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JoshuaZ comments on Guardians of Ayn Rand - Less Wrong
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No, that is not my intention. I do think that the language and allegations that people use against 'banksters' are stunningly similar to charges anti-semites made against Jews, but I don't think that means that OWS are anti-semites. Rather, I was suggesting that OWS, anti-semitism, etc, all come from the same place, which is some primal dislike of so-called market dominant minorities.
??? I was specifically responding to your query about why I thought hedge fund managers are so unfairly maligned.
This is very true, but hedge funds are lightly regulated, so it doesn't make much sense as an explanation of high salaries for hedge fund managers. In fact, what I think is going on is that regulatory capture and cartelisation of the regular banking and investment markets by huge incumbent players makes it almost impossible for innovation and new entrants to occur. Consequently this activity occurs at the margins, in shadow banking and hedge funds, leading to very high returns for a few innovators, but also lots of risky activity.
I found our discussion interesting, but it was long, and I was repeatedly downvoted. I felt I was testing the patience of the community.
Capital allocation is vital, but you are right that hedge funds are just a small part of that. I certainly wasn't saying that hedge fund managers are the be-all and end-all. But pnrjulius was claiming that the only reason one could admire them is because one thinks that 'everyone who is rich automatically is a wonderful person.' So it seemed natural to contrast this highly productive, but widely maligned group with a highly praised but (IMO) largely parasitic one.
That has to be one of the most tone-deaf attempts to make that last argument or is completely disingenuous and I can't figure out which. At minimum, the fact that you used links only to examples involving Jews really misses the point, especially given that Jews were hated for many reasons that had nothing to do with economics but were rather religious. You cannot expect people to be telepaths.
Ah! Illusion of transparency. Apparently you aren't the only person here who doesn't realize that other people aren't telepaths. My question was regarding the "unfairly" that is that you normatively consider it to be unfair, and I was curious what your reasoning was there. You did give a pretty decent explanation of your reasoning for that question.
The problem here is not necessarily the lack of direct regulation of hedge funds but rather the entire regulatory framework for investments as a whole, taken together with things like the capital gains tax.
I do think your viewpoint is an unpopular one here, but I don't think you were testing community patience. Most of your posts in that thread range from -1 to +2 which is about normal for any mildly controversial topic.
Tangential advice: when one is going to make a comparison to persuade someone of something, using a comparison to something which is itself likely to be controversial.
Yes, but all Salemicus's examples were specifically about economics.