Why Inequality Matters • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#361

Post by jasode » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 8:57 PM UTC

couchand wrote: post #355

jasode wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, I didn't interpret his comment as attacking Shinkei. I'm not saying he attacked Shinkei. couchand criticized the message and not the messenger which is certainly acceptable. I'm pointing out that he's criticizing a figure-of-speech by stating to us the legal literal definition of "punish". Because couchand didn't parse Shinkei's "punish-as-in- sentiment ", he made the mistake of equivocation[1] and talks about pun…

I'm not equivocating at all. People use the term punish when they feel like they've been punished. I'm trying to figure out why people immediately think they are being punished by taxation somehow completely forgetting the police and fire protection, nice roads, pretty parks, clean water, etc. that comes along with it. Taxes are not a punishment, they are an admission ticket to society.

>I'm not equivocating at all.

Your sentences are textbook examples of equivocating.

>People use the term punish when they feel like they've been punished.

Yes, they often do! Notice the word you just used to describe Shinkei's post? You wrote "feel" to describe "punish-as-in-sentiment-figure-of-speech". It's feelings/sentiments/perceptions etc.

Your attempted explanation after that was this:

>you're only punished if you fail to pay.

This is "you're only punished-as-in-assets-seized-or-go-to-jail if you evade taxes". It's a switch in semantics.

Because punish-as-in-sentiment is not equal in meaning to punish-as-in-jail, your proposed clarification is a non sequitur.

Since you're not aware of why one type of meaning (feelings) is not relevant to the other (jail), you are equivocating.

>I'm trying to figure out why people immediately think they are being punished by taxation somehow completely forgetting the [government services]

I know and it's understandable that you want to satisfy a curiosity. However, you'll just annoy people if you're equivocating 2 different meanings to justify your perspective while asking your question.

If someone says they feel "raped" by high taxes, you don't ape MrSpock and say "I see no genitals forcefully entering any orifice so I don't understand why people call it rape."

>they are an admission ticket to society.

They are not an "admission ticket". Admission tickets are pieces of paper that you submit to an usher or gate agent to be admitted to an event or airplane. (If you find that dissecting-figures-of-speech with literal definitions to be annoying, you've experienced firsthand why equivocation derails the discussion and is not helpful.)

Lastly, it seems like your answer to Shinkei was based on thinking he was against all taxes. If you read his post again, he was playing devil's-advocate for paying "punishment" taxes on a yacht. It's entirely reasonable for that type of person to raise taxes on himself for more police officers but feel punished for extra consumption taxes on luxury items since he's already paying sales tax on it.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#362

Post by StandardFuture » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:01 PM UTC

aurelian wrote: post #314

vishnugupta wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you take that wealth and move it to the average person. Wealth redistribution doesn't necessarily mean taking money/wealth, literally, from wealthy and giving it away to poor. It includes, among others, subsidized education, free access to basic health care, nutritious food, potable water, eradication of epidemics, decent housing, decent retirement income and so on. This is the problem I see in societies that ar…

>Poor are poor not just because they don't have money but also because they are unable to get out of it. They have to go through unspeakable ordeal just to get one meal a day and this places enormous cognitive load on the entire family. That seems like it should be true intuitively, but if it were true, you'd expect higher benefit levels to correlate with higher rates of getting out of poverty. The data points to the…

The institute seems to have a political agenda/bias.

[0] http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/manhattan-institute-po...

[1] http://www.manhattan-institute.org/southparkconservatives/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Manhattan_Institute_for_Po...

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#363

Post by muuh-gnu » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #241

r0h1n wrote: post #10

I must say Bill Gates, in his post Microsoft avatar, continues to surprise me constantly. This is a refreshingly candid and sanguine review of Piketty's book from someone who was a ruthless capitalist not so long ago. Gates rightly (and self-servingly) also points out that Piketty does not consider philanthropy as a means to correct some of capitalism's imbalances. Here's a few of Gates' conclusions: > Piketty is rig…

>>Letting inheritors consume or allocate capital disproportionately simply based on the lottery of birth is not a smart or fair way to allocate resources. Unfair to whom? And why is that unfair? Is it fair to a kid born to a rich parent that they must simply be punished because they were born to rich parents? A lot of people work hard all their lives to give a better life to their children. Having children is a huge…

Arguing with communists is a waste of time. Predator species always existed and will always exist. The whole "inequality" debate is beating around the bush. It is the classical grasshopper-ant situation. They simply want your stuff.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#364

Post by capisce » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:06 PM UTC

ahomescu1 wrote: post #306

saalweachter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with differentiating between the "good investor" and the "lavish lifestyle guy" is that the good investor is actually the one that you (rather, Piketty) need to be most worried about. People worried about inequality aren't (just) worried about the morality of consumption -- a fat cat sitting atop a mountain of cash drinking champagne and eating caviar while the peasants starve. They're worried about maint…

Replace "wealth" with "intelligence", "attractiveness" or even "physical strength", and you get similar threats. Big, strong people could hurt us at any time, and "it's only through their continuing mercy that they haven't"; intelligent people could manipulate or persuade us, while attractive people could seduce us for their own benefit. And yet, we still let people go to the gym to work out and go to school and read…

So we shouldn't attempt to disincentivize countries from building up a nuclear arsenal, as long as they haven't nuked anyone yet?

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#365

Post by jeffdavis » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:16 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #42

r0h1n wrote: post #10

I must say Bill Gates, in his post Microsoft avatar, continues to surprise me constantly. This is a refreshingly candid and sanguine review of Piketty's book from someone who was a ruthless capitalist not so long ago. Gates rightly (and self-servingly) also points out that Piketty does not consider philanthropy as a means to correct some of capitalism's imbalances. Here's a few of Gates' conclusions: > Piketty is rig…

The problem with differentiating between the "good investor" and the "lavish lifestyle guy" is that the good investor is actually the one that you (rather, Piketty) need to be most worried about. People worried about inequality aren't (just) worried about the morality of consumption -- a fat cat sitting atop a mountain of cash drinking champagne and eating caviar while the peasants starve. They're worried about maint…

I disagree, but I upvoted because I think it perfectly highlights the real difference of opinion.

When you say "disarm", you really mean "disarm all but the state". That is very scary to any libertarian-leaning people, even if you are using the word figuratively. It makes sense only if you if you believe the government is so nearly perfect that other influence is counterproductive.

Imagine if only the government had enough resources for science? Or worse, nobody could afford to make their political message heard, so only incumbants are viable?

No large state has shown that it deserves that much power. I'd rather see a bunch of ads I disagree with than see no non-state messages. I'd rather that some non-state actors had enough resources to try an ambitious project that is politically unpopular (think stem cells a decade ago).

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#366

Post by dropit_sphere » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #240

dropit_sphere wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You pose a great question though: would philanthropy exist in a well-designed system? I'm convinced that it is only the good faith of enough actors that allows any system to function at all . Every tax or subsidy fixes one problem while creating another. Not to say we shouldn't have them---externalities should be addressed---but that a system "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like" is equivalent to creating st…

> but that a system "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like" is equivalent to creating strong AI that happens to run on a market economy. Isn't that assuming that "market economy" is something "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like"? I disagree with treating current economic system as something inherently optimal - it has a lot of problems, all of which we can see even today. I agree with the equivalence t…

I think we agree. My intent was not to laud the market so much as to kill the hope of a perfectly-designed system by showing that the thing requires Elua to make it really "work out well" from our perspective.

We do a whole lot of stuff to satisfy Gnon---marketing, sales, firing people, etc. Sometimes that happens to also satisfy Elua, like when we get iPhones. But Gnon MUST be resisted sometimes, and I think philanthropy is one of those times.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#367

Post by reirob » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:25 PM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #237

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #198

I appreciate Gates' analysis of Piketty, but Gates is still blind to an important point- he came from a middle-class background and therefore had enough capital to gain a footing in the world and to be able to write his initial code without worrying about the basic needs of survival. 40% of youth in the USA today do not even have that, and as such, have virtually no chance at all of being able to even play in the cap…

"Gates' idea of a consumption tax would heavily penalize these people, who have been enslaved into a consumer lifestyle by the wealthy who exercise control over their lives." That came out of the blue... can you expand on that? [Note also that Gates said a progressive consumption tax.] I like a progressive consumption tax because (I currently believe, anyway) that it's harder to avoid than an income tax. Income can h…

"if you are living here then you are consuming here" - it strikes me that, the more you are poor the more you are bound to consume local. The richer you are the more choice you have where to consume (or where to invest, at some point of wealth this could also be considered as consumption). Therefore I tend to think that a consumption tax will penalize the poor.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#368

Post by georgemcbay » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #277

Taek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that always bothers me about wealth distribution is that you can't simply move wealth around and expect things to get better. People who have wealth are going to be better with that wealth than people who don't. They grew up with wealthy people, have managed the wealth for a long time, have witnessed mistakes and successes, and overall have spent a lot of time contemplating wealth. If you take that wealth a…

So just out of curiosity, do you see yourself in the "have a say" group or the "do not have a say" group?

I can't speak for OP, but I'm sure most people would pick the former for themselves, just like everyone thinks that everyone other than themselves is a horrible driver.

The fundamental attribution error is very pervasive.

This is part of why (as dumb as the average person is) I'm not down with the "elite ruling class" idea, even if we're basically stuck with that now whether we like it or not (except the elites aren't really individuals but large corporate interests who essentially own large swaths of government actors who supposedly represent citizens).

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#369

Post by refurb » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

yequalsx wrote: post #352

refurb wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet "more equitable" and "socialist" countries like Canada have no estate tax whatsoever.

In Canada the estate pays the tax not the beneficiaries. In Canada the estate is considered a sale. "The deceased is considered to have sold all of his or her capital property for fair market value immediately prior to death. This includes, with certain exceptions, all the deceased person’s non-registered assets (personal belongings, cars, investments, business assets, etc.). If any of these assets have gone up in va…

That's not an estate tax, that's the estate paying taxes owed on property.

In Canada, if you die with $20M in cash, you are free to give it to heirs with no tax penalty.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#370

Post by webXL » Thu, Oct 16, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

nemo wrote: post #348

webXL wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their political ideas aren't their own, and I highly doubt they would put so much of their resources into them if there wasn't a large base of support there already. Government spending in the US as a percentage of GDP has almost flatlined since the early 90s. There was a spike recently, but the previous growth wasn't really sustainable with the quasi-free-market economy everyone (at least in the US) seems to prefer.…

Many people have various political views. Allowing people with huge buckets of cash to use that cash to gain increased representation is fundamentally wrong. A representative government is supposed represent all of its constituents equally, but with the current pay-to-play/pay-to-propagandize/pay-to-astroturf regime it doesn't. We can't actually say with any degree of certainty that that the buckets of cash influenci…

> A representative government is supposed represent all of its constituents equally

Yes, "supposed to", but the representation comes through the voting process, and not everyone votes, so they really represent the voters. And I assume you mean the voters are swayed by the advertising that buckets of cash pay for, since outright bribes are illegal.

The politician who rewards campaign contributors at the expense of voters is thrown out the next election. There's a check or power built into the system, but a lot of the time the new guy is bought off too. Usually the more competition and transparent the industry, the harder it is to buy off a politician. The less power a political office has, the less it will be bought off. There are all sorts of ways to fix this problem without limiting political speech.