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This is an amount that would be a meaningful change to most US states' gross annual economic output that we're talking about, and a few people control it. Sound

This is an amount that would be a meaningful change to most US states' gross annual economic output that we're talking about, and a few people control it. Sounds pretty centralized to me. The fact that a handful of individuals have half a trillion dollars to throw at something that may or may not work while working people can pay the price of a decent used car each year, every year to their health insurance company only to have claims denied is insane.

whimsicalism 2y ago
Free movement of capital and the ability to identify promising projects and allocate our resources there are why our society is prosperous and why we are able to devote more resources towards healthcare than any society that has ever come before us. This money is managed by small amounts of people but it is aggregated from millions of investors, most of these are public companies. The US spends over 10x that amount on healthcare each year.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  Is that why I, and a lot of other people my age, have a lower standard of living than my parents did at the same point in their lives? The "free movement of capital" only ever seems to move the capital one direction: up to the people who needed the labor of others to reach such wealth.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    The large majority of people do not have a lower standard of living than their parents at the same age. My dad’s family could not even afford shoes for him and he lived in Europe. I am sorry that you feel you are downwardly mobile, but you should not assume your experience generalizes.
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      Mine lived in America. Where the story in the article is taking place. This is, in fact, a generalized experience: [0] [0]https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millennial-life-how-young-adulthood-today-compares-with-prior-generations-2/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millenn...
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > This is, in fact, a generalized experience Your article is from 2019. We're now "wealthier than previous generations were at [our] age" [1]. [1] https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/millennials-personal-finance-real-estate-50742ffe https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/millennials-personal-fi...
        whimsicalism 2y ago
        it’s also turbocharged by the number of people that are descendants of immigrants
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > turbocharged by the number of people that are descendants of immigrants It's divided by whether you own real estate or equities. Immigrant homeownership is starkly lower than native-born Americans' [1]. We're probably going to see a surge in that disparity, now, given the immigrant workforce that builds and renovates houses is in the process of being gutted. That increases the value of existing stock. [1] https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/research/files/harvard_jchs_immigrant_homeownership_cornelissen_pack_2023.pdf https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/research/fi...
        whimsicalism 2y ago
        exactly my point - if you were to subset to people whose parents were native-born US and compare their wealth to that of their parents at same age, it would be absolutely higher. it looks closer than it is because of immigration and we aren’t comparing to the parents in their home country
  - nfw2 2y ago
    The reason young people often have a lower standard of living is because: - there is a shortage of housing - predatory loans for higher education - chronic health crisis due to terrible government health policy and guidelines - globalization has led to an international labor market The last point may be bad for many Americans but an unequivocal good for the world. Global poverty has seen an incredible drop in the past 70 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:World-population-in-extreme-poverty-absolute.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:Wo...
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Interesting that you put the chronic health crisis on a failure of government. I would put that more on a failure of culture to value healthy living and activity. I wouldn't call that the responsibility of the government. Perhaps lack of clarity on ownership is related to the crisis itself.
      - nfw2 2y ago
        It's not solely the fault of government, but heavy corn subsidies and the food pyramid travesty didn't help.
- bbqfog 2y ago
  Having to spend thousands for insurance every year (even if you’re totally healthy) and not having it even be remotely effective, is not my definition of “prosperous”.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    Individual insurers pay out tens of billions of dollars in claims every year, frequently have non-profitable years, and are the counterparty on pretty risky contracts. There are lots of problems with our current approach to healthcare, but insurers aren’t charging you way more than the cost to counterparty on that contract should be.
    - bbqfog 2y ago
      None of this suggests a prosperous society. More like a corrupt and bureaucratic society.
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      "Frequently have non-profitable years" A graph of the stocks for UnitedHealth, Elevance (formerly Anthem) and Cigna shows that they're all on the growth track for the last five years. If a subscriber pays them what they do, and they don't have money to pay a claim declared medically necessary by a medical doctor, but do have the money to forward to a retirement fund, they are charging too much. Most of the rest of the industrialized world seems to grasp this concept, and their people live longer.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > graph of the stocks for UnitedHealth, Elevance (formerly Anthem) and Cigna shows that they're all on the growth track for the last five years Stock price ! profitability, but you're still correct. UnitedHealth's operations have churned out cash each of the last four years [1], as have Cigna [2] and Elevance [3]. Underwriting gains across the industry have been strong for years [4]. The only story I can think of where American health insurers lost money was Aetna with its underpriced ACA plans [5]. That said, whimsicalism is also partly right in that insurers aren't the cause of the unaffordability of American healthcare. They by and large pay out most of their premiums. (With some variance.) [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/cash-flow/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/cash-flow/ [2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CI/cash-flow/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CI/cash-flow/ [3] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ELV/cash-flow/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ELV/cash-flow/ [4] https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2021-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2021-Annual-Hea... [5] https://spia.princeton.edu/news/why-private-health-insurers-are-losing-money-affordable-care-act https://spia.princeton.edu/news/why-private-health-insurers-...
fallingknife 2y ago
It's a great thing that they can throw half a trillion at something that may not work. Every great tech advancement came from throwing money at something which might not work.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> fact that a handful of individuals have half a trillion dollars This is disputed [1]. In reality, a handful of individuals have the capital to seed a half-a-trillion dollar megaproject, which then entails the project to raise capital from more people. [1] https://www.wsj.com/tech/musk-pours-cold-water-on-trump-backed-stargate-ai-project-53428d16?mod=WSJ_home_mediumtopper_pos_1 https://www.wsj.com/tech/musk-pours-cold-water-on-trump-back...
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  Right as usual. This is more like a "promise" to invest a few $B and then continue to invest more and more if things go well
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  It's disputed by the guy who has a business interest in making sure his competition can't do as well, and this notice of dispute is printed in a paper that is literally named after a place where the vast majority of people have never had to do any real labor in their lives. Also the guy disputing it is trying to regain control of an entity that he was too distracted to hold to its original mission, is on record as agreeing with the statement that Jewish people are the enemies of white people, takes copious amounts of mind-altering substances daily, has lost billions of dollars on purchasing a company that had a path to (modest) profitability, and did what could easily be seen as a Roman salute at an inauguration speech. Maybe he's not a great source of statements on objective reality, even within the AI industry. With regard to the monetary amount, understand, once you reach a certain point, the amount of capital held by the quantity of individuals we're talking about is immaterial. Any capital they raise is usually derived from the labor of others and they operate a racket to prevent any real competition for how that capital is distributed by the labor or the customers who are the source of their actual wealth. The average Oracle employee (I know a few), for example, probably has a few more immediate things they want the surplus value of their labor to be spent on than Larry's moonshot. However, he ultimately controls the direction of that value through a shareholder system that he can manipulate more-or-less at-will through splits, buybacks, and other practices. His customers would probably also like to pay less for what are usually barely Web 2.0 database applications. Of course, he has the capital to corner markets and shove competition out of the space. All of this is to say when you reach this amount of money in the hands of one individual, they're more likely to regularly harm people than beat the odds on their next bet in a way that actually uplifts society, at least in a way that could beat the way just disbursing that capital among those who created it could.

whimsicalism 2y ago

Free movement of capital and the ability to identify promising projects and allocate our resources there are why our society is prosperous and why we are able to devote more resources towards healthcare than any society that has ever come before us. This money is managed by small amounts of people but it is aggregated from millions of investors, most of these are public companies. The US spends over 10x that amount on healthcare each year.

lenerdenator 2y ago
Is that why I, and a lot of other people my age, have a lower standard of living than my parents did at the same point in their lives? The "free movement of capital" only ever seems to move the capital one direction: up to the people who needed the labor of others to reach such wealth.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  The large majority of people do not have a lower standard of living than their parents at the same age. My dad’s family could not even afford shoes for him and he lived in Europe. I am sorry that you feel you are downwardly mobile, but you should not assume your experience generalizes.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    Mine lived in America. Where the story in the article is taking place. This is, in fact, a generalized experience: [0] [0]https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millennial-life-how-young-adulthood-today-compares-with-prior-generations-2/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millenn...
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > This is, in fact, a generalized experience Your article is from 2019. We're now "wealthier than previous generations were at [our] age" [1]. [1] https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/millennials-personal-finance-real-estate-50742ffe https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/millennials-personal-fi...
      - whimsicalism 2y ago
        it’s also turbocharged by the number of people that are descendants of immigrants
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > turbocharged by the number of people that are descendants of immigrants It's divided by whether you own real estate or equities. Immigrant homeownership is starkly lower than native-born Americans' [1]. We're probably going to see a surge in that disparity, now, given the immigrant workforce that builds and renovates houses is in the process of being gutted. That increases the value of existing stock. [1] https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/research/files/harvard_jchs_immigrant_homeownership_cornelissen_pack_2023.pdf https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/research/fi...
        whimsicalism 2y ago
        exactly my point - if you were to subset to people whose parents were native-born US and compare their wealth to that of their parents at same age, it would be absolutely higher. it looks closer than it is because of immigration and we aren’t comparing to the parents in their home country
- nfw2 2y ago
  The reason young people often have a lower standard of living is because: - there is a shortage of housing - predatory loans for higher education - chronic health crisis due to terrible government health policy and guidelines - globalization has led to an international labor market The last point may be bad for many Americans but an unequivocal good for the world. Global poverty has seen an incredible drop in the past 70 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:World-population-in-extreme-poverty-absolute.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:Wo...
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Interesting that you put the chronic health crisis on a failure of government. I would put that more on a failure of culture to value healthy living and activity. I wouldn't call that the responsibility of the government. Perhaps lack of clarity on ownership is related to the crisis itself.
    - nfw2 2y ago
      It's not solely the fault of government, but heavy corn subsidies and the food pyramid travesty didn't help.
bbqfog 2y ago
Having to spend thousands for insurance every year (even if you’re totally healthy) and not having it even be remotely effective, is not my definition of “prosperous”.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  Individual insurers pay out tens of billions of dollars in claims every year, frequently have non-profitable years, and are the counterparty on pretty risky contracts. There are lots of problems with our current approach to healthcare, but insurers aren’t charging you way more than the cost to counterparty on that contract should be.
  - bbqfog 2y ago
    None of this suggests a prosperous society. More like a corrupt and bureaucratic society.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    "Frequently have non-profitable years" A graph of the stocks for UnitedHealth, Elevance (formerly Anthem) and Cigna shows that they're all on the growth track for the last five years. If a subscriber pays them what they do, and they don't have money to pay a claim declared medically necessary by a medical doctor, but do have the money to forward to a retirement fund, they are charging too much. Most of the rest of the industrialized world seems to grasp this concept, and their people live longer.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > graph of the stocks for UnitedHealth, Elevance (formerly Anthem) and Cigna shows that they're all on the growth track for the last five years Stock price ! profitability, but you're still correct. UnitedHealth's operations have churned out cash each of the last four years [1], as have Cigna [2] and Elevance [3]. Underwriting gains across the industry have been strong for years [4]. The only story I can think of where American health insurers lost money was Aetna with its underpriced ACA plans [5]. That said, whimsicalism is also partly right in that insurers aren't the cause of the unaffordability of American healthcare. They by and large pay out most of their premiums. (With some variance.) [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/cash-flow/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/cash-flow/ [2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CI/cash-flow/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CI/cash-flow/ [3] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ELV/cash-flow/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ELV/cash-flow/ [4] https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2021-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2021-Annual-Hea... [5] https://spia.princeton.edu/news/why-private-health-insurers-are-losing-money-affordable-care-act https://spia.princeton.edu/news/why-private-health-insurers-...

fallingknife 2y ago

It's a great thing that they can throw half a trillion at something that may not work. Every great tech advancement came from throwing money at something which might not work.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> fact that a handful of individuals have half a trillion dollars This is disputed [1]. In reality, a handful of individuals have the capital to seed a half-a-trillion dollar megaproject, which then entails the project to raise capital from more people. [1] https://www.wsj.com/tech/musk-pours-cold-water-on-trump-backed-stargate-ai-project-53428d16?mod=WSJ_home_mediumtopper_pos_1 https://www.wsj.com/tech/musk-pours-cold-water-on-trump-back...

ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
Right as usual. This is more like a "promise" to invest a few $B and then continue to invest more and more if things go well
lenerdenator 2y ago
It's disputed by the guy who has a business interest in making sure his competition can't do as well, and this notice of dispute is printed in a paper that is literally named after a place where the vast majority of people have never had to do any real labor in their lives. Also the guy disputing it is trying to regain control of an entity that he was too distracted to hold to its original mission, is on record as agreeing with the statement that Jewish people are the enemies of white people, takes copious amounts of mind-altering substances daily, has lost billions of dollars on purchasing a company that had a path to (modest) profitability, and did what could easily be seen as a Roman salute at an inauguration speech. Maybe he's not a great source of statements on objective reality, even within the AI industry. With regard to the monetary amount, understand, once you reach a certain point, the amount of capital held by the quantity of individuals we're talking about is immaterial. Any capital they raise is usually derived from the labor of others and they operate a racket to prevent any real competition for how that capital is distributed by the labor or the customers who are the source of their actual wealth. The average Oracle employee (I know a few), for example, probably has a few more immediate things they want the surplus value of their labor to be spent on than Larry's moonshot. However, he ultimately controls the direction of that value through a shareholder system that he can manipulate more-or-less at-will through splits, buybacks, and other practices. His customers would probably also like to pay less for what are usually barely Web 2.0 database applications. Of course, he has the capital to corner markets and shove competition out of the space. All of this is to say when you reach this amount of money in the hands of one individual, they're more likely to regularly harm people than beat the odds on their next bet in a way that actually uplifts society, at least in a way that could beat the way just disbursing that capital among those who created it could.