Piketty is a fool. End central banking and lender of last resort. That is it. There will still be a natural order of poor and rich just like every other natural system but it will not be as extreme and it will not reward the wrong people
Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#32I am still unable to fathom why he thinks inequality is a problem in and of itself. Hunger, famine, war, disease, we all understand are bad because they have negative consequences on real human lives. Jeff Bezos owning 12% of Amazon does not make me any worse off and if he owned 11% instead it would not make my life any better. Now there are certain things that can that can contribute to people accumulating excessive…
Slavery is the most extreme case of inequality. How close do you need to get to slavery before inequality is a problem?
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#33I am still unable to fathom why he thinks inequality is a problem in and of itself. Hunger, famine, war, disease, we all understand are bad because they have negative consequences on real human lives. Jeff Bezos owning 12% of Amazon does not make me any worse off and if he owned 11% instead it would not make my life any better. Now there are certain things that can that can contribute to people accumulating excessive…
Slavery is the most extreme case of inequality. How close do you need to get to slavery before inequality is a problem?
Slavery is a basic human rights violation... Jeff Bezos owning $100B in Amazon stock is not. Piketty is obviously not writing abolitionist literature
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labor doesn’t create all value.
Where does value come from besides labour? If gold was everywhere, it wouldn’t be as valuable as it is - but it’s not, you have to dig it out of the ground and it can be hard to find; the labour input into the process of producing gold is what gives gold its value. A silicon rock is about as useful as any other rock, but the labour which goes into fabricating it into useful components is what gives it its value. A ha…
Where does value come from besides labour? Land, investment, time value of money, management, freedom of commerce, etc... LTV was known baloney 100 years ago.
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#35I am still unable to fathom why he thinks inequality is a problem in and of itself. Hunger, famine, war, disease, we all understand are bad because they have negative consequences on real human lives. Jeff Bezos owning 12% of Amazon does not make me any worse off and if he owned 11% instead it would not make my life any better. Now there are certain things that can that can contribute to people accumulating excessive…
Economic inequality (and erosion of middle class) is water to populists' mill. We have living examples of this right now.
My issue with statements like this is that there is no such thing as the "middle class". It's a political concept, not an economic one. It has no definition. Furthermore, if you try to define it the way is usually defined - as the people making between x% of the median - it is mathematically impossible for it to shrink so long as the population continues to grow.
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Though he might handwave at this notion of "power imbalance", you and I both fully understand that this is not the core issue driving his philosophy. Someone making $120k a year can afford to hire a lobbyist in their state legislature. Should no one make $120k? If there were no billionaires would the so called "power imbalance" be restored? Does someone with $900 million not have the power of someone with $1 billion?…
People in Washington (or elsewhere) who wield a lot of power without being rich, wield that power because it has been delegated to them. They are accountable for that power. Rich people are not, but probably should be. The problem isn't merely the concentration of power, it's the concentration of unaccountable power. This is also why people are upset about secret courts and lack of congressional oversight over secret…
>People in Washington (or elsewhere) who wield a lot of power without being rich, wield that power because it has been delegated to them. They are accountable for that power. Rich people are not, but probably should be.
I specified the qualifier "unelected"
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slavery is the most extreme case of inequality. How close do you need to get to slavery before inequality is a problem?
Slavery is a basic human rights violation... Jeff Bezos owning $100B in Amazon stock is not. Piketty is obviously not writing abolitionist literature
The problem in, and of itself, is not that Jeff Bozos has 100B, it is that by Jeff Bezos having 100M, he is able to bend the political environment to benefit him. creating more wealth and reducing the wealth of others. The tax code is a great example of that. Piketty's book, clearly demonstrates that.
By the way, for every "Bezos", there is a Walmart Heiress who simply chose the right womb to come out of, and while Bezos may have "built" Amazon, he needed early investors, e.g. that Wal Mart Heiress for example, to start that instead of going to public markets.
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labor doesn’t create all value.
Where does value come from besides labour? If gold was everywhere, it wouldn’t be as valuable as it is - but it’s not, you have to dig it out of the ground and it can be hard to find; the labour input into the process of producing gold is what gives gold its value. A silicon rock is about as useful as any other rock, but the labour which goes into fabricating it into useful components is what gives it its value. A ha…
You can actually "reduce" any expense entirely to several things if you think reductionistically enough: energy costs, material scarcity, etc.
Labor is one possible resource bottleneck, and because it can be intuitively converted into most other resources with some imagination, it is often mistaken as transcending other resources.
Labor Theory of Value has been broadly discredited for this reason among many others.
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slavery is a basic human rights violation... Jeff Bezos owning $100B in Amazon stock is not. Piketty is obviously not writing abolitionist literature
The problem in, and of itself, is not that Jeff Bozos has 100B, it is that by Jeff Bezos having 100M, he is able to bend the political environment to benefit him. creating more wealth and reducing the wealth of others. The tax code is a great example of that. Piketty's book, clearly demonstrates that. By the way, for every "Bezos", there is a Walmart Heiress who simply chose the right womb to come out of, and while B…
Then the solution should not be to take Bezos share in this business. Like I said earlier, there is no clear point where someone's wealth stops giving them influence. The solution should be to increase the rigidity of government. But Piketty does not advocate that.
Re: Thomas Piketty’s plan to fix the economy
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economic inequality (and erosion of middle class) is water to populists' mill. We have living examples of this right now.
My issue with statements like this is that there is no such thing as the "middle class". It's a political concept, not an economic one. It has no definition. Furthermore, if you try to define it the way is usually defined - as the people making between x% of the median - it is mathematically impossible for it to shrink so long as the population continues to grow.
there is no such thing as the "middle class". It's a political concept, not an economic one.
It is absolutely an economic concept.
It has no definition.
It absolutely has a definition - a very clear one: the middle class contains anyone who repeatedly ends up every month with disposable money after all their expenses are paid.
Furthermore, if you try to define it the way is usually defined - as the people making between x% of the median
Nobody except yourself defines middle class they way you claim.