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Comment by saghm | Hacker News Reader

> Are those excess returns not work? What are they?

Wealth extracted from a market, which is what the parent commenter said in the first place

What do you mean “extracted”? The wealth is sitting there in his 401(k) being risked through (highly) fractional ownership of various publicly traded business ventures.

I mean "not earned through work", as evidenced by your description of it "as as sitting there". Risk isn't the same as work.

Do you think “work” means literally “manual labor”?

Work means the creation of things. Clicking on stocks for your 401k is not working.

The counter-examples are so obvious it makes me feel that pointing them out wouldn’t actually help you understand reality

The counter-examples are so obvious you didn't feel the need to cite even one?

Please provide an example of how logging in to fidelity.com to see that today my net worth increased by a multiple of my annual salary constitutes "work". Define your terms so it's clear to readers.

If I spend 30 minutes this week looking at my investments, but a fund manager spends 60 hours, that’s a difference in quality and quantity not kind.

Fund managers are paid to do a job by the owners of capital. Obviously that job is is work. The overwhelming majority of the gains accrue to the owners, and only a small fraction to the diligent fund manager who did the work.

Are you sure you tried to come up with a counter example?

Now you’re just question-begging.

If the only kind of “work” is “selling your labor” then sure, but I think a farmer tilling his own soil is “working”.

Work implies the creation of value: physical artifacts, services, or more generally, stuff that adds to the world. Capital gails isn't work, you're getting money without adding anything to the world.

What is being “extracted” from what?

I described it as “sitting there” to contrast my viewpoint that in fact it’s not being “extracted” from anything as far as I can tell.

Some Nvidia employees are making graphics cards, that cost $1000, and use $300 of materials, and being paid $200. $500 is being extracted from the value chain at that point and some of that is going to you because you own Nvidia stock.

Ah, the labor theory of value. That makes sense.

It’s totally incoherent and unreliable as an explanation for an economy, but it explains the comments in this thread.

Did you reply to the wrong comment by mistake?

What would that $500 not being “extracted from the value chain” look like?

It would either be passed along the chain or it would not enter the chain.

Seriously, what does “passed along the chain” look like in your example?

Given to the people who create the value.

How is that distinct from the labor theory of value? In your model, who’s creating the value other than the labor?

A GPU is worth $10k. When someone brings a GPU into existence it creates $10k of value. What is needed to bring a GPU into existence?

Well, for one thing, billions of dollars of capital!

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