| ▲ | Ntrails 7 hours ago |
| > Investment gains are not work Say, for example, my job is allocating capital across the S&P 500. My work is picking the stocks, the fruits of my labour are excess returns. Are those excess returns not work? What are they? |
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| ▲ | atq2119 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Part of it is work, yes. But consider. How much is your take home as a fund manager with 100M AUM? How much is your take home with 10B AUM? The work is the same, yet if the take home is different, you've proven that your income is not in fact earned through work in a moral sense. |
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| ▲ | taffer 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > The work is the same, yet if the take home is different, you've proven that your income is not in fact earned through work in a moral sense. You could say the same about musicians and authors. Are they immoral as well? | | |
| ▲ | atq2119 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, the same is absolutely true for many other professions. And artists are probably more aware than most, at least on average, how much luck plays a role. But note that I have been very careful not to call the fund managers individually immoral. | | |
| ▲ | taffer 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I fail to see the moral problem with being able to write a book that millions or even billions of people can enjoy. To me that's a feature, not a bug. | | |
| ▲ | ForHackernews 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Work on your reading comprehension. The comment you're replying to specifically said they were not impugning the morality of artists or fund managers. Making great art is wonderful, but it's certainly not "work" the same way that digging a ditch or answering tech support calls is. |
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| ▲ | saghm 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Are those excess returns not work? What are they? Wealth extracted from a market, which is what the parent commenter said in the first place |
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| ▲ | twoodfin 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | saghm 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I mean "not earned through work", as evidenced by your description of it "as as sitting there". Risk isn't the same as work. | | |
| ▲ | twoodfin 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | inigyou 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | twoodfin 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | 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. | | |
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| ▲ | zarathustreal 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Do you think “work” means literally “manual labor”? | | |
| ▲ | thrance 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | |
| ▲ | well_ackshually 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Work means the creation of things. Clicking on stocks for your 401k is not working. | | |
| ▲ | zarathustreal 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The counter-examples are so obvious it makes me feel that pointing them out wouldn’t actually help you understand reality |
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| ▲ | hnthrow0287345 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >Are those excess returns not work? What are they? Normally you'd get a low percentage fee instead of getting all of the returns unless you got that capital for free (inheritance?), so yes, you are a worker compared to the person controlling the capital. |
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| ▲ | inigyou 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Say I dig a hole and then fill it back in and dig a hole and fill it back in and make a mud pie then throw it on the ground and then a stranger gives me $100. Is that work? |
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| ▲ | 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | ForHackernews 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Are you good at picking stocks, or just lucky? How do you know? Say, for example, my job is allocating capital across the roulette wheel. My work is picking the numbers, the fruits of my labour are excess returns. Are those returns not work? What are they? |
