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Too many houses, houses that are too large, too many private pools and other unnecessary amenities, expensive overseas luxury good purchases, too many cars, too many vacations, too many private jets (15k), etc etc etc
Just extraordinary waste which we know, scientifically, does not measurably influence happiness. It is entirely reasonable to design an immigration policy which forces the rich to depart from the resources they waste, so that the resources are necessarily transferred into the lower and middle classes.
Whats your cut off for rich here? Unless you're including like the broad middle class then these forms of consumption are just such a tiny percent of total wealth/consumption that it's hard to take seriously as anything but resentment that they have nice things.
These things comprise a large part of the consumption of the rich in America. Is it possible you resent the poor for having a genuine moral claim to the resources that the wealthy waste?
They comprise a large part of the consumption of the rich of course, what else would they consume? But a very small amount of total consumption. If you redistributed all the pools and big houses we'd all have a 5 minute time share a year in mansion and get to enter a one in a thousand lottery to have one of flights be private instead of commercial jet. And yeah, I think it's basically fine that the system works out that people who get into a bunch of voluntary, everyone wins and grows the pie contracts get to consume some of that newly created pie. It's not a big deal to me. I think redistribution to a degree is good to a point, we should have some baseline level of consumption that even the least fortunate have access to, good shelter, good food, free time and plentiful entertainment options, but it's just not a big deal to me if the guy who built up a company to provides valuable goods and services gets to debauch it up in a nice big house by his private pool, good for him.
All that even said, your position doesn't even really work out to redistribution, it just shrinks the pie for everyone. The poor get even less in actual terms although maybe a bigger slice in relative terms.
If the wealthiest top 1% of households in America have at least $14mil, and the class as a whole possesses 55 trillion in wealth, then there is necessarily a lot of wealth wasted on things that are not required for the happiness of these 1% of households. And so we can improve a comical amount of lives in America by simply halting immigration. If this wealth were originally compelled to be redistributed annually (because no surplus of workers), we are talking about 1-3 trillion to be distributed. That’s giving the bottom 100 million working Americans (the bottom 60%) between 10k and 30k annually. We are also talking about lower housing costs and lower stress-related healthcare costs. We are also talking about a more efficient economy as the workers are actually able to pick up and move for greater wages (simply not realistic for many working Americans right now, and they can’t bargain if they can’t afford to quit for a couple months). We are also talking about less educational waste as people see that they can live comfortably without a college degree. Then we will see gains in civic participation, with all of its myriad benefits. &tc
It’s a big deal for me that this wealth is wasted because, at the end of the day, we are trading the blood and lives of the poor so that the flooring in a wealthy person’s bathroom is more colorful. We are looking at the mangled corpse of a child in a drunk driving accident, knowing of course that alcoholism and life stress are linked (and in any case treatment costs money), and we are saying “this is just the price we pay so that an investment banker gets a yacht”. This is not a rational trade for the statistically-informed looking at the predictable cofactors of misery. I think this is just allowing the poor to die so that the rich are more comfortable.
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