Billionaires Build • Hacker News Board

Re: Billionaires Build

#851

Post by glaive123 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

timeeater wrote: post #811

cosmodisk wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about prices. He's referring to "crooks with suits and big smiles". We all met at least a few. They aren't your local drug dealers or some shady pawn shop owners. They are usually in pretty good jobs. Lawyers that only care about getting more money from the client rather then really helping them, dentists who do rush jobs so they could make more money, realtors,who flock properties and "forget" to mention im…

So what percentage of rich people do you figure are such "crooks with suits and big smiles"? Of course crooks exist. Most people are not crooks, though. And especially the professionals you mention may have problems to persist. Like the shoddy dentist will be busy with lawsuits presumably. I still prefer those "private crooks" to people feeding on government money (not meaning people on social security, but people in…

So what percentage of corporate CEOs do you figure are "psychopaths"?

Of course psychopaths exists. Most people are not psychopaths, though. And especially the CEOs you mention may have problems to persist.

I still prefer those "CEO psychopaths" to people feeding on government money (people in useless jobs paid for with taxpayer money).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201...

Re: Billionaires Build

#852

Post by CraigJPerry » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #823

CraigJPerry wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may have a few competitive advantages that a 16 year old may lack, like a quiet place to work, an internet connection, a network of people, etc. etc. You’ve got such an advantage that it’s utterly pointless to draw comparisons. The idea that someone somewhere can probably maybe might be able to make this work does not make the case that people have opportunity.

We were talking about needing startup capital to get the business off the ground, so this is kind of moving the goalposts. But if you have a library nearby, that can take care of a lot of the concerns you’re talking about. Before the pandemic, I frequently worked out of one. Your hypothetical 16 year old likely has a suitable spot at their school. You really don’t need an existing network to get a business started. Y…

If that’s true, why is it so rare? Why is this secret undiscovered?

Re: Billionaires Build

#853

Post by arrosenberg » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

robswc wrote: post #794

arrosenberg wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos' net worth was ~$33,600,000,000 at the beginning of 2017. I would argue things are considerably worse for the average American since then. It's not the wealth, it's the level of inequality that the wealth is indicative of. If every American had healthcare and access to quality education, housing, and food, it would not matter to me how wealthy Jeff Bezos gets. It's about the floor, not the ceiling, but the…

>Jeff Bezos' net worth was ~$33,600,000,000 at the beginning of 2017. I would argue things are considerably worse for the average American since then Based on what metrics? >If every American had healthcare and access to quality education, housing, and food, it would not matter to me how wealthy Jeff Bezos gets These aren't mutually exclusive though... >Snore. If you really want to reduce things to personal jabs, tha…

> Yes, cause otherwise you'll link to something and when I do "ctrl+F taxes" it wouldn't lead me to something that argues against your point ;)

Yep, I underestimated your unmitigated pendantry. I suppose shouldn't have assumed that you would know that the New Deal involved raising revenue. Concise data from the 1930s isn't super easy to come by, you are going to have to look at broader economic trends and make your own conclusions.

> Literally everything you have mentioned is several times older than something from 1990. Also... it was introduced in 1984, 1990 is when they reversed it because it was so bad.

* Sweden GDP, 1984 (2020 dollars): $108,000,000

* US GDP, 1984 (2020 dollars): $4,000,000,000,000

The U.S. also has much greater reach into the financial markets since we control a lot of them. Older is better - more time to see the long-tail effects of policy.

Regardless of whether FTT would work or not, it's a single tactic (small picture), when we already successfully tax wealth in various ways (estate, property taxes). The big picture is breaking the power of concentrated financial power, and taxation is an obvious method. Nit picking specific policies seems to be a favorite bad-faith tactic to avoid acknowledging that the issue is an issue, which would then require the nitpickers to suggest ideas themselves, instead of just criticizing.

Re: Billionaires Build

#854

Post by fistfucker3000 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:18 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #746

naravara wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with just taxing it all away to prevent him from being a billionaire is the money is tied to control of the company, so it's equivalent to saying nobody can build a business bigger than some arbitrary limit. Limits are hardly arbitrary. If you control a large enough chunk of economic output that your decisions have distortionary effects on other markets and people it’s not an “arbitrary” standard that t…

So make laws to prevent monopoly, rather than making size/employee count based.

You would be some sort of metrics to say when something has become a monopoly wouldn't you? Why can't company size be such a metric?

Re: Billionaires Build

#855

Post by lumost » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #612

lumost wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the comment is that in many minds there is a cutoff where "create value" looks like hoarding. One could argue that the Tzar and other monarchies created value by providing stable governance, organizing the nation, preventing the tyranny of the majority, as well as keeping out the invaders. At some point, when the wealth gap is extreme enough and the circumstances of enough people is sufficiently degraded…

Is Bill Gates degrading or improving the lives of people on the whole? Same question for Elon Musk.

Is Charles Koch? is Jim Walton?

The list of billionaires is expansive at this point in time. While there are some like Elon Musk who are directing the economy in ways that would be perceived to some like myself as positive. For the ~262 million people in the US who would be unable to afford a Tesla, will never go to the Moon or Mars, live paycheck to paycheck and may lack the education ( or interest ) in space to appreciate the science and technology advancements being made, These activities can best be summed up with this song inspired by the 1969 landings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4

Re: Billionaires Build

#856

Post by rufus_foreman » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #834

BurningFrog wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a very different claim.

It still feels equally outrageous to me.

OK let me get this straight:

Scenario one: Warren Buffet's secretary (making up some numbers here) makes $50K a year, twice the average salary for a secretary, and pays around 8K income tax, for an effective tax rate of 16%, And Warren Buffet pays $7000 in taxes.

Scenario two: Warren Buffet's secretary (making up some numbers here) makes $50K a year, twice the average salary for a secretary, and pays around 8K income tax, for an effective tax rate of 16%, And Warren Buffet pays $1,850,000 in taxes.

Those two are equally outrageous to you?

Re: Billionaires Build

#857

Post by webmaven » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #768

mactrey wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ignores any effects of market power. Amazon is not bargaining with its workers in the way that you are bargaining with Alice for her apple - a lot of these workers have very few other options to sell their labor. And sitting at home and not working is a false choice in today's America. That inequality in pricing power helps maintain the gap between wages and marginal revenue production of labor - and as OP says,…

> and as OP says, that gap at scale is what makes a billionaire. But that’s a dumb generalization. Microsoft wasn’t paying low wages and software people easily found jobs elsewhere but it still made Gates a billionaire. Warren Buffet gave cash to companies he thought were undervalued and on hard times in exchange for ownership stakes. This worked out more frequently than not and made him wealthy without exploiting an…

> The Google founders are billionaires and their company has nothing to do with paying for cheap labor and up selling it.

Google executives (possibly not the founders personally) colluded with management at competing employers to reduce employee mobility and negotiating power.

The cost of getting caught wasn't much compared to the salary increases they saved. So, yes, the labor wasn't 'cheap' but it also wasn't the fair market value.

Re: Billionaires Build

#858

Post by webmaven » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #416

rahimnathwani wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you have to be able to capture the difference between the value of someone else’s work and what you pay them to do it" This implicitly assumes that "the value of someone else's work" is independent of the context in which that work is done. The reason Jeff can pay someone less than the value (to Jeff) of that person's work is that, somewhere other than Amazon, that person's work would be less valuable. The reason is…

> This implicitly assumes that "the value of someone else's work" is independent of the context in which that work is done. Not really, since no one is arguing that this worker-capital relationship should change. That the synergy exists is a good thing. But the tax burden of the two groups is what’s at issue. On the one side, you have the “they built it, they should keep it” folks. On the other side are those that be…

> We don’t have to become socialist or communist to start to provide greater emphasis on the contribution of workers and society as a whole.

That's... getting rather close to the definition of Market Socialism, actually (depending on how much greater the emphasis is). It's certainly firmly within the range of Social Democracy (which USAian conservatives would happily label as 'socialism').

Re: Billionaires Build

#859

Post by webmaven » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #793

WalterBright wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Beatles did not exploit the labor of people pressing their records to become wealthy. Those same people pressed records for other artists who did not make it big, or even fell flat. Their labor input was exactly the same. The difference was in the songs the Beatles created. The Beatles created those songs, not the laborers who pressed the records. Or take Stevie Nicks, who google reports is worth $100m. Are the s…

So let the beatles pocket their billion, and we'll collect most it back at the end of the tax year. How's that?

> So let the beatles pocket their billion, and we'll collect most it back at the end of the tax year. How's that?

Sounds about right. Meanwhile the owners of the capital are free to make money off the float (and pay capital gains rates on those profits).

Re: Billionaires Build

#860

Post by timeeater » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

glaive123 wrote: post #851

timeeater wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what percentage of rich people do you figure are such "crooks with suits and big smiles"? Of course crooks exist. Most people are not crooks, though. And especially the professionals you mention may have problems to persist. Like the shoddy dentist will be busy with lawsuits presumably. I still prefer those "private crooks" to people feeding on government money (not meaning people on social security, but people in…

So what percentage of corporate CEOs do you figure are "psychopaths"? Of course psychopaths exists. Most people are not psychopaths, though. And especially the CEOs you mention may have problems to persist. I still prefer those "CEO psychopaths" to people feeding on government money (people in useless jobs paid for with taxpayer money). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201...

I fail to see the relevance of your analogy? CEOs may or may not be psychopaths, but afaik it is not illegal to be a psychopath? Nor does it imply such a person will do evil things?

I personally think that the "successful pyschopaths" meme is also way overblown, but I don't really know. I think being a psychopath is actually a deficiency, not a super power. Also in business I think people who help other people tend to be more successful overall than the stereotypical ruthlessly selfish people.

Edit: I think you added the link later on, that cites 21% of CEOs to be psychopaths? I would wait for replication on that one. It reminds me of another thing I read where reading about economics allegedly turned people into psychopaths (which is of course bullshit - just because you learned about rational decisions, as perhaps most CEOs do at some point, doesn't mean you are a psychopath). I suspect the questionnaire or the study they used to determine the "21%" number may in fact be motivated by politics.