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Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by birdsbirdsbirds on Saturday November 28, 2020 @03:35AM (#25236244)
If the winner takes it all, what good is it to help the 99%?

Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.)

Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation.

Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by jlokier on Saturday November 28, 2020 @04:01AM (#25236384)
> Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.)

Many parents are not wealthy enough to have the choice you're implying any more.

First, if they earn half the time, that means part-time work which generally means earning less than half the wages because companies tend to use a full time employee for higher value work.

Second, if they are renters, they don't "own less" by earning less than half. Instead, they might (for example) go from being able to afford the rent on a place to raise a family, to being able to afford the rent on a room in a shared house which is unsuitable.

If they own a place (with a mortgage), they'd go from buying a place which is big enough to not being able to afford to buy a place, because they won't even be granted a mortgage for a family-size home on a single typical income.

> Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation.

The parent comment is referring to the lost taxes due to trading profits being creatively accounted to hide them in offshore reservoirs. If paid those taxes would improve the life of the 99%.

As for the value of onshore money decreasing if offshore money were to join it, it's not that simple because much of that additional circulation would end up inside the pockets of the 99%.

Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by bitcharmer on Saturday November 28, 2020 @04:00AM (#25236377)
Quite uncharacteristic for a HN comment but every sentence in yours is wrong.
Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by bostonsre on Saturday November 28, 2020 @04:19AM (#25236460)
You honestly think that parents working half the normal hours on minimum wage would make enough to raise a family without daycare? Minimum wage working 40 hours a week would net you ~$15k. How do you expect to raise a family of four on less that $300 a week?

What do you think will happen if the wealth gap grows further and more and more people become angry and unhappy? Riots and revolution are only a matter of time if the gap keeps growing. Having billions of dollars in an offshore bank will mean nothing if we continue on the same path. Even if you have no empathy for the 99%, at least look at it for self preservation. Our country is still extremely young and recorded history doesn't stretch back very far; chaos and revolution are normal and it would not be hard to pass the point of no return.

There is a reason most tech aristocracy believe that minimum basic income is a good idea.

Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by birdsbirdsbirds on Saturday November 28, 2020 @01:10PM (#25239229)
How do you expect to rise a family of four on less than $600 a week with no time for healthy shopping, cooking, or taking care of problems?

I am pretty sure plenty of women do rise their children alone on $300 a week because they are working a full-time minimum wage job and rise their children. As a couple, doing it together, why should the same not be possible? Why is it preferable for both parents to work full time instead of actually having time to rise their children?

Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by eecc on Saturday November 28, 2020 @03:52AM (#25236339)
That’s an odd take.

That money is labor taken out of economic activity and left rotting away in a vault.

Surplus needs to reinvested in the cycle, otherwise the overall economy will shrink.

What’s being quarreled about in the last generational policy struggle, is who gets to dictate how to spend it. The Jeff Bezos-es, the neoliberal technocrats, or the political establishment. Or something else

Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by headmelted on Saturday November 28, 2020 @03:59AM (#25236374)
That’s only true if the holder of that money decides to spend it on creating jobs, which are almost invariably the largest single expense in any business.

Trickle-down economics depends on progressively better paid work and more of it, while the incentives for businesses are to have as few people on payroll for as little compensation as possible.

Re:Bill Gates is wrong about education by eecc on Saturday November 28, 2020 @04:44AM (#25236563)
That’s why you need to force reinvestment with corporate taxation, and subsidizing innovation with de-risking, either via direct state investment or via reduction of labor cost (UBI, unemployment benefits to compensate for looser contracts.)

I think this is the gist of Mazzucato’s views