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Comment by smnrchrds | Hacker News Reader

So what? The wealth gap is increasing. Its increase is so huge we need examples like this to just comprehend how bad it's gotten.

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And?

Gaps are not even remotely what we should be focussed on and are purely based on jealous or indirect aggression.

Concentrate on living standards and opportunity that will help far more people than trying pull down a vanishingly small number of people.

billionaires are criminal by definition, and their existence proves the absence of a (econ 101 style) market in whatever industry they came from. we can only fix this problem through efficient regulation of monopolies.

I wouldn't even know where to start with that, I'm sorry but I must simply say it's utter gibberish.

> Billionaires are criminal by definition

Sadly, billionaires aren’t criminal by definition (no such laws), but the existence of billionaires sure does cut against the idea of a perfect market (in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits).

in a functional market, competition for profit exists. because billionaires exist, we know they control their market, squeezing out competitors through artificial and illegal means.

> squeezing out competitors through artificial and illegal means.

Their means are legal. They make them legal though "regulation". It is why they do not get fines (most of the time) nor are in jail.

> in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits

I'm curious what your definition of a perfect market is.

In free markets, without profits the companies will fail.

There is a mathematically based definition of a perfect market. It’s only an approximation of real life, but it’s heavily used: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/perfectcompetition.asp

Your reference says:

"Companies earn just enough profit to stay in business"

which contradicts your comment:

"in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits"

I think the idea is that in the limit T->inf the profits go to zero.

That's not what the referenced definition of a "perfect" market says.

Besides, who would run a business that could not make a profit?

I've had this exact discussion with friends who study economics. The idea is that in a market with perfect flow of information (i.e. fairy land) then the profits tend to zero, I don't think this is a model for much of the real world if any.

> then the profits tend to zero

That makes as much sense as people working for nothing. I don't see any explanation for profits tending to zero, either.

I wonder why "perfect" markets are even a thing. It has no applicability to actual markets. It offers no insight on actual markets, and offers no useful predictions about markets. It's about as useful a model as the Monopoly game is - i.e. none.

I've seen many people claim that a "perfect" market is a requirement for free markets to work well. This isn't remotely true. "Perfect" markets and free markets have nothing in common.

"Perfect" markets just seem to be a strawman put forth by people who argue that since "perfect" markets are unachievable, therefore free markets are no good.

So which particular billionaire-funded business adventures would you like to see abandoned or especially, never begun?

That assumes infinite number of competent, driven and well funded market participants that jump on every opportunity or inefficiency .

The real world is anything but that. There is very small number of competent driven people and vast ocean of opportunity and value waiting to be created. If you deliver the value people will be more than happy to pay. Maybe someone competes with you if the field is ripe enough or maybe not if they choose another one. There is a lot of fruit out there and we are far far away from the point where people need to compete for the same one.

Have you seen the realstate market? Competition is all there is. The food market, probably the oldest market, is full of startups and more enter the space each year. There is no shortage of untapped competition in any industry.

Unfortunately it's not possible to get major cities to work, at least not the Californian ones. The second best answer is to build more major cities. The irony of course is that the next major city won't be in California either.

Definition of a "perfect" market, first line:

"All firms sell an identical product"

Seems one of those cases where perfect doesn't mean anything like "good". It's entirely irrelevant to the case at point.

It is the whole point.

By "definition", if it's being bought in a "perfect-free-market" it is only because it's been deemed good enough.

Your hyperbole is going completely off the far deep end

"billionaires are criminal by definition"

What definitions are you using?

When you talk like this, you're hardly helping your cause. Ppl just dismiss you as intellectually dishonest

criminal because otherwise competitors could actually compete, rather than be subject to illegal monopolistic forces. Criminals, all.

Most, if not all monopolies are government granted in one way or another.

As far as criminality goes, billionaires are the least criminals of us all because they've been able to use and sometimes change the law to make them not fall into the definition of criminality.

In short, what's needed is less "regulation" as it is the main defense mechanism monopolies employ to stay monopolies.

So let's look at one random tech Billionaire: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson

-creates a product using open, well known technology in highly competitive, easy to enter video game industry

-people love the game

-he becomes a billionaire

Can you point out what kind of regulation could have stopped this criminal by definition from completing his evil plan?

Max wealth limit of 999 million, might do it.

Everything else is taxed at 100%.

To be fair, this would encourage super rich people to have more children. Not a bad outcome but it's still not the silver bullet that everyone thinks it is.

No it doesn't. I'm not pro socialism, communism, nor capitalism (as defined today). However, we can have proper societies with great standards of living, while having extremely rich people (i.e. billionaires). It's been done in the past, and no reason why it can't be replicated other than people not wanting to address the true underlying causes of the messed up financial system we live in today.

>their existence proves the absence of a (econ 101 style) market in whatever industry they came from.

Actually, it proves that a single company can serve an entire market and by that extension a single CEO can serve an entire market. It's not that the CEO is super productive, it's just that there is no need for a second CEO.

You're right about monopolies though. One single company serving an entire market will just cause inefficiency over the long term.

I agree that concentrating on living standards is a good idea, but I also think massive wealth and income inequality is a barrier to truly free society. I hope it continues to stay in focus alongside other issues.

Then solve the true underlying problem: move away from the usurious financial system to a proper one.

It's not just that Joe is rich while Bob is poor. Joe is rich because Bob is poor. And vice versa. It can't be any other way. Grasp that and you've got the whole thing. Sure, focus on living standards and opportunity, but those are just two more metrics that illustrate the same inequality.

> Joe is rich because Bob is poor. And vice versa. Grasp that and you've got the whole thing.

Well, why should I grasp that? Just prove it's true and I'll be convinced. But I bet you can't prove it, and you just feel it must be like that.

Edit: happy to be proved wrong. Make an effort.

Say n = 3. You've got 3 people, all of whom are equally wealthy. Now make one of them richer. The other two are now poor. They weren't before, but now they are, by comparison if nothing else. It's a wealth distribution. You can't have an upper end without a lower end. Notice I'm not even insisting that the rich guy gets his wealth from the other two, but if he did, then the two are literally poorer as well.

Good point, I agree with the basic principle. But in your example you made 33% of the population richer. If you made richer a single person out of 1 million, would the other 999999 be equally poor as in your previous example? I'd say they wouldn't, because the overwhelming majority of those they interacted with would still be as wealthy as themselves. They might even never cross paths with the richer one. So yes, slightly poorer but almost imperceptibly so.

Anyway, the clickbait title seems to imply some (inverse) connection between the two figures- minimum wage and Wall Street bonuses. Yes the bonuses have grown dramatically, and yes there can be something wrong in the fact that minimum wages are so low; but trying to create a connection between the two is moral blackmail.

I honestly don't see it that way. The current wealth inequality factors don't have anything to do with it. The economy is merely broken, not inherently unfair. However, the way it is broken is unfair and fixing the economy (get inflation back on track) will make it fair again.

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