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My concern with this is it is based on a number of wrong ideas: it is wrong that all billionaires are bad. Billionaires with exceptional skill are great and i w

My concern with this is it is based on a number of wrong ideas: it is wrong that all billionaires are bad. Billionaires with exceptional skill are great and i want them to have as much money as possible because they will create value with it at a higher rate than any government program and most of that benefit will eventually be competed out of prices into value to consumera ( first gen billionaires who made their fortunes founding multiple successful companies would be one obviously good billionaire type but there are others). It is wrong that government will sustainably do any better for society than any billionaire. Governments have a corruption amd waste lifecycle and many are very corrupt and wasteful right now. It is wrong to give those governments any money. They need to be starved and reformed or destroyed and remade. it is also wrong that taking more than a couple percent wealth tax would do nothing. It would likely prtially crsh the value of that wealth because it is mostly in stock and that stock would need to ve sold to pay the tax. Further it is wrong that it solves sonething because the big problem is not the billionaire, it is the increasing market power abuse used to make some of the billionaires. It would be better to break up their market power abusing companies and cause a wealth decrease that way because that miti_ates the market power distorting the market.

Epa095 2y ago
The argument is not that the billionaires are bad people, but that the amasment of wealth is bad. It's bad because it concentrates power, causes social unrest, and because the money can be better spent other places. The rest of your argument is that governments are bad and that money spent there is always better spent by a billionaire. Idk what kind of dysfunctional society made you think this, and I definitely agree that there are such dysfunctional societies out there, but for functioning ones this is clearly wrong. Government invests in stuff like national defence, law system, education and health care. These are clearly beneficial and highly profitable things, they are in fact the stage on which the billionaires build their wealth. And if the billionaires don't help pay for it, the middle class must.
- snapplebobapple 2y ago
  The argument that amassing wealth is bad is fundamentally untrue, as it depends on the skill of the person amassing the wealth (I gave an example of one type of billionaire that probably wasn't bad, it's also an example of one type of wealth amassing that isn't bad). Concentrating power is good if the concentrating is happening in people that will push the production possibilities frontier out quickly. Amassing wealth through market power abuse is bad (looking at you Bezos and your company amazon since atleast 2005, with various nefarious business practices that are obvious market power abuse rather than innovation as the example of this). So so wealth amassing is good, some is bad, the feature of bad wealth amassing is market power abuse, so my criticism is we shouldn't hate on the wealth concentration, we should hate on the method of wealth concentration that cause deadweight loss and we have ample laws to do that via antitrust, we just aren't using them effectively since roughly the 1970s (thanks Rhenquist supreme court). I never said money is always better spent by billionaires, I made the distinction I reiterated and expanded on above and said government has a lifecycle so where in the lifecycle a government is determines how likely it is to spend money better than a billionaire (or better than any individual for that matter), but again that comparison is individual because there are differences among individuals and governments and the devil is in the details. I have the most experience with the USA and Canada and I would say both of those are corrupt and wasteful enough to give serious pause to any desire to send them any additional money but they are both still productive enough that the inefficiency and waste isn't necessarily obvious to everyone yet (it's probably coming, wait a decade or two and if you don't see a mass downsizing of the federal labor force or other large reduction in spending with a smaller reduction in services to stave off the obviousness it will likely be obvious to all by then.) Certainly they do those things, how they do those things determines whether the government is efficient or wasteful. Whether they are beneficial or highly profitable is up for debate because none of the words you mentioned are actual things, they are amalgamations of good and bad things and the ratio matters a lot. I'm a fan of progressive income taxes as I like paying more if I get more benefit and I certainly benefit from effectively provided healthcare, roads, education because my workforce gets more productive and my customers get richer and more able to buy stuff. This isn't the issue here, the issue here is understanding how likely more money to government will benefit society or benefit politicians and harm society and understanding that most of the problem with billionaires isn't a billionaire problem, it's an antitrust problem, for which we have a legislated solution that we need to grow up and start using again (break up the large company exercising market power causing deadweight loss, regulate business practice to outlaw stupid anticompetitive crap like most of what makes up a seller contract with amazon these days). The concern is also that piketty fundamentally misunderstands the effect of a wealth tax on capital markets. they will be forced to sell stock/companies to pay it and that will crush the financial market. Of the group of billionaires that are actually doing a good job pushing the production possibilities frontier out, it is also actively harmful because it diminishes their control of their companies and harms company financing capability. The system shock of somthing like a 10 or 20% wealth tax will cause a lot of deadweight loss that Piketty does not appreciate while doing nothing more than funneling money into questionable governments. If one is going to disrupt the financial market like that one should at least be doing it mitigating market power by, for example, breaking up the obvious oligopolies that infest our business environment.
drcongo 2y ago
I can't remember the last time I disagreed with a HN post as much as this one. The reason the "tax the rich" debate has become such a hot topic is down to the fact that governments are currently not doing so, and they're not doing so because they're scared to. When a country's government is scared of a single individual, that individual wields unconstitutional power over every other person in the country (cf: Musk). As for whether billionaires could ever be a "good person" - I'd argue that if you become a billionaire and then stay a billionaire, you are by definition not a good person because you've become that unconstitutional power and decided to hold on to it.
- snapplebobapple 2y ago
  Your scale is wrong because the economy is around 29 trillion a year just in the usa so the present value of the future is around 322 trillion. Even the richest billionaire has wealth that is only 0.09 percent of that and a bunch of his wealth is global not just usa based. They would be a rounding error except their wealth is usually concentrated in large companies they have founded giving them outsized control of the company (or their ancestor founded) that are themselves concentrated in a small set of industries or one industry. Even then they wouldnt matter except for the market power the company exerts to unfairly benefit itself and ruin a level playing field stopping a better but smaller company from outcompeting them. The solution is the same one i already recommended: remedy the market power abuse situation of the company by breaking it up (my defacto preference) or rwgulating it more aggressively (not as good because it opens up political corruption/extortion weakening democracy).

Epa095 2y ago

The argument is not that the billionaires are bad people, but that the amasment of wealth is bad. It's bad because it concentrates power, causes social unrest, and because the money can be better spent other places. The rest of your argument is that governments are bad and that money spent there is always better spent by a billionaire. Idk what kind of dysfunctional society made you think this, and I definitely agree that there are such dysfunctional societies out there, but for functioning ones this is clearly wrong. Government invests in stuff like national defence, law system, education and health care. These are clearly beneficial and highly profitable things, they are in fact the stage on which the billionaires build their wealth. And if the billionaires don't help pay for it, the middle class must.

snapplebobapple 2y ago
The argument that amassing wealth is bad is fundamentally untrue, as it depends on the skill of the person amassing the wealth (I gave an example of one type of billionaire that probably wasn't bad, it's also an example of one type of wealth amassing that isn't bad). Concentrating power is good if the concentrating is happening in people that will push the production possibilities frontier out quickly. Amassing wealth through market power abuse is bad (looking at you Bezos and your company amazon since atleast 2005, with various nefarious business practices that are obvious market power abuse rather than innovation as the example of this). So so wealth amassing is good, some is bad, the feature of bad wealth amassing is market power abuse, so my criticism is we shouldn't hate on the wealth concentration, we should hate on the method of wealth concentration that cause deadweight loss and we have ample laws to do that via antitrust, we just aren't using them effectively since roughly the 1970s (thanks Rhenquist supreme court). I never said money is always better spent by billionaires, I made the distinction I reiterated and expanded on above and said government has a lifecycle so where in the lifecycle a government is determines how likely it is to spend money better than a billionaire (or better than any individual for that matter), but again that comparison is individual because there are differences among individuals and governments and the devil is in the details. I have the most experience with the USA and Canada and I would say both of those are corrupt and wasteful enough to give serious pause to any desire to send them any additional money but they are both still productive enough that the inefficiency and waste isn't necessarily obvious to everyone yet (it's probably coming, wait a decade or two and if you don't see a mass downsizing of the federal labor force or other large reduction in spending with a smaller reduction in services to stave off the obviousness it will likely be obvious to all by then.) Certainly they do those things, how they do those things determines whether the government is efficient or wasteful. Whether they are beneficial or highly profitable is up for debate because none of the words you mentioned are actual things, they are amalgamations of good and bad things and the ratio matters a lot. I'm a fan of progressive income taxes as I like paying more if I get more benefit and I certainly benefit from effectively provided healthcare, roads, education because my workforce gets more productive and my customers get richer and more able to buy stuff. This isn't the issue here, the issue here is understanding how likely more money to government will benefit society or benefit politicians and harm society and understanding that most of the problem with billionaires isn't a billionaire problem, it's an antitrust problem, for which we have a legislated solution that we need to grow up and start using again (break up the large company exercising market power causing deadweight loss, regulate business practice to outlaw stupid anticompetitive crap like most of what makes up a seller contract with amazon these days). The concern is also that piketty fundamentally misunderstands the effect of a wealth tax on capital markets. they will be forced to sell stock/companies to pay it and that will crush the financial market. Of the group of billionaires that are actually doing a good job pushing the production possibilities frontier out, it is also actively harmful because it diminishes their control of their companies and harms company financing capability. The system shock of somthing like a 10 or 20% wealth tax will cause a lot of deadweight loss that Piketty does not appreciate while doing nothing more than funneling money into questionable governments. If one is going to disrupt the financial market like that one should at least be doing it mitigating market power by, for example, breaking up the obvious oligopolies that infest our business environment.

drcongo 2y ago

I can't remember the last time I disagreed with a HN post as much as this one. The reason the "tax the rich" debate has become such a hot topic is down to the fact that governments are currently not doing so, and they're not doing so because they're scared to. When a country's government is scared of a single individual, that individual wields unconstitutional power over every other person in the country (cf: Musk). As for whether billionaires could ever be a "good person" - I'd argue that if you become a billionaire and then stay a billionaire, you are by definition not a good person because you've become that unconstitutional power and decided to hold on to it.

snapplebobapple 2y ago
Your scale is wrong because the economy is around 29 trillion a year just in the usa so the present value of the future is around 322 trillion. Even the richest billionaire has wealth that is only 0.09 percent of that and a bunch of his wealth is global not just usa based. They would be a rounding error except their wealth is usually concentrated in large companies they have founded giving them outsized control of the company (or their ancestor founded) that are themselves concentrated in a small set of industries or one industry. Even then they wouldnt matter except for the market power the company exerts to unfairly benefit itself and ruin a level playing field stopping a better but smaller company from outcompeting them. The solution is the same one i already recommended: remedy the market power abuse situation of the company by breaking it up (my defacto preference) or rwgulating it more aggressively (not as good because it opens up political corruption/extortion weakening democracy).