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Isn't there some trickle down effect though? Is there a good way to quantify it? Someone pays $25k for a watch. They probably paid income tax or capital gains
by flubert 8y ago
Isn't there some trickle down effect though? Is there a good way to quantify it? Someone pays $25k for a watch. They probably paid income tax or capital gains tax on the income they earned on that $25k. And then there could have been a sales tax and/or a luxury tax. But the watch manufacturer pays the watchmakers and for raw materials and marketing and its capital investment in buildings, etc.. And those watchmakers buy houses who were constructed by someone, and the raw materials were mined somewhere. Is there any systematic theory of moral economics which tries to rank these complicated things given some basic moral tenets/axioms? Like buying food for a starving village is better than setting fire to a stack of $100 bills which is better than hiring mercenaries to murder the villagers. It seems like the $25k watch transaction is between the buying food and burning cash. But what about investing that $25k in the index funds? Is that better than buying the watch because it cold potentially help companies which are creating vaccines in the future? Or is it worse than the watch case, because it is also proping up companies polluting the atmosphere with CO2 currently? Is it better to spend the $25k on a fancy watch, or a non-decorative chunk of gold? Is it better to buy one $25k watch, or twenty-five $1k watches?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]