To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors • Hacker News Board

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#391

Post by barrkel » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #379

wavefunction wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not the core job, it's the fact that there's zero growth or mobility even possible that is the issue. Not everyone is a 'striver.' Some folks just want to pay their bills and enjoy what time they can with their family and friends.

Even those 'non-striver' people would prefer to have growth over time, in their position, wage, and skills. Humans are not static - we like to learn and we get very frustrated when we can't improve over time.

Do you think everybody finds growth and meaning in their job? Many people find it in their family, in sport, in clubs, and work is just a wage.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#392

Post by frgtpsswrdlame » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #358

erentz wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could do. That might be captured sufficiently by the gift tax though. A bigger issue could be evasion through establishing trusts and the like.

Then you just donate the money to institutions your progeny would just happen to enjoy: your alma mater, the country club, private schools, etc. Segregation would still be maintained through astronomical real estate prices.

Your position is that increasing the estate tax would do nothing to help segregation? Or that it wouldn't do enough and we should also do more?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#393

Post by humanrebar » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

dlp211 wrote: post #384

humanrebar wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of the reason some want to tax consumption more aggressively. "Wealth" that isn't used is really just a collection of expensive large numbers. Sooner or later, when that wealth is used, it can be taxed as consumption and/or real property.

Except it doesn't work that way because cost basis gets reset during inheritance which is a huge give away to the most wealthy families. It is also the reason for an Estate Tax.

The heirs would presumably be buying homes, cars, vacations, food, night clubs, etc.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#394

Post by dlp211 » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

indigo0086 wrote: post #381

Love when threads like these dissolve into "How can we further overcomplicate tax law to benefit to ultimately benefit the government"

TIL taxes only benefit the government and never go to anything useful like the food stamps my family sustained itself on while my baby brother went through chemotherapy, or the Post 9/11 GI Bill that allowed me to get degrees in CS and ECE which led me to a job at one of the world's largest tech companies, or the unemployment that allowed me to properly transition from the military into the civilian workforce.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#395

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:49 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #153

X86BSD wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you noted it started in 1970. Can you think of anything that happened in 1970 that would have started this death spiral of our purchasing power? Perhaps say the severing of our money from gold maybe? Look it's rather simple. You can wax and wane about tax policy until you are blue in the face. The answer lies in the currency, not taxation. I give this example every single time these stories surface.…

I see you have been down voted, yet no one has given an explanation as to why you are wrong. I was thinking the same thing. I would appreciate it if someone could explain to me why this line of thinking is wrong.

Foreign (to the US) oil, and limited gold. Dollarising petroluem sales in particular served the interests of much of the world: the US, because it kept oil affordable (dollar didn't deflate more), OPEC, because it kept oil affordable (their currencies didn't inflate more), gold, because there's only so much, other nations, because they could exchange for dollars via reserve currency markets.

The gold-backing was dead by 1970. Petro-dolarisation occurred in 1974. The UK all but went broke in 1979. The USSR did go broke in 1987-89, courtesy the US and Saudi Arabia (something Putin may well have in mind now).

Money is weird. And the gold standard and "end the Fed" nonsense is ... complete bullshit.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#396

Post by frgtpsswrdlame » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:50 PM UTC

nnfy wrote: post #322

erentz wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thought experiment isn't about looking at your neighbors plate, it's about incentives for us as a society. I think the question to answer for yourself is whether you think everyone should start with a fair playing field or not and the implications such a tax would have on how you structure society to ensure that everyone gets the same shots at a good life.

There is substantially more value for all of us in allowing more resources to be distributed to those who are able to do more with them. And your definition of "fair playing field" is skewed because, again, you treat economics as a zero sum game. You are making the classic mistake of conflating equality of outcome with equality of opportunity. In any case, this class warfare inspired policy of exhaustively taxing wea…

>You are making the classic mistake of conflating equality of outcome with equality of opportunity.

Outcome and opportunity is a false dichotomy. But if we were to go along with it, isn't a tax on inherited wealth a great way to maintain equality of opportunity?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#397

Post by hippich » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:51 PM UTC

"Less than a decade later, Ms. Evans was chief technology officer of the whole company"

From a Janitor to CTO in under 10 years - I wish I could dream that. I started playing with code around 6yo and now 33..

Could it be that it was really rare period of time where such thing was possible?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#398

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

winstonewert wrote: post #99

mathiasben wrote: post #36

The underlying cause of this whole issue is the changes in tax policy instated in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, previously income was taxed at higher rates unless deductions were utilized which forced those earnings back into the economy creating jobs funding research, etc.. As it's become easier to retain more earnings there's little incentive not to optimize an entire corporation solely with the purpose of generating…

Income inequality has been increasing since the 1970s, so I submit the underlying cause cannot have been a policy change in 1986.

OPEC oil crisis, US peak oil, associated political shifts in conjunction ith that. Gradual outsourcing of industrial productivity (high-paying factory jobs) from the US. Loss of bargaining leverage by labour.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#399

Post by humanrebar » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #392

humanrebar wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you just donate the money to institutions your progeny would just happen to enjoy: your alma mater, the country club, private schools, etc. Segregation would still be maintained through astronomical real estate prices.

Your position is that increasing the estate tax would do nothing to help segregation? Or that it wouldn't do enough and we should also do more?

I'm not confident enough to make a definite prediction, but it seems plausible that it could make some forms of inequality worse. Attempts to level out education, for example, have resulted in the truly wealthy finding other outlets (private schools, expensive zip codes) to create the educational experience they want for their children.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#400

Post by barrkel » Sun, Sep 03, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

Sniffnoy wrote: post #353

esarbe wrote: post #321

What strikes me the most when looking at many of the comments here is the blatant disregard for human suffering that extreme inequality and the resulting poverty cause. The current economical status quo is accepted as a given and all the harm it causes is dismissed with the shrug of a shoulder. "It can't be helped, the poor sods should have made better life choices to avoid ending up as janitor" is the attitude by wh…

> What strikes me the most when looking at many of the comments here is the blatant disregard for human suffering that extreme inequality and the resulting poverty cause. Apologies to pick on you without addressing your main point, but this sentence is an example of an error I see a lot yet I rarely see addressed. Specifically, you're claiming a chain of causation where by inequality causes poverty. But in fact the r…

If poverty is a relative measure - and as a child who grew up poor, I can assure you that the lived perception of poverty is relative, not absolute - then large inequality implies substantial poverty, for usual income distributions.

This is relating to your parenthetical, not your quibble with causation, of course. But inequality of income is different to inequality of wealth, and there can be a causal link there.