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Except we actually had a functioning federal government during the last gilded age, so we ended up with things like the Sherman Antitrust Act, and eventually th

Except we actually had a functioning federal government during the last gilded age, so we ended up with things like the Sherman Antitrust Act, and eventually the New Deal. I doubt we'll be so lucky this time around. Things are about to get absolutely brutal for the 90%.

FussyZeus 8y ago
Or the 1%. Something Rich people tend to forget is that the system of law and order we have now prevents armed uprising of the lower classes, which has a history of cropping up during very hard economic times. Not advocating, and I doubt I'd be one of them holding a pitchfork, but it is something to keep in mind.
- tmpz22 8y ago
  Except nowadays even small local police departments have tanks and swat teams.
  - untog 8y ago
    Small local police departments are also staffed by the 90%, though. I find it difficult to imagine an uprising against the 1% in America any time soon, but if it did happen I can absolutely imagine the police siding against the 1%.
    - coliveira 8y ago
      Police forces are ideologically selected to protect the 1%. In extreme cases what you say is possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
    - suresk 8y ago
      At this point in America, pretty much everyone who has weapons and authority to use force is pretty ideologically aligned with the 1%. There is a pretty strong narrative in that group that all of these problems that many would ascribe to poor income equality are actually caused by immigrants, welfare recipients, and government. I think the chance of the police or military siding against the 1% is incredibly small.
    - grosjona 8y ago
      From my experience, police officers generally don't like rich people. Also, I don't think that members of the police force or the military are as obedient or loyal as they used to be in the past.
      - joncrane 8y ago
        They don't like "rich assholes" but they are very authoritarian and respect and obey "power."
      - gremlinsinc 8y ago
        If the 1% decided to lobby for police salaries > 400k per year, would the police be more obedient? If revolution was coming, you better believe pay for police would rise, and they'd definitely protect their own interests.
    - refurb 8y ago
      Considering the top 1% is ~$450K per year per household, I'd wager plenty of folks on HN are in the top 1% if they are a two income household.
      - lev99 8y ago
        The top 1% of income is very different than the top 1% in wealth.
        amorousf00p 8y ago
        hear, hear.
    - cafard 8y ago
      You might want to look up the history of for example the Republic Steel Strike in Chicago in the 1930s.
      - dredmorbius 8y ago
        Studs Terkel on that: https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/22485.mp3 https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/22485.m...
    - gremlinsinc 8y ago
      Except, if it looked like it was coming to that, guess who just got a major pay raise : Police... Now Police is the highest paid field in America...and they'll do anything the 1% tell them to.
  - dplgk 8y ago
    But which side will they be on?
    - prolikewh0a 8y ago
      Protecting the private property of the state & corporations. Standing rock is a great example.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Except nowadays even small local police departments have tanks and swat teams. Successful uprisings by the masses against the elites almost always involve substantial fractions of the military, police, and other security services defecting, either abandoning their gear or taking it with them and turning it against the elites. Until we get robots replacing guys with guns, that's going to be a recurring failure mode for narrow elite rule.
    - CM30 8y ago
      When you get robots replacing guys with guns, then you've got a whole second set of problems to deal with them. Namely, cybersecurity goes from being annoying to being potentially lethal.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        Which, if you think about it, is a slight recasting of the same failure mode: formal control of the instruments of force can become detached from actual control.
        AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        It's the same failure mode, but it's a much worse problem. For the (human) police to join the insurrection, they have to be persuaded that the insurrection is either morally right or too big to fight (which may mean that it's too big for the police to consider arresting/killing them all to be an acceptable solution). For the robots with guns to join the revolution just takes one really good hacker.
  - dghughes 8y ago
    Anytime US police are shown on TV it's staggering to see how many are of them are obese. How can these police officers function in their jobs being so large? There must be yearly fitness tests to weed out people like that. Surely someone 6 feet tall 300 or 400 pounds can barely walk let alone run after someone.
    - slededit 8y ago
      People on TV are the ones that are later in their career. A police sergeant is more of a middle manager and is often not out in the field. Fitness tests ensure new officers are not overweight.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      US Police on TV look more obese (and in a top-heavy way) than they are because department policy very often includes wearing a bulletproof vest under their uniform shirt.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      FWIW, strength is way more important for policing and combat than being thin. Obese people who move around on a daily basis are usually quite strong. They have to be.
- cowmoo728 8y ago
  https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/24/stanford-historian-uncovers-grim-correlation-violence-inequality-millennia/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/24/stanford-historian-unco...
- irrational 8y ago
  Back in the day, most people grew up working on a farm/ranch/etc. and actually knew how to use a pitchfork. I'm trying to imagine today's obese generation trying to physically overthrow the government and can't help thinking that it wouldn't go so well.
  - soared 8y ago
    An overthrow would look entirely different today. The masses wouldn't carry pitchforks, they'd use computers. (I don't know how, but assuming people today wouldn't use computers is definitely wrong)
    - smhost 8y ago
      We have to cripple the datacenters, which tend to be hard to move.
    - gremlinsinc 8y ago
      if I were to overthrow the government, I'm assuming many peers would be involved too, probably Anonymous, a lot of the tech community, etc.. (if it was down party lines, or even 99% vs 1%... Assuming the revolting army was full of tech geeks, the best we could hope for is a drone/robotic army that uses technology. Because jocks most of us are not. LOL.
      - irrational 8y ago
        I have to assume that the government has the ability to shutdown the Internet at will. Perhaps even the ability to physically destroy the networks at key locations at will. They certainly have the ability to take the electric grid offline at will which would render most technology moot within a short period of time unless you have solar panels and battery backup.
        gremlinsinc 8y ago
        Not at all -- not with satellite tech/internet (who's side will Musk be on?) -- what about mesh networks? Musk could also supply energy/electricity if he joined the 90%, I'm sure some billionaires might come join the lowly poor people fighting against Oligarchy.
- LarryDarrell 8y ago
  They'll never get that far. Even when desperate the 90% are easily divided against each other. Disease, war, some other ecological disaster... a divided and very unequal nation cannot respond to these stresses. This is what ultimately balances things, it's a shame that so many many lives will have to be destroyed in the future because we are too timid to fix the problem now.
  - nickthemagicman 8y ago
    It's interesting there's theories that say it took the black plague to wipe out half of Europe and end the riches domination of the poor, end the dark ages, and ultimately start the enlightenment.
- mozumder 8y ago
  There's going to be a great liberal age in the 2020s though. Thanks to Trump, state legislatures and governors are turning blue, just in time for the 2020 gerrymandering, which will reinforce a Democratic majority for decades to come, and finally put a nail in the coffin of anti-government Republicans. Pendulum theory of politics is real, and it's great.
  - thatfrenchguy 8y ago
    But the democratic establishment does policies that are very similar to republicans, get all their money from the 1% and corporations, and I’d be surprised if progressives manage to break out.
    - tjr225 8y ago
      And many Democratic voters find the current, establishment of DNC politicians to be delusionally far right of their constituents. See: Bernie, Ocasio-Cortez, and what I believe will be many more Dems with a leaning towards progressive policy.
      - mozumder 8y ago
        There's not that many, though. The vast majority of Democrats like corporate employment.
        gremlinsinc 8y ago
        The key is passing anti-corruption acts that get money out of politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians, then we can make politics more fair/ethical. This is a bipartisan group working to get these passed. Anti-corruption benefits everyone.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians It is illegal for corporations to donate to politicians. But independent expenditures that aren't donated are another matter, which you can't eliminate without taking a big whack to the first amendment and core political speech.
- jorblumesea 8y ago
  This is part of the reason why the country is so divided. It's a great tactic to prevent the masses from organized. Give the left and the right something to hate (each other) and steal the economic gains for yourself.
  - gremlinsinc 8y ago
    Sadly this is true.. I'd love to see Progressive politicians jump ship to Republican, pick up a few emotional issues like anti-abortion (though secretly pro-choice), and be pro-gun (though still a believer in regulating which guns are allowed on the market). Basically troll the party in red states, some might actually get elected on a platform similar to Bernie but tweaked to appeal to right wingers, and then we can work from left/right to pull the masses to a center that's more progressive less corporatist.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  It's true that logistically there's always more poor than rich. That said, rich are only one plane ticket away from peace of mind. Surely their money is already distributed digitally so ..
rich-w-big-ego 8y ago
Precisely how is the federal government not functioning? Please let this be a serious argument and not Trump Derangement Syndrome...
olfactory 8y ago
Today we have a military industrial complex supported by both parties and our most vital student loans (championed by our "left" party) come with no bankruptcy protection. We do have a very strong Federal government, but it's designed to funnel money to various interest groups. By making compute infrastructure affordable and by making consumer review data available for all products, Bezos is a champion of the little guy. He hasn't gotten rich through government crony capitalism or fraud, he's done the simplest stuff better than anyone else could. He let's people buy products that are reviewed thoroughly by other customers, he has a reasonable return policy, etc. This benefits consumers AND honest merchants selling through the platform. AWS has made it way cheaper to start and scale many kinds of tech startups, and paved the way for firms like Heroku and DigitalOcean, and the entire vps ecosystem. Bezos is a master of infrastructure execution. This is extremely rare, as we can see from the fate of Jet and Azure. Year after year the genius of his business tradeoff decisions and strategies become more clear. This is why he's wealthy. What we need are more people with that kind of vision and ability to see the big picture and solve real, unsexy problems. Before AWS I had dealt with Dell as a part of several startups. The sales people were shady and they tried to milk every penny out of the customer for semi-proprietary hardware that was expensive to support. People flocked to AWS to escape the kind of predation and mediocrity championed by Dell. Most readers of HN have the technical ability to have started AWS but (if they were of age at the time) did not see the opportunity and the path to execution. Bezos did. Let's give him some credit. I think he's one of the most remarkable visionaries of our age.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  Completely agree. Bezos is great. This is not so much an attack on Bezos as it is an attack on a system that let's 30 single individuals amass more wealth than the bottom 3 billion.
  - Shivetya 8y ago
    except the mass majority of the bottom three billion live where governments do respect property rights. private wealth only exists where that is true, otherwise all wealth would be concentrated in the hands of politicians as it is in many places; well that and their very select friends most of which they installed over state resources.
pitaj 8y ago
You mean the same New Deal that likely extended the length of the Great Depression by a significant multiple?
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  This goes against every ounce of history I've been taught.
  - nostromo 8y ago
    The New Deal has never not been controversial, from proposal to present day. I imagine its effects will be argued about until the heat death of the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Historiography_and_evaluation_of_New_Deal_policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Historiography_and_ev...
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    Nearly all histories of the Great Depression are agenda driven, rather than an honest attempt at fact finding. Most paint it as a failure of capitalism, the rest as a direct result of government manipulation of the banking system, trade disruption caused by Smoot-Hawley, and huge tax increases.
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    Virtually all credible historians agree that the New Deal itself was largely ineffective in solving the Great Depression. It started in 1933 with unemployment rate of 25%. Half a decade and many millions of dollars later, unemployment was 19%. [1] The Great Depression ended only when Europe went to war in 1939 and financed the American economy. Depending on who you ask, the New Deal was either ineffective because it was fundamentally flawed, or ineffective because it wasn't big enough and didn't raise enough debt. [2] Basically, "economic science" as usual... [1] https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Recovery_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Recovery_2
    - 8y ago
paulddraper 8y ago
> functioning federal government > New Deal The New Deal is the arguably the worst economic policy in US history. It turned the Great Recession into the Great Depression [1] [2] and has been an economic anchor on the US ever since [3] [4] [5] That it has popularly been given credit for the WWII-era economy is doctoring history. That it still further has become the epitome of good economic policy is unbelievable. [1] http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409 http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-D... [2] https://mises.org/library/how-fdr-made-depression-worse https://mises.org/library/how-fdr-made-depression-worse [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/06/05/trustees-predict-that-social-security-will-be-insolvent-in-16-years/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/06/05/tru... [4] https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html [5] https://www.forbes.com/2009/02/11/new-deal-stimulus-opinions-contributors_0211_jim_powell.html https://www.forbes.com/2009/02/11/new-deal-stimulus-opinions...
sidlls 8y ago
"About to?" It already is brutal for the bottom half. And the 90th percentile is too low: people in that range are paupers by comparison even to the top 5. I think the 95th to the 99th percentile is the region to look at. There are some seriously deluded individuals in that group who think they won't be on the outside with the rest of us when the top pull the gates closed behind them.
- 0xCMP 8y ago
  Extremely deluded
- Fricken 8y ago
  America is a nation of temporarily inconvenienced millionaires. This disconnect between expectations and reality is one of it's biggest problems. You can visit any number of poorer nations where being poor does is not a punishment, it not equate to a difficult or miserable life, because society, it's services and it's infrastructure are all built to accomodate people of modest means. In America is designed for you to have a McMansion with a two car garage, and if you can't meet the bottom line you either go into debt to pretend you're meeting it or you're cast to the fringes where you struggle just to survive in a world that is not designed to accomodate People of modest means.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    I capture the essence of the matter perfectly in that last sentence.
  - jelgt2011 8y ago
    The (disputed) John Steinbeck quote you might be referring to: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires"
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- gutnor 8y ago
Synaesthesia 8y ago
That came about due to pressure from mass civil action, just like every positive change in society.
CryptoPunk 8y ago
The New Deal was responsible for stretching the Depression out for several additional years. It was one of the most economically ignorant and harmful interventions in US history. Food was actually destroyed during the New Deal to create artificial scarcity in agricultural produce: https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.html https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.html This destruction of agricultural stock was based on the idea that the problem in the economy was low nominal prices, when that was merely the symptom of the contraction in the money supply as a result of widespread defaults and an erosion in lending. The low nominal prices were a natural reaction to the reduced money supply, that enabled consumption levels to remain at their pre-crash levels. With their efforts to increase nominal prices by creating artificial scarcity, all the New Deal officials did was reduce economic output, and with it, consumption levels, resulting in lower quality of life.
namlem 8y ago
Our government was barely functional from the end of the Civil War until Teddy Roosevelt's presidency.

FussyZeus 8y ago

Or the 1%. Something Rich people tend to forget is that the system of law and order we have now prevents armed uprising of the lower classes, which has a history of cropping up during very hard economic times. Not advocating, and I doubt I'd be one of them holding a pitchfork, but it is something to keep in mind.

tmpz22 8y ago
Except nowadays even small local police departments have tanks and swat teams.
- untog 8y ago
  Small local police departments are also staffed by the 90%, though. I find it difficult to imagine an uprising against the 1% in America any time soon, but if it did happen I can absolutely imagine the police siding against the 1%.
  - coliveira 8y ago
    Police forces are ideologically selected to protect the 1%. In extreme cases what you say is possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
  - suresk 8y ago
    At this point in America, pretty much everyone who has weapons and authority to use force is pretty ideologically aligned with the 1%. There is a pretty strong narrative in that group that all of these problems that many would ascribe to poor income equality are actually caused by immigrants, welfare recipients, and government. I think the chance of the police or military siding against the 1% is incredibly small.
  - grosjona 8y ago
    From my experience, police officers generally don't like rich people. Also, I don't think that members of the police force or the military are as obedient or loyal as they used to be in the past.
    - joncrane 8y ago
      They don't like "rich assholes" but they are very authoritarian and respect and obey "power."
    - gremlinsinc 8y ago
      If the 1% decided to lobby for police salaries > 400k per year, would the police be more obedient? If revolution was coming, you better believe pay for police would rise, and they'd definitely protect their own interests.
  - refurb 8y ago
    Considering the top 1% is ~$450K per year per household, I'd wager plenty of folks on HN are in the top 1% if they are a two income household.
    - lev99 8y ago
      The top 1% of income is very different than the top 1% in wealth.
      - amorousf00p 8y ago
        hear, hear.
  - cafard 8y ago
    You might want to look up the history of for example the Republic Steel Strike in Chicago in the 1930s.
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      Studs Terkel on that: https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/22485.mp3 https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/22485.m...
  - gremlinsinc 8y ago
    Except, if it looked like it was coming to that, guess who just got a major pay raise : Police... Now Police is the highest paid field in America...and they'll do anything the 1% tell them to.
- dplgk 8y ago
  But which side will they be on?
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    Protecting the private property of the state & corporations. Standing rock is a great example.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Except nowadays even small local police departments have tanks and swat teams. Successful uprisings by the masses against the elites almost always involve substantial fractions of the military, police, and other security services defecting, either abandoning their gear or taking it with them and turning it against the elites. Until we get robots replacing guys with guns, that's going to be a recurring failure mode for narrow elite rule.
  - CM30 8y ago
    When you get robots replacing guys with guns, then you've got a whole second set of problems to deal with them. Namely, cybersecurity goes from being annoying to being potentially lethal.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      Which, if you think about it, is a slight recasting of the same failure mode: formal control of the instruments of force can become detached from actual control.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        It's the same failure mode, but it's a much worse problem. For the (human) police to join the insurrection, they have to be persuaded that the insurrection is either morally right or too big to fight (which may mean that it's too big for the police to consider arresting/killing them all to be an acceptable solution). For the robots with guns to join the revolution just takes one really good hacker.
- dghughes 8y ago
  Anytime US police are shown on TV it's staggering to see how many are of them are obese. How can these police officers function in their jobs being so large? There must be yearly fitness tests to weed out people like that. Surely someone 6 feet tall 300 or 400 pounds can barely walk let alone run after someone.
  - slededit 8y ago
    People on TV are the ones that are later in their career. A police sergeant is more of a middle manager and is often not out in the field. Fitness tests ensure new officers are not overweight.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    US Police on TV look more obese (and in a top-heavy way) than they are because department policy very often includes wearing a bulletproof vest under their uniform shirt.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    FWIW, strength is way more important for policing and combat than being thin. Obese people who move around on a daily basis are usually quite strong. They have to be.
cowmoo728 8y ago
https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/24/stanford-historian-uncovers-grim-correlation-violence-inequality-millennia/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/24/stanford-historian-unco...
irrational 8y ago
Back in the day, most people grew up working on a farm/ranch/etc. and actually knew how to use a pitchfork. I'm trying to imagine today's obese generation trying to physically overthrow the government and can't help thinking that it wouldn't go so well.
- soared 8y ago
  An overthrow would look entirely different today. The masses wouldn't carry pitchforks, they'd use computers. (I don't know how, but assuming people today wouldn't use computers is definitely wrong)
  - smhost 8y ago
    We have to cripple the datacenters, which tend to be hard to move.
  - gremlinsinc 8y ago
    if I were to overthrow the government, I'm assuming many peers would be involved too, probably Anonymous, a lot of the tech community, etc.. (if it was down party lines, or even 99% vs 1%... Assuming the revolting army was full of tech geeks, the best we could hope for is a drone/robotic army that uses technology. Because jocks most of us are not. LOL.
    - irrational 8y ago
      I have to assume that the government has the ability to shutdown the Internet at will. Perhaps even the ability to physically destroy the networks at key locations at will. They certainly have the ability to take the electric grid offline at will which would render most technology moot within a short period of time unless you have solar panels and battery backup.
      - gremlinsinc 8y ago
        Not at all -- not with satellite tech/internet (who's side will Musk be on?) -- what about mesh networks? Musk could also supply energy/electricity if he joined the 90%, I'm sure some billionaires might come join the lowly poor people fighting against Oligarchy.
LarryDarrell 8y ago
They'll never get that far. Even when desperate the 90% are easily divided against each other. Disease, war, some other ecological disaster... a divided and very unequal nation cannot respond to these stresses. This is what ultimately balances things, it's a shame that so many many lives will have to be destroyed in the future because we are too timid to fix the problem now.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  It's interesting there's theories that say it took the black plague to wipe out half of Europe and end the riches domination of the poor, end the dark ages, and ultimately start the enlightenment.
mozumder 8y ago
There's going to be a great liberal age in the 2020s though. Thanks to Trump, state legislatures and governors are turning blue, just in time for the 2020 gerrymandering, which will reinforce a Democratic majority for decades to come, and finally put a nail in the coffin of anti-government Republicans. Pendulum theory of politics is real, and it's great.
- thatfrenchguy 8y ago
  But the democratic establishment does policies that are very similar to republicans, get all their money from the 1% and corporations, and I’d be surprised if progressives manage to break out.
  - tjr225 8y ago
    And many Democratic voters find the current, establishment of DNC politicians to be delusionally far right of their constituents. See: Bernie, Ocasio-Cortez, and what I believe will be many more Dems with a leaning towards progressive policy.
    - mozumder 8y ago
      There's not that many, though. The vast majority of Democrats like corporate employment.
      - gremlinsinc 8y ago
        The key is passing anti-corruption acts that get money out of politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians, then we can make politics more fair/ethical. This is a bipartisan group working to get these passed. Anti-corruption benefits everyone.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians It is illegal for corporations to donate to politicians. But independent expenditures that aren't donated are another matter, which you can't eliminate without taking a big whack to the first amendment and core political speech.
jorblumesea 8y ago
This is part of the reason why the country is so divided. It's a great tactic to prevent the masses from organized. Give the left and the right something to hate (each other) and steal the economic gains for yourself.
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  Sadly this is true.. I'd love to see Progressive politicians jump ship to Republican, pick up a few emotional issues like anti-abortion (though secretly pro-choice), and be pro-gun (though still a believer in regulating which guns are allowed on the market). Basically troll the party in red states, some might actually get elected on a platform similar to Bernie but tweaked to appeal to right wingers, and then we can work from left/right to pull the masses to a center that's more progressive less corporatist.
agumonkey 8y ago
It's true that logistically there's always more poor than rich. That said, rich are only one plane ticket away from peace of mind. Surely their money is already distributed digitally so ..

rich-w-big-ego 8y ago

Precisely how is the federal government not functioning? Please let this be a serious argument and not Trump Derangement Syndrome...

olfactory 8y ago

Today we have a military industrial complex supported by both parties and our most vital student loans (championed by our "left" party) come with no bankruptcy protection. We do have a very strong Federal government, but it's designed to funnel money to various interest groups. By making compute infrastructure affordable and by making consumer review data available for all products, Bezos is a champion of the little guy. He hasn't gotten rich through government crony capitalism or fraud, he's done the simplest stuff better than anyone else could. He let's people buy products that are reviewed thoroughly by other customers, he has a reasonable return policy, etc. This benefits consumers AND honest merchants selling through the platform. AWS has made it way cheaper to start and scale many kinds of tech startups, and paved the way for firms like Heroku and DigitalOcean, and the entire vps ecosystem. Bezos is a master of infrastructure execution. This is extremely rare, as we can see from the fate of Jet and Azure. Year after year the genius of his business tradeoff decisions and strategies become more clear. This is why he's wealthy. What we need are more people with that kind of vision and ability to see the big picture and solve real, unsexy problems. Before AWS I had dealt with Dell as a part of several startups. The sales people were shady and they tried to milk every penny out of the customer for semi-proprietary hardware that was expensive to support. People flocked to AWS to escape the kind of predation and mediocrity championed by Dell. Most readers of HN have the technical ability to have started AWS but (if they were of age at the time) did not see the opportunity and the path to execution. Bezos did. Let's give him some credit. I think he's one of the most remarkable visionaries of our age.

nickthemagicman 8y ago
Completely agree. Bezos is great. This is not so much an attack on Bezos as it is an attack on a system that let's 30 single individuals amass more wealth than the bottom 3 billion.
- Shivetya 8y ago
  except the mass majority of the bottom three billion live where governments do respect property rights. private wealth only exists where that is true, otherwise all wealth would be concentrated in the hands of politicians as it is in many places; well that and their very select friends most of which they installed over state resources.

pitaj 8y ago

You mean the same New Deal that likely extended the length of the Great Depression by a significant multiple?

nickthemagicman 8y ago
This goes against every ounce of history I've been taught.
- nostromo 8y ago
  The New Deal has never not been controversial, from proposal to present day. I imagine its effects will be argued about until the heat death of the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Historiography_and_evaluation_of_New_Deal_policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Historiography_and_ev...
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  Nearly all histories of the Great Depression are agenda driven, rather than an honest attempt at fact finding. Most paint it as a failure of capitalism, the rest as a direct result of government manipulation of the banking system, trade disruption caused by Smoot-Hawley, and huge tax increases.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  Virtually all credible historians agree that the New Deal itself was largely ineffective in solving the Great Depression. It started in 1933 with unemployment rate of 25%. Half a decade and many millions of dollars later, unemployment was 19%. [1] The Great Depression ended only when Europe went to war in 1939 and financed the American economy. Depending on who you ask, the New Deal was either ineffective because it was fundamentally flawed, or ineffective because it wasn't big enough and didn't raise enough debt. [2] Basically, "economic science" as usual... [1] https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Recovery_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Recovery_2
  - 8y ago

paulddraper 8y ago

> functioning federal government > New Deal The New Deal is the arguably the worst economic policy in US history. It turned the Great Recession into the Great Depression [1] [2] and has been an economic anchor on the US ever since [3] [4] [5] That it has popularly been given credit for the WWII-era economy is doctoring history. That it still further has become the epitome of good economic policy is unbelievable. [1] http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409 http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-D... [2] https://mises.org/library/how-fdr-made-depression-worse https://mises.org/library/how-fdr-made-depression-worse [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/06/05/trustees-predict-that-social-security-will-be-insolvent-in-16-years/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/06/05/tru... [4] https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html [5] https://www.forbes.com/2009/02/11/new-deal-stimulus-opinions-contributors_0211_jim_powell.html https://www.forbes.com/2009/02/11/new-deal-stimulus-opinions...

sidlls 8y ago

"About to?" It already is brutal for the bottom half. And the 90th percentile is too low: people in that range are paupers by comparison even to the top 5. I think the 95th to the 99th percentile is the region to look at. There are some seriously deluded individuals in that group who think they won't be on the outside with the rest of us when the top pull the gates closed behind them.

0xCMP 8y ago
Extremely deluded
Fricken 8y ago
America is a nation of temporarily inconvenienced millionaires. This disconnect between expectations and reality is one of it's biggest problems. You can visit any number of poorer nations where being poor does is not a punishment, it not equate to a difficult or miserable life, because society, it's services and it's infrastructure are all built to accomodate people of modest means. In America is designed for you to have a McMansion with a two car garage, and if you can't meet the bottom line you either go into debt to pretend you're meeting it or you're cast to the fringes where you struggle just to survive in a world that is not designed to accomodate People of modest means.
- baybal2 8y ago
  I capture the essence of the matter perfectly in that last sentence.
- jelgt2011 8y ago
  The (disputed) John Steinbeck quote you might be referring to: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
gutnor 8y ago

Synaesthesia 8y ago

That came about due to pressure from mass civil action, just like every positive change in society.

CryptoPunk 8y ago

The New Deal was responsible for stretching the Depression out for several additional years. It was one of the most economically ignorant and harmful interventions in US history. Food was actually destroyed during the New Deal to create artificial scarcity in agricultural produce: https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.html https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.html This destruction of agricultural stock was based on the idea that the problem in the economy was low nominal prices, when that was merely the symptom of the contraction in the money supply as a result of widespread defaults and an erosion in lending. The low nominal prices were a natural reaction to the reduced money supply, that enabled consumption levels to remain at their pre-crash levels. With their efforts to increase nominal prices by creating artificial scarcity, all the New Deal officials did was reduce economic output, and with it, consumption levels, resulting in lower quality of life.

namlem 8y ago

Our government was barely functional from the end of the Civil War until Teddy Roosevelt's presidency.