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Just Be Rich (2021)

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Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#131

Post by TechDebtDevin »

evilduck wrote: post #109
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…

Manual laborers (distinct from skilled labor like plumbers or electricians) will never have high status because the job is, relatively speaking, easy to attain. The pay will certainly fix the staffing problem but it will never be a high status career unless the pay gets you to a cushy retirement 15 years earlier than a desk job.

It does get you retirement 15 years earlier than a desk job, but usually due to your body falling apart at 50 and you're then poor and in pain the rest of your life. I used to see it all the time.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#132

Post by roenxi »

para_parolu wrote: post #69
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…

Is it a big problem for country that wealthy people are living? I thought most country wealth comes from oil and gas. And until it’s no longer the case it somewhat makes sense to avoid large wealth gaps.

That argument is a bit circular. It is a bit like saying someone doesn't need to get a law degree until after they've opened a legal firm - there are some obvious cause-effect issues. If there is a tax on wealth, why would we expect there to be local examples of great wealth created that aren't physically extracted from the land? If a Norwegian had a great idea for a new product, presumably they wouldn't be stupid enough to hang around in Norway being taxed back into the middle class.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#133

Post by WalterBright »

DaoVeles wrote: post #103
WalterBright wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people cannot accumulate wealth, we wouldn't have SpaceX.

Such a declarative statement is very reductionist. Yes, some folks will accumulate wealth but there needs to be some additional limits on it. I am in favor of progressively increasing tax brackets that eventually get up to near 100$. Spend it or lose it. And if you lose it, it goes in to the very bottom income bracket where it will be used imediately. Trick up economics if you will.

You don't think Musk's fortune was used? He invested all he had in Tesla, then again in SpaceX.

> there needs to be some additional limits on it.

Then we don't get SpaceX or Tesla.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#134

Post by jackcosgrove »

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.

As I said, it's one factor. You can search for "construction industry labor shortage" and find lots of articles. This one has an overview from an econ perspective https://www.econlib.org/archives/2017/04/how_can_there_b.htm...

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#135

Post by advael »

willsmith72 wrote: post #116
advael wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dam, I didn't know the 80s started in 2001. Or is it just that that's the chart you can find with "two minutes' googling" and so that has to be good enough because that's the amount of effort it takes to find something that vaguely seems to satisfy your confirmation bias? Okay, though, let's just look at the chart you link. Let's assume that "inflation adjusted dollars" tracks purchasing power parity perfectly over t…

let's just do away with any attempt at sticking to the facts, and stick to the vibe of the thing. to me, you are doing the nitpicking. picking 2001 was generous, the growth is far greater if you look back to the 80s.

But the vibe of the thing is about income inequality, and it's good that it is, because the value of money isn't fixed. Only rich people staring at a stock portfolio care about "number went up", what most people care about is their real purchasing power. Right now, the income you need to qualify for a mortgage on a house in the US is around the ~80-85th percentile mark of household income, generously. The Gini Coefficient is mentioned by the linked article exactly because income inequality is really important for what someone's effective purchasing power is, partially because some markets, like housing, are priced in a competitive manner, which is why I keep mentioning housing (Also, it's a huge factor in people's material living conditions, and a cost that has risen far faster than "inflation" in all of the periods discussed so far, which is the kind of phenomenon you can't really explain by trying to do big broad averages in "adjusted dollars" but which measuring things like inequality can tease out causal factors for a lot better).

If we're just going by vibes, the overwhelming vibe (which is also supported by the numbers) is that income inequality is increasing and that this is a huge problem, and it seems like most of the people who don't feel this way are pretty decidedly in the small portion of the population for whom this is working out. It doesn't surprise me that people here don't vibe with that. Based on the forum alone, I'd bet all the people in this thread are at least in the 80th percentile of US household income (adjusted for local purchasing power if you happen to live elsewhere). If this wasn't the vibe in 2021, Paul Graham wouldn't have been writing bullshit to try to dismiss said vibe, and this person wouldn't be responding to him

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#136

Post by kjksf »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #70
WalterBright wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden, France, California, Washington state and NYC have discovered once again that taxing the heck out of rich people causes them to leave. And when they leave, they take their spend/invest/hire money with them.

Sure. If you can move to another state to live cheaper, why wouldn't people. That is the argument for a more nationally consistent tax code, so the 'rich' can't just game the system by moving to the one cheap state where they bought off the politicians. And same goes internationally, if all countries would enact laws against money laundering, or at least enforce it, then the rich wouldn't so easily move their money a…

Or maybe it's an argument for allowing states to try different economic strategies and compete for business based on outcomes of those strategies.

If California taxes people and businesses at insane levels, maybe we shouldn't replicate insane level of taxation everywhere else in U.S., on the off chance that it is not, in fact, an optimal level for generating wealth for the people.

Maybe Texas and Florida should be allowed to enact competing taxation schemes so that we can see which one is better.

And maybe Americans should have a freedom of movement within U.S. without having their private property confiscated by the state when they try to leave.

The justification for taxation based on residency is that you use commons like roads and school and police that the government funds so you need to contribute to funding those things.

What exactly is justifications for hitting people with more taxes when they try to leave the state?

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#137

Post by WalterBright »

marmadukester39 wrote: post #104
WalterBright wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people cannot accumulate wealth, we wouldn't have SpaceX.

No, but we do get NASA

Musk's rockets cost less than 10% of NASA's. Plus, SpaceX has not cost you a cent, while you've paid plenty of taxes for NASA.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#138

Post by blagie »

From my perspective, this is entirely a case of Simpson's Paradox.

* Worldwide, wealth gaps are closing.

* Within most countries, wealth gaps are widening.

Here's how globalization works:

1. As capital, I target 8 billion instead of 350 million. That's more wealth per invention.

2. As US labor, I compete with Indian labor. Income goes down.

3. As high-end developing-world labor, I can compete with Americans for jobs. Income goes up.

4. As low-end developing-world labor, I have some trickle-down benefits, but gap to high-end labor increases.

Footnote: It also makes a lot of sense, looking globally, to look at log(wealth). See:

https://www.gapminder.org/fw/income-levels/

There has been a huge move from Category 1 (horrible life) to 2 (manageable life). That's huge. However, income going up 4x is not very visible on many figures when that income goes from $2/day to $8/day, and is being compared to someone with $100B.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#139

Post by skybrian »

ineptech wrote: post #96
ineptech wrote: post #82

> You would think, after having been on the side of labor in its fight with capital for almost two centuries, that the far left would be happy that labor has finally prevailed. But none of them seem to be. You can almost hear them saying "No, no, not that way." This one really threw me for a loop. Do startup founders making or seeking a big exit really think of themselves as "labor"?

Developing this a bit; I get that founders might object to being lumped in with the asshole-rich-guy demographic associated with the term, but "capital" doesn't mean people who never had to work hard, it means capital. When we talk about laws and regulations that advantage capital over labor or v.v., we're talking about money rather than people. The fact that founders get rich via stock options rather than by paying…

Capital includes everybody’s life savings. It’s common to have a goal of retiring someday, and having capital is how you retire.

What would it even mean for labor to “win,” if not by controlling some capital of their own? Could a union win without a pension plan?

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#140

Post by rpdillon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #121
rpdillon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, I thought you said that wealth was a bug, so I was looking for an alternative to wealth. Taxing wealth doesn't seem like an alternative to wealth, it seems like building on top of it.
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