Just Be Rich • Hacker News Board

Re: Just Be Rich

#761

Post by Aunche » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

px43 wrote: post #664

yarcob wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't a "housing shortage". The problem is that interest rates are so low, so everyone who has a bit of money on the side tries to invest in the real estate market. The result is that for every house thats sold, there isn't just someone who wants it as a living space, but also 5 people who want it as an investment. So 5 people outbid each other, the highest bidder gets it, and then the sucker who wanted t…

My brilliant* idea to solve the real estate problem is to tax the hell out of properties that are sitting empty. Something like a 2x or 3x multiplier on property taxes or something, especially in densely populated areas, and especially in areas where there is rampant housing insecurity. The tax needs to be greater than the potential gamble of waiting for occupants. This should be both for residential and commercial u…

It's a myth that there are just a ton empty houses sitting idly like that. The reality is that the most expensive housing markets are also the ones with the least vacant. Even after a ton of people temporarily moved out of NYC during the pandemic, like me, the vacancy rate of NYC is still less than that of the entire US.

Re: Just Be Rich

#762

Post by jvanderbot » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #709

nindalf wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Bill Gates - terrible guy. Spending money trying to eradicate diseases that kill poor people. What's worse, here's him in 2015 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af6b_wyiwI ) wasting money and faffing on about some pandemic. As if that's going to happen, and even if it does the pandemic won't affect rich countries in any way.

Sure I’ll give credit for his recent philanthropy, but the man crushed a generation of innovative software companies under his heel. Fortunately he didn’t see the web coming and failed to stop Linux, but make no mistake was not a good person for most of his career, and we are still feeling the effects of the damage he did to the software world.

Being competitive and successful does not make someone a bad person. Being on the other side of open source does not either. You can't judge a person's character by these things.

If you want to focus on just his business, initially, Gates was a tech hero, upsetting the incumbents as much as any modern disruptor. His company came to be known as a villian, was itself upset, and is going through a reinvention period during which I think they are doing really good things. But none of that should be about his character. He played the game and won, then got out and focused on more important things.

Re: Just Be Rich

#763

Post by busterarm » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

enkid wrote: post #675

laurent92 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entrenched money stabilizes the world. Imagine putting 10% of the billionaires of the world on a boat, those who pull the strings of their empires to keep their nations into status-quo, and imagine the boat sinks. A year later, all those entrenched interests dematerialize, fewer powers hold people together, diplomacy isn’t as balanced as it has been when billionaires weighed in, and war starts. That’s the story of th…

First, the Titanic sunk in 1912. Second, these are two events that happened around the same time. That does not mean they are at all related. Titanic primarily carried American and British passengers. The start of World War I primarily involved Austria, Serbia, Germany, and Russia. It's hard to see how British or American Millionaires would have influenced those events to stop the war.

Banking, at the level of being the financier of nations, was a global industry then as it is now. Many of those people at the time were British or American and a number of them died on that boat.

Re: Just Be Rich

#764

Post by beervirus » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #748

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…

Part of your article is a bit confusing to me - when you say this: "Strange. No one is proposing a tax that would apply to all your assets." Are you saying that the wealth tax proposed does not apply to assets and only applies to actual liquid cash holdings?

That is, of course, exactly what Warren et al. are proposing.

Re: Just Be Rich

#765

Post by webdevadventure » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

hellbannedguy wrote: post #627

adriancr wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The aristocrats and oligarchs of the olden days might have been corrupt, debauched and half-useless, but at least they knew it. Corruption is an incredible poverty multiplier, combined with debauched and half-useless is just insane. Living in a society led by such people isn't fair by any means. Arrogant new wealth is 100x better then old corrupt wealth that only seeks to entrench itself and friends. New wealth in…

Bill Gates 501c3 puts back less than 1 percent off their benovelent humanitarian money back to the United States. The country that coddled him, an his connected mother. Personally, I think these good ole nonprofit boys; Billy, Zuck, Warren, etc. are tax dodgers. Obama wanted to reform nonprofit regulations, but chickened out.

It should have been Gary Kildall's company.

Re: Just Be Rich

#766

Post by mdorazio » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #725

mdorazio wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and Russ both need to take a look at [1]. Socioeconomic mobility has massively fallen in the US over time. [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar...

This doesn't contradict Roberts. The chart at the top of your linked article shows that even for Gen X, poor people generally out earn their parents, and rich people are far less likely to out earn their parents. Roberts just elides the fact that historically, an even higher percentage of poor and middle class people would out earn their parents. So his statistics are not wrong, he just presents them in a certain lig…

That’s fair. To me the context of dropping mobility is more important than the absolute percentages.

Re: Just Be Rich

#767

Post by bitmunk » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

flexie wrote: post #415

heavyset_go wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American history and culture is heavily influenced by the Protestants that made up the early US. The Protestant work ethic is a commonly referenced aspect of American culture, and most Americans regardless of religion are not free of its influence.

Yes, but when literally none of the founders of the largest IT-companies - the very richest of the "Nouveau riche" that we are talking about - are Protestant, whereas much of the old money is, the comment is quite off.

They might not be Protestants, but the cultural framework created by them the is still there.

Re: Just Be Rich

#768

Post by ihyfhgyfhth » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

sharperguy wrote: post #533

saddlerustle wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every mainstream economist put the blame for this squarely on the massively increased regulation of the housing market since the 70s causing a massive decrease in the amount of new construction, not wealth itself.

I keep hearing people debate about why housing prices are so high but it confuses me. Didn't housing prices fall dramatically in the 2008 financial crisis? Didn't various governments put vast amounts of money into the economy in an effort to ensure house prices returned to their previous levels and continued to rise? It seems as if high housing prices are an explicit policy of most major powers at this time.

Yes, exactly.

https://betterdwelling.com/canada-says-property-bubble-not-g...

Re: Just Be Rich

#769

Post by mdorazio » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

stephanheijl wrote: post #638

mdorazio wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need to revisit your assumption about wealth inequality in The Netherlands. It’s on par with that of most of Europe, significantly lower than in the US [1]. [1] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SI.POV.GINI/rank...

You linked an income inequality graph, which is distinct from wealth. If you look at the list on Wikipedia [1] and sort by Wealth Gini (2019) you will find that the Netherlands are #1. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...

Ah you’re right. I misread the parent comment. Thanks.

Re: Just Be Rich

#770

Post by singron » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

goos wrote: post #690

Bootvis wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really surprised. It went up a lot from 2018 and 2019 so I don’t fully trust the result but that might be bias talking.

Our friendly Australian economics man made a concise video about it a couple of months ago[1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4qdCs54ZE

TL;DW Very liberal mortgage policy that encourages very low or negative wealth on the low end, and very old money that remains concentrated despite recent income equality.