6 ms·

In very direct, real terms, assets are power. They represent resources to do things. The problem here isn't that wealth is power, it will always be power. The

In very direct, real terms, assets are power. They represent resources to do things. The problem here isn't that wealth is power, it will always be power. The issue is that a single person has been allowed to accumulate too much.

avalys 4y ago
Musk owns about 25% of Tesla, mostly after investing about $50M in Tesla's early funding rounds. His wealth today comes largely because Tesla (under his leadership as CEO) has become a company that investors now believe is incredibly valuable, and they've driven up the stock price. At what point in this process did Musk "accumulate" this ownership of Tesla, and exactly what do you propose should have happened to stop him?
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  Musk has sold billions in stock at this point, so this whole "it's stock that's increased in value independent of Musk" line of thinking is a bad misdirection.
  - spullara 4y ago
    And every time he has sold he has paid huge taxes on those sales.
    - azinman2 4y ago
      It’ll entirely be long term gains, so I wouldn’t say huge as a percentage. I would also venture all kinds of other things are being written off to reduce the tax burdens. Typically people like Musk don’t sell stock but use it as collateral to take out low interest loans, which avoids taxes.
    - xdennis 4y ago
      It should be payed every year, not just when sold. Joe Nobody pays property taxes every year, not just when he sells his meager house.
    - BobbyJo 4y ago
      Yes, but how much? Most of the rich pay taxes, but how much "should" they pay? Should someone worth 100M pay higher income taxes than someone worth 1M if they make the same income in a given year? Should there be a "limit" on the amount of wealth one can transfer in a given year as which point taxes hit 100%? Tax schemes and how they affect wealth, inequality, consumption, etc. is an interesting line of thought, and a necessary one, if you accept that the current one has allowed some individuals to get so rich that the rule of law breaks down in their presence.
- camjohnson26 4y ago
  It has become so valuable, more valuable than the rest of the auto industry combined at one point despite much lower revenue and sales numbers, because of loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve creating artificially inflated asset prices. The Federal Reserve is directly responsible for Musk’s disproportionate wealth as Tesla stock zoomed past ridiculous levels. Tesla has been successful in many of its lines of business and succeeded when many thought they couldn’t, that is undebatable. The failure of our system is that its stock price is completely out of line with the reality that reflects that success.
  - nerdawson 4y ago
    > loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve creating artificially inflated asset prices You can buy shares in other car manufacturers. Why would Tesla disproportionately benefit from inflated asset prices?
    - camjohnson26 4y ago
      Because car companies are boring, and in an era of cheap money the meme wins. “Sexy” automakers also got insane multiples, look at where Lucid and Rivian were trading. But the capital is diverted to whatever asset people think will keep going up, not the one that will create value in the form of profits. This is also why GameStop, AMC, DogeCoin, Shiba Inu, NFTs, Pokémon cards, etc. were trading so high, the meme is the only thing that matters. Elon Musk knows this and is a master at harnessing this power, which is why he’s shamelessly pumped DogeCoin and Shiba. He continually pushes his company to be the most popular brands by promising impossible futuristic products that cannot exist, but build excitement. Countless examples of these, but a few are Full Self Driving, a flying Roadster, the Tesla semi, solving transportation issues with tunnels, the Tesla bot, $25k model 3, solar roof that costs less than a normal roof, robotaxi, etc etc etc. It’s all calculated.
      - Anon1096 4y ago
        You've basically written a lot of words here to say that Musk is making companies people want to invest in, and somehow that's the Fed's fault.
- plonk 4y ago
  You say that like it’s natural that Tesla’s success makes billions flow to the one person at the top. Musk obviously isn’t making cars and managing the entire company by himself and doesn’t deserve to be richer than literal countries for making the right bet at some point in his life. What should have happened is wider distribution of profits among Tesla employees, who are the ones actually doing the work. It’s fine if the CEO is considered an extremely valuable employee and gets a larger share, within limits. Pretty sure he could live a great life with a few million dollars, which would both limit his undeserved power and benefit everyone doing the work.
- mempko 4y ago
  Property taxes. We tax physical property, why not legal fictions like stock ownership?
- xdennis 4y ago
  > what do you propose should have happened Every unit of time (year or month) you have to declare what stocks you own and you get taxed based on how much they're worth.
Nevermark 4y ago
It would mitigate the problem if institutions could be strengthened by design to be less sensitive to corruption or special treatment. There are lots of successful examples - constitutions, voting, term limits, separate judiciary, non-political commuters, etc The big problem I see in the design of egalitarian systems, is explicitly addressing the need for continuous response to new forms of centralization. I don’t know of any significant systems that were designed with any explicit statement of prioritizing that (vs. just general support for fixes, amendments, etc.) For instance, the centralization of US political power into only two parties, where (temporary) single party rule of three branches is actually a practical possibility should have triggered some major reforms before it spun out of control. A simple requirement that no coordinated individual or organization have sway over more than 25% of political seats, and political organizations at the federal and state levels must be separated, would do wonders for decentralization and better representation. But the constitution is silent on any guidance or requirement on addressing new power centralization problems. It is the hard root problem of power, but not systemizing progress on it is to accept inevitable dystopia
- MrMan 4y ago
  This is a forum for white guys trying to become more powerful, and who hate government or any limits on their actions
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    I'd like to see the data on that one. I think most people here recognize that limits on individual power can increase freedom. Such a reductive view, on any group, isn't productive.
  - scaramanga 4y ago
    You might be interested to read: https://newrepublic.com/article/153046/stark-political-divide-tech-ceos-employees https://newrepublic.com/article/153046/stark-political-divid...
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  I don't think the onus is on any one of us to come up with fixes to a problem this large. The government employs hundreds of incredibly smart people whose job it is to fix these types of issues. I, and I think most other people as well, would even be fine with small corrections here and there that tested what worked. A fundamental problem, that we are all burdened to solve, is how do we get from an ideological government to a scientific one. Until we do that, we're all just plugging holes in a sinking ship.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
I appreciate that in such a short comment, you succinctly summarize the problem statement.

avalys 4y ago

Musk owns about 25% of Tesla, mostly after investing about $50M in Tesla's early funding rounds. His wealth today comes largely because Tesla (under his leadership as CEO) has become a company that investors now believe is incredibly valuable, and they've driven up the stock price. At what point in this process did Musk "accumulate" this ownership of Tesla, and exactly what do you propose should have happened to stop him?

BobbyJo 4y ago
Musk has sold billions in stock at this point, so this whole "it's stock that's increased in value independent of Musk" line of thinking is a bad misdirection.
- spullara 4y ago
  And every time he has sold he has paid huge taxes on those sales.
  - azinman2 4y ago
    It’ll entirely be long term gains, so I wouldn’t say huge as a percentage. I would also venture all kinds of other things are being written off to reduce the tax burdens. Typically people like Musk don’t sell stock but use it as collateral to take out low interest loans, which avoids taxes.
  - xdennis 4y ago
    It should be payed every year, not just when sold. Joe Nobody pays property taxes every year, not just when he sells his meager house.
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    Yes, but how much? Most of the rich pay taxes, but how much "should" they pay? Should someone worth 100M pay higher income taxes than someone worth 1M if they make the same income in a given year? Should there be a "limit" on the amount of wealth one can transfer in a given year as which point taxes hit 100%? Tax schemes and how they affect wealth, inequality, consumption, etc. is an interesting line of thought, and a necessary one, if you accept that the current one has allowed some individuals to get so rich that the rule of law breaks down in their presence.
camjohnson26 4y ago
It has become so valuable, more valuable than the rest of the auto industry combined at one point despite much lower revenue and sales numbers, because of loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve creating artificially inflated asset prices. The Federal Reserve is directly responsible for Musk’s disproportionate wealth as Tesla stock zoomed past ridiculous levels. Tesla has been successful in many of its lines of business and succeeded when many thought they couldn’t, that is undebatable. The failure of our system is that its stock price is completely out of line with the reality that reflects that success.
- nerdawson 4y ago
  > loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve creating artificially inflated asset prices You can buy shares in other car manufacturers. Why would Tesla disproportionately benefit from inflated asset prices?
  - camjohnson26 4y ago
    Because car companies are boring, and in an era of cheap money the meme wins. “Sexy” automakers also got insane multiples, look at where Lucid and Rivian were trading. But the capital is diverted to whatever asset people think will keep going up, not the one that will create value in the form of profits. This is also why GameStop, AMC, DogeCoin, Shiba Inu, NFTs, Pokémon cards, etc. were trading so high, the meme is the only thing that matters. Elon Musk knows this and is a master at harnessing this power, which is why he’s shamelessly pumped DogeCoin and Shiba. He continually pushes his company to be the most popular brands by promising impossible futuristic products that cannot exist, but build excitement. Countless examples of these, but a few are Full Self Driving, a flying Roadster, the Tesla semi, solving transportation issues with tunnels, the Tesla bot, $25k model 3, solar roof that costs less than a normal roof, robotaxi, etc etc etc. It’s all calculated.
    - Anon1096 4y ago
      You've basically written a lot of words here to say that Musk is making companies people want to invest in, and somehow that's the Fed's fault.
plonk 4y ago
You say that like it’s natural that Tesla’s success makes billions flow to the one person at the top. Musk obviously isn’t making cars and managing the entire company by himself and doesn’t deserve to be richer than literal countries for making the right bet at some point in his life. What should have happened is wider distribution of profits among Tesla employees, who are the ones actually doing the work. It’s fine if the CEO is considered an extremely valuable employee and gets a larger share, within limits. Pretty sure he could live a great life with a few million dollars, which would both limit his undeserved power and benefit everyone doing the work.
mempko 4y ago
Property taxes. We tax physical property, why not legal fictions like stock ownership?
xdennis 4y ago
> what do you propose should have happened Every unit of time (year or month) you have to declare what stocks you own and you get taxed based on how much they're worth.

Nevermark 4y ago

It would mitigate the problem if institutions could be strengthened by design to be less sensitive to corruption or special treatment. There are lots of successful examples - constitutions, voting, term limits, separate judiciary, non-political commuters, etc The big problem I see in the design of egalitarian systems, is explicitly addressing the need for continuous response to new forms of centralization. I don’t know of any significant systems that were designed with any explicit statement of prioritizing that (vs. just general support for fixes, amendments, etc.) For instance, the centralization of US political power into only two parties, where (temporary) single party rule of three branches is actually a practical possibility should have triggered some major reforms before it spun out of control. A simple requirement that no coordinated individual or organization have sway over more than 25% of political seats, and political organizations at the federal and state levels must be separated, would do wonders for decentralization and better representation. But the constitution is silent on any guidance or requirement on addressing new power centralization problems. It is the hard root problem of power, but not systemizing progress on it is to accept inevitable dystopia

MrMan 4y ago
This is a forum for white guys trying to become more powerful, and who hate government or any limits on their actions
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  I'd like to see the data on that one. I think most people here recognize that limits on individual power can increase freedom. Such a reductive view, on any group, isn't productive.
- scaramanga 4y ago
  You might be interested to read: https://newrepublic.com/article/153046/stark-political-divide-tech-ceos-employees https://newrepublic.com/article/153046/stark-political-divid...
BobbyJo 4y ago
I don't think the onus is on any one of us to come up with fixes to a problem this large. The government employs hundreds of incredibly smart people whose job it is to fix these types of issues. I, and I think most other people as well, would even be fine with small corrections here and there that tested what worked. A fundamental problem, that we are all burdened to solve, is how do we get from an ideological government to a scientific one. Until we do that, we're all just plugging holes in a sinking ship.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

I appreciate that in such a short comment, you succinctly summarize the problem statement.