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Is Inequality Inevitable?

scientificamerican.com

591–600 of 628 posts

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That stupidly assumes all energy sources are equal. Oil has an extremely high energy density that makes it useful for travel where battery isn’t even close (heavy industry, air travel, long distance trucking/travel). There is an article on the front page about solar companies in Australia shutting down every other day because of negative energy prices. Burning 100MW for 10MW of oil makes perfect sense under these con…

Looks like you didn’t read the link. Quote: When the EROEI of a source of energy is less than or equal to one, that energy source becomes a net "energy sink", and can no longer be used as a source of energy, but depending on the system might be useful for energy storage (for example a battery). If oil is made to compete against batteries then it will lose. It may have higher energy density but it’s also non-rechargea…

Aviation fuel is facing absolutely no competition from batteries. Neither is gas for long-haul trucking, bunker fuel for container ships, etc, etc, etc.

EROEI will come and go with nary a shit given. The entire value prop of oil at this point already is it’s portability, density, and refuel time.

Electric cars are already cheaper per mile when it comes to fuel, yet tons of people don’t bother because of charging logistics.

Energy into extraction is just part of the cost like anything else. There is nothing magic or even meaningful about it. That whole theory is based on the stupid notion that energy is fungible.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxing the 1% more heavily isn't really the same thing as eliminating the 1% though is it? Bernie Sanders has stated he wants to tax billionaires into non-billionaire status. So yes, it's about eliminating the 1%.

There are only about 600 billionaires in the US. The top 1% is over 3 million people. Also they'll still be in the top %0.01 with $999 million. You're also making some weird assumptions that transferring money away from billionaires would just destroy that money, and that the current billionaires are using their resources in the most productive way possible. The real world isn't Atlas Shrugged. Look up income velocit…

> You're also making some weird assumptions that transferring money away from billionaires would just destroy that money, and that the current billionaires are using their resources in the most productive way possible

There's nothing weird about that. You don't get to be a billionaire by being bad at managing your money, nor do you get to be a billionaire by investing in less productive investments.

By taxing the 1%, you are removing money from the most productive investments.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#593
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is exactly equivalent to money. By this logic Google has an infinite amount of money because it has the ability to issue new shares. It can create a zillion dollars of new shares and sell them in the market and now it has a zillion dollars higher market cap because it has an extra zillion dollars in cash. But it's not actually infinite, for two reasons. First, the money (or whatever you're exchanging the shares…

The statement you made about google issuing more shares has nothing to do with my logic and is completely irrelevant. You are right that Bezos selling shares does not change the amount of capital Amazon has. The fact that nobody has enough money to buy all of Amazon from Bezos is also completely irrelevant. You are right that Bezos exchanging stock for real estate doesn’t reduce his wealth unless the real estate is o…

> The statement you made about google issuing more shares has nothing to do with my logic and is completely irrelevant.

Your logic is that shares are money, but companies can print shares, which would imply that they could print money.

The shares are only valuable because they represent the company. The value in the shares isn't independent or duplicative of the value of the company. If the company burned to the ground then the shares would be worthless too -- it's the same wealth, and as long as the resources are invested in the corporation, it's the corporation that has control over it.

You're trying to make a lot out of the fact that the owners could sell their shares, but there are two reasons that doesn't do it. The first is, that doesn't come into play unless they actually do sell their shares. But if they did that in practice and spent the money (not just move it to another investment security) then we wouldn't be having this debate because then they would no longer be billionaires.

And the second is that they can't actually do that at scale, because in order for that to happen, you would need somebody else to buy the shares from them, which would mean that that person would have to commit an equivalent amount of resources which then couldn't be used for some other purpose. As long as Amazon exists, it necessary that somebody be foregoing their own use of an Amazon-sized quantity of wealth.

> When you buy something with money, the same thing happens - the amount of wealth held by both parties doesn’t change unless the goods are overpriced or are consumed.

The most relevant part of that being consumed, because that's what the disposition of resources is really about. Trading one investment for another is still investment -- and investment in corporations is giving control of your resources to someone else. Actual spending is consumption. You burn fuel or use electricity. You pay a person to do a job and their time is consumed and can't be used for something else. You occupy some land that then nobody else can use at the same time. Those are the things that actually matter to people and affect the world, not whether Jeff Bezos owns shares of Amazon and Larry Page owns shares of Google or vice versa.

What I'm getting at here is that if you want to reallocate resources from adtech to something else, it is actually necessary to deallocate it from adtech, not just sell your shares in the adtech company to somebody else so that the same total amount of resources are allocated to adtech but now it's somebody else's name on the documents. If the same amount of labor continues to be spent on targeting ads, that labor is not being spent on curing cancer, regardless of whether ownership of the shares changes hands.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one who is not involved in creation or operation of “vastly expensive” items, you have no say in the matter. Those involved do have a say, that being accepting or rejecting contracted providence of goods or services, which may or may not involve co-ownership. Distribution of profits occurs by contracting. Democracy doesn’t apply because those not involved have no say. You are entitled to life insofar as nobody may…

In an ideal world, they should have more of a say than 'take it or leave it'. And in fact, for most of human history, people who produced things did have more say than that. I was also talking about democratic governance among the worker-owners: this is how cooperatives work in general. The strict top-to-bottom autocracy of regular corporations is not the only possible system of governance for a successful market act…

You would refuse a starving person your food? You have enough, why the compulsion to steal from others to “redistribute”?

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one who is not involved in creation or operation of “vastly expensive” items, you have no say in the matter. Those involved do have a say, that being accepting or rejecting contracted providence of goods or services, which may or may not involve co-ownership. Distribution of profits occurs by contracting. Democracy doesn’t apply because those not involved have no say. You are entitled to life insofar as nobody may…

In an ideal world, they should have more of a say than 'take it or leave it'. And in fact, for most of human history, people who produced things did have more say than that. I was also talking about democratic governance among the worker-owners: this is how cooperatives work in general. The strict top-to-bottom autocracy of regular corporations is not the only possible system of governance for a successful market act…

It is an ideal world. People may negotiate for whatever they see fit. It takes two to come to an agreement. It only one agrees to terms offered, how is it fair to compel the other?

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A _lot_ of US public policy changes and economic structural changes which favour the rich have happened since 1971. The problem with trying to pin everything on inflation is that inflation has been more stable and lower in recent years than much of the Bretton Woods era...

> inflation has been more stable and lower in recent years than much of the Bretton Woods era... That depends how you measure inflation. The government-published inflation rates use all kinds of creative accounting to make the number seem artificially low. It's in the government's interest to make it seem like that's the case. The reality is that housing prices (and rents) are increasing at a very high rate, and this…

Housing prices aren't a measure of inflation. The average size of a house has gone up, the average quality of a home has gone up. Houses have more appliances, air/cooling, and electronics which increases pricing. They aren't making any more land, and our population is increasing, so naturally land prices will rise.

If you were able track housing prices of equivalent homes and adjust for land scarcity from population- you'd have a much stronger metric. Without that context it's hardly relevant.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only about 600 billionaires in the US. The top 1% is over 3 million people. Also they'll still be in the top %0.01 with $999 million. You're also making some weird assumptions that transferring money away from billionaires would just destroy that money, and that the current billionaires are using their resources in the most productive way possible. The real world isn't Atlas Shrugged. Look up income velocit…

> You're also making some weird assumptions that transferring money away from billionaires would just destroy that money, and that the current billionaires are using their resources in the most productive way possible There's nothing weird about that. You don't get to be a billionaire by being bad at managing your money, nor do you get to be a billionaire by investing in less productive investments. By taxing the 1%,…

>You don't get to be a billionaire by being bad at managing your money, nor do you get to be a billionaire by investing in less productive investments.

Since close to half of America's billionaires inherited their fortunes, that's not really something you can prove. And that fact that it makes money doesn't necessarily mean it's beneficial to society, nor does it even mean it's the most economically productive possible use of resources.

>By taxing the 1%, you are removing money from the most productive investments.

Billionaires aren't the 1%. And "the most productive" investments isn't something you can prove or even make a semi-convincing argument for.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#598
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Can you give some examples of that? Most of the poor have no wealth in the first place" They don't have wealth arguably because it's taken by those with considerably greater leverage. Asymmetric parameters like avoiding regulations regarding 'full time employment' (i.e. Uber) is one very common way that employers keep workers down. It's not always obvious either - just as H1Bs can create a lot of value, in many case…

BTW, you're banned, if you didn't already know. All your comments are hidden to most users unless someone who chose to see them vouches for them.

I'm aware, thank you though. Though I entirely object to my banned status and my comment history attests to a high degree of civility for which I have nary a regret, I don't have the energy to file a grievance. It's fine though, It's not a grand concern; I'm just a random voice in the chorus. Thanks for the clarity.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#599
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But all humans of sufficient ability (except those with extreme mental handicap) have innate means of production. Even those who have lost use of their limbs have an innate means of production via their minds in the form of intellectual property. Honestly, even many with mental disability but physically capable are capable of producing value from relatively little.

Your bar is too low if you think that things are okay because "you can always become a starving artist".

No need to starve. Just make something people want. You can do ghostwriting or content writing with few materials. You can become a personal assistant if you can answer a phone. You can, with labor, and ready materials(garbage for example) make a lot of things people want

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#600
post #433
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like “you can get a job and use the money you earn to buy tools.”

Unless the job you get doesn't provide enough money to buy these tools, or there is a general lack of labor opportunities. This is a reality for a large portion of the current population. So it's not an innate ability to create value really that matters, it's the ability to navigate a system with many gatekeepers who have entrenched interests, and where not everyone is starting from the same spot, but we should prete…

There's tons of labor opportunities. Most people want someone else to find some for them rather than searching themselves. And then they want to complain about how they're being exploited.
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