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Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

mkorostoff.github.io

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Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#41

Post by titzer »

icelancer wrote: post #38
bjourne wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! The burden of proof is on you. Please explain in detail exactly how Torvalds in 50 years of living has created $140 billion dollars of value. How many billions of value did he create this year? How many did he create last year? And so on.

Uh, Linux and its derivations drive over half of the computing power in the world, yielding insane productivity gains for people of all classes, races, ages, and geographic locations. I think that speaks for itself.

Thought experiment: we discover a whole new planet the size and population of Earth that just happens to run x86 computers, but no Linux. We introduce them to Linux, which can be copied onto every single one of them at essentially zero cost. Should Linus and co's fortune instantly double? Do they deserve a "cut" of every single person's productivity gain, forever, everywhere, in perpetuity?

This is the principle we are discussing.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#42

Post by bjourne »

icelancer wrote: post #38
bjourne wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! The burden of proof is on you. Please explain in detail exactly how Torvalds in 50 years of living has created $140 billion dollars of value. How many billions of value did he create this year? How many did he create last year? And so on.

Uh, Linux and its derivations drive over half of the computing power in the world, yielding insane productivity gains for people of all classes, races, ages, and geographic locations. I think that speaks for itself.

Thanks for missing the point, uh. Explain exactly which of Torvalds actions that together created $150 billion of value. How many billions was uploading the Linux kernel to ftp in 1991 worth? How many billions was created when git was launched?

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#43

Post by Rury »

titzer wrote: post #19
ksec wrote: post #18

This is often the problem I see with people mixing up Wealth and Income . A person with $100K income could also have millions of wealth or asset from stocks to property. Jeff Bezos has most of this wealth from Stocks. And I am willing to bet $100 given the current market cap and PE or PEG, his resignation from the company and liquidations of his Amazon Asset will trigger a sell off that its value differs quite a lot…

You gotta wonder about the morality of a society that allows a person to amass 40,000 lifetimes of wealth and lets others starve. The ultra rich are a mathematical anomaly that exposes what a sham this "meritocracy" is. It is physically impossible to create $140 billion dollars of actual value for people in a single human lifetime (2.5 billion seconds). The only way is the amplification and exponentiation of that wor…

> the market has absolutely failed to price the "goods" created by these people according to their incremental cost.

Your right. The wealth Jeff has vastly comes from his ownership of his business, of which he alone didn't make it what it is today. Many workers helped contribute and make it what it is today, but they're not anywhere as wealthy as they're weren't fairly given part ownership in the business they contributed in making...

You could argue the workers were paid a wage which they could of invested into a share of ownership in the business, but it's still unfair. There's a limited amount of stock to go around (unless the company issues more stock), existing owners stand to benefit more when this happens.

Stock behaves just like money in regards to it's store of value. Print alot of it, without making goods, and it becomes worthless and vice versa.

Therefore for fairness, ideally companies should print stock equal to the growth in their value and given to those who made the value. But lol at this pipe dream, as share prices wouldn't ever change much, so existing owners would be against it as they wouldn't benefit from it (unless they also worked in adding more value). Nevermind the difficulties in objectively attributing value...

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#44

Post by icelancer »

bjourne wrote: post #42
icelancer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, Linux and its derivations drive over half of the computing power in the world, yielding insane productivity gains for people of all classes, races, ages, and geographic locations. I think that speaks for itself.

Thanks for missing the point, uh. Explain exactly which of Torvalds actions that together created $150 billion of value. How many billions was uploading the Linux kernel to ftp in 1991 worth? How many billions was created when git was launched?

There's no missing the point. Torvalds developing Linux rocketed productivity which as any economist can tell you is worth a lot, lot of money. The scale at which the Fed is pumping money into the economy hoping to get a fraction of that productivity should tell you how much its worth.

You disagree with economic principles and productivity. That's fine. There's nothing to continue to discuss, then.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#45

Post by icelancer »

titzer wrote: post #41
icelancer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, Linux and its derivations drive over half of the computing power in the world, yielding insane productivity gains for people of all classes, races, ages, and geographic locations. I think that speaks for itself.

Thought experiment: we discover a whole new planet the size and population of Earth that just happens to run x86 computers, but no Linux. We introduce them to Linux, which can be copied onto every single one of them at essentially zero cost. Should Linus and co's fortune instantly double? Do they deserve a "cut" of every single person's productivity gain, forever, everywhere, in perpetuity? This is the principle we a…

Linus isn't worth billions of dollars, so probably not. I imagine his net worth due to residuals would increase, and yes, he would be deserving of it.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#46

Post by dntbnmpls »

icelancer wrote: post #39
dntbnmpls wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Source? The reality of physics and human capability? > I think Linus Torvalds and Norman Borlaug both easily did this. They had a part in it, but it's the people/ecosystem that creates the wealth, not an individual. Linus didn't create all the distros. He didn't install it on all the servers around the world. > Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates certainly might be up there. They themselves didn't create $140 billion of anyt…

>> They had a part in it, but it's the people/ecosystem that creates the wealth, not an individual. Linus didn't create all the distros. He didn't install it on all the servers around the world. One is a much more replaceable skill than the other in this equation. That's why Torvalds has contributed more to world productivity than most.

> One is a much more replaceable skill than the other in this equation. That's why Torvalds has contributed more to world productivity than most.

What is? It takes as plenty of skill to build a distro ( along with the package management systems, etc ) as it does to write a kernel. I understand that to most people, "kernel" = magic, but it really isn't. Not to mention many people helped develop the linux kernel.

Linus deserves credit, but so does red hat, slackware, debian, etc. Without those distros and GNU project, nobody would know of linus or the linux kernel. And the vast majority most of the GNU/Linux OS ecosystem is non-linux.

> That's why Torvalds has contributed more to world productivity than most.

The "great man" nonsense really has staying power. Using your logic, Torvalds' mother has contributed even more than torvalds to world productivity because she created linus...

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#47

Post by hypertexthero »

A general strike [is needed][1] around the world demanding a basic income of between $1000 to $2000 a month for all human beings, and a one-time payment of around $100,000 to each person when they reach 25 years of age, financed by a [progressive tax][2] on the wealthiest people in the planet.

[1]: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2014/05/01/Piketty-C...

[2]: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/03/pikettys-new-...

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#48

Post by titzer »

icelancer wrote: post #44
bjourne wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for missing the point, uh. Explain exactly which of Torvalds actions that together created $150 billion of value. How many billions was uploading the Linux kernel to ftp in 1991 worth? How many billions was created when git was launched?

There's no missing the point. Torvalds developing Linux rocketed productivity which as any economist can tell you is worth a lot, lot of money. The scale at which the Fed is pumping money into the economy hoping to get a fraction of that productivity should tell you how much its worth. You disagree with economic principles and productivity. That's fine. There's nothing to continue to discuss, then.

TBH my original comment skirted the line on trolling, mostly because of its terseness. But it's a genuine thing to consider unquestioned, unstated assumptions like the idea that an inventor is entitled to a percentage of every single productivity gain everywhere that results from their invention, regardless of the incremental cost to them. You can see the discussion elsewhere in this thread about that. But maybe on your own time you can consider why you accept and defend this principle which so obviously benefits rich people and powerful corporations the most.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#49

Post by ZguideZ »

fallingfrog wrote: post #8
fallingfrog wrote: post #6

“Around 800 children will die of malaria today. A small group of super rich people could stop it for a sum of money so small that they would likely never even notice its absence. But they choose not to.” Brutal. The theoretical appeal of capitalism is that it allocates resources efficiently, is it not? Can someone explain to me how letting all these children die of malaria is efficient, given the cost/benefit of elim…

I think the reason that capitalism does not allocate money to save children’s lives is that the investor cannot claim any of the child’s future income. That’s also the reason that capitalism tends to under invest in things like education and nutrition for kids, or environmental protections or fighting climate change- how are you going to recoup that investment? There is one way. If everyone were slaves, then the capi…

Let's not delude ourselves, workers are already slaves under capitalism. How many times have you heard someone say they were working until they could buy their freedom? That's what saving for retirement is, after all - and most end up failing and having to work in some capacity until they are either unable or dead. Wage slavery is slavery.

Re: Wealth Inequalities Shown to the Scale

#50

Post by ZguideZ »

fallingfrog wrote: post #6

“Around 800 children will die of malaria today. A small group of super rich people could stop it for a sum of money so small that they would likely never even notice its absence. But they choose not to.” Brutal. The theoretical appeal of capitalism is that it allocates resources efficiently, is it not? Can someone explain to me how letting all these children die of malaria is efficient, given the cost/benefit of elim…

Capitalism requires workers and consumers. The places those children are have plenty of workers and do not generally produce consumers of any volume. Capitalism weighs human life only in terms of profit and loss. It is profitable in capitalism for those children to die because they do not require resources, diminish worker capacity etc. Ugly system probably created by and for evil.
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