Decathect

8 ms·

1.
by Decathect 7y ago
I'm really curious what your point is, since the willingness of capital markets to extend financing seems like it'd be very related to a company's capital structure and leverage. Like, were the businesses in question not over
2.
by Decathect 7y ago
First, I don't think the rich are cartoonishly evil, Machiavellian, or even particularly interesting. It doesn't take superhuman skill or sociopathy to live off other people's labor. They're just trapped in a game they c
3.
by Decathect 7y ago
Wealth is accruing to people with power and capital. The people who produce automations are laborers like the rest of society, just with a temporarily elevated standard of living. As writing software is deskilled and supplanted, it'll
4.
by Decathect 8y ago
Inherited wealth gives you an unearned advantage. Therefore, on average for any given slice of society, the least talented members will be the children of privilege. The more money you’ve been given the more likely your peers outclass you.
5.
by Decathect 8y ago
I mean, all those positive changes happened in an ostensibly democratic system and were later ratified by it. They just didn’t happen because ‘moderates’ were convinced by logical argument to grant people basic rights through the ballot box
6.
by Decathect 8y ago
I think you missed my point: all those things can be tools for accomplishing a just society, but they are not sufficient or an end in themselves. Slavery was ended by war. Labor rights were achieved by fatal street battles. The civil rights
7.
by Decathect 8y ago
The First Amendment didn’t prevent our genocide of native peoples. Democracy didn’t prevent 100 years of slavery. ‘The marketplace of ideas’ didn’t keep us from torturing people to death or killing a million people in a pointless war. The p
8.
by Decathect 8y ago
Amazon famously avoids turning a profit and yet its CEO is the richest person in the world. Its market cap divided evenly among its half million full and part time workers would make all of them millionaires.
9.
by Decathect 8y ago
If everyone was paid exactly the value they added GDP per worker would be the average wage, with no caveats required. Equal productivity would just mean the average and median wages would be the same. Government spending, funded by taxes, c
10.
by Decathect 8y ago
Intermediate goods are explicitly excluded from GDP calculations and resale of finished products only increases GDP by the value added amount. In your scenario GDP would be $2. Regardless, GDP can be calculated by summing all income across
11.
by Decathect 8y ago
There's many examples of people who have survived cancer and lived another decade, even five decades. I highly doubt they’d spread the advice that having cancer is a hopeless disease. The commonality is it was out of their control, the
12.
by Decathect 8y ago
It’s because the problem is the existence of the system, not that the instigating companies haven’t learned or cared to learn how to obscure the unjust advantage they are buying.
13.
by Decathect 8y ago
Those aren’t exclusive attributes, either colloquially or legally. As a renter you have a variety of rights (including to “quiet enjoyment” of the property) that prevent, for example, the legal owner from entering the premises without advan
14.
by Decathect 9y ago
They died in the accident, leaving behind a critically injured spouse and their kids. The medical bills for any one of the surviving parties dwarf the net assets of the deceased. Who pays the remainder?
15.
by Decathect 9y ago
One of the provisions of Obamacare was a cap on the administrative costs of insurance companies at 20% of premiums, with any excess returned to the purchaser as a rebate. The first year it was in effect more than a billion dollars was retur
16.
by Decathect 15y ago
It's an arms race. The ideal position is a. spend as little as possible and b. outspend your opponent. This inevitably results in spiraling escalation that harms both parties. The obvious solution that the US has avoided and France has embr
17.
by Decathect 15y ago
Free markets are only efficient if consumers act rationally. In addition to being unethical, manipulative marketing is bad for the economy. It's in everyone's long term interest to regulate false advertising.