Capitalism and Inequality - <AUTHOR> https://avc.com/2019/01/capitalism-and-inequality/ <comment><USER4> This entire post is based on a strawman argument. AoC said that a system that allows billionaires to emerge alongside extreme poverty is immoral - <USER2> reference to hookworm(which she incorrectly referred to as ringworm) in Alabama. It's hard to disagree with that, and it's a VERY different point than claiming billionaires should not exist (which OP argues against).

By the way, the point AoC was trying to make when put in context is exactly the argument that the OP was making, which is that people getting rich is OK but it's immoral that people are getting rich and also people are living in extreme poverty, so we should improve the system so people aren't living in extreme poverty.

Where OP differs from AoC is (of course) in his assessment of _how_ we eliminate extreme poverty - AoC is famously advocating a 70% marginal tax rate, while OP suggested some unspecified mix of "technological improvement" and "re-imagining of government" to achieve elimination of poverty. Frankly I think OP is just naive. Maybe he thinks government is literally in the stone age with an army of clerks shuffling paperwork, but I just don't see how eliminating some unnecessary jobs (useful, yes) in government can achieve "medical care for all, affordable education for all, and some amount of income for all" (OP's listed aims).

On top of that, ANY change to government is inherently political. The kind of revolutionary upgrades in government efficiency that OP wants would need to be a major party initiative - which would be opposed by the opposite party, watered down during negotiations, and subjected to compromise by the political process. This is simply a fact about how the world works. We're not an autocracy which means we don't get a visionary Steve Jobs figure who can dictate what the government will do for the next 10 years, and we have to accept both the good and the bad that comes with that.

To think that technology will magically save us from real world problems plaguing real people by "reimagining government" and "cutting unnecessary jobs" is literally wishful thinking. It belongs in a bygone era where tech enthusiasts were sure facebook and google would revolutionize the world by spreading democratic and free speech ideals to every corner of the earth. There aren't easy solutions to every hard problem and OP doesn't seem to appreciate this fact.

<comment><USER5> What is "extreme poverty" and what is the character of the life of someone who lives in "extreme poverty"?

One of my biggest fears with this line of rhetoric: Extreme is a relative descriptor. If the most poor of us made 100k/yr, then they would be on the "extreme" end of the income scale.

I fear that it's too easy to forget that making 15k/year today makes you dramatically better off than median income earners from 100 years ago.

<comment><USER6> My own definition: While we have people who are incapable of paying for food, shelter, healthcare and basic education, we have people living in extreme poverty.

It's good that less of us are extremely poor today than 100 years ago, but the fact that you can watch Netflix in comfort while your teeth rot inside your mouth unattended does not mean change to the system isn't needed.

<comment><USER7> Do you add any context to that? For example, lets say I go out and I spend my paycheck on a new gaming computer, the next day technically I can't afford food. Is it societies job to step in? What if I am able bodied but refuse to work? What if I could afford to live with roommates, but I prefer not to? As for healthcare is everyone entitled to cutting edge experimental therapies from the mayo clinic, or would access to their local hospital and free clinic be sufficient to meet your requirement?

Depending on those definitions it may be that the vast majority of Americans already have those things or very few do. So clearly defining them is important.

<comment><USER8> I think you know the answer. That in your hypothetical example you had a choice it's clearly not what people in extreme poverty have.

That's what sufficient (not impoverished) money allows - the freedom to choose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _I will end with a story from a book I read a few years ago._

Talk is cheap.

Rather than end on a touch-and-feely note, I'd much prefer that he get back to the core question:

Instead of merely stating that he is a "fan" of things like Basic Income and (truly) universal education (not to mention at least having a hope of dealing in some reasonable way with climate change) --

The question to ask is: which progressive taxation measures, _specifically_ , is he willing to publicly endorse as a means (almost certainly the only viable means) of attaining these goals?

Hard numbers, please. If it isn't AOC's particular step function -- "75 percent on all income above 10 million" \-- then _which_ progressive taxation schemes would he be in favor of -- and be willing to publicly and state as much?

The question of whether we "allow" billionaires or not is, to some extent, a semantic dodge. What matters is that, at the end of the day, in order to achieve any of these goals -- we pretty much have to "soak the rich" (in addition to ending corporate tax evasion and related measures). It follows from Occam's Razor and any level-headed assessment of all the ethical and economic factors involved.

The only questions are _when_ (to which we already know the answer: _as soon as humanly possible_ ) and _how_ exactly.

So again, it all comes down to hard numbers: Which progressive taxations is he willing to support? And what's the best way to get them implemented in time to avert further carnage and social disintegration -- that is, as soon as humanly possible?

(AOC = Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)

<comment><USER10> he said in the article that he doesn't think higher taxes are the solution - that the government itself needs to be improved if additional programs are to be introduced.

<comment><USER9> Without any arguments or evidence that this would either (1) be attainable or (2) actually free up enough cash to fund all the good stuff he (claims to) support.

<comment><USER10> 2) applies to progressive taxation as well. There's no reason to believe that raising taxes on the wealthy is just a free wellspring of enough money to fund huge, nation-wide social programs. There are myriad things that can go wrong: loss of investment pools harming the economy, disincentivising entrepreneurialism, the wealthy moving abroad, the actual collectable amount being less than you'd expect (because "wealth" is a very fuzzy concept in modern economies), the actual cost of these social programs being higher than you'd expect, etc etc.

Not that I want to shit all over the idea, it could equally work really well (I have no idea what the outcome would be), but a lot of the time these ideas don't receive the clear-headed analysis they deserve because they're ideological rather than logical in nature (taxation from the left, government efficiency from the right). I'd love it if we could pool all the ideas for ways to raise the minimum living standard, experiment with them and compare the results in a scientific way rather than just having two sides shouting at each other that their way is better.

<comment><USER9> _There 's no reason to believe that raising taxes on the wealthy is just a free wellspring of enough money to fund huge, nation-wide social programs._

Actually there's a lot of historical evidence to the effect that, when taxes are more progressive -- income inequality is less severe, affordable housing gets built and infrastructure is better maintained.

And not only that: because we're "all in this together", society tends to work more cohesively and deal better with external threats, like say, WW2 (compared to the nosedive into nativism and paranoia we're experience right now, in the face of comparatively lesser threats).

Source: U.S. history since the beginning of the corporate era (1880s or so).

<comment><USER11> That making taxes more progressive within certain limits has certain effects does not imply that these effects will progress linearly as tax progressiveness increases. After all, if you had a 100% income tax for some segment of population, they would all just move their money abroad.

<comment><USER8> We had a ~90% marginal rate in the 50s and 60s with a roaring economy.

I think 70% marginal at a much higher income stepping level even going back to what historically worked.

<comment><USER12> In the 50's and 60's it was far harder to move one's money abroad or operate as an 'international citizen' simply because we didn't have the infrastructure. Not only that, the advantage of not having had world war 2 on the mainland meant that there were not a lot of attractive and functional alternative economies to move to, where now there are.

The argument that it worked fine in the 50's and 60s and so it would be fine now is based on the assumption that those decades were representative, when in fact they were a historical anomaly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "The one part of the economy that seems immune to re-imagination is the government. If we were to force it to go through the same technological revolution that the private sector is going through, we would see massive efficiencies, and massive job losses, that would free up a huge amount of capital that could be used to pay for things like medical care for all, affordable education for all, and some amount of income for all."

What would this look like? The author doesn't really back up their claims from the first stanza with this massive hand-wavey argument. I am all for reimagining the government but I'm a little wary of throwing technology at a problem and expecting it to go away.

<comment><USER14> This is just like the tired old trope of saying run government like a business and it will fix everything. The government is in fact being transformed by technology. The government funds primary research that is the innovation behind the technological revolution.

It's unpopular here but AOC is right on the money about increasing marginal tax rates over $10 million. The American market is unique and we can support it. All this talk of capital and billionaires fleeing is FUD.

<comment><USER15> > The government funds primary research that is the innovation behind the > technological revolution.

Why is this gospel? Let me tell you two experiences I had:

1) I worked in a bioenergy lab. We were on a DoE grant. The program manager, who had a BA in biology, did not know what a promoter was.

2) I was asked to write a DARPA grant. I did not particularly want to work for the military, but had to as a personal favor. I deliberately wrote it so that anyone with half a brain would look at it and say "that's too little work for two years". It was awarded.

I could go on, but these were the two most entertaining ones. The others are depressing.

What's the point. One. Government science initiatives are run by idiots. This has been going on for quite a while (installing a nobel laureate at the top doesn't matter, as evidenced by the first anecdote), and that's largely because you have to ask yourself "who goes to work in the labs and who becomes a program manager" and when they get "outside experts" usually it's professors and the professor promotion pipeline also is horribly broken away from "competent scientists".

Two: In the context of the bigger question, increasing marginal tax rates won't help. The big problem is that government mostly gives money to the already-wealthy (I didn't get paid much for that DARPA grant, but I can tell you most of the money for the work I did went to the executives at the small company that got the SBIR). Without getting into how this money comes from stealing from the poor, consider that maybe we look at politics wrong - <USER3> think "people have no political power because they are poor" and consider that maybe it's actually "people are poor because they have no political power (to get grants, etc)".

<comment><USER11> It's sad how your lived experience is getting downvoted just because it doesn't line up with peoples' almost religious faith that the government is wise and government investment in science is always a good thing.

<comment><USER15> ok here's one of the depressing ones.

When I was on the DoE grant, the place I was working for was applying for a biology DARPA grant (different office from the DARPA grant that I was on later, that was in CS). At the time, Arathi Prabahukar was the DARPA chief and it was being whispered that she was very much grooming one of the "meta-PMs" (I don't know what to call it, but a head of a group of program managers) to a key part of her administration and possibly even her successor someday.

So there I was, at the head of the research institute's very nice mansion overlooking the La Jolla shoreline and we were throwing a party for the DARPA PM to try to, uh, nudge the person towards funding the project, basically currying favor. I guess us plebs (postdocs) were invited because it was necessary to show off that we did indeed have _some_ smart people around.

Anyways, we didn't get the grant. Around that time, though, a friend and I were enjoying a bit of postdoc-schadenfreude following several science controversies (through retraction watch and pubpeer) and a huge fight broke out over a story that is now called "stripey nanoparticles". In short, a postdoc at MIT was asked to repro some results in the lab and couldn't and was convinced (and made very convincing arguments) that the previous PhD student's work was entirely an instrument artefact. This postdoc was then abused, retaliated against, and railroaded by the Principal Investigator (MIT Professor). Suddenly I noticed that the PhD student's who produced the unreproducible work name was familiar -- it was the DARPA head PM! The head PM's PhD thesis was basically all junk. Really I don't mean to criticize the PM, for this, in particular there should have been more guidance from the MIT professor. But the point is that DARPA just looks at the person and says 'hey, PhD from MIT, must be smart'. There's no deep review.

So we were taking bets on how long the head PM would last, and it was about two or three years before the PM disappeared quietly from DARPA activities. I think eventually the furor around stripey nanoparticles got to be so bad that politically the PM's career in the government was effectively iced.

I was curious as to what the PM is doing now, and it turns out that - no joke - CTO at a microfluidics-based medical diagnostics company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A good place to start combatting inequality is the education system. It's a long-term bet, but improving our schools, the information they give students, and the skills they prepare them with for life will vastly improve their chances of success.

The "obedient worker" model of education is obsolete. Kids should be given more freedom to explore (a la the Montessori Method). They're inherently creative and we should nurture that, not stifle it. Curricula based on practical work that teaches high-level concepts like organization, perseverance, and patience would do wonders. Add in basic finance skills and boy howdy.

Give a kid context and I'd bet they'd shine. "Okay kids, we're going to learn mathematics by learning how to design a space shuttle." That is easily a full semester/year long project that could touch on a TON of different topics. Kids wouldn't be left out because different jobs in designing the space shuttle could be assigned, each touching on core concepts (e.g., "hold a successful meeting with five other students to decide what happens if an engine fails").

<comment><USER17> Education systems are highly local. The Zuckerberg kids aren't going to Cesar Chavez Elementary, or any of the other public schools, and will only know the children of other ridiculously rich people. You need to take steps to actively combat that kind of class separation.

I'm not saying that rich kids shouldn't get a good education. I'm saying that every kid deserves a good education.

<comment><USER16> Which is why this is a Department of Education level of implementation. I'm not talking about "daddy, they don't have juice boxes" type of schools, I'm talking middle of Iowa, watch out for that loose bail of hay on the road public schools.

Designing those programs can be done in a way that teachers can be taught how to teach them. Not easy or quick, but doable.

Ultimately it's a matter of admitting that the current education system doesn't work and start a national effort to recruit minds that can design a new one (and then actively start developing it and testing it).

<comment><USER18> With public sector unions nothing will be able to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That headline from The Hill seems a bit disingenuous. The full quote was:

> "I do think that a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are > parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don't > have access to public health is wrong"

And also:

> "It's not to say someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet are immoral > people," she said. "I don't believe that."

Both of which seem basically in agreement with Fred's response to the quote.

<comment><USER20> Ringworm is an odd disease to pick out. It's not a parasite, it's a fungal infection of the skin and quite common. Even if people have access to quality healthcare, they can still get ringworm.

And in fact, you can self-treat with over the counter anti-fungals.

I think the author of that quote doesn't know what ringworm is.

<comment><USER21> Hookworm, on the other hand isn't. Hookworm is attributable to a government (and its people) failing its people -- not disparate from Flint's water crisis. Basic sewage (septic in most cases) maintenance not being performed.

Unfortunately, the primary solution, condemning the buildings on these lands, could be seen as forcing people off of their land and hurting generational wealth growth -- even though for the underwater mortgage amounts and considering the land should be condemned -- and competing mortgages/rents to cities with sewer systems would be less...

<comment><USER20> Reading the article, this is happening in areas of septic tanks, not gov't provided waste treatment. In addition, they are building on flood prone land where septic tanks don't work.

Seems more like somebody screwed up when they built a community versus some epidemic due to poor healthcare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I just don't understand how inequality can be truly eliminated in a world where people are motivated by money and power. Until you can build a society where people actually love and care for _each other_ instead of _themselves_ , a certain percentage of the population will always try to become more equal than the others.

And, they _will_ become more equal than the others, just like the pigs in Animal Farm, because once you have power, you can change any rules.

<comment><USER23> I don't think the goal is to build an "equal" society, which god knows will never work because people are just so different. I think the ideal goal is to build a society which even the lowest members of society have their basic needs met, a meal, a roof, health care.

<comment><USER24> I would go one step further and say that all levels of society should benefit on average equally from growth. It's ok that higher incomes get a larger share but that share shouldn't be growing disproportionately as it has done over the last decades.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Inequality is a consequence of technological progress and barriers to entry.

Some human activities today have high level of productivity.

A doctor can only serve one patient at a time. Top tier athletes or actors can serve millions of people simultaneously.

Local bar can serve fewer people than Facebook and those who own a local bar will be much poorer than those who own Facebook.

-

Another component are barriers to entry.

Some professions are relying on brand power (acting) and others on credentials (surgeons). Anyone can do a job of a janitor, but not everyone can be a highly skilled engineer or surgeon or be highly recognizable name in entertainment.

Some businesses have barriers to entry (economy of scale, networks effects) while others are in fierce competition.

\--

People who are poor are doing relatively unskilled, low productivity work (service industry professions). People who are wealthy are relying on high productivity and barriers to entry.

Why is Zuckerberg so wealthy? Because Zuckerberg's business can serve billions of people every day directly and has monopoly power due to network effects. Some low level Facebook employee is selling his services to one company which is a low productivity activity (they are not selling anything directly to billions of people, but selling services to one company) and those services can probably be done by millions of people around the world so the barriers to entry are low.

Once you understand this, you will realize that inequality is a structural thing.

<comment><USER26> Totally agree--look at ANY communist experiment. All ended up with massive amounts of inequality (in addition to incredible poverty).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Jesus this was shit post. He doesn't make any sense or have ANY decent argument in favor of billionaires. He just rambles on about how "I know a few and they don't seem like bad people"

Whatever.

Billionaires exist because any system where people are given different opportunities when starting out end in vastly different outcomes.

Modern business scales to the point where you can create something in your basement that people around the world can buy.

Bill Gates isn't 100 billion times smarter than the top software people he worked with at IBM. Yet, he is worth that much more than them.

Income inequality destroys the social fabric of a community. And our country will continue down it's long dark path as long as billionaires and the rich elite hoard their wealth and power from middle and lower class Americans.

<comment><USER28> This topic is of course ripe for a flame war, but what I think is almost always missing from this discussion is that not all "elite" rich people are all the same. How people got and use their wealth is very important in the consideration on whether or not "income inequality destroys the social fabric of a community". Paul Graham's essay "How to make wealth"[1] is a great read on this topic. One of the key values that emerged in the West was that if the people with the power of violence in society do not just take everything from the productive people, the whole society becomes much better off.

The people who take by force, the rentiers, the rich who steal by fraud, the ones who just spend their days on yachts and luxurious island estates eating caviar and drinking champagne, these rich elites should be scorned and reviled. We should strive to make laws to punish them and take their wealth and power.

But we do want inequality in the amount of society's assets that can be accessed by people. Hard working people who have the skills, talents, networks, drive, etc. to get important, very difficult, things accomplished should have access to greater wealth so they can do great things for society. Musk created and is the leader of SpaceX that is building reusable rockets. He also spends a great deal of time and effort running Tesla, which made the first great electric cars and is forcing positive change on the whole automobile industry. Jobs and Wozniak built and sold great personal computers. Gates may have been a bit of an asshole when running Microsoft, but he was part of bringing computers to the masses and he seems to be really interested to doing good in the world. A billionaire who has almost all of their productive assets tied up in productive activities in which they are a critical component, can do great good. They are not consuming but producing. Look for people who strive to produce win-win situations. A free market system (a system where people are free to trade with anyone else) with a strong rule of law and allowing people to keep what others give them seems to work pretty well. 80% income tax rates are not a good idea (and shouldn't we really tax wealth and not income, if we want to get rid of the idle rich?).

It does not seem to me that governments will spend assets better than the best of the wealthy elite, just move it to someone that is much more unaccountable. One should remember that there are hierarchies that are built on competency and cooperation as opposed to those built on the power of violence. We should support the former and tear down the later. A hard problem, but a least something better to strive for then just generic "tax the rich" refrain.

[1][http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html)

<comment><USER29> > The people who take by force, the rentiers, the rich who steal by fraud, the > ones who just spend their days on yachts and luxurious island estates eating > caviar and drinking champagne, these rich elites should be scorned and > reviled. We should strive to make laws to punish them and take their wealth > and power.

Of course someone stealing or defrauding needs to be punished, but what's wrong with eating caviar and drinking champagne on a yacht in general? :-D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> While personally I don't think anyone's work can be worth billions a year, I don't think people necessarily have a problem with the dollar amount of money that the wealthy have. In my view it's the feeling of impotence and lack of agency people feel. If you work a normal job that most people would expect to work their whole lives you feel powerless for the most part. Your only option is to plug away for an indeterminate amount of time until you retire (?) And it's not guaranteed you'll work there forever as the lifespan of most jobs has shrunk.

It leaves a paternalistic relationship between the business and the average worker. They don't get to feel like they're interfacing with the labor market, they're at the will of their employer. They should be grateful that your employer provides healthcare otherwise they might actually die. Maybe they should open a GoFundMe if they can't afford it. They should respect the patronage of private donations and privately funded grants your city benefits from.

The reason why universal programs are attractive is because they give the average person a sense of agency. Because they're universal they aren't a "handout," they're part of what it means to interact with society. Everyone pays in and everyone gets paid out. But if they're not universal they quickly become handouts for the poor instead of features of society.

</comment><comment><USER31> He says he wants a new narrative, but makes no suggestion of how we can curb inequality other than the standard Valley tech-bro "government is hella inefficient" statement.

<comment><USER32> _> , but makes no suggestion of how we can curb inequality _

Fred's version of "curb inequality" is different than yours.

He's saying there's _moral vs immoral_ inequality:

\- immoral inequality: billionaires exist while poor people don't have basic needs met

\- moral inequality: billionaires are ok if the poorest people have adequate healthcare, education, and some UBI

His blog post is about moving the narrative towards the 2nd scenario of inequality. One can also disagree with Fred's 2nd scenario. I'm just pointing out the nuance in his essay.

<comment><USER33> I am tired of this shtick where when companies fail, it is a beauty of free market at work, but when government projects do, it is because government is inefficient and same people who keep expounding how you have to put money into all sorts of ridiculous ideas because you can't tell which one will work, turn around, lose all humility and just know how they could do better governing.

<comment><USER7> When government projects fail everyone involved walks away with money, not so when it comes to private sector projects. In fact take a look at some of the big consulting firms like IBM, they get paid more when governmental projects fail because they are paid first to implement them and second to fix the implementation they failed at delivering in the first place. The politicians who voted for the project are generally reelected and the cycle continues into the next major project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> We are talking about opinions here, tips of extremely vast icebergs, so I'll try to be careful. Disclaimer is that I disagree with Fred, agree with AOC.

I can agree with Fred that the bottom should have the basics covered, and that's the most important point here. That is, we want an economic system that allocates more resources to those at the bottom than we currently have.

Where do these resources come from? I think that the presence of billionaires is simply the other side of the mathematical equation here. Assume with me that wealth follows a power law distribution. Presumably we have the ability to adjust the shape of that distribution (as AOC advocates in some way). The outcome of shifting the power law from, for example, alpha=1.5 to alpha=3.5 is a dramatic evening out of the distribution. The curve is flatter and the top earners will have less relative to the average. So you would have fewer billionaires.

OK- instead of flattening out the overall curve, maybe you put a floor instead, as Fred argues for. What part of the distribution would you have to take from to add the extra tail weight? Most of the weight in the distribution is at the head, where the billionaires are... so I would assume it would come from there. Hence, no/fewer billionaires, no?

I think Fred's and others' broader point is that we should continue having incentives for success. I agree. Maybe a little less incentive, though.

I'm glad we have the opportunity to start discussing this topic on a national stage.

EDIT: grammar

<comment><USER35> I'm not sure what are you trying to say. Do you agree with AOC or not?!

A tax rate of 1000% won't result in "fewer billionaires" as 0 of the top 10 (and approximately 0 of the top 100 I guess) billionaires made their wealth through salary. It's almost always either entrepreneurship or inheritance or marriage or more multiple of these. Taxing income won't change that.

AOC's suggestion is a cheap political play that encourages the low-vs-middle- class adversity and might win her some votes, but really most billionaires would applaud it, because, again, they'll escape unscathed. She can't suggest taxing profits/capital gains/inheritance/trust funds of course, because then she'd make enemies of _actually powerful_ people.

<comment><USER36> >She can't suggest taxing profits/capital gains/inheritance/trust funds of course, because then she'd make enemies of actually powerful people.

Maybe you're right, but I very much doubt it. I'm at work, so I don't have more time to research it, but I'd be willing to bet AOC will or has suggested increasing taxation on at least capital gains and inheritance. These are commonplace suggestions from the center to the left.

<comment><USER35> Well I sincerely wish they pull it off (not just cosmetically of course, but in a way that prevents all tax avoidance) but I also sincerely doubt they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I want to jump in on this because of the hookworm topic as I'm located near Alabama.

The Huffington Post article on Hookworm cites a homeowner that pays a mortgage for a mobile home on land that has a broken septic system. Unfortunately for the inequality argument, the article cites utility and mortgage costs that are higher than if the homeowner were to move to a different (newer or more permanent building on a different lot.

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm- low...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes- county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty)

Rudolph has a $611/mo mortgage payment and $300 electricity costs -- on a trailer on a "campsite" (non appreciating asset, especially when considering the hazmat of broken septic systems).

Perusing Zillow, there are many newer, larger, permanent structures, on land, ranging from 20k-150k (read $150-$600 month mortgages on appreciating property). Alabama also has a 3% downpayment step up grant program for households w/ less than $97k of income.

Is this an affordable option on $1,200 month income (plus social security in 3 years,) maybe not, but it's probably more affordable than fixing a septic system on land she doesn't own and a house falling apart - and indicates rentals, especially between Lowndes Co and Montgomery or Atlanta would be viable, healthier options.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm not a millennial but I'm with his kids. Tax the wealthy. Rebalance directly. Any notion of trickledown and secondary effect rebalancing is fraught with complexities and conditionalities. It would also take an entire generation to figure out whether the approach worked or not.

<comment><USER20> The US has a more progressive taxation scheme than a lot of other countries.[1]

[1][https://www.economist.com/united- states/2017/11/23/american-...](https://www.economist.com/united- states/2017/11/23/american-taxes-are-unusually-progressive-government- spending-is-not)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> A question for those of you in France (or Europe more generally) - many of the changes being proposed -- universal healthcare, free or low cost education, paid for with higher taxes on the wealthy -- basically already exist in your country.

Yet France has seen the yellow jackets, and there seems to be a feeling of discontent that's spread far and wide throughout Europe. So my question is, why? And what does that bode for the US if we move in that direction?

(BTW, out of curiosity I looked up taxes in France and I didn't realize that it had a real wealth tax, which goes up to 1.5% of all assets: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_France)).

<comment><USER14> France doesn't tax the rich high enough is the basic problem. Macron also passed big tax cuts for the wealthy that did not stimulate the economy as well. So the working class are feeling the taxes as well as not having enough economic opportunity. Nationalism is also big in Europe as it always has been. People see refugees getting resettlement benefits and that upsets them. It doesn't help that ISIL want to shoot and blow people up as well.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france- econo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france-economy- protests.html)

<comment><USER22> > France doesn't tax the rich high enough is the basic problem

Not even 10 years ago, I read that France introduced aggressive taxation on the rich ("75% supertax"), with disastrous consequences, so they got rid of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Concentration of wealth is the price we pay as a society for having a system where we pay people to give us what we want. It's extraordinarily difficult to have an Amazon without a Bezos, or a Microsoft without a Gates, or a Walmart without a Walton.

This isn't to say that we should ignore concentration of wealth, or that we shouldn't ensure that wealth generation produces positive externalities. Rather, we should remain aware of the tradeoffs we're necessarily making when we tamp down on inequality.

<comment><USER40> > It's extraordinarily difficult to have an Amazon without a Bezos, or a > Microsoft without a Gates, or a Walmart without a Walton.

This presupposes that any of these are desirable.

<comment><USER39> For what it's worth, more affordable consumer goods are _way_ more important to the everyday blue-collar folks who tend to not be the readership of this forum. If you're making six figures, you care a lot less about a thirty cents a pound price difference of ground beef, and can _afford_ to care about the concentration and centralization of the retail industry.

<comment><USER40> I'm not talking about the desirability of large corporations generally, but about those three particular examples. There are large companies like Costco (though obviously Costco is not targetting blue-collar people as much as say Walmart) that deliver cheaper goods via economies of scale but are organised rather differently from Walmart or Amazon.

<comment><USER39> How do you propose interfering with Walmart's ability to compete aggressively on price without interfering with Costco's?

<comment><USER40> That's pretty easy. Require Walmart to give decent employee benefits. Costco already does that, so that wouldn't hurt them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Yet it is the Billionaires that keep the inequality in place, they keep the minimum wage static, raise prices, destroy quality of life for the majority by removing social funding.

Publicly funded projects work, CERN, NASA, the Internet, Telco Technology, all funded by taxpayers. It's proven we don't need these Billionaires. Their talent is welcome but not worth the lives of everyone else. There is plenty of great individuals that are not as greedy as your clients.

> Those entrepreneurs, like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Bezos, Page, > Zuckerberg, build very powerful monopolies and amass billions.

And what do they (or their descendants) do now? It is also worth noting that the Federal Reserve (the biggest scam of all) which keeps printing money out of thin air at will was the idea of a group that included Morgan (or Rockefeller).

</comment><comment><USER42> The author doesn't back up anything, quotes no theory on either side, no history or economic data. It contains killer anecdotes and gut feelings though - a ratio of about 100%-0% between navel gazing and chin scratching VS reading Marxist theory where people have, you know, talked about the thing you're talking about for over a century. It's particularly stunning that an essay on inequality does not mention the word "profit".

My favorite part is the killer anecdote that seals the deal at the end, which is basically the equivalent of "You dislike Wall St but you own an iPhone? Interesting". It may as well have been pulled from a boomer Facebook meme.

<comment><USER43> I think that being late to a rally against charter schools because you were busy trying to get your kid into a charter school is quite a bit more specific and powerful form of hypocrisy than the above meme.

It's strong evidence to me of a deep hypocrisy in a way that deciding you'd prefer an iPhone over Android is not.

<comment><USER42> No it's collective action vs individual self interest. Or actual politics versus consumerism. Not the same thing at all and should not be confused. If you think a charter or private school is the best for your kid _right now_ and _for you_ then that's one thing. And what is best for other families and teachers in your community may be another. You can support them politically.

Also who gives a shit about the hypocrisy of protest attendees anyway? It has no bearing on the what is right.

<comment><USER43> > If you think a charter or private school is the best for your kid right now > and for you then that's one thing.

If you think that, act on that, _and simultaneously seek to deny that to others_ , I think you're a hypocrite and adjust the coefficient of my caring about your opinion on the topic to zero or negative.

<comment><USER42> Deal, I'll consider your coefficient adjusted then.

But for my benefit, can I just confirm my suspicion that you sincerely don't understand the difference between politics & personal marketplace decisions? Because if so that's some VERY strong ideology you've got going on.

<comment><USER43> I understand the difference, but if you seek to get some good privately and prevent others from having access to that good by policy, I think that's a dick move at a minimum.

Same issue as the uproar over a US politician going to Canada for an elective medical procedure after working against changes to the US system to make it more like the Canadian system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm trying to find an essay I remember reading in the past 5 years titled something like "Inequality in Equalville" but my googling isn't finding it. Does anyone remember what it was called?

<comment><USER44> Found it: [http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in- equ...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in- equalland.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So many people think that capitalism and socialism are the only economic systems -- two ends of a spectrum, and society needs to decide where on that spectrum it falls.

The English writer G.K. Chesterton, who popularized the idea of distributist economics, calls distributism a "third way" that doesn't fall on the spectrum, but sits outside the line entirely.

Chesterton pointed out that both capitalism and socialism entail consolidation of ownership of productive property. Under capitalism, you end up with Big Business, and under socialism you end up with Big Government.

Chesterton advocated for distributism, where the ideal is that the ownership of productive property should be as widely distributed as possible. Note that distributism does not advocate for a redistribution of wealth, but rather economic policies that make widespread ownership possible, such as those that help address some of the disadvantages that small businesses and worker- and consumer-owned cooperatives face when it comes to competing against megacorps.

<comment><USER46> This seems more an addendum to socialism than an opposition to it. Specifically it calls for distributed ownership of the means of production (which most socialists advocate, as "state socialism" isn't really desirable).

Also, it talks of forming workers' guilds. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_socialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_socialism).

It seems to me the ideas are actually quite aligned in their ultimate goals, however it looks on the surface to be different to socialism because socialism tends to be synonymous with "state socialism" in people's minds.

<comment><USER40> It's more like anarcho-syndicalism than statist socialism though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Creating the middle class was a deliberate policy choice [1]. Hard fought and narrowly won.

That the rich get richer is just math. It's not a value statement.

Without active wealth redistribution, accelerating inequity is inevitable.

\--

I personally don't care how we do it. UBI, cashectomies of windfall profits, restoring progressive taxation to subsidize the safety net. Whatever.

I am tired, however, of the bickering over the details. As though the primary issue at hand is tax brackets and capital gains. These food fights just muddy the core conundrum.

The trick is balancing capitalism with democracy, lifting the floor without lowering the ceiling.

\--

[1] Kevin Phillips, Reagan's conservative economist, detailed our history of purposefully creating a middle class and the upper class' efforts to thwart such efforts:

Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich Paperback [2003] [https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History- Am...](https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History- American/dp/0767905342)

<comment><USER48> > Without active wealth redistribution, accelerating inequity is inevitable.

Having watched Mark Blyth, he has a theory that the capitalistic system can operate in one of two modes ([https://vimeo.com/247596824](https://vimeo.com/247596824)):

A) Mode that favors the workers (US before 1970)

B) Mode that favors the capitalists (US after Reagan & Thatcher)

When capitalism is in Mode A), you get horrible level of inflation, but rising wages and profits for the workers (and since one man's wage is another man's expense the prices rise too). It creates great environment for taking credits, since inflation devours any profit bank can make on a credit. This hurts the returns of capitalist and investors, who stage a "market-friendly revolution" that will change system to B).

When capitalism is in Mode B) you get stagnating wages, and rising profits for capitalists. On the other hand, this causes inequality. Credits are available, but generally a bad idea, since the wages are decreasing. Usually in this environment the Supply Chain is Globalized making it really hard for Labor to move, but making it super easy for Capital to transfer (as Mark says "Good luck striking, if I can move my production to China")

<comment><USER49> 1\. Income redistribution via social welfare programs has massively increased since 1970. The actual statistics contradict the theses of the equality sophists.

2\. The unions that pushed wages up 1950-1970 also eroded America's manufacturing competitiveness and efficiency, which contributed to the outsourcing of manufacturing. The reason union membership numbers in the private sector declined was because the industries that employed unions contracted. And that was largely the doing of unions and the very generous collective bargaining agreements they got for themselves. IOW the gains they brought about were not sustainable. In contrast, the wage gains attained in the pre-union, free market era of the late 19th century were sustainable. They accompanied an increase in the competitiveness of American manufacturing, instead of coming at its expense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I stopped reading after this:

>I also understand that government is bloated and there are many places where we could cut spending to fund these new innovative programs that could help counter the immoral wealth imbalance we have in our country.

His understanding is wrong. To the extent that there's fat you can cut from the U.S. federal budget to fund other programs it's in healthcare or defense. "Waste, fraud, and abuse" are the equivalent of the Underpants Gnomes' "???". It's a placeholder for a real argument.

</comment><comment><USER50> I find myself wanting more specifics from this short essay. A lot is said by the author who has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo with vague references to UBI and other changes but no concrete policies that would actually implement real change in society.

As is, the Silicon Valley establishment is certainly not invested in paying more tax, thank you very much. While I don't believe billionaires are inherently immoral, I would like to see sample implementations of UBI rather than yet more posts equivocating about it.

</comment><comment><USER51> From a fiscal perspective a higher tax rate would not make much of a dent in the the US deficit; a piece in the WSJ addressed much of it: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-crippling-cost-of-70-tax- ra...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-crippling-cost-of-70-tax- rates-11548104300)

</comment><comment><USER52> FTA:

>I also understand that government is bloated and there are many places where we could cut spending

The problem with this critique (the right-wing rallying cry since at least Reagan) is that no one ever wants to cut any _particular_ program (which Fred acknowledges later in his charter school story). The right in the US, for example, bemoans government spending every year, then doesn't cut any spending, raises military spending, and then cuts taxes. Again, Fred acknowledges this, but doesn't take the next step of doing the unpopular, hard work of deciding where we can size down. I'd like to hear exactly what spending Fred thinks we should cut, otherwise this position is pretty empty.

> If we were to force it to go through the same technological revolution that > the private sector is going through, we would see massive efficiencies

Again, this is what the Republican party has been saying for 30 years, but has been unable to deliver. We can say we want "more efficient government" until the cows come home, but there is something in the system that is preventing us from doing so. What is that thing? Let's talk about that. Otherwise, this post is just a rehash of Republican talking points and slogans, without any real proposals.

<comment><USER53> A _lot_ of people wants to cut a _lot_ of spending!!

It is politically impossible because the spending has very strong political power behind it. That's why it exists in the first place.

<comment><USER54> A lot of people say they want to cut a lot of spending, but everyone wants to cut different things. Ask half a dozen people what they want to cut and they'll say things like everything but military spending, or everything but Medicare or Medicaid or SS, and after you tally up the un-cuttables and cut everything else, you've still got a budget that's 95% of the current one.

<comment><USER43> I'm not anti-military by any means, but I'd be more than happy to cut the JSF project (and replace it with something else, so not 100% net savings).

The problem as I see it is the same outcome but different mechanisms as you describe. Those who benefit from a project are very willing to spend time, energy, thought, and money to preserve the status quo, while those who are opposed have a very diffuse opposition to most of the specific programs.

<comment><USER55> The JSF project is essentially complete. You're advocating dumping billions of dollars of R&D to start over and build something else, when all that's left now is conventional aircraft building -- and oh by the way that aircraft is now being built by our allies (who helped to fund the R&D) as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Contrary to popular belief I'm not a billionaire, just a humble centimillionaire.

</comment><comment><USER49> OAC appeals to the instinct of shared sacrifice.

"Let's all sacrifice some of our liberty to ensure no one is left behind"

It's a useful instinct in small villages of 180 closely related people. It does not work for countries constituting 300 million people with very little linking them together.

First pragmatically: social democracy has tremendous adverse effects on economic growth. The poor are better off with less redistribution and a higher rate of recurring economic growth. This can be demonstrated mathematically, no matter what our gut instinct may say.

Second, as a matter of principle, we do not have a moral right to force others into this shared sacrifice pact, simply on the basis of shared nationality. Billionaire or not.

People may claim billionaires amidst poverty is immoral. I think it's far more immoral to violate the principle of voluntarism and force people to sacrifice alongside us.

</comment><comment><USER57> Government in the US is a captive of corporations and money politics. Many laws are written by lobbying groups working for large corporations. Do you see these laws improving the quality of government?

</comment><comment><USER58> In an ideal world, school kids would be taught how power law networks work - how they result from preferential attachment. Then they'd be able to connect the pieces and see that popularity and capitalism are the same and produce the same inequalities. Inequality is not about money.

<comment><USER59> Agreed. We need more tools to study complexity, and the study of networks is one such tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> He seemingly believes that the government is a barbarous relic in need of computational analytics and technology to make it work fairly. What this has to do with capitalism was missed by me. Perhaps we can all agree that if we the people were granted a 'capitalistic infrastructure' that allowed anyone who wanted to work could work and have the most important factors in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs scale fulfilled; (food, water, shelter, electricity, security, education) we would have less envy, anger, violence towards one another and way less crime

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs scale: [https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html](https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> I agree with the author but how exactly do we fund a basic income type system for the masses without raising taxes on someone or some entity?

<comment><USER61> Why would raising taxes be a bad thing? The highest US tax bracket in 2019 is 37% for income over $500,000. I don't see why a higher tax bracket, along the lines of WWI or WWII would be untenable. Could you elucidate why you are so averse to raising taxes?

I find it harder to accept that every person making income is subject to a 10% fed. income tax, in a country where the basics of survival are not even provided. Why shouldn't income over a million a year be taxed at a much higher rate?

<comment><USER62> I can tell you why I'm averse to raising taxes.

Because the utlitity of government expenditures is really low: for each successful program it has failed programs that last decades and sometimes even have negative returns, let alone justify what private investment would have gotten.

Because the person that advocates the most for the tax, the politician, gets to spend it, and has nothing to lose by doing so and plenty to win.

Because the mechanism itself allows to get money from anything and put it into anything, and once in place its exceedingly difficult to take out, even if it has short term positive results.

Because even today, the government as it is wastes money on a plethora of projects but instead of cleaning itself up, it demands more resources.

Because the consolidated expenditures of the entire government is 23k/year/capita which means that if you just slashed government in half, you could give a thousand dollars to each american every month without raising a single tax.

<comment><USER26> The top 3 richest counties in America are actually surrounding Washington D.C. Money is extracted from everywhere else in the country via taxes and paid to people in that area.

<comment><USER55> That's not how taxation works... The rich counties around DC are for quite different reasons.

<comment><USER26> If you mean that people that earn less pay less tax--what I am trying to say is that money is being taken via taxation across the entire country. However, that money is being spent by the Federal government in high concentrations in certain places. The DC area is one such place. Any military base or Federal government office is such a place. Money is being spent there that was earned elsewhere. Why do you think senators fight so hard to keep military bases in their states? It is because a military base is a firehose of Federal money going into their state from elsewhere.

<comment><USER55> My point is that the rich areas around DC are not rich because of tax money.

Military bases are a boost to the economy in some places. They're a drain in others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> There's nothing new about rich people wanting to kill off government. Fortunately it hasn't entirely worked yet, and our current safety net (as paltry as it may be) is still somewhat protecting the vulnerable margins of our society from being mercilessly swept up in the maw of modern scorched earth capitalism. This new generation of politicians like AOC will be our savior from the last three decades of self-serving grifters picking away at what was once a great nation with a sense of civic duty.

<comment><USER64> You completely ignore the scorched earth left by war. How is that exactly protecting the vulnerable? It would not be possible without massive entities like the State.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> The discussion is always around increasing or decreasing the size and expense of the government. So I like that the author is advocating increasing efficiency instead. Doing more with the same amount of spending is a good goal. And I think there are a lot of places the government could be made more efficient.

But, as a staunch capitalist myself, I believe we _do_ need to start raising taxes on the rich. I think the 70% marginal rate on people making 10M a year is a good start, but ultimately more a token gesture than anything meaningful. It won't raise enough money, since there aren't enough of those people.

We need to start counting capital gains as income. No more long term 15% rate. If your investments are kicking out money that you live on, that should be taxed at the same marginal rates as my wages!

The problem of course is that the true rich have influence over the politicians. So they point the politicians at the upper middle class, and say "hey, raise the marginal rates on these people instead!" Pretty soon the narrative is "oh, you make more than 100k a year, that's immoral!" And the wealth divide would just get bigger and bigger.

TLDR: We need to tax wealth in some capacity. There are many many approaches to this, but we need to find a way to actually tax the rich, not just fleece the upper middle class.

<comment><USER18> If you tax capital gains then no one will invest unless things are 100% guaranteed. Your winnings need to cover your losses.

Capital gains aren't wages

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> It's true that the current income tax has shortcomings due to the mobility of capital owners. I think it would promote competition to focus more on wealth taxes on immobile assets (on e.g. land, patents, spectrum, and ownership of networks) as an alternative to some income taxation. See e.g. Glen Weyl's book Radical Markets on this topic ([https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets- Uprooting-Capitalism-...](https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting- Capitalism-Democracy/dp/0691177503) [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2818494](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2818494))

</comment><comment><USER67> The fact that there are billionaires in the world is unfair. Most of them didn't create any value for society. They just captured value created by others. They were just at the right place and at the right time. Wealth is so concentrated today that it has turned capitalism into a zero-sum lottery.

It's a lottery not only in the sense that there are very few winners and that the payouts are huge but also in the sense that the winners are chosen randomly. Investors invest randomly because they have no idea what's going to work; that's why less than 10% of all companies succeed. There is no skill involved in distributing capital efficiently; it's either completely random or the result of monopolistic wealth-concentration.

</comment><comment><USER68> Some other commenters have pointed out that The Hill selectively quoted Ocasio-Cortez in the tweet mentioned in the article, but I want to engage the selective quote ("Economic system that allows billionaires is 'immoral'") on its own, and argue that it stands on its own. I think that we've lost some perspective on how obscenely much money a billion dollars really is, and it's worth thinking about the implications of this gigantic number.

Money is something we give people in exchange for labor. Is it possible to imagine any amount of labor that would be fairly compensated with a billion dollars? If a restaurant worker makes $25,000 in a year, what kind of work could one person possibly do to deserve 40,000 years' worth of restaurant wages? For that matter, we can even compare those numbers to the earnings of a software developer. If you make a salary of $150,000, it would take you 166 _lifetimes_ (6,666 years / 40 working years in a lifetime) to make a billion dollars.

I know that capitalism offers ample justification for why someone might accumulate that much money (risk! market efficiencies!) but none of those add up to a moral case for me.

<comment><USER69> Without the ability for a single man to acquire that much capital we wouldn't have Tesla or SpaceX.

Labor doesn't always have value. If I spend 8 hours digging a hole nobody wants there is no value in it despite strenuous effort involved.

But if someone with the talent, ability, resources and balls to earn a billion and then risk it on a new company to cure cancer, or solve similarly worldwide problems does so they deserve it.

I'd argue that musk and bill Gates are far more effective with their money to improve humanity as a whole than if 90% of it were distributed to the destitute. SpaceX has also proven to be far more flexible, efficient, and agile than NASA in recent memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Give that domain over to the VideoLAN project already.

</comment><comment><USER70> So, a few things. First, I don't feel like the author really addresses the problems people have with inequality. In my mind, the real issue is that the floor is too low, which is related to inequality. If one person makes a billion dollars a year and another person can't make $1000 a year, they're very unequal. If we could adjust the system so the first person still makes a billion a year but the second person makes $100k/yr, we've reduced inequality.

But we have huge structural problems in the US that I think could be mitigated by stronger social support programs. I'm a "libertarian socialist" which is a real thing, but it means I don't really advocate that we use the government to form social programs, but I do strongly advocate that we form social programs through voluntary means. Unfortunately the left ignores the ways we could help each other without the government and the right ignores the fact that some people actually want to pay to help others. I feel as though the right could get a lot of what they want by working with the left to form strong voluntary social support programs that compare favorably to government programs.

However, I'm not against using the government to help people. Martin Luther King Jr was a brilliant man who understood the needs of his people, and he advocated both for community power and for government programs.

We have real problems in the US that leave millions struggling to feed themselves. Millions our children grow up with poor schooling, which can lead bright people down a dark path. Soon we throw them in prison and forget about them.

My issue with billionaires is not that we have billionaires, but that we have billionaires and starving people. We have homeless people who die every winter because it gets too cold. We have enough money to care for them! The wealth is there. But we've failed to organize ourselves well enough to use it effectively.

I don't mind billionaires, but I do mind that we have billionaires and destitute people. We have enough wealth to do better. It is not immoral in itself to have billionaires, but I do think a system that produces both billionaires and poverty is wrong. The left wants a solution and all they can think of is taxes. I really wish the right would see that helping build community power would reduce the need for government support.

Also someone please break the military industrial complex.

</comment><comment><USER71> This fucking guy leads with an anecdote about a family ski trip?

My heart goes out to him and the other poor maligned ultra rich.</comment>


Panoply, Stitch and Chartio Partner to Offer the Automatic Cloud Data Stack - <AUTHOR> https://blog.panoply.io/panoply-stitch-and-chartio-partner-to-offer-the-worlds-first-automatic-cloud-data-stack?utm_source=hn&utm_campaign=Dec52017_Stitch_chartio_panoply_automatic_data_stack <comment><USER2> That's an awesome stack for data analysis!</comment>


Ask HN: Should anyone wait for YC, or...? - <AUTHOR>

There is certainly something(facts actually) in the air about YC, but should anyone consider applying somewhere else where applications are open?
There is no real urge to apply really... but as we just entering the starup arena, some guidence would be great.
TC Disrupt coming up, AngelPad has one free spot, TechStars just opened up... this could make you inpatient somehow... :)
ps: I know, i know. Put together the minimum, get users, get feedback, make changes, get more users, make more changes or move on. We are doing it! :) <comment><USER2> You should apply to them all. They're each going to get hundreds or thousands of applications from which they'll each pick just tens.

More importantly though, keep working on your startup because whether you get in or not should be secondary to what you're actually doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we are pushing it!

Thanks for the comment!</comment></comment>


Things to Love About Reddit's First Transparency Report - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/7-things-love-about-reddits-first-transparency-report <comment><USER2> "According to the report, reddit received 33 requests to remove content ... to do with alleged defamation. reddit stood by its users and refused to comply with any of these requests."

Good on Reddit for not being swayed, but they'd better keep their servers out of the UK.

Here in the "libel capital of the world" hosting providers are treated as co- publishers of allegedly libellous content once we've been notified of it on our network. We _have_ to act, though many complainants don't really understand the precedent and try to hand-wave us into taking down a whole site without giving any specifics.

I wrote [https://blog.bytemark.co.uk/2010/02/07/adventures-in- libel-o...](https://blog.bytemark.co.uk/2010/02/07/adventures-in-libel-or-why- i-wont-read-your-forum) in 2010 though Simon Singh's case [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Chiropractic_Associatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Chiropractic_Association_v_Singh) was a precedent that improved things.

<comment><USER3> Also, they are not mentioning the cases where the SJW subreddits have terrorized the moderators and admins to delete complete subreddits. It's like if those incidents never existed.

<comment><USER4> Don't know why your comment is being voted down. It's been known that the Reddit administrators will delete any and everything criticizing tumblr-esque sjw. It's been a long time coming but the mental image I had of Reddit was tarnished.

Ideal world: Reddit admins would only delete things that are illegal according to the local laws where their servers are located. Then they would only focus on making sure the platform works and leave the content policing to moderators of individual subreddits.

<comment><USER5> And yet there are tons of those subs around, how's thar work?

<comment><USER6> It's almost like that's a made up fantasy?

<comment><USER5> Caught in a landslide, no escape to reality

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the things that irks me about current US policing is that police use tactics which imply they have more authority than they have (e.g. administrative subpoenas, demands for information, demands with withhold information, etc) and never (that I know of) get into legal trouble for doing so...

In fact in the current system such demands are not only legal but are rewarded. Police will call the resulting evidence "voluntary" even if the company had no idea it was volunteering anything (and thought, often because they didn't hire a lawyer, it was required).

Small companies in particular who don't have a staff lawyer, and who don't want to spend a thousand dollars in fees to check an incoming request, are particularly susceptible. Even if they do have a lawyer on retainer, that lawyer may not specialise in this type of law.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wait, administrative subpoenas are actually non-binding? I would like to know more.

Given how widely they're used in the U.S., spreading the word that you can just _ignore_ them seems like a good idea. If that's true.

</comment><comment><USER9> Let's not forget that Reddit was censoring the Fappening subreddits, along with plenty of other censorship on a smaller scale (usually censoring specific stories in some subreddits, which is done by the moderators of said subreddits, but in the case of default subreddits, it's de facto approved by the company). Sometimes, censorship and privacy attacks by internal actors is as big a threat as external attacks.

<comment><USER10> And other times, the benefits of censorship outweigh the costs. I believe that stolen naked pictures is one of those situations. Moderators "censoring" spam and off-topic submissions is another.

<comment><USER11> Not sure if you're disagreeing with tomp's comment or just changing the subject.

TwoX is a default and at least before I quit the site a contrary view in that sub was likely to earn a shadowban. I understand the mods have to deal with trolls but when contrary viewpoints are being censored as "trolling" it's gone too far.

The toxicity of the reddit's "social justice" movement and SRS in particular is poisoning the site and making discourse about controversial topics nearly impossible.

<comment><USER12> I thought shadowbans were implemented by admins and admin tools and not by mods.

Has that changed?

<comment><USER13> no, reddit's ban types just aren't well publicised

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why should I care about any of this? Serious question. Transparency is double- speak. It's marketing and branding for the demographic that Reddit caters to.

Notifying users of requests by law enforcement that they are legally allowed disclose is just stupid. What matters is the nature of the requests - not the number of them!

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting: in this article, EFF praises Reddit for its quick publication: "Published within 30 days of the reporting period.... That means more recent, and potentially more relevant data." But in the FAQ about warrant canaries, also published by EFF (and linked from this article), they recommend otherwise: "How often should an ISP publish the warrant canary? Various ISPs have published canaries on a wide range of schedules. To allow time to file a case and for the court to rule on the important legal questions, we suggest at least few months between the transparency report and the time period covered."

So it's not really clear what the best practice is here.

<comment><USER16> Reddit has never had a warrant canary, so the recommendations on that page have little bearing on this. Even if reddit did get a couple of NSLs, it gets so many actual requests for information that it grants that there's little reason to have one, especially given that it could report it received 0-249 of them 6 months later anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Kudos to the reddit team for setting a great example. Given the relatively poor resources of the site administrators, hopefully this will help to disprove the idea that transparency is too onerous to be done thoroughly, proactively, and promptly.

On a side note, I've been a reddit user for some years but this is the first time I've noticed that the name is preferred un-capitalized.

</comment><comment><USER18> Good from EFF to advertise companies who have a good behavior, but what sensitive information does reddit manage? It seems to me like it's only logins and IP addresses, so it's not like they are in charge of emails, maps of where you've been/where you go and personal calendar, is it?

<comment><USER7> Are how emails different from private messages?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> from a company that makes money by disguising paid posts. yeah. thanks for the hypocrisy.

<comment><USER20> Ahem: [http://i.imgur.com/FqxKmpX.png](http://i.imgur.com/FqxKmpX.png)

<comment><USER21> I'm not entirely sure the comment you are replying to is correct but I believe gcb0 is suggesting that paid posts are blended into reddit seamlessly. Your image clearly shows several differing elements which distinguish an ad from a traditional submission.

<comment><USER20> My image _clearly_ shows several differing elements which _subtly_ distinguish an ad from a traditional submission. I have trained my ad-blindness to skip the HN ads, usually without even consciously reading the company name, but it took training, just like it takes training to find the tiny "sponsored content" disclaimer elsewhere. That's the point of "native ads" \-- to slip in seamlessly with the rest of the content. If HN wanted to advertise openly, it would use a different background color for the ads, and/or clearly label them as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why does this matter? Reddit isn't exactly the kind of company that holds any important data worth a transparency report.

<comment><USER23> How about an IP address of a user posting something criminal?</comment></comment>


Incorporate for free (Until Friday) - <AUTHOR> http://mycorporation.com/freeweek/

<comment><USER2> One thing to realize: If you Inc/LLC in 2008, you'll have to pay any taxes/fees due for 2008. Forming a DE LLC right now would cost you more money than waiting until Jan 1 and paying the $150 because you'd have to pay the $250 franchise fee for 2008. LLC on Jan 1 and you don't have to pay it for 2008. You're up $100 even with the $150 fee.

<comment><USER3> Last time they had this deal (a few weeks ago), there was an option to defer filing until Jan 1st, to save on 2008 fees and administration tasks. I assume you can opt to do so again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very nice, they actually bold and 'recommend' it (for tax reasons)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alternatively, in many states the forms are simpler and cost less (I'm assuming this free deal has a catch), and don't require you to give your info to another company.

For example, this is the Indiana form to do it online: <http://www.in.gov/ai/appfiles/sos-registration/landing.html> . Cost? For profit organizations: $85.00

Granted, this wont set you up with bylaws, formal/complete articles of incorporation/organization, etc. But if you are small, those don't matter, you can do them later, and if you arent small/simple structure you wouldn't use mycorporation anyways.

According to most Attorneys I know who deal with investment/securities stuff, unless you are in a handful of states, the idea that you need delaware org is sort of a leftover thing from the past. As usual, though, you should check with an attorney or accountant who knows your state.

<comment><USER5> If you do business in any state, you need to foreign-qualify in that state, which involves the same and sometimes even greater fees than if you just register locally as a domestic corporation/LLC.

For example, incorporating in Indiana doesn't save you from New York fees if you do transactions in New York. Transacting has different definitions state by state, and may include anything from accepting orders to having remote employees who work in that state. Most importantly, having a physical office in a state always requires you to foreign-qualify, so registering in another state doesn't really work for companies that are not fully virtual.

Speaking of virtual... does anyone follow the development of Vermont Virtual Corporations? What are the advantages, limitations, etc?

<comment><USER4> I would agree with you, when it comes to most non-virtual companies. There are also tax implications.

But for virtual companies, this is all solved by jurisdiction on the purchase contract, I believe. In other words, people placing orders on your website is equivalent to them driving to the state and placing them in person. So the transaction is inside state boundaries, and there is no need to foreign qualify in other states.

In addition, I had a company that sold services electronically but also shipped smaller lesser physical items as part (signs for the service... kind of complicated but the actual service doesnt matter). We never had any issues across state lines.

I think employees and locations are what count, for tax reasons, but buyers/consumers get to handle all the rest via use taxes in their state. Contract issues above apply.

At least, this is what I have been told, I'm no attorney.

No idea about Vermont, sounds interesting though.

<comment><USER5> Thanks Brushfire, that was really useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Quick note: Apparently you need to click the link and use the code "MYGIFT" to get the $150 discount.

</comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone here done this the last time around? What's in it for them? Is there a catch?

<comment><AUTHOR> Upselling you to other services.

<comment><USER7> The main reason is RA fees.

Most people that incorporate in a different state have their incorporation company act as their registered Resident Agent for the life of the company because it is convenient and cheaper than having an attorney act as the RA. So, incorporation companies offer you something that is very low cost (filing) in an attempt to get you to pay the agent fees for years. They might give up a one-time (stated value) fee of $149 in exchange for X years of $100+ in agent fees. As others have noted, they will also try to upsell you on other products and services ("You need an official corporate stamp for your corporation documents!")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please remember that the only thing that is "free" is the fee that you would pay this company to do your paperwork. You will have to pay business organization fees to the state of formation no matter what you do (check your state). As noted by others, most states also charge yearly franchise taxes, which is in addition to any federal taxes you are liable for if you see revenue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes but for someone like me (Read: not a lawyer, can't afford one) a service like this can save me a ton of money. I understand there are risks when not working with a lawyer, and I haven't actually submitted yet because my partner and I are discussing this, but in general I think it's helpful if you know you want an LLC/S-Corp and don't need anything complex. You'd have to pay the state fees no matter what, so it's like doing it yourself, only you get some experts to help you out -- free.

<comment><USER9> Don't take this the wrong way, but hit up slideshare.net for "Starting a Business". There's a great tip in a lot of those presentations: Make a (non- family member) accountant your new best friend. Most CPAs have a "checklist" of what needs to be done (tax wise and regulation wise) to incorporate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a gimmick. You can get the same deal 365 days a year from other companies, just do a google search.

</comment><comment><USER11> An incorporate for free website seems like one really nasty way to commit identify fraud. You get the complete identity information of people who probably have a good amount of money to milk. (What type of people incorporate, but then again what kind of people would use a free version?)

<comment><USER5> Not sure if you've ever incorporated. I have, a couple times. In most states, your info goes into the state database that is wide open to the public, so you don't really get any privacy anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it worthwhile to file an LLC in a state other than the one I reside in?

<comment><USER13> Depends on where you reside. Some states have different tax/fees.

<comment><USER12> Right, that was my question -- Will I be able to avoid steep fees/taxes by registering the LLC elsewhere?</comment></comment></comment>


Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/01/online-publishers-readers-ad-block-surveillance-donate-anonymously <comment><USER2> That is a nice and lovely idea...

Only every government everywhere hates it.

If it is possible to pay for something anonymously, then there is no following the money of others paying anonymously for other reasons. Including paying for products or services that are illegal or even with money from such sales.

Yes, you might compare this to cash. Cash that everyone used to carry around. It the higher denominations are marked (serial numbered), at least for US currency. Still it takes a LOT of effort to track their flow. For any kind of digital currency this scheme isn't tenable or repeatable. The tracking would either be too easy to prevent abuse, or too easy to abuse (get around).

Maybe we can have this level of freedom, if we admit that being at war with our population is a bad idea. If we allow the legal and controlled use of current vices. It wouldn't be perfect, but at least in that world we could probably get by with just controlling the income phase.

Though if you wanted to tax wealth (not income) you'd also need to report a total of 'outflow'. Which makes obtaining 'gifts' from sources not clearly related to work a vector suspect as tax avoidance via temporal displacement of wealth.

<comment><USER3> He's plugging GNU Taler which was specifically designed to be government friendly (allows collection of taxes and AML compliance and not easy to implement black markets). He's not talking about other kind cryptocurrencies. Stallman isn't a "down with the government" type of person despite being sceptical of surveillance.

<comment><USER4> So the title of his article is a lie, then.

> Publishers must let online readers pay for news anonymously

It's not anonymous if GNU Taler knows user identity.

<comment><USER5> GNU Taler is a technology, not a company, so it doesn't "know" things in the sense that would be bothersome here.

From GNU Taler's website:

"When you pay with Taler, your identity does not have to be revealed to the merchant. The bank, government and exchange will also never learn how you spent your electronic money. However, you can prove that you paid in court if necessary."

<comment><USER4> OK, the exchange will know your identity. That's not anonymous.

Edit: Anonymity is a strong claim. Even Tor daemon warns "This is experimental software. Do not rely on it for strong anonymity."

<comment><USER5> There are ways to prove things without disclosing them using crypto.

A very simple example is using hashing. Let's say two friends A and B want to play head-or-tail in a chat discussion. If A first tells "head" or "tail" and then do the draw and win, B won't trust that A did not cheat. But if B do the draw, then A won't trust them. What you need is a way for either A or B to choose between "head" or "tail" and them commit to that choice and be able to prove it to the other _after_ the other made the draw. This is possible without any trusted third-party:

— A choose for example "tail", they can hash that choice along with a "password" (generally called salt). For example they hash "tailLO7f-(86F" with md5, the result is "a079dcaae211e60756e5519058dcfc97".

— A sends that hash to B. B cannot know from the hash if A chose "head" or "tail", because the hash computation is way too difficult to inverse and they do not know the password to add after "head" or "tail".

— B draws a coin (or even chose the result, it doesn't really matter) and tells the result to A.

— Then A can prove to B that they chose "tail", by telling B the password "LO7f-(86F" so B can add that to "tail" and verify A's claim by computing the hash themselves.

Now this is a very simple example of how it is possible to prove things without disclosing information. It is of course much more complicated in the settings of financial transactions with multiple parties, but it shows that it is possible if necessary prove previously undisclosed claims.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I know that stuff. What I don't know is how Taler exchanges would handle customer information. The reliance on bank transfers and card payments is troubling. I've read [https://taler.net/](https://taler.net/) with some care, and I'm still not clear.

At [https://taler.net/governments](https://taler.net/governments) I see:

> Taler is an electronic payment system that was built with the goal of > supporting taxation. With Taler, the receiver of any form of payment is > known, and the payment information comes attached with some details about > what the payment was made for (but not the identity of the customer). Thus, > governments can use this data to tax buisnesses and individuals based on > their income, making tax evasion and black markets less viable.

However, at [https://taler.net/citizens](https://taler.net/citizens) I see nothing about anonymizing deposits via bank transfer from payments. I can buy Bitcoin in the same way. But before I spend them, I can anonymize by mixing via Tor. Without that step, there is no substantive anonymity.

<comment><USER5> If I understand correctly, the reliance on bank transfers and card payments is only to put money in your wallet, which is a distinct (and asynchronous) operation from anonymous purchase. Kind of like a cash withdrawal irl (except it is not as obvious as looking at the bill's serial number to track where you spent the money).

For more information you can take a look at [https://gnunet.org/sites/default/files/taler2016space.pdf](https://gnunet.org/sites/default/files/taler2016space.pdf) (the Taler specific part starts at page 7).

<comment><USER4> Thanks :)

> The focus of this paper is GNU Taler, a new free software payment system > designed to meet certain key ethical considerations from a social liberalism > perspective. In Taler, the paying customer remains anonymous while the > merchant is easily identified and thus taxable. Here, anonymous simply means > that the payment process does not require any personal information from the > customer, and that different transactions by the same customer are > unlinkable. Naturally, the specifics of the transaction|such as delivery of > goods to a shipping address, or the use of non-anonymous IP-based > communication|may still leak information about the customer's identity.

That sounds pretty good, except for merchants ;)

But exchanges would clearly know customer identity, and they also handle payment to merchants, so there's the need to trust a single party. Real anonymity is impossible under those circumstances.

Have I missed something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this really the reason people block ads?

I don't actually mind tracking as part of a useful service (like Google Maps). I block ads because they're 1) annoying 2) funding mass media.

Depriving Bezos' WaPo or Slim's NYT of revenue is definitely a feature. If billionaires want to push propaganda, the least they can do is foot the bill.

Tracking is a distant third. If an outlet I cared about ran ads, I'd white- list them. It just so happens that valuable sites like HN or developers' blogs either don't feature ads or do so in a way that adblockers don't interfere with (look at job posts here).

<comment><USER7> If you don't want to fund mass media, why are you reading it?

Reading it implies it has some value.

<comment><USER8> I read all kinds of things that I wouldn't want to fund. I read things that I would pay to get unpublished. I've spent hours reading Stormfront and Breitbart. I've even read Tom Friedman, god help me.

You don't listen to anybody you wouldn't pay? I listen to people I would pay to have behind bars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've thought before about online commerce, and wish we could find some way to adopt a Vending Machine model.

A vending machine is autonomous. It neither tracks nor engages the customer. It takes your money, and dispenses product. Since cash is untraceable, it keeps no record of what was bought and by whom. I feel at peace knowing I will give a vending machine a dollar, and I will receive a Coke, without fearing that I will start seeing targeted ads on my browser or in my inbox showing me more Coke products.

The problem, of course, is that the amount of money lost to a vending machine is negligible. And so if the soda machine eats my dollar, I will probably swear for a bit, but I'm not going to do much to seek recourse. That model would be difficult to extend to, say, Amazon, where I might buy an $800 laptop and _need_ Amazon to have a record that I bought it in case they ship me a lemon.

Nonetheless, I still feel that the Vending Machine Model is something we should aspire to in the e-commerce age, even if we haven't reached it yet.

<comment><USER10> Are vending machines really that analogous?

Vending machines are all about placement & location, and the ability of a vendor to find high traffic locations to put machines.

Machines get placed based on info about locations whether it's demographics, or a kind of business or whatever.

Individual transactions may not have identity tied to them, but it's not like the business is devoid of information about users, or hypotheses about them.

And on the internet... how do you get that info from your users aside from usage analytics (even if it's gross analytics)?

<comment><USER11> Vending machines certainly track purchases. They just don't track the people making the purchases.

The Internet can be the same. Lots of people buy X. Let's offer more if that. Y is a high traffic location (L as in URL). Etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I mean he's right but as a business model it doesn't work. Also for people who haven't realised this is a plug for GNU Taler.

Anyway. I think the reason it doesn't work as a business model is that really, honestly, reading the paper provides very little in terms of value to the average person. It's a very mild source of entertainment and nothing more. It used to be that the newspapers where the only media to get important information (classifieds, job ads...etc). Not any more.

<comment><USER12> I strongly disagree.

I order a physical (weekly) newspaper for two reasons:

a) It provides a broad range of interesting articles on topics which are otherwise outside my filter bubble. This is incredibly important in an era where many people get all their news through their facebook feed.

b) It's perfect to flick through over breakfast :)

<comment><USER13> What is the name of the newspaper?

<comment><USER12> Coincidentally enough, given TFA:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian_Weekly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian_Weekly)

<comment><USER14> It should also be mentioned that The Guardian is one of those newspapers that is willing to experiment with different models. E.g., they have a premium tier on iOS and Android for 3 Euro per month without ads:

[https://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/aug/12/1](https://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/aug/12/1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm still appalled when an ebook accepts Bitcoin but still asks for your "billing address".

<comment><USER16> I don't know about other countries, but here in the EU businesses are often required to collect customers' billing address to comply with EU regulation, such as the VAT MOSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it interesting that this article is published on a platform that makes uBlock block 27 requests and most certainly does contain non-free javascript. Richard Stallman talks a lot about how these thing inhibit freedom and that we should not support those companies. But when he publishes an article on ad blocking he does this on a platform that absolutely does not meet his standard on freedom.

<comment><USER18> I'm guessing he's going for the lessor of (n) evils?

<comment><USER19> I don't think I've ever seen Stallman taking the "lesser evil" philosophy. As a smarter man than me said: "The lesser of two evils is still evil, and the enemy of my enemy is not my friend."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is this something Brave is implementing with its "Brave Payments" [0]?

[0] [https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave- payments](https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave-payments) , HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411405)

<comment><USER21> Brave uses Bitcoin, which is otherwise known as "prosecution futures", so doesn't really fit the bill.

<comment><USER20> Got it, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> See previous discussions on Taler

GNU Taler 0.0.0 released [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840453)

GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258312)

</comment><comment><USER23> A lot of them do. Per article. It's called [https://blendle.com](https://blendle.com). Only an email address is required. And money. And it's not libre.

<comment><USER24> Blendle also tracks which articles you read. They also are working on an algorithm that picks the news for you, creating a filter bubble.

<comment><USER23> The filter will be opt-in, obviously.

And, again obviously, they need to keep track of which account is allowed access to which article. If only to allow you to read the article across multiple devices.

(Former employee here. Not in the exact loop these past 12 months)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I find it surprising that we havent already got a payment gateway that handles the entire user identity, including email forwarding.

I also hadn't realised Stallman wrote for the Guardian, but going through his historic articles shows a healthy number of articles.

<comment><USER26> Who will integrate such things? Everybody want's to know who is paying you.

<comment><USER25> As a startup it doesn't quite work, as the large companies that will want that info.

As a feature added to an existing gateway - say Amazon or Google - it could allow anonymized demographics whilst not exposing you to all kinds of data protection issues.

One of the main reasons for using a payment gateway is to avoid the legal requirements for card handling, it seems like a logical extension to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It could be a really good use case for a crypto currency. But eg. Bitcoin needs too long for a finished transaction (I don't want to wait ~10 minuntes until I can read an article). And you still can track down a person who purchased (separately) two articles by his keys or analysing the block chain.

I know we've a lot of crypto currencies right now, but I really hope that there is finally a new one coming, which is just simply fast, secure and somehow helps you paying anonymously.

<comment><USER28> In case of an article (which is cheap) there is no need to wait for confirmation, it's enough to wait for transaction to appear in mempool and have enough fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Seems like this is what Brave is trying to do, too:

[https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave- payments/](https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave-payments/)

</comment><comment><USER30> > Tracking, as we know, gives companies and governments dangerous power; the > intimidating effect of general surveillance has been measured and is > massive. The rate of visits to some Wikipedia pages – those about "al- > Qaida", "car bomb" and "Taliban" – declined by one-fifth after Edward > Snowden showed us how much the US government spies on our internet activity.</comment>


NPM is now more than a million packages - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/bitandbang/status/1135970946983059456 <comment><USER2> And that's in the default install for every non package, right?

The average is up from 1920 in the typical package to more than a million?

Congratulations!

/s</comment>