181–190 of 225 posts
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> anyone can study and become an entrepreneur Let's say I want to become a doctor and not an entrepreneur?
A doctor can be an entrepreneur too. After studying, you can opt to work in a clinic or start your own business. The latter is usually the faster path to wealth.
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Elon Musk carried a lot of the financial risk to get the company into the position it is in now. The engineers did not. Funny how risk is always completely neglected in these "entrepreneur bad, engineers good" narratives.
Ah yeah, much like the bankers of the world, the money-men always claim they are the ones "at risk" with their billions of dollars. Elon Musk is the second richest person in the world and has raised tens of billions of dollars of outside money to fund his companies. You talk like he's footing the bill; he put less than $10 million into Tesla. It was a brilliant decision, but hardly "risky". > The engineers did not. S…
That is the root meaning of risk - if things didn't pan out, he would have been (financially) ruined. Engineers would go ahead and get another job from somewhere else. If you can't see the difference here, I can't help you further.
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Why limit Elon Musk - who is arguably ensuring the long-term survivability of our species - for some arbitrary target like absolute equality? Why is a powerful bureaucrat with no money more desirable to you than a rich entrepreneur that had to prove his value before attaining reward? What is wrong with the youth have little-to-no savings and the elderly/about-to-retire having significant wealth and assets?
> Why is a powerful bureaucrat with no money more desirable to you than a rich entrepreneur that had to prove his value before attaining reward? Because the bureaucrat had to prove their merit among the whole population while the rich entrepreneur just had to prove their merit among other kids that were privileged enough. Just think of Bill Gates that went to probably the only school that had a computer in the world.…
then lets say this child turns this education and inheritance into 1 billion dollars worth of wealth. does this have no merit??
ive seen many people squander privileged upbringings, i think if you 10x what was given to you, you have some merit regardless of where you stared from.
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Hierarchy is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. We can reduce levels of inequality without producing the negative outcomes you fear. I’m not sure whether this applies to you (I’m not implying that it does), but I continually find it interesting to hear Americans expressing the fear that acting to reduce inequality will somehow limit social mobility, as if they don’t realize that much of the developed world has greater…
In every instance I've seen, redistribution does limit mobility - as well as introduces a middleman (the redistributors that steal/war/lie/oppress), corruption, politics, and extreme inefficiencies. You keep harping on the US, but it is one of - if not the most - upwardly mobile societies in history. One of my favorite anecdotes is how the 'unclassy american tourist' is a product of us being the first society to affo…
Much of Western-Europe show you otherwise, I'm not sure how you could have missed that?
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Agree with everything you said on the surface. Sounds reasonable. Of course we want the surgeon to be prepared for his job. It's important. But then there are those in this thread arguing that Elon Musk's reward should be unlimited because he's "arguably ensuring the long-term survivability of our species." Wow, that sounds very important. I guess he should have the most money then. Nevermind the fact that the majori…
Providing up-front funding for crazy ideas like electric cars and reusable rockets when everyone else is too stupid and shortsighted to is itself productive activity. In fact it is the most important productive activity: figuring out what to do, what is a good idea, and being willing to bet the returns of your previous labour on it and wait. The return on investment is the payment it is in our self-interest to give f…
Why not give a billion to a random business owner to come up with what to do?
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Then add in a tax system which aggressively taxes labor while leaving capital and inheritance untaxed, if we stopped taxing labor that might be enough to pull a whole chunk of labor out of poverty, just having work is no escape from poverty in a world of high rent and high income tax.
There is some truth to what you're saying, but also inheritance is massively taxed in most developed countries, especially in the US.
These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
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Why limit Elon Musk - who is arguably ensuring the long-term survivability of our species - for some arbitrary target like absolute equality? Why is a powerful bureaucrat with no money more desirable to you than a rich entrepreneur that had to prove his value before attaining reward? What is wrong with the youth have little-to-no savings and the elderly/about-to-retire having significant wealth and assets?
> who is arguably ensuring the long-term survivability of our species Do adult humans honestly believe that going to Mars is a reasonable way to "save our species"?
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Economic inequality within a developed nation is one of the least important kinds of inequality. I'd trade one standard deviation of income for one standard deviation of pretty much anything else, such as intelligence or attractiveness. The average person in a developed nation lives better than the kings and emperors of the past in material terms. They had a bigger dwelling, but I'd much rather live in a modern apart…
sexual/romantic partners though. if youre living in a shitty apt with a 200 dollar phone, good luck getting interest from potential partners. whereas the king was swimming in booty, and at the end of it all, that's what moves most of us mostly. id argue few ppl really want a lambo for the engineering of it as a machine, they just want to be seen riding in it. 500 years ago a lambo was a fancy horse drawn carriage.
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There is some truth to what you're saying, but also inheritance is massively taxed in most developed countries, especially in the US.
Estates are taxed at 0% up to $11 million dollars in the US. Moreover, that upper bound is indexed to inflation, unlike the minimum wage. I wonder why that is...
But inheritance tax is 40% above that.