> 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

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.

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saghm 10 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.

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twoodfin 10 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.

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inigyou 8 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.

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twoodfin 7 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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inigyou 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Did you reply to the wrong comment by mistake?

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twoodfin 3 hours ago | parent [-]

What would that $500 not being “extracted from the value chain” look like?

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inigyou 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It would either be passed along the chain or it would not enter the chain.

	▲	twoodfin an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Seriously, what does “passed along the chain” look like in your example?

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zarathustreal 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Do you think “work” means literally “manual labor”?

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thrance 7 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.

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well_ackshually 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Work means the creation of things. Clicking on stocks for your 401k is not working.

	▲	zarathustreal 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The counter-examples are so obvious it makes me feel that pointing them out wouldn’t actually help you understand reality