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United States43675 Posts
On February 04 2016 04:37 Acrofales wrote:
That's an incredibly small minded example. You're focusing on one guy's garden where the oil comes out of the ground for virtually free. Let's call that guy Saudi Arabia just for fun.
Saudi Arabia doesn't live in a vacuum. Saudi Arabia could sell the oil to his neighbor Yemen who could use it to get to work. Because it costs him nothing he only really charges enough to cover his living costs. Now Yemen has the oil and can get to work. Value has been added, but Yemen has a pretty shitty job, and happens to have a Uncle, Sam, who also needs oil to get to work and has a far better job that adds more value than Yemen's shitty job. Uncle Sam is willing to imburse Yemen for the price he paid to Saudi Arabia AND a healthy living allowance.
What did Yemen do in this scenario? Nothing. Now wealth was distributed better. The same barrel of oil is feeding two families instead of making Saudi Arabia filthy rich while leaving Yemen dirt poor. However, there is no incentive for Saudi Arabia to do it like this. Upon figuring out what is going on, he can stop selling to Yemen at all and just sell directly to Uncle Sam.
Now to stop Saudi Arabia from doing that you need government. The government can take away Saudi Arabia's money and give it to Yemen. But good luck figuring out how, and how much to take away and how to give it away again... it's not as simple as your silly story makes it seem. It's what 90% of this thread is about.
Your simplistic explanation of capitalism and opportunity cost tells nobody anything they don't already know. I'm not proposing that we mandate different prices for oil, I'm identifying that while capitalism rewards the creation of value with profit not all that is profitable is the creation of value and in those situations it is a zero sum game. The excess profit in addition to that which was necessary does not improve the situation at all, it does not lead to new products nor to more research. All it does is take wealth from the pockets of the consumers and transfer it to the owners.
Zuckerberg would not have stayed in bed if you told him that he'd only make a billion dollars from facebook. That he now has 30 billion hasn't spurred him on to new and greater heights, it just means there is a 30 billion dollar gap between the costs required to make facebook happen (including the need for returns to investors, compensating those who risked capital/time/effort) and what he charged the end users (mostly advertisers). Charging less would have not changed anything beyond lowered their costs and lowered his profits. At that point it's a zero sum game.
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United States43675 Posts
On February 04 2016 04:46 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 04:38 KwarK wrote:
We need capitalism so that the things that we want rewarded are rewarded. However that does not mean that all that capitalism rewards is worthy of reward. Capitalism does not distinguish between the man who invents a tool for finding oil reserves and the man who stumbles upon oil. The transfer of wealth from the consumers of oil to the former is necessary for the invention, the transfer of wealth to the latter is not necessary for the discovery. And yet by the rules of capitalism it is now necessary to transfer wealth from our pockets to the pockets of both every time we wish to travel.
All that adds value is profitable but not all that is profitable adds value. Thankfully we have Kwark, our god-king, to tell us when something is profitable because it adds value and when something is profitable because it is profitable. Microsoft's added value to the world was exactly X, says Kwark, and therefore we shall take away money from Bill Gates until he is left with exactly X. It's only fair, because that is the value he created. But wait. Old buddy Bill had help! Luckily our god-king knows that Bill contributed exactly Y% to the total value of Microsoft. He should thus have earned Y% of X and not a penny more. Clearly a better system!
Yes, clearly that was exactly what I was advocating. I'm glad we had you here to put words in my mouth because otherwise I might never have said them.
Fuck off.
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Glad you see how irritating it is when somebody ignores all the complexities of the issue. I wonder where I got that idea.
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On February 04 2016 04:27 Simberto wrote:
To further explain KwarKs argument, it is not about the person. Of course a rational capitalist tries to maximise his own profit, and the guy with the oil is gonna sell it for whatever he is going to get for it. No one is saying that he shouldn't (Because people don't work that way)
But we are talking systemic here. The goal is to maximise the value gained to society. There is no difference in the value gained to society if the oil is sold at half price, as long as that doesn't reduce the amount of oil sold.
Or to get back to the original point, there is no difference in the gain to society by whatever a superrich person does depending on how much money he makes it, as long as he does it. It does not matter if Bill Gates makes 70 billion or 10 billion off of Microsoft, as long as he produces windows etc...
And if there is no difference in total gain, the only relevant question is regarding distribution. And i think a lot of people would agree that Bill Gates having 60 more billions worth of stuff lying about does not make for a very good distribution of ressources.
What you are all describing is a simplistic version of the Coase theorem. Which is an idea in property law that no matter how you set the initial allocation of property rights, an efficient outcome will emerge.
To go with the oil example, true, it does not matter overall in the economy if I say the landowner cannot sell oil for more than $1, however that just shifts the windfall from the landowner to the person with the purchasing contract with the landowner, thus all the perceived savings from A go to B as the value of his purchasing contract is increased by $24/barrel. And so on.
However, this way of thinking is only valid if you are modifying initial conditions in allocating a known, discrete, property. It does not hold if, for instance, only the first 1000 barrels are efficient to produce at $1/barrel and then next 1000 at $2/barrel and so on. Then your $1/barrel rule creates a massive inefficiency as lots of oil is never extracted despite it being useful to extract it. Now maybe you have another rule in mind, like a $1 profit per rule? How did you decide on that rule? How do you know it will keep oil production from this well up till the $25 per point? What if there is a needed capital expense to get there? All these questions demonstrate the incredible difficulty of even attempting to make such a system, even in the most basic of scenarios.
And what about Microsoft? Well, it might have failed, almost failed, and then became huge. Now Bill gates has 80 billion dollars. You say he would have done all he did for 1 billion, possibly true, but once again where do we allocate the 79 billion in excess, knowing full well that the rule we make is less about Bill Gates and his current wealth, and more about encouraging Bill Gates to provide lots of "excess value" in his future investments (instead of engaging in dubious money sink charity operations like Zuckerberg did in Newark), and encouraging an 18-year old to provide the world with $80billion, even though he knows that by some mechanism he will only extract 1/80th that amount.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
it is a better idea to stay off of a pretty peculiar example like raw resource. of course there will be some rent inherent in the ownership of a piece of the planet. look at production and work.
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It don't see what's wrong with the basic idea of Georgism, which is to hand over natural resources to the public and utilize land value taxes to redistribute wealth. It's especially relevant today because it's pretty much the only form of wealth taxation that can't be easily avoided, and it's extremely under-utilized.
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On February 04 2016 04:50 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 04:27 Simberto wrote:
To further explain KwarKs argument, it is not about the person. Of course a rational capitalist tries to maximise his own profit, and the guy with the oil is gonna sell it for whatever he is going to get for it. No one is saying that he shouldn't (Because people don't work that way)
But we are talking systemic here. The goal is to maximise the value gained to society. There is no difference in the value gained to society if the oil is sold at half price, as long as that doesn't reduce the amount of oil sold.
Or to get back to the original point, there is no difference in the gain to society by whatever a superrich person does depending on how much money he makes it, as long as he does it. It does not matter if Bill Gates makes 70 billion or 10 billion off of Microsoft, as long as he produces windows etc...
And if there is no difference in total gain, the only relevant question is regarding distribution. And i think a lot of people would agree that Bill Gates having 60 more billions worth of stuff lying about does not make for a very good distribution of ressources.
What you are all describing is a simplistic version of the Coase theorem. Which is an idea in property law that no matter how you set the initial allocation of property rights, an efficient outcome will emerge. To go with the oil example, true, it does not matter overall in the economy if I say the landowner cannot sell oil for more than $1, however that just shifts the windfall from the landowner to the person with the purchasing contract with the landowner, thus all the perceived savings from A go to B as the value of his purchasing contract is increased by $24/barrel. And so on. However, this way of thinking is only valid if you are modifying initial conditions in allocating a known, discrete, property. It does not hold if, for instance, only the first 1000 barrels are efficient to produce at $1/barrel and then next 1000 at $2/barrel and so on. Then your $1/barrel rule creates a massive inefficiency as lots of oil is never extracted despite it being useful to extract it. Now maybe you have another rule in mind, like a $1 profit per rule? How did you decide on that rule? How do you know it will keep oil production from this well up till the $25 per point? What if there is a needed capital expense to get there? All these questions demonstrate the incredible difficulty of even attempting to make such a system, even in the most basic of scenarios. And what about Microsoft? Well, it might have failed, almost failed, and then became huge. Now Bill gates has 80 billion dollars. You say he would have done all he did for 1 billion, possibly true, but once again where do we allocate the 79 billion in excess, knowing full well that the rule we make is less about Bill Gates and his current wealth, and more about encouraging Bill Gates to provide lots of "excess value" in his future investments (instead of engaging in dubious money sink charity operations like Zuckerberg did in Newark), and encouraging an 18-year old to provide the world with $80billion, even though he knows that by some mechanism he will only extract 1/80th that amount.
Gates could have used that money to invest in his employees at all levels so the wealth he accumulated wasn't as concentrated at the head. Make sure all his employees (regardless of position) at least enough money to have a decent living. Incentivizes people to want to work for him and make the work force highly motivated to want to work there (even as like a janitor).
I have always wondered, why a company wouldn't want more money in the hands of consumers because then they spend more and they get a return on their "investment" of paying more to their employees through their increased spending and overall satisfaction (leading to being more engaged in their work, higher desire to want to do their best, and overall satisfaction).
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On February 04 2016 04:57 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 04:50 cLutZ wrote:On February 04 2016 04:27 Simberto wrote:
To further explain KwarKs argument, it is not about the person. Of course a rational capitalist tries to maximise his own profit, and the guy with the oil is gonna sell it for whatever he is going to get for it. No one is saying that he shouldn't (Because people don't work that way)
But we are talking systemic here. The goal is to maximise the value gained to society. There is no difference in the value gained to society if the oil is sold at half price, as long as that doesn't reduce the amount of oil sold.
Or to get back to the original point, there is no difference in the gain to society by whatever a superrich person does depending on how much money he makes it, as long as he does it. It does not matter if Bill Gates makes 70 billion or 10 billion off of Microsoft, as long as he produces windows etc...
And if there is no difference in total gain, the only relevant question is regarding distribution. And i think a lot of people would agree that Bill Gates having 60 more billions worth of stuff lying about does not make for a very good distribution of ressources.
What you are all describing is a simplistic version of the Coase theorem. Which is an idea in property law that no matter how you set the initial allocation of property rights, an efficient outcome will emerge. To go with the oil example, true, it does not matter overall in the economy if I say the landowner cannot sell oil for more than $1, however that just shifts the windfall from the landowner to the person with the purchasing contract with the landowner, thus all the perceived savings from A go to B as the value of his purchasing contract is increased by $24/barrel. And so on. However, this way of thinking is only valid if you are modifying initial conditions in allocating a known, discrete, property. It does not hold if, for instance, only the first 1000 barrels are efficient to produce at $1/barrel and then next 1000 at $2/barrel and so on. Then your $1/barrel rule creates a massive inefficiency as lots of oil is never extracted despite it being useful to extract it. Now maybe you have another rule in mind, like a $1 profit per rule? How did you decide on that rule? How do you know it will keep oil production from this well up till the $25 per point? What if there is a needed capital expense to get there? All these questions demonstrate the incredible difficulty of even attempting to make such a system, even in the most basic of scenarios. And what about Microsoft? Well, it might have failed, almost failed, and then became huge. Now Bill gates has 80 billion dollars. You say he would have done all he did for 1 billion, possibly true, but once again where do we allocate the 79 billion in excess, knowing full well that the rule we make is less about Bill Gates and his current wealth, and more about encouraging Bill Gates to provide lots of "excess value" in his future investments (instead of engaging in dubious money sink charity operations like Zuckerberg did in Newark), and encouraging an 18-year old to provide the world with $80billion, even though he knows that by some mechanism he will only extract 1/80th that amount. Gates could have used that money to invest in his employees at all levels so the wealth he accumulated wasn't as concentrated at the head. Make sure all his employees (regardless of position) at least enough money to have a decent living. Incentivizes people to want to work for him and make the work force highly motivated to want to work there (even as like a janitor). I have always wondered, why a company wouldn't want more money in the hands of consumers because then they spend more and they get a return on their "investment" of paying more to their employees through their increased spending and overall satisfaction (leading to being more engaged in their work, higher desire to want to do their best, and overall satisfaction).
Are you trolling?
Bill gates already eradicated one disease and is on his way to eradicate another one from the planet, among many many other things to help this world. Despite haters, he is world's greatest benefactor between his charity and microsoft, by far.
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So you're suggesting that more value would be created by taking money from successful entrepreneurs and giving it to people who otherwise can't convince anyone they'd be profitable with it (that is, get credit)
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On February 04 2016 04:57 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 04:50 cLutZ wrote:On February 04 2016 04:27 Simberto wrote:
To further explain KwarKs argument, it is not about the person. Of course a rational capitalist tries to maximise his own profit, and the guy with the oil is gonna sell it for whatever he is going to get for it. No one is saying that he shouldn't (Because people don't work that way)
But we are talking systemic here. The goal is to maximise the value gained to society. There is no difference in the value gained to society if the oil is sold at half price, as long as that doesn't reduce the amount of oil sold.
Or to get back to the original point, there is no difference in the gain to society by whatever a superrich person does depending on how much money he makes it, as long as he does it. It does not matter if Bill Gates makes 70 billion or 10 billion off of Microsoft, as long as he produces windows etc...
And if there is no difference in total gain, the only relevant question is regarding distribution. And i think a lot of people would agree that Bill Gates having 60 more billions worth of stuff lying about does not make for a very good distribution of ressources.
What you are all describing is a simplistic version of the Coase theorem. Which is an idea in property law that no matter how you set the initial allocation of property rights, an efficient outcome will emerge. To go with the oil example, true, it does not matter overall in the economy if I say the landowner cannot sell oil for more than $1, however that just shifts the windfall from the landowner to the person with the purchasing contract with the landowner, thus all the perceived savings from A go to B as the value of his purchasing contract is increased by $24/barrel. And so on. However, this way of thinking is only valid if you are modifying initial conditions in allocating a known, discrete, property. It does not hold if, for instance, only the first 1000 barrels are efficient to produce at $1/barrel and then next 1000 at $2/barrel and so on. Then your $1/barrel rule creates a massive inefficiency as lots of oil is never extracted despite it being useful to extract it. Now maybe you have another rule in mind, like a $1 profit per rule? How did you decide on that rule? How do you know it will keep oil production from this well up till the $25 per point? What if there is a needed capital expense to get there? All these questions demonstrate the incredible difficulty of even attempting to make such a system, even in the most basic of scenarios. And what about Microsoft? Well, it might have failed, almost failed, and then became huge. Now Bill gates has 80 billion dollars. You say he would have done all he did for 1 billion, possibly true, but once again where do we allocate the 79 billion in excess, knowing full well that the rule we make is less about Bill Gates and his current wealth, and more about encouraging Bill Gates to provide lots of "excess value" in his future investments (instead of engaging in dubious money sink charity operations like Zuckerberg did in Newark), and encouraging an 18-year old to provide the world with $80billion, even though he knows that by some mechanism he will only extract 1/80th that amount. Gates could have used that money to invest in his employees at all levels so the wealth he accumulated wasn't as concentrated at the head. Make sure all his employees (regardless of position) at least enough money to have a decent living. Incentivizes people to want to work for him and make the work force highly motivated to want to work there (even as like a janitor). I have always wondered, why a company wouldn't want more money in the hands of consumers because then they spend more and they get a return on their "investment" of paying more to their employees through their increased spending and overall satisfaction (leading to being more engaged in their work, higher desire to want to do their best, and overall satisfaction).
As someone in the IT industry, I can say with some confidence that Microsoft is seen as a pretty good place to work. They pay well and provide interesting career opportunities. Note, I have no first hand experience, but right now, I would take a job with Microsoft over Google.
So assuming that was true through its existence, what else should Microsoft be spending money on?
It is further worth noting that only a very small percentage of Bill Gates' 80billion is money that Microsoft gave him. The largest part is because when he sold the company, in various different stages, other people assessed the value of his share of the company at roughly 80billion dollars and were willing to pay him that.
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United States43675 Posts
On February 04 2016 04:57 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 04:50 cLutZ wrote:On February 04 2016 04:27 Simberto wrote:
To further explain KwarKs argument, it is not about the person. Of course a rational capitalist tries to maximise his own profit, and the guy with the oil is gonna sell it for whatever he is going to get for it. No one is saying that he shouldn't (Because people don't work that way)
But we are talking systemic here. The goal is to maximise the value gained to society. There is no difference in the value gained to society if the oil is sold at half price, as long as that doesn't reduce the amount of oil sold.
Or to get back to the original point, there is no difference in the gain to society by whatever a superrich person does depending on how much money he makes it, as long as he does it. It does not matter if Bill Gates makes 70 billion or 10 billion off of Microsoft, as long as he produces windows etc...
And if there is no difference in total gain, the only relevant question is regarding distribution. And i think a lot of people would agree that Bill Gates having 60 more billions worth of stuff lying about does not make for a very good distribution of ressources.
What you are all describing is a simplistic version of the Coase theorem. Which is an idea in property law that no matter how you set the initial allocation of property rights, an efficient outcome will emerge. To go with the oil example, true, it does not matter overall in the economy if I say the landowner cannot sell oil for more than $1, however that just shifts the windfall from the landowner to the person with the purchasing contract with the landowner, thus all the perceived savings from A go to B as the value of his purchasing contract is increased by $24/barrel. And so on. However, this way of thinking is only valid if you are modifying initial conditions in allocating a known, discrete, property. It does not hold if, for instance, only the first 1000 barrels are efficient to produce at $1/barrel and then next 1000 at $2/barrel and so on. Then your $1/barrel rule creates a massive inefficiency as lots of oil is never extracted despite it being useful to extract it. Now maybe you have another rule in mind, like a $1 profit per rule? How did you decide on that rule? How do you know it will keep oil production from this well up till the $25 per point? What if there is a needed capital expense to get there? All these questions demonstrate the incredible difficulty of even attempting to make such a system, even in the most basic of scenarios. And what about Microsoft? Well, it might have failed, almost failed, and then became huge. Now Bill gates has 80 billion dollars. You say he would have done all he did for 1 billion, possibly true, but once again where do we allocate the 79 billion in excess, knowing full well that the rule we make is less about Bill Gates and his current wealth, and more about encouraging Bill Gates to provide lots of "excess value" in his future investments (instead of engaging in dubious money sink charity operations like Zuckerberg did in Newark), and encouraging an 18-year old to provide the world with $80billion, even though he knows that by some mechanism he will only extract 1/80th that amount. Gates could have used that money to invest in his employees at all levels so the wealth he accumulated wasn't as concentrated at the head. Make sure all his employees (regardless of position) at least enough money to have a decent living. Incentivizes people to want to work for him and make the work force highly motivated to want to work there (even as like a janitor). I have always wondered, why a company wouldn't want more money in the hands of consumers because then they spend more and they get a return on their "investment" of paying more to their employees through their increased spending and overall satisfaction (leading to being more engaged in their work, higher desire to want to do their best, and overall satisfaction).
He could have also charged significantly less for Microsoft products, lowering the operating costs for millions of businesses worldwide and increasing access to the marvel of modern computers. It would have increased economic activity, productivity and quality of life.
If all the costs involved in producing a given item, within which I include not only direct costs (such as the cost of extracting a barrel of oil) but also indirect costs (such as the cost of researching better ways to extract oil and the value of all the time looking for oil where there was no oil before you struck it or the desire for high profit margins before anyone will fund your planned oil well) are $100 then charging $200 does nothing but transfer $100 from them to you. The market may bear the price of $200 but the extra $100 does not lead to you providing a better product, it just indicates that you are extremely well placed in the market and that you will not be undercut any time soon.
Capitalism requires that you extract as much money as possible for a service and trusts that if you are charging too much another company will step in and take your market share. In practice this does not always, or even often, happen and the inefficiencies lead to large transfers of wealth from the many to the few which serve no purpose but to enrich the few beyond imagining.
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United States43675 Posts
On February 04 2016 05:03 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 04:57 Slaughter wrote:On February 04 2016 04:50 cLutZ wrote:On February 04 2016 04:27 Simberto wrote:
To further explain KwarKs argument, it is not about the person. Of course a rational capitalist tries to maximise his own profit, and the guy with the oil is gonna sell it for whatever he is going to get for it. No one is saying that he shouldn't (Because people don't work that way)
But we are talking systemic here. The goal is to maximise the value gained to society. There is no difference in the value gained to society if the oil is sold at half price, as long as that doesn't reduce the amount of oil sold.
Or to get back to the original point, there is no difference in the gain to society by whatever a superrich person does depending on how much money he makes it, as long as he does it. It does not matter if Bill Gates makes 70 billion or 10 billion off of Microsoft, as long as he produces windows etc...
And if there is no difference in total gain, the only relevant question is regarding distribution. And i think a lot of people would agree that Bill Gates having 60 more billions worth of stuff lying about does not make for a very good distribution of ressources.
What you are all describing is a simplistic version of the Coase theorem. Which is an idea in property law that no matter how you set the initial allocation of property rights, an efficient outcome will emerge. To go with the oil example, true, it does not matter overall in the economy if I say the landowner cannot sell oil for more than $1, however that just shifts the windfall from the landowner to the person with the purchasing contract with the landowner, thus all the perceived savings from A go to B as the value of his purchasing contract is increased by $24/barrel. And so on. However, this way of thinking is only valid if you are modifying initial conditions in allocating a known, discrete, property. It does not hold if, for instance, only the first 1000 barrels are efficient to produce at $1/barrel and then next 1000 at $2/barrel and so on. Then your $1/barrel rule creates a massive inefficiency as lots of oil is never extracted despite it being useful to extract it. Now maybe you have another rule in mind, like a $1 profit per rule? How did you decide on that rule? How do you know it will keep oil production from this well up till the $25 per point? What if there is a needed capital expense to get there? All these questions demonstrate the incredible difficulty of even attempting to make such a system, even in the most basic of scenarios. And what about Microsoft? Well, it might have failed, almost failed, and then became huge. Now Bill gates has 80 billion dollars. You say he would have done all he did for 1 billion, possibly true, but once again where do we allocate the 79 billion in excess, knowing full well that the rule we make is less about Bill Gates and his current wealth, and more about encouraging Bill Gates to provide lots of "excess value" in his future investments (instead of engaging in dubious money sink charity operations like Zuckerberg did in Newark), and encouraging an 18-year old to provide the world with $80billion, even though he knows that by some mechanism he will only extract 1/80th that amount. Gates could have used that money to invest in his employees at all levels so the wealth he accumulated wasn't as concentrated at the head. Make sure all his employees (regardless of position) at least enough money to have a decent living. Incentivizes people to want to work for him and make the work force highly motivated to want to work there (even as like a janitor). I have always wondered, why a company wouldn't want more money in the hands of consumers because then they spend more and they get a return on their "investment" of paying more to their employees through their increased spending and overall satisfaction (leading to being more engaged in their work, higher desire to want to do their best, and overall satisfaction). As someone in the IT industry, I can say with some confidence that Microsoft is seen as a pretty good place to work. They pay well and provide interesting career opportunities. Note, I have no first hand experience, but right now, I would take a job with Microsoft over Google. So assuming that was true through its existence, what else should Microsoft be spending money on?
It could charge less for its products. Just because you can compel someone to pay far above your costs of production when you occupy a unique market position does not mean that you must. Of course their first duty is to their shareholders, not to society as a whole, so they charge the maximum amount they can and enrich their shareholders at the cost of society. And capitalism tells us that if they exploit their customers too much and enrich their shareholders too much then another business will undercut them and erode their market share. Physicists like to work in frictionless vacuums and capitalists like to work in a fantasy.
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Microsoft is a terrible example of that, Kwark, because they managed to obtain a virtual monopoly for a while not because there was no competition, but because they were both better and cheaper than them.
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United States43675 Posts
On February 04 2016 05:09 Acrofales wrote:
Microsoft is a terrible example of that, Kwark, because they managed to obtain a virtual monopoly for a while not because there was no competition, but because they were both better and cheaper than them.
So much cheaper that they managed to make their founder the richest man on Earth. I think perhaps they could have been cheaper still. That they won and still made such a vast fortune is evidence only of the failure of a truly efficient competitive market.
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It is indeed interesting how "might makes right" still seems so popular as a guiding normative principle.
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The Waltons are richer, but the point of Walmart is being cheap. Microsoft isn't extraordinarily profitable, the shareholders are rich because the company is large.
Java circumvents that, a big reason why it's the most popular programming language in the world.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
a land tax has the advantage of replacing zoning laws as the mechanism of delivering the progressive housing result you'd want.
but just to use new york as an example, a lot of high valued property that you'd want to tax doesn't take that much land. high rise condos and co-ops valued in the tens of millions may not have the land itself assessed too high. then you throw in stuff like gardens, garages and the like and it's easy for a campaign of vested interests to portray the LVT as a tax on your garden and garages.
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Yeah. There's a load of those. However, it's not a Microsoft thing, it's an IT thing. Apple, Google and Oracle are no different at all.
Anyway, we're going off topic. If all Kwark had wanted to say is that the market is inefficient, then whoop die doop, he could just have said that instead of bringing up silly stories about oil.
The problem isn't that the market is inefficient, it's that despite being inefficient it is still the best way we have come up with so far to assign value to things. So criticism of the market is useless unless you have an alternative for assigning value; which, judging from his response to my god-king quip, Kwark doesn't have.
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On February 04 2016 05:16 Soap wrote:The Waltons are richer, but the point of Walmart is being cheap. Microsoft isn't extraordinarily profitable, the shareholders are rich because the company is large. Java circumvents that, a big reason why it's the most popular programming language in the world.
Wallmart is probably the better example. If they paid their employees more they would likely spend more at the place they work at. They also would likely do their jobs better and the stores wouldn't look like such shitholes (because they don't give a fuck and there is high employee turnover). These two factors would probably increase sales with the general populace because they wouldn't have the "Walmart exploits their workers" moniker and would improve their image from being a shithole, but cheap place to shop.
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EPT
