Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelteter | Hacker News Reader

Many of the crazy things we see happening today come from the same root problem: the wealth of humanity has increasingly been funneled into the hands of a few. These may be mostly companies rather than individuals, but they are a proxy for a relatively small few people.

This glut of finances leaves those few with a problem: what to do with it? And since accumulation of wealth is the ultimate goal, FOMO encourages increasingly foolish decisions (or at least unsustainable ones).

The housing crisis is one of the outcomes. This AI bubble is another. I'm sure if we look around, we can find other examples.

If resources were more evenly distributed, we would see different regions and peoples doing more varied things which would be appropriate for their needs.

View on HN

> If resources were more evenly distributed, we would see different regions and peoples doing more varied things which would be appropriate for their needs.

You need legislation that forces the Banks to lend money for Asset CREATION not Asset ACCUMULATION. Or at least TAX asset consumption heavily.

Building data centers is undoubtedly asset creation, though.

But like many commercial activities, the full cost of the endeavor is not entirely met by those who will gain the most. In other words, the corps will get the benefit of lower energy costs by going into markets where their buying power will allow them to essentially slurp up the cheapest energy, pushing the rates up for the individual population (who will not gain financially from the new assets).

This is especially true for limited natural resources like water. And it's been true for oil and gas development for a century.

> FOMO encourages increasingly foolish decisions (or at least unsustainable ones)

Markets will punish them for poor investments. We have not seen that yet, but it is coming.

We need a concentration of money in order to make progress.

But yes, we should also make sure that everybody can benefit from it.

If you are concentrating money in a way you exercise control of, then that money has been realized. If your 'concentration' of money is from loans on stocks, then those stocks value HAS BEEN REALIZED for your benefit, and you should be taxed on your REALIZED gains (you have benefited in the REAL world from the GAINS on your stocks value).

I don't have a problem with concentration of money. I have a problem with playing the game that the concentration of money doesn't actually exist yet and shouldn't be taxed.

>We need a concentration of money in order to make progress.

...in the concentration of money.

"The handful of benevolent god-kings will be nice to people" is not a model for a decent future.

You mean we need a stronger government?

The creators/thought leader of Capitalism all said it was a necessary part of having a functioning Capitalist system. So yes? Unless you want to change systems to something else?

I mean that America would be better off with a government that discourages god-kings instead of enabling them.

Sure, but how do you think that can be accomplished?

Wealth begets wealth in a positive feedback loop.

How do we typically deal with positive feedback?

You can suggest to tax wealth, but how are you going to get it implemented?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com