Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

American Equity

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 552 posts

Re: American Equity

#191

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

touchofevil wrote: post #172

I completely support this idea. Additionally, I think the USA needs to move away from anything that doesn't reflect majority rule. For example, abolish the Senate, end the electoral college, end gerrymandering, and reform campaign financing. The USA could be a lot more democratic than it is at present and until that is fixed, you will keep seeing a minority of the population control policies that affect the whole nat…

>For example, abolish the Senate, end the electoral college, end gerrymandering, and reform campaign financing.

I can get behind a lot of those but the Senate? What's your problem with it? Seems like the founders had very good reason to create it.

Re: American Equity

#192

Post by ringaroundthetx »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #165

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…

> Corporations have been operating under the mistaken belief that they are legally obligated to maximize shareholder returns for a couple of decades now

Thats because its very expensive when you don't, from the shareholder lawsuits.

You can try to scale up your worldview without getting sued to oblivion, but it is a parallel fantasy.

Re: American Equity

#193

Post by Entangled »

See, taxing people is not a solution to the problem, rich people will find ways to circunvent the rules and money will flow out of the country instead of being invested here. So the real solution is to stop taxing people and let them have their money so they can invest it here while also attracting capital from around the world.

Now, do you remember when the FED under Obama printed a trillion dollars a year for five years? Do you know where that money is? Is part of that in your pocket? I don't think so. Well, give that kind of money to 100 million americans in an installment of a thousand dollars a month and that would cover their basic needs while the whole country produces more with all the tax cuts to the producers. Of course much less regulation would do wonders to the economy, like eliminating patents, minimum salary laws, health and education regulations, etc. Go back to letting the individual produce with their own hands and minds without governemnt intervention and that will bring much more prosperity than any other idea. Except politicians won't like it.

So in short, while inflation (money printing) is a kind of taxation, we could easily print money (10% of GDP)to give it to the needy while reducing the size of government and regulations to increase production.

Re: American Equity

#194

Post by gist »

blizkreeg wrote: post #114

I have a better (may be slightly insane) idea. Open up startup investing (VC rounds especially) to a wider audience through some kind of index fund. Retirement and pension funds, endowments etc are too roundabout a way of actually benefitting from the windfall in the now. While this is obviously risky, in the 2/10 chance where the startup IPOs or gets acquired, everyone stands to benefit a big deal. I recently heard…

> Open up startup investing (VC rounds especially)

VC wins are done with primarily other people's money with bets spread in multiple areas and advantages accruing to people who get a larger portion of any potential gains.

So maybe please stop thinking (as I think Sam probably does) that startups are the answer to everything and that in the end everyone wins if they can be a part of that. Keep in mind also that money put into startups (that was not previously there) also takes away from money that would enter the economy and benefit other groups. In other words Uber takes away jobs from taxi drivers and Amazon takes away jobs from companies that would typically be selling if Amazon did not exist. It's not all a net win. Which is why it's laughable when (in this example) Amazon talks about opening a warehouse and creating X jobs.

Sam has a lot of time on his hands and plenty of good fortune to be in a position to ponder issues like this. Certainly tells you all of his financial needs are met and now he can try to answer to a higher calling.

Re: American Equity

#195

Post by icebraining »

RivieraKid wrote: post #12

TL;DR: America should implement basic income. My usual objection to basic income applies: Basic income in some form already exists in most European countries. It's just a not-that-big parametric change to our current systems plus a change in mentality and social perception of welfare. Suggesting that we should implement basic income of x euros is roughly equivalent to suggesting that we should increase the welfare un…

I don't know about the rest of Europe, but in my corner you lose that income if you start getting a paycheck, which is a problem because it discourages work. UBI means you still get paid even when working.

Re: American Equity

#196

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

bcoates wrote: post #142
koolba wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 raise your taxes on the rich and lift up those that are at the lowest end of the scale. That will have a lot more effect than some fiction where you get to do a bunch of make-believe bookkeeping. Or go a step further do what nobody has the balls to do: tax wealth That's what all the…

It's not a matter of balls, it's a matter of understanding that the most important part of tax policy is compliance, that is actually collecting the taxes . Even our current methods of evaluating quantities and distribution of wealth are vague estimates, and that's without people incentivized by taxation to hide or minimize it. A wealth tax that turns into anything but a buildings-and-cars tax is a fantasy from an en…

There is an option for enforcement you're not realizing here, called the Commodore Mathew Perry method, it goes like this. --Location: Tax Havens--

>Knock Knock Its the United States

With huge boats, with guns, gunboats.

>Open your banks' records, stop having them be closed

and theres not much they can do about.

So they sign a treaty making sure their banks' records are not closed.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Inspired by this, both historically and in delivery https://youtu.be/Mh5LY4Mz15o?t=4m46s

Re: American Equity

#198

Post by shawnee_ »

derefr wrote: post #176
koolba wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 raise your taxes on the rich and lift up those that are at the lowest end of the scale. That will have a lot more effect than some fiction where you get to do a bunch of make-believe bookkeeping. Or go a step further do what nobody has the balls to do: tax wealth That's what all the…

From the perspective of trying to get the budget balanced, taxing wealth is probably the single most efficient way to do it. From the perspective of the tax code as an incentive system , taxing wealth is a strange thing—it makes people feel less interest in becoming wealthy, and thereby causes fewer GDP-building things to happen! (This is also, for a similar reason, why economists don't like corporate taxes or trade…

> taxing wealth is probably the single most efficient way to do it.

It's not taxing wealth so much as taxing the mechanisms that create undue inequality that would work: yes, I'm talking about taxing rental income. The number one driver preventing people from building savings is draining their income through rent.

The solution is sort of obvious, but hated by people who love the AirBnB model: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14493769

Re: American Equity

#199

Post by ringaroundthetx »

kome wrote: post #126

American tech élite is funny... USA can't even a normal healthcare BUT the tech élite is all about Universal Basic Income, Transhumanism, the dangers of AI, going to Mars and saving the suburbs/car lifestyle. Can't they just wake up and put their mental energy and money on something that actually make sense?

> Can't they just wake up and put their mental energy and money on something that actually make sense?

They put their money on problems that have a clear path of solving.

Americans cannot agree to use their money on other Americans who have different values than them, westernized social welfare systems occur in homogenous cultures.

In the US, the homogenous elite and majority power cannot agree to use their money on problems that affect a completely different culture in the lower classes. In continental governments such as the EU, you see the same thing.

Post reply on HN