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Comment by git_rancher | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how long until a critical mass of people get fed up with the resource hogging of the ultra rich. Seems likely to happen at some point if current trends in wealth inequality continue.

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According to "The Great Leveler" by Walter Scheidel inequality throughout human history has always been going up and only been reset by things like war, violent revolutions or major economic throwbacks. So I'm pessimistic that we can solve the issue in a more pleasant manner.

I have that book in my pile. Skipped it last time I picked up the next one, due to not quite being in the right frame of mind for a depressing read.

> So I'm pessimistic that we can solve the issue in a more pleasant manner.

Oh, I'm quite sure we can't. The peaceful dissolution of the USSR has been a miracle, although that story isn't really over yet. The U.S., at least, will not have a pitchfork moment so anywhere near so quietly.

The question of 'how bad does it have to get' is quite relevant to those of us who have enough money to be planning for retirement, but not enough for his'n'her's yachts - what are the odds that we should maybe start scoping retirement-nations with the best combinations of freedom, opportunity and tolerance for refugees from a place famously losing tolerance for refugees?

"The peaceful dissolution of the USSR has been a miracle, although that story isn't really over yet. "

I would argue that dissolution didn't really level anything. It just gave a few oligarchs an opportunity to grab vast fortunes for cheap.

That's a fair point. I don't think the process is over, which is why that was qualified.

I was talking more about the dissolution of a major nation-state, but mixed that in with book discussion, so I wasn't being clear.

Wow I believe this was exactly Thomas Piketty’s argument back in 2014 with his book.

Also, when a lot of people die, there are a lot of inheritances and open jobs, so makes the task of distribution even easier :/

This is one of the reasons that the Bubonic Plague is cited as a catalyst for the development economically and scientifically of Europe...

Perhaps it's time for progressive real estate taxes.

AKA roll back prop 13 but make it progressive. 1% on the first $250,000 worth of land, 2% on the next $250,000 to $1,000,000 worth and then 3% for anything over $1M.

Not by parcel, total.

You're proposing an additional $2500 a year tax on a $250k home? And a $5000 a year increase on a $500k home? I don't foresee this being very successful.

I'm proposing leaving the nominal Prop 13 discount alone for people that own modest homes. And making d*ckwads like Khosla pay full freight.

Simply individuals and businesses with real estate holdings over a $1M gets the nominal 2-3% property tax rate everyone outside of California enjoys.

Totally fair.

In the Bay Area everything is $1m, so lots of regular people out here would see a huge tax hike.

When you own a $1m home, you cease to be “regular.”

One of my observations is that the cost of buying a house for most people has several components, capital costs, financing costs, taxes, and insurance. One assumes that if you increase property taxes that cuts into the amount that can be financed, which reduces the amount that can be financed, which means the price has to come down.

Difference between mortgage interest in a world of global finance and property taxes is property taxes pay for local services, where mortgage interest ends up who knows where. But it isn't paying for your communities roads, transit parks or schools, police and fire.

Wouldn’t we just end up paying N rents to N partial owners, each of whom owned $249,999-sized parts of a given estate?

> Not by parcel, total.

I imagine the ultra rich have had lots of time to think about it too. Even Sam Altman has written about disaster prepping, testing his readiness, trying to find the optimal mode of transportation for a chaotic metro area, etc. Not to imbue any connotations of evil or notoriety. Just making the point that disaster prepping is kind of well rounded in that regard, due to the inherent unpredictability of disasters.

Both Altman and Thiel purchased estates in New Zealand to prepare for some sort of collapse of society in the United States, like an ordinary person might have a small bottled water supply for a natural disaster.

I suppose then there must be some litmus test of when someone has acted in their own best interest, and been to successful at it. I realize that's a super snarky way to put it, but it sounds like what is at the very Crux of this issue.

I think we can be quite sure that there exists a trend of increasing unequality in US regardless how you decide to measure it. We can also be quite sure that that trend will stop one day (if not before, when one person holds all wealth).

If I were ultra rich, I would be paranoidly obsessive about when, why and how this trend stops, and put significant resources into seeing that the trend stops peacefully. Why? If the trend takes too long, I would be almost surely dropped from the ultra rich category. And if the trend does stop early, but not peacefully, I run into very high risk of losing a lot (up to losing life).

Now, as most ultra rich do not seem to be obsessed about this, I consider this as quite strong evidence that majority of ultra rich share one thing with the majority of us mere mortals - i.e. being dumb as f#ck...

Agreed. I just worry it'd be the wrong people.

Highly doubtful while it's still the case that American Capitalism openly encourages and rewards predatory, sociopathic behavior. The existence of these people is inevitable.

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