simonh (u/simonh) - Readit News

simonh commented on Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment bbc.com/news/articles/ckg... · Posted by u/1659447091

orwin · 7 hours ago

Strong and prosperous economy built by progressive tax rate that used to tax up to 70% of non-work income, and now tax most of it 27-29% (depending on the corporate taxe of the state). The people who can use loopholes to avoid income taxes also pay reduced consumption tax (they usually pay the 'Use tax' rather than sale tax in the US, and can basically ignore VAT in Europe).

simonh · 7 hours ago

Sure, capitalism isn't perfect. No economic system is, mainly because they're all composed of us semi-evolved chimps. Every economic system has that problem. Getting rid of or severely constraining economic freedoms isn't a solution, it makes it worse.

simonh commented on Baumol's Cost Disease en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bau... · Posted by u/drra

AnthonyMouse · 2 days ago

> Society can afford this because it now has commensurately more resources due to increased efficiency.

Does it though? Suppose that Wall St has discovered a strategy, like high frequency trading, that produces nothing but allows the one doing it to extract a margin that would otherwise have gone to the second-fastest trader. Many people are employed in a competition to be the fastest because being the fastest is rewarded but it's a zero-sum game where nothing useful is produced and the players each have to continuously spend resources to keep running faster in order to stay in the same place.

What benefit is the person now paying more for healthcare getting in exchange for this?

> It’s a tide that raises all boats, precisely because of this effect.

What if it's not all boats? Suppose it causes doctors to get paid more because people who have the wherewithal to become doctors could also work in finance, but it doesn't cause retail clerks to get paid more because Wall St isn't hiring them away from their existing jobs, and in the meantime they now have to pay more for healthcare.

simonh · 2 days ago

High frequency trading does create benefits. It speeds up market corrections, increases liquidity, and means buyers and sellers get quicker execution closer to consensus market value.

If financiers and doctors are wealthier, they have more disposable income, some of which they will spend in retail, benefiting retail clerks. They will also get taxed more, benefiting other tax payers.

The Baumol effect is sometimes described as a disease. It isn’t. It’s fundamentally redistributive.

simonh commented on Baumol's Cost Disease en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bau... · Posted by u/drra

wat10000 · 2 days ago

Your conclusion falls victim to the same conflation you’re calling out. If some sectors become drastically more efficient, society has become wealthier in terms of money, but not necessarily in terms of real resources.

For example, consider a case where finance becomes much more productive (in terms of $ per employee-hour) and raises wages to attract smart people, leading to fewer people becoming doctors because finance is much more attractive. Is society wealthier? The money says yes. The line goes up. But finance doesn’t set a broken bone or treat cancer. This may well have made society less wealthy in terms of what ordinary people actually care about.

simonh · 2 days ago

The Baumol effect says wages for doctors will also have to go up. Society can afford this because it now has commensurately more resources due to increased efficiency. It’s a tide that raises all boats, precisely because of this effect. This is why a taxi in London costs and pays better than the same service in Cairo.

simonh commented on Wolfram Compute Services writings.stephenwolfram.c... · Posted by u/nsoonhui

masfuerte · 10 days ago

So restrict the obligation to companies.

simonh · 10 days ago

On what justification? You just want to take their stuff, because?

People shouldn’t lose their rights to what they own, just because they do so through a company.

I do think reasonable taxation and regulation is justifiable but on the understanding that it is an imposition. There is a give and take when it comes to rights and obligations, but this seems like overreach.

simonh commented on Wolfram Compute Services writings.stephenwolfram.c... · Posted by u/nsoonhui

scotty79 · 10 days ago

> every software vendor shall be obliged after some time to hand out their source code,

Obviously. Since software is as much vital to the modern world as water, making people who deal with it disclose implementation details is a very small ask.

Access to the market is not a right but a privilege. If you want to sell things we can demand things of you.

simonh · 10 days ago

I think commerce between individuals is a right.

Infringing on that should be justified in terms of protecting the rights of those involved, such as ensuring the quality of goods, enforcement of reasonable contract terms and such. We are involved in the process as participants in the market, and that’s the basis of any legitimacy we have to impose any rules in the market. That includes an obligation to fair treatment of other participants.

If someone writes notes, procedures, a diary, software etc for their own use they are under no obligation to publish it, ever. That’s basic privacy protection. Whether an executable was written from scratch in an assembler or is compiled from high level source code isn’t anyone else’s business. It should meet quality standards for commercial transactions and that’s it. There’s no more obligation to publish source than there is to publish design documents, early versions, or unpublished material. That would be an overreaching invasion of privacy.

simonh commented on Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm theverge.com/report/82065... · Posted by u/evolve2k

wat10000 · 12 days ago

The thing is, the compensation is only based on it happening, not on him making it happen. “I make you 8 trillion dollars” rests on a strong assumption that it all comes from the CEO.

This particular CEO is on the more influential end of the spectrum, but I think executives generally get too much credit for outcomes. If this does happen, it won’t just be because of the CEO, but also because of ~100,000 other employees. Their contribution might be smaller, but comparing compensation, I don’t think it’s proportionally smaller.

simonh · 11 days ago

Speaking honestly as a foot soldier employee, I look around myself and I think you could swap out most of the people around me, including me, for most other people in our industry and the company would continue just fine. In fact that happens naturally over time anyway. The work we do is essential, but as individuals we are not essential. If I quit and move on, how many investors will reconsider their position in my company? Give me a break, and they would be right to not care.

It's about leverage. It's all about where you stand and how long your lever is. Musk stands at the top and he has a very long set of levers. He's also much more closely personally involved in engineering aspects of a company that most CEOs know little to nothing about. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad, because his decisions have massively outsized effects because of this. Leverage.

If Musk makes good or bad decisions over the next few years, that matters much, much more than the decisions of anyone else at Tesla, especially because he hires and fires everyone else at Tesla. They're all only there, as individuals in particular, because of him anyway.

As it happens I think his decision making has deteriorated significantly recently, in some respects but not all. Also Tesla just doesn't have the magic special sauce SpaceX has had since they developed reusability. There's no special engineering insight in the Tesla architecture. Other vehicle manufacturers already caught up. That catch up is happening in space tech as well with BO's recent booster recovery, but SpaceX still has a very significant lead there, based on a truly revolutionary concept (which Musk championed personally) that they had exclusively for 10 years. Starship still doesn't work though, so we'll see.

simonh commented on Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm theverge.com/report/82065... · Posted by u/evolve2k

safety1st · 12 days ago

There is a bit of a debate about what to call the American economic system these days, but I think we should all agree it's not a capitalist one. It's not one that Adam Smith would look at, approve, and say oh yeah baby that's exactly what I was writing about in Wealth of Nations.

It looks a lot closer to the economic policies of the most successful fascist regimes - the best term for modern American economics might be "democratic fascist." There is a facade of a market economy, but there's heavy intervention to privilege not just domestic businesses, but a specific set of big ones that have close ties to the ruling party. This is not much different from how Hitler and Mussolini approached economic policy. Basically have your system revolve around private ownership, pretend to have a market economy but actually make very centralized decisions and execute them through a small number of private oligarchs you're buddies with. The uniquely American flavor is that there are two parties which do this instead of one (but three would be unimaginable), and you can choose which pack of bandits you signal loyalty to without being executed.

simonh · 12 days ago

On the spectrum of authoritarian oligarchy of the type you describe, from 0 (liberal democracy with well regulated free market capitalism) to 100 (totalitarian oligarchy), where would you put: The USA; The average EU country; Russia.

simonh commented on Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm theverge.com/report/82065... · Posted by u/evolve2k

bux93 · 12 days ago

It's not as if public companies don't overspend on executive compensation. I think one CEO recently asked for a trillion dollar compensation package?

simonh · 12 days ago

I'll make you a deal. You agree to give me a trillion dollars, but only if I make you 8 trillion dollars.

I don't think he'll deliver and I think it's based on fantasy economics, he's been really losing it recently, but as a deal it's not entirely irrational if he could make it happen.

simonh commented on GrapheneOS Moving Out of France xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/st... · Posted by u/LaSombra

otikik · 18 days ago

The One place that has not been corrupted by Capitalism… Space!

simonh · 18 days ago

Looks like Musk and Bezos are going to beat you to it.