You Are Jeff Bezos • Hacker News Board

Re: You Are Jeff Bezos

#91

Post by triceratops » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #77

triceratops wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you own a house and all of your neighbors sell theirs at a 30% markup, should you pay taxes on making $300,000 (for a 1mil house) this year? In most places (not California) your property will likely be assessed higher and your taxes will be commensurately higher next year. Your house's increased value isn't treated like realized income, but its effect on your taxes isn't 0 either.

> Your house's increased value isn't treated like realized income, but its effect on your taxes isn't 0 either. Yes true. My point is articles about “tax the rich” prey on people not understanding this. The narrative is that “X rich person made billions and didn’t pay the same 30% tax as you!” … no they didn’t make anything. The value of their assets went up. They might even have negative cashflow to sustain that.

"Tax the rich" people get the details wrong, but I understand where they're coming from.

For most people with a consequential net worth, that net worth is tied up in their primary residence. If its value goes up, they pay higher taxes. Even if a rental property's assessed value goes up, rent goes up.

This doesn't really apply to the ultra-rich. Unless they're real-estate billionaires, and even then I'm sure they have better tax strategies than regular people.

Re: You Are Jeff Bezos

#92

Post by MrPatan » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 7:33 AM UTC

belval wrote: post #35

noja wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it mean that we should tax wealth? Absolutely not. If he takes out a loan guaranteed by his wealth, how should that be taxed?

I don't claim to have all the answers, I'm just a software developer. For what it's worth, Jeff Bezos should pay taxes that match his lifestyle I 100% agree, but saying "he has 136B$ in the bank and we should tax that amount" is making several leaps in logic that I can't get behind.

Bezos doesn't pay VAT and sales tax on the stuff he buys to have his lifestyle? What's the loophole there?

Re: You Are Jeff Bezos

#93

Post by MrPatan » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

throwoutway wrote: post #79

missedthecue wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a budget of almost $70 billion per year. Someone should fill them in that the internet figured out how to solve homelessness for a one-time payment only fraction of what they spend year-in year-out.

What are we paying them $70B for?!

A self-perpetuating bureaucracy. Paper pushers who are unfit for any actual productive work. It does combat homelessness in a way, I suppose.

Re: You Are Jeff Bezos

#94

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #89

unethical_ban wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first quote is philosophy. The second quote is fact. Welcome to the world. Everyone applies their moral model to the world. If you claim you don't, then you are applying your moral model of "members of society have no obligation to help those who are inherently damaged by society" to the world.

The second fact implies a moral judgement. And of course we all have our moral models. But not all of us want to forcefully impose our model onto others. To do that is narrow-minded fundamentalism.

Yes, I suppose it implies that gigantic wealth gaps in a single society are a negative thing.

You are imposing your moral model on the world. Your moral model is "the system works fine and anyone suffering from it should not try to alter the system in any way".

Re: You Are Jeff Bezos

#95

Post by FredPret » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #94

FredPret wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second fact implies a moral judgement. And of course we all have our moral models. But not all of us want to forcefully impose our model onto others. To do that is narrow-minded fundamentalism.

Yes, I suppose it implies that gigantic wealth gaps in a single society are a negative thing. You are imposing your moral model on the world. Your moral model is "the system works fine and anyone suffering from it should not try to alter the system in any way".

Fair point. In defense of my moral model, it's backed up by this idea: are things perfect? No. Is the system working? Yes, and astonishingly well. Is there a better way to get from here to there, where "there" is some improved state of prosperity and development? No. Human nature is what it is, and our systems must exploit our nature rather than combat it.

It's all based on measurable positive outcomes, rather than some theoretical idea that being eye-wateringly rich is somehow bad - morally bad, or bad for society. That idea is rooted in the old, pre-growth, pre-industrial paradigm, when all wealth was seized by force in some way. Today, some wealth is from violence, but the overwhelming majority is new money that was created out of nothing but good old human intelligence.

Here are some references backing up my idea that the system works.

Here's one focusing on the most important metric, human development: http://hdr.undp.org/en/dashboard-human-development-anthropoc...

This one is from the World Bank. You have to go into the metrics and countries. There are metrics that aren't of interest here, but some are, like access to clean cooking fuels, or electricity. But it's easy to see that most of it is pointing in the right direction. https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indi...

Here's a book about all the things that ordinarily fuel existential pessimism: https://www.amazon.com/Fewer-Richer-Greener-Prosperity-Popul...

Here's a book about how innovation progresses exponentially, and what it means for the masses: https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp...

Here's that classic video by Hans Rosling giving us some perspective on the progress over the last century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

Here's another video on the same thing, by Kurzgesagt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ

EDIT: here's another fun one: https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index