[chris_va]

The high level question of wealth concentration from new technology is an interesting question (and probably could have been just 3 sentences, since it is unanswered).

The rest of the article has some easy to read anecdotes, but it's hard to know if they are at relevant/accurate. E.g. common mistake (arguably) that I see a lot:

> In 1990, America enacted a tax on luxury consumption of goods such as expensive cars, yachts, furs and jewelry. A few years later, the tax was repealed by a coalition that included Democratic politicians worried about job loss in the yacht building industry. It’s hard to think of a more perfect example of muddled thinking about distribution. Any tax reform that fails to reduce luxury consumption by the rich will completely fail to reduce economic inequality.

Mega-yachts are money pits. A rich person purchasing a mega-yacht is probably the fastest way to redistribute a monetary supply. Taxing it has some benefit, but reduces the incentive to buy mega-yacht... Now, monetary supply and productivity/wealth are not exactly the same thing, but this seems like a basic error.

[strken]

I think the whole point was that mega-yachts are money (or, from the perspective of the employee, effort) pits. Those employed shipbuilders and wait staff aren't building cruise ships and they aren't serving meals on them. The time and effort that went into those tasks will never reappear.

The median person is better off if the rich either invest that money, lose it to tax, or give it to charity. The money/effort gets redirected away from mega-yachts and other consumption and it has to go somewhere.

[bluGill]

That money often doesn't go to someplace the common person would fine more useful. A yacht made and stored outside the US is easy to hide from US taxes if you want one, if it is a status symbol you can find plenty of others, some of which are easy to make elsewhere thus moving money out of the US.