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by twoodfin 6 days ago
What do you mean “extracted”? The wealth is sitting there in his 401(k) being risked through (highly) fractional ownership of various publicly traded business ventures.
1 comments

I mean "not earned through work", as evidenced by your description of it "as as sitting there". Risk isn't the same as work.
What is being “extracted” from what?

I described it as “sitting there” to contrast my viewpoint that in fact it’s not being “extracted” from anything as far as I can tell.

Some Nvidia employees are making graphics cards, that cost $1000, and use $300 of materials, and being paid $200. $500 is being extracted from the value chain at that point and some of that is going to you because you own Nvidia stock.
Ah, the labor theory of value. That makes sense.

It’s totally incoherent and unreliable as an explanation for an economy, but it explains the comments in this thread.

Did you reply to the wrong comment by mistake?
What would that $500 not being “extracted from the value chain” look like?
Do you think “work” means literally “manual labor”?
Work implies the creation of value: physical artifacts, services, or more generally, stuff that adds to the world. Capital gails isn't work, you're getting money without adding anything to the world.
Work means the creation of things. Clicking on stocks for your 401k is not working.
The counter-examples are so obvious it makes me feel that pointing them out wouldn’t actually help you understand reality
The counter-examples are so obvious you didn't feel the need to cite even one?

Please provide an example of how logging in to fidelity.com to see that today my net worth increased by a multiple of my annual salary constitutes "work". Define your terms so it's clear to readers.

If I spend 30 minutes this week looking at my investments, but a fund manager spends 60 hours, that’s a difference in quality and quantity not kind.