4 ms·

This strikes me as a very elitist article. Bill Gates wants to help the 99% by improving school life for them. This article argues that instead of slightly rai

This strikes me as a very elitist article. Bill Gates wants to help the 99% by improving school life for them. This article argues that instead of slightly raising the average among the 99%, we should instead help the top 1% and given that we now focus our budget on a lot less people, each of them will see bigger improvements. Among other things, the article says "healthy childhood of few concerns without the relegation to daycare is the root of greatness". Unless they are independently wealthy before having kids, most normal parents will need daycare because they still need to work for money. My personal opinion is that recent years have clearly shown us that we live in a winner takes all system and that wealth doesn't usually dribble down. Large companies keep billions in profit offshore, where they don't pay taxes (that could help education) and where the money surely won't help the middle class find jobs with livable wages.

stinos 6y ago
that wealth doesn't usually dribble down You're not alone with that opinion, in fact I thought it was established by now the trickle-down effect in economics is a myth (or at least I read so)?
- gotstad 6y ago
  Well trickle-down was always a matter of how much, not if. And yes, it seems pretty much established that it is a lot less than what we usually plan for when using it as argument in an economic plan.
birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
If the winner takes it all, what good is it to help the 99%? Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.) Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation.
- eecc 6y ago
  That’s an odd take. That money is labor taken out of economic activity and left rotting away in a vault. Surplus needs to reinvested in the cycle, otherwise the overall economy will shrink. What’s being quarreled about in the last generational policy struggle, is who gets to dictate how to spend it. The Jeff Bezos-es, the neoliberal technocrats, or the political establishment. Or something else
  - headmelted 6y ago
    That’s only true if the holder of that money decides to spend it on creating jobs, which are almost invariably the largest single expense in any business. Trickle-down economics depends on progressively better paid work and more of it, while the incentives for businesses are to have as few people on payroll for as little compensation as possible.
    - eecc 6y ago
      That’s why you need to force reinvestment with corporate taxation, and subsidizing innovation with de-risking, either via direct state investment or via reduction of labor cost (UBI, unemployment benefits to compensate for looser contracts.) I think this is the gist of Mazzucato’s views
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  Quite uncharacteristic for a HN comment but every sentence in yours is wrong.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.) Many parents are not wealthy enough to have the choice you're implying any more. First, if they earn half the time, that means part-time work which generally means earning less than half the wages because companies tend to use a full time employee for higher value work. Second, if they are renters, they don't "own less" by earning less than half. Instead, they might (for example) go from being able to afford the rent on a place to raise a family, to being able to afford the rent on a room in a shared house which is unsuitable. If they own a place (with a mortgage), they'd go from buying a place which is big enough to not being able to afford to buy a place, because they won't even be granted a mortgage for a family-size home on a single typical income. > Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation. The parent comment is referring to the lost taxes due to trading profits being creatively accounted to hide them in offshore reservoirs. If paid those taxes would improve the life of the 99%. As for the value of onshore money decreasing if offshore money were to join it, it's not that simple because much of that additional circulation would end up inside the pockets of the 99%.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> Large companies keep billions in profit offshore, where they don't pay taxes US companies keep their "offshore" profits in segregated accounts in New York.
awinter-py 6y ago
wealth doesn't dribble down but a cure to cancer does -- I'm not advocating for overinvesting in the top of the distribution but governments can have legitimate, prosocial goals that involve cultivating specific talents heard a throwaway comment in a podcast that poor countries have to invest in the top of the distribution because they have limited resources and need to max out highly-educated people so they can develop their tech economy. (I wish I had a real footnote for that claim or understood it better). If you model the US as a poor nation that's falling behind its peers, or more plausibly, if you modify half of US states this way, there's an argument we should have the same education strategy as india or 1990s china.
thwoeriu23234 6y ago
> Unless they are independently wealthy before having kids, most normal parents will need daycare because they still need to work for money. This is not so simple. Half a century ago, it'd have been common place for either the Mother or the Grandparents to be looking after the children around the house. In the name of modernity we've replaced family with the nation-state. Yay progress! I say 'modernity', because some of the policies that have led us here were distinctly marketed with the very same adjective.

stinos 6y ago

that wealth doesn't usually dribble down You're not alone with that opinion, in fact I thought it was established by now the trickle-down effect in economics is a myth (or at least I read so)?

gotstad 6y ago
Well trickle-down was always a matter of how much, not if. And yes, it seems pretty much established that it is a lot less than what we usually plan for when using it as argument in an economic plan.

birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago

If the winner takes it all, what good is it to help the 99%? Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.) Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation.

eecc 6y ago
That’s an odd take. That money is labor taken out of economic activity and left rotting away in a vault. Surplus needs to reinvested in the cycle, otherwise the overall economy will shrink. What’s being quarreled about in the last generational policy struggle, is who gets to dictate how to spend it. The Jeff Bezos-es, the neoliberal technocrats, or the political establishment. Or something else
- headmelted 6y ago
  That’s only true if the holder of that money decides to spend it on creating jobs, which are almost invariably the largest single expense in any business. Trickle-down economics depends on progressively better paid work and more of it, while the incentives for businesses are to have as few people on payroll for as little compensation as possible.
  - eecc 6y ago
    That’s why you need to force reinvestment with corporate taxation, and subsidizing innovation with de-risking, either via direct state investment or via reduction of labor cost (UBI, unemployment benefits to compensate for looser contracts.) I think this is the gist of Mazzucato’s views
bitcharmer 6y ago
Quite uncharacteristic for a HN comment but every sentence in yours is wrong.
jlokier 6y ago
> Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.) Many parents are not wealthy enough to have the choice you're implying any more. First, if they earn half the time, that means part-time work which generally means earning less than half the wages because companies tend to use a full time employee for higher value work. Second, if they are renters, they don't "own less" by earning less than half. Instead, they might (for example) go from being able to afford the rent on a place to raise a family, to being able to afford the rent on a room in a shared house which is unsuitable. If they own a place (with a mortgage), they'd go from buying a place which is big enough to not being able to afford to buy a place, because they won't even be granted a mortgage for a family-size home on a single typical income. > Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation. The parent comment is referring to the lost taxes due to trading profits being creatively accounted to hide them in offshore reservoirs. If paid those taxes would improve the life of the 99%. As for the value of onshore money decreasing if offshore money were to join it, it's not that simple because much of that additional circulation would end up inside the pockets of the 99%.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> Large companies keep billions in profit offshore, where they don't pay taxes US companies keep their "offshore" profits in segregated accounts in New York.

awinter-py 6y ago

wealth doesn't dribble down but a cure to cancer does -- I'm not advocating for overinvesting in the top of the distribution but governments can have legitimate, prosocial goals that involve cultivating specific talents heard a throwaway comment in a podcast that poor countries have to invest in the top of the distribution because they have limited resources and need to max out highly-educated people so they can develop their tech economy. (I wish I had a real footnote for that claim or understood it better). If you model the US as a poor nation that's falling behind its peers, or more plausibly, if you modify half of US states this way, there's an argument we should have the same education strategy as india or 1990s china.

thwoeriu23234 6y ago

> Unless they are independently wealthy before having kids, most normal parents will need daycare because they still need to work for money. This is not so simple. Half a century ago, it'd have been common place for either the Mother or the Grandparents to be looking after the children around the house. In the name of modernity we've replaced family with the nation-state. Yay progress! I say 'modernity', because some of the policies that have led us here were distinctly marketed with the very same adjective.