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Rich people having too much wealth is not necessarily that bad a thing because most of the investment is in productive companies. It’s not like they are using
by simianwords 11mo ago
Rich people having too much wealth is not necessarily that bad a thing because most of the investment is in productive companies.
It’s not like they are using their wealth on frivolous consumption. Which means redistribution would only change who controls the investment and not the actual consumption patterns of people. Implication is that poor people will consume the same as before after redistribution with perhaps some extra assets. So nothing materially changes other than some security. Poor people will continue to consume the same as before.
Bigger problem is it’s not so clear that redistribution is necessarily a good thing because I feel the people who made money are more likely to make better decisions on their own companies. I don’t know how companies would fare if for example Amazon were redistributed and run like some public company.
- hobs 11mo agoWhat is a yacht but frivolous consumption? A supercar? A private jet? Designer clothes? The list goes on for miles.
- simianwords 11mo agowhat percentage of billionaires wealth goes into consumption? take a guess.
- hobs 11mo agoWhat absolute value does? Percentages are a very weird way to look at it when people are starving. (also, tax them more)
- simianwords 11mo agoi'm willing to talk about absolute as well. lets try to understand how many lives can be saved if billionaires completely cut their frivolous spending. lets be clear that this has to be compared against how much wealth they brought for others and whether they could have done this if the incentive for personal spending did not exist. assuming billionaires spend .1% of their wealth on frivolous purchases - you would net a one time amount of around 20 billion dollars. you can't do anything with this let alone save poverty. if you could then you can simply ask the government to move 20 billion around. they have tried it and it doesn't work.
- llbbdd 11mo agoDon't expect much of a response here, the "eat the rich" crowd is never happy with the math
- boh 11mo agoI'm glad you approve of "most of the investment", unfortunately "productive companies" don't do as well as various financial instruments which operate largely on symbolic capital. Private equity, which is only accessible by "rich people", doesn't exactly worry too much about productivity vs leveraged buyouts. It's interesting that you feel so strongly about other people succeeding though. It might seem strange but other people want to succeed too (weirdly it seems all this "productivity" doesn't actually benefit those outside the privileged circles).
- simianwords 11mo ago1. if we are talking about billionaire's wealth like Bezos, Musk etc - all their wealth is in their own company. you can decide for yourself as to whether these companies are productive or not 2. private equity is a necessary evil that tries to make something out of companies that never had a good future anyway. not a lot of billionaire wealth is in PE. in fact pension firms are one of the largest stakeholders in PE which means the common people have stake in them too. what is your take on that? 3. i want other people to succeed too - our society is built such that any rando can convince YC and get funding.
- lovich 11mo ago> ... our society is built such that any rando can convince YC and get funding. I disagree. What proof do you have that the random homeless guy and a kid graduating Stanford that was paid for by their parents, can convince YC to get funding?
- simianwords 11mo agoi don't have proof. but if your suggestion is to make that easier then i'm with you. i don't think redistribution is the best way to achieve it (for the same reasons i mentioned above).
- lovich 11mo ago> i don't have proof. Then don't make claims about facts. You sound like someone trying to say the law treats everyone equally because both Elon Musk and Crazy Joe the homeless guy, are both barred from stealing bread.
- antinomicus 11mo agoWho paid you to make this comment? This is so unbelievably out of touch I have a hard time believing it is anything other than Astro turf.
- simianwords 11mo agodo you have any specific points against what i said? i'm willing to change my beliefs but i made these beliefs after pondering about it.
- seventytwo 11mo agoHere’s one - you presume the decisions they make about capital allocation are good and can’t be improved upon.
- simianwords 11mo agosuggest how it can be different? this experiment has been tried many times - central planning.
- seventytwo 11mo agoYou can’t imagine any other options between what we have today and central planing?
- m463 11mo agoOne friend of mine says that people mindfully spending their money outperform government spending which tends to be much more wasteful.
- lovich 11mo agoah yes, I remember the prime caveat of capitalism where having a few people with all the decision making power at the top causes the wisdom of the crowd to make better micro economic decisions. There is no functional difference between a handful of plutocrats deciding capital allocation and a handful of monarchs deciding capital allocation. If you are pro capitalism you should be against letting wealth, and the associated decision power, accumulate in a few individuals
- simianwords 11mo agothere is a meaningful difference between monarch deciding capital allocation and a CEO deciding how to spend money on their own company. China is a good example - they had something like a monarch allocating capital throughout the country and setting prices. Even they realised it is not scalable.
- seventytwo 11mo agoAh, yes. Which is why we should return to tradition of the fiefdoms of yore, where the dukes and sultans famously brought great wealth and prosperity to their indentured servants! Thank you, omnipotent billionaires, for your generosity and grace!
- triceratops 11mo ago> it’s not so clear that redistribution is necessarily a good thing It's unclear what you mean by "redistribution". > I feel the people who made money are more likely to make better decisions on their own companies The majority of publicly-listed companies aren't majority owned by their founders. They're still focused on profits and being competitive. Instead of "redistribution" the way you imagine it (central planning), what if it was more like a sovereign wealth fund? The government owns shares in all companies, like an index fund. It acts like a normal institutional investor. In fact I wouldn't mind contracting out the management of these holdings to a sober company like Vanguard. And dividends from these holdings are used to reduce income taxes. Stop penalizing people for working and earning more.