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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#461

Post by cherrycherry98 »

kagakuninja wrote: post #315
asadotzler wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The individual wants his class to be taxed. Telling the individual they can simply pay more does nothing for everyone else in the class. Your reply is unserious.

Not only do I want everyone in my "class" to contribute more to society, everyone significantly above me should be contributing a larger share. This is the basis of progressive taxation.

You're equating giving money to the government with contributing to society, which is not the same thing. Politicians will give your money to any cause that will get them reelected, be that vanity projects or cronies that contribute to their campaigns. That's not even the worst case, they can spend it on the military killing people, spying on the populace including you, or distributing it in some other unjust way.

If you want to actually contribute to society you are better off investing it in some productive way or giving away to people in need as directly as possible. Government is a necessary evil, don't give it a dime more than what's absolutely needed as it can get out of control with little room to escape.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#462

Post by gottorf »

tsimionescu wrote: post #120
hackererror404 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things cost way more than 10 or 15 million in terms of investment. Why shouldn't a billionaire be capable of starting a genetics lab to fund cancer research and pay for it in cash, if they are so inclined? Also almost all of super wealthy people's "wealth" is tied up in assets that are funding entire economies. This money is creating jobs, allowing for affordable loans, the money is working for many other people…

> Why shouldn't a billionaire be capable of starting a genetics lab to fund cancer research and pay for it in cash, if they are so inclined? Well, why should they? What if instead of a genetics lab, they want to start a flat earth research center? Or a think tank to influence policy in their favor?

Who instead should be capable of doing such a thing?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#463

Post by vacuity »

gottorf wrote: post #448
vacuity wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from that, it's not obvious to me why we need a Bezos to achieve this. If people were capped to $5 billion (which seems absurdly high to me), would AWS never come into existence?

> If people were capped to $5 billion Bezos's net worth is basically just the number of shares of Amazon he holds times the price per share that the market arrived at (and continues to arrive at, changing every minute of every day). How would you cap him at $5B? Would you force him to divest his shares as that equation approaches $5B, even though he's not the one setting the price per share? That hardly seems fair, l…

I don't think it's unfair to make him divest some of his shares. I suppose there could be leeway there, but having over $100 billion in shares certainly seems excessive. Hey, if taxes are paid as they should be, working conditions improved, and whatever else, I personally don't care so much about a wealth cap. But a wealth cap is a means to ensure that the government has the money to redistribute the wealth appropriately. In the end, as long as the outcomes are achieved, I'll consider that a win.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#464

Post by ttfkam »

roenxi wrote: post #449
ttfkam wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previous generations learned the hard way that when you lose your life savings, once is too often. A lot of folks never recovered after the first time it happened to them. Identifying a huckster isn't as easy as you say. A lot of folks lost everything in a local savings and loan, not some fly-by-night penny stock broker. Crypto will not stop this. Crypto has no intrinsic value. A car has intrinsic value. A house has…

If you add all the pieces in your first paragraph together, the obvious answer is people need to stop giving all their money to 1 institution that they can't assess the creditworthiness of. It is a bad idea. Even if the money is then backstopped. The current system encourages them to do this. And you say "lost their life savings" as though the current system doesn't do that. Anyone who has attempted to hold their lif…

> the obvious answer is people need to stop giving all their money to 1 institution that they can't assess the creditworthiness of.

You literally just described everyone who has a bank account. The finance sector is anything but transparent. See: Bear Sterns.

> I'd hope people are prepared with a history like that.

People play the lottery. Humans are REALLY bad at probability. There's an argument that the human brain itself is bad at it. Human perception is the source of optical illusions, sleight of hand, logical fallacies, etc. We are not biologically primed to handle these kinds of problems.

Snake on the ground is a threat? Excellent. Monty Hall Problem? Even after explaining it, a majority of folks still reject the solution because it isn't naturally intuitive.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#465

Post by rangestransform »

tehjoker wrote: post #97
lavelganzu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen enough attempts at planned societies that ended badly, so most folk are justifiably wary of further attempts, even putatively democratic ones. Make it easily opt-in, easily opted-out, and successful, and then people will be interested again.

This one is ending badly too. Uncontrolled pandemic with over a million dead, openly supporting a genocide in Palestine, endless war, near zero democratic input from people less rich than wealthy suburbanites, climate crisis, the ending of U.S. hegemony causing a hyperfixation on military control of the world. It goes on and on, and can all be traced back to a fundamentally undemocratic governance structure and econo…

It’s also the mark of a successful society that it’s able to respond to external threats, no?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#466

Post by oneoff123 »

One could look at things from a different perspective: All That money, like all debt, represents goods and services we collectively owe to those people.

They expect to one day buy things from us.

If we want to honor that agrement we should at least attempt to not make it worse.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#467

Post by ttfkam »

roenxi wrote: post #454
ttfkam wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, and Bitcoin mining alone is 2% of all electricity consumption in the US. Nonsense. Absolute insanity. The definition of wasted resources. Those are all EV vehicle charging numbers. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/over-2-percent-of-th...

If people would rather burn 2% of the electricity in the US rather than deal with financial regulations, that does say something about the financial regulations. Although at this stage it is a bit unclear exactly what.

Bitcoin and other crypto get big enough, regulation will follow shortly after. That said, the first to flee regulation in the financial sector are much more heavily weighted toward the grifters and fraudsters.

See: Mt. Gox

People flocked to Bitcoin because they saw people get rich. That's it. Real estate is very heavily regulated by comparison and yet folks were buying, selling, and flipping like crazy. People want money. Regulations are an excuse, not the primary motivator.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#468

Post by roenxi »

ttfkam wrote: post #464
roenxi wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add all the pieces in your first paragraph together, the obvious answer is people need to stop giving all their money to 1 institution that they can't assess the creditworthiness of. It is a bad idea. Even if the money is then backstopped. The current system encourages them to do this. And you say "lost their life savings" as though the current system doesn't do that. Anyone who has attempted to hold their lif…

> the obvious answer is people need to stop giving all their money to 1 institution that they can't assess the creditworthiness of. You literally just described everyone who has a bank account. The finance sector is anything but transparent. See: Bear Sterns. > I'd hope people are prepared with a history like that. People play the lottery. Humans are REALLY bad at probability. There's an argument that the human brain…

roenxi: "This is a terrible idea"

ttfkam: "You literally just described everyone who has a bank account."

In some sense, well spotted. That is why I think the system is a bit cooked. People can't just put hand their money over to one institution, ignore what is done with it and expect to get a good outcome. This is a good way to get vast capital misallocations and, eventually, a lot of people ending up poor. More people than the alternative of the occasional bank run. I can see an argument for setting up full-reserve banks. But if people are going to lend their money to institutions that on-lend it, we should be seeing banking institutes get rolled up regularly and depositors losing at least some of their money. People shouldn't be allowed to ignore what is done with their money; it leads to some of the worst incentives in the modern economy.

But technically no, some people have their money spread over a few institutions. And most people don't seem to have cash savings these days anyway (which is rational given the inflation regime).

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#469

Post by latency-guy2 »

vonjuice wrote: post #412
educaysean wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true. Although when embarking on a brand new frontier without any empirical evidence available, one would assume there's ample theoretical evidence to make up for it. In this case both appear to be lacking.

In an abstract context that all seems dandy. However when the power is held by people who would potentially face significant financial loss from either theoretical or empirical evidence, it shouldn't be a surprise that such evidence is lacking, no?

> it shouldn't be a surprise that such evidence is lacking, no?

So there's no way for you to be wrong? But there is indeed all the ways for everyone else to be wrong?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#470

Post by bradlys »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #423
bradlys wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t pay property tax to keep your car. You pay registration fees to drive your car on public roads. You can still drive that car on racetracks and other such places. The car/house comparison doesn’t make any sense here. You don’t own the land and never will. You just lease it from the government and we all get that.

>> You don’t pay property tax to keep your car I pay property tax to keep my car. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my car, and I pay taxes based on that. I pay property tax to keep my house. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my house and I pay taxes based on that. The car/house comparison makes sense here because I get a bill in the mail for property tax on my house and I get a bill in the mail for p…

> I pay property tax to keep my car. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my car, and I pay taxes based on that. I pay property tax to keep my house. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my house and I pay taxes based on that.

In the US? This isn't common. I've heard of things like this to register your car but not to keep it.

There's no laws in the USA where they'll repossess your car if you don't pay registration fees. They just don't allow it to be on the road legally and you'll get ticketed.

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