Billionaires Blast off

[Jayjay]

What if the government confiscated Jeff Bezos wealth and invested it to create a highly efficient supply chain to lower the prices of goods, and the speed at which they were delivered.

This would greatly improve the lives of everyone!

You were probably being sarcastic, but I'll point out anyway that if the government could have done that, Jeff Bezos wouldn't have become wealthy in the first place.

 

[Swammerdami]

Present an objective means of measuring "fair".

I already did:

Loren Pechtel's question is a key question, and — even without the "objective" qualifier— a very difficult one. In this thread, or another of several on the same topic, I asked "Is it fair that the lion (a carnivore) kills and eats the lamb?" I didn't get an answer.

Free markets supplemented with taxes, regulations and a safety-net may be the "fairest" we can come up with. Braess' Paradox is an impressive counter-example proving that free-market results may be sub-optimal ... but often so are the authoritarian policies that progressives want to replace free markets with.

I wrote "sub-optimal" instead of "fair" because I do not know what "fair" means. Let's find out:

I already did [define fair]:

when probabilistically positive and negative behavior is rewarded based on an artificial allotment based on the probability rather than the probabilistic outcome

This is what makes fair. It's fairly apparent to me that the means of measuring is to observe whether doing something with a "7:6 payout" is on the side of spitting out 7 for every 6 you put in, or whether it pays out 0 most times and then 6*7 the one time.

A perfectly fair system returns the same output to every instance of input. Less fair systems are more winner take all. Lotteries are an example of an inherently unfair system.

I find this hard to understand. When I guess at its meaning, I find the guessed definition to be a poor one. (If Covid-19 were "fair", it would make us ALL sick for 5.38 days, and damage ALL our hearts and livers a little bit but not kill any of us? When one investor makes $10 million while nine others guess wrong and get zero, the lucky guy should give $1 million to each of his fellows? If my wife is prettier than Sam's wife is it unfair not to swap beds on even-numbered days?) Rather than I constructing silly strawmen ...

Might you please supplement your definition with a few concrete examples?

 

[Shadowy Man]

What if the government confiscated Jeff Bezos wealth and invested it to create a highly efficient supply chain to lower the prices of goods, and the speed at which they were delivered.

This would greatly improve the lives of everyone!

Maybe. Would the workers get bathroom breaks?

Oh, come on. When has government ever created something with high efficiency?

So that’s a yes on the bathroom breaks, then.

 

[lpetrich]

When has government ever created something with high efficiency?

So you want government military and police forces to be shut down?

If governments cannot possibly do a good job at anything, then why trust governments with one's protection?

Especially when governments routinely protect people who are too lazy to protect themselves.

 

[Canard DuJour]

And if the IMF says it it must be true?

No but it's unlikely to be ideologically motivated. The IMF previously champoined the opposite view - that there is trade-off between productivity and inequality - but recanted due to the preponderance of evidence.

A lot of things about the world economy have changed over the years; picking two and saying "This one is because of that one." is post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc. Where's the controlled experiment that shows making billionaires poorer increases GDP?

Not what the IMF says.

The idea that convergence further down the global income distritbution (which wouldn't even be a thing without China) is a necessary corollary of the average American's loss of income share is zero-sum thinking 101.

So who the heck said it's a necessary corollary?

Whoever it is that keeps bringing it up in defence of within-country inequality, e.g. in the U.S. Unless they're bringing up an unrelated coincidence for reasons best known to themself.

There are any number of ways the average American could "lose income share" -- i.e., gain income not as fast as the average earthling -- without convergence further down. I'm just saying it's what actually happened over the last few decades.

Then it's unclear why you're just saying it.

Not to mention "in-group" favouritism.

How do you figure that? In-group favoritism is a matter of preference; opinions about whether X happened or about whether X was a necessary corollary of Y aren't matters of preference.

Fine. You appeared to be arguing that U.S. inequality with its consequences for average Americans, and the gains of Chinese workers were part of some process to the good of humanity. Turns out you were just tossing in some unrelated factoids.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Even cheaper: Beans and rice in a crock pot. Non-perishable until cooked, also.

Of course. When it comes to cheap complete protein, you can't beat rice and beans. But Toni thought it was too much to expect the poor to cook, so I specifically mentioned protein-rich foods you don't have to cook.

I think her objection was with having the ability to cook. You don't need a stove to make beans & rice, a crock-pot will do the job. No power? I've got a little butane stove that's quite adequate for the job, although one that runs off a 20# propane cylinder would be cheaper in the long run.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Oh, come on. When has government ever created something with high efficiency?

Government is at least as efficient as private industry, when adjusted for scale.

Corporations with similar sizes to government entities are similarly inefficient.

The big corporations don't get the same scrutiny that governments do; But the idea that they're more efficient is a total myth.

Disagree. Private enterprise has competition that drives efficiency. Government does not. Government policy is often driven by other factors, also. Compare SpaceX vs the Space "Launch" System. Or the other launch programs that served their real purpose of being pork and finally got cancelled.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ants are smarter than Republicans.

View attachment 34614

That's a water drop those ants found, not a water drop any ants made. Leftist ethics in a nutshell: a demand that farmers live according to hunter-gatherers' morality.

And it's not right anyway. The ants are spread around the drop because that's how they fit. Each ant uses up a certain amount of the border, there's little more border than the 12 ants need. Besides, the ants are even being fair--look at the two ants closest to the 12 o'clock position--the left ant is too far to the right, somewhat excluding the right ant.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's not a strawman. Plenty of people are proposing taking away over 99% of their wealth -- Bilby, for instance -- and LP's point remains whether it's 99% or 100%.

99% of a billion dollars taken in tax leaves them with only $10,000,000.

I can see how that's an awful impost that leaves someone at genuine risk of starvation, homelessness, and destitution.

Oh, wait.

Fuck off.

Congratulations, you killed SpaceX.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When has government ever created something with high efficiency?

So you want government military and police forces to be shut down?

If governments cannot possibly do a good job at anything, then why trust governments with one's protection?

Especially when governments routinely protect people who are too lazy to protect themselves.

Both examples are highly inefficient. It's just we have no better option.

 

[thebeave]

Ants are smarter than Republicans.

View attachment 34614

That's a water drop those ants found, not a water drop any ants made. Leftist ethics in a nutshell: a demand that farmers live according to hunter-gatherers' morality.

And it's not right anyway. The ants are spread around the drop because that's how they fit. Each ant uses up a certain amount of the border, there's little more border than the 12 ants need. Besides, the ants are even being fair--look at the two ants closest to the 12 o'clock position--the left ant is too far to the right, somewhat excluding the right ant.

Yeah, this whole business about ants co-operating, drinking water together while singing Kumbaya is a bit of a myth. Just ask any 10 year boy what he saw happen when he mixed a bunch of red ants and black ants together in a jar. Its a horror show. Ants decapitating and dismembering each other.

 

[Bomb#20]

Are you suggesting the inventor mined ore, processed raw materials, etc, all on his lonesome? That mine owners extracted raw materials on their lonesome? Factory owners producing goods on their lonesome? No workers needed?

No, just that you were unfairly bad-mouthing the Wright Brothers.

 

[Bomb#20]

Innovation today comes from some corporate owned scientist.

They don't own what they invent and don't decide what problems they will try to solve.

If they were told to do away with management with a more efficient AI system they easily could.

And relieve workers of tons of dead weight riding on their backs.

Speaking as a guy with a patent on an AI algorithm because I taught a computer how to do something any five-year-old could do by hand...

That's nonsense. AI is a lot harder than it looks or than Hollywood makes it look, and a lot stupider than the "Intelligence" in its name implies. If it were at all easy to automate corporate management with an AI algorithm, you could rustle up the venture capital to fund the project without any trouble, and start up any number of more efficient companies that would use it, and compete the existing management-heavy companies out of business fast enough to generate huge profits for the venture capitalists and the early adopters. The reason it isn't happening isn't some conspiracy on the part of the owner class to charitably limit their own profits for the benefit of the executive management class; it isn't happening because it's too technically difficult for 21st-century technology. Maybe it will happen in the 22nd century. Maybe not.

 

[Bomb#20]

I, for one, am proud to have helped pay the tax burden of billionaires so they can take their vanity flights to space.

So how did you determine that some of the tax burden you paid was actually "the tax burden of billionaires"?

It's disgraceful for people who have to work for the government three days a month to slander people who have to work for the government five days a month as not paying their fair share.

When someone trots out the libertardian rhetoric for tax rates (i.e. taxes = working for the government), you know rational discussion has left the room.

That's the figure of speech you had a problem with? Should we take it, then, that you regard "I, for one, am proud to have helped pay the tax burden of billionaires" as a case of rational discussion staying in the room?

 

[DBT]

Are you suggesting the inventor mined ore, processed raw materials, etc, all on his lonesome? That mine owners extracted raw materials on their lonesome? Factory owners producing goods on their lonesome? No workers needed?

No, just that you were unfairly bad-mouthing the Wright Brothers.

Bad mouthing? That's utterly ridiculous. The Wright brothers didn't exist in a vacuum. Pointing out that they used materials made available to them, mining, factories producing goods, workers, society at large, doesn't take anything away from their achievement.

 

[bilby]

Oh, come on. When has government ever created something with high efficiency?

Government is at least as efficient as private industry, when adjusted for scale.

Corporations with similar sizes to government entities are similarly inefficient.

The big corporations don't get the same scrutiny that governments do; But the idea that they're more efficient is a total myth.

Disagree. Private enterprise has competition that drives efficiency. Government does not. Government policy is often driven by other factors, also. Compare SpaceX vs the Space "Launch" System. Or the other launch programs that served their real purpose of being pork and finally got cancelled.

There was bugger all evidence of competition driven efficiency in the twelve years I worked for IBM. Just bloated bureaucracy, excessive management, and all the usual hallmarks of an organisation grown too large to be efficient at anything other than crushing competition by sheer size and inertia. If they couldn't crush their competitors by using their deep pockets, they just bought them and assimilated them into the Borg.

Governments are just the same. Nobody close enough to the coal face has the authority to make a quick and informed decision; And nobody with the authority has the first hand knowledge and understanding to make a good and effective decision.

Profit and shareholder value are abstract concepts to the guys doing the work. Work is an abstract concept to the guys sitting around the boardroom table.

You can disagree all you like, but it remains a fact that "government inefficiency" is just large organisation inefficiency, and privatising large public services (transport, healthcare, infrastructure construction and maintenance, etc.), thus trading public ownership for shareholder ownership, changes very little - the only significant change is a loss of any shred of democratic control, and the focus of corruption moving from reelection and enriching of bad officials, to the enrichment and entrenchment of bad managers.

 

[bilby]

It's not a strawman. Plenty of people are proposing taking away over 99% of their wealth -- Bilby, for instance -- and LP's point remains whether it's 99% or 100%.

99% of a billion dollars taken in tax leaves them with only $10,000,000.

I can see how that's an awful impost that leaves someone at genuine risk of starvation, homelessness, and destitution.

Oh, wait.

Fuck off.

Congratulations, you killed SpaceX.

GOOD.

Why the fuck would you expect me to see that as a problem?

I thought I had been quite explicit that I believe that big projects (like space exploration) should be done on the basis of society deciding to do them via the democratic process.

The choice is whether to allow a handful of neo-aristocratic individuals to decide whether and how society should go into space; or whether to make those decisions democratically.

If you, I, or Elon Musk, want the fruits of our economy to be spent in that way, we each have the same right to try to persuade our compatriots to vote for representatives who will support that.

That Musk can bypass the 'of the people, by the people, for the people' thing, and just decide to do this stuff (rather than curing Malaria, or feeding the hungry, or building roads, railways, ports, dams, power plants, etc., etc) on his own, then how is that different from letting the Queen or the Pope or the Emperor make that call?

The purpose of a democracy is to prevent any one individual (or any small group) from imposing their will on society, other than by persuading a majority of their compatriots to support them.

I will vote for space flight to be funded. But if nobody else will, then democracy says I have failed to sell my opinion effectively, and that it shouldn't happen. The same should go for Musk, Bezos, Branson et al. They're not better than me. Or than you. Or than anyone else.

 

[ZiprHead]

It's not a strawman. Plenty of people are proposing taking away over 99% of their wealth -- Bilby, for instance -- and LP's point remains whether it's 99% or 100%.

99% of a billion dollars taken in tax leaves them with only $10,000,000.

I can see how that's an awful impost that leaves someone at genuine risk of starvation, homelessness, and destitution.

Oh, wait.

Fuck off.

Congratulations, you killed SpaceX.

Small loss.

 

[Trausti]

And it's not right anyway. The ants are spread around the drop because that's how they fit. Each ant uses up a certain amount of the border, there's little more border than the 12 ants need. Besides, the ants are even being fair--look at the two ants closest to the 12 o'clock position--the left ant is too far to the right, somewhat excluding the right ant.

Yeah, this whole business about ants co-operating, drinking water together while singing Kumbaya is a bit of a myth. Just ask any 10 year boy what he saw happen when he mixed a bunch of red ants and black ants together in a jar. Its a horror show. Ants decapitating and dismembering each other.

Communism/Socialism: “Great Idea. Wrong Species.” (E. O. Wilson)

 

[DBT]

So nothing needs to be done about inequality or exploitation? Let the rich and powerful exploit workers, own slaves, do whatever they like? Might is naturally right?

Nothing can be done? Nothing needs to be done? Everything is as it should be?