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Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

forbes.com

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Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#51

Post by admiral33 »

anm89 wrote: post #46

Edit for definitional clarity: My use of the term socialism here is exactly equivalent here to the term "systems that enable wealth redistribution through legislation" no more, no less. Im not commenting on anything like the ownership of the means of production in society or anything like that. It seems like the whole world is chomping at the bit to enact more socialism but do you think it's homeless people and cashi…

"The people who should be the most scared of redistribution systems like this are the ones who want to look out for the interests of the little guys." - Interesting, can you elaborate?

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#52

Post by dsfyu404ed »

jimbob45 wrote: post #44
president wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something really needs to be done about downvote brigading on HN. At least people should be required to provide a reason for the downvote.

I've wondered if a five-a-day downvote limit would benefit HN.

Or just make it cost karma. Anyone that down-votes too much would wind up at the threshold for down-voting and be rate limited by their ability to make up-voted comments. It would also render ineffective the strategy of having a bunch of accounts with enough karma to downvote and using those accounts all at once to make comments you don't like dead (the presence of corporate or state controlled accounts employing this strategy has been suggested multiple times).

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#53

Post by mnm1 »

president wrote: post #41
lend000 wrote: post #32

If I am understanding this correctly, there is no money flowing to rich Americans, but they will have additional opportunities to deduct losses on their 2020 taxes (basically paying less in taxes after a major stock market rout) that would normally need to be spread over future tax returns indefinitely. However, this will only occur if they took losses, so it is really a discount of ~35% on negative income. This woul…

Something really needs to be done about downvote brigading on HN. At least people should be required to provide a reason for the downvote.

The limit is about three comments every couple of hours or so. Downvotes on the other hand, are limitless. That should not change while there is a limit on comments. Voting is really the only major way to interact with this site. Three comments every few hours leave no room for actual discussion.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#54

Post by modsWrk4Appl »

anm89 wrote: post #46

Edit for definitional clarity: My use of the term socialism here is exactly equivalent here to the term "systems that enable wealth redistribution through legislation" no more, no less. Im not commenting on anything like the ownership of the means of production in society or anything like that. It seems like the whole world is chomping at the bit to enact more socialism but do you think it's homeless people and cashi…

[flagged]

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#55

Post by aianus »

bawana wrote: post #48
WalterBright wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn’t seem hard to argue I agree, but it doesn't make any sense. Investing is literally putting money to work. Storing it in a mattress is not putting it to work. For example, what happens to the money when people buy real estate? The seller of that real estate gets the money. They don't hoard it, they also spend/invest it. What happens to the money you put in your bank account? The bank loans it out to people…

Unfortunately, when wealthy people get money they do not spend it on goods and services that employ people and drive the economY. Rather, the invest it in the financial vehicle with the highest ROI. Giving money to the rich does not trickle down to people. It goes into a holding pattern of financial engineering. That maybe why there has not been any inflation with all the quantitative easing that has been going on th…

> Giving money to the rich does not trickle down to people.

All of my well-paying tech jobs have been funded by VC money from rich people and/or IPO money from rich people. Same goes (indirectly and partially) for all the people who have been selling me goods and services over those same years.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#56

Post by trhway »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #39
cultus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what an oligarchy looks like.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have “oligarch-democrat” as explicitly stated as “social-democrat”? Everywhere a candidate’s name is printed.

>Wouldn’t it be nice to have “oligarch-democrat”

it is already called "Republican".

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#58

Post by WalterBright »

bawana wrote: post #48
WalterBright wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn’t seem hard to argue I agree, but it doesn't make any sense. Investing is literally putting money to work. Storing it in a mattress is not putting it to work. For example, what happens to the money when people buy real estate? The seller of that real estate gets the money. They don't hoard it, they also spend/invest it. What happens to the money you put in your bank account? The bank loans it out to people…

Unfortunately, when wealthy people get money they do not spend it on goods and services that employ people and drive the economY. Rather, the invest it in the financial vehicle with the highest ROI. Giving money to the rich does not trickle down to people. It goes into a holding pattern of financial engineering. That maybe why there has not been any inflation with all the quantitative easing that has been going on th…

> the invest it in the financial vehicle with the highest ROI

And then where does the money go that was spent on the investment?

Consider that a high ROI means the money is used for something useful. For example, investing into a financial vehicle that loans money to people buying a house.

Let's say the rich person buys a yacht. The yacht construction employs a large number of people. The money goes into the pockets of the people who made the yacht.

> Giving money to the rich does not trickle down to people.

For this to be true, it would follow that if all the rich people were made not-rich, it would have no material effect on the rest of the people. But that isn't how historical examples played out. Getting rid of rich people made everyone else worse off. Every time.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#59

Post by cultus »

trhway wrote: post #56
andrei_says_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have “oligarch-democrat” as explicitly stated as “social-democrat”? Everywhere a candidate’s name is printed.

>Wouldn’t it be nice to have “oligarch-democrat” it is already called "Republican".

It's also called "Democrat." There is no non-plutocratic alternative in the US.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#60

Post by kylek »

SilasX wrote: post #47
president wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something really needs to be done about downvote brigading on HN. At least people should be required to provide a reason for the downvote.

That’s not scalable. But maybe a 1/N probability of being required to do so, for reasonable N. (Edit: something like slashdots categories could work but you’d need some incentive to be truthful rather than trust them to separate a “troll” from a “disagree”.) Plus, if anything, I’d say it’s more common for there to be a bias against downvoting relative to upvoting.

Maybe- comment required to downvote, or upvote on existing child comment required to downvote
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