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Why Inequality Matters

gatesnotes.com

381–390 of 462 posts

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#381
> I fully agree that we don’t want to live in an aristocratic society in which already-wealthy families get richer simply by sitting on their laurels and collecting what Piketty calls “rentier income”—that is, the returns people earn when they let others use their money, land, or other property.

This is debatable. For one, aristocracy is not exactly this, as it is a system based on the notion of privilege, not just wealth. Concretely, it often means the same but still, using the word is quite misleading.

Secondly, one may argue that people, and thus families, should have the right to build stuff in the very long term, that is in a multi-generational way. Even if this thing they build is merely a framework of financial comfort. I doubt anyone would question the morality of offering gifts to children. So it's not clear to me why it would be wrong to give a child the means not to worry about money in life, and do it recursively through centuries.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#382

I have a lot of respect for Bill Gates because of his philanthropic efforts. However, I am very skeptical of the consumption tax argument. To me that sounds like a sales tax and sales tax is regressive. i.e. Tax on French baguette hits the poor more than the rich, since as a group they consume way more baguette. Even if it is just a special sales tax that targets the rich only, discouraging spending by people with mo…

It's true that most sales taxes are regressive, but you can have progressive sales taxes as well. A few examples: In New York, there's no tax on clothing and shoes under $110 (at least that was the number when I lived there a few years ago). If you're buying stuff that costs more than that, then you can probably afford the tax, since there plenty of completely fashionable and functional items that cost far less. In m…

It is possible to make sales taxes that aren't massively regressive, and your examples are a lot better than most of the "progressive" consumption-only tax proposals (which generally revolve around giving a basic rebate and then taxing yachts and basic foodstuffs alike)

But the bigger problem isn't the proportion of consumption being taxed, but that the very rich actually consume very little of their income (which implies higher taxes for everyone else). To be fair to Bill Gates, he also favours high taxes on intragenerational transfers of all that accumulated wealth and is busy giving his own self-made fortune away. But even then, consumption taxes miss one of the biggest, if not the biggest benefits to holding large amounts of wealth.... being able to choose exactly when, if and on what terms you spend your "work" time. A person who consumes $100k per annum in interest income from their professionally-managed wealth fund which is so big they never have to worry about their future is much, much better off in real terms than somebody spending a little over $100k from a salary they spend 50% of their waking hours earning not to mention many hours worrying about what would happen if they lost that job.

Obviously the status quo income tax isn't ideal in that respect either, and ramping up tax on capital gains has the side effect of harming good companies' chances of getting funded, but that's why Piketty favours taxing the entire capital base rather than only capital which happens to be spent on luxury shoes or earning a decent return on investment.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

On the individual level, that's like saying "so we shouldn't attempt to disincentivize people from buying guns, as long as they haven't shot anyone yet?" Opinions are divided on this topic, I think "no, unless they're a clear and obvious threat".

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#384

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…

That study is the complete opposite of the experience of Nordic and Northern European countries with very strong welfare programs and very high class mobility.

Methinks that given the political bias of the study and the fact that it takes a particularly period for the American economy, that there's not much to learn from it.

Also, the fact that single mothers who were on welfare are now working is not actually a good indicator for me. I want the single mothers to have to raise their children in decent environments though maternal leave and good family policies, instead of seeing them work full-time out of necessity.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#385
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.

Look on the bright side: humans have proved incredibly ingenious in devising elaborate justifications for taking other humans' stuff. At least it demonstrates creativity.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#386
Whether or not inequality is a problem can be debated but we must be beware of that "I am from Government and I am here to help" trap.

--- Governments can play a constructive role in offsetting the snowballing tendencies if and when they choose to do so. --

Governments of course could play a constructive role into many things just the way my son could spend more time doing math instead of watching cartoons. The sad problem about human beings is that unless they get something out of it they wont do anything. Government have a strong incentive to tax everyone more and more in the name of inequality and environment but they have 0 incentive to anything about inequality using that money.

I would rather live in a world with extreme inequality rather than a world where government is trying to bring "equality".

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#387
post #177

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…

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…

One thing that always bothers me about wealth distribution is that you can't simply move wealth around and expect things to get better.

Things have gotten better in countries which have reduced inequality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw

Don't confuse persons with populations. They are not the same thing. A person is very different from a population.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#388
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…

> It's an unpopular opinion, but I don't think that everyone should have a roughly equal say in how things go. The average person isn't as well equipped to deal with large problems as the elite are. To really get to the truths behind this opinion, it is important to distinguish one's political goals from the politically implemented policies in pursuit of those goals. I fully agree with you that the average person is…

> Honestly, I would expect the connection between wealth and quality of policy analysis to be relatively weak.

Listening to the Walton heirs speak is a good way to be cured of any assumption that the economic elite might actually be smart. (And if you don't like listening to them speak, you can just read about the repeated DWI convictions.) That's 4 of the top 10 richest Americans right there.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#389
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The state is a bit more legitimate than rich individuals because it's more accountable to the people. That isn't necessarily a universally-accepted idea. Democratic systems have the machinery of accountability, but some of us are not completely convinced that it works ; surely not as-advertised. I know that some will regard the wealth of the rich as having been acquired by some means of trickery or even coercion. An…

Nowhere near 100%. Most people pay their taxes not because they're rationally responding to threat of force but because they think it's the right thing to do.

>Nowhere near 100%. Most people pay their taxes not because they're rationally responding to threat of force but because they think it's the right thing to do.

As a thought experiment, imagine that taxation became completely voluntary tomorrow. What percentage of its former revenue does the government make?

Suddenly, the government has to compete with other entities for money. Government doesn't know the competition game, so how well would it fare? It would be an interesting experiment, though it would undoubtedly cause some short-term chaos.

Re: Why Inequality Matters

#390
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…

> 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…

"Wealth redistribution doesn't necessarily mean taking money/wealth, literally, from wealthy and giving it away to poor. "

What? How could you possibly describe it any other way? You take cash from a wealthy person, and you give it to other people, either in dirk react payments or sbisized/free services.

Argue about whether that is the correct/incorrect thing to do all you lie, but don't indulge in Orwellian doublespeak that says true is false.

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