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Comment by luketheobscure | Hacker News Reader

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but Ballmer essentially made that money by simply not selling his Microsoft stock.

I disagree with the sentiment. Who is made worse off, who is made poorer because he held Microsoft shares? OP describes it as a "policy failure"... what kind of social wrong does a "policy" which would have forced him to sell his shares in 2015 correct?

If you’re asking with genuine curiosity: whatever venture was not invested in because it went to buying Tech Titan stocks instead.

Concentrated wealth doesn’t circulate well, which leads to inflation.

I thought we all had some economic chops on this forum?

Wealth doesn't circulate. Currency circulates. They aren't the same thing. And a "concentration of wealth" can't lead to inflation or debasement, I'm not sure what that sentence means.

Concentrated wealth along with a lack of currency circulation results in deflation, not inflation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

Pretty ironic that you'd call out economic chops when this is a very basic and well understood principle. Perhaps be more cautious and less confident in your presuppositions going forward.

You’re absolutely right, that was a test.

The fact that you’re the only one to point it out makes me think that I have put too much faith here.

It’s patently obvious that less circulation is a depressive force on economic activity.

Yes and: Our economy now has fewer young(er) small- to mid-sized companies. The kind that have historically been the engines for creating jobs, for creating wealth (vs merely transferring it), and innovation.

I was excited by all new green energy startups due to Biden Admin's policies (BIL, IRA, etc). Oh well...

I know you know all this; I'm just compelled to repeatedly point out the obvious.

Others have given some answer to who was made poorer by Ballmer holding Microsoft shares, but I'd argue that this is the wrong question. Instead of looking at a specific individual, we should look at systems.

A system that allows this kind of extreme wealth accumulation is quite fundamentally at odds with democracy because extreme wealth can be and is in practice used to influence politics in a way that undermines democracy.

Some people might not care about that, but if your goal is improving the outcomes of the largest number of people, then pretty much everything else is secondary to having a functioning democracy.

This is genuinely the only response I ever get - that wealth can be used to influence politics. In my view this is a poor argument for two reasons.

1. The amount wealth actually influences politics is hard to measure but likely much lower than most people assume. Trump was outspent significantly both times he won. Bloomberg dropped $1B in a couple months and won nowhere but American Somoa. Probably the two biggest boogiemen, Koch and Soros, have spent billions over the years on their causes, and the present administration and general overton window is actually something neither of them like! The nonelected king-makers in American and EU politics are not actually wealthy people at all, just those with a lot of accumulated political capital, for instance, Jim Clyburn who single-handedly gave the 2020 nomination to Biden.

2. The amount that it takes to finance initiatives is much lower than centibillionaire level. Is the original $20B OP mentioned not sufficient to finance some ballot initiative? Why is it the increase to $130B that causes concern? The truth is that even a wealthy non-billionaire can easily do that, or bankroll someone's run for congress, or fund a partisan thinktank. The maximum level of wealth you'd have to set your ban-limit at would be problematically low.

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