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Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

This may be off-topic.

>Billionaires are like black holes. We deduce their existence from the fundamental laws of capitalism, see their gravity pull politics into their orbit, even detect signals of their existence in the public markets.

I dont know about others. This is very beautifully put. But I am wondering if anyone has an counter argument. Because this basically means money > power;

> "As gravity pulls politics into their orbit."

It may be true in US or other democratic nations. It certainly isn't true in Russia or China. If what was described was fundamental laws of capitalism, Could we argue those nations where power is greater than money are not capitalism?

If so, what is the opposing force against the laws of capitalism? And are there anything in physics such as opposing force of the laws of gravity? Without going into Space Time?

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The pull of oligarchs is more real in Russia than anywhere else in the world.

> The pull of oligarchs is more real in Russia than anywhere else in the world.

It may have been true at some point. But, Putin put an end to it. He killed oligarchs when they fell out of line. There are some ex-oligarchs living outside of Russia, no longer super rich, after Putin took away their wealth.

The more money you allow into politics, the more politics becomes about money.

Thank You !

There is no counter argument because you haven't even made an argument to counter. It's just the same tired old "government is in the pocket of billionaires" canard that people who don't know how anything actually works throw out without ever actually providing any evidence of it.

> But I am wondering if anyone has an counter argument.

Confiscating all the US billionaires' wealth wouldn't even lower the US's debt by 20%.

France's public spending is 60% of the GDP, the situation in France is totally catastrophic (6% deficit atm) and... We should listen to Piketty because he's only ever worked public jobs and... He's french? And came up with an ultra-simplistic formula using bogus data?

I mean... If Piketty says it, obviously government spending representing 60% of the GDP ain't enough. Let's make it 100% and called it a planned economy. Because we saw a lot of fully functioning communist societies on earth?

Ponder this.

what a weird argument. > Confiscating all the US billionaires' wealth wouldn't even lower the US's debt by 20%.

so in other word confiscating the wealth of < 1000 people would reduce the US (a nation of ~300 M people) debt by nearly 20%. In other words we could significantly reduce the budget (much less interest payments) by taking away the wealth of ~0.0003% of the population. That seems like a no-brainer in terms of policies (the government makes decisions that takes peoples wealth away every day).

And guess who's going to renounce to US citizenship and/or start companies outside the US after that? Are entrepreneurs still going to immigrate to the US knowing that their wealth will be confiscated once they become successful? Who is going to fund the startups? etc.

If the US were to implement such measures, get ready for an exodus of talent and capital.

Yes, and after we confiscate their assets, we turn them into delicious meat pies. Surely this is not unethical because each billionaire, turned into meat pies, will feed many dozens of us.

a "no-brainer"? for a one-time reduction? that severely damages America's ability to generate wealth? am I taking crazy pills today? I advise you to compare America's GDP per capita and especially disposable income per capita to any other country. wealth generation matters so much more than distribution.

> that severely damages America's ability to generate wealth?

Why would it damage that ability? The assets those billionaires own aren't going away. The skills of the people working at those businesses aren't going away.

Because dealing with someone who has proven willing to steal is bad for business. We've seen this happen again and again with communists who think they are oh so clever for 'nationalizing' their business to collect all the profits. They inevitably then find their actions effectively self-embargoed as other businesses avoid them like plague-ridden cannibals because that is what they are. Why show up to trade if there is a good chance they'll just seize all of your goods?

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