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The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

newyorker.com

121–130 of 189 posts

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#121
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe lower taxes stimulate productive investment of both human and financial capital so I'd prefer to lower income and investment taxes. But this only seems fair and sustainable if you raise the inheritance tax to a very high level. The problem isn't wealth so much as dynastic wealth. Land value tax I support 100%.

Everything happening around us indicates the opposite: that the rich prefer to invest in that which gets them richer, not that which benefits society.

Don't some investments benefit society? For example: Invest in real estate that turns into housing or businesses that weren't there before, or investing into businesses so they have the money to grow to a larger building or hire more people to meet demand.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#122
post #4

Implementation may be politically difficult, but the solution isn't rocket science: substantially raise the inheritance tax and abolish all trust loopholes.

People inheriting wealth is not a problem. People inheriting poverty is. The real solution is to make it illegal to have kids if you make have less than a certain income. You can enforce this by sterilizing people who choose to have kids they can't support after the first one is born.

The only alternative to this that is actually fair to the rest of the citizenry is to just admit that wealth inequality is not really a problem. If poor people choose to have kids that they can't afford to put through college, that's their choice. They are not entitled to sap the wealth of the rest of society just because they didn't want to use a condom.

Taxing the rich to punish them for the mistakes of the poor is just plain unethical.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#123

The problem with inheritance taxes, property taxes, etc. is that they erode the meaning of ownership and permanence. For example, if I as a parent want to save up and give up my immediate gratification from spending that money so my children have a head start or even a luxurious cushion, what’s wrong with that? That’s me spending my utility the way I want. With property taxes, ownership turns into renting - you never…

it's not the case that all your savings are only the outcome of your own hard work. Your income depends on the labour of countless others that make your modern life possible. Why should your wealth stay with you instead of going to workers that make your shoes or your clothes or your laptop or your phone?

Unless they are slaves, their labor was already paid for and the exchange was voluntary.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#124

I see people throwing ideas and most of these ideas rely on politicians and/or govt doing something. Is there a non govt or non politician dependent way of solving inequality? facebook connected the world not govt or politicians. Google made knowledge and information available to the whole world not a politician or a govt. (I understand there are down sides to these companies products but so is there to govts/politic…

I know that what you're going for is to solve inequality by working within the means of the established political system, and that you're wondering if there could be something like a startup or company that somehow makes a profit by reducing inequality. After all, when starting a company the first problem anyone should solve is "What is the need" and economic inequality is a pretty big need.

Unfortunately, I just don't think every problem can be solved through that lens. Companies can earn money by creating something of value, or by making something cheaper. Facebook connecting the world together was creating new value, and Google making information easily/freely available was a drastic reduction in the cost of discovering information. Both of those services created value. The problem of economic inequality is not a problem of needing more value, it's a problem of poor distribution of value. That's a problem companies are not good at solving. Companies are usually terrible at solving those problems.

The other side I see you going for is that the government seems unreliable, so you'd rather there was a solution -- ideally one that's scalable -- that didn't rely on forces outside of your control. My best guess would be volunteer work and activism, which doesn't have to go through the government. Supporting local businesses and encouraging your neighbors to do so helps your local economy. Food banks and homeless shelters are great, and so are public libraries. Big brother/sister programs, little league sports coaching, volunteering at after school programs -- all good ways to help.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly who had to get killed for Social Security to be passed?

Nobody but people did have to get killed for earlier employer-pensions to be passed. And cynically you can view a lot of the pro-labor progress in the US from the great depression through the 50s to be a response to the popularity of communism and socialism abroad

> the popularity of communism and socialism abroad

Which took hold because workers were being abused. Various communist revolutions in history, and all the related violence, can be considered in part blood shed towards improving the conditions for the working class.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#126
post #86

The article mentions globalization but doesn't view inequality through a global lens. If you look only within rich nations, yes inequality has increased, because the poor and blue collar middle class have lost a lot of jobs to poorer countries. But that phenomenon is actually reducing inequality as measured from a global view. The biggest issue I have with the article is that it ignores the geopolitical trends that w…

> The article mentions globalization but doesn't view inequality through a global lens. If you look only within rich nations, yes inequality has increased, because the poor and blue collar middle class have lost a lot of jobs to poorer countries. But that phenomenon is actually reducing inequality as measured from a global view. Actually inequality (of percentage of the world's resources amassed) between poor and ric…

> Actually inequality (of percentage of the world's resources amassed) between poor and rich countries has increased as well. The get richer compared to their own past, but less than the world is getting richer overall.

That's an interesting claim to make. China, India, Eastern europe... Africa is having a boom too. Ask any westerner who used to go on dirt cheap super long vacations. The today's gap is miniscule compared to the glorious days.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#127

Is the Hacker News community open to alternative viewpoints on this subject? It would be informative to read a wide spectrum of opinions, like we get for things like microprocessor design and code libraries.

Generally you get downvoted for doing so, but people still try to argue. I have a lot to say on the subject, but one thing I still need an argument for is why inequality is bad intrinsically. I'd love to hear a cogent argument that addresses that fundamental point, but what I end up seeing in the wild is camps of people who think inequality is some intrinsic evil, and those that don't think it's relevant to anything.

One argument: influence of big money on the shaping of politics.

Economic stratification is effectively a stratification of people's degrees of influence over the natural world, so unchecked economic stratification necessarily means that there's a breaking point where a system which was previously democratic stops being so.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#128
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this a restatement of trickle down economic theory (sans raising inheritance tax), which has not really panned out when attempted?

My understanding of trickle down economics is that you get more economic activity by putting a dollar in the hands of the bottom 10% than the top 10%, which makes sense since the propensity to consumer is higher at the bottom. By investing, the top % supports invention and innovation. By consuming, the bottom % validates those inventions and innovations that are worthwhile, versus those that are worthless. Both funct…

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Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#129
post #97
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's OK to fuck over a large portion of your own population because it's trickling down to a poor country? The issue is that nations have a duty to their own citizens, good luck telling an entire generation that they need to make sacrifices for others while the rich keep getting richer.

I'm not sure the rising inequality in the US is really a result of the poor countries getting richer. Lots of other developed countries have traded with the world with much less of that eg. Germany, Scandinavia. It's more a result of the kind of politics Fox News pushes.

Globalism was literally a concerted effort to off-shore blue collar work with the expectation that the population of richer countries would become more educated and work in information intensive jobs (also siphoning off value from said off-shored industries). Where it went somewhat awry is that computers and automation have meant that less jobs are actually required in those sectors that we envisioned people having, leaving a large portion of the population under-employed in low paying service jobs. Globalism was literally a concerted effort undertaken after WWII, this isn't some sort of Fox News level conspiracy theory. It's history, literally stuff in economics textbooks and easily verifiable.

As for why Scandinavia and Germany have managed to keep inequality at bay, they've got very robust welfare states and strong labour unions.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary metric in OP is income inequality, which is historically high. You're primarily addressing wealth, which is connected, but not the same. Taxing inheritance will do very little towards income inequality.

The very essence of capitalism is using wealth (ie capital) to gain income. A wealth tax very much would reduce inequality, both in wealth and income.

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