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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

#161

Post by throwaway1748 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #149
joejerryronnie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A UBI is literally the purest form of redistribution of wealth. It takes money disproportionately from the rich and then gives it equally to everyone. There are only three classes of people who oppose it: 1) people who oppose all redistributive programs, 2) people who favor the centrally planned farce of the existing welfare system because it allows them to covertly insert corrupt industry-specific subsidies into the…

I don't think there are only 3 groups of people that oppose it. You can draw some nuance here. For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions. A "basic minimum job" might still be a re-distributive system, but with some nuance.

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

#162

Post by mortenjorck »

hcnews wrote: post #145
username223 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for reference, being in the "top 1%" in the US means about $300k income and/or $3m net worth at age 40. That's not "buy a politician" rich, but it is also not the average professional or small business owner.

$300k per year income is pretty common for 5 years experience in silicon valley including stock grants these days.

Which is just about enough to pay for a standard of living comparable to what you can afford on $85k/year in nearly the entire rest of the country.

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

#163

Post by TheCoelacanth »

hcnews wrote: post #145
username223 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for reference, being in the "top 1%" in the US means about $300k income and/or $3m net worth at age 40. That's not "buy a politician" rich, but it is also not the average professional or small business owner.

$300k per year income is pretty common for 5 years experience in silicon valley including stock grants these days.

It is common for a very small portion at the very top of a job that already pays more than most jobs. The BLS, which uses reliable statistical methods to estimate wage information for occupations, found that only 10% of software developers make more than $157,590[1].

[1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151132.htm

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

#164

Post by eanzenberg »

marnett wrote: post #131
drb91 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a great place to nationalize the means of production! Why not? Economic incentives are inherently at odds with helpful medicine. If it helps too much you can't make money off it!

Modern day big-pharma would have shelved the polio vaccine in place of a daily pill one must take for the remainder of one's life.

Error, wrong, incorrect. Modern day big-pharma developed vaccines such as HPV. Current market forces incentivizes "best" treatment (heavily regulated of course as it should be). Don't spew false facts to try to push an agenda.

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

#165

Post by watwut »

c0nducktr wrote: post #154
hcnews wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300k per year income is pretty common for 5 years experience in silicon valley including stock grants these days.

There's a lot more to America than Silicon Valley. Whatever the average SV wages are, they're outliers when compared to average wages across the county.

And everyone here complains about it being hard to pay housing instead of bragging how great everyone is. If th norm in SV would be so great, I would expect them to.complain less.

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

#166

Post by basementcat »

username223 wrote: post #139
hueving wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just for reference, being in the "top 1%" in the US means about $300k income and/or $3m net worth at age 40. That's not "buy a politician" rich, but it is also not the average professional or small business owner.

I would argue that having $3MM net worth is more than enough to "buy" one or more (local) politicians for an election cycle or two in many parts of the USA.

https://ballotpedia.org/School_board_elections,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Money_in_local_elections_(2016)

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

#167

Post by AnthonyMouse »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #160
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's household income, including your spouse's income. Your half of that is significantly less than what a senior cardiologist or senior partner at a law firm makes.

A senior cardiologist or a senior partner at a law firm is not remotely a typical professional at the height of their career. Even a typical physician or a typical lawyer is highly unlikely to ever reach that level. Cardiology is a high paying specialty that most physicians will not be in. Most lawyers will never even make it into big law much less make senior partner after making it into big law.

I chose cardiologists and senior partners because they make significantly more than the threshold without being some kind of Machiavellian supervillains that everyone hates. Regular doctors and lawyers still make about that amount of money at the senior level.

Senior Associate Attorney: $239,270

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-associate-attorney...

Senior Physician: $225,076

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-physician-salary-S...

This is also not at all out of line with what trade professionals like electricians are making when they start out on their own but by the time they retire have half a dozen people working for them.

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

#168

Post by and0 »

ameister14 wrote: post #159
and0 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring that it's very odd to retroactively justify immoral behavior because of unintended, positive side effects: I'm saying that being critical, like asking if the slave-like conditions of most of the population were actually necessary, is a pretty reasonable thing to do. This isn't black and white issue, like I have to pick between "a couple generations have horrible working lives" vs "antibiotics exist". I'm ask…

I think the phrasing of your first sentence is fascinating. Does that mean you think that the behavior (union busting, incorporation, or the creation of financial markets, for example) was solely intended to have malicious consequences, and that there were no positive motivations or intent? Also, it's not that odd. It's a direct response to the criticism you levy - that these things are not worth it. How are you to j…

The actions that led to the conditions of the gilded age were most certainly selfish acts of the ruling class. The conditions were not created for the sake of it, or because it was funny etc.

I sincerely doubt the people making all the money were not doing it because the poor people they were exploiting (or killing) might eventually get iPhones or penicillin

I also don't know why I can't criticize the conditions resulting from policies in the gilded age because there's a chance that the policies were maybe not "soley intended to have malicious consequences". Again, things aren't black and white. "Modern tech is nice" and "poverty is bad" are not diametrically opposing ideas.

I'm confused by what you're arguing here. People want to reduce inequality, and you're argument seems to boil down to "nothing really matters anyway" or "maybe them being poor is for the best" (which you insist is something we can never actually find out..?) If you're saying that human nature is inherently corrupt and humanity can't unite to make progress for broadly selfish reasons, I might actually agree. But talking about how this is shitty and / or how to fix it doesn't seem pointless, either.

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

#169

Post by watwut »

evanlivingston wrote: post #119
hueving wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

Would Plato's 'The Republic' qualify also an overly long strawman? I think you missed the point of the comment to which you're responding. Also, why are you telling people how to have discussions?

> Also, why are you telling people how to have discussions?

It seems like he thinks their argument is dishonest strawman and manipulative. The discussion is usually improved by people pointing that out, as it makes such argumentation less likely.

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

#170

Post by AnthonyMouse »

throwaway1748 wrote: post #161
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A UBI is literally the purest form of redistribution of wealth. It takes money disproportionately from the rich and then gives it equally to everyone. There are only three classes of people who oppose it: 1) people who oppose all redistributive programs, 2) people who favor the centrally planned farce of the existing welfare system because it allows them to covertly insert corrupt industry-specific subsidies into the…

I don't think there are only 3 groups of people that oppose it. You can draw some nuance here. For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions. A "basic minimum job" might still be a re-distributive system, but with some nuance.

Half the point of a basic income is that it doesn't discourage people from working, unlike welfare systems that suspend payments to working people including a basic job that de facto prevents you from taking a real job because if you stop doing the makework job you no longer get the redistributive subsidy.

A basic income even eliminates the need to have a minimum wage, which allows people whose labor is not worth a living wage to nonetheless trade it for whatever they can get and still not starve.

A basic job is economically damaging because by definition the value derived from the work is less than the compensation (or it would just be a regular job). Which creates all kinds of terrible incentives where, basically, people choose the basic job over more actually productive work because it's government-subsidized and the real job isn't.

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