Just Be Rich • Hacker News Board

Re: Just Be Rich

#831

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:11 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…

The multiplier should be the number of empty houses owned.

So if you have house A that you live in, whose tax bill is $10K, and house B that's empty, whose tax bill is $7K, then your total tax should be $17K.

If you additionally have house C that is also empty, whose tax bill is $8K, then your total tax should be $10K + ($7K + $8K) x 2 = $40K.

If you additionally have house D that is also empty, whose tax bill is $5K, then your total tax should be $10K + ($7K + $8K + $5K) x 3 = $70K.

This would strongly incentivize against this activity of having one person or entity simply hoovering up homes and treating them like bars of gold.

Re: Just Be Rich

#832

Post by bko » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #807

baron816 wrote: post #58

Inequality by itself is not a bad thing. Let's start from there. If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. Inequality is only bad if you're in a zero-sum game. The rich do have the power to extract rents and "rig the system" to ceme…

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't wor…

> I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't work like that. Quality of life is always measured relative to the people around us or to whom we are exposed in media or social media.

If you're looking for validation and happiness based on what you see in social media, quality of life is the least of your concerns.

Instead of accepting this as a matter of fact, why don't you look inward at the culture and ask yourself if this is a productive attitude to have, rather than trying to coerce the world to fit your view on human nature.

Re: Just Be Rich

#833

Post by SamBam » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

MikeUt wrote: post #618

nindalf wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say you inherited a home in the US valued at $2 million. You would pay 2% of that ($40,000) as property taxes, every year . If you can't afford to pay the tax, you would sell the house and pocket the $2 million. Is this so terrible? Doesn't seem to have stopped people investing in property.

That's buying a new house every 50 years. That's re-building all of the wealth your family spent generations accumulating, every 50 years. That's a direct disincentive to saving money and frugality - the more you save, the bigger your tax gets, while your income stays the same .

> the more you save, the bigger your tax gets

And the more you save, the more the returns on your money are. Wealth grows much faster than the tax.

If you have over $50 million (which is the target of this tax), or even if you have $5 million, you're not putting this in a savings account. Even just sticking it in an index fund and forgetting about it generates 8%, and has done so for decades.

Re: Just Be Rich

#834

Post by allendoerfer » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #475

allendoerfer wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social market economy. Socializing some things does not mean you have to put up red flags everywhere, hold big party meetings and kill all the intellectuals. You can still keep markets where they make sense and outcompete others in a global capitalist system. Extremists are always wrong.

> Socializing some things ... kill all the intellectuals This is a false dichotomy and huge oversimplification. > Extremists are always wrong. Another one. Who defines what's moderate and what's extreme? Completely rejecting slavering was called extreme, as universal suffrage was. The current economical system is destroying the planet and hence completely unsustainable. We need radical changes to survive.

> This is a false dichotomy and huge oversimplification.

Exactly. It is more or less the oversimplification Americans thinking about socialism do.

You are taking my human sentences and try to work with them like code. This conversation makes no sense. There is even an obvious nitpick counter to your slavery example (are/have been) but you are not interested in what I originally said anyway.

Re: Just Be Rich

#835

Post by camgunz » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #58

Inequality by itself is not a bad thing. Let's start from there. If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. Inequality is only bad if you're in a zero-sum game. The rich do have the power to extract rents and "rig the system" to ceme…

It's not just about QoL, income inequality corrupts political systems, which unravels everything else.

It's also worth saying that a very easy way of increasing the QoL of those at the bottom is to take a tiny fraction from those at the top.

And generally, people aren't talking about the average small business owner who makes $200k/yr profit. We're talking about people who have more than $50m in a big money vault. It's a straw man to replace people like pg with like, the people who run email octopus or your local credit union.

Re: Just Be Rich

#836

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

mordae wrote: post #161

inglor_cz wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? From what I see around me, people who have money are a constant target of other people who want to drop their beaks into it, so to say. Starting with distant relatives that got into trouble and suddenly found a familial love for them, continuing with various false friends, gold diggers of both sexes and people hustling investment opportunities. Ending with lawyers and doctors who might induce you to und…

Yes. Having extra cash means you can eat out (saves 1+ hour a day), buy an automated vacuum, dishwasher (extra 30 minutes a day), get a car or use taxi (1-2 hours, depending on location), hire a personal assistant (better organization, hard to estimate), get better medical care (less pain = better concentration)... You also have access to specialists. You can hire a lawyer, people to help you with research, people to…

Being rich is like getting extra at-bats in a baseball game. If you're normal or poor, you typically get one strike and you're out. You saved your capital, invested it, and if you fail, you're gone.

When you're rich, you get to swing several times at the ball. When you miss, you fall back to your wealth/family to support you while you save up for your next swing. Then, when you finally hit, as you're running the bases you can boast to everyone about how self-made your success is.

When you're filthy rich, you have infinite at-bats, and basically it doesn't matter how good a baseball player you are, you're going to win.

Re: Just Be Rich

#837

Post by danShumway » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #699

xbpx wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of a tiny wealth tax that is already lower than in many other countries? You think a relatively well off individual from a less wealthy country facing many systemic problems for business will pass up the opportunity to migrate to the US because they may need to pay a couple percent if they strike gold?

"facing many systemic problems for business" Like a wealth tax?

No, I don't think that's the kind of thing that GP means.

There are problems that your business faces once it's successful, and there are problems that prevent it from becoming successful.

This has come up in a number of other areas on HN. For example, scaling your technology is a problem you'd like to have, because it implies you actually have customers causing you to scale. Regardless of whether or not a wealth tax is a bad idea, it's certainly in the "problems you'd like to have" category.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's not a problem that business owners worry about, but it's a completely different category of problem from "I can't get my business off the ground at all." It's a problem that you only run into after you've (by many measures) already won the game.

Re: Just Be Rich

#838

Post by molszanski » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

ColFrancis wrote: post #711

molszanski wrote: post #280

The poor get poorer not because tech startups get richer. If we remove tech startups, the poor wood get poorer just as fast. The difference would be that there would be less tech-rich people to calculate the Gini coefficient. The real question is: "why poor are getting poorer?" It is a very complicated question involving taxes, capitalism and hundreds of broken policies and institutions, like mass incarceration that…

> The poor get poorer not because tech startups get richer. Not that Uber has made any money, but it's certainly dropped the price of taxis and their market. Someone got poorer.

> dropped the .. and their market.

"Taxi & Limousine Services in the US - Market Size" 2010 - 15bn 2019 - 39bn

It looks like they brought more money (and more people) into the industry

Re: Just Be Rich

#839

Post by dougmwne » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

leinadho wrote: post #827

dougmwne wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't wor…

Could it not be people's own responsibility to practice managing their perception of what they do have? This might be a more pragmatic solution for reducing social suffering, and I've found that you can learn to let material things have less importance in your life. Caveat: this is coming from someone in a relatively well-off country with decent welfare

A person can be mindful and minimalist, people will be Moloch. Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone.

Re: Just Be Rich

#840

Post by dougmwne » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #832

dougmwne wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't wor…

> I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't work like that. Quality of life is always measured relative to the people around us or to whom we are exposed in media or social media. If you're looking for validation and happiness based on what you see in social media, quality of…

If human nature wasn't greedy, vain and materialistic, the modern economy would not exist.