We Should Own the Economy

A very cool project. Incentive alignment is hard to do well, and doing it both equitably and equally is even harder.

Just for reference, if you include home equity, to be in the top 10%, you have to have wealth of $2.25 million.<p>Without home equity it’s about 1.5 million.<p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dqydj.com&#x2F;net-worth-percentile-calculator&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dqydj.com&#x2F;net-worth-percentile-calculator&#x2F;</a>

Oh, the actual communism is cool again? What is happening in US, for real?

Been listening to All-In podcast and they&#x27;ve been talking like this - its really amusing to see them (and this author) get excited by what are essentially taxes with a different narrative (i.e. US sovereign wealth fund, give cash to US citizens to invest in S&amp;P, NASDAQ, crypto to give them skin in the game).<p>The infrastructure for this is already there, it just needs to be rebranded and given a new narrative to make it acceptable for both the billionaire class. Instead of calling it taxes and social security, redistributive policies should be rebranded as patriotic profit sharing with the US government.<p>The US government&#x27;s job would still be to pool resources to provide educated employees for companies to hire, well functioning transportation systems for companies to use, rule of law for companies to benefit from and pensions systems&#x2F;basic healthcare for company employees&#x2F;retirees.<p>In exchange for access to this US infrastructure, US and foreign corporations operating in the US would contribute to the US Freedom Dividend which will be shared across Americans to provide a baseline standard of living and allow them to invest to have skin in the game.<p>To get companies and wealthy individuals to willing participate in redistributive policies it seems we just need to avoid messaging it as punitive and&#x2F;or as retribution for being successful (i.e. the Elizabeth Warren&#x2F;AOC approach). We need to reframe it in language they speak - patriotism and profit sharing - and reframe them as the heroes for funding all the infrastructure and not the enemies.<p>I think there would be mind shift among the populace if they actually had more of a clear map as well from S&amp;P500 companies winning and their own pocketbooks benefitting.

The chunk of the economy you own should be proportionate to the amount you contributed to growing the economy. In modern, functioning economies, this is more or less the case.<p>The idea that inequality will lead to lopsided political power hasn&#x27;t yet been proven. If the 100 richest Americans decided who was president, it would be someone like Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg -- not Donald Trump.<p>People who focus so much on inequality should rethink their priorities. Actually, living in a highly unequal economy is fine as long as:<p>1. Wealth is highly correlated to productivity<p>2. The poor have access to the necessities

Capital (as in &quot;money&quot;, not the means of production) is, boiled down, a means of social compulsion. I can compel a person to make me a sandwich with $10, and should they refuse very many times, they will be put into a position of jeopardy, with less access to food, shelter, medical services, hygiene, etc. In our culture, capital is like a whip to a horse and buggy.<p>Putting more capital into more people&#x27;s pockets is like putting more whips into more people&#x27;s hands. It does not address the root cause of the problem.

&gt;If we don’t do something about it we could lose democracy.<p>I love how people are still pretending like this didn&#x27;t happen already. If you think there are going to be elections in 2028, you are gravely mistaken.<p>But as an aside, the issue isn&#x27;t necessarily the wealth inequality, its the fact that the average person in US enjoys a relatively good life. This is why most of US didn&#x27;t show up to vote in 2024. This creates a catch 22 situation, because people enjoy this level of life, and are going to elect leaders that will let them continue to live this way, not realizing that this is not sustainable. Which automatically makes them reject any leaders that are attempting to fix the problems that are slowly created, because those solutions means either less freedoms or less money in the short term (even if it means more money or more freedoms in the long term).<p>I dunno what the solution to this is really, and nobody does. You can argue that strong authoritarian control by the right coalition could fix this, but then the question becomes &quot;how do make enough people believe that they don&#x27;t deserve the freedoms that they had in order to put trust in that coalition&quot;