•I have the same impression that rich people can’t spend too much money on themselves. But I remain concerned that they may split their fortune many ways among their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. who all use a lot of money on luxury goods. It would be good to have some data on this point.
•Hedge funds may skew wealth on account of picking up “quarters on the side walk” that otherwise would have been distributed randomly among members of the population. Wealth skewing seems to be bad for (economic growth)/(political stability)/(average quality of life). On the other hand hedge funds may stabilize the economy on account of suppressing bubbles. On the other hand they may destabilize the economy on account of leveraging a lot of funds and occasionally messing up. These things are complicated.
•Angel/VC funding is probably good.
•I would like to see super-rich people systematically using their money to achieve maximum positive social impact. Angel/VC funding should have some positive social impact, but since the market system does not take into account externalities & because there are tragedy of the commons issues in the market system, I think that super-rich people could be benefiting the world much more than they are now if they were actively trying to benefit the world rather than just trying to make more money.
Thanks for your response.
•I have the same impression that rich people can’t spend too much money on themselves. But I remain concerned that they may split their fortune many ways among their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. who all use a lot of money on luxury goods. It would be good to have some data on this point.
•Hedge funds may skew wealth on account of picking up “quarters on the side walk” that otherwise would have been distributed randomly among members of the population. Wealth skewing seems to be bad for (economic growth)/(political stability)/(average quality of life). On the other hand hedge funds may stabilize the economy on account of suppressing bubbles. On the other hand they may destabilize the economy on account of leveraging a lot of funds and occasionally messing up. These things are complicated.
•Angel/VC funding is probably good.
•I would like to see super-rich people systematically using their money to achieve maximum positive social impact. Angel/VC funding should have some positive social impact, but since the market system does not take into account externalities & because there are tragedy of the commons issues in the market system, I think that super-rich people could be benefiting the world much more than they are now if they were actively trying to benefit the world rather than just trying to make more money.