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Your just-so story is fine when thinking on a local and small-scale level. On a holistic level, "but the millionaires will move if we offend them by asking for

Your just-so story is fine when thinking on a local and small-scale level. On a holistic level, "but the millionaires will move if we offend them by asking for taxes" is a race to the bottom; a tragedy of the commoners. It's long term utterly and unfathomably destructive. Also, yacht building is one of the least morally defensible industries on the planet. If the industry crashed to 1% of its current level it would be a net boon to the Earth and humanity. Your insistence that hoarding money and spending egotistically are mutually exclusive is kinda weird. Can you explain why it's not possible to do both? Are you just being unreasonably pedantic? ...

nickpp 4y ago
> is a race to the bottom; a tragedy of the commoners And here I was thinking it was kind of a free market of governments helping keep politicians honest and competitive. You know, less like the two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for dinner. > yacht building is one of the least morally defensible industries Please enlighten us: in what “moral” way do you think people should be allowed to spend their own money? There is a wonderful little story in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in which an highly productive essential worker kept receiving the smallest salary in the factory because his expenses (music records were his guilty pleasure) were deemed unimportant compared to the other workers' issues - until he just quit and the factory ran out of business.
- mandmandam 4y ago
  > Please enlighten us: in what “moral” way do you think people should be allowed to spend their own money? However they like - if it doesn't harm others. > There is a wonderful little story in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged ... Ewww. So, tax-avoiding billionaires spending their ill gotten gains on giant sinkholes of money reminds you of a productive factory worker in a fictional story by a world renowned hypocrite? I'm very confused why you think there's a connection, but I'd encourage you to think a little deeper and broader.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    > ill gotten gains That's an interesting mindset making you immediately assume that about billionaires. > Ewww > hypocrite Again, your mindset. How is it working for you? Are you happy with your life so far? > I'm very confused why you think there's a connection If you don't see the connection, it's you who should think deeper and broader.
    - mandmandam 4y ago
      > That's an interesting mindset making you immediately assume that about billionaires. Yes. I do assume that. It's one of the most clear and unambiguous assumptions that could possibly be made. Ask Warren Buffett; he'll tell you - it's outright outrageous how little tax he pays. Ask Trump - he'll tell you all about how he navigates a rigged system, and how the entrenched political types will never allow that to change. Ask people who study inequality at the highest levels, like Rutger Bregman or Hans Rosling. It's basically impossible to become a billionaire without massive exploitation and damage. > Again, your mindset. How is it working for you? Are you happy with your life so far? Ayn Rand being a hypocrite has nothing to do with mindset; it's just a fact. You can look up the details of her life yourself, and how radically it diverged from her written work. Perhaps you've hung your conscience on her just-so stories, as many of the world's most destructive people have before you. > If you don't see the connection, it's you who should think deeper and broader. Happy to - if you can explain to me how underpaying a productive factory worker is like preventing a billionaire buying a yacht. Because it seems to me that you're making the comparison without accounting for scale, without accounting for negative externalities, and without an ounce of discernment of your own. Please, explain it to me - I can be slow.
      - nickpp 4y ago
        > Please, explain it to me Even if I had the time and the talent, still I wouldn't change your mind. If Ayn Rand couldn't, what chance do I have?! I will just tell you that, as an old(ish) Eastern European I lived under both systems: with and without (official) rich people. And I know which one is better, both for me personally and for the society as whole. I could tell you that same rules apply for both poor and rich and a system allowing the latter will motivate the former. That all people are selfish and want better and for them and theirs and allowing that desire to work will raise the whole society and benefit us all. That the value created for the society by a successful person is of an order of magnitude larger than the fraction they capture. That the world of plenty we are enjoying right now is owed to people doing everything to get ahead themselves. But I think it would be better for you to just visit countries like Cuba, Venezuela, China or Russia and see for yourself how the quest for inequality only manages to spread unhappiness and misery equally. See how rich people will still exist but they will get there by illegal means while the society will be poorer in the process. How nature and the poor suffer even worse as the result. Travel. Visit. See with your own eyes and think with your own brain. Apply those learnings in your own life and only then tell others how to spend their own hard-earned money.
WalterBright 4y ago
> It's long term utterly and unfathomably destructive. That has never happened. > Your insistence that hoarding money and spending egotistically are mutually exclusive is kinda weird How do I spend it and yet stuff it in a mattress? That's a neat trick.

nickpp 4y ago

> is a race to the bottom; a tragedy of the commoners And here I was thinking it was kind of a free market of governments helping keep politicians honest and competitive. You know, less like the two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for dinner. > yacht building is one of the least morally defensible industries Please enlighten us: in what “moral” way do you think people should be allowed to spend their own money? There is a wonderful little story in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in which an highly productive essential worker kept receiving the smallest salary in the factory because his expenses (music records were his guilty pleasure) were deemed unimportant compared to the other workers' issues - until he just quit and the factory ran out of business.

mandmandam 4y ago
> Please enlighten us: in what “moral” way do you think people should be allowed to spend their own money? However they like - if it doesn't harm others. > There is a wonderful little story in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged ... Ewww. So, tax-avoiding billionaires spending their ill gotten gains on giant sinkholes of money reminds you of a productive factory worker in a fictional story by a world renowned hypocrite? I'm very confused why you think there's a connection, but I'd encourage you to think a little deeper and broader.
- nickpp 4y ago
  > ill gotten gains That's an interesting mindset making you immediately assume that about billionaires. > Ewww > hypocrite Again, your mindset. How is it working for you? Are you happy with your life so far? > I'm very confused why you think there's a connection If you don't see the connection, it's you who should think deeper and broader.
  - mandmandam 4y ago
    > That's an interesting mindset making you immediately assume that about billionaires. Yes. I do assume that. It's one of the most clear and unambiguous assumptions that could possibly be made. Ask Warren Buffett; he'll tell you - it's outright outrageous how little tax he pays. Ask Trump - he'll tell you all about how he navigates a rigged system, and how the entrenched political types will never allow that to change. Ask people who study inequality at the highest levels, like Rutger Bregman or Hans Rosling. It's basically impossible to become a billionaire without massive exploitation and damage. > Again, your mindset. How is it working for you? Are you happy with your life so far? Ayn Rand being a hypocrite has nothing to do with mindset; it's just a fact. You can look up the details of her life yourself, and how radically it diverged from her written work. Perhaps you've hung your conscience on her just-so stories, as many of the world's most destructive people have before you. > If you don't see the connection, it's you who should think deeper and broader. Happy to - if you can explain to me how underpaying a productive factory worker is like preventing a billionaire buying a yacht. Because it seems to me that you're making the comparison without accounting for scale, without accounting for negative externalities, and without an ounce of discernment of your own. Please, explain it to me - I can be slow.
    - nickpp 4y ago
      > Please, explain it to me Even if I had the time and the talent, still I wouldn't change your mind. If Ayn Rand couldn't, what chance do I have?! I will just tell you that, as an old(ish) Eastern European I lived under both systems: with and without (official) rich people. And I know which one is better, both for me personally and for the society as whole. I could tell you that same rules apply for both poor and rich and a system allowing the latter will motivate the former. That all people are selfish and want better and for them and theirs and allowing that desire to work will raise the whole society and benefit us all. That the value created for the society by a successful person is of an order of magnitude larger than the fraction they capture. That the world of plenty we are enjoying right now is owed to people doing everything to get ahead themselves. But I think it would be better for you to just visit countries like Cuba, Venezuela, China or Russia and see for yourself how the quest for inequality only manages to spread unhappiness and misery equally. See how rich people will still exist but they will get there by illegal means while the society will be poorer in the process. How nature and the poor suffer even worse as the result. Travel. Visit. See with your own eyes and think with your own brain. Apply those learnings in your own life and only then tell others how to spend their own hard-earned money.

WalterBright 4y ago

> It's long term utterly and unfathomably destructive. That has never happened. > Your insistence that hoarding money and spending egotistically are mutually exclusive is kinda weird How do I spend it and yet stuff it in a mattress? That's a neat trick.