[wes-exp]

Employment is all good and well, but one needs to consider: what are the second-order effects of that action? For instance, you could employ people to dig holes that serve no purpose. Or, you could employ people to build public infrastructure that continues to pay dividends over its lifetime.

Buying the yacht is a little bit like digging useless holes, because it's basically a very costly form of recreation that doesn't do much for society. Ideally, money goes into things that both employ and have desirable second-order effects.

[humanrebar]

> For instance, you could employ people to dig holes that serve no purpose. Or, you could employ people to build public infrastructure that continues to pay dividends over its lifetime.

I heartily agree with this. However, you could be understimating positive secondary effects. Private space travel, for example, is subsidized in part by rich people spending on luxury goods (trips to space, hobby projects, etc.).

And besides, most of the people concerned about inequality in this thread want to see a more progressive tax that seems to be an end to itself. To be charitable, I'm sure they would like to see those taxes applied to re-distributive programs, but it's not clear to me that those programs won't also lack the "desirable second-order effects" you are looking for. In reality, taxes go to the general fund and then get spent on whatever the federal government wants to spend it on.

[wes-exp]

All good points. I wasn't trying to suggest a solution, but merely trying to point out that job creation should not be the sole bar by which we measure the investment of capital, but that it should do something useful too — whether that investment comes from private actors, or government.

[aidenn0]

If someone wealthy willingly gives their money to people to dig holes and fill them back in, it has redistributed some of the wealth. This is at least slightly more efficient than taxing them and then employing people with that tax to dig holes and fill them back in.