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American Equity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: American Equity

#401

Post by geofft »

kgwgk wrote: post #239
Retric wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> money invested Only in the most inefficient way possible. The 'problem' is banks are limited in what they can do with this money which ends up creating investment bubbles and other market distortions which hurt the economy overall. If you slowly transitioned banks so they could not invest this money over say 100 years the net result would not be harmful. In the end money is not actual wealth, it's simply a represen…

You want to forbid loans?

I don't see why this is a blanket terrible idea - a ban on loans with interest, which are the only sort of loans that are economically rational for the lender, is a moral principle of one of the world's most popular religions (Islam) and used to be a moral principle of another (Christianity) until it was corrupted by capitalism in its lands. So we must at least concede that the idea of a world where loans are forbidden is well within the Overton window.

A world where people don't need loans seems like a pretty good world, honestly. I've been fortunate enough that my parents were able to finance my college education out of their savings, and I rent my apartment because I don't want a big mortgage, and my life is I think better compared to people I know with student loans and mortgages. A world where everyone has the same access to resources that I had is a worthy goal, and if we can fund that by banning loans, seems fine.

Re: American Equity

#402

Post by WalterBright »

vkou wrote: post #381
WalterBright wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happened as well in S. America, but S. America did not become a superpower. There's something else at work.

South America, unlike England, did not have captive colonial markets, that it could sell its mass-manufactured goods to. South America was the captive colonial market.

S.A. had their revolts against colonial rule as well as the US.

Re: American Equity

#403

Post by gumby »

koolba wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #16

People already have a share in the GDP. That's what it is, the total domestic product, the sum of all the little parts. The problem is not that people don't have share in it (and this goes for every country, not just for the USA), but that they have a disproportionate share in it. 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 rai…

> 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…

> Or go a step further do what nobody has the balls to do: tax wealth

"Nobody?" Other countries manage it.

Re: American Equity

#404

Post by Frondo »

hvo wrote: post #232
RivieraKid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drawback of taxing wealth is that it distorts markets, it discourages saving. EDIT: Can't comment ("You're posting too fast, blah blah blah"). Here are some replies to the comments bellow: > It's encouraging people to make their money be productive instead of stashing it under a mattress. When you have money in the bank, you're effectively lending most of it to other people. Your money is "productive", which is e…

Frankly,the trickle-down economics is not working.Plain and simple. Giving the rich lower tax and expecting them to invest the money back to the economy has been proved not to be working. And we know now that the ultra-rich folks tend to take the money,windfall from lower tax, and hide it in Virgin-Island, Panama,Cayman Island and other offshore tax havens.

I liked the older term they used to use for "trickle down". They used to call it "horse and sparrow" economics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Critici...

"Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'"

It feels more honest that way.

Re: American Equity

#405

Post by mundo »

cryptonector wrote: post #271
taxtherich wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are wealth taxes in Switzerland, Norway, France, and the Netherlands, amongst others in Europe. They've been repealed in countries like Sweden and Austria, not because they were disasters, but because exceedingly wealthy people have a lot of influence. That's the only story. As such your claim that no such taxes exist is wrong; and your claim that they've been a disaster is also fallacious. p.s. your "ready for…

Can you show us a comparison of GDP growth rates, before and after wealth taxes were promulgated (and, where it happened, repealed)? Also, please, a comparison of GDP history between countries that have and lack wealth taxes. Near as I can tell Europe has lagged way behind the U.S. in economic growth since the 1980s. I remember back in the 90s when catching up to the U.S. was stated goal of the incipient EU. How did…

> Can you show us a comparison of GDP growth rates, before and after wealth taxes were promulgated?

Two hours before saying that, you said:

> ...every time it's been tried anywhere it's been a disaster for the overall economy: capital (and wealthy people) flees.

Re: American Equity

#406

Post by CaptSpify »

ImSkeptical wrote: post #175
unfunco wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An annual bonus just for being an American.

I think it would be an annual bonus for some Americans, and an annual tax increase for others. As someone who, I suspect, would be in the second group, I feel like we do enough of this kind of thing already.

And as someone who, I suspect, would be in the second group as well, I feel like we do the tax increase part way too much, but we don't do the annual bonus part nearly enough.

Re: American Equity

#407

Post by sumedh »

xapata wrote: post #377
gozur88 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes. I purchased several of their products... Which is "no". Buying and building are two different things. So I guess you were right about what I intended.

> buying and building are two different things Consider the way Kickstarter projects describe their "backers". On the "Why Kickstarter?" page they say backers are "helping to create something new". Yet, one could easily consider Kickstarter simply a website for pre-orders, no different from buying in any other method. The line between a buyer and a backer/builder isn't so clear.

> The line between a buyer and a backer/builder isn't so clear.

It is pretty clear, if you are funding someone'e kickstart project then you did help them build it but if you pay for a product which was built using the creator's(or some other investor's) money then you did not build it.

Re: American Equity

#408

Post by tptacek »

geofft wrote: post #401
kgwgk wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to forbid loans?

I don't see why this is a blanket terrible idea - a ban on loans with interest, which are the only sort of loans that are economically rational for the lender, is a moral principle of one of the world's most popular religions (Islam) and used to be a moral principle of another (Christianity) until it was corrupted by capitalism in its lands. So we must at least concede that the idea of a world where loans are forbidd…

Wait, why are interest-free loans the only kind of economically rational loans? Commercial debt contracts include interest, and are executed exclusively between sophisticated buyers and sellers of debt.

Re: American Equity

#410

Post by geofft »

tptacek wrote: post #408
geofft wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why this is a blanket terrible idea - a ban on loans with interest, which are the only sort of loans that are economically rational for the lender, is a moral principle of one of the world's most popular religions (Islam) and used to be a moral principle of another (Christianity) until it was corrupted by capitalism in its lands. So we must at least concede that the idea of a world where loans are forbidd…

Wait, why are interest-free loans the only kind of economically rational loans? Commercial debt contracts include interest, and are executed exclusively between sophisticated buyers and sellers of debt.

I think I put too many negatives in that sentence. I am claiming that interest-bearing loans are the only economically rational ones (because otherwise you're taking on nonzero risk for definitely zero reward), and interest-free loans used to be widely acknowledged as the only morally justifiable ones.
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