81–90 of 126 posts
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The exponential part ceases to be merit in any sense. It's quite arbitrary.
It’s not arbitrary. It’s defined by one’s relation to the means of production. This is capitalism in a nutshell.
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> The ultra rich don't pay the current tax rate, why would raising a tax they don't pay have any effect? The ultra rich don't pay the current nominal income tax rate, because their income isn’t of the kind subject to income taxes, much less the additional taxes levied on labor income. The simple solution to that is to wipe away the distinctions about source of income in taxation policy (for payroll taxes, that means…
> That's only true if you raise taxes on the kind and amount of income that doctors and lawyers typically make. That's what Biden wants to do, terrible idea. Removing favorable treatment of long term capital gains is also a terrible idea. Ideally, there should be 0% gains tax (and income tax), but people will settle for favorable treatment compared to income tax.
Why? Your income is disproportionally dependent on investments and expenditure made by society to pave the way to your ability to generate income. It's fair that those who benefit the most from society also help the most to preserve its uplifting impact on the people.
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It can be argued that the barely-rich are also a huge part of "the problem." Collectively, they wield a great deal of influence through their wealth, networks, and savvy, and instead of using it to solve "the problem," they are largely involved in an intra-class competition to secure the next open actually-rich spot (or to simply maintain their standard of living, and particularly that of their children, regardless o…
Hate to burst your bubble but if you're one of the 25% of Americans who has an undergraduate degree or above you're likely part of that barely-rich who are part of "the problem" (from a global perspective making over $50k a year counts as barely rich). No one wants to admit to being a part of some "elite" minority because there's always someone else to blame who's higher up on the ladder. Ultimately policy makes chan…
The problem with that point of view is that ignores the corollary that most of the people are not held do blame because there's always someone else which is privileged and has direct control over their lives and livelihood.
Complaining that someone in the US earning $50k/year is responsible for the current state of affairs, when they can't even control their own lives, is miopic and sheer idiocy.
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> The children of the wealthy benefit from connections obtained while their parents are still alive. They receive a head start from birth. what about the children of parents who has good genes? If a child is athletic/healthy/good-looking, because their parents had good genes (and the good luck for a good combination), do you also resent that the child has a head-start? parents helping the children get ahead is natura…
> what about the children of parents who has good genes? That's an absurd comparison. Children of parents who are poor and don't have connections can still compete, but simply cannot benefit from their parents trafficking influence. If you really want to go with a sports metaphor, your example is like barring children from having a fair shot at sports because their parents aren't rubbing elbows with the coaches.
children of parents who don't have inheritance can still compete economically. So no, it's not an absurd comparison between inherited wealth and inherited genes.
I always like to say that we live in an exponential meritocracy , where your accumulated merit enhances your ability to accumulate more merit, eventually resulting in a small minority rapidly pulling ahead of the pack. Goes with the old adage: turning $100 into $120 is work; turning $100 million into $120 million is inevitable. Perhaps we need a linear meritocratic function.
There's way too much wealth worship in the US. Yeah most rich people are smart but not exponentially smarter than everyone else. A lot of wealth is luck. But wealthy people (like HN audience) don't like to hear that. I can't find a link but there's controlled studies that show the richer someone precieves they are, the more they attribute it to skill. Even in studies where outcomes are completely randomized. Usually…
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It doesn't need to be that complicated. Just increase taxes on the ultra wealthy to restore some semblance of equality. it doesn't need to be communist russia. Just a little more money going around.
Punitive taxes on a minority group to satiate the flames of envy? That doesn't sound like productive policy.
It isn't about envy. I don't want everyone to have luxury cars and steak dinners every night. But I also don't think we should be subsidizing wal-mart, amazon, megacorps who continually rape our country and avoid taxes. We don't need to tax that much more to help balance the scales.
Of course, we can keep ignoring it. And then there will be blood. Look at history - it will come.
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I don't really view the skill vs luck as a "moral" question. In the end, everything is luck - we're a product of our genes and our environment. What you do want to ask is what the proper incentives need to be to have a functional society. Fundamentally, we're just trying to define some social utility function and maximizing it.. but even ignoring political problems, it's hard to understand how wealth transfers (or an…
The socialist "nanny state" democracies in europe have much lower wealth inequality, and much higher social mobility than the US. To me, it's a clear blueprint to follow.
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It doesn't need to be that complicated. Just increase taxes on the ultra wealthy to restore some semblance of equality. it doesn't need to be communist russia. Just a little more money going around.
The ultra rich don't pay the current tax rate, why would raising a tax they don't pay have any effect? Until there's an aggressive international agreement on closing tax loopholes, raising the taxes only impacts the barely-rich (doctors, lawyers, etc).
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I think this is true, but only to a point. It's certainly true when the comparison is 10K to invest vs 10M, as liquidity of markets is not yet a concern and the investor with 10M is suddenly "accredited", can afford to pay a financial advisor, etc. However, at 10M vs 10B, the 10M investor is much better off. Liquidity becomes a real concern - there's just not that many assets or stocks that can support that kind of a…
That's just another way of expressing the concept that opportunities are limited. Large investors (like those with $10B) can certainly take advantage of small opportunities, but just not with their full amount. But because they are large, there may be multiple small opportunities which they participate in, and diversify on, rather than a small investor who must commit to a single small opportunity (which forces them…
Investing in yourself or projects you run is the main way to get rich, otherwise you just get average returns but if you invest in yourself you can bet on you being much better at doing things than the rest of the world expects.
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What you wrote is very scary. As someone who grew under a communist party rule, I have come to realize that there is no way to rationalize with communist. I think McCarthy came to the same realization.
This is literally the argument for why communism hasn't worked. Without private property it was impossible to motivate people to do some kinds of work - taking on risk, organizing production, and some kinds of innovation - to a sufficient degree and without many drawbacks. If someone found a way to motivate people to do those kinds of labour properly - and force doesn't work well for many reasons, so it would have to…
However this also means that as long as we keep the resource allocation thing mostly intact you can manipulate all other aspects of it, like adding lots of taxes, giving aid to the poor etc. None of that messes with the main feature of resource allocation, which is why Scandinavian countries still have good economies.