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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#611

Post by grumple »

The whole article by PG seemed like a defense of himself, a justification for wealth inequality.

Perhaps most billionaires did not come from other billionaires. But can we really act like tech billionaires didn't have enormous advantages?

Gates: Parents were quite well off and influential.

Bezos: Same, parents gave him hundreds of thousands to start.

Musk: Father owned an emerald mine.

I could go on, but I won't, because you get the idea. How many people in the wealthiest 1000 came from families in the bottom 50% of wealth/tax brackets? How many from broken homes?

And for the most important point, this doesn't even matter: the issue is that it is our financial and tax system, not talent or social contributions that allows billionaires to exist while others struggle. This system could just as easily say that nobody can control that much wealth and ensure a more just distribution, and many think it should. The whole article is a deflection and distraction from the point that a few people are unfairly awarded a disproportionate amount of resources.

Re: Just Be Rich

#612

Post by [deleted] »

juancampa wrote: post #564
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…

Exhibit A. A-Rod (Baseball player) owns 13k units: https://www.merlynnacquisitions.com/post/a-rod-owns-13-000-u...

[deleted]

Re: Just Be Rich

#613

Post by stevieoop »

jkingsbery wrote: post #555

> It's less a tutorial or analysis and more a thinly veiled attempt to ease concerns about wealth inequality. Given in Graham's essay he comes out and discusses the Gini coefficient, it doesn't seem like a "thinly veiled" anything. The point of the essay is to discuss how much inequality itself matters (as opposed to, say poverty, lack of access to health care, or other things other people are raising as legitimate c…

> we should care about how wealth was generated, and the gap itself is less important

what? what makes the gap less important? its a big deal if the rich get richer while the poor keep getting poorer. so what: we should just ignore that gap, and instead praise the rich because they are so smart, and talented?

Re: Just Be Rich

#614

Post by wonderwonder »

TuringNYC wrote: post #602
yarcob wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I agree with the premise of what youre saying. I dont think the ratio is 5:1, but probably more like 1:5 -- but -- more importantly -- doesnt this make it good for renters because now there are investment properties in an ample environment looking for people to rent? I would argue that it is low interest rates AND low supply. If supply was sufficient then renters would just rent the houses which were purchased, possi…

It does not as the new owner now has to have the rates high enough to cover the mortgage on the house he just purchased in a bidding war. moreover, the person that wanted to buy it and live in it is now priced out and has to pay rent and misses out on the asset appreciation.

Re: Just Be Rich

#615

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

"Paul paints a rosy picture but doesn't mention that incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s."

Income in the US has increased for all brackets since 1967[0][1] (at least). The argument is really about who is entitled to more of the increase. But it's framed by the charts as a zero sum: Rich gaining and poor losing. It's not true. All brackets are gaining.

The actual risk is that super-wealthy use their wealth to affect political outcomes. They can influence politics, but were not elected by anyone to do so.

[0] https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2020/09/1...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...

Re: Just Be Rich

#616

Post by greyhound »

irq wrote: post #268
curo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't one just counter his arguments without assigning nefarious intent? It feels conspiratorial at times. - Quoting your comment: "The real sinister psychological thing going on behind the Graham argument is that..." - Quoting a line from the article: "His seemingly impartial and logical writing attempts to hide his true intentions."

The worldview he is (poorly) attempting to prosthelytize is inherently nefarious. It doesn’t matter if he intends it or not.

Wow, that's one axiomatic comment.

Could you please elaborate on what kind of worldview he's attempting to "prosthelytize" that is inherently nefarious, without making a straw man?

Re: Just Be Rich

#617

Post by johbjo »

There are different mechanisms involved. Wealth inequality in general is caused by cheap credit which drives up asset prices.

Facebook and Google are not tech companies. The own all the best advertising real-estate.

Amazon owns all the best store-front real-estate.

And so on. There is no limit to how much of the relevant real-estate these can companies can own. Therefore exponential distribution of valuations.

"Tech" is not a big part of it. For example, there is no way of competing with these companies based on tech.

Hm. What about taxation of domain names based on revenue?

Re: Just Be Rich

#618

Post by MikeUt »

nindalf wrote: post #512
vekker wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simplicity is also often an indicator of truth. I think you completely missed another important point hidden in PG's article, besides the obvious compounding effect, and that is that unrealized gains would be taxed under a wealth tax regime. To simplify with a ridiculous example: suppose I have $0 to my name and I inherit a family art piece from my grandmother that happens to be valued at $2 million. The next year, u…

Let's say you inherited a home in the US valued at $2 million. You would pay 2% of that ($40,000) as property taxes, every year . If you can't afford to pay the tax, you would sell the house and pocket the $2 million. Is this so terrible? Doesn't seem to have stopped people investing in property.

That's buying a new house every 50 years. That's re-building all of the wealth your family spent generations accumulating, every 50 years.

That's a direct disincentive to saving money and frugality - the more you save, the bigger your tax gets, while your income stays the same.

Re: Just Be Rich

#619

Post by gloriana »

laurent92 wrote: post #605
adriancr wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The aristocrats and oligarchs of the olden days might have been corrupt, debauched and half-useless, but at least they knew it. Corruption is an incredible poverty multiplier, combined with debauched and half-useless is just insane. Living in a society led by such people isn't fair by any means. Arrogant new wealth is 100x better then old corrupt wealth that only seeks to entrench itself and friends. New wealth in…

Entrenched money stabilizes the world. Imagine putting 10% of the billionaires of the world on a boat, those who pull the strings of their empires to keep their nations into status-quo, and imagine the boat sinks. A year later, all those entrenched interests dematerialize, fewer powers hold people together, diplomacy isn’t as balanced as it has been when billionaires weighed in, and war starts. That’s the story of th…

do you have any reading material on this? curious idea

Re: Just Be Rich

#620

Post by SamBam »

jkingsbery wrote: post #555

> It's less a tutorial or analysis and more a thinly veiled attempt to ease concerns about wealth inequality. Given in Graham's essay he comes out and discusses the Gini coefficient, it doesn't seem like a "thinly veiled" anything. The point of the essay is to discuss how much inequality itself matters (as opposed to, say poverty, lack of access to health care, or other things other people are raising as legitimate c…

> we should care about how wealth was generated, and the gap itself is less important.

I don't understand this. How does finding out what caused the wealth gap — and then nodding appreciatively that's it exists for the "right" reasons — help the bottom four-fifths who are getting more and more left behind?

If all that matters is that those attaining wealth are doing so now more "meritocratically," will it still be fine if the number of people becoming wealthy dwindles down to a smaller and smaller percent of the population, so long as they are all Bezoses who made their own companies?

> so the "small percentage of people" who can start companies now is larger than it was 40 years ago.

First of all, I'm not sure of your evidence of this — it may be "easier" in some sense, but is there actually more class mobility now, and is the percentage of people becoming wealthy actually growing? I think not [1] — but more importantly, if it's on the backs of the lower four-fifths of the population's wages stagnating or decreasing, how is it a good thing if one or two more percent can become wealthy?

The probability of the average American earning equal to or more than their parents is lower than it has even been. [2] So are these families supposed to be happy that a couple more MBAs are able to make ten million dollars selling an app that lets you apply augmented reality to your cat?

1. Long-term decline in intergenerational mobility in the United States since the 1850s: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/1/251

2. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar...

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