What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use • Hacker News Board

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#181

Post by slashdev » Tue, May 25, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

whydoibother wrote: post #180

slashdev wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Cuba and Vietnam only improved once they (partially) embraced capitalism. Up to that point they've been a scathing indictment of communism. Note I said communist, not socialist, which might include Scandinavian counties, and works just fine. If you disagree, you don't know your history. Get educated.

How did Cuba and Vietnam improve? What was wrong to begin with? What is the difference between communism and socialism?

Those are things you can literally Google.

I visited Cuba recently. It's improving now that they're embracing capitalism, partially.

But I still saw people plowing fields with oxen. I've seen very poor people in developing countries, but I haven't seen that first hand. The level of poverty in Cuba is pretty bad still.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#182

Post by whydoibother » Tue, May 25, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #181

whydoibother wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did Cuba and Vietnam improve? What was wrong to begin with? What is the difference between communism and socialism?

Those are things you can literally Google. I visited Cuba recently. It's improving now that they're embracing capitalism, partially. But I still saw people plowing fields with oxen. I've seen very poor people in developing countries, but I haven't seen that first hand. The level of poverty in Cuba is pretty bad still.

You are so educated, surely you can provide a short summary explaining your views.

>But I still saw people plowing fields with oxen. I've seen very poor people in developing countries, but I haven't seen that first hand. The level of poverty in Cuba is pretty bad still.

Do you think that has anything to do with the US embargo on Cuba? (Y'know, one of those external forces I was talking about originally).

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#183

Post by nybble41 » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:32 PM UTC

mhuffman wrote: post #170

alasdair_ wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The seller is richer by $X but you are richer by something worth $X, so it is really a wash. It’s NOT a wash though - 2X is a bigger absolute number than the sum of the two pre-trade inputs. Or put another way, if I trade some of my giant stack of hotdogs for some of your giant stack of hot dog buns, we are BOTH better off and value has increased.

No, it is a wash, and so is your scenario. It is not a 2X gain. They both had an X and swapped it with each other. In you scenario, I am poorer of hotdog buns and you are poorer of hotdogs, but I am richer of hotdogs and you are richer of hotdog buns. You insinuate, but don't state, that maybe the completed hotdogs are worth more than either of the parts individually (ie. if I had one bun and one dog they would be wo…

> maybe the completed hotdogs are worth more than either of the parts individually

Yes, this was obviously the entire point. You can assume that this is true in any case where people voluntarily agree to trade anything: For each party to the trade, what they receive is worth more to them than what they gave in exchange. If it were merely a wash no one would bother trading. Either party could be wrong about the expected gain in any particular instance—economic calculation is not an exact science—but on the whole across many trades each individual can reasonably expect a net positive value from the trade; i.e. market exchange is not zero-sum. And since both parties benefit, there is a net economic benefit from the trade as a whole.

The point of economics and trade is to create value by allocating goods to their most-valued use. The goods themselves remain the same but the value increases with each trade. It is not correct to look at an exchange of good A for good B and conclude that goods A and B must be of exactly equal value from all perspectives, and that therefore no value has been created in the process. Good-A-with-new-owner has more economic value than Good-A-with-previous-owner, and the same is true for good B.

Going back to the original example, if I'm selling hot dogs for cash then what I want is cash (or something else I can buy with it). I have no use for hot dogs, as such. If for whatever reason I were unable to sell them they would just go to waste. By selling a hot dog I gain some cash and lose one hot dog, which (unsold) is worth much less than the asking price. I might even have to pay to dispose of any extras when they expire. The buyer likewise valued the hot dog more than the cash at the time of purchase or they wouldn't have made the trade. After all, one can't eat money.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#184

Post by mhuffman » Wed, May 26, 2021, 12:19 AM UTC

nybble41 wrote: post #183

mhuffman wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is a wash, and so is your scenario. It is not a 2X gain. They both had an X and swapped it with each other. In you scenario, I am poorer of hotdog buns and you are poorer of hotdogs, but I am richer of hotdogs and you are richer of hotdog buns. You insinuate, but don't state, that maybe the completed hotdogs are worth more than either of the parts individually (ie. if I had one bun and one dog they would be wo…

> maybe the completed hotdogs are worth more than either of the parts individually Yes, this was obviously the entire point. You can assume that this is true in any case where people voluntarily agree to trade anything: For each party to the trade, what they receive is worth more to them than what they gave in exchange. If it were merely a wash no one would bother trading. Either party could be wrong about the expect…

>Yes, this was obviously the entire point. You can assume that this is true in any case where people voluntarily agree to trade anything: For each party to the trade, what they receive is worth more to them than what they gave in exchange.

I do not necessarily agree with your comment, but it is irrelevant to my main point.

Even if it were always 100% true that both parties somehow gained value (that could be equated to money), if the differences between those two gained amounts unequal, then the agent-model works just the same ... at some point one (or a few) agents will still end up with all the money!

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#185

Post by javert » Wed, May 26, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #171

javert wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of those things are definitely untrue. When I lived in the US, the vast majority of my taxes went to the federal government and didn't come back in local benefits like schools and roads. (Sure, federal money comes back to universities in the form of research grants which pay for foreign PhD students to work in bullshit paper mills. I've seen that firsthand. The wastage of federal money is near 100%.) Separately,…

~$60 billion/year of federal funds goes to transportation. ~$1,000 billion/year goes to health care. ~100 billion/year goes to education. The money we pay in federal taxes (whether it be income or other taxes) doesn't just vanish into the ether, it comes back via various government programs.

Yet our transportation infrastructure is decaying; our healthcare is among the worst in the world--the governments pays AND we pay out of pocket AND it still sucks; and our education sucks.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#186

Post by nybble41 » Wed, May 26, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

mhuffman wrote: post #184

nybble41 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe the completed hotdogs are worth more than either of the parts individually Yes, this was obviously the entire point. You can assume that this is true in any case where people voluntarily agree to trade anything: For each party to the trade, what they receive is worth more to them than what they gave in exchange. If it were merely a wash no one would bother trading. Either party could be wrong about the expect…

>Yes, this was obviously the entire point. You can assume that this is true in any case where people voluntarily agree to trade anything: For each party to the trade, what they receive is worth more to them than what they gave in exchange. I do not necessarily agree with your comment, but it is irrelevant to my main point. Even if it were always 100% true that both parties somehow gained value (that could be equated…

> …both parties somehow gained value (that could be equated to money)…

Value cannot be equated to money. This is the point you keep missing. Money is a specific good while value is subjective and variable. While you can say that at any given point in time a certain "agent" valued one good more or less than another, based on observed behavior, it makes no sense to try to compare the magnitude of the values placed on a good by two different "agents". Moreover the same agent can value a good more than its price (in money) at one time, and yet value the same amount of money more than an equivalent good at another time; the fact that someone is willing to pay $5 for one hot dog does not imply that they would be willing to pay $10 for two. In general, barring the limited cases where items are more useful as a set than they are individually, the more one has of something (even money) the less one is willing to give to obtain more of the same.

If there were an "agent" that always valued money over every other good, never needed to buy anything to sustain itself, and had an unlimited supply of goods to sell (such as labor over an unlimited time period), perhaps they could end up with all the money. That's a totally unrealistic scenario, of course, but there is a bigger problem: If the total supply of money is held by a single entity then it is no longer a customary means of indirect exchange, and thus no longer money. People would settle on some other means of exchange and the (former) money would become worthless as currency.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#187

Post by eloff » Wed, May 26, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

medvezhenok wrote: post #103

eloff wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's factually incorrect. It's easy to make a list of rich people specifically saying tax the rich more. Leaving that aside, the 1% pay 38.5% of taxes, which seems quite fair as is. We already tax the rich quite heavily. I'd rather the focus be on compliance. Close the loopholes and catch the tax evaders. Wealth taxes, if you look at examples elsewhere both present and historically, are hard to do well. I worry the…

I think we're missing the forest for the trees by focusing on exactly what the tax rates are and how much is "fair". Money at the top levels is not at all like money for the rest of us. For a middle class citizen, money is about consumption and freedom to do what you want (with enough of it). At the top end of the distribution, money is no longer about consumption or freedom (since you can never realistically consume…

I think actually this a valid concern. A billion dollars is a ridiculous level of wealth that no person should need.

But if you implement higher taxes at the to end, past what point do those people just leave, or leave on paper. There is an inflection point where the tax would actually do more harm than good. And nobody knows where it is. I'd like to see us get closer to it though, there is room to raise taxes on the very wealthy.

A bigger problem at that level is loopholes and compliance though.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#188

Post by mhuffman » Wed, May 26, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

nybble41 wrote: post #186

mhuffman wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, this was obviously the entire point. You can assume that this is true in any case where people voluntarily agree to trade anything: For each party to the trade, what they receive is worth more to them than what they gave in exchange. I do not necessarily agree with your comment, but it is irrelevant to my main point. Even if it were always 100% true that both parties somehow gained value (that could be equated…

> …both parties somehow gained value (that could be equated to money)… Value cannot be equated to money. This is the point you keep missing. Money is a specific good while value is subjective and variable. While you can say that at any given point in time a certain "agent" valued one good more or less than another, based on observed behavior, it makes no sense to try to compare the magnitude of the values placed on a…

I wildly disagree with nearly everything you have written here.

Some notes:

>Value cannot be equated to money. This is the point you keep missing.

Out of curiosity, how do you think trade of any sort works in a capitalist society? In almost any case you can imagine there has been some conversion of money for a trade to be able to take place.

> That's a totally unrealistic scenario, of course, but there is a bigger problem: If the total supply of money is held by a single entity then it is no longer a customary means of indirect exchange, and thus no longer money. People would settle on some other means of exchange and the (former) money would become worthless as currency.

Would the new means of exchange be the "money" then?

On computer simulations, yes, one person ends up with all the money. And of course in the real world that is not the case. It ends up an oligarchy ... up until the "poors" revolt! You will notice that this has happened many, many times throughout history.