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U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

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Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#101

Post by hueving »

EGreg wrote: post #73
ameister14 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh...the gilded age resulted in massive industrial and income expansion, the rise of the US onto the world stage financially and the lowering of maternal death rates, raising of life expectancy and a general post-industrial boom. Wages and average per capita savings doubled. It was also associated with the immigration of tens of millions of impoverished people, which is part of the reason for the massive inequality n…

The same old arguments. "Inequality is totally OK" "But if many people have total food insecurity and bad health outcomes, that's bad right?" "Well hey but in the long run people got wealthier overall than if we redistributed wealth and no one would have an incentive to work like a dog" "That would have happened anyway because it's not capitalism but science and technology that drives wealth forward" "Look, Capitalis…

Don't have a mock strawman argument this long. If you have a point to make, just make it. Don't write up a whole argument that includes weak responses so you conveniently 'win'.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#102

Post by ameister14 »

pdeuchler wrote: post #65
ameister14 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh...the gilded age resulted in massive industrial and income expansion, the rise of the US onto the world stage financially and the lowering of maternal death rates, raising of life expectancy and a general post-industrial boom. Wages and average per capita savings doubled. It was also associated with the immigration of tens of millions of impoverished people, which is part of the reason for the massive inequality n…

Wet pavements do not cause rain

You can't really support the argument that the Gilded Age actively caused these negative things by virtue of them taking place during the Gilded Age without supporting the argument that the Gilded Age caused positive things by virtue of them taking place during the period.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#103

Post by PopsiclePete »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #87
LarryDarrell wrote: post #72

What gets me is the job holders in the upper 20% who actively support a system that benefits the non-working (or don't need to work) top 1%. I make a pretty high wage compared to a cashier at a store, but my interests align with them a lot more than a Walton. Yet my peers are convinced that because they have the trappings of the petite bourgeoisie and a well funded 401k that they have more in common with a Koch. I'm…

Why do you think so many 1%ers are advocating for Universal Basic Income? It's not due to some altruistic notion that everyone should be able to follow their dream. It's out of fear of a populist revolt. Their backup plan is New Zealand based prepper compounds.

Populist revolt? In America? 50% of the population would gleefully shoot the other 50% dead as soon as their Masters tell them it's just "treasonous liberal Marxists". The 1% are super-duper safe. They've got nothing to fear from the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#104

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

hueving wrote: post #94
LarryDarrell wrote: post #72

What gets me is the job holders in the upper 20% who actively support a system that benefits the non-working (or don't need to work) top 1%. I make a pretty high wage compared to a cashier at a store, but my interests align with them a lot more than a Walton. Yet my peers are convinced that because they have the trappings of the petite bourgeoisie and a well funded 401k that they have more in common with a Koch. I'm…

Because there has been a successful campaign to vilify the 1%. When you look at income levels, the 1% includes doctors, lawyers, lots of small business owners, and even many software engineers that got good stock grants in Silicon Valley. So picking 1% as the threshold was very ill-conceived because now it includes many expert professionals and small business owners. So it's very easy to relate to them if you are als…

What? No, you're arguing for a winnowing down to 0.1% or 0.01%, but our problem is the other way around as the parent described. The problem is the 10% or 20% who support the same basic policies as the 0.1%.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#105

Post by and0 »

malvosenior wrote: post #97
LarryDarrell wrote: post #72

What gets me is the job holders in the upper 20% who actively support a system that benefits the non-working (or don't need to work) top 1%. I make a pretty high wage compared to a cashier at a store, but my interests align with them a lot more than a Walton. Yet my peers are convinced that because they have the trappings of the petite bourgeoisie and a well funded 401k that they have more in common with a Koch. I'm…

> What gets me is the job holders in the upper 20% who actively support a system that benefits the non-working (or don't need to work) top 1%. It's not a zero sum game. Just because the 1% benefit from a particular policy, it doesn't mean other non-1% people supporting it don't benefit as well.

In some cases they might benefit from the same policies, but usually disproportionately so.

What was labelled the "death tax", which somehow became a grassroots issue, was taxes on inheritance over roughly 5 million. It's now doubled to 11 million with the new tax bill. This is not in the interest of well over 99% of people.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#106

Post by skookumchuck »

knuththetruth wrote: post #7
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #2

The statistics for gender are misleading. If you're just comparing the average wage of men and women then of course women are going to earn less: they work less than men on average. If you control for age and whether women have children the gap shrinks a lot (in some areas it reverses). And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top…

>And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top income brackets are largely static does it matter (since it means income is going to a small group of individuals, rather than a broader group of individuals who are swapped in and out of the top income groups). So a society in which there's competition to be among a handful of feudal l…

> nightmare

It was a time of massive improvement in the standard of living across the board. You can see this objectively in annual statistics on infant mortality, longevity, and average height.

The industrialization of America was not producing luxury yachts for the overlords. It was producing consumer goods for everyone.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#107

Post by EGreg »

hueving wrote: post #101
EGreg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same old arguments. "Inequality is totally OK" "But if many people have total food insecurity and bad health outcomes, that's bad right?" "Well hey but in the long run people got wealthier overall than if we redistributed wealth and no one would have an incentive to work like a dog" "That would have happened anyway because it's not capitalism but science and technology that drives wealth forward" "Look, Capitalis…

Don't have a mock strawman argument this long. If you have a point to make, just make it. Don't write up a whole argument that includes weak responses so you conveniently 'win'.

Why don't you respond to specific points yourself? I did have a mock argument because these aren't real people but all those are real (and relatively strong) arguments from both sides. The ones supporting IP are actually FROM Ayn Rand for example, paraphrased to include a reference to "you didn't build that".

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#108

Post by icebraining »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #90
icebraining wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under that theory, by 1960s there shouldn't be almost any jobs left, since the population grew 25x since the foundation of the country.

You're arguing against a straw man. It's possible to support social and economic policies while recognizing that they have both positive and negative aspects to them.

What I'm saying is that having more workers is not by itself sufficient explanation. The US always had more workers YoY.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#109

Post by Consultant32452 »

pault wrote: post #96
Consultant32452 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's easy to explain why wages have stagnated. The time wages started to stagnate coincides with women's lib, immigration policy changes, and free trade changes. Women's lib dropped an extra 40% more people into the labor pool. Of course that's going to put downward pressure on wages. We changed our legal immigration policy to favor more poor people while simultaneously changing our illegal immigration enforc…

Your explanation presumes fixed demand.

No it doesn't. Here's at least three alternative presumptions:

1. Demand is not perfectly elastic

2. Demand is perfectly elastic, but supply was increased more on the lower end of the income range which reshapes the income distribution.

3. Trade policy reduced demand in the middle of the income range.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#110

Post by hueving »

knuththetruth wrote: post #32
ameister14 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the income inequality creates the immobility and isn't just linked to the immobility in other ways? The demonstration of other countries implies the latter, but even that is really hard to prove.

Yes, because history. There are no historical examples where wealth was held by the few and social mobility increased broadly. Only when resources are more evenly distributed among social classes has that ever happened.

>Yes, because history. There are no historical examples where wealth was held by the few and social mobility increased broadly

Uh... The industrial revolution.

You seem to be confusing wealth inequality with income inequality which might be muddying your arguments.

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