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To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

nytimes.com

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Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#581

Post by conanbatt »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #559
conanbatt wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inheritance taxes are always avoidable, and they could also have devastating consequences. Even if you could effectively prevent a single coin getting to the hands of your children, that would mean lavish expenditures, not investment.

You've asserted several times in this thread that there are devastating consequences to the estate tax but never explain what those might be. Care to enlighten?

The idea of inheritance taxes are that once you are dead, you don't care about paying taxes. However, leaving wealth for your children is a huge economic incentive. As Friedman puts it: "People go to an irrational length to provide their kids a better life than they will ever get".

If you could effectively put 100% tax on inheritance(which you can't in practice), it means your utility of leaving wealth around becomes 0. Now you want to spend that wealth as much as possible, and it turns into consumption. You would sell and spend everything you have for lavish expenses, which means a reduction in capital investment, which means slower economic growth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRpEV2tmYz4

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#582

Post by jiggunjer »

wonder_er wrote: post #461
alansammarone wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please expand on why its necessarily better for the average Joe to invest money (without knowing beforehand whats gonna be a "productive enterprise" of course) instead of fuelling the economy directly by buying goods? (honest question)

Not OP, but I have an idea of what they're getting at. Another word for savings is "deferred consumption". If I earned 1000 dollars this month, and spent 700, I have 300 in savings, or, put another way, I deferred consuming 300 of those dollars. Now, 300 in a checking account doesn't do anyone any good but me, but if I took half of that money and invested it w/the bank at a 7%/year interest rate, I'd be investing $15…

"So, everyone spends money, no limits on it". Not true, there are limits (e.g. in the form of leverage ratio caps) and not everything borrowed is immediately injected back into the economy (that might bump inflation too much).

Imagine if banks couldn't 'print their own money', then businesses would depend on people investing to get funding and demand far outstrips supply. So we'd have economic contractions on a massive scale.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#583

Post by oarla »

solomatov wrote: post #532
oarla wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a society, if we figure out an economic system which doesn't lead to inflation, then all would benefit by not having to grow their net worth, and in turn, have a job that doesn't have any growth prospects.

How are growth prospect and inflation related? You can keep your net worth by investing into assets which have growth above the inflation level which isn't that hard.

By growth, I meant increase in wages to at least keep up with inflation. Janitorial jobs haven't kept up with inflation. Nowadays, rent increases by about 10% YoY. But wages don't increase by that much.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#584

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #483
stale2002 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#585

Post by jiggunjer »

jaggederest wrote: post #579
jiggunjer wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the fact that she's a single mom with 4 kids is a factor too. I think a janitor with a single dependent would have a more acceptable standard of living.

Are you making a modest proposal that people should go from four kids to one, post facto? I think everyone deserves to be able to have vacation time, especially single parents.

I'm not proposing anything. Just suggesting that there are more factors than income that affect 'inequality'.

An article that focusses on inequality due to low income should perhaps pick an example with a more typical family situation.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#586

Post by [deleted] »

ux-app wrote: post #525
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…

I agree and it disgusts me. The "fuck you I got mine" attitude is a) sociopathic and b) illogical. It's illogical because someone else getting a leg up doesn't mean you'll be losing ground (the pie is mostly imaginary and we can continue growing it for a long time) and additionally, a society with greater inequality is going to hurt everyone. There's only so long this can go on for. How long will your gated community…

[deleted]

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#587

Post by nextlevelwizard »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #519
posguy wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it could be great, terrible, or somewhere in between in the future you describe. I'm a socialist by upbringing, hopefully we would be smart enough to organize our society such that we take care of those most vulnerable among us. Currently we make a modicum of effort towards this, and vilify the working poor as lazy, no good scum, despite how they often work much more than those who earn more than them.

Honestly, I look beyond socialism/capitalism/consumerism to something more like the Venus Project or Resource based economy as something we should attain to, though it's a bit utopian to think we'll ever get their in the current political climate...maybe someday... I voted for Bernie personally -- not a full out socialist... but I do think single payer + ubi + free college makes sense -- take the stress out of living…

>take the stress out of living paycheck to paycheck

If I could live for free (no rent, free food, free electricity, etc), I probably would quit. I don't have much savings and my quality of life would drop a little, but I would probably take 6-12 months vacation and just dick about, playing video games and concentrating on my hobbies.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#588

Post by ikeyany »

ryan-allen wrote: post #526
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…

> as if requiring everyone to be a member of the educated elite just to be able earn a decent living The sad reality is that this is not actually possible. This kind of inequality is a constant and cannot be changed. There is a segment of society that cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps so to speak, and the way a society treats and cares for these people is the true yardstick of compassion and fairness.

Maybe it isn't so sad. I'm not necessarily saying that we live in the best of all possible worlds. But human existence has been much more brutal for thousands of years.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#589

Post by ikeyany »

rsync wrote: post #564
wavefunction wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the Randian superman does not exist and is a juvenile fantasy.

"Also, the Randian superman does not exist and is a juvenile fantasy." I am not a follower or a fan of Ayn Rand but I really don't see any other category within which to place: Steve Jobs, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk ... perhaps even Donald Trump ? George Lucas ? They seem to fit the archetype ...

Are they actually super? Do you really think they would have amounted to anything if they happened to grow up in poverty or with a poor education?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#590

Post by [deleted] »

fzeroracer wrote: post #547
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…

Part of the issue seems to be that in America people simply don't understand inequality. I've had a fair amount of conversations with coworkers that simply didn't 'get' being poor or living in poverty because they never had that experience. At the same time they had a strong belief that they earned everything and that we live in a meritocracy. As you said it essentially comes down to 'they should've made better choic…

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