[1999]

One project I think is interesting is LeBron James' school. When I looked at what the biggest changes are between his school and a normal school, it all looks to me like surrogate parenting -- like he is moving elements from the parenting column into the school column: meals, clothing, transportation, scholarships, literally helping the parents find jobs. My vision for what creates academic and financial success is similar to LeBron James, but I don't support expanding the education system to include more daycare and parenting elements, and I think the government is uniquely horrible at delivering those elements at scale.

In my view the educational component is fine, access to information is better than ever, the major difference is the negative effects of the poverty environment, which can't be resolved through the education system.

Another thing that has to be identified is the components that are zero-sum versus non-zero-sum. In a zero-sum competitive process if educational attainment is based on resource consumption, the wealthy will always win.

I think we basically have an opposite view of the causal relationship. I think education is a product of prosperity, and I think you view prosperity as a product of education. It could be resolved by a randomized controlled trial like drugs are tested, but unfortunately it would be unethical since we'd have to randomly deny people education, or destroy their prosperity.

[TheDong]

Based on that example and your support for lowering taxes, I think we may have a more basic disagreement.

I think good societal change, whether it's improving the quality of the life of the ghetto, or whether it's improving education, is better driven by the government than by rich people taking pity on the rest of us.

LeBron's experiment is laudable, but a sustainable solution will come from the government, which is the only entity that can truly direct the money of the entire country (via taxes).

Whether the true problem lies in education or environment, I see a significantly higher tax rate on the wealthy as the easiest way to sustainably improve our situation.

[1999]

At least on the point of pity of the rich versus government organized relief, I'd definitely support closing the charity and religion loopholes that let the rich escape huge taxes. Another measure I'd support is removing all distinctions between types of income and spending so labor isn't punished relative to capital. It will be difficult because the rich are the most resistant to being taxed, and if they aren't their wealth is temporary. But I think the political will is there and I think it can be done.

Here is a chart of 2015 government spending vs GDP: https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm

So the US is on the low end of things with the government spending 37.6% of GDP ... looking at the current level of service provided by the all levels of government, that is based on an almost 40% share of the output of the wealthiest country to ever exist. I think that is a pathetic result. Given 40% of the output of the US economy, I think the government should be able to provide all necessities to all citizens at a high level of service: food, shelter, transportation, medicine, education, law enforcement, military defence.

So based on their huge GDP share and horrible performance, I'm against allocating them a higher share. I think the most promising approach would be pure redistribution since it would sidestep the issue of the government's inefficiency. Just take the money from the rich and literally give it to the poor but I don't think it is politically feasible.