To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors • Hacker News Board

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#641

Post by closeparen » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 8:13 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #472

whack wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem though isn't wealth inequality, it's income inequality. If someone has a billion dollars that's invested in various stocks, and never tries to withdraw that money, leave him alone. The day he decides to sell his investments and start buying private jets, that's the time to tax him on his income. The argument against a wealth tax, is that it penalizes savers, and rewards spenders. Which is not what we…

> The real problem though isn't wealth inequality, it's income inequality. I disagree. Wealth provides financial security to an even greater degree than high current income. Wealth provides the means to move your family to a place where they will be safe and thrive. Wealth provides a means to start the next generation with a leg up, financially, socially, and academically. High current income can go away next year fo…

Consider, for example, that we do exactly the opposite by providing tax shelters for retirement savings, and that this is the only way grandparents get to retire.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#642

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 8:21 PM UTC

TimPC wrote: post #620

sokoloff wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents are going through updating their will. They have a collector car. It might be worth $50K, probably worth $70K, maybe worth $90K. They have a house. Might be worth $350K, probably $450K, maybe $500K. Provided their estate will not hit the federal exemption (it will clearly not) or state exemption amount (ditto), there is nothing to compel them to prepare a balance sheet with fair market values.

But how do you make a wealth tax fair if there is no need to prepare a reasonably accurate balance sheet? If it's a yearly tax the loopholes allowed without an accurate balance sheet are so extraordinary that it's reasonable to assume they will cause more problems than the tax fixes.

(I'm agreeing with you, by the way.) My response above was addressing/objecting to a claim that accurate balance sheets are already being prepared upon death. There are huge practical issues with valuing illiquid assets.

Much wealth, though is held in relatively liquid assets or in illiquid assets with valuation processes already established in a lot of cases (real estate valuation for property tax assessment as an example). You won't be able to get perfect values on artwork, collector cars, and other one-of-kind collectibles.

That doesn't make a wealth tax entirely unworkable, though, in my estimation.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#643

Post by collyw » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 8:35 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #373

samsonradu wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media keeps telling us Apple is not investing, but hoarding cash overseas to avoid the taxation. Care to elaborate how and what they are investing in?

The media consists of people with journalism degrees, not economics. Such journalists commonly believe in the "cash hoard" theory. To know what they are investing in, consult the Apple Annual Report, which says. Even if the balance sheet says "cash", what they mean is "bank deposits". Bank deposits get loaned out to others, and those others spend it. Nobody borrows money in order to hoard a pile of currency.

Actually when I started worked for a bank, we got an initial talk on the financial system and how it works. It showed that most companies do reinvest most of the cash or pay it out as dividends, it was pointed out that the exception at the time was Microsoft who basally hoarded it. That was 12 years ago. Now Apple are the bigger player and seem to be doing exactly the same.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#644

Post by monktastic1 » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 8:40 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #467

glhaynes wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a strange complaint when janitorial positions (which aren’t often held by college educated white guys) are under discussion. Presuming we want people to have good lives who aren’t able or inclined to do jobs requiring much higher intellectual demands than janitorial ones (and I certainly do want us to presume that!), we need to figure out how to in the short term allow people doing those jobs to have good lives…

I mean that's the point. The difference between someone that ends up as a janitor and someone that ends up as a software engineer has a lot more to do with their parent's money and the color of their skin than any variation in intelligence. Pretending differently just leads you to the comforting arms of the "just world fallacy".

As someone above asked: have you spent significant time teaching / tutoring? There are enormous differences in how quickly people learn mathematical concepts, even given varied teaching methods. Becoming a software engineer requires both intelligence and luck (though one might also argue that intelligence, being the result of genes and environment, is also primarily luck).

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#645

Post by drunkenmonkey » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 8:44 PM UTC

esarbe wrote: post #321

What strikes me the most when looking at many of the comments here is the blatant disregard for human suffering that extreme inequality and the resulting poverty cause. The current economical status quo is accepted as a given and all the harm it causes is dismissed with the shrug of a shoulder. "It can't be helped, the poor sods should have made better life choices to avoid ending up as janitor" is the attitude by wh…

If you articulate this point loud enough, and gain enough support, you will suffer evil. To phrase it from a theological standpoint, "God doesn't have the discipline to overthrow Satan".

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#646

Post by EliRivers » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

jaredklewis wrote: post #502

gremlinsinc wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I understanding -- you're saying it's better for money to sit in an investment account, than spend it on goods/services locally -- thus applying it to local economies? Money doesn't do anyone but the holder any good sitting in an offshore account and even then it's really not doing them any good... do they really need it if it's not being used for something important/worthwhile..literally just collecting dust (and…

Chicken or the egg? It seems equally intuitive that investment drives the economy. Investment gives companies capital, capital to spend on employees and services or products from other companies (which in turn spend it on employees or other companies). In this way, money makes it way into the pockets of consumers who then spend it on products and services, and the endless cycle of economic activity continues. But I'm…

Investment gives companies capital

The vast majority of money people invest doesn't go into giving companies capital, though.

It goes into people selling pieces of companies to each other. The very first time the share was bought, the company got some capital, and the vast majority of money people invest is not going into initial purchases of shares.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#647

Post by collyw » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 9:28 PM UTC

dexterdog wrote: post #278

collyw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says that she has no paid vacation, so thats a chunk less spare time. My guess is that commuting to Apple's offices will be a large chunk as well. I doubt she can afford to stay in the same area as the high paid tech workers.

Nobody has paid vacation. It's just factored into your salary.

Then effectively the salary is higher than quoted for the 80's worker. And I know plenty of people in academia who don't take all of their vacation, and often work far longer hours than they are contracted for.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#648

Post by emiliobumachar » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 9:29 PM UTC

vt100 wrote: post #607

ikeyany wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they actually super? Do you really think they would have amounted to anything if they happened to grow up in poverty or with a poor education?

Would Superman have amounted to anything if he hadn't been from Krypton, and if his father hadn't been a scientist who was able to put him on a spaceship and send him to Earth?

Very good point. There's quite the level of priviledge to have a spaceship purpose-built to whisk you and only you out of a doomed planet.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#649

Post by collyw » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 9:31 PM UTC

aoeuasdf1 wrote: post #262

jdale27 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what conclusion we are supposed to draw from that chart?

Having a currency standard based on metals is inherently unstable. Central banking has succeeded.

Succeeded in keeping asset holders rich, and effectively suppressing the wages of workers.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#650

Post by jaggederest » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 10:29 PM UTC

kakarot wrote: post #623

jaggederest wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I'm saying there's no opportunity, not that there should be a requirement. I'm saying that we're trapping poor people in a world where they are totally powerless and that is fundamentally evil.

As long as there are old, ugly men who want to have sex with young, beautiful women no matter the cost to either party, economic exploitation will remain at the heart of civilization, stunting our growth to the point of deformity.

Interestingly enough I don't think that's actually the warping factor any more. It used to be, certainly, but I think these days we've gone beyond "I would like to own people as chattel property", and all the way to "I want to be the biggest metaphorical genitalia in my particular subregion of the country"