5 ms·

If you think about it, the more money you have, it means you've extracted money from more people. More wealth means you've taken more from more people. It als

by ck2 11y ago

If you think about it, the more money you have, it means you've extracted money from more people. More wealth means you've taken more from more people. It also means you didn't have to take quite that much but that is a different argument. I also laugh at how people think we won't have to work someday because robots and automation. Who do you think is going to own all those extremely expensive robots? People with the most money who've taken it from the most people. Certainly not the average person. Now where are you going to get your money?

afarrell 11y ago
The common response to this is: Universal Basic Income.
- ck2 11y ago
  You mean guaranteed minimum housing cost. Or guaranteed minimum landlord profit. Because rent will rise by exactly whatever guaranteed minimum income becomes. Same way college costs rise to whatever loans are available.
  - chillwaves 11y ago
    That's a good rebuttal, however you seem to ignore the innovating spirit of humans. Why should we live where rents are high? Not sure if you are in America, but we have lots of land and many places it is cheap. If UBI is indeed universal, we are not tied to the markets that are cornered. Secondly, if we go that far why not push for more public housing as well (can do it in a failing city like Michigan or build a new city) and let people create their own economies?
    - ktRolster 11y ago
      > Why should we live where rents are high? I don't know, I ask that every time I drive down the road in Silicon Valley.
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    "Because rent will rise by exactly whatever guaranteed minimum income becomes." That seems unlikely, because of competition. Not merely of identical units, but of all alternatives. We are not terribly supply-constrained on housing, nationally or globally (some markets certainly are, actually or artificially). "Same way college costs rise to whatever loans are available." Money that is available only to a single purpose is a substantially different dynamic than money that can be put to other uses.
    - bobby_9x 11y ago
      Most cities have housing restrictions. Since this will most likely never change, rent will go up accordingly.
      - dllthomas 11y ago
        Competition of all alternatives. As I said, this is not merely identical units. It includes those cities which do not have housing restrictions. It includes any new units permitted inside existing housing restrictions. It includes increased sharing of housing (this is also impacted by other forms of "housing restrictions" but most people live in situations below maximum occupancy). It includes moving outside of cities entirely (made more attractive in the presence of a basic income). To the extent that people choose these alternatives, rents will face downward pressure. They may still go up, but "the entirety of BI will simply become rent" seems wrong.
  - douche 11y ago
    A truly universal basic income would probably allow a diaspora from the currently over-saturated, "the rent is too damn high" markets, into the surplus housing stock and land that sits vacant due to poor local economies throughout the country. If I could earn a guaranteed $25k for breathing, I sure as hell wouldn't be where I am now, since I could go home and buy a good chunk of land, do some subsistence farming, and happily hack away and read at my leisure.
noonespecial 11y ago
I thought about it. Where did the people that I extracted the money from extract the money from that I extracted?
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  the sun and the earth are the root of all wealth. Both are limited resources.
hnamazon123 11y ago
Do you view all the transactions you've made in your life as taking things from people? So in your mind you've been swindling people your whole life. That's pretty awful.
- wfo 11y ago
  Or they're taking from you. Or by some freak accident, you exchange things worth the exact same. If someone sells something to me and makes profit, that means it could have been sold to me for less, and they are pocketing the difference. So they are exploiting the fact that I value the thing they are offering at more than it is actually worth to make profit. All profit is this way. Small profits are tolerable, large profits usually have the adjective 'obscene' attached to them because they are inherently exploitative. To make large profits you must either rip off your employees by underpaying them, rip off your customers by overcharging them, or some combination of the two. See, for example, Apple. Enormous profits, how? Exploiting factory workers in sweatshops. Criminally conspiring to drive down tech workers' wages. Combined with overcharging for every product.
  - MrPatan 11y ago
    You're wrong in a very sad way. When you buy something, it's because you value it more than the money you pay for it. When you sell something to somebody, it's because you value it less than the money you get for it. Win-win! And, channeling Carlin: Everybody making less money than you is a loser, everybody making more money than you is an asshole.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
WalterBright 11y ago
That's the zero sum theory. Fortunately, it's false, and easily shown to be false. If a famous artist sits down and paints a picture, he creates wealth. It is not taken from anyone.
- dota_fanatic 11y ago
  Is this actually true if, instead of saying the context is an artist in a room, the context is an artist on planet earth? A man has to eat, where did that energy come from? It definitely wasn't free, popped out of thin air. I'd say until we have a much more advanced handle on the application of physics, wealth is taken from others (and I'm not saying that's wrong persay, it's impossible currently to have it any other way). Having said that, it's all too easy to find instances of wealth 'created' on the backs of other people, or on the back of natural resources that will run out. I've seen way too many people with college educations get taken advantage of, fresh out of school, just because the employer could. Why not?
  - cturner 11y ago
    Your musing poses an interesting question. But I'm writing just against the bit where you say we should default to accepting the zero-sum perspective given a lack of understanding of physics. The evidence against the zero-sum perspective of wealth is overwhelming. You can go and harvest the wheat. Or, you can let the wheat rot, and spend your day digging a hole and filling it in. Same energy spent. One creates value, the other doesn't. You can light the gas under your stove, or you can set your curtains on fire. One destroys value at speed, the other doesn't. You can sew something with a needle and thread. Or you can use a hand-wound sewing machine you inherited from a relative. Same outcome, one is far more energy-expensive than the other.
    - AlainODea 11y ago
      Indeed. This is the essential difference between capitalism and corporatism (sometimes called crony capitalism). Corporatism is insidious. It enables established players to control markets by manipulating regulations through political favors and disabling competitors through predatory positioning or pricing. It's very unfortunate that many people (including myself in the past) throw out the entire history of prosperity building that capitalism has enabled by conflating it with corporatism. Much of the sentiment driving the distaste for disruptive innovation thinking it will cause a race to the bottom directly supports incumbent large corporations and corporatism. It's easy to fall prey to this, because the narrative can easily have compelling stories of the human harm caused by technical innovation.

by ck2 11y ago

afarrell 11y ago

The common response to this is: Universal Basic Income.

ck2 11y ago
You mean guaranteed minimum housing cost. Or guaranteed minimum landlord profit. Because rent will rise by exactly whatever guaranteed minimum income becomes. Same way college costs rise to whatever loans are available.
- chillwaves 11y ago
  That's a good rebuttal, however you seem to ignore the innovating spirit of humans. Why should we live where rents are high? Not sure if you are in America, but we have lots of land and many places it is cheap. If UBI is indeed universal, we are not tied to the markets that are cornered. Secondly, if we go that far why not push for more public housing as well (can do it in a failing city like Michigan or build a new city) and let people create their own economies?
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    > Why should we live where rents are high? I don't know, I ask that every time I drive down the road in Silicon Valley.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  "Because rent will rise by exactly whatever guaranteed minimum income becomes." That seems unlikely, because of competition. Not merely of identical units, but of all alternatives. We are not terribly supply-constrained on housing, nationally or globally (some markets certainly are, actually or artificially). "Same way college costs rise to whatever loans are available." Money that is available only to a single purpose is a substantially different dynamic than money that can be put to other uses.
  - bobby_9x 11y ago
    Most cities have housing restrictions. Since this will most likely never change, rent will go up accordingly.
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      Competition of all alternatives. As I said, this is not merely identical units. It includes those cities which do not have housing restrictions. It includes any new units permitted inside existing housing restrictions. It includes increased sharing of housing (this is also impacted by other forms of "housing restrictions" but most people live in situations below maximum occupancy). It includes moving outside of cities entirely (made more attractive in the presence of a basic income). To the extent that people choose these alternatives, rents will face downward pressure. They may still go up, but "the entirety of BI will simply become rent" seems wrong.
- douche 11y ago
  A truly universal basic income would probably allow a diaspora from the currently over-saturated, "the rent is too damn high" markets, into the surplus housing stock and land that sits vacant due to poor local economies throughout the country. If I could earn a guaranteed $25k for breathing, I sure as hell wouldn't be where I am now, since I could go home and buy a good chunk of land, do some subsistence farming, and happily hack away and read at my leisure.

noonespecial 11y ago

I thought about it. Where did the people that I extracted the money from extract the money from that I extracted?

crimsonalucard 11y ago
the sun and the earth are the root of all wealth. Both are limited resources.

hnamazon123 11y ago

Do you view all the transactions you've made in your life as taking things from people? So in your mind you've been swindling people your whole life. That's pretty awful.

wfo 11y ago
Or they're taking from you. Or by some freak accident, you exchange things worth the exact same. If someone sells something to me and makes profit, that means it could have been sold to me for less, and they are pocketing the difference. So they are exploiting the fact that I value the thing they are offering at more than it is actually worth to make profit. All profit is this way. Small profits are tolerable, large profits usually have the adjective 'obscene' attached to them because they are inherently exploitative. To make large profits you must either rip off your employees by underpaying them, rip off your customers by overcharging them, or some combination of the two. See, for example, Apple. Enormous profits, how? Exploiting factory workers in sweatshops. Criminally conspiring to drive down tech workers' wages. Combined with overcharging for every product.
- MrPatan 11y ago
  You're wrong in a very sad way. When you buy something, it's because you value it more than the money you pay for it. When you sell something to somebody, it's because you value it less than the money you get for it. Win-win! And, channeling Carlin: Everybody making less money than you is a loser, everybody making more money than you is an asshole.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

WalterBright 11y ago

That's the zero sum theory. Fortunately, it's false, and easily shown to be false. If a famous artist sits down and paints a picture, he creates wealth. It is not taken from anyone.

dota_fanatic 11y ago
Is this actually true if, instead of saying the context is an artist in a room, the context is an artist on planet earth? A man has to eat, where did that energy come from? It definitely wasn't free, popped out of thin air. I'd say until we have a much more advanced handle on the application of physics, wealth is taken from others (and I'm not saying that's wrong persay, it's impossible currently to have it any other way). Having said that, it's all too easy to find instances of wealth 'created' on the backs of other people, or on the back of natural resources that will run out. I've seen way too many people with college educations get taken advantage of, fresh out of school, just because the employer could. Why not?
- cturner 11y ago
  Your musing poses an interesting question. But I'm writing just against the bit where you say we should default to accepting the zero-sum perspective given a lack of understanding of physics. The evidence against the zero-sum perspective of wealth is overwhelming. You can go and harvest the wheat. Or, you can let the wheat rot, and spend your day digging a hole and filling it in. Same energy spent. One creates value, the other doesn't. You can light the gas under your stove, or you can set your curtains on fire. One destroys value at speed, the other doesn't. You can sew something with a needle and thread. Or you can use a hand-wound sewing machine you inherited from a relative. Same outcome, one is far more energy-expensive than the other.
  - AlainODea 11y ago
    Indeed. This is the essential difference between capitalism and corporatism (sometimes called crony capitalism). Corporatism is insidious. It enables established players to control markets by manipulating regulations through political favors and disabling competitors through predatory positioning or pricing. It's very unfortunate that many people (including myself in the past) throw out the entire history of prosperity building that capitalism has enabled by conflating it with corporatism. Much of the sentiment driving the distaste for disruptive innovation thinking it will cause a race to the bottom directly supports incumbent large corporations and corporatism. It's easy to fall prey to this, because the narrative can easily have compelling stories of the human harm caused by technical innovation.