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The Landlord's Game

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Re: The Landlord's Game

#91

Post by iso1631 »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #60
midasuni wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Smith was great. Why is inheritance moral? One person gets something for free, the other works and has to pay tax?

Someone's working in both cases. In the case of inheritance it's the person who gave the money in their will. That person also already paid tax when they earned the money in the first place. If anything I think we should encourage rich people to give their money away (even if only to their children) since wealth consumed by a broader number of people leads to more happiness than if it's all consumed by one person. It…

I pay tax when I earn money, I then give it to my mechanic to service my car, and I pay more tax on that, he then pays tax on the money I give him.

Why should inheritance be any different?

Re: The Landlord's Game

#92

Post by croon »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #74
croon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything I think we should encourage rich people to give their money away (even if only to their children) since wealth consumed by a broader number of people leads to more happiness than if it's all consumed by one person. It's better for a $10 million fortune to be spent by 10 consecutive generations than for it to all be spent by the original owner. I don't understand how you reach this conclusion. If the ori…

Increasing the velocity of money doesn't help the world on average. Otherwise the Fed would just set their inflation target higher. Even if you disagree, given that the Fed has a fixed inflation target you can't do anything about it by changing inheritance tax. If you force a bunch of rich people to spend more than they would have, the Fed will just take that money straight back out of the economy. Sometimes I find a…

> If you force a bunch of rich people to spend more than they would have, the Fed will just take that money straight back out of the economy.

So if they go on more vacations, buy a flashy car, have more parties, you are saying that the Fed "takes that money straight back" and that it doesn't go to travel agencies, car dealers, caterers, party planners, service workers etc?

> Ten families in $1 million houses get more happiness than one family in a $10 million house and nine homeless families. No matter how you shuffle the accounting around it has to add up to that same utility difference.

Sure, and I reject your hypothetical and say it's better if 100 people live in $80k (after some tax) houses/condos than 1 in a $10M house, if we're just making things up.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#93

Post by iso1631 »

zo1 wrote: post #67
midasuni wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Smith was great. Why is inheritance moral? One person gets something for free, the other works and has to pay tax?

Well if you want to ask why inheritance is moral you should probably also ask why taxes are moral because taxing/abolishing inheritance is a logical extension to that. I urge us all to sit and think about it for a few moments. What are the logical steps and sequence of justifications that led us from a bunch of random people in the middle of nowhere to a point where there is now an entity that [forceably] takes X% of…

Taxes are moral because taxes fund the society which allows us to live. You can debate about the level of taxation, what to tax (labour vs capital vs natural assets) and what functions that society should provide, but there are very few people claiming that national defense, or courts, or city streets, should not be funded from the public purse.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#94

Post by cies »

baq wrote: post #89
cies wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialism tries in increase wealth of individuals, just like capitalism does. The difference is that different flavours of socialism want to increase it across the board, where capitalism wants an individuals wealth to be very well protected, especially when the numbers get high, so that wealth may accumulate in few. I find it fascinating that the original Monopoly game was desgined to teach us the difference and how…

maybe start from the names: socialism tries to put society first, capitalism tries to put capital first. western europe democracies try to be 'social capitalism', with mixed results, but maybe not as disastrous and scary as some folks here would like them to be.

Capitalism puts capital first, sure, but it is necessary to say it specifically puts person-owned capital first.

Economically the USSR had capital too, but it was mostly owned collectively (by the state).

Hence I define the two in terms of the people that actually own stuff.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#95

Post by cies »

elzbardico wrote: post #85
cies wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialism tries in increase wealth of individuals, just like capitalism does. The difference is that different flavours of socialism want to increase it across the board, where capitalism wants an individuals wealth to be very well protected, especially when the numbers get high, so that wealth may accumulate in few. I find it fascinating that the original Monopoly game was desgined to teach us the difference and how…

Lol, the Soviet Kid’s encyclopedia definition of capitalism and socialism. You Americans are so deliciously naive.

Please explain. I dont get the joke. I'm not a USer btw.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#96

Post by croon »

imtringued wrote: post #90
croon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything I think we should encourage rich people to give their money away (even if only to their children) since wealth consumed by a broader number of people leads to more happiness than if it's all consumed by one person. It's better for a $10 million fortune to be spent by 10 consecutive generations than for it to all be spent by the original owner. I don't understand how you reach this conclusion. If the ori…

Assuming those savings are invested, it wouldn't change anything. Right now there is an excess of uninvested savings in corporations that is not being invested and sure, distributing that money would help with the economy but betting on inheritance taxes to do the job is weird. It's too unreliable.

Por que no los dos?

Re: The Landlord's Game

#97

Post by imtringued »

zo1 wrote: post #67
midasuni wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Smith was great. Why is inheritance moral? One person gets something for free, the other works and has to pay tax?

Well if you want to ask why inheritance is moral you should probably also ask why taxes are moral because taxing/abolishing inheritance is a logical extension to that. I urge us all to sit and think about it for a few moments. What are the logical steps and sequence of justifications that led us from a bunch of random people in the middle of nowhere to a point where there is now an entity that [forceably] takes X% of…

I'll bite. Governments are virtual machines, aka language runtimes, they provide a baseline for human cooperation by creating the rule of law and a political environment within which an advanced economy can exist. They can only provide these things because they conquered land via a military and protect the land and its citizens from intruders.

You can argue that there are ways of taxation that are compatible with this idea and there are ways of taxation that are counterproductive but you cannot argue that the taxes shouldn't exist because that would mean no government which would mean no rule of law and no political environment in which an advanced economy can exist. Of course, the big problem is that many governments fail to live up to their responsibility. The US and EU countries' government may be failing their citizens, but not as much as many Asian, African or Latin American governments.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#98

Post by PMunch »

heja2009 wrote: post #65
throwawayay02 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a board game where one's advantage doesn't compound, though?

Yes, it is even pretty much a design principle for newer board games [1]. It started to become popular with games like Settlers of Catan. [1] https://boardgamedesigncourse.com/making-a-comeback/

What is the mechanic in Settlers that enables this? Can't think of anything apart from how resources seems to be unevenly used throughout the game (wood and brick being more sought after early on to build roads and settlements, while iron and grain become more important when cities are built later on).

Re: The Landlord's Game

#99

Post by PMunch »

bushbaba wrote: post #54
midasuni wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the whole point, it’s a realistic simulation of life

It leaves out an important piece though, inheritance. No way for you to win if there’s another player who inherits a small fortune of existing properties on the board.

Imagine playing Monopoly but one player starts with a couple properties and a little extra cash in hand. As if that game wasn't bad enough as it is.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#100

Post by OscarCunningham »

croon wrote: post #92
OscarCunningham wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing the velocity of money doesn't help the world on average. Otherwise the Fed would just set their inflation target higher. Even if you disagree, given that the Fed has a fixed inflation target you can't do anything about it by changing inheritance tax. If you force a bunch of rich people to spend more than they would have, the Fed will just take that money straight back out of the economy. Sometimes I find a…

> If you force a bunch of rich people to spend more than they would have, the Fed will just take that money straight back out of the economy. So if they go on more vacations, buy a flashy car, have more parties, you are saying that the Fed "takes that money straight back" and that it doesn't go to travel agencies, car dealers, caterers, party planners, service workers etc? > Ten families in $1 million houses get more…

> So if they go on more vacations, buy a flashy car, have more parties, you are saying that the Fed "takes that money straight back" and that it doesn't go to travel agencies, car dealers, caterers, party planners, service workers etc?

They do get the money. But the world hasn't become any more productive; the number of goods and services being produced is still the same. So when they spend that money and consume goods and services, someone else must necessarily be consuming less.

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