution within capitalist system restored. The resjlt was devastated economy and creation of oligarchs. Read 'The Iron Heel' by Jack London, this is what happened in Russia when it turned back to capitalism.

@physicalist. Far from that. Apart from few friends of Yeltsin, there arose an entire new generation of speculators, benefited from 'voucher privatisation'. Technically it was very much literal public wealth redistribution.

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

#202

Post by khedoros »

futureiswithus wrote: post #97
praptak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."

We can boycott the rich. And when we cant, we can just choose to buy from the least rich

That sounds more like a theoretical solution than a practical one. You'd need to get most of the population to ignore short-term convenience and pay higher prices for things (optimizing for a different metric than lowest cost). I don't think that will happen.

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

#203

Post by ommunist »

nxzero wrote: post #191
ommunist wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joe the Schmoe, 15-75K USD per year in the 1st world. Barak the Schmack, 10-100 usd per month in the 3rd world. Surprisingly there is no more the 2nd world. since the USSR is no more and Ivan the Plan had no salary comparable to its monetary value, but a hell lot of social services he and his family used for free. Like free education for example.

I see, the super rich have more money than the super poor; how obvious, no idea why I missed that. Any idea if there other differences, or are the super rich and very poor on average the same? If not how so? Also, might be worth noting if this is based on meeting people in the real world?

I am in the unique situation to answer your question. I know what it is being very poor, quite literally suffered from hunger in 1993-94. And now I am adjusting value propositions for old family owners real estate in Europe. The difference is that these old families in a way shaped policies in their countries of residence to make their lives comfortable. E.g. private islands with golf courses in the heart of national nature reserve, and no one else allowed build anything close, or around the location. They are not directly writing laws. They are influencing persons, incentivise entire lifespans of policy makers to make necessary outcomes. So the first and very important difference - planning horizon. Poor people plan for days if not hours. Super rich plan for years, if not decades. Really powerful people plan for generations.

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

#204

Post by petra »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #186
petra wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in the case of India, didn't they try the other way and it didn't work for them, so they decided to go on the way of liberal economic reforms, while still adapting patent law to their unique circumstances(which i fully support) ?

You'd have to be more specific. I haven't studied India's history that much. I just know the result of globalization have been a fraction of a few countries' populations get rich essentially doing nothing while most population produces that wealth. And some countries almost totally do that for benefit of others. India appears to be one of those countries. So, it's in a modern form of economic slavery to rich, imperia…

Not Indian, Israeli.

Patent differences i'm talking about: The justified way India doesn't follow the western law on pharma patents.

Historical point: Up until relatively recently,India did have a closed economy, but did a lot to open their economy to foreign trade and investment(for example in the past you couldn't open a foreign subsidiary in India, Now there's even Amazon in India).

As for capitalistic tactics etc, that's definetly true. Just look at how much of the important contributions to silicon valley came from Indian people, both brain-drained and outsourced.

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

#205

Post by [deleted] »

ommunist wrote: post #203
nxzero wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, the super rich have more money than the super poor; how obvious, no idea why I missed that. Any idea if there other differences, or are the super rich and very poor on average the same? If not how so? Also, might be worth noting if this is based on meeting people in the real world?

I am in the unique situation to answer your question. I know what it is being very poor, quite literally suffered from hunger in 1993-94. And now I am adjusting value propositions for old family owners real estate in Europe. The difference is that these old families in a way shaped policies in their countries of residence to make their lives comfortable. E.g. private islands with golf courses in the heart of national…

[deleted]

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

#206

Post by whamlastxmas »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #116
whamlastxmas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No exposure to the risk of changing housing prices Except when your 12 month lease expires and they jack up your rate 20%. If anything renters are at greater exposure to changing housing prices. Renters don't benefit from drops in pricing, and they only have detriment from increases. At least home owners benefit from one side.

Rents must be tied to drops in pricing in the long run. If rents don't drop with the price of houses, investors would swoop in to buy the high ROI housing, and existing renters would make home purchasing a higher priority as opposed to buying stocks, paying off other debt, or spending their disposable income. Also, having a uncertain monthly expense is not nearly as much of a risk as having 100% or 200% of your netwo…

> investors would swoop in to buy the high ROI housing

They do, all the time.

> existing renters would make home purchasing a higher priority

They can't, there's such a low supply of housing in the entry-level price points

> uncertain monthly expense is not nearly as much of a risk as having 100% or 200% of your networth tied to a volitile

Most people do not own the vast majority of their home. Worst case scenario, they buy a house, it goes down a lot in value, and they do a strategic foreclosure and declare bankruptcy. Considering the average American has little to no savings and therefore nothing to lose in bankruptcy, there's really not much a downside. In fact they may even profit from it tremendously in other ways, such as wiping out their credit card debt at the same time.

The ones that do have any sizeable amount of savings are 40+ years old today and have benefited in insane amount in housing prices over the past two decades. Their home values will never go down anywhere near the amount they have gone up.

Compare this to a guaranteed, unavoidable loss with ever increasing rent prices. If rents actually do drop with housing prices over the long run, it certainly hasn't mattered at all for decades given the long term trend of the American housing market.

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

#207

Post by force_reboot »

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…

Violence can come from the left or the right. Sure, there might be a "reckoning" where the 1% are punished for their alleged misdeeds. Their might also be a "reckoning" where leftists are punished for spreading an allegedly subversive and counterproductive ideology. Both have certainly happened in the past.

The problem with your reasoning, is that you have already assumed that you've won the intellectual debate and so your opponents are only acting from self-interest. But the main "reactionary" posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11796842 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11796746) contain good counterarguments to the article that you haven't addressed.

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

#208

Post by nxzero »

ommunist wrote: post #203
nxzero wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, the super rich have more money than the super poor; how obvious, no idea why I missed that. Any idea if there other differences, or are the super rich and very poor on average the same? If not how so? Also, might be worth noting if this is based on meeting people in the real world?

I am in the unique situation to answer your question. I know what it is being very poor, quite literally suffered from hunger in 1993-94. And now I am adjusting value propositions for old family owners real estate in Europe. The difference is that these old families in a way shaped policies in their countries of residence to make their lives comfortable. E.g. private islands with golf courses in the heart of national…

You're talking about resources, which is the same thing as saying the the rich are rich and the poor are poor.

I'm saying people are people, super wealth people are not a certain special type of person, nor are they the same type of people.

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

#209

Post by nickpsecurity »

petra wrote: post #204
nickpsecurity wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to be more specific. I haven't studied India's history that much. I just know the result of globalization have been a fraction of a few countries' populations get rich essentially doing nothing while most population produces that wealth. And some countries almost totally do that for benefit of others. India appears to be one of those countries. So, it's in a modern form of economic slavery to rich, imperia…

Not Indian, Israeli. Patent differences i'm talking about: The justified way India doesn't follow the western law on pharma patents. Historical point: Up until relatively recently,India did have a closed economy, but did a lot to open their economy to foreign trade and investment(for example in the past you couldn't open a foreign subsidiary in India, Now there's even Amazon in India). As for capitalistic tactics etc…

"Not Indian, Israeli."

Cool. Always like to see you all in security or legal discussions as you have interesting perspectives. :)

"Patent differences i'm talking about: The justified way India doesn't follow the western law on pharma patents."

I didn't realize they did that. I love that as I want serious changes to pharma patents here. It's basically legalized murder and unacceptable given what U.S. top causes of death are. So, I guess they did resist in some key ways. :)

"Up until relatively recently,India did have a closed economy, but did a lot to open their economy to foreign trade and investment"

Even the U.S. was isolationist for a while. It usually fails as both capitalists and consumers want the benefits of international trade. That opens them up to concessions. From there, we look at how they fair in ratio of benefit to their country vs to foreign countries. Germany, South Korea, Japan, and China seem to be examples of winners that ensure trade is very positive for them vs major countries. India seems to be one of the losers but has potential that's untapped.

"Just look at how much of the important contributions to silicon valley came from Indian people, both brain-drained and outsourced."

I actually don't know how many did outside smart people being hired at Google, etc to build key techs. Most of the groundbreaking stuff was American with VC or defense funding. Lots of improvements and experimental stuff (eg small players) involved foreigners. Big companies like IBM have their R&D in Israel, China, whatever brain-draining the crap out of them. So, it seems like a mix to me.

I guess what I'm getting at is that American innovators often got things started, becomes stagnant a bit, and then they start boosting it with foreign innovators. Other times, it's foreign innovators straight up making a contribution either here or over there. That gets monetized somehow by big players either through feature parity or acquisition.

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

#210

Post by nickpsecurity »

ommunist wrote: post #200
nickpsecurity wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting way to state it. Could you elaborate to make sure I'm understanding the metaphor?

In the US professional media participants are literally trained not to touch sensitive parts of the social discourse. Hence the political correctness - the modern doublespeak, and natural avoidance of entire massive sets of facts underlying important social problems and drivers. E.g. no reports in the U.S. media on French toxic waste dumping to the sea within Somalian territorial waters. But! A hell lot of publicatio…

Appreciate the clarification and very interesting example with Somalia situation. I hadn't heard of that one despite avoiding corporate media where possible. That was kind of your point, though. ;)

So, I guess you're analogy means that the Russians in power (eg government) force the journalists to shut-up whereas in America the corporations and journalists do it themselves on sensitive topics for selfish gain? I'd agree with that if it's what your metaphor meant.

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