11 ms·

> We already know how to cut poverty, based on other countries like the Nordics where poverty is lower: Take more from the rich and give more to the poor. Unfor

by NhanH 10y ago

> We already know how to cut poverty, based on other countries like the Nordics where poverty is lower: Take more from the rich and give more to the poor. Unfortunately, rich people love money too much, so we're not allowed to talk about the real solution, and have to talk about all these fake solutions instead. We don't talk about the real solution because none of the person that want to "take more from the rich and give more to the poor" proposes one. The problem isn't what to do, but how to do it. Courtesy of being born in a Communist country, I had to learn Karl Marx and such in middle school. And almost every single statement on this comment chain reads like my term exam questions (I'm not being facetious here). He has a whole chapter on general formula of capital, and another one on rent seeking behavior. It's all good idea ... until you actually try to implement it and the resulting government is nuts. Take those with 100% inheritance tax idea. Are you gonna also tax gift at 100%? Cause it's obvious what will happen. Now we're adding special case that parents are not allowed to gift their house to their children?

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
Reminds me of this: The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a rich man: "I have discovered there is enough money in the world for all of us, if it was equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy together." "But," was the response, "if everybody was like you, it would be spent in two months, and what would you do then?" "Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!" https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/
- manicdee 10y ago
  Implying that the only difference between rich and poor is spending habits. Where in the real world we have confounding factors such as racism, sexism, cultural norms, differing costs of transit and habitation, limited opportunities and limits on resources.
  - _andromeda_ 10y ago
    It seems to me like it's the only one that matters because it's the one that an individual has the most control over. Other confounding factors are externalities that as an individual you cannot always control but guess what you can always do? Save, save, save and if you can, innovate and reap the fruits of your discipline and hard work. Collectivism should be avoided.
    - crdoconnor 10y ago
      >It seems to me like it's the only one that matters You literally have to do nothing to cash a rent check, receive share dividends or interest on a loan. From a systems' perspective that's parasitism.
      - JanezStupar 10y ago
        You are simplifying to the level of dishonesty.
        crdoconnor 10y ago
        There's really no other way to characterize non-gift exchanges of wealth that the recipient did not create. The only thing that stops this system of parasitic wealth transfer from spinning out of control is re-redistributive taxation.
        JanezStupar 10y ago
        Your lack of self awareness is incredible. How are you yourself different from the vilified "rent seeker"?
        crdoconnor 10y ago
        Instead of consuming more value than I create, I create more value than I am compensated for. Because I derive my income from my work.
- djrobstep 10y ago
  This anecdote is dumb and wrong, but is a handy way to call poor people trash when you're afraid to say so directly, I guess.
  - vixen99 10y ago
    If I say the anecdote is perceptive and right you'd expect me to give reasons wouldn't you especially if I add an unpleasantly tendentious opinion?
    - throwaway049 10y ago
      I think it is wrong because the people advocating cutting the pie differently are not poor, spendthrift vagabonds but people with jobs who believe that they are not getting a fair cut of the wealth they create.
      - JanezStupar 10y ago
        And their act of believing automatically makes it true and justified? That is called narcissism. From my anecdotal experience it is too often people who are themselves near or at 1% trying to justify how the "rich" are taking something away from them.
      - Pyxl101 10y ago
        > I think it is wrong because the people advocating cutting the pie differently are not poor, You mean, the people who are advocating for taking someone else's pie. Where does this idea come from that the rich are "taking" from them? No one takes from you, except for the government when they collect taxes. All other relationships are consensual relationships negotiated by people who are all looking for the best deal they can find. Someone pays me for my labor, and in return for compensation I give them my labor. It's a fair deal and entered willingly. If I did not think it was a fair deal, then I could offer my labor to someone else and look for a better one, or I could start my own business and work for myself. If you think that someone else is taking from you or paying an unfair price, then start your own business. You might end up with a different perspective on the value that business owners and capitalists have in society. When you start a business, all of the wealth you create is done with your own hand: you provide a product or service, and you convince people to give you their money in exchange for it. They do, and (hopefully) you end up with more money than it costs to create the product or service, and so you profit. The difference is, no one is taking care of you by saying, "Hey, just come into work every day and we'll pay you." The business owner needs to make sure its suppliers deliver product on time, and its clients pay what they owe on time, and handle various sorts of concerns that are easy to fail to recognize. The business owner needs to make sure their facilities are operational, and that laborers have the tools and supplies they need to do the job, otherwise work stops! There's a chance that your business can crash and you'll be left with nothing. You take on a risk that you work for years and end up with essentially nothing, because your company might be running out of money, and no one might be willing to buy your (at that point) failing, borderline worthless company. There's a lot of risk involved, especially in companies that develop new products -- the value of the product isn't known, and so you're taking on a risk that the company itself might collapse due to being immature, and a further risk that the product might not be valuable, and many more risks. If anyone be believes that they or someone are "not getting a fair cut", then they are welcome to strike out on their own or with like minded people and create their own organization. This website frequently writes about organizations that were created by just a few people, delivered incredible value, and so grew into something great. Furthermore, if this company founder is correct in their theory that organizations that employ laborers are not giving the laborers a fair share, then the new company that they found will be able to and will choose to pay laborers much more than any competitor will (due to recognizing their true value). In paying more for the labor, this company will be able to attract by far the best laborers and hire as many people as it needs. Competitors meanwhile will be starved for talent and will suffer. In this way, a company that fairly values and fairly compensates the work produces by its laborers will out-compete companies that undervalue their laborers. In the end, companies that value worker labor correctly will come out on top. If you have studied economics, and you have followed this reasoning, then you should be open to the possibility that laborers are in fact fairly compensated for the value they produce. That's not to say that we should not have progressive taxes, but when you recognize this, you might look differently at the idea that peoples' value is being "stolen". They're willingly trading it at a price they negotiated. You shouldn't be sour about a deal you negotiated and accepted; and you shouldn't be mad at someone that a better deal isn't available. Perhaps I think I should be paid $1 million dollars per year, but just because I believe that doesn't make it true. A person deserves to have the compensation that they earn by providing value to others, at a rate the other people agree to willingly (and enough to say alive, whichever is greater).
Trundle 10y ago
Is preventing wealth transfer from parent to child not their goal? In that case one would expect that transferring house from parent to child not being allowed isn't an unwanted side effect but part of the intended one.
- NhanH 10y ago
  I'm giving my house to my nephew ... and it just happens that my brother is giving his house to my kid. How many generations out do you plan to ban? Cause it might be a good time for me to start getting to know my extended cousins. ;)
  - qbrass 10y ago
    >How many generations out do you plan to ban? I'm guessing all of them. Not that it really changes anything. You'll just put your major assets in other people's name long before you die so the state doesn't take them. If you raised your children right, they won't sell your house while you're still living in it.
matt4077 10y ago
Maybe your term paper was about the (excellent!) analysis Marx gave on the failures of capitalism? Because almost all I'm reading, except the comment you replied to, are market-based approaches with a healthy dose of victim-blaming for poverty. The "nordic model" has actually very little to do with Marxism. Marx didn't write about money, he wrote about power, specifically economic power. Experiments with that idea all failed because it's a very bad idea to randomly give people power (or, as it happened in most of those experiments, give it to the government). There's a newer idea which people are generally advocating when they mention Scandinavia which so-called "Social democrats" came up with: just redistribute (some of) the money. Leave enough to the wealthy to leave incentives intact, give enough to the poor so they and their children can live a somewhat normal life. I believe it's worked quite well for almost all countries that have tried it.
- NhanH 10y ago
  Money, wealth, economic power are all used mostly synonymous in informal discussion like this, and I don't really like to discuss word semantic right now. A lot of people on HN is supporting Basic Income policy (I do, too). And that's why I specifically pointed out the extreme hyperbole policy while replying to a very antagonizing comment, it wasn't a critic on the "idea". This is the kind of things that the specific matters and you need to says what exactly you are looking for. FWIW, when I posted there were much fewer comments, and the sentiment was different than the current top comments.
crdoconnor 10y ago
>We don't talk about the real solution because none of the person that want to "take more from the rich and give more to the poor" proposes one. That's just a lie. I could reel off about 20 or 30, many of which were the centerpiece of a presidential campaign. * Raise minimum wage. * Implement 100% LVT. * Water down intellectual property laws. * Water down laws that attack unions (e.g. 'right' to work). * Strengthen laws that allow unions to organize. * Remove carried interest rule. * Implement a job guarantee. * Make trade deals with other countries contingent on ^^^ this stuff happening in those countries too. Unfortunately, left economists who can make a case for policies like this are consistently shouted down by the 'respectable' economists who predict austerity will cause growth 7 years in a row (any day now!) and catastrophic job losses will be the only result of raising the minimum wage. Those who make being usefully wrong a profession, in other words. >Courtesy of being born in a Communist country, I had to learn Karl Marx and such in middle school. And almost every single statement on this comment chain reads like my term exam questions (I'm not being facetious here). He has a whole chapter on general formula of capital, and another one on rent seeking behavior. It's all good idea ... until you actually try to implement it and the resulting government is nuts. 98% of his writings were a critique of capitalism. He didn't provide a detailed description of how to implement anything. Of course, some dictators used his writings as a pretext to seize power and implement fairly bog standard authoritarian regimes and guilt by association works wonders on the feeble minded, so there's that
- NhanH 10y ago
  > 98% of his writings were a critique of capitalism. He didn't provide a detailed description of how to implement anything. Yeah that's exactly my point. The issue is when we try to turn all those seemingly "good" things into practice, we couldn't figure out how. Let me pick the one that I disagree the most in your list: > Implement a job guarantee How would you do that?
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >Yeah that's exactly my point. The issue is when we try to turn all those seemingly "good" things into practice, we couldn't figure out how. He wrote a critique of capitalism Das Kapital was not a list of seemingly good thing that could be turned into practice. The fact that other people read the book and did misguided or horrible things is no reflection on what he wrote. >>>Let me pick the one that I disagree the most in your list: >>Implement a job guarantee >How would you do that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration If you think the Lincoln Tunnel was a waste of money and you think that the private sector overproducing shoddy McMansions where nobody wants to live in 2007 was a great thing then you probably wouldn't be a fan.

by NhanH 10y ago

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

Reminds me of this: The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a rich man: "I have discovered there is enough money in the world for all of us, if it was equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy together." "But," was the response, "if everybody was like you, it would be spent in two months, and what would you do then?" "Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!" https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/

manicdee 10y ago
Implying that the only difference between rich and poor is spending habits. Where in the real world we have confounding factors such as racism, sexism, cultural norms, differing costs of transit and habitation, limited opportunities and limits on resources.
- _andromeda_ 10y ago
  It seems to me like it's the only one that matters because it's the one that an individual has the most control over. Other confounding factors are externalities that as an individual you cannot always control but guess what you can always do? Save, save, save and if you can, innovate and reap the fruits of your discipline and hard work. Collectivism should be avoided.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >It seems to me like it's the only one that matters You literally have to do nothing to cash a rent check, receive share dividends or interest on a loan. From a systems' perspective that's parasitism.
    - JanezStupar 10y ago
      You are simplifying to the level of dishonesty.
      - crdoconnor 10y ago
        There's really no other way to characterize non-gift exchanges of wealth that the recipient did not create. The only thing that stops this system of parasitic wealth transfer from spinning out of control is re-redistributive taxation.
        JanezStupar 10y ago
        Your lack of self awareness is incredible. How are you yourself different from the vilified "rent seeker"?
        crdoconnor 10y ago
        Instead of consuming more value than I create, I create more value than I am compensated for. Because I derive my income from my work.
djrobstep 10y ago
This anecdote is dumb and wrong, but is a handy way to call poor people trash when you're afraid to say so directly, I guess.
- vixen99 10y ago
  If I say the anecdote is perceptive and right you'd expect me to give reasons wouldn't you especially if I add an unpleasantly tendentious opinion?
  - throwaway049 10y ago
    I think it is wrong because the people advocating cutting the pie differently are not poor, spendthrift vagabonds but people with jobs who believe that they are not getting a fair cut of the wealth they create.
    - JanezStupar 10y ago
      And their act of believing automatically makes it true and justified? That is called narcissism. From my anecdotal experience it is too often people who are themselves near or at 1% trying to justify how the "rich" are taking something away from them.
    - Pyxl101 10y ago
      > I think it is wrong because the people advocating cutting the pie differently are not poor, You mean, the people who are advocating for taking someone else's pie. Where does this idea come from that the rich are "taking" from them? No one takes from you, except for the government when they collect taxes. All other relationships are consensual relationships negotiated by people who are all looking for the best deal they can find. Someone pays me for my labor, and in return for compensation I give them my labor. It's a fair deal and entered willingly. If I did not think it was a fair deal, then I could offer my labor to someone else and look for a better one, or I could start my own business and work for myself. If you think that someone else is taking from you or paying an unfair price, then start your own business. You might end up with a different perspective on the value that business owners and capitalists have in society. When you start a business, all of the wealth you create is done with your own hand: you provide a product or service, and you convince people to give you their money in exchange for it. They do, and (hopefully) you end up with more money than it costs to create the product or service, and so you profit. The difference is, no one is taking care of you by saying, "Hey, just come into work every day and we'll pay you." The business owner needs to make sure its suppliers deliver product on time, and its clients pay what they owe on time, and handle various sorts of concerns that are easy to fail to recognize. The business owner needs to make sure their facilities are operational, and that laborers have the tools and supplies they need to do the job, otherwise work stops! There's a chance that your business can crash and you'll be left with nothing. You take on a risk that you work for years and end up with essentially nothing, because your company might be running out of money, and no one might be willing to buy your (at that point) failing, borderline worthless company. There's a lot of risk involved, especially in companies that develop new products -- the value of the product isn't known, and so you're taking on a risk that the company itself might collapse due to being immature, and a further risk that the product might not be valuable, and many more risks. If anyone be believes that they or someone are "not getting a fair cut", then they are welcome to strike out on their own or with like minded people and create their own organization. This website frequently writes about organizations that were created by just a few people, delivered incredible value, and so grew into something great. Furthermore, if this company founder is correct in their theory that organizations that employ laborers are not giving the laborers a fair share, then the new company that they found will be able to and will choose to pay laborers much more than any competitor will (due to recognizing their true value). In paying more for the labor, this company will be able to attract by far the best laborers and hire as many people as it needs. Competitors meanwhile will be starved for talent and will suffer. In this way, a company that fairly values and fairly compensates the work produces by its laborers will out-compete companies that undervalue their laborers. In the end, companies that value worker labor correctly will come out on top. If you have studied economics, and you have followed this reasoning, then you should be open to the possibility that laborers are in fact fairly compensated for the value they produce. That's not to say that we should not have progressive taxes, but when you recognize this, you might look differently at the idea that peoples' value is being "stolen". They're willingly trading it at a price they negotiated. You shouldn't be sour about a deal you negotiated and accepted; and you shouldn't be mad at someone that a better deal isn't available. Perhaps I think I should be paid $1 million dollars per year, but just because I believe that doesn't make it true. A person deserves to have the compensation that they earn by providing value to others, at a rate the other people agree to willingly (and enough to say alive, whichever is greater).

Trundle 10y ago

Is preventing wealth transfer from parent to child not their goal? In that case one would expect that transferring house from parent to child not being allowed isn't an unwanted side effect but part of the intended one.

NhanH 10y ago
I'm giving my house to my nephew ... and it just happens that my brother is giving his house to my kid. How many generations out do you plan to ban? Cause it might be a good time for me to start getting to know my extended cousins. ;)
- qbrass 10y ago
  >How many generations out do you plan to ban? I'm guessing all of them. Not that it really changes anything. You'll just put your major assets in other people's name long before you die so the state doesn't take them. If you raised your children right, they won't sell your house while you're still living in it.

matt4077 10y ago

Maybe your term paper was about the (excellent!) analysis Marx gave on the failures of capitalism? Because almost all I'm reading, except the comment you replied to, are market-based approaches with a healthy dose of victim-blaming for poverty. The "nordic model" has actually very little to do with Marxism. Marx didn't write about money, he wrote about power, specifically economic power. Experiments with that idea all failed because it's a very bad idea to randomly give people power (or, as it happened in most of those experiments, give it to the government). There's a newer idea which people are generally advocating when they mention Scandinavia which so-called "Social democrats" came up with: just redistribute (some of) the money. Leave enough to the wealthy to leave incentives intact, give enough to the poor so they and their children can live a somewhat normal life. I believe it's worked quite well for almost all countries that have tried it.

NhanH 10y ago
Money, wealth, economic power are all used mostly synonymous in informal discussion like this, and I don't really like to discuss word semantic right now. A lot of people on HN is supporting Basic Income policy (I do, too). And that's why I specifically pointed out the extreme hyperbole policy while replying to a very antagonizing comment, it wasn't a critic on the "idea". This is the kind of things that the specific matters and you need to says what exactly you are looking for. FWIW, when I posted there were much fewer comments, and the sentiment was different than the current top comments.

crdoconnor 10y ago

>We don't talk about the real solution because none of the person that want to "take more from the rich and give more to the poor" proposes one. That's just a lie. I could reel off about 20 or 30, many of which were the centerpiece of a presidential campaign. * Raise minimum wage. * Implement 100% LVT. * Water down intellectual property laws. * Water down laws that attack unions (e.g. 'right' to work). * Strengthen laws that allow unions to organize. * Remove carried interest rule. * Implement a job guarantee. * Make trade deals with other countries contingent on ^^^ this stuff happening in those countries too. Unfortunately, left economists who can make a case for policies like this are consistently shouted down by the 'respectable' economists who predict austerity will cause growth 7 years in a row (any day now!) and catastrophic job losses will be the only result of raising the minimum wage. Those who make being usefully wrong a profession, in other words. >Courtesy of being born in a Communist country, I had to learn Karl Marx and such in middle school. And almost every single statement on this comment chain reads like my term exam questions (I'm not being facetious here). He has a whole chapter on general formula of capital, and another one on rent seeking behavior. It's all good idea ... until you actually try to implement it and the resulting government is nuts. 98% of his writings were a critique of capitalism. He didn't provide a detailed description of how to implement anything. Of course, some dictators used his writings as a pretext to seize power and implement fairly bog standard authoritarian regimes and guilt by association works wonders on the feeble minded, so there's that

NhanH 10y ago
> 98% of his writings were a critique of capitalism. He didn't provide a detailed description of how to implement anything. Yeah that's exactly my point. The issue is when we try to turn all those seemingly "good" things into practice, we couldn't figure out how. Let me pick the one that I disagree the most in your list: > Implement a job guarantee How would you do that?
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >Yeah that's exactly my point. The issue is when we try to turn all those seemingly "good" things into practice, we couldn't figure out how. He wrote a critique of capitalism Das Kapital was not a list of seemingly good thing that could be turned into practice. The fact that other people read the book and did misguided or horrible things is no reflection on what he wrote. >>>Let me pick the one that I disagree the most in your list: >>Implement a job guarantee >How would you do that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration If you think the Lincoln Tunnel was a waste of money and you think that the private sector overproducing shoddy McMansions where nobody wants to live in 2007 was a great thing then you probably wouldn't be a fan.