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American Equity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: American Equity

#481

Post by smallnamespace »

heylook wrote: post #462
smallnamespace wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of logic is also why it's hard to get this sort of legislation passed nowadays. Media has done a good job of raising awareness of the problems of wealth disparity, and a lot of people nod along. But no matter how wealthy someone is, they can always point to the more-rich and say those people are the problem and should be taxed, not themselves.

> But no matter how wealthy someone is, they can always point to the more-rich and say those people are the problem and should be taxed, not themselves. This is obviously untrue. There isn't an infinite number of people wealthier than Gates or the Waltons or the Rothschilds. At some point there is no one further up the economic ladder in whatever location you're talking about.

Sure, but it's literally untrue for only one person in the world, or let's say a handful of people if you want to restrict by geography (although it seems the richer you are, the easier it is to shift wealth around).

Re: American Equity

#482

Post by kamaal »

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.

The only thing you will end up achieving is stop the next Microsoft from happening, not the next Bill Gates from happening. The next Bill Gates will happen else where.

Re: American Equity

#483

Post by kamaal »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #234
slimshady94 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Bill Gates have worked so hard (presumably) if he didn't have that specific understanding of ownership and casuality? Isn't that type of motivation and incentive necessary, to grind through the obstacles?

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, worked hard, and yet he still gave his hard work to the public.

You always make lesser profits on the tools, than the profits you make by building products using the tools.

The guy who sells tables and chairs is likely to make more money than the guy who sells nails and hammers.

Re: American Equity

#484

Post by pnathan »

bensonn wrote: post #417
pnathan wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm persuaded that wealth taxes and maximum income are the appropriate solution: after X million per year, you don't get more money, and after you and your family heap up Y million of _fluidly defined_ assets, you get taxed on what you hold/control/manage-via-tax-shelter. Obliterate the tax shelters, obliterate the tax havens, bring the money back home under threat of criminal law. I'm not saying you can't be a fat c…

Everybody tends to put that certain point above where they are at. I realize, as limited to a US discussion, it is easy to say Bezos and Gates are rich, I am not. But if this was expanded, simply as a thought experiment, to the entire world would you be fine classified as a "fat cat"? Assuming (perhaps incorrectly) you are in the US, you are also reading Hacker News, so you are probably the top 1% of the worlds wealt…

That argument is relatively vacuous on its face, because that is moral flattening (along with intentionally misunderstanding the problem), and promotes inaction.

Re: American Equity

#485

Post by pnathan »

free_everybody wrote: post #317
pnathan wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm persuaded that wealth taxes and maximum income are the appropriate solution: after X million per year, you don't get more money, and after you and your family heap up Y million of _fluidly defined_ assets, you get taxed on what you hold/control/manage-via-tax-shelter. Obliterate the tax shelters, obliterate the tax havens, bring the money back home under threat of criminal law. I'm not saying you can't be a fat c…

How can you implement such a practice when our politicians and leaders are fat cats (or aspiring fat cats)? Only vote for people below a certain wealth line?

Throwing politicians out of office who don't do it and promoting a stigma around vast amounts of wealth will change things.

Elections matter.

Re: American Equity

#487

Post by dang »

simonsarris wrote: post #137

> I’d like feedback on the following idea. > I think that every adult US citizen should get an annual share of the US GDP. Sure thing, sama. I hope you saw it[1]: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/after-universal-basic-incom... Without addressing these issues, UBI could look like a nightmare even if we're all on board. I think he's committing the usual assumptions: 1. That what people struggling and suffering in the U…

> Because dang messaged me about it being re-upped on HN so I assume somebody at YC

There's no reason to assume that anyone at YC sees the posts we re-up. That's just routine moderation. The only reason they'd know about it is if they ran across it on Hacker News like anyone else.

Re: American Equity

#488

Post by voidr »

If I can't get filthy rich, why would I even risk building a business if I can just stay home all day and play video games?

Is the US even making a net profit?

Re: American Equity

#489

Post by hossbeast »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #466
ChuckMcM wrote: post #433

In discussing the basic income stuff offline I realized that there is a naming problem. If you call something basic "income" then it attaches to it all of the mental imagery/modelling around the word income which is something you get in exchange for work, so without work basic "income" creates a cognitive dissonance. This effect seems exactly analogous to home "schooling" which people attaching a mental model and ima…

Random question which struck me about this discussion. Let's take a company like Google and re-imagine it. From its public statements we know that the bulk of Google's employees cost Google money and cut into its profit. Nearly all of its profit comes from its search advertising business and everything else mostly loses money. If Google was structured as an "economy" than the 1200 or so people who were responsible fo…

I think the analogy breaks down a bit when you consider that, if the company didn't anticipate that the other businesses (the self driving cars business, for example) wouldn't eventually turn a profit, they would be shut down. You make it sound like search finances all these other endeavors which will lose money forever.

Re: American Equity

#490

Post by KirinDave »

gaadd33 wrote: post #185
KirinDave wrote: post #76

Or... and I know this is crazy... why don't we make these benefits much more valuable by taking the total pool of money an negotiating collective strategies for services every human needs to varying degrees. Like health care, transportation, housing, food, and network connectivity. What if it was as easy to start a private small business in the US as it was in the UK _for the individual_.

What's the difficulty in starting a private small business in the US? Most states permit incorporation/LLC formation online pretty quickly and you can always do business as a Sole Prop. What's easier in the UK?

In the UK, you have a very high baseline level of education for your kids and excellent health care.

My family has 2 cancer survivors in it. We can't get health care without some collective bargaining.

Unlike a lot of folks here, I've actually done a startup from scratch. I used COBRA to cover the spread until we could set up a company plan. It was a major expense, and I was lucky we had access to a lot more capital than is typical for a company with 0 folks.

I had a ton of fortunate scenarios that lined up to make it so for a brief 2 year period I could imagine trying an early stage startup. Most people won't have those.

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