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"Inefficient"? Depends on what you're optimizing for. If you're optimizing shareholder return, lets ask: do you think Berkshire Hathaway has delivered good sha

"Inefficient"? Depends on what you're optimizing for. If you're optimizing shareholder return, lets ask: do you think Berkshire Hathaway has delivered good shareholder returns for its investors? It has like 50 years of history now (?) so you can check whether or not it's efficient.

Obscurity4340 3y ago
I thinkk I might be unconsciously approaching this from the vantage point of society and allocating resources where they are most needed, not where they singularly gurantee the owner outsized returns that obviously are not available to everyone
- sdfghswe 3y ago
  Ok that's very reasonable in abstract, but how do you define what "most needed" means?
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    That's part of the challenge of course, but I don't think there's any shortage of places to start. How about making sure every child has meals for school? How about making sure there are only nominal charges to get a post-secondary education like Germany, how about making sure we're drowning in units to rent as opposed to our current chronic starvation and wild-overvaluing of what having an apartment (a proxy for true freedom and individuality) means so everyone who shouldn't live together doesn't have to and indeed has an option short of murder to make that change. Tell me when to stop hehe
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      The government has no shortage of capital. It taxes 40 cents of every dollar in the US GDP, and then spends more in deficit. It does not have a revenue problem, it suffers from systemic inefficiency and misallocation problem. Most of the challenges are caused by self inflicted process, which cant be solved by throwing more money at( e.g. housing). The cost to feed every child is trivial, but not a priority. $5/day for the poorest 25% of schoolchildren nationally would be ~2 billion per year. California alone had a record budget surplus last year of 100 billion, and the US Federal gov is approaching that just for the war in Ukraine. The fed gifts 4 billion/year on Israel, and just passed a 15 billion dollar package.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  And where do you think Society could better allocate these resources to? Society is largely in the same position as Berkshire Hathaway, lacking positive ROI opportunities to invest in.
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    Is that right? We don't have housing issues, everybody has a doctor, everyone can not only read but critically reason and easily access education on a far more casual and less impactful way than as stands, nobody's using foodbanks, everybody is fully empowered to understand and be able to participate in voting, half your country isn't stuck in a temporal coal mine that goes nowhere but death and spreading its misery, I think there's many "unexplored" avenues that beat the shit out of "no, lets maintain the status quo. No problems there"
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      I was coming at it from the angle of making positive long term investments (E.g. Growing the pie), opposed to simply shifting money and who gets services. Most of the reasons why there is low housing, Healthcare, or food isn't due to lack of capital investment. If you ask something like why isn't Healthcare cheap and abundant, it isn't because nobody can make money and isn't due to lack of investment. If you give everyone, $1000 to go to the doctor, guess what, doctors prices will just go up $1000. The only thing that really makes a difference is expanding supply.
      - Obscurity4340 3y ago
        Like students who can get into medical school should have that covered if they agree to render their services for a time. Its absolutely asinine that everything is so high-stakes where you may very well end-up with 10s-100s of thousands of dollars with no material benefit and we also expect people to pull the full weight of preparing them to hopefully one day help that same public. Like the whole current configuration needs to get fucked and get someone to radically restructure so irs not so stupid and debillitating.

Obscurity4340 3y ago

I thinkk I might be unconsciously approaching this from the vantage point of society and allocating resources where they are most needed, not where they singularly gurantee the owner outsized returns that obviously are not available to everyone

sdfghswe 3y ago
Ok that's very reasonable in abstract, but how do you define what "most needed" means?
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  That's part of the challenge of course, but I don't think there's any shortage of places to start. How about making sure every child has meals for school? How about making sure there are only nominal charges to get a post-secondary education like Germany, how about making sure we're drowning in units to rent as opposed to our current chronic starvation and wild-overvaluing of what having an apartment (a proxy for true freedom and individuality) means so everyone who shouldn't live together doesn't have to and indeed has an option short of murder to make that change. Tell me when to stop hehe
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    The government has no shortage of capital. It taxes 40 cents of every dollar in the US GDP, and then spends more in deficit. It does not have a revenue problem, it suffers from systemic inefficiency and misallocation problem. Most of the challenges are caused by self inflicted process, which cant be solved by throwing more money at( e.g. housing). The cost to feed every child is trivial, but not a priority. $5/day for the poorest 25% of schoolchildren nationally would be ~2 billion per year. California alone had a record budget surplus last year of 100 billion, and the US Federal gov is approaching that just for the war in Ukraine. The fed gifts 4 billion/year on Israel, and just passed a 15 billion dollar package.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
And where do you think Society could better allocate these resources to? Society is largely in the same position as Berkshire Hathaway, lacking positive ROI opportunities to invest in.
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  Is that right? We don't have housing issues, everybody has a doctor, everyone can not only read but critically reason and easily access education on a far more casual and less impactful way than as stands, nobody's using foodbanks, everybody is fully empowered to understand and be able to participate in voting, half your country isn't stuck in a temporal coal mine that goes nowhere but death and spreading its misery, I think there's many "unexplored" avenues that beat the shit out of "no, lets maintain the status quo. No problems there"
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I was coming at it from the angle of making positive long term investments (E.g. Growing the pie), opposed to simply shifting money and who gets services. Most of the reasons why there is low housing, Healthcare, or food isn't due to lack of capital investment. If you ask something like why isn't Healthcare cheap and abundant, it isn't because nobody can make money and isn't due to lack of investment. If you give everyone, $1000 to go to the doctor, guess what, doctors prices will just go up $1000. The only thing that really makes a difference is expanding supply.
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
      Like students who can get into medical school should have that covered if they agree to render their services for a time. Its absolutely asinine that everything is so high-stakes where you may very well end-up with 10s-100s of thousands of dollars with no material benefit and we also expect people to pull the full weight of preparing them to hopefully one day help that same public. Like the whole current configuration needs to get fucked and get someone to radically restructure so irs not so stupid and debillitating.