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Just Be Rich (2021)

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Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#161

Post by FrustratedMonky »

kjksf wrote: post #136
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 al…

I missed it, I don't see anywhere in this thread where people are being taxed on 'exit' from a state. Nothing is being confiscated. What is happening is that a state increases taxes on the current population, and the rich leave to a cheaper states so they don't have to pay the higher tax. So there is freedom of movement. But this does open a loop whole where they can use up resources, then split.

To your argument. I guess it depends on 'fairness'. Sure, the deep south can 'Choose' to lower taxes and have really bad schools so that their un-educated population will be unaware, and un-questioning, of any risks when they to go work for the local chemical company or paper mill. This is a valid choice, lets make our people cannon fodder to lure large chemical companies to our state, (and bonus get some kick backs). But, the kids didn't choose this, they were born into it. (which maybe is why they are also anti-abortion, we can't loose our workforce).

There should be some national standards to keep some states from a race to the bottom.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#162

Post by throwaway22032 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #87
JackFr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that’s what excess wealth is, a power dynamic powered by a suboptimal system masquerading as shades of a meritocracy that does not exist. What does that mean? It's millenial Marxism unmoored from any specificity or facts.

We pretend wealthy people are special when they’re simply lucky. They then use wealth to wield power and control (politics specifically, Citizens United, but I can provide other examples), with a narrative that they are special (not lucky! special!) and that maybe you too can be special and wealthy if you work really hard and are exceptional. Are the wealthy lucky? Yes. Do they use their wealth to shape the world as…

Aside from the influence of money on politics almost all of what you have written is complete bollocks.

Many of us have been successful from nothing and know friends who have been more so. There is usually a luck element in the size of that success but it is blindingly obvious to someone who was in the crab bucket to see that actions work.

It sounds as if you have an emotional issue with the idea that people can change their own situation. I literally have a choice tomorrow whether I paint my wall, study, fix up the leak in my loft, etc, or just sit and play my Switch. People who do too much of the latter do not succeed.

And no, parents or grandparents or country or genetics or whatever are not luck either. Choosing a suitable mate is about as close to the meaning of life as we have.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#163

Post by inhumantsar »

cpursley wrote: post #122
slwvx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (tha…

the tax experiment I'd like to see applied at scale is a Land Value Tax.

for the unfamiliar, the gist is taxing the value of the land, not the improvements on it. the idea being to reduce the amount of land speculation, expands the number of homes built, and lower the cost of doing business by incentivizing land owners to use the land to its fullest productive potential. eg: replacing a single-family homes with multi-family homes, surface parking for multi-level garages, or empty lots for literally anything.

add to that tax advantages for things like rewilding, below-market rentals, or other public-good use cases, and anti-nimby reforms and it could make a number of separate government programs easier to implement, if not redundant.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#164

Post by orangecat »

advael wrote: post #135
willsmith72 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Coeffi…

income inequality is really important for what someone's effective purchasing power is

Not really. Bill Gates isn't bidding up the prices of homes or groceries in your neighborhood.

Also, it's a huge factor in people's material living conditions, and a cost that has risen far faster than "inflation"

Yes, housing is far too expensive. And the main reason for that is state and local governments forcibly preventing people from building more housing, which is hard to blame on free markets.

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

The point of the "minor factual nitpick" that median incomes are increasing rather than decreasing is exactly that capitalism works out pretty well for lots of people other than the wealthy.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#165

Post by Avicebron »

WalterBright wrote: post #145
shakow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spending a lot of money in a local economy makes it more prosperous Do these people really spend a lot of money in the local economy? Realistically, even assuming they pay a couple dozen people $100k/year for service and indulge daily in 3 $500 meals, what will be the actual influence on the local economy? > The Rust Belt is an example of the latter. The Rust Belt is an example of what happens when the state allows…

Zillionaire Paul Allen was famous for spending billions in the local economy. He transformed Seattle. He's passed away, and his projects are being sold off and closed down. > the state allows companies to leave If you have to build a wall around your state to keep people from fleeing, you have failed.

No, if you are moving a high levels of capital and can exploit populations that haven't moved as fast as you (Mexico <- causal <- rust belt, etc) you are essentially playing a shell game but have fast hands because you can move more efficiently across larger sections of the globe and local demographics than someone from that population. It's predatory, and ultimately leads to "deserts" where the parasite has booked it to a location where the resource pipeline is more efficient thus more profits can be siphoned without a drop in metrics.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#166

Post by toomuchtodo »

rpdillon wrote: post #126
toomuchtodo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m not arguing the advice, I’m arguing the religion and belief system.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#167

Post by shakow »

WalterBright wrote: post #145
shakow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spending a lot of money in a local economy makes it more prosperous Do these people really spend a lot of money in the local economy? Realistically, even assuming they pay a couple dozen people $100k/year for service and indulge daily in 3 $500 meals, what will be the actual influence on the local economy? > The Rust Belt is an example of the latter. The Rust Belt is an example of what happens when the state allows…

Zillionaire Paul Allen was famous for spending billions in the local economy. He transformed Seattle. He's passed away, and his projects are being sold off and closed down. > the state allows companies to leave If you have to build a wall around your state to keep people from fleeing, you have failed.

> If you have to build a wall around your state to keep people from fleeing

It's not really about building a wall around your country to keep people from fleeing, but to prevent gadgets sold by people leveraging arbitrage in an unfair way to get in – or, as we call them for now millenia, tariffs.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#168

Post by advael »

willsmith72 wrote: post #155
advael wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Coeffi…

yes, philosophically and by the vibes, we are in complete agreement. clearly inequality is growing, clearly that is bad. but you're doing a disservice with completely bogus claims like "incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s". it only makes it harder to talk about the real issues and facts, because why would the other side stick to them now? the trust between sides gets further eroded a…

I agree that the author made an imperfect argument and probably should not make factual claims that aren't supported by data. I think people arguing in bad faith tend to pick up on this kind of error because, like the commenter I responded to, they feel that their ability to refute anything about the argument means they've refuted the argument. My intent in responding was to point out that this is stupid, and that no one writing informally can really make an unassailable factual argument, which I did by doing the same kind of stupid nitpicking on their nitpick. Finding the weakest peripheral claim made in an argument is essentially always a fractal recursion into increasingly banal minutiae that serves no one except people like me who are trying to procrastinate on actual work by writing comments on a dumb aggregator website where devs argue for fun. I think we are in agreement at most of the self-similar layers of this

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#169

Post by WalterBright »

arrosenberg wrote: post #146
WalterBright wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos famously left the state just before the Washington's new cap gains tax targeted at him was set to go into effect. I know other people with 8 figure fortunes who left, too. I didn't know it was controversial that spending a lot of money in a local economy makes it more prosperous, and when a big spender leaves, the local economy goes down. The Rust Belt is an example of the latter.

This isn't a feudal country and a single magnate leaving will barely affect the economy. What affected the Rust Belt, and is causing problems nationally, is that ultrawealthy people like Jeff Bezos are manipulating the government to change the laws in ways that allow him more concentration of wealth and power at the expense of the middle class. The lack of a middle class is what causes an economy to go down, and that…

The Rust Belt long predated Amazon.

How is Bezos extracting money from the middle class?

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#170

Post by advael »

orangecat wrote: post #164
advael wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Coeffi…

income inequality is really important for what someone's effective purchasing power is Not really. Bill Gates isn't bidding up the prices of homes or groceries in your neighborhood. Also, it's a huge factor in people's material living conditions, and a cost that has risen far faster than "inflation" Yes, housing is far too expensive. And the main reason for that is state and local governments forcibly preventing peop…

Groceries? Maybe not. Houses? Absolutely. I mean I don't know about Bill Gates in particular, but the overwhelming majority of wealthy people have diverse portfolios, including in real estate, which means that large companies or funds are making offers in cash for houses they're not planning to live in, which drives up prices in aggregate. It's not the only factor, but it's actually a significant one. Yes, housing stock is artificially limited for bad reasons. Also, the relative value of real estate near cities is, in an era where remote work is pretty feasible but a lot of companies don't allow it, artificially skewed toward the population centers people are forced to move to for work. That these are also factors does not imply that inequality isn't one

Also, reducing the entire question of whether something has gone wrong and what and what one might do about it to a binary of "capitalism good" or "capitalism bad" is pretty pointless. Lots of things we could call capitalism have worked out really differently from each other, and looking at what the aggregate trends are and what policies might drive them and how they might be adjusted to better people's situations is a lot more useful than pretending that this is about "capitalism" versus "not capitalism", which so far as I can tell you are the first person in the thread to do, including the author of the linked article

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