[jimmyvalmer]

Two wrongs don't make a right? I would agree that a free enterprise system tends to grossly overcompensate its assignation of capital, but you don't cure it with an even more inefficient system like taxes (which, if you've taken econ 101, results in something more sinister called "dead weight loss").

Ultimately, it's not a question of how deserving billionaires are (they obviously aren't). It's more a question of how to best advance the interests of our species as a whole.

[fredophile]

It sounds like you agree that billionaires are overcompensated relative to their contributions to society. If taxes aren't a good way to address this, what is a better solution?

[jimmyvalmer]

End state-mandated public schooling. Let kids compete with adults for jobs.

[jcpham2]

Let’s de-regulate airplanes and stick the kids on the tarmac! I think my son would make a good forex trader, compete eh?

[jimmyvalmer]

Daytrader, yes. Flight controller, no. Unlike the buffoon with five kids who loses his shirt, your son's losses would presumably be limited to his allowance, at which point he'd learn canning might be more his calling. On the other hand, his chances of succeeding in forex are about as good as anybody else's.

[nosianu]

> Two wrongs don't make a right?

Where do you see "two wrongs"? I don't understand this reply at all. I don't see the connection to what I actually wrote.

> Ultimately, it's not a question of how deserving billionaires are (they obviously aren't). It's more a question of how to best advance the interests of our species as a whole.

I agree, and I don't see any connection to what I wrote here either, meaning how this is supposed to be a contradiction to my point?

[jimmyvalmer]

Everyone knows billionaires are standing on the shoulders of giants from Shannon to Shockley, neither of whom were billionaires. Getting these pioneers their just desserts from taxes, assuming they even wanted them, would be like using the wrong end of a hammer to nail a board. My initial response (the one you thought missed your point) assumed this and hopefully also disabuses you of the notion that life can or should be fair.