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Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

wid.world

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Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#141

Post by Mz »

tuna-piano wrote: post #137
Chinjut wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Steve Jobs made the iPhone with his own hands... He played a role in the creation of the iPhone, but the level and proportion of reward he received for that role is a choice we made as a society, not an intrinsic physical fact. I guarantee you, even in a world where telling other people to make iPhones doesn't make you a billionaire, there are still people who would line up at the chance to do it.

" the level and proportion of reward he received for that role is a choice we made as a society" I don't believe this statement to be at all accurate. We did not make that decision as a society. Millions of individual people made the decision to buy or not buy the phone based on its price and value. Millions of workers decided to work (or not work) for Apple/Foxconn based on their wages and the work. One of those wor…

My assumption is that the parent comment means, in part, that how we choose to do things like structure corporations and corporate compensation is a societal thing.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#142

Post by tuna-piano »

evanlivingston wrote: post #111
dmix wrote: post #52

Changing the graph from "Share %" to "Average Income or Wealth" shows a much more optimistic looking chart, with every country ramping upwards, almost at an exponentially positive rate. The world as a whole is moving away from poverty and quality of life is improving which IMO is the most important metric here. Far more important to the average person than the relative wealth ratios at the top vs the bottom, which ye…

What do you mean when you say success, progress or upwards? Here's a hypothetical: If a person is moved from a situation where they have no money, but the food, services and mobility they need for a somewhat comfortable and stable life to a system of employment that is less stable and creates dependency on this employmenet is that progress? That person or family might have moved out of extreme poverty but is their si…

It’s a fair point that the income stats might be not the full picture.

It’s not really a fair point that Cuba has a better standard of living than the USA, for example.

When in doubt, look at the simplest metric - which way do the rafts flow. The desperate people flow from Cuba to Florida, and not the other way around.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#143

Post by ulkram »

Top 1% isn't the right metric for finding the problems we want to identify. In certain US states like new mexico, the top %1 is 230k, which any physician could reasonably make. Are we trying to discourage physicians?

The problem with income inequality is people abusing their capital (via compounding interest or political influence) to make more capital. I suspect that applies to the top .01%.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#144

Post by rcdwealth »

Wealth is created by people providing products and services to other people and it is not a static quantity "distributed" equally or not equally.

For something as dynamic as wealth is impossible to give any representation of its "distribution".

Neither it is useful to even speak if "inequality".

The idea of "distributing wealth" is the idea based on communism to steal property from those who have it and give it to those who do not have it.

It is partially implemented in income tax systems all over the world.

That fact does not justify its criminal origins.

And it is so often propagated to smart online boys to make them more "fit" for the society in which they are to yell on those who have it, in order to spread it to those who do not have it.

Instead of asking other people's property to become your property without giving them exchange (which is basic of crime) how about doing something helpful?

Maybe those people who belong to the group of not having it "equal" need better environment? Better education? Better chances for survival?

You cannot get better chance for survival by robbing other people's hard earned wealth. It is not fair. You have a car, I do not have a car, so let me rob you. That is criminal.

But you can get better chances for survival with education, knowledge and training to become better producer and service provider.

Each of us is both the producer and service provider. We are producing products and services for other people, so we help people, and we are creating wealth.

But those writing this kind of nonsense reports wish to sit behind their TV without creating anything for other people and get the money from "social funds" to support their parasitic lives.

That is what those people want who are yelling at you "look at the world, it is not equal".

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#145

Post by ctdonath »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #68
ctdonath wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want less of something, tax it. If you want more of something, subsidize it. Wealth has been increasingly taxed, poverty increasingly subsidized. For the bottom 50%, this matters.

Are you suggesting that we should tax the poor? Wouldn't that just make it more difficult for them to pay off debts and collect the capital required to escape poverty?

I'm suggesting we stop subsidizing all but the abject & existential poor.

Welfare entitlements have grown so profitable there's a huge disincentive to working. Do nothing, profit. Start working, entitlements are withdrawn and you face a huge net income drop, made worse by taxes on earned income. Hence much of the bottom 50% are literally incentivized to minimize income & wealth - explaining in part why so much of their wealth has migrated to other classes.

I'm also suggesting we cut taxes so those who do earn aren't losing so much of their income.

While technically subject to the lowest tax rates, the bottom 50% have the lowest income & wealth rates, so find it harder to replace & augment what little they have that's taken from them by "embedded taxes" passed on from higher economic classes (corporate taxes -> higher prices, property taxes -> higher rent, etc). What they earn & retain is being siphoned away by taxation.

The question my prior post was trying to answer was: why has the wealth of the bottom 50% dropped so much? Well, between rewarding (subsidizing) unemployment and dis-incentivizing (taxing) earned income, we're giving the bottom 50% good reasons to earn & keep less. The result should not be surprising.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#146

Post by mancerayder »

tuna-piano wrote: post #137
Chinjut wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Steve Jobs made the iPhone with his own hands... He played a role in the creation of the iPhone, but the level and proportion of reward he received for that role is a choice we made as a society, not an intrinsic physical fact. I guarantee you, even in a world where telling other people to make iPhones doesn't make you a billionaire, there are still people who would line up at the chance to do it.

" the level and proportion of reward he received for that role is a choice we made as a society" I don't believe this statement to be at all accurate. We did not make that decision as a society. Millions of individual people made the decision to buy or not buy the phone based on its price and value. Millions of workers decided to work (or not work) for Apple/Foxconn based on their wages and the work. One of those wor…

What you said, while true, is one-sided. It omits that companies like Apple are the beneficiaries of large tax breaks that ipso facto function as subsidies (because Apple is the beneficiary of tax spending in innumerable ways). It also looks at different taxation rates for individuals as well, with a capital gain tax that's far lower than ordinary income tax rates, as one example.

So "as a society" applies here, in the loose sense of government decision-making.

There's no market in the abstract - there are courts, tax laws, civil laws, and many other things that mediate.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#147

Post by blobbers »

Do I read this correctly in seeing that Wealth Inequality section in the United States shows the top 10% have 73% of wealth, the next 40% of people have 27% of the wealth and the bottom 50% are effectively living pay cheque to pay cheque and have 0 (or slightly negative wealth)?

As in the average of the lower 50% debt equals savings?

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#148

Post by moduspol »

ryandrake wrote: post #41
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #3

What does 'Income Equality' look like?

The way I see it is income inequality is just the derivative of wealth inequality. Opportunity inequality is the derivative of income inequality. Opportunity equality is the idea of a level playing field. When people complain about income inequality, they're really complaining about opportunity inequality, which I believe drives the bulk of income inequality. All that people are asking for is real opportunity equalit…

The government can't give you two married parents that love you in a stable household, the best education money can buy, or social connections with powerful people.

It can minimize the value of those things for the people that have them... at least within its borders. I'm not convinced that's in anyone's best interests, though.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#149

Post by CJefferson »

tuna-piano wrote: post #128

1. When everyone was a farmer, the difference between the best possible farmer and the worst farmer just wasn't that great. Maybe you're 2x faster at picking corn, or 3x better at hunting deer. But a few guys literally built a communication tool (WhatsApp) to be used by billions of people. So maybe in the old world you could pick 2x as much corn, but in today's world you can build 1 billion times the communication to…

With regards 2, the gap between most people earnings and house prices, has been rising steadily for years. It looks like the pie is getting bigger while people's share grows smaller faster.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#150

Post by tuna-piano »

jackmott wrote: post #135
tuna-piano wrote: post #128

1. When everyone was a farmer, the difference between the best possible farmer and the worst farmer just wasn't that great. Maybe you're 2x faster at picking corn, or 3x better at hunting deer. But a few guys literally built a communication tool (WhatsApp) to be used by billions of people. So maybe in the old world you could pick 2x as much corn, but in today's world you can build 1 billion times the communication to…

regarding #2 and 3 - there is some sort of social psychological principle where it doesn't matter if the pie has been made bigger. You will end up with discontent if the inequality happens nonetheless. So while it may not be rational, you still have to avoid it unless you want French Revolution scenarios.

Fair point.

Maybe one of the downsides of living in a democracy is that the upper class needs to pay the lower class hush money to keep them from rioting or turning the economy into complete socialism.

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