4 ms·

The obvious solution (along with many other problems) is to prevent or disincentivise short term ownership of stocks. If you have to commit to owning them for f

The obvious solution (along with many other problems) is to prevent or disincentivise short term ownership of stocks. If you have to commit to owning them for four years you're going to be a lot more careful about which ones you buy.

nradov 4y ago
The Long Term Stock Exchange has been a failure so far with only 2 listed companies. Investors prefer having the flexibility to sell at any time. https://ltse.com/companies/ https://ltse.com/companies/
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  So make capital gains taxes scale from 100% to 30% with the log of time you held the asset for. Saves wasting 20% of the labour force and gigawatts of electricity on hfc and other fintech too.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    I would say just add 0.5% transfer tax to every type of stock transaction. Simplest way to manage.
    - epgui 4y ago
      (changing the subject, but 90% inheritance tax! Seriously, think about it a bit.)
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        90% is quite a lot, but I'm all for treating it as income.
        epgui 4y ago
        What percentage of someone’s inheritance is money they worked for, or money they deserve? Is inheritance compatible with meritocratic ideas?
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Meritocracy is a terrible framework. All you're doing is conflating greed, willingness to exploit, luck, and scarcity of attributes with goodness. Noone deserves anything other than access to a healthy community and a share of those things we have enough of for everyone. Capital (ie. the control over the physical commodities of the world including accumulated past labour whether assigned by markets, by political power, or by favour of those higher in a heirarchy) is agglomerative, and systems that don't redistribute it are pathologically broken. If your system assigns power and privilege to power, then you wind up with mentally ill power-seekers in control of everything. It should then be hardly surprising that they abuse the people under them and oppress and kill in order to get even more power.
        epgui 4y ago
        I just want to point out that what you're describing isn't meritocracy... you're describing what happens when systems are not meritocratic, or when meritocracy breaks down. The "meritocracy trap" is well-known (see for example Michael Sandel's critique of same), but it says more about what changes are needed to get to a more truly meritocratic state, than it does about what meritocracy fundamentally is. Subsidiarily, the critique of meritocracy says less about how good or bad meritocracy is, and more about how the real world we live in is not meritocratic at all. The danger is not "meritocracy" itself, the danger is fooling yourself into thinking that you got where you are because of merit rather than a lot of luck.
  - nradov 4y ago
    The entire financial services industry is not even 20% of the labor force, and high-frequency trading is only a tiny fraction of that. If we eliminated HFT it would have only a tiny impact on labor costs and electricity usage. And it might slow down overall economic growth by increasing the liquidity premium component of the cost of capital.
  - jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
    That would probably just advantage the rich who can afford to keep much of their assets locked up for long periods of time, and even borrow against them.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Of course they do. But that doesn't mean that chasing perpetual short-term returns is the best way to grow an economy.
  - nightski 4y ago
    It’s also not how the market works at all. Just look at Teslas PE ratio.
    - epgui 4y ago
      I can interpret this comment in different ways. What are you trying to communicate?
      - nightski 4y ago
        The market is not narrowly focused on next quarters performance. That is a total myth in my experience. Investors want growth and they think long term. They are willing to invest in companies that do not have profitability because of where they think that company will be far in the future.
quickthrowman 4y ago
If you can only sell after 4 years, who is going to provide liquidity?

nradov 4y ago

The Long Term Stock Exchange has been a failure so far with only 2 listed companies. Investors prefer having the flexibility to sell at any time. https://ltse.com/companies/ https://ltse.com/companies/

Schroedingersat 4y ago
So make capital gains taxes scale from 100% to 30% with the log of time you held the asset for. Saves wasting 20% of the labour force and gigawatts of electricity on hfc and other fintech too.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I would say just add 0.5% transfer tax to every type of stock transaction. Simplest way to manage.
  - epgui 4y ago
    (changing the subject, but 90% inheritance tax! Seriously, think about it a bit.)
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      90% is quite a lot, but I'm all for treating it as income.
      - epgui 4y ago
        What percentage of someone’s inheritance is money they worked for, or money they deserve? Is inheritance compatible with meritocratic ideas?
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Meritocracy is a terrible framework. All you're doing is conflating greed, willingness to exploit, luck, and scarcity of attributes with goodness. Noone deserves anything other than access to a healthy community and a share of those things we have enough of for everyone. Capital (ie. the control over the physical commodities of the world including accumulated past labour whether assigned by markets, by political power, or by favour of those higher in a heirarchy) is agglomerative, and systems that don't redistribute it are pathologically broken. If your system assigns power and privilege to power, then you wind up with mentally ill power-seekers in control of everything. It should then be hardly surprising that they abuse the people under them and oppress and kill in order to get even more power.
        epgui 4y ago
        I just want to point out that what you're describing isn't meritocracy... you're describing what happens when systems are not meritocratic, or when meritocracy breaks down. The "meritocracy trap" is well-known (see for example Michael Sandel's critique of same), but it says more about what changes are needed to get to a more truly meritocratic state, than it does about what meritocracy fundamentally is. Subsidiarily, the critique of meritocracy says less about how good or bad meritocracy is, and more about how the real world we live in is not meritocratic at all. The danger is not "meritocracy" itself, the danger is fooling yourself into thinking that you got where you are because of merit rather than a lot of luck.
- nradov 4y ago
  The entire financial services industry is not even 20% of the labor force, and high-frequency trading is only a tiny fraction of that. If we eliminated HFT it would have only a tiny impact on labor costs and electricity usage. And it might slow down overall economic growth by increasing the liquidity premium component of the cost of capital.
- jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
  That would probably just advantage the rich who can afford to keep much of their assets locked up for long periods of time, and even borrow against them.
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Of course they do. But that doesn't mean that chasing perpetual short-term returns is the best way to grow an economy.
- nightski 4y ago
  It’s also not how the market works at all. Just look at Teslas PE ratio.
  - epgui 4y ago
    I can interpret this comment in different ways. What are you trying to communicate?
    - nightski 4y ago
      The market is not narrowly focused on next quarters performance. That is a total myth in my experience. Investors want growth and they think long term. They are willing to invest in companies that do not have profitability because of where they think that company will be far in the future.

quickthrowman 4y ago

If you can only sell after 4 years, who is going to provide liquidity?