Aux Armes, Citoyens!

[Keith Levenberg]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Bezos's wealth could end world hunger

Can you give me the non-underpants gnome explanation for how we're ending world hunger here? Is the idea that we keep the machinery of capitalism running until someone gets as rich as Jeff Bezos, then bop him on the head and take all his stuff? Or are we going with the "no billionaires rule" and making it so nobody's allowed to get that rich in the first place, in which case I'm a little confused where all that hunger-ending funding is supposed to come from?

Otto was making claim about income inequality. In what sense is this not a gnome response to a gnome statement?

In the sense that one who talks about income inequality is generally doing so in the context of urging that we remedy those inequalities. Is there a point to complaining that Jeff Bezos has enough money to end world hunger (manifestly not true, but...) other than to propose that his money be directed towards that end?

 

[MarkS]

originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Pinker and Rosling and the like don't seem to care about inequality. They don't care that twenty odd people own the same wealth as the poorest half of the global population. They don't care that Bezos's wealth could end world hunger. They don't care that we grow enough food to feed 10 billion people already while there are only 7,8 billion people on earth - and that at the same time a billion people go to bed hungry every night and millions die every year of malnutrition related issues.

Most economists don't factor that into their equations. Like Communism, it's all about the 'good of society', a leveling-off averaging if you will into economic units.

 

[MarkS]

originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Oh wait, even as a privileged white man(?) that is where I'm in. Oh shit.

Not only white man that are privileged (and you need to stop thinking this way), as any race that holds power over others by their wealth is privileged. Color blind, in other words.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Bezos's wealth could end world hunger

Can you give me the non-underpants gnome explanation for how we're ending world hunger here? Is the idea that we keep the machinery of capitalism running until someone gets as rich as Jeff Bezos, then bop him on the head and take all his stuff? Or are we going with the "no billionaires rule" and making it so nobody's allowed to get that rich in the first place, in which case I'm a little confused where all that hunger-ending funding is supposed to come from?

Otto was making claim about income inequality. In what sense is this not a gnome response to a gnome statement?

In the sense that one who talks about income inequality is generally doing so in the context of urging that we remedy those inequalities. Is there a point to complaining that Jeff Bezos has enough money to end world hunger (manifestly not true, but...) other than to propose that his money be directed towards that end?

Proposing that such an agglomeration of wealth is not a social good is the point. It's not Bezos' responsibility to end world hunger, it's a social responsibility to reconsider how we distribute our wealth. Otto was doing little more than making a point about the existence of excess wealth. I agree that the example was a silly one, but so, I think, was your response.

 

[Keith Levenberg]

You're doing a valiant job trying to derive a coherent point from such a glop of mushy pieties, but I still fail to understand. Your point simply raises the question WHY such an agglomeration of wealth is not a social good. The answer provided was that there are starving people in the world. The implication is that agglomerated wealth should be confiscated to feed the starving, which leads directly to my entirely legitimate response.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

It's the implication you draw that's false, unless you consider increased taxation of wealth confiscation. Then, of course, it's true, but it's hardly a shockingly novel notion.

 

[MLipton]

Keith,
To put the shoe on the other foot, in what way is the agglomeration of wealth a social good? How do I derive any benefit whatsoever from Jeff Bezos's personal wealth?

Mark Lipton

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by MLipton:
Keith,
To put the shoe on the other foot, in what way is the agglomeration of wealth a social good? How do I derive any benefit whatsoever from Jeff Bezos's personal wealth?

Mark Lipton

that does it, next time Lipton is in town, I am taking him out drinking! no more exhibits at the Met for him.

 

[Keith Levenberg]

originally posted by MLipton:
Keith,
To put the shoe on the other foot, in what way is the agglomeration of wealth a social good? How do I derive any benefit whatsoever from Jeff Bezos's personal wealth?

Mark Lipton

Is that a trick question? I benefit from Amazon just about every day as a customer (and over the long term as a shareholder). So do his employees, at least the ones not being forced to relocate to Queens. He's spending a big chunk of his wealth developing spaceships. If I ever get to ride on a spaceship it will be thanks to him and Elon. The Google guys are sinking a big chunk of their wealth into anti-aging technology. Other than riding in a spaceship there is literally nothing that would benefit me more than postponing my death. Bezos has recently started researching how to make the biggest impact philanthropically. That will probably benefit a significant number of people, as Bill Gates has already done with his foundation. Of course, you're entitled to think Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are dumbasses and it would be better to take all their money and have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decide how to spend it, but even in that scenario the ultimate recipients are still deriving a benefit from the wealth so taken.

 

[Keith Levenberg]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
It's the implication you draw that's false, unless you consider increased taxation of wealth confiscation. Then, of course, it's true, but it's hardly a shockingly novel notion.

What's the false implication?

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
It's the implication you draw that's false, unless you consider increased taxation of wealth confiscation. Then, of course, it's true, but it's hardly a shockingly novel notion.

What's the false implication?

That the solution he was proposing was confiscating Bezos' money.

By the way, the U,N. estimates that ending world hunger would cost $33 year. Bezos' wealth is estimated at $134 billion. So merely dispensing his wealth would solve it for at least 4 years. The W.F.P. estimates that 3.2 billion a year would feed all school age children, which means that Bezos yearly income is almost surely more than enough to do that and still have a few billion left over. This of course is what it would cost just to buy food and distribute it. Given that the earth has more than enough agricultural capacity to feed its current population, I expect changing policies so that we paid for distribution rather than price supports for farmers and encouraged more farming would probably do the same thing and cost much less.

 

[Keith Levenberg]

"We're not proposing confiscating Bezos's money. Here's a list of things we can do with Bezos's money."

 

[Keith Levenberg]

But seriously, the UN is packed with kleptocrats and - in an amazing coincidence - a giant chunk of the world's starving people live in kleptocracies. There's a hell of a lot more to ending hunger than multiplying the price of grain by the number of needy mouths. This is sort of what I was getting at with the underpants gnome thing. The unwritten Step 2 probably has to look something like: "Overthrow several dozen governments and install functional civil societies."

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by MLipton:
Keith,
To put the shoe on the other foot, in what way is the agglomeration of wealth a social good? How do I derive any benefit whatsoever from Jeff Bezos's personal wealth?

Mark Lipton

Is that a trick question? I benefit from Amazon just about every day as a customer (and over the long term as a shareholder). So do his employees, at least the ones not being forced to relocate to Queens. He's spending a big chunk of his wealth developing spaceships. If I ever get to ride on a spaceship it will be thanks to him and Elon. The Google guys are sinking a big chunk of their wealth into anti-aging technology. Other than riding in a spaceship there is literally nothing that would benefit me more than postponing my death. Bezos has recently started researching how to make the biggest impact philanthropically. That will probably benefit a significant number of people, as Bill Gates has already done with his foundation. Of course, you're entitled to think Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are dumbasses and it would be better to take all their money and have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decide how to spend it, but even in that scenario the ultimate recipients are still deriving a benefit from the wealth so taken.

Your response illustrates why I framed the question as a matter of Bezos's personal wealth. His businesses provide some social benefit, to be sure, though it's arguable whether there's any special benefit derived from it being Amazon rather than e.g. Target that provides those amenities. But Bezos's personal fortune does not per se employ anyone or provide any goods or services to society. Sure, he might invest it in vehicles that enrich the US in some way, but he also might choose to invest it entirely in either foreign investments or industries that impoverish us in some way (e.g. strip mining or clearcut logging).

Numerous analyses have put the lie to "trickle-down" theories and shown that a dollar placed into the hands of a person in the lowest quartile of incomes has a far greater salutary impact on the economy than a dollar placed in the hands of a one percenter.

Mark Lipton

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
He's spending a big chunk of his wealth developing spaceships. If I ever get to ride on a spaceship it will be thanks to him and Elon. The Google guys are sinking a big chunk of their wealth into anti-aging technology. Other than riding in a spaceship there is literally nothing that would benefit me more than postponing my death. Bezos has recently started researching how to make the biggest impact philanthropically. That will probably benefit a significant number of people, as Bill Gates has already done with his foundation.

That's all to the good. However, if instead of lowering tax rates to the wealthiest individuals repeatedly over the past decade, our government had instead actually increased the funding for NASA and the extramural research budget of NIH and NSF, perhaps the greatest scientific minds in this country wouldn't have to go hat in hand to private foundations looking for funding of their research? Just a thought...

Mark Lipton

 

[Keith Levenberg]

You can't separate his personal wealth from his business. Among other more complex reasons, the simple fact is that his personal wealth is not $100 billion in small bills or gold bullion under his mattress. It's mostly his ownership of Amazon stock. It's tied into the value of the company. When the company does well, he gets richer and so do his shareholders.

Not gonna get into a debate about trickle-down economics, which is beside the point even when it's not being straw-manned - your question wasn't whether Bezos's wealth is the most efficient or most desirable of all possible allocations, it was only how you and I benefit from it, and we do.

 

[Keith Levenberg]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
He's spending a big chunk of his wealth developing spaceships. If I ever get to ride on a spaceship it will be thanks to him and Elon. The Google guys are sinking a big chunk of their wealth into anti-aging technology. Other than riding in a spaceship there is literally nothing that would benefit me more than postponing my death. Bezos has recently started researching how to make the biggest impact philanthropically. That will probably benefit a significant number of people, as Bill Gates has already done with his foundation.

That's all to the good. However, if instead of lowering tax rates to the wealthiest individuals repeatedly over the past decade, our government had instead actually increased the funding for NASA and the extramural research budget of NIH and NSF, perhaps the greatest scientific minds in this country wouldn't have to go hat in hand to private foundations looking for funding of their research? Just a thought...

Mark Lipton

okay, but we live in a democracy, more or less. You and I can think of all sorts of wonderful uses for public dollars. Congress and the President and the people who voted for them obviously have other priorities. So what makes you so sure that if only we'd raise taxes, *those* dollars would suddenly start going towards your priorities rather than the stupid ones we have now?

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
"We're not proposing confiscating Bezos's money. Here's a list of things we can do with Bezos's money."

The reason for the paragraph separation was that there were two different issues:
1)does thinking Bezos has an outsized portion of the world's wealth and that that is a good example of income inequality entail saying one should confiscate his money (it does not, although I did say that it might entail supporting a tax on wealth which you might take to be the same thing; and 2)is it the case that Bezos' wealth is insufficient to end world hunger?

Your response to statistics by the UN and the WFP is truly what you would call gnomish. First it kills the messenger (the UN is made up of a bunch of thieves). Second it's an ignoratio elenchi since the question wasn't whether his money would be all it would take but whether he had enough money. Thirdly, it misdiagnoses the problem. Totalitarian states generally aren't models of fair income distribution, but actual hunger tends to be caused by structural elements in the world markets, most importantly the economic forces making it impossible for poor people to buy and farm land even when that land is available to be farmed. These problems are seriously exacerbated, of course, by climate and war. Even taking those forces into account, it is far more addressable than say climate change, income inequality or even various unjust governments.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
He's spending a big chunk of his wealth developing spaceships. If I ever get to ride on a spaceship it will be thanks to him and Elon. The Google guys are sinking a big chunk of their wealth into anti-aging technology. Other than riding in a spaceship there is literally nothing that would benefit me more than postponing my death. Bezos has recently started researching how to make the biggest impact philanthropically. That will probably benefit a significant number of people, as Bill Gates has already done with his foundation.

That's all to the good. However, if instead of lowering tax rates to the wealthiest individuals repeatedly over the past decade, our government had instead actually increased the funding for NASA and the extramural research budget of NIH and NSF, perhaps the greatest scientific minds in this country wouldn't have to go hat in hand to private foundations looking for funding of their research? Just a thought...

Mark Lipton

okay, but we live in a democracy, more or less. You and I can think of all sorts of wonderful uses for public dollars. Congress and the President and the people who voted for them obviously have other priorities. So what makes you so sure that if only we'd raise taxes, *those* dollars would suddenly start going towards your priorities rather than the stupid ones we have now?

The question wasn't whether a specific government would in the event act wisely with the income we'd receive from taxing Bezos. It was whether there was a more just situation than the present one. That possibility entails, of course, a more just governmental policy. If you refuse all attempts at improvement because they might not work, then you truly are an example of Leibniz's quietist.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by MLipton:
Keith,
To put the shoe on the other foot, in what way is the agglomeration of wealth a social good? How do I derive any benefit whatsoever from Jeff Bezos's personal wealth?

Mark Lipton

Is that a trick question? I benefit from Amazon just about every day as a customer (and over the long term as a shareholder). So do his employees, at least the ones not being forced to relocate to Queens.

You don't really benefit from Amazon the way you think you do and most Amazon employees definitely don't.

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
He's spending a big chunk of his wealth developing spaceships. If I ever get to ride on a spaceship it will be thanks to him and Elon. The Google guys are sinking a big chunk of their wealth into anti-aging technology. Other than riding in a spaceship there is literally nothing that would benefit me more than postponing my death. Bezos has recently started researching how to make the biggest impact philanthropically. That will probably benefit a significant number of people, as Bill Gates has already done with his foundation.

Misallocation of resources. This is at its worst precisely because wealthy individuals get to choose how to allocate it. Those are all silly replications of things that governments are designed to do and that individuals can't really pull off and probably can't even fund.

The kind of sociopathic personality it takes to be a billionaire capitalist (let's not get confused about indicators of intelligence) has nothing to do with the kind of personality it takes to promote institutions of inquiry. I'm assuming you don't know anything about this sector.

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Of course, you're entitled to think Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are dumbasses and it would be better to take all their money and have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decide how to spend it, but even in that scenario the ultimate recipients are still deriving a benefit from the wealth so taken.

I'm sure Gates and Bezos are perfectly clever fellows and I'll give Ocasio-Cortez the benefit of the doubt. I'd much rather have government technocrats making decisions about where dollars are allocated than a dilettante "businessman".

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I'm really sick of the old saw about lazy government bureaucrats. I personally don't really know any.