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American Equity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: American Equity

#161

Post by Retric »

kgwgk wrote: post #148
ThomPete wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discouraging savings is actually the point. We should tax money that sits idle and provides tax benefits to money invested. If you can build wealth around being active rather than just reaping the benefit of interest of interests then that should be encouraged rather than just grabbing and keeping.

Money in a savings account is money invested.

> money invested

Only in the most inefficient way possible. The 'problem' is banks are limited in what they can do with this money which ends up creating investment bubbles and other market distortions which hurt the economy overall. If you slowly transitioned banks so they could not invest this money over say 100 years the net result would not be harmful.

In the end money is not actual wealth, it's simply a representation of wealth. Anything that turns money into more money needs an intermediary where some cash flow is generated. And those intermediary's are often harmful see in excess like pay day loans.

Re: American Equity

#162

Post by majjam »

jacquesm wrote: post #16

People already have a share in the GDP. That's what it is, the total domestic product, the sum of all the little parts. The problem is not that people don't have share in it (and this goes for every country, not just for the USA), but that they have a disproportionate share in it. Bill Gates' (to name a random American citizen) has a far larger share in the GDP than most other Americans. If you want to solve that rai…

The economist wrote an article on this recently discussing how the United States raises a lot of money from rich citizens compared to other countries, but redistributes relatively little of this money to poorer citizens: https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21731642-how-am...

Re: American Equity

#163

Post by dsp1234 »

maxerickson wrote: post #101
dsp1234 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caveats: GDP is no way to calculate wealth, and comparing the total GDP to any one person's wealth is pretty useless. Let's say the total GDP over the last 40 years was 300 trillion dollars. Also, let's say Bill Gates's wealth is 100 billion dollars (for ease of calculation). 100B / 300T = 0.003 = .3% of 40 years of GDP Let's say that the average population of the US during that 40 year period was 170M[0]. 170M * 40…

You are just beating on the fact that I based the comparison on the total rather than the mean GDP available to an individual. But that was the point of my post, to compare the captured wealth to consumption. People always talk about how the wealthy are screwing the rest of us over and everything would be great if they weren't taking so much, but it turns out that consumption is also a huge portion of the economy. To…

You are just beating on the fact that I based the comparison on the total rather than the mean GDP available to an individual.

I addressed the comment you made, not the comment you didn't make.

Re: American Equity

#164

Post by icebraining »

pascalxus wrote: post #17

He's proposing UBI but with a better name. But, before we go with that approach, let's just create wealth out of thin air. It really is possible. Just take all the land in CA that is locked up and undevelop-able and give it to the people. Those people can then sell it to developers and earn a huge amount of money. Now, I know, the way I've laid it out, has a lot of problems to overcome: mostly logistical and politica…

Is a lot of rural land locked up? By whom/what?

Re: American Equity

#165

Post by thaumaturgy »

Corporations have been operating under the mistaken belief that they are legally obligated to maximize shareholder returns for a couple of decades now, to the detriment in general of labor and the overall quality of goods and services provided.

I would expect something similar to happen to here: this would incentive massive changes in attitude towards national infrastructure and services. Take NASA for example: it's already difficult to convince taxpayers at large to support NASA even to the meager extent that it is; now put NASA into the context of being even perceived as a very minor drag on GDP in a country where citizens expect to get an annual return on GDP, and there's no way NASA would continue to be funded.

Everyone would be willing to forsake long-term goals and returns in exchange for short-term financial incentives -- exactly the problem of so many businesses today.

(Rural areas would also be absolutely gutted by urban centers -- this would become a system that empowers tyranny of the majority.)

I think former President Obama has already replied to this idea more eloquently than I could:

"...government will never run the way Silicon Valley runs because, by definition, democracy is messy. This is a big, diverse country with a lot of interests and a lot of disparate points of view. And part of government’s job, by the way, is dealing with problems that nobody else wants to deal with." ... "...if all I was doing was making a widget or producing an app, and I didn’t have to worry about whether poor people could afford the widget, or I didn’t have to worry about whether the app had some unintended consequences -- setting aside my Syria and Yemen portfolio -- then I think those suggestions are terrific." https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/1...

Re: American Equity

#166

Post by Exo_Tartarus »

These are just words that don't mean anything without a concrete implementation plan. Owning a piece of America... What is America? Is it US based companies? Is it physical property and capital? These things are already owned by people. Everything worth being owned is already owned by someone or some corporate structure. Who is going to rearrange and adjust all these existing ownership structures to introduce joint ownership by the American people? Why would we expect existing stakeholders to want anything to do with such a plan?

Silliness.

Re: American Equity

#167

Post by curiousgeorgio »

> Absolute poverty would be eliminated, and we would no longer motivate people through the fear of not being able to eat

That's the biggest misconception about poverty. It isn't about not having access to financial help when you need it (we already have plenty of programs in the US that should - in theory - solve those same problems).

Poverty in America is more about culture and lack of education. Give any amount of money to many of the poorest citizens in the country, and they'll be no better off after a week of frivolous spending.

Re: American Equity

#168

Post by huac »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #97
huac wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of analogous policies in America. For example, universities are required to spend 10% (or some other percent?) of their total endowment each year in order to keep their tax-free status. This is why Harvard & Co. need to continue fundraising each year despite their massive endowments - they're massively discouraged from just 'saving' as well. Everything distorts markets. The question is how to distort…

Other non-profit entities (such as private foundations) are required to spend a certain fraction of their money each year or pay taxes. Universities are exempted from that requirement. from [0]: "Harvard targets an annual endowment payout rate of 5.0 to 5.5 percent of market value. The University's actual payout rate has fluctuated over the past 10 years, from a low of 4.2 percent in fiscal year 2006 to a high of 6.1…

Woah, I did not know that universities were exempt! The head of my alma mater's investment fund definitely did not mention that...

Re: American Equity

#169

Post by eksu »

RivieraKid wrote: post #75
chollida1 wrote: post #3

Can someone actually explain what Sam wants to do here? I've read the post 4 times and I still can't see an y sort of plan, numbers, etc to actually critique, Which is odd because he specifically ask you to give feedback but never follows through on presenting the actual idea. He does motivate why he thinks a share of the GDP is so he gets the why, but never actually gets into the what, and how. I mean the GDP isn't…

It's basic income branded in a way that's more attractive for economically right-wing people (aka "capitalists").

If you want to brand basic income in a way for conservatives, advocate for a Negative Income Tax (Friedman's idea) as an alternative to welfare bureaucracy.

Re: American Equity

#170

Post by JonFish85 »

creaghpatr wrote: post #26
maxxxxx wrote: post #11

He could start with his companies giving out a much larger share of equity to their employees. I always find it fascinating when VCs advocate for things like UBI or this American Equity plan while at the same time being a major contributor to income equality. They could do a lot right now bit instead they make some vague proposals while keeping their money.

This proposal seems like the equivalent of a failing startup diluting the crap out of its employee pool to raise a gigantic round.

> This proposal seems like the equivalent of a failing startup diluting the crap out of its employee pool to raise a gigantic round.

If that's possible, that's probably the right thing to do; if the company is failing, who cares about diluted stock? 0.0075% of $0 is still $0.

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