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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#571

Post by Bootvis »

timwaagh wrote: post #545
nindalf wrote: post #151

OP mentions PG’s article arguing against a wealth tax. That article is short, simple and to the point - Modelling a Wealth Tax ( http://www.paulgraham.com/wtax.html ). It is so compelling, but also misleading and wrong. Its not easy to spot the sleights of hand he uses. I wrote more about it here - Modelling a Wealth Tax Correctly ( https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/wealth-tax/ ). And yet, I think the simplicity of PG’s…

In the Netherlands we already have wealth tax (capital gains tax, but doesn't care whether you gained or not). It's nothing particularly disruptive. We still have the most wealth inequality in all the world. It might be a bit pointless to tax wealth in addition to capital gains though. You could just raise the former instead.

The Netherlands really has most? I honestly don’t believe that without any supporting evidence.

Re: Just Be Rich

#572

Post by dukeyukey »

flexie wrote: post #410
mjburgess wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The commenter is referring to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic which is the cultural handmaiden of contemporary american capitalism.

No. "Silicon Valley money wants to remake people in their images, they have a Protestant zealotry associated with their money that makes any oligarch look straight up sympathetic in comparison" The comment literally suggests that Silicon Valley billionaires (which it juxtaposes with old money) have a Protestant fanaticism associated with their money.

No, it doesn't literally suggest those founders are Protestant, it suggests those founders are following certain cultural norms that originated in highly-Protestant parts of the Northeast US, sometimes called the 'Protestant work ethic'. It does not say you need to be Protestant to follow those norms.

Re: Just Be Rich

#573

Post by yarcob »

McScroogy wrote: post #535
donnythecroc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is all down to the basic human need of a home. In the 70s and 80s even 90s someone on a teacher's salary could own their own home in a major world city - say London. Now, literally zero chance. Because homes have become an asset class and the rich can outbid regular people so they are pushed out. That's the problem. I couldn't care less how many billionaires there are if regular people can afford a decent…

The rich outbidding poor people is not what is causing a housing shortage. There are only so many houses a rich person can occupy. Even if you assume that every rich person keeps a number of spare houses, there are not enough rich people to cause a housing shortage.

The problem isn't a "housing shortage". The problem is that interest rates are so low, so everyone who has a bit of money on the side tries to invest in the real estate market.

The result is that for every house thats sold, there isn't just someone who wants it as a living space, but also 5 people who want it as an investment. So 5 people outbid each other, the highest bidder gets it, and then the sucker who wanted to live there but couldn't afford to buy it ends up renting it.

The problem (at least where I live) is absolutely not that there's too little housing. The problem is that a lot of people want to make money from the real estate market, which drives up prices.

Also, because these investors really really want to make a profit, they'll rather let an appartment sit empty than charge lower rent. The appartement I live in was empty for a year because nobody wanted to pay the high rent. (I was able to negotiate a bit, but it's still pretty high)

Pretending that the people who use the real estate market as investment don't profit off the working class who can barely afford housing is laughable.

Re: Just Be Rich

#574

Post by Tepix »

molszanski wrote: post #280

The poor get poorer not because tech startups get richer. If we remove tech startups, the poor wood get poorer just as fast. The difference would be that there would be less tech-rich people to calculate the Gini coefficient. The real question is: "why poor are getting poorer?" It is a very complicated question involving taxes, capitalism and hundreds of broken policies and institutions, like mass incarceration that…

Plenty of those tech startups that make the rich richer are exploiting the poor.

Re: Just Be Rich

#575

Post by staticman2 »

sturgill wrote: post #553
talliedthoughts wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the other comments here, I think the argument is that when most people say they came from nothing, they are ignoring roads, electrical grids, sewer systems, fire departments, police to enfore property rights etc. "Society" provided those - before the person was rich. Of course, there are some people who got rich without any of those things, but probably a lot fewer.

If one’s taxes only went to pay for this small subset of items, I think your argument would be stronger. A 40% marginal tax rate is not earmarked for these essential services, as evidenced by our decaying infrastructure despite the US government bringing in $3.5 trillion in tax receipts in 2019. The political left has been pretty clear that the aim isn’t solely a focus on essential (and shared) resources, but on incr…

The wealthy capitalists are paying much less than 40% tax rates. Tax rates for capital are cheaper than tax rates for labor.

Re: Just Be Rich

#576

Post by snarf21 »

donnythecroc wrote: post #64
Barrin92 wrote: post #49

I'm just gonna quote what I think is a very important part from the Graham piece itself >" People who don't look any deeper than the Gini coefficient look back on the world of 1982 as the good old days, because those who got rich then didn't get as rich. But if you dig into how they got rich, the old days don't look so good. In 1982, 84% of the richest 100 people got rich by inheritance, extracting natural resources,…

The problem is all down to the basic human need of a home. In the 70s and 80s even 90s someone on a teacher's salary could own their own home in a major world city - say London. Now, literally zero chance. Because homes have become an asset class and the rich can outbid regular people so they are pushed out. That's the problem. I couldn't care less how many billionaires there are if regular people can afford a decent…

You are right but homes is the only asset regular people can get a fair shake at and the government helps by making interest tax deductible. If you want to stop the rich from cornering the market on housing, you have to switch to a land tax instead of a property tax. Then you need to stop the NIMBY zoning nonsense.

Re: Just Be Rich

#577

Post by frereubu »

timwaagh wrote: post #545
nindalf wrote: post #151

OP mentions PG’s article arguing against a wealth tax. That article is short, simple and to the point - Modelling a Wealth Tax ( http://www.paulgraham.com/wtax.html ). It is so compelling, but also misleading and wrong. Its not easy to spot the sleights of hand he uses. I wrote more about it here - Modelling a Wealth Tax Correctly ( https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/wealth-tax/ ). And yet, I think the simplicity of PG’s…

In the Netherlands we already have wealth tax (capital gains tax, but doesn't care whether you gained or not). It's nothing particularly disruptive. We still have the most wealth inequality in all the world. It might be a bit pointless to tax wealth in addition to capital gains though. You could just raise the former instead.

In that case, perhaps the issue is not the existence of a wealth tax per se, but how large that tax is. I'm also dubious about the Netherlands having "the most wealth inequality in all the world." Do you have a source for that?

Re: Just Be Rich

#578

Post by johbjo »

marvin wrote: post #227
piva00 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, all mainstream economists put the blame on massive increase of regulation all around the developed world ? I really doubt it's happened everywhere, from NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Portland, Seattle to Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, München, Vienna, Brussels, Amsterdam and so on. Everywhere housing prices went way up, I doubt everywhere had the same issues with regulations since the 7…

Yes - GP is right. When they say regulation, they mean preventing market forces from building as much prices allow. This NIMBYism is a global phenomenon and the root cause. All the other factors certainly contribute , but cheap credit only affects how much the most desperate buyer is able to pay. This becomes the limiting factor almost everywhere, meaning that prices would be equally unaffordable if credit wasn’t che…

> This becomes the limiting factor almost everywhere, meaning that prices would be equally unaffordable if credit wasn’t cheap.

The point is that cheap credit (mortgage regulation) significantly raises the upper bound on this limit.

Re: Just Be Rich

#579

Post by atq2119 »

baron816 wrote: post #58

Inequality by itself is not a bad thing. Let's start from there. If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. Inequality is only bad if you're in a zero-sum game. The rich do have the power to extract rents and "rig the system" to ceme…

> Inequality by itself is not a bad thing.

Isn't it? Even when taken to extremes?

Wealth inequality is in direct conflict with a core value of democracy: one person one vote is reduced to a bit of a joke when there are people who can easily afford to pay an army of hundreds of political operatives to flood public discourse with their opinion.

A little inequality doesn't hurt, but the existence of billionaires (even 100 millionaires, really) is a problem for democracy.

Re: Just Be Rich

#580

Post by TulliusCicero »

Barrin92 wrote: post #49

I'm just gonna quote what I think is a very important part from the Graham piece itself >" People who don't look any deeper than the Gini coefficient look back on the world of 1982 as the good old days, because those who got rich then didn't get as rich. But if you dig into how they got rich, the old days don't look so good. In 1982, 84% of the richest 100 people got rich by inheritance, extracting natural resources,…

> Because at least old money understands the concept of noblesse oblige.

Is there actual data to back this up? That 'old money' behaves in a more positive society-impacting way than 'new money'?

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