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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#291

Post by Draiken »

WalterBright wrote: post #243
devbent wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have faith that an Olympic athlete is a lot better about making diet and exercise decisions than I am. Smart athletes let technocrats (e.g. scientists and doctors) make those decisions for them! In the case or billionaires, we know Zuckerberg is really good at making social media apps. That doesn't mean he's good at anything else! Plenty of talented rich people have demonstrated that given the chance they'll lose…

I bet you'll find their track record is a lot better than that of non-wealthy people. Most non-wealthy people I know do a lousy job of managing their finances. Frontline ran an episode a few years ago about 401k plans. They found that the wealthier the employee was, the better returns they had on the company 401k plan, despite the fact that the plan was identical for all the employees.

What a load of crap. Capitalism rewards existing capital. These people have opportunities 99.999999% will never have and still they got lucky. It's not about competence. It never is.

Our current society rewards people that can lie, cheat and backstab while punishing those who care about anything other than profits. Just take a look at SBF and all the startup snake oil culture and it's clear they're not competent at anything that helps society.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#292

Post by gmac »

jimbokun wrote: post #208
dbingham wrote: post #6

Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…

> I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Where's the empirical evidence that such a cutoff benefits society as a whole? > I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker owned economy - in which businesses are democratic institutions governed by the people who do the work involved. I like the German system of giving labor a board seat. We…

There’s decent evidence (backing up clear intuition) that wellbeing scales with the log of income. There’s also decent evidence for losses being about twice as painful as gains are pleasurable. Moving money from richer to poorer people should therefore increase average wellbeing as long as the richer people are sufficiently richer, or as long you can make the loss feel like a foregone gain instead.

I also like the sound of the German system.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#294

Post by jonathankoren »

cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

But it’s not productive wealth is it? It’s just stock. It’s Locked up value that he hordes like a dragon. That money isn’t actually being used to generate anything. Even when it is spent, it’s just financial products that generate money through financial transactions instead of actual goods and services.

This has been the case since the 1980s when capital gains started being taxed below income, and the carried interest loophole was created. In fact, this is a well known economic phenomenon. Some would go as far as to say that it is an intentional outcome of the policy.

In the end, the problem with Bezos and the rest of the oligarchs is the same problem with monopolies, it’s a command economy. Only instead of being dictated by some unelected government bureaucrats in a totalitarian state, it’s a a bunch unelected rich dudes with dreams of a totalitarian state.

It’s an unhealthy economy.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#295

Post by rajup »

ryandrake wrote: post #218
kuratkull wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at each valuable item that you use often, now look up the salary of the leader of the company that made it. Edit: You wouldn't have that item without that compensation. This should be more traumatic than people make it out to be. You wouldn't have your iphones, twitters, facebooks, vr goggles, steams, ikea tables, etc.

You're giving a preposterous amount of credit to executives for the value that is mostly being created by the lower level workers. So, if every CxO-level leader in the world disappeared tomorrow (or if their compensations simply got capped arbitrarily), nothing would get built ever again?

Well, if every CxO-level leader disappeared how are decisions made? By popular vote?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#296

Post by germandiago »

yellowapple wrote: post #182
nobleach wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has worked extremely hard to acquire assets great than 15 million, who do you suggest has the authority to come and take some of it away from me. And what will they do with the resources they confiscate?

By what authority are those assets "yours" in the first place? Whence did those assets originate?

I suspect it is not someone that came and gave it for free.

So I would say they should belong to the keeper right now.

And if it was a gift, it would still be a property transfer. So still his.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#297

Post by samatman »

crotchfire wrote: post #268

Will you cap the wealth of corporations too? Because if not, people with insatiable appetites will simply seek control of those corporations rather than direct control of piles of money. Personally I'm an advocate of the exact opposite of what seems to be proposed here: controls on corporate size rather than individual wealth. Living cells don't grow without bounds; at a certain point they get too big and are forced…

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be, without bothering to argue why that might be.

I don't see why that would be true, and abundant evidence that both large and small corporations add value to the world.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#298

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #180
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the blurb does literally say, "No-one deserves to be a millionaire." That threshold is the wrong choice, at least with prices where they are today. If you do the math, millionaire is just about where your assets start to balance your liabilities. By liabilities, I mean the cost of a modest and frugal life. In that fuller accounting, the millionaire is merely the freedman, the person who has climbed out of the d…

ACA subsidies or, in most states, expanded Medicaid would be available for health insurance for someone living off $1 million in assets. You can get an apartment in a cheap city for under $800 a month. In a cheaper city it will most likely be downtown, and that will be a bad thing.

Touché.

I forgot about subsidies, once your income gets that low. (Remembered that marginal tax rates would be low, at least.)

The difference between "cheap city downtown" and "expensive city downtown" is an interesting phenomenon. It isn't a hard and fast rule, but you're right about the general pattern.

It's also true that I could have aimed even lower than I did. If I'd assumed roommates in a larger apartment, I could have ended up with lower numbers.

If you really wanted to be a starving artist, you could probably get by on $1k/month. So then, as little as $400k invested plus a $30k cash cushion might suffice. It'd be pretty rough though if you were trying to pull it off in the US. Honestly we're starting to get into food-stamp territory.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#299

Post by crotchfire »

samatman wrote: post #297
crotchfire wrote: post #268

Will you cap the wealth of corporations too? Because if not, people with insatiable appetites will simply seek control of those corporations rather than direct control of piles of money. Personally I'm an advocate of the exact opposite of what seems to be proposed here: controls on corporate size rather than individual wealth. Living cells don't grow without bounds; at a certain point they get too big and are forced…

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be, without bothering to argue why that might be. I don't see why that would be true, and abundant evidence that both large and small corporations add value to the world.

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be

No, in fact, it doesn't. Please re-read the comment you're replying to.

There is no cutoff, limit, or threshhold. It doesn't prescribe a naturally-right size any more than a graduated income tax "prescribes a naturally-right amount of income".

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#300

Post by asadotzler »

askafriend wrote: post #263
NegativeK wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its usually just a notch above their own (well within their social class status). I'm a tech worker in the public sector. To be blunt: tax me more, please.

Nobody is stopping you from contributing more. In fact, contributions to charity are tax exempt. But if you want to contribute more to the government directly, others here have pointed you to some good resources.

The individual wants his class to be taxed. Telling the individual they can simply pay more does nothing for everyone else in the class. Your reply is unserious.
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