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Comment by rustyboy | Hacker News Reader

That's a false dichotomy. There is no reason that you can't have the opportunity to be a billionaire, while making sure that no one goes homeless or dies from a preventable disease.

People love to point to FANNG but the reality is America did this for the boomers, union membership was over 30% and we still had super wealthy people. CEO to average employee income was around 80:1, now it's closer to 250:1.

When 3 people own 50% of all wealth in America (1) it's not insane to say that we have a serious problem. I don't want everyone in America guaranteed a six figure salary but come on there's got to be a better balance.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/11/09/the-3-ric...

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I agree that there can be more equitable distribution. I struggle with why seizing wealth through taxes is the current war drum being beat. I think the most productive means to making wealth would be stressing the importance of investing and compound growth as part of the high school curriculum. Note: That's where my idea ends right now, I don't have a viable implementation path

How can you invest when you have to decide whether to fix the car or eat?

The rules aren't fair, they're made by the rich. Learning how to follow them won't make you richer because they're designed to increase the wealth at the top.

Almost no-one advocates seizing wealth hrough tax. Merely work (income). Since the rich have wealth and the poor work (earn income)

Learning how to follow rules is exatly how to become rich. Entry level retail store now pays 15/hr. 60 hours at week equates to 48k/year. Hardly unfair

Try working for 60 hours a week at minimum wage with kids and let me know how much time you have left to spend managing investments.

So 30 hrs/week for each parent.... ? I personally work ~50-60 hours a week and have plenty of time for investments. It takes around 10 minutes a week to manage, could probably trim that to 10 minutes per quarter

Either you're trolling or extremely naive. $48k/year ain't shit when a) you'll pay some of that back in taxes and b) in places where you can get $15/hour for retail you also need to shell out $30k/year just to have a small studio apartment.

I would also add:

1. 60 hours per week at $15/hr for 52.1429 weeks per year is $47k/year.

2. In this magical world where you can get 60 hours per week on the clock, you'd also be entitled to time and a half for 20 hours per week, which would actually be $55k/year. You're underselling it here!

3. And if you're talking about two+ 30 hour / week minimum wage jobs:

3a. Chances are you're now in the world where you also don't get employer healthcare. Hooray!

3b. Good luck getting all of your jobs to schedule in such a way that you actually get all 60 hours per week, without getting fired from your second job because of scheduling conflicts with your first.

For real. I was thinking back to this thread earlier today as I realized that ~25 years ago in SF I was making $14 or $15 an hour as a network technician...but my rent (for a large room in a house share) was only about $300/mo. A studio apartment would have been around $5-600 and I think my monthly travel bill was $50 or so. I don't remember enough to think out my whole budget but offhand food was maybe half or 2/3 of what it is now so your blue collar dollar went a great deal farther than it does now.

Shell out 30k/year on a studio apartment? Get off the caosts and explore America. I spend less than 30k/year on my mortgage for a house and pushing carts at Costco will net you 15/hr

All of the retail workers should move to middle America. Good plan, econ prof.

Nowadays people are lucky if that entry level retail job will give them 40 hours a week, never mind 60.

The Affordable Care Act was a blow to entry level workers in that regard. Now its probably more likely to have 2 jobs at 29.5 hours each then one at 40. Maybe the healthcare debates going on can address this

Nobody gets rich through starting out with few resources, working diligently, and investing/compounding their wages. It's possible to become financially independent that way if one is smart and lucky, but not rich. By 'financially independent' I mean you can stop working for other people without putting your survival at risk.

If you want to be rich you either need to start out with money (giving you bargaining power in every negotiated investment decision) or innovate in some way and bargain very aggressively and successfully. And that doesn't just mean bargaining with your competitors and members of the investment class, but doing the same with employees in your organization. One of the most reliable ways to do this is to suggest that you got rich through a mixture of hard work and fiscal prudence and then get them to sign away most of their negotiating power on a contract drafted for your benefit.

I don't agree that wealth is the factor that should be measured instead of income. Income is the number that matters--wealth is just unspent income.

I think wealth is just chosen because the differences are more dramatic.

About this: "CEO to average employee income was around 80:1, now it's closer to 250:1."

I think that is nearly equivalent to saying that the average company is now 4x larger. CEO pay is strongly related to the size of the company.

If this is a problem (not saying it is or isn't) then the solution would be to make companies smaller. We could break them up. Nothing else is required, certainly not income confiscation.

Something feeding this change is that companies now operate across borders more. That makes companies bigger. A trouble with breaking up large companies is that other nations might not do likewise. Nations that don't break up companies could have an advantage over those that do, with their companies having greater economy of scale.

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