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American Equity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: American Equity

#61

Post by lovich »

gozur88 wrote: post #37
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. I don't understand why this is something people believe needs "solved". Did you build Microsoft?

Did bill gates build Microsoft? He had a larger part than probably anyone, but he wouldn't even be remembered if he ran it on his own. The reason people think it's something to be solved is because for some reason our society attaches all the reasons for success, and the associated benefits, to a handful of people for enterprises that are a group endeavor

Re: American Equity

#62

Post by pc86 »

gozur88 wrote: post #37
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. I don't understand why this is something people believe needs "solved". Did you build Microsoft?

My React todo app is just as important as Microsoft.

Re: American Equity

#63

Post by cperciva »

RivieraKid wrote: post #46
smeyer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>do what nobody has the balls to do: tax wealth Just to clarify, nobody in the US is doing this, but it's not unheard of elsewhere. For example, Norway has a wealth tax of about 0.85% and there are some other examples at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples .

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…

Indeed. And saving/investing is important! It's not a coincidence that the industrial revolution happened in a country with a secure established rule of law such that people could make investments without worrying about losing them at the whim of a dictator.

Much better to tax consumption.

Re: American Equity

#64

Post by maxerickson »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #57
maxerickson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem literally is that many people don't have an adequate share of the GDP. The footnote proposes to tax capital the same as labor. An interesting thing about Bill Gates is what a tiny sliver of GDP he managed to capture over almost 40 years. Something like $0.1 trillion out of several hundred trillion dollars.

A single person capturing a few ten-thousandths of a percent in a country of over three hundred million people seems like a pretty large sliver to me, relatively speaking.

Oh of course, I just think people have a tendency to overlook how much of our productivity directly gets consumed.

I'm not strongly tied to the language I used, I just find the comparison interesting.

Re: American Equity

#65

Post by 1_2__4 »

RivieraKid wrote: post #46
smeyer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>do what nobody has the balls to do: tax wealth Just to clarify, nobody in the US is doing this, but it's not unheard of elsewhere. For example, Norway has a wealth tax of about 0.85% and there are some other examples at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples .

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…

Perhaps that kind of distortion is a good thing. Perhaps the market isn’t an all-seeing all-knowingly omnipotent entity independent of the humans that created and participate in it.

IOW you should explain why “market distortions” are inherently a bad thing.

Re: American Equity

#66

Post by xbzbanna »

gozur88 wrote: post #37
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. I don't understand why this is something people believe needs "solved". Did you build Microsoft?

Bill Gates is part of a system that built Microsoft. The system needs to be maintained if it's going to continue to produce outcomes like that.

Re: American Equity

#67

Post by maxxxxx »

abtinf wrote: post #55
maxxxxx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite of rising inequality is not total equality. That's just an attempt to kill the discussion.

I'm not sure to whom or what you are responding. The book I linked to is a couple hundred pages long, explores moral and practical issues, and has almost 20 pages of notes and citations. Far from attempting to "kill the discussion", which is in fact what your blithe comment is attempting, it explores the topic of inequality in a uniquely deep way.

Why would you name the book "Equal Is Unfair" if you wanted to explore the topic in a deep way?

Re: American Equity

#68

Post by Frondo »

gozur88 wrote: post #37
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. I don't understand why this is something people believe needs "solved". Did you build Microsoft?

It offends my sense of fairness to see the disparity between the very small number of very, very rich and the very large number of very, very poor.

It offends my sense of "people should enjoy freedom" to see so, so many people who are very much not free because of the economic system that offers them no way out of poverty.

(And I don't believe that poor people are all choosing poverty. I've been poor, and no one wakes up to that and says "this is what I choose.")

And it offends my sense of language when people use phrases like "build Microsoft" as though it was a doghouse that someone assembled in an afternoon and sold for the cost of materials plus $50 profit. Gates no more "built" microsoft than George Washington built America, or whatever. Lots of people were involved, and even if they were compensated well, maybe they weren't compensated fairly. Profits being the unpaid wages of the working class and all...

Re: American Equity

#69

Post by huac »

RivieraKid wrote: post #46
smeyer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>do what nobody has the balls to do: tax wealth Just to clarify, nobody in the US is doing this, but it's not unheard of elsewhere. For example, Norway has a wealth tax of about 0.85% and there are some other examples at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples .

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…

There are plenty of analogous policies in America. For example, universities are required to spend 10% (or some other percent?) of their total endowment each year in order to keep their tax-free status. This is why Harvard & Co. need to continue fundraising each year despite their massive endowments - they're massively discouraged from just 'saving' as well.

Everything distorts markets. The question is how to distort markets into providing the best outcome.

Re: American Equity

#70

Post by dsp1234 »

maxerickson wrote: post #24
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…

The problem literally is that many people don't have an adequate share of the GDP. The footnote proposes to tax capital the same as labor. An interesting thing about Bill Gates is what a tiny sliver of GDP he managed to capture over almost 40 years. Something like $0.1 trillion out of several hundred trillion dollars.

Caveats: GDP is no way to calculate wealth, and comparing the total GDP to any one person's wealth is pretty useless.

Let's say the total GDP over the last 40 years was 300 trillion dollars. Also, let's say Bill Gates's wealth is 100 billion dollars (for ease of calculation).

100B / 300T = 0.003 = .3% of 40 years of GDP

Let's say that the average population of the US during that 40 year period was 170M[0].

170M * 40 years = 6.8B person-years of work (PYoW).

Bill gates contributed 40 PYoW to the GDP, which is 0.000000059% of the GDP.

However, he captured .3% of the GDP as current wealth (not including wealth spent during that 40 years)

That means his wealth capture is 5 million times the "average".

That 'tiny sliver' is anything but.

[0] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S

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