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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#841

Post by cloverich »

gmadsen wrote: post #815
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but OP meant the 90% of people would get access to opportunities like the millionaires today. So even if inequality would be wild, nobody would worry about “issues of the poor”, like food or healthcare bills.

that hypothetical can't exist though, so what is the point in entertaining it. The world have finite resources, money (no matter the inflation) is a way to ration this to people. Not every single person can have a mansion in SF.

Not a mansion in SF, but a super computer in their pocket? Point being, only some resources are limited, but wealth in general is not.

Re: Just Be Rich

#842

Post by molszanski »

Tepix wrote: post #574
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…

Plenty of those tech startups that make the rich richer are exploiting the poor.

1. If Jeff Bezos or Amazon would disappear tomorrow, would it make poor richer? No.

Would it improve Gini coefficient and society would be more equal? Yes.

2. Would taxing Amazon tomorrow make poor richer? Yes.

Would it improve Gini coefficient and society would be more equal? Yes.

Re: Just Be Rich

#843

Post by aantix »

pnutjam wrote: post #825
aantix wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The renter doesn’t hold the risk. They can walk away. If you want the profit, then hold the risk. If you want the freedom of mobility, then rent.

I see you've been rightly downvoted. In the US, landlords also hold little risk, especially if they are corporate. Renters are stuck by leases and in many states, have little recourse to do anything when the property goes bad and the landlord won't fix things.

>landlords also hold little risk

Feel free to expand upon the argument of real estate as a "little risk" investment.

>Renters are stuck by leases

Leases are on average, an order of magnitude shorter than mortgage loans. Less exposure, less risk. Your leverage is to walk away after a year.

Re: Just Be Rich

#844

Post by southerntofu »

krageon wrote: post #422
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.

> Extremists are always wrong. Absolutely true, but the sad reality is that after a while with a comfortable living situation people tend to vote against their own self-interest. This then leads to dismantling of safety nets, which certainly doesn't help radicalisation.

> after a while with a comfortable living situation people tend to vote against their own self-interest

There's probably some truth to that, but i don't think getting cozy is the only explanation. The "engineering of consent" is a thing, and in an era of mass corporate media owned by vicious psychopaths, proper information/journalism is hard to come by. Noam Chomsky has plenty to say on that topic, if you're interested

Re: Just Be Rich

#845

Post by ryandrake »

vishnugupta wrote: post #321
saberdancer wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Which means when you finish school, if you have a student loan you have negative wealth. If you finished a good school and can expect a decent career you are not in a bad situation even though your wealth is negative.

The point of the parent was that you aren’t in net debt if you own a tangible asset, like a house or a car, on loan. If push comes to shove you could sell off your house, move into a cheaper rental house, and clear the debt. Student loan gets you into negative wealth territory but not housing loan.

We forget so soon! Housing debt (which is secured with a tangible asset) can easily bring you into negative territory when your home value falls below your loan balance, which happens regularly, as real estate is cyclical.

Also, I'd bet many, if not most, car loans are underwater the first day the car is driven off the lot. Lots of people have to pay additional money to satisfy the loan, after selling their car.

Re: Just Be Rich

#846

Post by saemei »

eevilspock wrote: post #435
hyko wrote: post #421

I'm not sure why people think Paul Graham's perspective on wealth inequality is in response to a recent shift in public opinion; he's taken this position since at least 2004: http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html (the basic premise of that essay was that in the tradeoff between freedom and wealth inequality, the latter didn't matter because everyone's living standards are converging). From that essay: Materially and soc…

What's the non-paraphrased version of Feynman's words? I could use that quote.

You can read the full talk here: https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

Re: Just Be Rich

#847

Post by ryandrake »

camhart wrote: post #264
johnfn wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There isn't a finite amount of "wealth" in the world. You can go out and make wealth every single day. The rich obtaining more of it doesn't mean there's less left over for you and I. People need to be able to cover their needs. Food, housing, healthcare, and I'd be open to arguments in favor of education. But I don't see income inequality as bad necessarily. I see massive amounts of people unable to cover those need…

The proportion is zero-sum by definition, and that's what's important.

Even if the pie keeps growing for everyone, the rich are taking a bigger and bigger proportion of the pie, and proportion is what makes you poor. If I have 10% of a $10M the pie today and you have 90%, and tomorrow I have 5% of a $20M pie and you have 95%, then you have proportionally taken from me, and I am worse off, despite having the same absolute dollars "pie equity".

Re: Just Be Rich

#848

Post by cloverich »

jb775 wrote: post #811
jay_kyburz wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and would go further and argue that the lives of most middle class is perfectly fine right now. I think the lives of the bottom 20% could be improved, and I think that we should ask those at the top 10% to help them out. I think there are other more specific things we could worry about, like house prices out of control, nobody is paying to clean up the waste they produce, governments baling out rich people e…

Do you have any data to support anything you said here? The middle class has been getting decimated the past 20 years. They used to live comfortably on a single income, now both parents slave the week away and have even less purchasing power. Also, housing prices aren't "out of control" at all. Inflation is reducing the value of the dollar, and it's showing up in the real estate market. Inflation hurts anyone on a sa…

> and have even less purchasing power

How does that account for items we have today which were unavailable 20-30 years ago? E.g. even if I were rich in 1990 I wouldn't have a super computer in my pocket with access to infinite knowledge and entertainment.

> Inflation hurts anyone on a salary

And anyone with savings.

> They are reaping the benefits of the production processes and leaving everyone else with the pollution.

A CO2 tax would be more burdensome the further you go down the chain. Everyone is reaping the benefits there. Sure, _some_ mega corp executives get extra benefits, but in general waste producing fossil fuel burning ecosystem destroying processes have been the literal thing that has lifted people out of poverty. (To be clear I am very pro environmental regulation, climate change, etc, but am skeptical the impacts won't be felt the greatest at the bottom of the income brackets)

Re: Just Be Rich

#849

Post by paxys »

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…

Is there a global economy for basic healthcare? For rent? Home services? Insurance?

Most people are still at the mercy of the zip code they live in. The "global" economy has pushed wages down and made cheap goods cheaper, but claiming that a bottom 10% American has a good life because they are still the top 10% globally is idiotic.

Re: Just Be Rich

#850

Post by avyfain »

bkirkby wrote: post #561

As economist Russ Roberts often points out in these inequality discussions, the quintiles that are used to show growth only in the upper class does not refer to the same people over time. When you follow people over time, they generally move up into higher quintiles thus "getting richer." https://russroberts.medium.com/do-the-rich-capture-all-the-g... He also talks about "what happened in 1972" is more about demograp…

Interestingly, Roberts is one of the people who reviewed drafts of pg's essay, according to the notes.
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