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

Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

blog.rongarret.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 242 posts

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#31

Post by MrTonyD »

codeismightier wrote: post #23
MrTonyD wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me years to realize that economics isn't physics - and it isn't ruled by physics-like laws. Instead, economics is governed by laws created by our society. And what we think of as "free market" is really just norms of trade which are created by our society. There is no reason why the bulk of the billions taken-in by WalMart should go to the Walton family while their employees live on food-stamps - that is just…

I don't understand the hate against Walmart. It only has a profit margin of 3.12% [1] and return on assets of 7.69%. Now I suppose you could argue that all the profits are hidden away somewhere, but that sounds like an unfalsifiable statement. It certainly would be illegal to hide assets from shareholders. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=WMT

You're talking to someone who has spent most of his life in the Fortune 50 - working with executives who routinely hide the bulk of their wealth from any accounting. These techniques have been widely discussed in the press (if you look). So I must assume that you have, for philosophical reasons, chosen to disbelieve that the rich hide their wealth.

Edit: Not sure why I was downvoted. But I was in the room as we reassigned profits to offshore entities for accounting purposes. And I was in meetings with our senior executives who were arranging to pay themselves in undervalued offshore stocks "off the books". Those offshores provided inflated services and inflated goods to the corporation and avoided taxation while making the executives rich. The value of those offshore stocks was "reinflated" with a phone call. And that is just one company - the Big 3 accounting firms provide these services routinely for both the corporation and its executives. (And when we reassigned profits that had the effect of lowering profits - and even making income disappear. I've seen these techniques used at more than one company.)

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#32

Post by dovereconomics »

Some decent points, but why can't anyone acknowledge the centralization of capital?

Sure, Uber lobbies city mayors, but what about the financial system that gives $6.6B to a single startup? The inception of all problems.

Politicians and lobbyists? I'd worry about the Fed.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#33

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #10

Mr. Garret quotes Sanders: > The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire class has rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people of this country. I am rather puzzled that this idea gets so much traction. Does anyone really believe that if only the rules weren't "rigged" local shops and businesses would be able to compete against Wal-Mart a…

[deleted]

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#35

Post by lisper »

kelukelugames wrote: post #8
hkmurakami wrote: post #7

>So once again, let me be clear: I do not want to kill Y Combinator, nor do I want to kill Uber or AirBnB. AFAIK Uber is not a YC portfolio company.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/678653529288916996 PG on Uber. "No, just a user."

Wow, you're right. I've published a correction.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#36

Post by paganel »

UK-AL wrote: post #16
MrTonyD wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me years to realize that economics isn't physics - and it isn't ruled by physics-like laws. Instead, economics is governed by laws created by our society. And what we think of as "free market" is really just norms of trade which are created by our society. There is no reason why the bulk of the billions taken-in by WalMart should go to the Walton family while their employees live on food-stamps - that is just…

Do you believe in property rights? Having a legal/police system to catch people who forcebly take property? Using trade to exchange property? This is the core of our system. And that system will always generate inequality. Not necessarily a bad thing. You can have laws to take the edge off inequality generated, but at the core of the system you can't really avoid it.

> Do you believe in property rights?

Not the OP, but I think a lot more people nowadays should read (or re-read) Locke's "Two Treatises of Government". That book is famous mostly for the second part, where Locke actually intellectually imposes private property as a thing in the Western world, but I found the first part equally interesting, where Locke fights against a guy called Filmer, who was of the opinion (prevalent until then) that all property was rightfully owned by the King, transferred to him from generations past since Adam.

The thing I'm trying to say is that yes, private property is just a social construct, there's no divine nor moral thing about it, the concept came alive (so to speak) only because some guys in England didn't like that their possessions were in danger of being confiscated by the King's men.

In the end private property is indeed theft, more exactly the imposition of someone's moral values over the other's by intrinsic force (if you "steal" you might go to prison or worst). The sooner we realize this the better, there's no second-guessing about it.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#37

Post by forrestthewoods »

monochromatic wrote: post #9
forrestthewoods wrote: post #3

"At the very least, we should strive for a non-regressive tax system, which is what we have now." I'm super pro regressive taxes. Regressive taxes are fantastic for the poor. They get more than they put in AND the elite are less able to avoid paying them. The socialized promised lands of Scandinavia are highly regressive. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/why-im-soft-on-s...

> The socialized promised lands of Scandinavia are highly regressive. No, they aren't. Regressive means that the rich pay less, percentage-wise, than the poor do.

Did you even read the link I gave?

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#39

Post by puredemo »

paganel wrote: post #36
UK-AL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe in property rights? Having a legal/police system to catch people who forcebly take property? Using trade to exchange property? This is the core of our system. And that system will always generate inequality. Not necessarily a bad thing. You can have laws to take the edge off inequality generated, but at the core of the system you can't really avoid it.

> Do you believe in property rights? Not the OP, but I think a lot more people nowadays should read (or re-read) Locke's "Two Treatises of Government". That book is famous mostly for the second part, where Locke actually intellectually imposes private property as a thing in the Western world, but I found the first part equally interesting, where Locke fights against a guy called Filmer, who was of the opinion (preval…

>In the end private property is indeed theft,

Private property can't be "theft" if there is no private property.

If you don't believe in private property, you're sort of poisoning the well of any economic conversation, since it's the foundation of basically all of peaceful civilization.

Without private property there is only tribalism and, "might makes right."

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#40

Post by Frondo »

puredemo wrote: post #39
paganel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe in property rights? Not the OP, but I think a lot more people nowadays should read (or re-read) Locke's "Two Treatises of Government". That book is famous mostly for the second part, where Locke actually intellectually imposes private property as a thing in the Western world, but I found the first part equally interesting, where Locke fights against a guy called Filmer, who was of the opinion (preval…

>In the end private property is indeed theft, Private property can't be "theft" if there is no private property. If you don't believe in private property, you're sort of poisoning the well of any economic conversation, since it's the foundation of basically all of peaceful civilization. Without private property there is only tribalism and, "might makes right."

One counterpoint:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5872764/the-greatest-mystery-of-the-i...

Post reply on HN