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This just dances around the edges of the key point: the gap between rich and poor. It's not that there isn't ENOUGH money, it's WHERE the money is. Of course

by wdewind 17y ago

This just dances around the edges of the key point: the gap between rich and poor. It's not that there isn't ENOUGH money, it's WHERE the money is. Of course printing new money, and redistributing actual physical units of money are kind of similar things to do (they both equate to wealth redistribution), so while I agree with a lot of what Aaron says, he's only CLOSE to the issue at hand, not actually hitting it on the head. If you want a TLDR version of the economic crisis, like Aaron attempts here, you really want to just look at the increasing divide between rich and poor in the country (aka the unbalanced distribution of resources = unbalanced distribution of power = system susceptible to corruption, greed etc = incentives lined up to benefit small portions of society not large = economic failure.)

gaius 17y ago
I can't believe I'm reading this here of all places. http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html
- wdewind 17y ago
  I'm not talking about bankers or CEOs being paid a lot of money and whether or not it's too much. The argument there isn't about whether or not their actions generate wealth/value, it's just about how much. A basketball player doesn't take wealth away from anyone, he just prevents others from earning it in his spot. What greatly exacerbated the economic crisis were decisions made for small amounts of people wall street that impacted large amounts of people everywhere. Many of these decisions were corrupt (ie they did more than prevent others from making wealth, they actually took it out of their pockets), but even in the times when they could be simply considered "competitive," the ability to make such decisions that impact such large portions of the population should be limited greatly. This is a systemic problem, not a person problem. The quick response to that one is that you need a system of incentives that get people to work hard enough, and part of that system is having positions like that where people can make decisions like that. I disagree, and actually take something like the NBA as an example: basketball players accumulate great deals of wealth (monetary and otherwise), enough so to keep people training at the peak of their abilities. Yet I can't remember the last time someone accused Michael Jordan of destroying jobs or the economy...

by wdewind 17y ago

gaius 17y ago

I can't believe I'm reading this here of all places. http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html

wdewind 17y ago
I'm not talking about bankers or CEOs being paid a lot of money and whether or not it's too much. The argument there isn't about whether or not their actions generate wealth/value, it's just about how much. A basketball player doesn't take wealth away from anyone, he just prevents others from earning it in his spot. What greatly exacerbated the economic crisis were decisions made for small amounts of people wall street that impacted large amounts of people everywhere. Many of these decisions were corrupt (ie they did more than prevent others from making wealth, they actually took it out of their pockets), but even in the times when they could be simply considered "competitive," the ability to make such decisions that impact such large portions of the population should be limited greatly. This is a systemic problem, not a person problem. The quick response to that one is that you need a system of incentives that get people to work hard enough, and part of that system is having positions like that where people can make decisions like that. I disagree, and actually take something like the NBA as an example: basketball players accumulate great deals of wealth (monetary and otherwise), enough so to keep people training at the peak of their abilities. Yet I can't remember the last time someone accused Michael Jordan of destroying jobs or the economy...