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Just Be Rich (2021)

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Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#91

Post by RangerScience »

WalterBright wrote: post #58

> false claim that wealth inequality is solely due to more startups and not a real problem says a lot. The article assumes that wealth inequality is bad, but never explains it. The thing is, people all have different abilities and make different choices in life. These lead inevitably to different results. In order to make everyone equal, peoples' freedoms must be taken away.

> wealth inequality is bad

There’s an interesting economic science paper from awhile ago where the researchers examined an economic simulation as wealth inequality increased, and their finding was that it’s like temperature in that it causes phase transitions. At some level of wealth inequality, agents stopped being able to trade (most agents didn’t have the funds to trade most goods), causing a “freeze” - going from liquid(ity) to solid.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#92

Post by jmward01 »

WalterBright wrote: post #63
TrackerFF wrote: post #56

I live in a country with wealth tax (Norway), and I'm a bit conflicted on it. On one side, it is effectively the only real tax a many in the "ownership class" are paying - relative to their wealth. On the other side, it is a really problematic tax for entrepreneurs. It is downright horrible for startups and scaleups - critical funds that should be used to grow your company, has to be given out in dividends to founder…

Sweden, France, California, Washington state and NYC have discovered once again that taxing the heck out of rich people causes them to leave. And when they leave, they take their spend/invest/hire money with them.

A statement like this probably needs a source or two to first show it is true (wealth taxes actually are causing rich people to flee) second, show that they actually do take their spend/invest/hire money with them and finally that it is harmful that that happens. Leaving creates a vacuum and if the rich really are leaving then it would be a big vacuum that clearly can't be filled with someone else that is rich since they are all leaving. Without someone big there to fill the vacuum it that implies it is being filled with a lot of smaller companies. This actually sounds like a good thing to me to tell you the truth. Can we emphasize this effect?

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#93

Post by jackcosgrove »

I find discussions of economic desert rarely get anywhere since everyone has a different idea of what is deserved.

I like to talk about incentives. We have a massive under supply of housing across the developed world, in part because so much labor is training for desk jobs rather than construction jobs.

If you want to solve the housing problem, you need to change the incentives for young people to shun construction jobs. That means more money and eventually status for manual laborers and less money and eventually status for desk jockeys.

That's just one example.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#94

Post by dexterdog »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #74
WalterBright wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden, France, California, Washington state and NYC have discovered once again that taxing the heck out of rich people causes them to leave. And when they leave, they take their spend/invest/hire money with them.

Would this not be easily solved with a one-time 50-90% wealth tax when they exfiltrate their money from the place where others earned it for them, rather than the ~1% annual wealth tax they want to leave over?

Because most will leave as soon as the law is announced before it becomes law in that case.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#95

Post by feedforward »

WalterBright wrote: post #79
feedforward wrote: post #71

It's not that complex - there are workers who work and spend their hours creating wealth, and there are heirs who expropriate surplus labor time from those who do work. It's a parasitism of a class of parasitic heirs on those of us who work and create wealth. Nothing could make that more clear than the past year and a half. For tech workers we had FAANG layoffs, hiring freezes, lowball offers if any offers at all etc…

On the other hand, I know a low level person at Nvidia who has made somewhere near $100m on his stock options. And if the workers aren't getting stock options, they can still buy stocks on the open market. How much would $10,000 invested into AMZN at the IPO be worth today? $13,000,000

> they can still buy stocks on the open market

Well that's my point - people who do the work and create the wealth don't get that wealth in wages, it is parasitically expropriated by stockholders.

I am arguing on the side of those who work, that the wealth they create is kept by them. You argue for idleness and parasitism - that those who don't do the work can be rewarded via these various mechanisms, by being parasites on those who do work.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#96

Post by ineptech »

ineptech wrote: post #82

> You would think, after having been on the side of labor in its fight with capital for almost two centuries, that the far left would be happy that labor has finally prevailed. But none of them seem to be. You can almost hear them saying "No, no, not that way." This one really threw me for a loop. Do startup founders making or seeking a big exit really think of themselves as "labor"?

Developing this a bit; I get that founders might object to being lumped in with the asshole-rich-guy demographic associated with the term, but "capital" doesn't mean people who never had to work hard, it means capital. When we talk about laws and regulations that advantage capital over labor or v.v., we're talking about money rather than people. The fact that founders get rich via stock options rather than by paying themselves huge salaries is an example! If labor had won, wouldn't pg be trying to pick a startup to work for rather than one to invest in?

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#97

Post by gghffguhvc »

WalterBright wrote: post #86
SpaceManNabs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. One of my biggest critiques of entrepreneur and hacker circles is how much they ride PG. dude is rich, not some sort of genius policy maker. The difference between a lot of hackers now and PG isnt talent, it is that someone was making a good website when the internet pretty much was empty lol. Google was still a baby compared to yahoo. edit: since i was pretty negative here, i will sing some praise. Gr…

Right now, there is a guy in a garage founding the next billion dollar company, doing something we all will wish we thought of.

Partly helped by guys having it easier fundraising.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#98

Post by jmward01 »

WalterBright wrote: post #86
SpaceManNabs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. One of my biggest critiques of entrepreneur and hacker circles is how much they ride PG. dude is rich, not some sort of genius policy maker. The difference between a lot of hackers now and PG isnt talent, it is that someone was making a good website when the internet pretty much was empty lol. Google was still a baby compared to yahoo. edit: since i was pretty negative here, i will sing some praise. Gr…

Right now, there is a guy in a garage founding the next billion dollar company, doing something we all will wish we thought of.

Maybe it is a sun room. I hope it is a sun room since I am in one right now and I want to be that person!

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#99

Post by WalterBright »

jmward01 wrote: post #92
WalterBright wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden, France, California, Washington state and NYC have discovered once again that taxing the heck out of rich people causes them to leave. And when they leave, they take their spend/invest/hire money with them.

A statement like this probably needs a source or two to first show it is true (wealth taxes actually are causing rich people to flee) second, show that they actually do take their spend/invest/hire money with them and finally that it is harmful that that happens. Leaving creates a vacuum and if the rich really are leaving then it would be a big vacuum that clearly can't be filled with someone else that is rich since…

Jeff Bezos famously left the state just before the Washington's new cap gains tax targeted at him was set to go into effect.

I know other people with 8 figure fortunes who left, too.

I didn't know it was controversial that spending a lot of money in a local economy makes it more prosperous, and when a big spender leaves, the local economy goes down.

The Rust Belt is an example of the latter.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#100

Post by seliopou »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #93

I find discussions of economic desert rarely get anywhere since everyone has a different idea of what is deserved. I like to talk about incentives. We have a massive under supply of housing across the developed world, in part because so much labor is training for desk jobs rather than construction jobs. If you want to solve the housing problem, you need to change the incentives for young people to shun construction j…

I find it hard to believe the lack of housing is caused by a labor shortage in construction.
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