/lit/ - Literature

Ignore all pseudo-intellectual rhetoricians.

>>10830891
*blocks your path*

I have. Piketty is right about everything.

>>10830891
Boring, statistically inaccurate book that looks at inequality as a static, rather than dynamic value.

Robust work on the subject recognizes that mobility is more significant than wealth variance at any given time. Piketty fails to see things this way

Weak bait.

>>10830973
Cite your “robust work”.

>>10830905
My nigga. Don't beat your meat read some Shaikh.

>>10830891
His synopsis (the first chapter) makes the rest of the book exhausting, and his solution, a 99% estate tax past a certain point, is not only theft, but unsellable.

>>10831007
really? only past a certain point? so basically dont get richer than X? thats fucking stupid.

>>10831028
so he wants a 15% tax on capital (held cash), an 80% tax on high incomes, enforced transparency for all bank transactions, overt use of inflation to redistribute wealth downwards, and a total income tax.

>>10831042
btw on bank transactions i support it, just read panama papers and there are real problems with shell companies as tax havens

*total estate tax

>>10830905
This looks interesting. I'm scared by the graduate-level label.

Would this be harder to understand than Piketty's Capital, George's Progress and Poverty or Keynes' General Theory? I'm not an economist and I've only had a small business - I'm just curious and socially concerned. Is this approachable by an outsider?

Also, thoughts on Kalecki? He seems to be a socialist Keynes, or reverse Keynes, with limited trust in central planning instead of limited trust in free markets.

>>10831059
Haven't read Kalecki himself, yet, though.

>>10831059
He's actually really easy to read. Its only some of the stuff in appendices that are a bit mind boggling. But the reward of the book comes from actually understanding financial markets and understanding the flaws of other theories. So if you want to understand other economic frameworks and their problems this is a good book for that. The stuff near the end is kinda scary because he shows that financial crises are recurrent and that their is validity to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. As for Kalecki theres sections of the book on his work too. If you don't want to dish out the money theres 30 lectures that cover his 2 year course online for free.

>>10831028
You can always get reacher than X, it just that the % of your gains keeps diminishing the bigger they get. But earning 1.1 million (before taxes) would never get you less than earning 1 million (before taxes). So you you still have incentives to keep investing your money into the economy.

>>10831075
Awesome thanks!

I'm already accepting of economic cycles, those are already covered in the stuff I've read. About that tendency of the profit rate to fall is that something he takes straight from Marx or does he get there from somewhere else?

>>10830891
My dad gifted it to me at some point, I suspect he might be a commie. The man really has no reason to complain so much
Please convince me to read it

>>10831160
>le 'just like implement reformist policies' man
>a communist
Piketty will save capitalism

>>10831177
I was talking about my dad not Piketty

>>10831181
Your dad is just a progressive liberal, social democrat, radical centrist or whatever it is that reasonable people are calling themselves these days.

>>10830973
Piketty has a Ph.D in economics, you're a random fuck on 4chan.

Who the fuck cares if you think he's wrong, who the fuck cares what you think is "more robust"? Who the fuck even are you?

Explain yourself or don't even comment.

>muh income inequality

Wow brilliant, the defining voice of an epoch.

Marx's politics continue to be poisonous, but at least he had original insights. Its shameless hubris for Picketfence to ape the title of one of the most important books ever and attach it this DSA-brand paperweight. It's "important" only if your goal is to maximize the signaling potential of the bookshelf in your Brooklyn loft in advance of a cocktail party.

>>10831042
Every person with a net worth over $20 dollars would leave the country. Mass starvation and violent anarchy within 5 years. People would bring suitcases of cash to buy rats and edible grass. 1 satoshi = 5 trillion US dollars.

Doesn't he even admit in his book that higher taxes on the rich would result in a lower income for the middle class?

>>10831781
>Piketty has a Ph.D in being indoctrinated
>you're a random person who came up with his own opinions instead of having them gift wrapped to me by the system

>>10831882
>the system
>guy comes out with book criticizing capitalism system
>he's been indoctrinated by the system

this board gets stupider every day

Who /mises/ here?

>>10831928
>ron paul fanboi posts dumb shit

what is this 2008, kys

>>10831946
Idiot

>>10831928
Fucking lol.

>>10831956
Idiot

>>10830891
Bait

>>10830891

>>10831897
>only one system
>he wasn't indoctrinated by the mind control system to combat the freethinking system
Nice try, system.

>>10831999
Taleb is so unbelievably lucky that his mediocre book criticising models in financial markets (which nobody was even calling infallible or even comprehensive) was released just before the biggest economic event in 80 years

>>10832016
>t-the models were never claimed to be infaillible

He shows how those models fundamentally misunderstand the nature of probability. It's literally like trying to use a map of London to navigate the Swiss Alps. The models had nothing at all to do with reality - they weren't even CLOSE to being right.

>>10831875
No, he (accurately) believes that the marginal tax rate should be at around 80%. The diminishing marginal utility of wealth implies that progressive taxation is welfare-enhancing.

>>10831042

I have never picked up a finance/economics book.

I unironically think the exact same thing.

Morally speaking, there is nothing someone can do today to ensure that their children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's child can live their entire life without working a day in their life. So why do we allow people to accumulate that much wealth? It slows the entire economic system down because money is being thrown into a vacuum being taken out in such a meaningless amounts that it doesn't redistribute into the world.

Dude's right. It'll never happen because MUH socialism and MUH RIGHT as a rich man who is better than everyone because reasons.

>>10831928
Even Marx is taken more seriously by economists than Mises

>>10832039
You don't get it, rich people were literally picked by god to be rich and all their billions are a divine right!

>>10832034
They have made a massive, fuck-off profit for a lot of people and are actually quite bloody accurate the majority of the time. Once you've gotten past your edgy rebellion BE phase you might care to notice that Taleb doesn't really offer any constructive insight apart from regurgitating Hume and repeating 'be more risk averse' ad nauseam. I wouldn't take trading advice from a man whose twitter consists of self-promotion, deliberate provocation and semi-lucid rants.

>>10832039
What are incentives lol

>>10831059
He has a 30 lecture series on YouTube explaining the whole thing, so I’d say check that out and see. If you can parse what’s going on then you’ll be fine doing the readings.

It’s a lot harder than Piketty’s Capital simply because Piketty’s book was aimed such that lay readers could read it too, while Shaikh’s is very much a textbook. It’s also got a lot more math. Shaikh’s background is in physics first, so he does not shy away from mathematical explainations at times. Shaikh isn’t a bad writer or anything, he’s actually very clear, it can just be difficult if you don’t have the background.

I like Kalecki, I think it’s an important advancement that he was able to develop the main ideas of Keynes independently but while retaining class as a central element of his model.

For everybody, if you want to read one thing by Kalecki, read his essay “Political Aspects of Full Employment”, it’s short but is really a hammer blow to social democratic politics.

>>10831882
If you’d bother with the book you’d realize that the major part of the introduction is a sweeping indictment of how economics exists as a field today. He basically accuses it of being scholasticism while pretending to be science.

>>10832072

Pragmatically speaking there is literally no difference between have 1 billion dollars and having 55 billion dollars. Ether way there is no way you are spending that much money in your lifetime. So make the cutoff 1 billion. The incentive is to still be rich as fuck. It would incentivize the person in power to step down because he got what he wanted and someone else would take their place or the business would dissolve and another one would take it's place which would continue the spread of wealth.

That's the problem, keeping everything static means that the people at the bottom have little chance to get to the top.

>>10832080
>just read this system book
>it totally argues against the system flatly for a bit
Anon you fool, that's the system's oldest trick.

>>10830891
It’s big and I already vote republican

pewdiepie gets taxed at 50% in sweden but he still makes his youtube videos and is still worth over 100 million dollars, face it you are just lazy

>>10832114
He lives UK

>>10832068
You see this is what leftists seem to think. You don't get rich by magic blessings or through pure greed. You have to be productive, and you have to keep being productive to stay rich.
Just because you don't understand capitalism doesn't mean it's broken.

>>10832125
Mate, I repair high end fridges which cost 25 grand, I've seen these people in their habitats, they don't do shit. Producing and being rich are very different, almost completely separate things.

>>10832153
If you aren't producing you won't stay rich, simple as. Wealth doesn't tend to last for longer than three generations without further investment.
Even if these people aren't directly being productive i.e. working or running a business, they may be investing and increasing production elsewhere.
You repairing their fridge is giving you a job to start.

>>10832072
What is diminishing marginal utility lol

>>10832161

Ya man, moving immense wealth around without actually doing anything personally is really productive.

If you actually believed what you say then you would be more for ether higher taxes or redistribution to the lower class. After all, it would create the need for that person to truly be productive.

>>10832125
In the US, the top 1% receives 7.5% of the national income without having to work for it.

>>10832039
I get that you are being hyperbolic, but 90% of wealth gained by a family is lost by the 3rd generation. 70% by the 2nd. The people that grow up with wealth aren't very good at saving (because they don't learn to) nor are they very good at making money (because someone else did it for them).

>>10832104
You assume rich people spend only money on themselves.

Maybe I'm Soros and want to bankroll groups I like around the globe.

>>10832182

I literally don't believe Jeff Bezos Kid's kids will need to work a day in their life.

>>10832125
>you have to keep being productive to stay rich

The rich get a very large part of their wealth through equity income, net interest, inheritance, housing rents and other forms of unearned income.

>>10832187

>Maybe I'm Soros and I want to try to rule the globe.

FTFY. Soros is hardly the dude I want as an example for an ideal world.

>>10832190
They probably won't. That may something that motivates Bezzos. Nonetheless, they likely will only be good for spending that fortune rather than adding to it.

>>10832196
Then we differ.

We can't all have our way.

>not just going innawoods and escaping society/economy

>>10832207
What a great ide-

>>10832177
I don't know of you're being purposely ignorant or misunderstanding what I'm saying.
Productivity isn't always direct; investment is productive, buying goods is productive, hiring contractors is productive, just as actually producing goods is.

Money is a reward for productivity, not vice versa. Think of it as the value you contribute to someone else, not just a separate entity that people just accumulate for no reason. Redistributing wealth does not have the effect of creating any production, on the contrary it disincentivises productivity.

>>10832181
See above. Also take into account that it will always be the case that a small number of people accumulate most of the wealth. Having money increases your opportunities to make more. Same with many things, writing, painting, academic publishing, etc.

>>10832203

Soros: There is no way, only Soros.

>>10832219
Do I get money for buying goods?

>>10832238
You acquire goods, which are valuable.
If I bake bread, and you make medicine, can I have some medicine if I give you bread?
Money is a convenient way of a universal credit which we society agreed on after years of trade. "The Theory of Money and Credit" is a good overview of this, if a little... dry.

>>10832219
Ah, yes, housing rents and inheritance are very productive. Thanks, you’ve convinced me that we must continue to have third-world levels of wealth and income inequality.

Wealth inequality is a literal non-issue

>>10832244

Rich.

Buy up 90% of land in town.

Jack rent price up 1500%.

But iz wuz told iz wuz bein productifz

Absolute state of USA.

>>10832216
Death is better than capitalism sweetie

>>10832245
>third-world levels of wealth and income inequality.
I'm assuming this is hyperbole, if not you're incredibly misinformed.

>inheritance
I already pointed out that wealth does not last more than 3 generations without further investment. It may not be fair that some children are born lucky but it doesn't change that the money will end up being distributed back into the economy somehow.

>rent
I mean... yeah.

>>10832259
>what is competition

>>10832263
I disagree
It's not great, but capitalism isn't making me suffer to a degree where I would feel compelled to end it all

>>10832265

>Implying competition can exist when you own all the land

What happens is the 10% that isn't owned by that asshole jacks the price up 1000% and it still doesn't make a different. People will pay what they have to in order to live where they need to be. If they don't pay for it someone else will.

>>10832244
But I already had goods which were valuable. I thought buying was productive?

>>10832254
Weath inequality decreases social trust and stability, depresses economic growth, increases the use of unproductive guard labour, decreases aggregate demand, makes governments more susceptible to regulatory captures and so on and so on.

>>10832265
>>what is competition

Yeah, oligopoly and oligopsony are not a problem because competition. You’ve just DESTROYED leftists with FACTS and LOGIC, congratulations.

>it's a nobody on /lit/ understands even basic finance episode
You dumb cunts, there's not such thing as unproductive income. Stock implies ownership of a company, and it's far from guaranteed income.

There's not free lunch faggots.

>>10832291
Whatever drawbacks there are to an unequal society (not as many as you posit), they are still a little hiccup compared to the disasters that could be prompted by severe taxation as proposed by retards like Piketty

>>10832287
You didn't actually read what I posted, did you?

>>10832274
Monopolies don't happen naturally. They require legislative power to enforce or else there is simply no limit to a competitor's innovation to provide something better.
In your property example, firstly there is the 'how did they even buy all that land' which we'll ignore; then there is the issue that people simply can't afford the land and thus won't purchase it. Believe it or not it is very damaging to drive up costs. Let's assume that a small number of very rich corporations rent that land - who is now rich enough to buy from them after their huge investment? They've collectively driven out their own customers from the market, which must now correct itself.

>>10832302
See above.

>>10832259
People (including businesses) would simply leave the town
Do you people even think before posting?

>>10832314

Great evidence. Never happens, but you stay in your bubble JR.

>>10832304
>unproductive income

Virtually no economist denies the validity of the term “unearned income”. I bet you also unironically think that “public good”, “information assymetry” and “negative externality” are just leftist buzzwords.

>There's not free lunch faggots

Dude, you’ve just BTFOed lefties EPIC STYLE XDDD

>>10832313
>Monopolies don't happen naturally. They require legislative power to enforce or else there is simply no limit to a competitor's innovation to provide something better.
>In your property example, firstly there is the 'how did they even buy all that land' which we'll ignore; then there is the issue that people simply can't afford the land and thus won't purchase it. Believe it or not it is very damaging to drive up costs. Let's assume that a small number of very rich corporations rent that land - who is now rich enough to buy from them after their huge investment? They've collectively driven out their own customers from the market, which must now correct itself.


1) They were rich and had the means to buy the land.
2) They bought the land.


What the fuck are you talking about.

Imagine being a protestant anglo and thinking wealth is morally good

>>10832326
Find me 1 (one) single modern economist (which isn't finance, but that's besides the point) that will tell you a risk free yield is actually possible.

>muh lefties BTFO EPIC
No, I've just read a fucking book you retard.

>>10832308
>they are still a little hiccup compared to the disasters that could be prompted by severe taxation as proposed by retards like Piketty

Do you have any concrete arguments against the methodology used by Piketty, Saez and Stantcheva?

>>10832313
>Monopolies don't happen naturally

But oligopolies do, which is what you conveniently ignore

Honestly just cut down the working week and i'd be happy.

8x5 is a meme.

>>10832338
My negro

>>10832325
you didn't provide evidence either, sperg

>zero zum fallacy the book

Absolutely disgusting.

This thread started so well...

>>10832341
>Do you have any concrete arguments against the methodology used by Piketty, Saez and Stantcheva?

Rich people wouldn't want to pay such taxes. It's as simple as that

>>10832364
All they need is an incentive...

Does he talk about crypto? If not then it's not important

>>10832334
I don't know how to expand from there... What happens *after* they spend all this money and buy the land, that's what I'm pointing out.

>>10832347
They do indeed. But they have the same restrictions in a free market, namely they cannot drive out their own customers or they are simply overtaken by a more competitive market member.

>>10832313
>You didn't actually read what I posted, did you?
>buying goods is productive
>Money is a reward for productivity
I buy good > I receive money
Why doesn't this happen?
Either buying isn't productive or money is not a reward for productivity.

>>10832385
>product costs 9,99
>give 10
>"here is your 0,01 Sir"
:^)

but honestly you do get a product that is worth something don't you, and you generate more money within the economy or whatever
you aren't burning the money

>>10832364
Piketty, Saez and Stantcheva take into account that high-income workers are particularly elastic in how their taxable income decreases with higher tax rates. In fact, there is an empirical study done by Emmanuel Saez together with Jon Gruber which demonstrates precisely this point: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/gruber.pdf.. You clearly haven’t read the paper we are discussing, have you?

>>10832358
Thinking that the diminishing marginal utility of wealth implies that progressive taxation is welfare-enhancing doesn’t mean that you think that economy is a zero-sum game.

>>10832400
>100k/year

I'm obviously not talking about "high-income workers"

>>10830891
I did. Capital yielding higher returns than labour is pretty assbackwards.

>>10832385
You're sort of picking phrases out to say something that wasn't said. Both those statements are true, yes, but you aren't thinking about what money actually is. It's credit. You are giving someone the *value* of the goods in currency, they can use this to buy things they can't produce themselves.
You may consume the good you buy, or it may be something that you yourself use productively.
If you are productive you produce something that another will exchange currency for, which you then use to obtain more goods. Ad. infinitum.

Money, or more accurately, value, is not some finite pool. It is created.

This book was far more important than people think. Remember it became a bestseller. The only criticism the business community had has been “but we’re making the third world richer” at the expense of the working class in the west. No Black Lives Matter or other such divisive groups until it dropped either.

>>10832424
>96% of all businesses fail within the first 10 years
>stocks/options/whatever are unpredictable
>real estate will only turn a profit decades after initial investment
>"why should dis nigga make more money than me??? I do actual work, bitch" - Todd, Walmart clerk

>>10832451
I know you didn’t read the book, because none of that is what is talked about. In fact, that’s a pretty pleb understanding of the current economy. We’re discussing the super wealthy living off stocks and bonds. A crash won’t wipe them out. Hell, most of their money is in offshore accounts.

>>10832438
What do you think of the aggregation problem anon?

>>10832016
you could say that his success was a...BLACK SWAN
when I die it will be this shitty joke that earns me a place in hell, not the seemingly endless hours of masturbation

>>10832107
Maybe but how else does one do economics?

I don’t disagree, I do get all my economic analysis from Marx, who never had any formal education in the field and was totally an independent scholar.

>>10832700
I don't understand why people expect economics to do anything else than study the current system and how to improve it. It's like complaining that physicists don't advocate seizing the means of production.

>>10830891
This book was fucking terrible. Fuck off /pol/.

>>10832752
If you think /pol/ would approve of this book you haven't read it.

>>10832758
/pol/ is anti-capitalist

>>10832700
Just do what you think is good, I'm just being a moron.

>>10832740
because economists call themselves scientists and make claims of being able to accurately model reality, when in actuality they cannot. they also talk about being good at math, which gives them authority over other social sciences, but the math not only isn’t pertaining to reality, but also has nothing to do with the actual study of maths itself. so, they’re leeching off of maths and science for credibility, while ignoring the other social sciences save for cog psyche, and then posturing to the public for credibility, while trying to hide from physicists and philosophers who see exactly what they’re really about. basically a field of apologetics for capitalism and the owner class. there is no other way of framing what is happening in econ. you will end up just repeating what your grad professor said in retort i can almost guarantee this

>>10832946
But >>10830905 literally started as a physicist before moving onto economy.

>>10830891
Taleb BTFOed that book already. Sorry.

>>10832946
I'm not an economist anon, I don't have a grad professor to repeat. I think we actually mostly agree, I just don't denounce the field as harshly.

I'm curious though, do you think there would be economists after the revolution, or would they be unnecessary?

>>10832946
And you'll be either repeating marxist dogma forever or revising Das Kapital to spin-off the 100th latest marxist intrepretation of society. And maybe you'll have the honor of creating the next episode of mass starvation, and purge
society from the owner class, their apologists, then move on to the marxists that didn't quite get Marx as well as you, and every other wrongthinker.

Is this how you want to play? We can adress each others arguments, compare models to see which fit the data better, and think of policy that can actually be implement, or we can accuse each other of being manipulated or manipulators.

>>10832946
This guy is a retard. I recognize his posting style. He is constantly on here, most likely doesn't have a job, and thinks Economics actually tries to predict the future at any given time. Fuck off loser.

>>10832501
What about it? In general I think it's always best to approach things on an individual level, but sometimes abstractions are useful or necessary to get across core concepts; like in this thread for example.

>>10831093
Most of his framework is grounded in Marx so yeah he gets it from there, but a lot of it is contingent on showing how companies actually operate through price cutting competition and it is this manner that you get lower rates of profit in the aggregate. His solution to Okishios theorem is surprisingly simple. I'm only halfway through the book, so I can answer some questions if you have any,

>>10832946
>The math isn't pertaining to reality
What on God's green Earth are you talking about, anon? Have you taken a single econ class in your life? Or even read a newspaper? Lemme guess - newspapers are too controlled by the Man to believe.

>>10832080
>He basically accuses it of being scholasticism while pretending to be science.

And then proceeds to write a banal pseudo-scientific work. This guy is the ultimate example of an overhyped moron. I cant believe he's being defended on /lit/

>>10831781
This is a message board, you're here reading responses from other unknown anons. Your actions indicate that you care- though maybe only when someone agrees with you.

While I don't have a PhD in economics, I do have a PhD in mathematics from Caltech. And it's primarily Piketty's mathematics that I take issue with. He treats a dynamic quantity as though it's a static, which puts his entire theory on shaky ground.

Under Piketty's thesis the country is best in which the poor and the rich are closest, regardless of mobility. In my view, the country is best in which the poor are most easily able to become rich regardless of wealth variance.

>>10833617
He specifically discusses how the shift from salary based wealth to capital based wealth was one of the main hindrances on mobility. The capital based wealth system supposedly reduces both mobility and equality. That being said I don't buy his conclusion because it is desperately idealistic. All our problems will not be solved by a global tax on capital, it will probably make it worse

>>10831882
>you're a random person who came up with his own opinions instead of having them gift wrapped to me by the system
>who came up with his own opinions


I got you
regards system

>>10830891
>most important book of this century
Step aside

>>10832182
Actual elites are groomed from childhood to take their place in the dynasty. The vast majority of rich people are just new money with no traditions or morals, so naturally their descendants will lose their wealth.

>>10833617
THIS is a good post. Nice comment regarding mobility.

>>10832182
> He actually believes this

You need money to make money. I would have started investing years ago if I was given millions from my family. Bitcoin was one of the things I looked at over 5 years ago. Unfortunately, I was a broke ass college student so that opportunity swept by me. Only a complete dumbass would shit the bed this badly and waste the money he/ she inherited.

>>10830891
Easy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdR7WW3XR9c

>>10833712
it's a stupid comment regarding mobility because the point is if capital has better returns than labor then there isn't going to be mobility as the inequality becomes more severe, that guy might have done a phd on thirteen dee dark matter or whatever, but he's clearly stupid, at least with regard to things that actually exist and are well documented

>>10830891
>>10830905
unreadable marxist CRAP

>>10833617
>Under Piketty's thesis the country is best in which the poor and the rich are closest, regardless of mobility. In my view, the country is best in which the poor are most easily able to become rich regardless of wealth variance.

The negative correlation between income inequality and social mobility is very strong. Rich people can always give opportunities to their offsprings which are practically never available to children who were born in poor families. This is why a decrease in the income gap between the rich and the poor will increase mobility.

>>10833872
Piketty is a pretty conventional social democrat, I don’t know what you are talking about. Today, Anwar Shaikh is one of the very few worthwhile Marxists along with Stephen Marglin, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, John Roemer and Jon Elster.

>>10833828
You have to work, anon. Investing rarely affords you a livable income. Especially if you want to enjoy things in life.

>>10833851
I agree with you, I just think that social mobility in regards to capital is important. What you say is also true, however it has nothing to do with the rich and the poor being close or far. The rich and the poor can be very far apart in terms of wealth and the ability to acquire more wealth, and you might still have a healthy economy if the amount of recompense one gets for labor is sufficient. This all depends on the amount of supply and demand for labor though, and the quality of recompense for labor one receives, i.e. how large the supply of 'excess' in the economy is. If the supply of excess is large, you can guarantee there will a progressive economy, and in a progressive economy wages are continually rise. If the aggregates of the net incomes are not sufficient to meet the fixed costs and expenses of running their lives/businesses, then the overall wages will be stagnant/valuing less over time.

This is only one part of the problem, as the amount of recompense for certain jobs that are strenuous and require hard work should be recompensed fairly, as opposed to unfairly. So morality actually enters this sphere as a big problem, as well as the inheritance and large amount of jobs that require tremendous amounts of money and training in order to perform. What you are doing is forming a system of organized class structure, and if that's what Piketty is on to, he's right and it's a problem.

Marginal economics shows us that products and services can be kept artificially high if being marketed to higher-income or lower-income individuals in different classes, so the disparity of the income gap is very disturbing for this and many other reasons.

But it has largely nothing to do with social mobility. If social mobility kept pace with the relative growth of the class disparities, there would be little problem. But the economy would be largely unstable, and interest rates could not stay that high for that long.

>>10833917
His title is literally the french translation of Kapital and he lists Marx as an influence

Try again

>>10833946
And? Marx is the most influential economist in history along with Adam Smith and maybe Keynes. Piketty is still a typical socdem who operates within economic mainstream.

>>10833917
Completely on board with this. I think a lot of the academics coming out the analytic tradition seem to be the only ones that make any sense. From the sociological side Erik Wright and Vivek Chibber are also the most level headed. I just wish Vivek would write more.

>>10831781
>Piketty has a Ph.D in economics, you're a random fuck on 4chan.
Which means I know more about economics than he does.

>>10831229

>whatever it is ignorant, yet well-intentioned, people call themselves.

FTFY.

> He finally understands that the kike landowners have all the power

I can do everything right and land a well paying job to support myself. Unfortunately, shekelstein will immediately get a whiff of my paycheck and raise my rent and price of goods. There goes my raise. The system is trash and designed to suppress those at the bottom. Piketty understands this and argues this well in his book. No cuckservative has come with a decent argument against this except for the same recycled bullshit you always hear.

>>10833917
>worthwhile Marxists

>>10834626
That's not exactly how rent works for you, unfortunately. Those hit hardest by landowner's rent are farmers and business owners. And I don't think you are one of those, anon.

Yet, taxing rent is the most feasible form of taxation, and also the ONLY kind that doesn't ultimately just resolve itself into a tax on consumption, so you are at least correct about that point.

>>10834142
The only times Ph.Ds don't matter is when they are tied to evolutionary biology or neuroscience.

Both fields are absolute horseshit and are the equivalent of pedantic navelgazing, even moreso than philosophy.

But Economics has legitimate value. We have helped ourselves through a recession with the ideas of Keynes.

Is there a decent summary or companion book to Piketty? I get that it's important but lets face it, most of us aren't economists who want to read someone's Phd dissertation.

Pic related. It's a decent introduction to economics.

>>10834914
That’s exactly how it works. I can move to some secluded pos town that costs next to nothing in terms of rent, problem is there are no decent jobs there. The second I move to an area with decent jobs, the rent jumps over 2k for a single bedroom shitbox. The same applies to goods or whatever else you need to purchase. I’m paying considerably more for milk and bread than I did a decade ago. My paycheck gets siphoned left and right to support their luxurious lifestyle and this is after being exploited at work by my kike boss with a shit wage. Fuck them and always socialism even if it means bringing down this diseased temple on it’s head.

>>10834982
Okay. Wow.

Piketty's book. Isn't even CLOSE to being a difficult economics book.

Now. It's not pop-econ, because it's appreciable by many different people in and out of the field, but it is by NO MEANS complex, like marginal economics or something. Just read it, you simpleton. It's too simple!

>>10834991
No, because the rent you're being charged has nothing to do with the rent that the people who own the building are being charged. That's the reason I made the original post. I thought you were making this kind of error.

Learn basic economics.

>>10834991
yeah thats why silicon valley salaries are overrated, guys make 150k easily but rent on a studio is 4k

>>10835023
That's just the real estate market. Has nothing to do with ground rent.

>>10835009
"econometrics" is the only really "technical" branch of economics, but overall most econ texts are a lot more readable than gay philosophy shit, but thats probably because economics is actually real shit and not just some gay madeup opinions

>>10835036
>actual real shit

>>10835036
There are a lot of other types of economics that use mathematics. Economics in general can use mathematics to explain concept.

A trend I notice is that people too entrenched in academia just parrot and say the same shit over and over again.

Like 'economics isn't a reliable predictor' or 'econometrics is the only technical branch of economics'. It's all bullshit. Economics can get extremely technical and mathematical, starting in the late 19th century. It just depends on who is writing.

>>10835026
"ground rent" is not really a thing in the united states, but then again this a free country not some eurocuck fagshit, but even in cases when it is a thing, the rent is still going to the owner it just has to go one more step up the food chain, changes nothing

>>10835050
look at keynes the most influential non-marxist economist of the 20th century, the math is algebraic, i guess if ur a brainlet that seems spooky, but compared to finance it's baby tier, economics is literally "algebra word problems: the field"

>>10835055
>the united states, but then again this a free country not some eurocuck fagshit, but even in cases when it is a thing, the rent is still going to the owner it just has to go one more step up the food chain, changes nothing
You have no idea how anything works, unfortunately.

The leasing company gets the rent from the individuals leasing the building, and then has rent to pay for the plot of land. But the rent they pay for this is determined by the combination of the real estate market and productivity of farmland. So whatever they are able to recoup in terms of it being a sellers market (which can be especially demanding like in Silicon valley, where the sellers run rampant with this idea), is theirs for a profit. It's why you see rent being so high in places like NYC as well.

All you need to realize though, is that the rent they remit to the actual OWNERS of the LAND, is an ACTUAL THING. Almost ALWAYS the company that has the building does not own the land, and has to remit a rent to the person who does.

>>10835009
I think what I'm getting at is that reading to understand the arguments is different to having to go through his empirical data, models and methodology step by step. It's a dissertation, there's no hiding that. And dissertations are a different kind of "book" than ones meant for pedagogy. The way the ideas are presented are for different purposes.

>>10835073
Keynes used calculus concepts. You, at the very least, need to know what a utility curve is, and marginal utility of a good, which means you need to know how derivatives work.

He wasn't as mathematical as, say, Leon Walras or Irving Fisher, but he was intensely mathematical at times. His formulas changed the world for a better place, though, especially the investment multiplier.

>>10835078
i don't know what kind of shithole country you're from but other than white trash in mobile homes everyone owns the land under their building...the productivity of farmland? are you retarded? you think there's a big lost opportunity cost for not growing carrots instead of building a luxury condo tower in san francisco? do you think downtown los angeles is fertile land for farming? where the fuck did you get these bizarre ideas about real estate

>>10835093
ok cool so freshman math, wow impenetrable stuff this economics

>>10835098
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_rent

Educate yourself retard

Ground rent is still payed all the time. No people do not own the ground their buildings are built on. It's just now how it works.

>>10835111
>only three states out of fifty in the united states use ground rent

wow yes i didn't know obscure maryland real estate law having never set foot in the state never mind bought a building there, kys my scrub

>>10835110
https://vocaroo.com/i/s1jxt62Z0rP6

Here. You can see I'm not upset, but for some strange reason you seem to be absolutely sure I'm trying to say that economics is absolutely crazy hard to comprehend.

I can guarantee you, many people who read common literature do not have the ability to perceive certain concepts in calculus, but you're right, that for most people they should have learned this in high school, so maybe I'm making a bigger deal than it needed to be.

>>10835111
the thing is tho, even if "ground rent" is a factor, how does this change anything at all? you failed to address the guys point, u just said "but what about ground rent?!" and its like ok in the rare cases that that is an issue, what about it then? it changes nothing

>>10835120
You don't 'allow' ground rent you fucking retard. It's something that just happens. Hawaii has ground rent, ffs.

Just read Progress and Poverty by Henry George, I can tell you need it.

>>10835124
>pseud thinks calculus is hard

u realize it's LITERALLY entry level college math right?

>>10835130
>rare cases

Ground rent is literally paid in all the cities in America you fucking retard.

God, it's threads like this that make me fortunate to have been educated by actually reading literature, unlike some of the other plebs on /lit/

>>10835135
I said it was in high school in the fucking post. You are fuming here, pleb.

>>10835136
>Ground rent is literally paid in all the cities in America you fucking retard.

well then its pretty weird how the landlord that i pay rent to owns the building and the lot it's built on...

but yeah i have a bunch of commercial reits where they longterm lease big ass buidlings and then less to small tenants, but this changes nothing, so what was your point for bringing this up again?

>>10835158
That ground rent derives its value from a combination of real estate and the productivity of farmland.

So therefore, the rent you pay has nothing to do with how much they are charged for rent. Ground rent increases uniformly, with the economic progress of society.

Don't think it has nothing to do with agriculture anymore. 80% of the land of our country isn't for nothing.

>>10835209
this sounds like some theoretical formula you had to memorize for an econ 201 quiz, ok plug in the value for farm output, put in the supply, plug in the demand, maybe some shit about bonds or interests rates or some shit, hand it in, professor checks your arithmetic, you get your grade back...ok nice, but how does this change how rent is priced? if some developer has a 40 year lease on some property do you think their payments are gonna change every based on how much value an acre of corn produces or someshit? do you think leaseholder isn't going to chance the price of rent based on economic conditions over 40 years?

again i'm curious why you think "ground rent" is such an important part of rent prices in the united states? everyone watched silicon valley housing with a magnifying glass lately, no one is talking about ground rent, so if it's there its irrelevant, but more likely it's not, are you based in the united states or what?

>>10835248
Yes I’m based in the United States. As I was saying, the ground rent has nothing to do with what the tenants are charged for rent in a given building. So it seems we’ve come full circle and actually agree :/

>>10831781
Best thing I've read on this board ever!

>>10836510
right?
poltard owned EPIC STYLE!

>>10830891

Piketty is indeed an excellent economist, but he commits to the usual mistake of modern economics, of not knowing how to deal with land and landowning. That said, his theory complemented by proper treatment of land would go a long way in pushing back the rentiers.

>>10831781
>peak appeal to authority levels
He wrote this in order to make himself rich. His ideas aren't new, nor do they really make any sense. It's pure scare-tactics at work. If he ACTUALLY had anything worthwhile to say he could have published it in a journal. Instead he went for a cash-grab.

>>10832038
>utility

>>10832039
>I have never picked up a finance/economics book.
>Spews a bunch of retarded nonsense
I should've stopped reading at the first line desu

>>10832104
It's almost like many of these people care for their entire family for generations to come. The Rockefeller family still has enormous wealth well into their 5th generation. Not to mention you can spend it on other people. Political groups, charity, research. Don't speak of pragmatism if you don't even understand what you're talking about.

>>10832125
You're also a moron, just in the opposite direction of all these other morons.

>>10832171
>utility
10/10 most retarded concept in economics

>>10832219
>investment is productive
Only at early stages. No one investing in the stock market is increasing productivity except the absolute largest players, which doesn't really help you're argument.

>>10832265
>what is competition
>over a finite resource
Please. stahp. I don't have any more reaction images for retarded posts. Yet you just keep on typing.

>>10832313
>Monopolies don't happen naturally.
PLES STAHP

There is literally no reason why anyone should be allowed to hold billions of dollars of wealth
There is literally no reason why economic activity shouldn't be planned with modern computing
Dispossess the capitalists, class war now

>>10832314
Literally all of history disagrees with you.

>>10832339
>Find me 1 (one) single modern economist (which isn't finance, but that's besides the point) that will tell you a risk free yield is actually possible.
This has literally nothing to do with what he posted. Seriously, stop talking about shit you don't understand.

>>10833828
The statistics tells us that most rich kids turn out to be complete dumbasses, then.

>>10832351
At some point we will likely have to. Actual, physical need for humans to be doing work is being diminished every day. At some point we will have to fall back.

>>10834982
Can an econ anon make a chart starting at this book and then make a decision tree (with other books) with branches for each of the currents that the reader might come to appreciate the most?

>>10832125
The single greatest predictor of how rich you are is how rich your parents were. America, which has ceaselessly pursued neoliberal "free markets", which were supposed to do the opposite, sees some of the lowest economic mobility in the industrialized world. And its upper class spends countless millions on lobbying to make the game harder for them to lose.
The rich largely live on the assets they were born with, ffs only a handful of the best stock pickers in the world can do better than flipping a coin and the whole things being done by computer algorithms today anyway.
Don't pretend some lower middle class dude working 2 jobs to send his kids to a decent school is playing the same game

>>10833851
Except that the difference between return on capital and return are labor don't matter so long as the excess wealth generated by labor is higher than the rate of inflation. In this circumstance capital will still continue to accumulate eventually moving the laborer into the capital class. It just takes longer. But it also depends on how that capital is invested. Starting a business obviously better than savings. Mobility is an issue of education both generally, and on finance.

>>10833891
That's not necessarily because of wealth but because of connections they have socially, which you could argue is a result of wealth but is not indicative of it.

>>10834914
I have never read a more retarded post in my entire life. Farmers are not hurt by nearly anything except the weather. Their lobbyist group has completely bamboozled the entire world into thinking that farmers are this poor down-trodden class, simply because of the accounting involved. No good farmer is poor in real life, only on paper. You also clearly don't understand how most business rents work if you think they care about it as a substantial cost compared to labor or unfinished goods or inventory goods.

>>10835009
It's 100% pop-econ.

>>10832313
There are such things as natural monopolies

>>10835078
>actual OWNERS of the LAND, is an ACTUAL THING. Almost ALWAYS the company that has the building does not own the land, and has to remit a rent to the person who does.
You have literally no idea what you're talking about my guy

>>10836607
You're a retard

>>10832377

Oh, after they bought the land they raised the price 1500% because they have ownership of the land so they are able to do as they like because there is no check against the rich. Are you unable to read what I wrote?

>>10836608
Nope.
Show me anywhere in history where land monopoly and a sudden 1500% hike in land price happened without such consequences

>>10836721
That’s how it works. Show me evidence that in major cities, the owners of the buildings that companies and people reside in actually own the land.

Furthermore, show me evidence that FARMERS actually own their land.

It’s how land works plen

>>10836750
You still aren't understanding. What happens *after* they increase the price. I'm not arguing that they can't do that. Just think about who would be able to afford that and how much they in turn would need to overcharge to make any sort of profit.

>>10836650
Of course it's a great predictor; inheritance is a thing. Western markets have consistently produced higher quality living standards across the board. The people we consider to be impoverished live like upper class citizens of less developed parts of the world.
I'll also point out that lobbying isn't intrinsic to capitalism, that is corporatism, which I also agree is abhorrent.
People can live on assets they were born with, but it simply doesn't last on its own. You might get one or two generations who live off the success of their parents, but at some point they need to invest or it all gets sucked back into the economy.

>>10836591
It is always productive, but maybe not in immediately obvious ways. To go back to anon's fridge repair anecdote from yesterday, simply living incurs costs and puts money back into the economy, providing jobs, increasing demand, etc. Their $35k fridge is still $35k that some company gained. I can imagine anon charged a decent amount for the repair too.

>>10836605
>>10836601
>>10836581
Here are your (You)s for those wonderfully argumentative posts.

>>10837050
>it's not capitalism
>it's corporatism
Firstly, corporatism doesn't mean what you think it means.

Secondly, lobbying isn't THE problem. If people want to support campaigns for policies they like, that isn't a problem to me, as long as there is full transparency so I can know who supports who. But wealth inequality ends up meaning that some groups end up having more ear time, in ways that aren't representative of public interest. For-profit entities should have stricter controls than non-profits.

Corporate-to-labor-union-lobbying ratio in the US is even scarier than this.

>>10837126
>lobbying isn't the problem
>wealth inequality ends up meaning that some groups end up having more ear time
So why not remove the ability for those with enough lawyers to cloud the sky to put through legislation that unfairly benefits them, and removes the competitive benefits of a free market; rather than forcefully redistributing wealth and restricting property/autonomy rights?
Get the government out of the picture, let people vote with their wallets.

>>10832104

Moron. Nobody has a billion dollars.


Billionaires usually have most of their net worth in their own companies stock.

What do you think would happen to the net worth of someone like Bezos, if he decided to liquidate all of his amazon equity?

>>10837050

1) People that pay it pay it and sacrifice everything else because home is the most important thing a person has besides life.

2) People who can't pay go homeless or move to a different place and quit the job they had or commute.

3) Someone who can afford move in.

8 Billion people in the world, there will always be someone to take the other dude's place. Good thing we got goyms to separate the rich from poor.


>People wonder why shitholes exist.

>>10837226
>sacrifice everything else
Hmmmmm...
>or move to a different place
Hmmmmm...
>quit the job they had
Hmmmmm...

See point 2 of >>10832313

>>10837247

>Separates point one and two into 3 points
>Purposefully doesn't mention point 3 and conclusion point.

Wew lad, you sure showed me the reality of the world.

>Being this delusional about how money and power works

So was the spoon silver or gold?

>>10832245
>house rents not productive


Single digit cap rates, laws that increasingly favor tenants, never ending maintenance and the substantial risk involved. Market risk and the risk they will destroy your property.


If collecting rent is so easy why don’t you do it? Anyone who’s not a bum can qualify for a mortgage.

>>10837266
>substantial risk involved

Ya, who needs a fucking house? Not like we have a large number of homeless or anything.

>If collecting rent is so easy why don’t you do it? Anyone who’s not a bum can qualify for a mortgage.

Not every person can qualify for two though. You realize most people need to live under a roof too right? Not everyone qualifies for an apartment complex, moneybags.

>>10837265
I'm trying to point out where you're on the right track to understanding what I'm trying to say, because based on your replies you aren't getting it or are just choosing to ignore me.
This imaginary scenario where some individual or collective buys up land and hikes prices isn't sustainable because of the effects that has on the customers and those they buy from. It might happen, but it wouldn't last, and it would be a stupid business decision to make because you just kill off all hope of income. It's basic supply and demand, and purchasing power at work.

>>10837160
Wealth inequality makes governments more susceptible to regulatory captures. The rich can more successfully lobby for government regulations that benefit them at the expense of the general public, such as copyrights, patents, various forms of protectionism for high-income jobs and so on. Wealth inequality is the enemy of free markets.

Also, there is no such thing as “redistribution” since any “initial” form of income distribution results from institutions and policies which are implemented by the state, such as property rights, bankruptcy laws, contract enforcement and so on. Matt Bruenig wonderfully explains this point: http://mattbruenig.com/2012/09/20/there-is-no-such-thing-as-redistribution/

>>10837285

What the fuck are you talking about? Literally happens all the fucking time. There's even a term for it when it's a poorer neighborhood to begin with.

What is gentrification mother fucker?

You haven't answered the most important question. Was the spoon sliver or gold?

>>10831005
>when someone implies the government can successfully regulate markets that competition can’t

>>10837301
Oh fuck off if you're just going to resort to talking like that.

>>10837293
Really do not agree with that view on initial, sorry. Property rights should not be implemented, they should be inherent and protected. Same with contract enforcement. Taking money from one, and giving it to another, without consent is redistribution.
I will stand by saying that the solution is not to dictate whom can trade with whom and for how much, or to decide when some entity has too much wealth, but to remove the unnecessary involvement in the market in the first place.

>>10836650
No, it’s IQ.

>>10837322

>Oh fuck he's got a point, being condescending to him wasn't working and now I don't have a good response. I know! I'll just act like I'm offended on 4chan, that will surely allow me to keep my dignity.

What a fucking faggot.

>>10837308
Even most libertarians realize that governments must regulate the market to a certain extent. Markets can’t deal with information assymetries, oligopolies, principal-agent problems, negative externalities and so on.

>>10837322
>Property rights should not be implemented, they should be inherent and protected. Same with contract enforcement.

Contract enforcement and property rights are forms of government coercion, as Robert Nozick correctly pointed out. Why would a non-consequentialist libertarian support such policies?

>>10837278

Right. And why should they?

>>10837322
>Property rights should not be implemented, they should be inherent and protected. Same with contract enforcement. Taking money from one, and giving it to another, without consent is redistribution.

Why do libertarians like you always shy away from the initial property problem? See: https://peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/08/initial-property-continues-to-vex-libertarians/

>>10837367

Holy shit, you just contradicted your own statement.

>Anyone who’s not a bum can qualify for a mortgage

>Not every person can qualify

>Right. And why should they?

Jesus Christ, the entitlement from wealthy people kills me.

>>10837367

What kind of doublespeak are you saying?

> if you think it's easy just get a mortgage. Anyone can do it.

I can't because I already have a mortgage for my own house

>Well you shouldn't be able to

I do think it's easy, I literally can't afford to do it. Your statements encapsulate the wealthy perspective. Why can't us plebs just make money fall out of our pockets?

>Don't they realize that daddy should have paid their debts until adulthood?

>>10837301

Different anon here.

If you think a slow gentrification happening organically over time is the same as a hypothetical robber baron type buying up a whole town and raising the rents sky high, you are a moron.
.

What about the people he purchased the land from? Weren’t some of them home owners? They sold voluntarily and at a huge premium due to demand. I’m sure they would love it.

What about when the local court system grinds to a halt when no one pays rent anymore?

What about the local employers who have to decide between raising the wages so people can afford to live close or justify a commute? What if they relocate operations and take the renting population with them?

>>10837369
We don't. First come first serve, essentially. There is the concept of mixing labour which implies some duty to use property, but other than that the basic idea is "nobody else has a claim to this so I will use it".

>>10837359
I think the fundamental disagreement I have with people here is whether property rights are a natural consequence of autonomy. As I see it, everyone is self autonomous, nobody has a claim of ownership over anyone else. A natural extension of this is the right to property I may use to exert my autonomy without causing conflict.
This right to own, and use, property as I see fit is simply a given, and the government's purpose is to protect that (key: not implement, enforce, or provide it).

>>10837403
>slow gentrification

Gentrification doesn't have a set speed so what are you talking about?

>What about the people he purchased the land from? Weren’t some of them home owners? They sold voluntarily and at a huge premium due to demand.

People who live in apartments have 0 say, this literally has no baring on my mental exercise.

>What about when the local court system grinds to a halt when no one pays rent anymore?

Wat?

>What about the local employers who have to decide between raising the wages so people can afford to live close or justify a commute? What if they relocate operations and take the renting population with them?

Again look at gentrification. Those shops close down and new ones come for rich people. It literally relocates the poor so they are huddled together.

There is a very good reason why there are rich towns and poor towns, rich part of cities and poor parts of cities. The people who own the property can decide what clientele they want to attract and there is no limitation to their choice aside location. Rural areas wouldn't have this problem, but my example is literally the reason why cities are so god damn expensive.

>>10837386
>I can’t afford it.


Exactly. Having one loan is just an excuse. You can’t afford it. That’s all.

If you can’t make enough in the labor market and/or are not resourceful enough to acquire an investment property, then why should you be entitled to use someone else’s money on a risky, speculative, investment?

Not to mention nothing is stopping you from purchasing shares of a REIT.

>>10837424

>uhhh ummmm. Well in my example everyone lives in apartments. And all the new shops that open, they do so to exclude the poor. Not because there is a demand for that good.

Waahh wahhh I cant afford to live in the big city.

>>10837414
So, you think that private property would exist in a stateless society? Why?

>>10832265
banking on the wealth being resistributed when we know for a fact this is fucking nonsense because if it wasn’t poor families would constantly get rich, is pretty fucking stupid anon.

>>10834923
someone needs to knock you out for saying econ has more value than bio and neuroscience you dumb fucking pseud house nigger

>>10837460
The concept of it would exist but it would likely be enforced by less efficient means such as neighbourhood groups or private militia etc. And where those aren't available conflict would be rife.
I'm not one of those ancaps who thinks that the word government is evil, but I think it's dangerous to imply that they somehow provide an inherent right; they are a means of protecting that right.

>>10837464
When rich people spend money it doesn't just disappear into a void, it goes to a myriad of places. Poor people do get rich, believe it or not, but I get what you're saying. There is always going to be a large disparity between the 1 and the 99% without forcefully redistributing wealth, but the point is that the 1% can still raise the overall living standards and wealth of the whole.

>>10837347
The government doesn’t really deal with them either. Especially oligopolies; Tacit collusion is a given. I get there’s the equity argument (imperfect information can lead to exploitation regarding things like investment and insurance) but on the whole, publicly owned industry is no more beneficial to the economy and financial regulation does little except stifle business and wrap it up in beaurocracy

>>10837510
>The government doesn’t really deal with them either.

Maybe it doesn’t in Congo, but it certainly does in all civilized countries.

>>10837489
Why do you think that any rights would exist without government enforcement?

>>10837520
Can I counter this by asking why you think rights must be enforced?

Rights surrounding the individual must exist if we are to avoid conflict, and these are simply a side effect of being. We are all aware of them on some instinctual or even archetypal moral level.
I would not dare claim I have ownership over your body and thoughts, for example. That's without some external body. If I attempted to you would understandably conflict with me, or others would to protect you.

>>10830891
>>10830905
Why not read Mas-Collel instead of pop-econ or heterodox shit? Oh wait, mathlets still want to make deep-sounding proclamations about Capital or whatever.

>>10837369
Thanks for showing me this think tank. Seems like https://www.americanprogress.org but with more socialist sympathies and younger?

I wish my country had non-party think tanks. Our parties don't even really have think tanks as much as they have low-key propagandists and partisan youth groups.

>>10837588
No such thing as a non-party think tank.

>>10837587
hiding behind equations does not change who owns everything or controls public policy

>>10837587
>microeconomist
ty might read his introductory text book but
>Mas-Colell's fundamental theory of welfare economics with no interiority assumptions crucially requires lattice properties of commodity spaces, even in finite-dimensional settings
how does shit like that translate into policy??

>>10837594
What about the think tanks that don't take donations from political parties?

Having your interests align with a party on particular instances doesn't affiliate you with that party.

>>10837598
What I mean is that you should at least familiarize yourself with the mainstream of a field like economics at the level of a beginning researcher (1st-2nd year grad student) before you go around making grand proclamations about it. This is how we get Marxists and Austrians. Of course mainstream economics has its own ideological biases, and to some extent the entire field is clouded by ideological considerations, but at least you can calculate things and apply statistics. Not so much if you're a Marxist or Austrian.

>>10837608
Are you telling me that quote is something a 1st-2nd year can wrap his head around?

>>10837606
>Having your interests align with a party on particular instances doesn't affiliate you with that party.
Informal Party organ.

For example I read the first paragraph or two of this product and can immediately recognize the Bruenig writing style because I used to read this sort of thing. It should for all intents and purposes be viewed as an arm of the Democratic party, the people who think like this will all reliably vote Democrat, donate to Democrats, campaign for Democrats, etc.

>>10837620
First to second year graduate student, absolutely. A first-second year graduate in economics should at least have had like, analysis at the level of baby Rudin, some linear algebra, and a bit of functional analysis. Maybe a bit tricky if your background is literary but imo it's better to actually know what is going on in a field on some level before talking about it so that you try to avoid just agreeing with things that flatter your ideological priors.

>>10837626
Don't know anything 'bout functional analysis, but most bio or soc science students learn data analysis and we learn linear algebra in high school (the basic stuff), and the linear algebra necessary for statistical models is taught in the first years of at least some of those fields. Is that quote something I could understand with "a bit of functional analysis"?

>>10837650
Oh and multiliniar algebra in the second year.

>>10837596
One hopes that you can get leaders to make less pathological decisions if they're informed with more accurate economic models. Unfortunately, when you look at things like the immigration problem in the US it seems clear that the desires of powerful people are primary and economists will "find" results that confirm what is already wanted by the rulers. Such is life in the American Caliphate.

>>10837650
I would just look for an upper-level undergrad economics textbook and some econ "math camp" notes if you're really curious. If it seems a bit too difficult try grabbing an undergrad Analysis book first.

>>10831866
just freeze their assets. if you coordinate every 1rst world country and force the few remaining non-shitholes to follow it's possible.
not like bezos is going to live in somalia

>>10837674
Can you recomend me some?

I got auxiliar text books on microeconomics and macroeconomics with "essential" on their titles, and I suppose that isn't what you mean by "upper-level".

>>10837674
all economists submit to rulers because everything they believe benefits the ruling and owner classes, you and the other lad spent a day and a half autistically trying to argue rent isn’t manipulated and now you’re hilariously saying that the rulers who you know you have to disapprove of or we’ll eat you alive, are just bad eggs who are misleading the poor good economists (who aren’t scientists and have no allegiance to truth). the rich do this in every single society, their ruling class counterparts do this in every single economy. fuck your crocodile tears, go hang yourself by your tie faggot i hope you get mugged on your next bar outting bourgeoisie rat that you are
>>10837678
no one will do this and they control assets in other nations, you can’t control what rich people do by taking their wealth, you have to kill them and kill anyone who tries to amass wealth. you need to be willing to hurt people who hurt society or you get nothing done. by hurt i mean execute publicly

>>10833675
My Nagel

Personally believe it's rather jaded to view income inequality as something that needs to be reversed so strongly. What's a simple socialist celebration of wealth distribution just comes across as the angry, rich hater, opposed to the poor lover.

Inequality is merely an unwritten fact of life that cannot be restricted to such severe levels as Picketty suggests. It leads to absolute chaos. There's no harm in moderate wealth restrictions through barriers e.g higher tax on second homes and the like. But to go to this detail, when the inequality that exists in the first place had aided so many, and the deeper wealth inequality gets, the better things seem to be for the majority of developing nations.

>>10833675
I'm too big of a dumb-dumb to comprehend this one aren't I

>>10837711
I haven't posted on /lit/ in months, but:
>all economists submit to rulers because everything they believe benefits the ruling and owner classes
Economists submit to rulers because they're the rulers. Intellectuals do influence rulers, of course, but I would say that to a large degree economists simply find results that say "What ruler X wants to do is good." It's closer to a priesthood than a pure science.
>muh borgissi XD
No such thing as a grassroots popular revolution.

>>10837765
its not a science at all, you don’t need to tell me or anyone on /sci/ that anon, they’ll remind you until you’re in that shallow grave you’re digging, you and all the others
>no such thing as grassroots
no such thing as altruist or selfless investment/economic policy. all decisions are made to benefit the already wealthy and you in your infinite cleverness have to save face by concoting ways this could conceivably be beneficial to thr people who do all the work

>>10837810
Well, they have an interest in not getting usurped by rival elites trying to oust them by riling up the masses with revolutionary rhetoric.

>>10837747
> the deeper wealth inequality gets, the better things seem to be for the majority of developing nations.

All empirical research suggests exactly the opposite. Even the World Bank and the IMF - institutions which are often considered “neoliberal” - admit that inequality depresses growth.

>Inequality is merely an unwritten fact of life that cannot be restricted to such severe levels as Picketty suggests

Piketty merely argues that we should go back to the same level of inequality we had during the post-war economic expansion, when growth was much more faster than it is now.

I've never understood the autistic obsession with the rich boogeyman. If you feel that 'wealth' is immoral, just don't acquire any. You who want to evangelize your morals are just neopuritans.

>>10838405
Let me help you understand.

His thesis is very simply put; when the rate of return on capital is greater than overall economic growth in an economy, the result is a concentration of capital.

Basically he is saying that under the normal economic circumstances of capitalism the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and these are related facts. Unless there is policy intervention the rich will accumulate so quick it sucks up not just all the new growth but also the wealth the lower classes have.


Surely somebody will comment 'hurr wealth isn't a zero-sum game, what an idiot!' Don't be that person.

>early into the century
>most important book

Much of the important stuff will come later.

>>10838488
Yes, I feel myself getting poorer by the second! Meanwhile my grandma slept in native american huts. Sorry if I don't feel the impending doom that'll come if we don't go prob rich people.

>>10838612

Millenials who buy into this stuff are usually the ones who stay in grad school forever. If you work for a living you know it's always possible to learn new skills and movie into a higher paying position. I know at least four people who started out in fast food while doing their community college degrees or whatever, then became a low paid office jockey, and then figured out they could git gud with computers and are now making upward 60k-90k a year in IT without even having a degree in it.

>>10838405
I've never understood the autistic obsession with the murderer boogeyman. If you feel that 'murder' is immoral, just don't commit any. You who want to evangelize your morals are just neopuritans.

>>10838405
I've never understood the autistic obsession with the rapist boogeyman. If you feel that 'rape' is immoral, just don't commit any. You who want to evangelize your morals are just neopuritans.

>>10838612
In the US, the median income has stagnated over the last several decades. Your anecdotal personal experience doesn’t invalidate macroeconomic trends.

>>10838405
Wealth commands power. It's relative and can only be understood in terms of ratios. You can't really drop out. It's not that power is immoral per se just something to be aware of.

>>10838612

This is non seqitur bro. You ARE getting poorer by the second, relative to the people who are richer than you are. Doesn't matter if you are in a situation of "comfortable disaster" and feel like you are OK with this or if you are worried about losing so much potential wealth, it's still happening all the same.

There are also many works (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24646 is an excellent example and can be accessed via sci-hub), which claim that Gini coefficients (that measure wealth inequality) were at their peaks precisely before revolutionary or otherwise chaotic periods of societies.

It is in absolute NO ONE's interest except of the rich people that they remain rich. This is true not only in individual terms where you could be having much more than you already do but also in global terms where society becomes unstable (e.g "leftism" movements arising out of economical crisis) whenever wealth inequality reaches high points represented by Gini coefficients.

>>10831928
austrian economics debunked (redpill overdose)
TRIGGER WARNING: FACTS AHEAD!!

tl;dr
>gold standard is unstable and not a viable currency, susceptible to fraud and dependent upon mining
>they are openly anti-scientific, rely on "praxeology", they are philosopher at best
>dumb ideology funded by koch brothers think tanks (CATO) to convince ignorant armchair economists
>every prediction they had is proven wrong
>they business cycle theory is wrong
>they don't use scientific method, no maths, no statistics, nothing, just speculation
>only used as political rhetoric by ron paul to rile up his gadsen-flag hillbilly voterbase
>all of peter schiff's predictions are wrong, he has been preaching doomsday for decades
>mainstream economics agrees with less than half of their policy
>literally no respects austrian economists today, abandoned as early as 1950's
>only good thing to come out of it was Hayek, who wasn't even Austrian since he rejects praxeology. He contributed to price theory, and added to the socialist calculation problem. Also his philosophy is superior and way more nuanced compared to mises/rothbard.

>>10831928

top global econ journals, ZERO positive austrian results, all negative! outdated! wrong! pseudoscience!

https://academic.oup.com/qje/search-results?page=1&q=austrian&fl_SiteID=5504&allJournals=1&SearchSourceType=1
https://academic.oup.com/restud/search-results?page=1&q=austrian%20economics&fl_SiteID=5508&allJournals=1&SearchSourceType=1
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/mac/search-results?within%5Btitle%5D=on&within%5Babstract%5D=on&within%5Bauthor%5D=on&within%5BjelCode%5D=0&journal=6&q=austrian+economics
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/jep/search-results?within%5Btitle%5D=on&within%5Babstract%5D=on&within%5Bauthor%5D=on&journal=3&q=austrian+economics

http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_economics
ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_neoclassical_synthesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_consensus_of_economics
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220480309595230
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.nl/2017/04/economics-is-inexact-science.html
https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/39717/Master-Thesis-Nicolas-Bernerman.pdf

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1530995
https://recoveringaustrians.wordpress.com/top-ten-austrian-economic-lies-and-mistakes/
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm
https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/top-ten-lies-and-mistakes-of-austrian-economics/
https://hallingblog.com/2015/09/08/praxeology-an-intellectual-train-wreck/
https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/search?q=austrian&restrict_sr=on
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2138469

http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/College/marketfailures.html
https://www.colorado.edu/economics/morey/4545/introductory/marketfailures.pdf
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1py0a8/eli5why_is_the_gold_standard_bad_feel_free_to/

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-criticisms-of-the-Austrian-school-of-economic-thought
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/eej.2012.32

>>10838690

WTF the Paul political dynasty isn't even relevant any more. Talk about someone who matters in today's world if you're trying to make a point.

>>10831928

you are getting (((nosed))) lolberts
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21711504-his-theory-management-inspired-austrian-school-economic-thought-worked-wonders

want to learn REAL economics? no problem, open source PDF book
https://openstax.org/subjects/

Blogs (neurtal-center right)
http://marginalrevolution.com/
https://uneasymoney.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/wiki/blogs
http://econlog.econlib.org/

>leftists
yea, no

>>10838684
>It is in absolute NO ONE's interest except of the rich people that they remain rich.

One can argue that, in the long term, it isn’t even in the interest of the rich because inequality decreases aggregate demand and increases social instability.

>>10838698
Both Marginal Revolution and EconLog are libertarian blogs.

>>10838700
Most economists are left-leaning. If you want to ignore leftists, you would have to ignore a very large part of economic mainstream.

>>10834982
>richard wolf
r*ddit tier ideological garbage, try something real
http://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents.html
https://openstax.org/subjects/
https://www.youtube.com/user/MrUniversity/videos
might as well buy something from mises institute, such levels of propaganda

>>10838643
>>10838652
>productivity = rape + murder
Now I understand the luddite fear of the technology

>>10838718
the pasta is made for /pol/ you retard

>>10838700
With economics, depending on what they are talking about, the traditionalist board of /lit/ has agreed that some leftist mechanisms are justified.

Especially if it's larger taxes on rent or taxing inheritance a considerable deal.

Because it supports hard work and helps produce a good future.

>>10838612
Real wages (nominal wages adjusted for inflation) haven't grown for several years. The median has actually gone down.

>>10838745
/pol/ hates lolberts

>>10838740
>calls something “r*ddit tier ideological garbage”
>posts Marginal Revolution’s YouTube channel

Can’t make this shit up

>>10838690
I respect Hayek more as a political scientist than an economist.

Chapter 2 and 7 of Road to Serfdom are some of the best think pieces on authoritarianism.

>>10838705
Corporate psycopaths and trust fund brats don't tend to care for posterity. And they have no class loyalty.

The philantropist-types, the ones that seem to actually care about not having the system come crashing down are the ones that set up dynasties, like the Rothschilds, and the ones that want to set up legacies, like Gates and Soros.

>>10833891
This is a baseless assertion that (while ideologically compelling) is not supported by the data.

For a quick example, compare the US to France. The U.S. has dramatically lower income equality, but France has dramatically lower mobility. Counterintuitively, very few rich people in America manage to stay rich, and certainly not their children.

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Why-Inequality-Matters-Capital-in-21st-Century-Review

BILLY GATES DESTROYS PIKETTY

CLICK LINK ABOVE TO FIND BILLIONAIRE AND HERO OF AFRICA ENDING PIKETTY’S CAREER

>>10831042
Newsflash Piketty: this wont happen

Does he know what Monero is? You think rich peoples money is hard to trace now? It will become increasing difficult to trace as rich people use private crypto currencies to stash millions of dollars of wealth

(Dont worry, Joe Smith has access to Monero too- its how Joe gets his Blow)

>>10838690
No one except retards takes Austrian economics seriously. Pretty sure they dismiss statistics, for God's sake.

>>10839346
Monero will probably be banned soon. If too many people started using it to resist taxation, governments would have a hard time raising enough money to mollify their brown underclass, which would be a very dangerous situation.

>>10839375
I don't think so, they just don't have the capabilities to make effective predictive models.

Their idea of value from the monetary unit literally stems from its historical value, which Mises says is derived from it's (gasp) fundamental value attached to it from a standard, and thus the level of scarcity and productive resources used to acquire that standard.

These days it is an outdated metal, and if you want more reliable analysis of how nations could benefit from bimetallism, just read Leon Walras' Elements of Pure Economics.

Austrian economics is not entirely well defined. Carl Menger is about the best you'll get from that school, as Carl Menger basically understands marginal economics, and that is where the neoclassical/austrian school split happened in the beginning of the 20th century.

>economics is to literature like metal is to music
>the different schools of economics are like different genres of metal
>austrian economics is like nu-metal

Refute this.

>>10839414
>I don't think so, they just don't have the capabilities to make effective predictive models.
That's certainly a knock against it, to say the least.

>>10839391
Lol good luck banning monero

Just remember rich/powerful people benefit from monero too- the rich/powerful dont want this tool to be banned

Even if it does get banned, how exactly does a government stop citizens from downloading it from tor/i2p and using it on tails, whonix, etc?

Its much like darknet markets, you end one forty more pop up

>>10839429
Yes it is. I certainly don't attach any weight to the books that Austrian economists write.

Mises is correct on one point and one point alone: that the quantitative easings depreciate the monetary unit from the point in which the capital injection was located. This much is provable through the quantity theory of money, and was admitted by Keynes to be the case.

But hilariously enough, it seems they have certain things backwards, for instance their idea of what happens to the interest rate in a production cycle is completely opposite to that of Keynes.

>>10839429
Keynesian economics have no predictive models either
ENTIRE FIELD IS A JOKE

>>10839444
I tend to lean towards neoclassicism but my background was in physics so I'm comfortable with the math. I'm still "working on" understanding modern economics better as a hobby. With that said I do have some problems with the ideological priors held by a lot of mainstream economists, but what can you do

>>10839442
I mean, I hope it doesn't get banned since I've made a good amount of money speculating on cryptocurrencies, but I expect it to get banned at some point, or at least made very difficult to acquire. I can see any exchanges that list it being forced to delist it if they want to comply with government regulation, which would force people onto DEXs.

>>10839463
Are we to suppose that you're saying Keynes' theories have not helped divert further disaster after the recession?

You dum

>>10839467
>Neoclassicism
Interesting choice. So you are opting for the most mathematical of all the economic systems. Truly, neoclassical economics is interesting. With all the vector algebra and partial differentials it's somewhat hard to parse through.

Thanks to the neoclassical theories of Irving Fisher, I believe economists are able to predict interest rate movements with reliable efficiency.

>>10839493
Basically, I'd like to think that the more mathematically precise you are, the harder it is for politics/ideology to lead you down a wrong path. For example, I think mainstream economists' attitudes toward immigration are highly questionable, but at the end of the day most economists are either libertarians or progressives so their priors are going to affect how they design their models and what conclusions they draw. Hard to escape this sort of thing when you work in a field with political implications using real world data, it's not "pure" like physics, but, oh well.

>>10839515
>it's not "pure" like physics
It's funny you say that, some economists do try to make it that way.

When they do, their findings are all over the political spectrum, because economic truths, as we know, have no party alliance. Let me give you an example: in Walras' book Elements of Pure Economics, he determines an economically progressive economy as one whose capital replaces the land relatively in every good produced on average. Now, because of this, he says that a tax on rent is the ONLY tax that does not resolve itself into a tax on consumption, because the rent is continually going up in a progressive economy.

Pretty liberal huh?

But before finding that, he had asserted the best way to stabilize one's money was by having a managed monometallic standard, i.e. managed so as to regulate the other metallic standard that balances the utility wave of that specific currency out, i.e. having the people in charge of the monetary supply manage the amount of silver proliferated to balance the exchangeable value of gold.

This finding is obviously not very liberal, since it utilizes a managed monometallic standard, however it is just an economic truth.

The accuracy of these sorts of economic truths are more 'pure' the closer you can relate them to mathematical principles and equalities, i.e. the more you can define the unknowns and the more vast the system of discrete equations is.

Because of this sort of logic, we can fundamentally determine the LTV is flawed, because it tries to determine two unknowns with one equation. So where do we go from here? That is the reason, primarily of the split into the different schools. Marginal economics was what triggered a vast mathematization of the field. And I believe it was a step in the right direction, because the idea can be explored extremely well through mathematics, especially as human beings encounter trade in electronic mediums more and more frequently.

>>10833872
Anwar doesn't really seem like a Marxist, am I missing something?

>>10839556
Anwar is def. Marxist. He is at the New School, you pretty much have to be some kind of Marxist there. Also no non-Marxists write long tracts About Capitalism.

>>10839549
Yeah, land value/land rent taxes are universally agreed upon by most economists as being Good but we can never seen to implement them. If only we had an absolute monarch who could do so and didn't have to appease donors to get elected.

>>10836698
You are a moron. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm referring to is that rent is raised as the overall profits are raised. There is just a cap on the amount of returns you can reap if you're a farmer. Technically this would be case is Henry George's ideas were implemented (which they should be), however the anon's stipulation that rent in any way affects his individual apartment rent is just plain false. That is because real estate is a seller's market, and THAT price is largely just the reflection of buyers bids, and would not in any way change based on an incremental alteration economic progress.

>>10839079
“No”

>>10839642
That's a brilliant chart. It's a shame that chart doesn't represent reality outside of the west (and doesn't really effectively represent the west either for what it's worth).

Which imposes more of a challenge to the American poor rising above poverty, their average IQ that is between 1-1.5 deviations lower than the mean IQ of the "middle class", or the consistent devaluation of a degree as students flood colleges?

>>10839733
>>10839642
Also, one can very easily manipulate statistics to "prove" their thesis. If one looks at "quality of life" intergenerationally, one is going to get a very different result than if one looks at relative earning percentiles.

Do you envision a future in which 100% of the bottom 20% of earners will have ended their life in the top 20% of earners, and how do you expect to foster such a development?

>>10839733
>IQ
fucking dropped.

>>10839753
Do you not believe that pattern recognition and cognitive ability has any bearing on ones earning potential in a complex economy? If so, how do you reconcile that against nearly all of reality which appears to be opposed to you?

>>10839733
The problem is that you are ignoring race. Gaps in the average IQ of each race have a tendency to stratify the population of a country (and thereby reinforce themselves over time). Go to more homogenous countries and you will see more income inequality.

>>10830891
Another day, another interesting discussion on /lit/. Keep it up anons.

>>10835135
>calculus is college level
what
really?
do you like not have math at all in high school or what

>>10839991
I'm not ignoring race, but rather highlighting the important components of it that contribute to income inequality. While I'm not the biggest fan of the aesthetics of other races (beyond some THICC Latinas and Sheila's), it isn't their aesthetics that drive their income gap. It is the lower average IQ, the higher time preference, and tendencies towards more immediate concrete decision-making instead of paused more "critical"-reasoning.