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Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

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Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#91

Post by WalterBright »

jabl wrote: post #76
WalterBright wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The section you quoted does not use the word unfair, but unequal Calling unequal a problem means it's unfair. > If I inherit (or even buy) a house in Palo Alto and it undergoes millions of dollars of appreciation due to a growing industry nearby that I do not work in, did I create that wealth? Yes. I speak as a person who has repeatedly lost money in real estate. Real estate is hardly a slam-dunk guaranteed money m…

> Yes. I speak as a person who has repeatedly lost money in real estate. Real estate is hardly a slam-dunk guaranteed money making machine, as plenty of people in 2008 will attest to. It's a tough business. Just looking at the winners is called confirmation bias. That doesn't really prove your point. Just like you may gain wealth in real estate without having to have created it, you can lose wealth without it being y…

Making better decisions about how to allocate resources is wealth creation.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#92

Post by loco5niner »

WalterBright wrote: post #35
qppo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there were two albums, entitled "Beatles Greatest Hits" and "Best of the Beatles" and the former is a compilation album and the latter is a solo album by former Beatles drummer, Pete Best. If a fan buys the second without realizing it is not a compilation album, should the Beatles not be able to defend their name being used to sell it? Or profit off of it?

Think of it like open source software, and the answer will be clear. I.e. anyone can take the open source software I create and do whatever the hell they want with it. (I use the Boost license, which is the most permissive.) I encourage you to, too, if you want to profit from my work :-) I don't think there's anything special about musicians that makes them different from open source developers.

I think the difference is intent. Most musicians go into it hoping to make a boatload of money. Open source software devs, not so much.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#93

Post by lotsofpulp »

WalterBright wrote: post #89
lotsofpulp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The creation of Google, for example, has added immeasurably to the wealth of the world. Google and other software advancements have offered amazing utility to everyone, freeing up people to do other tasks by reducing many hours spent on previously tedious tasks. However, unless there is opportunity for the people who used to perform the obviated tasks to produce something others will value, then all of the wealth t…

> However, unless there is opportunity for the people who used to perform the obviated tasks to produce something others will value, then all of the wealth that was added will only show up in the profits of Google and other capital owners who benefit from decreased labor costs. An effective search allows all kinds of businesses to exist that couldn't have before. It's similar to while cars replaced horses and the hor…

It depends if the displaced people can benefit from the ability to create or participate in the newly created business opportunities.

For example, I can now search for real estate listings without talking to any agent or broker. Used to be someone needed to be paid to keep their ear to the ground and alert you if possible deals. Now, a lot of that is automated, and even if an agent or broker is required, 1 can probably do the work of 5 or 10.

What are those displaced agents and brokers going to do? Learn how to program and make a website showing 3D tours of the house? Even that only needs 1 or 2 solitons. Point being that while long term change can be positive, the short term turbulence can be negative for many. I posit it’s the reason for so much of the political turmoil these days, but that’s a different discussion.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#94

Post by spaetzleesser »

WalterBright wrote: post #88
spaetzleesser wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was about the top 1% creating more wealth or not. I think society as a whole is creating more wealth with many people contributing. But somehow we ended up with a situation where there top 1% percent are taking an increasing share of that wealth.

> there top 1% percent are taking an increasing share of that wealth. Here's where framing comes into play. Let's reframe your statement as: "there top 1% percent are creating an increasing percentage of that wealth." "taking" implies some pie someone is taking a bigger slice of that they had no hand in creating.

I doubt that the top 1 percent are creating more wealth than the top 1 percent did forty years ago. But somehow a bigger share of wealth is going to them now in a system that has been shaped by them. So I think they are “taking” more than they used to.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#95

Post by spaetzleesser »

WalterBright wrote: post #61
throwaway34241 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP’s point is that Bill Gates is not rich because he invented word processing, or because word processing would never have become popular without his help. A big part of Microsoft’s success is network effects, where they are able to maintain market share because compatibility with their software is highly valued (because of their large existing market share). As technologies develop there often seems to be a…

The big value Microsoft brought to the table was standardization. You could write one version of your app and it would work on millions of computers and be compatible with everyone else. The 8 bit and mainframe world at the time was anything but that. Unsurprisingly, somewhere north of 90% of programming was done for DOS.

If MS hadn’t done it I bet somebody else would have done it. It’s also not clear if the dominance of Microsoft was good for the industry and the overall world. Maybe they actually suppressed wealth that others would have been able to create.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#96

Post by throwaway34241 »

WalterBright wrote: post #90
throwaway34241 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the article is proposing things like allowing the market to build new housing . So, according to your framing of the issue, doing this would hurt "wealth creators" that sit on a house they inherited (in a growing location by chance), and reward wealth destroyers, like people who build new housing for people to live. Does this framing seem more useful than the article's? It's easy to develop a knee-jerk reactio…

I carefully wrote "free market". Government can (and does) set all sorts of conditions that impede the free market from operating.

I still think it is useful to make a distinction between prices and wealth creation, even taking the government out of it.

For example, the economics of much of human history are basically agricultural societies. The US was in a better position because of a virtually unlimited supply of capital (land), but in many other countries the model was the serfs work the land, and pay rent to the nobility who own it (and who in most cases inherit it from their parents). Such a system doesn't really require a violation of free markets.

In this scenario, is it really correct to say that the nobility are the real "wealth creators"? They neither created the productive asset (land) or are working to produce the goods (food).

If you accept that income = wealth creation, the nobility can simply create more wealth by raising the rent on the serfs (as long as they can survive). And they would be creating less wealth if they give the serfs a break.

This is where I think a different definition of wealth creation makes more sense, that focuses on productivity (which determines the total size of the pie, for a given amount of labor). So different farming techniques that produce more from the same land would increase wealth. Or capital investments in farming equipment that raise productivity. And if the same amount of goods is being produced but only the rent changes, that is not producing or reducing wealth, simply changing the distribution.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#97

Post by nickpp »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #93
WalterBright wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, unless there is opportunity for the people who used to perform the obviated tasks to produce something others will value, then all of the wealth that was added will only show up in the profits of Google and other capital owners who benefit from decreased labor costs. An effective search allows all kinds of businesses to exist that couldn't have before. It's similar to while cars replaced horses and the hor…

It depends if the displaced people can benefit from the ability to create or participate in the newly created business opportunities. For example, I can now search for real estate listings without talking to any agent or broker. Used to be someone needed to be paid to keep their ear to the ground and alert you if possible deals. Now, a lot of that is automated, and even if an agent or broker is required, 1 can probab…

About a hundred of years ago, when starting to mechanize the agriculture: what are all those displaced farm workers going to do?

Have a little faith in humanity. We learn and adapt. We’ll manage. Your worries are misplaced.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#98

Post by nickpp »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #94
WalterBright wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there top 1% percent are taking an increasing share of that wealth. Here's where framing comes into play. Let's reframe your statement as: "there top 1% percent are creating an increasing percentage of that wealth." "taking" implies some pie someone is taking a bigger slice of that they had no hand in creating.

I doubt that the top 1 percent are creating more wealth than the top 1 percent did forty years ago. But somehow a bigger share of wealth is going to them now in a system that has been shaped by them. So I think they are “taking” more than they used to.

If you doubt the top 1% are creating more wealth than 40 years ago, what makes you believe the bottom 99% do?

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#99

Post by SamReidHughes »

bigcorp-slave wrote: post #32
SamReidHughes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this thought experiment has no connection to what causes most people to make more money than others. That's that they get jobs that pay different amounts of money. There is no guaranteed 10% per year investment. The most significant structural factor that creates wealth inequality is personal conduct and talent, and the second is that some people have crappy parents. Third is location. None of it is society [1],…

Or they come from wealth. It does not require a massive inheritance to get ahead here - it requires enough to be exposed to the market , which most Americans don’t get. The 10% above is to make this example clear and easy, not a specific asset class. We can discuss to what extent people receive opportunities to gain significant personal income, but I strongly disagree that personal conduct and talent are the primary…

There just aren't enough people who come from wealth for it to matter.

Re: Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

#100

Post by SamReidHughes »

imtringued wrote: post #63
SamReidHughes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this thought experiment has no connection to what causes most people to make more money than others. That's that they get jobs that pay different amounts of money. There is no guaranteed 10% per year investment. The most significant structural factor that creates wealth inequality is personal conduct and talent, and the second is that some people have crappy parents. Third is location. None of it is society [1],…

>The most significant structural factor that creates wealth inequality is personal conduct and talent, and the second is that some people have crappy parents. Third is location. If this is true then how come despite people being richer today than in the past they are still less wealthy from a relative perspective? Your statement is obviously incompatible with our current world and fails to explain why we had less ine…

If you're mad that Bill Gates is rich, you aren't really interested in helping the poor.
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