Hacker News Reader

Comment by IanCal | Hacker News Reader

In good idle games they shift the goal once you hit more boring levels.

Stealing partly from someone else I can't find a reference for:

Ownership capped at 1 billion, you get a sticker saying "I won capitalism" and all further growth and income goes to the government for social programs. You get a new ticker that estimates lives saved and people homes/fed/educated - that becomes your new boasting figure.

Not entirely serious but extreme wealth should be considered a bug. Perhaps it's true that the best system overall always results in this but it's worth considering that it might not be.

View on HN

Yes - this! Perhaps it should be "Ok yay you won, now did you win in cheat mode (by exploiting people and reasources) or real mode!"

Since Forbes is the default scoreboard perhaps when it makes its Billionaires List, instead of a basic sort ranked by on net worth, Forbes should incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance like factors similar to those starting to be used for Equity investing [1] and do a final ranking based on ESG*net worth.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line

Nah, it's an option for starting againm.in video games you get to win in the initial difficulty, but then you can start again in plus mode

Yes - that's fair - that's the Andrew Carnegie and Alfred Nobel style of gaming. After winning first in cheat mode, play again in real mode!

Do you think billionaires would just stop and let the system collect their money? My first thought is they would just donate all ownership over the cap to family members. They could probably continue this forever before every family member gains $1B

Seems perfectly fine to me. Gifts are taxed in the US. If it causes resulting problems, deal with it then. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good.

How is this considered "good" in this scenario? Income is taxed anyway. So how to rerouting money away from "taxed income" to "taxed gifts" help anything?

It would mean that income is taxed twice or equivalent to it being taxed higher. Under a core assumption here that the tax revenue is used to help, this is better than it not happening.

More importantly though, it's not a precise tax plan it's intended to show the absurdity of the outcome we currently have rather than show a particular way out. That the answers are often "but there would be loopholes" rather than "having people amass much more wealth is inherently good for us all" is telling.

This wealth might not be accumulated through income, and thus not taxed as income?

Couldn’t you just cap non-charitable gifts to something like $1 million lifetime per recipient in that case? I doubt that’d be particularly controversial with anyone who isn’t a multi-millionaire, unless I’m missing something.

Or cap them on the donor.

Perhaps missed the end of the comment there.

Edit - though, they do. They already do. Not at the same level but they do let the government take their money.

And also, how else would they increase their score on the next level?

That's still a better outcome though? The result is that wealth is distributed to more people

...you get a sticker...

Consider for a moment what privileges would have to attach to this sticker, in order for the billionaires to let this through Congress. Definitely they would still want to have control of dominant cultural narratives, and they'd still want to write all the laws, and those of them who appreciate fabulous personal possessions would still appreciate those. The administration of this sticker would be quite complicated...

You've pretty much summed up why billionaires shouldn't exist: their existence is incompatible with democracy. (I don't know how best to fix this either.)

It's telling that the responses to a non-serious tax plan are not on the topic "why billionaires existing is inherently good" but like this where you argue that billionaires have too much control over the democratic process for it to be implemented and a concern over the administration of a small scale sticker run.

> Ownership capped at 1 billion, you get a sticker saying "I won capitalism" and all further growth and income goes to the government for social programs. You get a new ticker that estimates lives saved and people homes/fed/educated - that becomes your new boasting figure.

But that would be a lie since most of that money/value was created by other people, most likely their employees.

First off, those employees have been paid already, so I'm not sure what the relevance is. If they agreed to work for 100k/year, and forgo the risk of starting a company, why should they get more than the agreed upon price after the company does well? It may be in the companies interest to give them a bonus to keep them around, but that's a separate issue.

Second, the only way you can argue they created more value than the founder of the company is in aggregate. But they also likely made more money than the founder in aggregate. A company tries to pay employees based on the value they bring. If a CEO makes 10,000,000/year, it's probably because the company thinks that CEO is worth it (adds more value than that). So it's silly to point out that the 1000 engineers below him add more value in aggregate. Why, yes.. they also get paid way more than 10,000,000/year in aggregate.

And if the CEO/founder flat out owns the company then all this talk is irrelevant. It's theirs. They can do what they want. If they hired people to build the company for them and the people agreed, good for them. Sounds like a beneficial negotiation for both parties.

Edit: I'm not necessarily arguing for or against the existence of billionaires. That's a tough problem that I don't think I know the answer to. I'm just saying that pointing out that "employees add the real value to the company" is a dumb argument.

Does the employee still get that money if the company goes under? People getting pink slips says that they're taking on just as much risk as the founder. Signing that contract does not guarantee the 100k/year

You get paid as long as you keep working, which is what the contract is. If you had to keep working whether or not the company can pay you, that would obviously be a lot riskier. But that isn’t how things work. If the company goes under you go get a new job, and sign another contract.

What you talk about in your first paragraph is irrelevant. I am talking about the actual value the employees bring through their value, not what price they managed to negotiate for their labor on the market. If a restaurant is operated by 10 employees who manage to do all the work while the owner lives in Costa Rica, then all the value is created by the employees, even if they are only paid 10 USD an hour each.

Secondly, it’s just laughably wrong to suggest that a “company tries to pay employees based on the value they bring”. Employees are paid what they need to be paid in order to get them to work there. No more, no less. A sweatshop worker might bring much more value than the cents they are paid, and a programmer might bring much more value than their 100K salary would suggest (see e.g. no-poach agreements between Google and other big companies).

(Seriously. Cite on economist that claims that “company tries to pay employees based on the value they bring”.)

And risk is irrelevant to the question of value. If someone wins a billion dollars, should we thank them for their hard work if they donate it to charity? Maybe for the money, but it would be misleading to conflate speculation/gambling with work.

You are so fundamentally misguided that it’s just laughable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com