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To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

nytimes.com

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Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#481

Post by tchaffee »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #451
tchaffee wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal healthcare helped get me over there and it's one of the reasons I'll settle down there. I think all the socialized services are great. Excellent value for the taxes you pay.

If you pay small taxes and you get great value, good for you. Other people pay much bigger taxes and get nothing in return. Tax based healthcare is robbery, richer people are not sicker and there is no justification to pay for services a percentage of your income. Otherwise you should pay for groceries a percentage of your income, for gas, for rent etc, so in the end everyone is equal in what they can buy. Better tha…

I pay a lot of taxes. It's worth it for me to live in a country with healthy and educated people and that's just the very short list. If you don't value those things, don't live there.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#482

Post by sokoloff »

avasylev wrote: post #254
conanbatt wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should stop thinking taxes are the solution to inequality. "Cutting all the high trees so the forest looks even".

Funny that comparison with the trees can be applied in a different way - you do need to cut high trees if you want to grow smaller trees in the same place. This spring I cut very high pine because it shadowed my entire backyard and I want to grow more smaller trees on the perimeter.

Rush, Trees (1978) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_D0wkLyCXE

  There is unrest in the forest
  There is trouble with the trees
  For the maples want more sunlight
  And the oaks ignore their pleas

  The trouble with the maples
  And they're quite convinced they're right
  They say the oaks are just too lofty
  And they grab up all the light
  But the oaks can't help their feelings
  If they like the way they're made
  And they wonder why the maples
  Can't be happy in their shade?

  There is trouble in the forest
  And the creatures all have fled
  As the maples scream 'oppression!'
  And the oaks, just shake their heads

  So the maples formed a union
  And demanded equal rights
  'The oaks are just too greedy
  We will make them give us light'
  Now there's no more oak oppression
  For they passed a noble law
  And the trees are all kept equal
  By hatchet, axe, and saw

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#483

Post by chii »

stale2002 wrote: post #450
barrkel wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is that solving "inequality" is easy. Just find all the houses of rich people and burn them all down. That doesn't mean that this would make the world a better place. The world should absolutely try and help the poor and solve their problems, but this has nothing at all to do with inequality".

No, removing wealth to create equality is definitely not what anyone would propose as a solution.

But equality of opportunity seems a good idea.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#484

Post by bb88 »

philjohn wrote: post #413
barrkel wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And yet, the Janitor in this piece can't afford to take a holiday, so is it a stretch to assume she doesn't have much free time either?!?

Yes, if she's hourly, because they probably won't pay overtime.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#485

Post by manicdee »

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.

Why does the growth and change have to come from the job?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#486

Post by chii »

conanbatt wrote: post #414
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…

The current status quo did amazing in attacking extreme poverty. Don't get deluded into thinking the world has growing poverty and that everything is going into the can, because it isn't.

I think the lament is that the rich is growing richer faster then the l poor is growing out of poverty.

I think this is a structural problem. When your only source of wealth is your own time and labour, there's a limit to wealth creation and accumulation. The rich isn't limited to just their own time or labour, but is able to take many people's time and labour as part of their own.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#487

Post by ams6110 »

fapjacks wrote: post #301
tchaffee wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal healthcare helped get me over there and it's one of the reasons I'll settle down there. I think all the socialized services are great. Excellent value for the taxes you pay.

Yes! This is another huge misconception about raising taxes: The American government is massively wasteful in spending! We get so little value for the taxes we pay! People don't want to contribute even more money to the wasteful spending, which I can totally understand, but it doesn't have to be that way! In Sweden for example, you get tremendous value for the taxes you pay. The tax rate is higher, but you really do…

Why is it that the Swedes don't speak German today?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#488

Post by gremlinsinc »

posguy wrote: post #441
trapperkeeper74 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robots aren't capable of doing everything people can do yet, but as they become more capable, what and how are displaced unskilled workers supposed to do if they can't get any job at all? Starve to death under a bridge? Not everyone can handle social or intellectual labor. I think this is why UBI is essential: prevent riots and meet people's basic needs so they're not pennyless and sleeping rough.

UBI is a bad attempt to patch a broken capitalist system that has no regard for the humans within it. It may delay riots, but people's basic needs still won't be met.

What would you suggest as an alternative if there were only enough jobs to support 20-30% of people .. including professional jobs like doctors/radiologists/lawyers being displaced?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#489

Post by sokoloff »

jordanb wrote: post #334
TimPC wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxing wealth is a deeply invasive bureaucratic nightmare. Having individuals be legally required to produce a balance sheet of all their assets for the government every year seems quite problematic. This would get into issues of having people be required to re-establish the fair price of all their collectables, etc. It's also a deeply dangerous attack on retirement. Instead of being taxed on the gains from your weal…

This is basically the point of the estate tax: people are already producing a balance sheet of all the wealth for the purpose of distrusting it to the heirs. So tax the wealth when the estate changes hands and all the accounting is going to be done anyway.

My parents are going through updating their will. They have a collector car. It might be worth $50K, probably worth $70K, maybe worth $90K. They have a house. Might be worth $350K, probably $450K, maybe $500K.

Provided their estate will not hit the federal exemption (it will clearly not) or state exemption amount (ditto), there is nothing to compel them to prepare a balance sheet with fair market values.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#490

Post by gremlinsinc »

Bakary wrote: post #452
jackmott wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are a lot of posters here who seem to be border line sociopaths, so maybe another thing they should conaider is that when inequality increases to much the proletariat will tend to kill the elite. nobody wins if we get there and there are signs we are headed there.

How do you kill the elite if they have advanced weaponry and can monitor all communications? What happens if they have no use for servants or consumers by virtue of having automated all their production needs? This scenario may sound extreme but it's certainly not implausible.

This is why Trump is arming police force with military grade weapons--to protect the elite should the lower classes rise up.... That and he's using racism to divide and conquer us--make us hate and fight ourselves poor/middle class vs poor/middleclass -- if we're too busy infighting we'll never join forces and rise up against the elites...
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