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Comment by vFunct | Hacker News Reader

Has there ever been a time where economic efficiency reduced the GDP instead of growing it?

Same with AI.

GDP has nothing to do with the quality of life of your citizens. This is the same logic as people who say the market is up so the economy is good while there is rampart homelessness and no middle class. You will never see the problem while you look at people as GDP.

It literally does. Billionaires don't exist without everyone else also becoming wealthier.

It's why China was able to eliminate extreme poverty while creating hundreds of billionaires.

You may think this inequality is unfair, but economics isn't concerned about inequality. Why? Because inequality doesn't matter. What only matters is poverty, and the elimination of it.

And I always find it hilarious that socialists can never say "I want to eliminate poverty"

I would love to eliminate poverty and traditional economist are wrong, income inequality matters. Norway has a lower GDP than US but a significantly higher quality of life cand longer life expectancy. Income distribution is much better in Norway than it is in the US with the top 10% only holding 25% of the wealth in Norway compared to 70% in the US with the top 1% having 30% of that. You mention China but the top 10% of earners in China have 40% of the income which is still less than the 70% in the US.

Doesn’t matter. A billionaire’s existence doesn’t take away from the poor, since wealth isn’t zero-sum.

Focus on the poor, not the rich.

The two are intertwined. You cannot give to the poor without the rich paying what they owe.

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