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Noah is a smart person and that's why I'm surprised that his essay is so transparently dumb. "I think income is a lot more important than wealth." If you keep
by ericjmorey 2y ago
Noah is a smart person and that's why I'm surprised that his essay is so transparently dumb.
"I think income is a lot more important than wealth."
If you keep receiving all the income you want and I'll get exclusive rights to all of your wealth, surely you got the better side of this deal then? Or is there more nuance at play and blankets statements about the relative importance of income and wealth are simply pointless.
"if you have a house, no one owes you that house"?
In this case of property ownership, your rights granted to you by society is the result of an agreement by the society you're a part of not to use the resource that you've been granted exclusive rights to. The allocation of control over resources is the essence of economics. It's the whole point of the field of study. I cannot believe he's setting up an argument about how that doesn't really matter because there isn't a lot of resource control without legally associated debts.
- Mathnerd314 2y ago> If you keep receiving all the income you want and I'll get exclusive rights to all of your wealth, surely you got the better side of this deal then? I think so, because you can use the income on consumables. Like say you got a no-limit credit card. You go on exotic vacations at tropical resorts. All you have are some (economically worthless) photos of yourself having a great time. When the credit card company comes calling, you turn out your pockets and say "sorry, I'm broke", and walk away to your next plane flight. Definitely seems like a good deal to me, not so much for the credit card company. The simple fact is that most people are wealth-neutral or even wealth-destroying in that e.g. they wreck their car and just buy another.