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Just Be Rich (2021)

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Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#121

Post by toomuchtodo »

rpdillon wrote: post #117
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is unelected power, a bug. It’s reasonable to say there should be limits on wealth, considering most wealthy people were lucky (either by birth or “right place right time”) but attempt to post rationalize it as anything else. Would you want someone who won a lottery ticket to have power over your life at scale? Because that’s what excess wealth is, a power dynamic powered by a suboptimal system masquerading as…

Presuming this is correct, what's the better alternative?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40963894 seems like a start. You don’t need to throw the entire system away and start from scratch, simply refactor the suboptimal parts piece by piece.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#122

Post by cpursley »

slwvx wrote: post #78
TrackerFF wrote: post #56

I live in a country with wealth tax (Norway), and I'm a bit conflicted on it. On one side, it is effectively the only real tax a many in the "ownership class" are paying - relative to their wealth. On the other side, it is a really problematic tax for entrepreneurs. It is downright horrible for startups and scaleups - critical funds that should be used to grow your company, has to be given out in dividends to founder…

It looks like the Norwegian wealth tax is for wealth above $170M, which seems pretty aggressive to me. Gabriel Zucman and others made a website [2] in 2020 aimed at the US that included a wealth tax; the lowest bracket it had was for wealth above $1M. I like wealth taxes, and prefer Zucman's model over that of Norway. Progressive income taxes and wealth taxes seem to me like great mechanisms to build a middle class a…

The problem is, ultra-rich people don't pay income taxes because they don't have incomes. And they type of income earners who earn high are often those who spend years studying for no/low pay like doctors, lawyers (yeah, yeah), local small biz owners, etc.

The tax experiment I'd like to see is a very progressive sales/VAT tax that exempts certain used goods, essentials (groceries, etc) and hits luxuries, sin tax (that burden public healthcare) hard. Augmented with certain tariffs, natural resources, etc. This gives people the opportunity to "choose" their own tax rate.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#123

Post by TechDebtDevin »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #93

I find discussions of economic desert rarely get anywhere since everyone has a different idea of what is deserved. I like to talk about incentives. We have a massive under supply of housing across the developed world, in part because so much labor is training for desk jobs rather than construction jobs. If you want to solve the housing problem, you need to change the incentives for young people to shun construction j…

I was a project manager in the construction industry for 7 years, then another 4 in real estate investment. This wouldn't work, I'm too tired to go into it and it would take a few thousand words to even start explain why it wouldn't. In theory it could work if new construction was subsidized and price fixed on a per square foot/meter basis but free markets are the "enemy" here and there's hundreds of different inputs to consider and balance.

Simply paying people more (and just fyi, we already do this. Get a quote for a kitchen remodel in any major metro and you'll realize real quick that there's carpenters making more than mid level SWEs) isn't going to motivate young people to break their bodies, work all day in the sun and shorten the length of their careers by 10-15 years compared to a desk job. There's a ton of reasons why young people don't want to dedicate their life to manual labor (and for good reason), neither money or nor status are the sole drivers here. Its simply not a great existence and is less rewarding all around, no matter how much you make. This is sort of why I don't see the argument against looser immigration policies, as the incentives you're mentioning actually exist in those communities, but that is a whole other can of worms I'm not going to get into.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#124

Post by AA-BA-94-2A-56 »

kortilla wrote: post #57
AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote: post #16

This article feels like an attempt to morally wash one's hands of the moral stink of capitalism. Do you really think that because you're in tech and not mining, that the accumulation of wealth is any less driven by exploitation? By the way, I don't know the answer to this. I myself am a landlord. But if we're getting into morality, let's fully examine this. 11.5% of Americans are below the poverty line. The same econ…

The fed does not target an unemployment minimum. Their mandate is to reduce it after controlling inflation.

Yep you're right, thanks for the correction.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#125

Post by feedforward »

WalterBright wrote: post #108
feedforward wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they can still buy stocks on the open market Well that's my point - people who do the work and create the wealth don't get that wealth in wages, it is parasitically expropriated by stockholders. I am arguing on the side of those who work, that the wealth they create is kept by them. You argue for idleness and parasitism - that those who don't do the work can be rewarded via these various mechanisms, by being parasi…

That is the notion that the only value in a business is that of labor, i.e. the labor theory of value. Business needs two other things: 1. capital 2. taking a risk in order to function. To get capital requires a source of capital, which are investors. Investors take a risk in exchange for possible gain. No gain => no investors => no capital => no business Let's say you want to start a business. Where are you going to…

> taking a risk

You are only taking a significant risk in production investment in an unplanned economy.

So it is tautological, circular reasoning. Capitalists want an unplanned economy and then say they deserve their profits for the risks of an unplanned economy.

(Theroretically - of course, the US economy is not unplanned, but semi-planned - we type on chips paid for by US military spending sent to Fairchild, over IP packets on a network created by DARPA handing taxpayer money over to BBN etc.)

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#126

Post by rpdillon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #24
aorloff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were builders, they had businesses building for other people and invested their own money and time into these buildings for their own family. Luck in exactly what sense ? Yes, they did not die of dysentery on the trail, so evidently some luck was involved, but the wealth building seems very intentional and causal.

See, you’ve caught yourself in the trap. Lots of builders fail, look at the YC startup failure rate. Even investing in broad equity index funds is luck (sequence risk). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40378138 https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011...

This is a tired argument.

Success in life will always be a combination of luck, and hard work to set yourself up to take advantage of the luck when it arrives.

For some, the luck will never arrive. And for many, the luck will arrive, but they won't be ready for it. The only practical advice to give people is to prepare the best they can for when and if it does.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#127

Post by totony »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #93

I find discussions of economic desert rarely get anywhere since everyone has a different idea of what is deserved. I like to talk about incentives. We have a massive under supply of housing across the developed world, in part because so much labor is training for desk jobs rather than construction jobs. If you want to solve the housing problem, you need to change the incentives for young people to shun construction j…

Housing crisis is more of a political issue than supply/demand i feel like

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#128

Post by TechDebtDevin »

seliopou wrote: post #100
jackcosgrove wrote: post #93

I find discussions of economic desert rarely get anywhere since everyone has a different idea of what is deserved. I like to talk about incentives. We have a massive under supply of housing across the developed world, in part because so much labor is training for desk jobs rather than construction jobs. If you want to solve the housing problem, you need to change the incentives for young people to shun construction j…

I find it hard to believe the lack of housing is caused by a labor shortage in construction.

The lack of housing is due to incentives. Investors aren't going to increase supply and in return decrease their margins, they'll just make their money work somewhere else. Free markets work against us here, this sort of thing has to be addressed via price-fixing/subsidies.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#129

Post by thunky »

the_real_cher wrote: post #83

The part everyone always glosses over is: If the rich are taxed more, will the government equitably distribute that money to the middle class? Defense contractors make hundreds of millions of dollars from government funds. We just assumed that tax money will go to the middle class but it's also likely to go to another rich person.

> If the rich are taxed more, will the government equitably distribute that money to the middle class?

Good point. We don't even know that the money will stay in the country.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#130

Post by WalterBright »

RangerScience wrote: post #91
WalterBright wrote: post #58

> false claim that wealth inequality is solely due to more startups and not a real problem says a lot. The article assumes that wealth inequality is bad, but never explains it. The thing is, people all have different abilities and make different choices in life. These lead inevitably to different results. In order to make everyone equal, peoples' freedoms must be taken away.

> wealth inequality is bad There’s an interesting economic science paper from awhile ago where the researchers examined an economic simulation as wealth inequality increased, and their finding was that it’s like temperature in that it causes phase transitions. At some level of wealth inequality, agents stopped being able to trade (most agents didn’t have the funds to trade most goods), causing a “freeze” - going from…

I remember the simulations my Econ prof at Caltech used. They all managed to prove that Marxism worked. He'd win prizes in economics from time to time.
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