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Comment by ashkankiani | Hacker News Reader

What exactly do you intend to do with infinite wealth? What kind of life do you lead that isn't satisfied by what would be otherwise normal constraints?

I'm asking seriously. I've done this exercise for myself on what I want for my life, and the answer is that I can already afford it, and if we weren't so wasteful with our surplus of food, weren't so corrupted by regulatory capture as to allow companies to charge whatever for essentials, then most people would probably be able to achieve that same level of comfort.

What is it that you or anyone else needs an infinite amount of wealth for?

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According to rich people, there are some genuine significant life improvements available to the rich. But at some point the improvements become very marginal. A few servants can improve your life, but going to 100 doesn't add much. A vacation home is one thing, but 7 is only very marginally better.

As your post implies, upper middle class Americans have already hit the point of marginal returns for most aspects of life. You don't get much better than an iPhone, a PS5, a standard dishwasher, standard fridge, a reliable car, et cetera.

But there are a few out of reach. The most expensive significant upgrade is a private jet. That's available to centi-millionaires. Nothing available to billionaires is a significant improvement, just a marginal one.

Except for power.

If you merely want to afford a good life, you don’t need excess wealth.

If you want to ensure you have maximum power and control over others, there is likely no limit to the wealth you will be satisfied with.

Imagine for instance if you were a massive deca-billionaire, you could just pick a random person off the street and make them a multi-millionaire with the same ease that someone fills up their gas tank. In a society where money runs through everything, this is a god like power.

The biggest argument I have against a wealth cap is that in implementing it by force, you’ll do a great deal of violence to the markets themselves.

Is this a global cap? If so, can we just have a global world peace treaty first, just to prove you can get 200+ states to all agree on something easy, before trying one where it’s in their extreme economic interest to not agree? If not global, it’s just a game where the wealthy will hire lawyers to move money around and structure it in ways that escape the trap.

And the level at which it triggers will be subject to constant fuckery by politicians, depending on their budgetary needs. Once it’s low enough, and it will be eventually, it’ll hit normal people who just own a couple of McDonalds franchises. And they won’t be able to do the fancy maneuvers that Bezos, Musk, Zuck will do. In the end you’ve solved nothing and driven a ton of tax revenue out of your country.

The US has global taxation so, YS plus the rest of the OECD would probably be stable.

If we're going to tax wealth, then we should probably tax it to just below the level of growth, so that it doesn't spiral towards a singularity.

> What exactly do you intend to do with infinite wealth? What kind of life do you lead that isn't satisfied by what would be otherwise normal constraints? I'm asking seriously

You allocate it to productive means, you don't consume it.

Or you can spend it on elections.

> Or you can spend it on elections.

Many people spend a portion of their wealth in elections. Even middle class voters.

Are you seriously trying to compare half a billion total spent by a single man (just Elon) to middle class people contributing $50 to an election?

According to the data I could find, on average the middle class donate <$100. At least 55% donate <$100, with most being small donations.

Let's be generous and use $100. That means one person exerted the equivalent pressure of 5 million people.

What the fuck are you on about at this point. What is this stupid technically correct "but many people spend on elections" nonsense? Are you being purposefully obtuse?

> Are you seriously trying to compare half a billion total spent by a single man (just Elon) to middle class people contributing $50 to an election?

Yes, I am.

It is a policy failure to allow ANYONE to spend money to influence / support elected officials. Your only influence should be voting.

But, the wealthy use their wealth to influence policy. Policy that benefits them. Like policy that allows them to spend infinite money to influence elections. How do the non-wealthy stop that?

You do realize more money was spent on the party opposing Trump? Money can lose. Money apparently doesn't like the right wing but the right wins anyway without money.

Agree.

It feels odd that you would point out the little guy when there is kind of this elephant in the room.

You could have just said we need to get money out of politics.

So, if you had many billions, you wouldn’t run ads to help Democrats win? You’d sit by and let Trump or similar win without even telling people how bad he is? How could you live with yourself?

It’s funny because a decade ago nobody cared that the Silicon Valley and Hollywood rich sets consistently poured money into the Democratic Party.

Then when they took the party far to the left in the 2016-2020 era, and Silicon Valley noped out and started supporting the GOP just to block them, then suddenly it became a big problem where their donations were going.

Oh, so you believe you are the best judge of how to allocate resources, and that without the ability for a single person to decide this, we'll suffer... how exactly? Are you going to say we can't maximize productive velocity in tech development, or medicine, or something else where we need the maximum productive speed? How is all of that productive velocity going to benefit people? Will it regrow the forests that were razed for productivity? Will it unpollute the lead that was productively allocated to the air and the sea?

Do you see billionaires doing that right now? Are they the most efficient resource allocators? Is the $250 million that Elon is spending to influence the election the best use of that $250 million that he could've achieved?

I would like some more serious answers from you, otherwise don't bother allocating your effort to responding. I'm sure you, as an excellent allocator, will come to the same conclusion.

> Oh, so you believe you are the best judge of how to allocate resources

The person, our group of people, who have built the specific heap of wealth (e.g. a company) are the best stewards in my opinion. It does not mean that they WILL increase the wealth even more, they might run it into the ground, but they are the only ones who have the moral right and probably the experience.

I'll concede to see where this goes. Fine, it's allocated, not consumed.

Then consumption isn't the dispute, and the yachts are a distraction. So the question is what unbounded accumulation buys that bounded accumulation can't. Not welfare, since you've just said it's all reinvested.

What's left is control: over which projects get capital, which technologies get built, which politicians get funded. $250M toward an election is the same capital, doing the same "allocation." Is concentrated control over allocation a good we should maximize? And is "they built this heap" a sufficient moral title to it, including when the heap was inherited rather than built (which is the majority of the time)?

You should have a separation of money and politics, similar to separation of church and state. USA fails at both, the state is way too influenced by both religion and money. It should be illegal for churches or money to tell people what to vote for, it is in many other countries.

Without that you will always run into these sort of issues. The problem isn't wealth inequality, the problem is that wealth buys political power.

So if I found a company and it becomes worth a billion dollars, thereby making me a billionaire, I get the guillotine or what? Where is the cutoff for me losing the fruits of my labors?

Productive means! is that what you want them to do or $100M wedding to show off their wealth? Or may be productivity is a giant boat to party on? Or $Trillions invested in gold?

The zillionaires buy thinktanks to push their agenda by claiming this nonsense. Infinite wealth = erosion of democracy when few people try to change the world to their liking.

> $100M wedding to show off their wealth?

Who do you think got that $100m spend? Didn't it go to all the service providers? The caterers, the people who worked the function, hotels, food distributors, the musicians, the travel agencies, cab drivers, coffee shops, etc.?

Or do you think it was just thrown into the water?

Heck, I know middle class people who spend $50k on a wedding and I think that's obscene, but their right.

Do you know what the velocity of money is? And why is it that velocity of money is going down in USA if the wealthy are spending are their cash on services? Look it up.

Monies from infinite wealth can not be spent on services in totality. It is mostly accumulated slowing down the velocity of money. In fact there don't use their own money to grow their business. The wedding was expensive because it was for a VIP and they charged more. All those guests would have eaten dinner if they didn't eat the food in the wedding.

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