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As an immigrant, no matter how many times the story about problems of work and wealth inequality and similar theme being brought up, I could never sympathize wi

As an immigrant, no matter how many times the story about problems of work and wealth inequality and similar theme being brought up, I could never sympathize with it. I think I was raised in the time and place where working just doesn't ever get the luxuries of life. For example, working as a plumber and can afford 2 1/2 kids, a house and a car, that is always impossible. At least in my country. I think America is an anomaly for that such of things to happen. I kept wondering whether that was because America itself is outsourcing their inequalities to outside world, because they won the war. So to me, today's situation is just a reversion to the norm. Being a mere plumber with 2 1/2 kids in college and with a house and a car is never realistic to begin with. This type of situation was just a good times event, and only happen due to some abnormalities. But it is abnormality. I mean, the history of the world has shown that feudalism is the default choice. People can never be equal. People aren't born equal. Some people are born stronger, faster, smarter, more beautiful, etc. Equality seems to be just abnormalities. An unstable form. The stable form is feudalism.

blt 4y ago
We will never make progress if everybody adopts this defeatist attitude.
- immigrantheart 4y ago
  Is there a solution to the great force of market dynamics?
  - blt 4y ago
    Whether or not there is, my statement is true.
    - immigrantheart 4y ago
      Well, it needs to be grounded in reality.
1270018080 4y ago
Yeah, white American boomers had the easiest economic opportunity in human history for the reasons you stated. That time is now over. Millenials/Gen Z are jealous they never had the opportunity. Boomers and younger people who have been indoctrinated can't comprehend why the vast majority are struggling. The post war capitalist system they enjoyed was a temporary anomaly. It isn't compatible with modern life, yet the system is still there. We need to end this gerontocracy and oligarchy. The software engineering industry is a miniature example of what the boomers had. I am a software engineer, but I have the self awareness to know it's temporary and lucky. So many on HN don't.
- immigrantheart 4y ago
  I'm glad that you shared my view. I did come up with this shower thought myself so I always wonder whether I missed something crucial. I am currently reading this, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine... It is interesting to see that even inequality is the default outcome, the natural order of things, even when we start from equality. It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality. The only way to fight against inequality aggressively is to do the unnatural things, that is, to redistribute wealth aggressively. I'm not saying that doing unnatural things are bad since humans have been doing unnatural things to ease living, but I wonder what would be the side effect or unintended consequences of aggressive wealth redistribution.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    >It is interesting to see that even inequality is the default outcome, the natural order of things, even when we start from equality. It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality. The natural order of things? Is this some kind of joke? Since when are humans golems? A truly natural economic order looks like this: https://www.naturalmoney.org/NaturalEconomicOrder.pdf https://www.naturalmoney.org/NaturalEconomicOrder.pdf >It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality. No, you are mistaken again, the money and land system converge toward inequality. After all, time does not stand still, humans are faced with a perpetual increase in entropy, but the banker and the saver, with their eternal money and claims to land, do not have to fear the laws of physics, instead, they get to use the laws of physics as weapons, to extract "concessions" from the people around them. The people that do not have money or land end up subsidizing those who do. >The only way to fight against inequality aggressively is to do the unnatural things, that is, to redistribute wealth aggressively. That honestly is completely irrelevant. This wealth redistribution nonsense is just another bandaid to subsidize the rich. When I said subsidy I mean it. Negative interest rates make the whole argument about wealth redistribution completely irrelevant. The moment people have to be responsible for the costs that their capital incurs nobody is going to envy them for their wealth. It's only because those costs have been forbidden by law/decree and secretly passed onto the rest of society that we even want to be wealthy ourselves. Think about how much maintenance a single family home requires. In an economy with no growth, capital depreciation is just a pure loss. If you have idle capacity, you will have to pay to keep the factory well maintained. No, a negative interest rate isn't some kind of financial repression or wealth redistribution scheme. Your house isn't trying to steal your wealth by depreciating. It's recognizing the fact that almost nothing on this planet lasts forever. If physical capital depreciates, then money must represent that depreciation. If it does not, then either abundant capital must be destroyed or the economy must be forced to grow. Imagine you have a banana. It will spoil within a week or two. Now imagine having a banana coupon that does not spoil. If the super market orders bananas and can't sell them, it will have to take the loss, effectively subsidizing the holder of the banana coupon by letting him avoid the spoilage of bananas. The actual banana is not exploitative, the banana coupon is exploitative. This is because the holder of the banana coupon has no obligation to tell the super market when he is going to buy the banana, so the supermarket must keep guessing when he is going to buy a banana. This is the root of speculation. Have you ever wondered why permanent inflation is the norm? It's precisely because money must spoil at the rate labor spoils. Capital depreciation is represented by a permanent decline of the unit of account aka inflation. Welfare in the form of unemployment benefits is quite frankly a direct subsidy to the owners of money. It's so painfully obvious. Our society has an incredibly high degree of the division of labor. You cannot just farm your own food, you must buy it from specialized "dealers" aka supermarkets. To buy food you need to get money from someone else first. During a depression, there is capital abundance, meaning the owners of capital would have to pay for capital depreciation, as I said, they prefer removing or preventing abundant capital which means firing people. This means you cannot get money through employment, forcing you to go into debt. Borrowing would raise the interest rate above 0% again. However, since 2008 banks refuse to lend money to risky borrowers. This means that direct borrowing isn't possible. Instead, the government must borrow on behalf of all those people that were fired. That borrowing then forcibly raises the interest rate back to 0% or higher again. If you were offered a -3% interest rate due to capital depreciation and the government were to step in and give you a 0% interest rate, what else could this be other than a subsidy? Of course, since money cannot represent capital depreciation, we are forced to play this stupid game no matter what.
nisegami 4y ago
Out of curiosity, do you plan on having kids?
- immigrantheart 4y ago
  Yea we want to. Still trying now.
imtringued 4y ago
That's complete nonsense. Feudalism isn't stable otherwise there wouldn't have been so many revolutions that ended it. In fact, feudalism is inherently unstable. We've had peace for a long long time, peace that would be incompatible with feudalism. The problem with capitalism, is that it didn't get rid of feudalism entirely, it merely turned everyone into a little feudal lord, small enough that we don't hurt each other. Wealth inequality throws a wrench into that so capitalism is guaranteed to break down eventually just like Feudalism. The step after capitalism would be Freiwirtschaft (land value tax and demurrage currency) and we are not that far away from it. Interest rates are already at 0% as predicted, we just need people to stop saving with cash. Baden Württemberg is adopting a land value tax in Germany. it's just a matter of time until this brutal chapter of humanity is over.
- immigrantheart 4y ago
  Yes, so you kinda agree with my point. I think my definition of feudalism is somewhat loose. But what I mean generally is that a few people become owners and the rest employees. For example, tech companies that have controls over people's lives. Upperclass people having maids, drivers, cooks. Why can't people save cash?

blt 4y ago

We will never make progress if everybody adopts this defeatist attitude.

immigrantheart 4y ago
Is there a solution to the great force of market dynamics?
- blt 4y ago
  Whether or not there is, my statement is true.
  - immigrantheart 4y ago
    Well, it needs to be grounded in reality.

1270018080 4y ago

Yeah, white American boomers had the easiest economic opportunity in human history for the reasons you stated. That time is now over. Millenials/Gen Z are jealous they never had the opportunity. Boomers and younger people who have been indoctrinated can't comprehend why the vast majority are struggling. The post war capitalist system they enjoyed was a temporary anomaly. It isn't compatible with modern life, yet the system is still there. We need to end this gerontocracy and oligarchy. The software engineering industry is a miniature example of what the boomers had. I am a software engineer, but I have the self awareness to know it's temporary and lucky. So many on HN don't.

immigrantheart 4y ago
I'm glad that you shared my view. I did come up with this shower thought myself so I always wonder whether I missed something crucial. I am currently reading this, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine... It is interesting to see that even inequality is the default outcome, the natural order of things, even when we start from equality. It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality. The only way to fight against inequality aggressively is to do the unnatural things, that is, to redistribute wealth aggressively. I'm not saying that doing unnatural things are bad since humans have been doing unnatural things to ease living, but I wonder what would be the side effect or unintended consequences of aggressive wealth redistribution.
- imtringued 4y ago
  >It is interesting to see that even inequality is the default outcome, the natural order of things, even when we start from equality. It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality. The natural order of things? Is this some kind of joke? Since when are humans golems? A truly natural economic order looks like this: https://www.naturalmoney.org/NaturalEconomicOrder.pdf https://www.naturalmoney.org/NaturalEconomicOrder.pdf >It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality. No, you are mistaken again, the money and land system converge toward inequality. After all, time does not stand still, humans are faced with a perpetual increase in entropy, but the banker and the saver, with their eternal money and claims to land, do not have to fear the laws of physics, instead, they get to use the laws of physics as weapons, to extract "concessions" from the people around them. The people that do not have money or land end up subsidizing those who do. >The only way to fight against inequality aggressively is to do the unnatural things, that is, to redistribute wealth aggressively. That honestly is completely irrelevant. This wealth redistribution nonsense is just another bandaid to subsidize the rich. When I said subsidy I mean it. Negative interest rates make the whole argument about wealth redistribution completely irrelevant. The moment people have to be responsible for the costs that their capital incurs nobody is going to envy them for their wealth. It's only because those costs have been forbidden by law/decree and secretly passed onto the rest of society that we even want to be wealthy ourselves. Think about how much maintenance a single family home requires. In an economy with no growth, capital depreciation is just a pure loss. If you have idle capacity, you will have to pay to keep the factory well maintained. No, a negative interest rate isn't some kind of financial repression or wealth redistribution scheme. Your house isn't trying to steal your wealth by depreciating. It's recognizing the fact that almost nothing on this planet lasts forever. If physical capital depreciates, then money must represent that depreciation. If it does not, then either abundant capital must be destroyed or the economy must be forced to grow. Imagine you have a banana. It will spoil within a week or two. Now imagine having a banana coupon that does not spoil. If the super market orders bananas and can't sell them, it will have to take the loss, effectively subsidizing the holder of the banana coupon by letting him avoid the spoilage of bananas. The actual banana is not exploitative, the banana coupon is exploitative. This is because the holder of the banana coupon has no obligation to tell the super market when he is going to buy the banana, so the supermarket must keep guessing when he is going to buy a banana. This is the root of speculation. Have you ever wondered why permanent inflation is the norm? It's precisely because money must spoil at the rate labor spoils. Capital depreciation is represented by a permanent decline of the unit of account aka inflation. Welfare in the form of unemployment benefits is quite frankly a direct subsidy to the owners of money. It's so painfully obvious. Our society has an incredibly high degree of the division of labor. You cannot just farm your own food, you must buy it from specialized "dealers" aka supermarkets. To buy food you need to get money from someone else first. During a depression, there is capital abundance, meaning the owners of capital would have to pay for capital depreciation, as I said, they prefer removing or preventing abundant capital which means firing people. This means you cannot get money through employment, forcing you to go into debt. Borrowing would raise the interest rate above 0% again. However, since 2008 banks refuse to lend money to risky borrowers. This means that direct borrowing isn't possible. Instead, the government must borrow on behalf of all those people that were fired. That borrowing then forcibly raises the interest rate back to 0% or higher again. If you were offered a -3% interest rate due to capital depreciation and the government were to step in and give you a 0% interest rate, what else could this be other than a subsidy? Of course, since money cannot represent capital depreciation, we are forced to play this stupid game no matter what.

nisegami 4y ago

Out of curiosity, do you plan on having kids?

immigrantheart 4y ago
Yea we want to. Still trying now.

imtringued 4y ago

That's complete nonsense. Feudalism isn't stable otherwise there wouldn't have been so many revolutions that ended it. In fact, feudalism is inherently unstable. We've had peace for a long long time, peace that would be incompatible with feudalism. The problem with capitalism, is that it didn't get rid of feudalism entirely, it merely turned everyone into a little feudal lord, small enough that we don't hurt each other. Wealth inequality throws a wrench into that so capitalism is guaranteed to break down eventually just like Feudalism. The step after capitalism would be Freiwirtschaft (land value tax and demurrage currency) and we are not that far away from it. Interest rates are already at 0% as predicted, we just need people to stop saving with cash. Baden Württemberg is adopting a land value tax in Germany. it's just a matter of time until this brutal chapter of humanity is over.

immigrantheart 4y ago
Yes, so you kinda agree with my point. I think my definition of feudalism is somewhat loose. But what I mean generally is that a few people become owners and the rest employees. For example, tech companies that have controls over people's lives. Upperclass people having maids, drivers, cooks. Why can't people save cash?