[srean]

Almost in violent agreement.

Disagree about the billionaire bit. Accumulates too much power too narrowly. Then one can subvert the market and rule of law. It seems the line lies somewhere between a hundred million and billion dollars at the current value of a dollar.

I am happy and eager to make exceptions on a case by case basis if that billion dollars have been made in exchange of tangible goods and services.

[crossbody]

I just see political influence as separate issue. Make sure they cannot lobby/donate (prison if they do) and problem solved.

Why being tangiable so important? E.g. a billionare made it on physical music CD cs one made it on music streaming? As long as it's legal, why prioritize physical form?

[srean]

That's too naive. Laws work differently once you have billions of dollars. They can and will be bent and politicians will be too happy to do that for you. It's win win for both.

Ignoring this aspect of the way the world works is living in a fantasy world, no less fantastic than a communist utopia.

Oh! I chose my word poorly. Streaming is very much "tangible" in the sense I had intended. "No regret transaction" is perhaps a better term than tangible, for the notion I am trying poorly to capture.

Let's take Walter Bright. I would love him to be a billionaire if he isn't one already. He made many delightful "goods", (to entertain oneself with and also to pay one's bills writing programs in a language so pleasant *). No party in the transaction would regret such a transaction, even in hindsight.

There are legal ways to accumulate wealth, however, without exchanging any goods and services. For example, HFT (ought to be called low latency rather than high frequency), speculation on the stock marketd. Derivative markets, for example, are zero sum, for one to win someone else has to lose. The wealth accumulated by such means has not been created, merely redistributed.

* Wish more companies used D though, so that it's actually feasible to earn your keep writing in D.

[crossbody]

How much bending is actually happening vs just hypotheticals thought? Elon Musk donated a lot and then suddenly Big Beautiful Bill hit Tesla very hard. Doesn't sound like he got a favor paid back. Also, not that we should emulate Russia (not at all) but since 2000s there any oligarch trying to do anything political goes to jail or "falls out of their window". So possible in principle to remove the influence (I don't approve of the method though).

Sure, HTF is zero sum. I just think that focus on it is excessive. 99.9% of businesses are not. Regret would be nice to include in consideration but I doubt one can reliably measure it in practice

[srean]

Not just HFT, options market, futures market are all zero sum. They are massive.

[crossbody]

How massive relative to everything else in the economy that is not zero sum? 1%?

Also, disagree on options and futures market. They do provide important economoc function of price discovery and insurance against risk

[srean]

Much bigger than non-derivative stock market for sure.

"The derivatives market is, in a word, gigantic—often estimated at over $1 quadrillion". The stock market would be puny in comparison. This is quite well known so was quite surprised by your objection.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052715/how-big-deri...

The derivatives market is much larger than the stock market, both in sheer trading volume and total face value. While global stock markets represent a total value of roughly \(\$120\) trillion, the estimated notional value of the global derivatives market easily exceeds \(\$500\) trillion to \(\$1\) quadrillion.

https://share.google/aimode/EAEGnOouA5dvj9leC

Derivative markets are necessary for price discovery but when they tower over in volume over the market whose prices it was supposed to discover it is serving a purpose that towers over its justified/motivating purpose.

[saulapremium]

Elon Musk donated a lot of money and among many other things, his companies avoided investigations. The fact that neither Trump or Putin have any loyalty doesn't negate the fact that money buys you tremendous power.

[crossbody]

It doesn't negate the influence gain, however the Putin and Trump examples show that this influence is often (very) limited and short lived, not "tremendous"

[saulapremium]

Elon Musk, by his own words, would be in prison if the Democrats had won. It seems to me that he got exactly what he wanted.