21–30 of 71 posts
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Who paid you to make this comment? This is so unbelievably out of touch I have a hard time believing it is anything other than Astro turf.
do you have any specific points against what i said? i'm willing to change my beliefs but i made these beliefs after pondering about it.
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I'm glad you approve of "most of the investment", unfortunately "productive companies" don't do as well as various financial instruments which operate largely on symbolic capital. Private equity, which is only accessible by "rich people", doesn't exactly worry too much about productivity vs leveraged buyouts. It's interesting that you feel so strongly about other people succeeding though. It might seem strange but ot…
1. if we are talking about billionaire's wealth like Bezos, Musk etc - all their wealth is in their own company. you can decide for yourself as to whether these companies are productive or not 2. private equity is a necessary evil that tries to make something out of companies that never had a good future anyway. not a lot of billionaire wealth is in PE. in fact pension firms are one of the largest stakeholders in PE…
There is nothing “free market” about this. There is no equitable or efficient destitution of resources when this kind of thing happens - and it will always happen, because it is an inevitability.
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1. if we are talking about billionaire's wealth like Bezos, Musk etc - all their wealth is in their own company. you can decide for yourself as to whether these companies are productive or not 2. private equity is a necessary evil that tries to make something out of companies that never had a good future anyway. not a lot of billionaire wealth is in PE. in fact pension firms are one of the largest stakeholders in PE…
The problem isn’t necessarily the wealth itself, it’s the power feedback loop that comes with it. It’s the ability to influence the government to pass laws which maintain or amplify your existing wealth, which then increases your influence, etc. There is nothing “free market” about this. There is no equitable or efficient destitution of resources when this kind of thing happens - and it will always happen, because it…
but i don't think redistribution can materially make people's lives better.
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do you have any specific points against what i said? i'm willing to change my beliefs but i made these beliefs after pondering about it.
Here’s one - you presume the decisions they make about capital allocation are good and can’t be improved upon.
Yeah and if you make US median income you’re in the top 0.3% of worldwide income. I don’t see all these people giving away to the bottom 99.7%, hahaha.
I'm not sure that's actually all that relevant. Political power and social class are much more determined by the wealth distribution within a society than they are by the worldwide wealth distribution.
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I'm not sure that's actually all that relevant. Political power and social class are much more determined by the wealth distribution within a society than they are by the worldwide wealth distribution.
Political power and social class don't feed hungry people.
> Together, they now own three times more than the poorest half of humanity, or 2.8 billion adults. While the gap has stabilized since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has grown sharply over recent decades: Back in 1995, the 0.001% held "only" twice as much as the poorest half. Important context: here debt is counted as negative. This means a person with no debt but zero wealth also owns more wealth than bottom 2…
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What absolute value does? Percentages are a very weird way to look at it when people are starving. (also, tax them more)
i'm willing to talk about absolute as well. lets try to understand how many lives can be saved if billionaires completely cut their frivolous spending. lets be clear that this has to be compared against how much wealth they brought for others and whether they could have done this if the incentive for personal spending did not exist. assuming billionaires spend .1% of their wealth on frivolous purchases - you would ne…
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> ... our society is built such that any rando can convince YC and get funding. I disagree. What proof do you have that the random homeless guy and a kid graduating Stanford that was paid for by their parents, can convince YC to get funding?
i don't have proof. but if your suggestion is to make that easier then i'm with you. i don't think redistribution is the best way to achieve it (for the same reasons i mentioned above).
Then don't make claims about facts. You sound like someone trying to say the law treats everyone equally because both Elon Musk and Crazy Joe the homeless guy, are both barred from stealing bread.
Yeah and if you make US median income you’re in the top 0.3% of worldwide income. I don’t see all these people giving away to the bottom 99.7%, hahaha.
I'm not sure that's actually all that relevant. Political power and social class are much more determined by the wealth distribution within a society than they are by the worldwide wealth distribution.