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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#251

Post by teapourer »

nindalf wrote: post #151

OP mentions PG’s article arguing against a wealth tax. That article is short, simple and to the point - Modelling a Wealth Tax ( http://www.paulgraham.com/wtax.html ). It is so compelling, but also misleading and wrong. Its not easy to spot the sleights of hand he uses. I wrote more about it here - Modelling a Wealth Tax Correctly ( https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/wealth-tax/ ). And yet, I think the simplicity of PG’s…

You have a glaring mistake in your very first paragraph: 2% of $60 million is $1.2 million, not $120k. The calculations on your Google sheet look correct though.

Re: Just Be Rich

#252

Post by rocqua »

kjcharles wrote: post #144
ac29 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World population crossed 4B in the 1970s and 5B in the 1980s, now we are about to cross 8B in the next few years. I agree with your point about real estate becoming more heavily securitized, as well as being used as a method to escape capital controls. But, you cant ignore the fact that there are a lot more people both rich and working class competing for those major world city houses than there were 40 or 50 years a…

But the problem is the supply of housing hasn't kept up with that demand due to artificial limits placed on the market. Single-family zoning has made it illegal to build more of the dense housing that's needed in cities today. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities...

Note, that kind of zoning is US specific issue. The situation zoning wise is quite different in Europe. At the same time Europe also has a housing crisis.

Re: Just Be Rich

#253

Post by imtringued »

nindalf wrote: post #151

OP mentions PG’s article arguing against a wealth tax. That article is short, simple and to the point - Modelling a Wealth Tax ( http://www.paulgraham.com/wtax.html ). It is so compelling, but also misleading and wrong. Its not easy to spot the sleights of hand he uses. I wrote more about it here - Modelling a Wealth Tax Correctly ( https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/wealth-tax/ ). And yet, I think the simplicity of PG’s…

>They assume that the superrich can't just leave.

This isn't even a downside. In a savings glut this is actually a desired outcome. Of course we don't want literally everyone to leave, only those on the margin.

Re: Just Be Rich

#254

Post by ElKrist »

nindalf wrote: post #151

OP mentions PG’s article arguing against a wealth tax. That article is short, simple and to the point - Modelling a Wealth Tax ( http://www.paulgraham.com/wtax.html ). It is so compelling, but also misleading and wrong. Its not easy to spot the sleights of hand he uses. I wrote more about it here - Modelling a Wealth Tax Correctly ( https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/wealth-tax/ ). And yet, I think the simplicity of PG’s…

Yes that's very helpful.

I cannot imagine any founder being deterred to start a company because of this wealth tax. With or without it you'd be very rich under PG's assumptions

Re: Just Be Rich

#255

Post by johnfn »

camhart wrote: post #247

Income inequality is growing, yes. But are the wealthy somehow responsible for it? Is their "getting richer" directly responsible for it? There seems to be a growing consensus on the left that they are. I have yet to see a convincing argument to show this though. Someone who builds a company worth 100m didn't have to steal money from me (or anyone else) to do it. If they did steal, then that's what needs fixed. Preve…

I’m stuck on the second sentence of your argument. If the wealthy aren’t responsible for income inequality, then who is?

An action doesn’t have to be illegal for us to condone it. Do you like income inequality? No? Then let’s take measures to stop it.

Re: Just Be Rich

#256

Post by vishnugupta »

curo wrote: post #228
Barrin92 wrote: post #49

I'm just gonna quote what I think is a very important part from the Graham piece itself >" People who don't look any deeper than the Gini coefficient look back on the world of 1982 as the good old days, because those who got rich then didn't get as rich. But if you dig into how they got rich, the old days don't look so good. In 1982, 84% of the richest 100 people got rich by inheritance, extracting natural resources,…

Can't one just counter his arguments without assigning nefarious intent? It feels conspiratorial at times. - Quoting your comment: "The real sinister psychological thing going on behind the Graham argument is that..." - Quoting a line from the article: "His seemingly impartial and logical writing attempts to hide his true intentions."

Perhaps inferring nefarious intent is unwarranted. However if you follow PG's Twitter stream a reasonably clear pattern does emerge.

- Denounce critics of happiness industry.

- Play-down the idea of minimum support framework. In general, play down community and governmental support infrastructure in favour of individual's agency.

- The current crop of rich people, by and large, earned it and their way of earning wealth is objectively better than earlier ones. So they not only deserve that wealth but also deserve the way it's been accumulated.

- In today's world anyone can be rich and so if you aren't rich then it's your problem.

- Tech will eat the world. Journalists who couldn't foresee Amazon and its ilk's rise are idiots who don't understand exponential curve.

I have dramatised the theme but it's not far off.

I won't judge if any of these are right or not because at the end of the day they are all opinions and he's entitled to have them based on his world view. Someone with a different world view and experience (such as me, for instance) will not agree with them and that's OK.

That said, based on the pattern above it's easy to see how can one assign intent to PG's posts.

Re: Just Be Rich

#257

Post by EvilEy3 »

hit8run wrote: post #217

That's actually what I do the whole day. I give people good advice. I call myself a generous problem fixer. Yesterday a poor man was complaining that the steel company he worked for closed a few years ago and since then he did not get any job. I saved his life by telling him the following: "The solution to your problem is easy. Stop being poor and start being rich. You made a mistake by choosing to be poor so my seco…

Nice! Can you also write a book on "to solve inequality we just need to stop inequality and make everyone richer"?

Re: Just Be Rich

#258

Post by bo0tzz »

camhart wrote: post #247

Income inequality is growing, yes. But are the wealthy somehow responsible for it? Is their "getting richer" directly responsible for it? There seems to be a growing consensus on the left that they are. I have yet to see a convincing argument to show this though. Someone who builds a company worth 100m didn't have to steal money from me (or anyone else) to do it. If they did steal, then that's what needs fixed. Preve…

> Someone who builds a company worth 100m didn't have to steal money from me (or anyone else) to do it.

Wage theft makes up the major part of all theft in the US [1]. At least some part of the value of companies is coming from this theft. As an example, look at Amazon and how they treat their warehouse and delivery workers. They're not just working them like this for the sake of it, but rather it's an example of concious wage theft in order to save money and, thus, increase the value of the company.

1: https://www.tcworkerscenter.org/2018/09/wage-theft-vs-other-...

Re: Just Be Rich

#259

Post by rlonn »

reader_mode wrote: post #209
sai_c wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably not the place to say the following, but I just have to. Reading your comment nearly made me cry, because it (strikingly) reminded me of my own story. You are not alone. Keep your head up (as you seem to always have done), and if you can, make peace with the past and your parents. This took me a LOT of time, but it helped me. Thank you for sharing your story.

Thank you, it's been a while now since I started improving things so it's easier to look at this more objectively. I was harsh on my parents in that post, they were dysfunctional but my mother loved all of us in her own way and spent her whole life arround us, and I can't say a lot of good things about my father - dealing with my mother in those days would break anyone. I'm on good terms with them now and they are in…

I wonder if things would have turned out the same if your mother hadn't cared about you. My theory is that love from parents and family growing up is hugely important for a happy life.

Hard to optimise through political solutions, unfortunately. Just handing out money probably won't help so much, like you observed. Generous parental leave rules might be useful.

Re: Just Be Rich

#260

Post by golemiprague »

d_silin wrote: post #7

A lot of people who are just as smart and motived as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will never be able to start their own companies and get rich. Because they have family obligations that take priority. Because they live outside high-income countries. Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. Because they may have made a crippling mistake in their pasts that now prev…

How many people become Jobs or Musk anyway? You need a lot of stars to align in order to get to this level. What matters is how most of the population is doing, not some very extreme people on the edge of the bell curve.

I also don't think being poor is the end of the world, there are many poor people who manage to change their position within one generation, like poor new immigrants, and many middle class who fall back to poverty like many black families. Money doesn't solve inherent problem in the family and community.

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