Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030 • Hacker News Board

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#241

Post by cal5k » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:15 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #222

cal5k wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree at all. I just don't see how railing against the notion of inequality does anything to address this - the US collects enough in tax revenue to solve these problems already. What it needs is better policy. I should also mention that I live in Canada which, though flawed in many ways, seems to have struck a better balance.

Canada (and most of Europe, for that matter) don't bear the costs of their own defense. That helps a lot. You may be wondering who would want to attack Canada. Well, you have an awful lot of wheat and oil, and China has an awful lot of hungry people and factories.

China spends less than half what America spends on defense, and yet nobody is crazy enough to want to attack China. I'd also argue that a de-escalation in defence spending is entirely possible without sacrificing national security.

Would China invade Canada if the world's defence budgets dropped precipitously? Probably not - it has far more to gain through trade than by attempted colonization.

In fact, last time I checked nobody in Canada or Western Europe was asked to vote on the US defense budget. I'd gladly vote to cut it in half and devote more to shoring up your healthcare system, but it's a sovereign issue and it's up to Americans to solve it for themselves.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#242

Post by tempagain567i » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:16 PM UTC

tempagain567i wrote: post #122

collyw wrote: post #51

Someone else on HN commented that the poor need to stop reproducing in order to improve equality. At first I found the comment kind of troubling, but the more I think about it the more it seems to make sense. Watching this video kind of backs up the point to a degree, even though the topic is immigration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE Can someone come back with a decent counterargument? I haven't been a…

You have in fact scratched the surface of a very important and fundamental insight about human society. The conclusion that I have come to is that blaming institutions and policies is basically wrong. Blaming circumstances is wrong. It is the people of a society that determine what that society is, full stop. If tomorrow everyone in the united states were made to be good with high intelligence, high morality and so o…

It is against the rules to comment on voting so I won't. But the lack of any counter-arguments is astounding, let alone coherent ones.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#243

Post by eeZah7Ux » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:18 PM UTC

psyc wrote: post #65

petra wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just propagnda. Capitalism is also freedom limiting. Just ask low wage earners struggling to pay rent and afford healthcare. And on the other hand, the nordiis seem to do quite well.

Capitalism is like "Enter to win a chance at freedom! Remember, you can't win if you don't play."

* Terms and conditions may apply.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#244

Post by dang » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:18 PM UTC

thinkloop wrote: post #45

Animats wrote: post #15

Communism went away. It's not that communism was better. It's that it was competition. There was, for half a century, a competitive threat - do better than the USSR, or face a revolution. That threat was taken quite seriously in the US for decades. Industrialists (the US economy was mostly manufacturing back then) were careful not to get too greedy or power-hungry. They feared expropriation. Britain nationalized many…

Communism and socialism were disliked primarily because they reduce freedom. Every additional unit of socialism, is one less unit of freedom. Full communism dictates almost every part of your life. I am pro balanced socialism, just making the point that it inherently requires force.

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They're all the same, which means they're off topic here.

Repetition doesn't fit with intellectual curiosity, and the purpose of the site is the latter.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#245

Post by gwright » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

audunw wrote: post #229

defertoreptar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good argument, and to many it's an argument for wealth redistribution. I prefer to look at it instead as an argument for limiting the powers of government in order to limit its susceptibility to corruption.

A small and limited government is a weak government. A weak government is susceptible to corruption. To avoid corruption you need the state and the collection of the most powerful corporate/private actors be of similar size, and they must be as isolated and independent as possible. This way you get a balance of power, rather than one corrupting the other. The problem in the US is the isolation/independence part. Mone…

> A small and limited government is a weak government. A weak government is susceptible to corruption.

Your assertion isn't self evident. A government could have great power within its defined scope of power and little power outside that scope.

There is also a reasonable argument that as the scope and strength of government power increases so does the desire to corrupt and control that power.

Which is more dangerous a corrupt but weak and limited government or a corrupt strong and expansive government?

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#246

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #238

Turing_Machine wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I totally empathize with your situation, but globally the numbers are irrefutable. Indeed they are. Here are some numbers from NPR (hardly a right-wing thinktank): https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/02/389578089/yo... In 1960, Americans spent about 18% of their income just for food. Now it's less than 10%. And, of course, the quality of food available to a typical American is vastly better than it was in…

The quality of food is better? That's hardly believable. Do you have a source? All first person accounts I've ever read from people who lived then and now indicate otherwise.

My grandparents didn't have a freezer until the 1950s. They kept a beef in a commercial freezer 15 miles away in town. They grew vegetables that they sold to grocery stores, so I guess they had good access to that sort of thing.

I doubt any of the stores my parents shopped at in the 1960s Midwest particularly had things like avocados.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#247

Post by cal5k » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #217

noobermin wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're just talking about Marxian definitions, it's simple: Owns means of production: bourgeousie Works without owning means of production: proletariat

Where do all the workers who have 401k plans composed of shares of all the public companies in the US fit?

They don't. I'm not even sure what the "means of production" are in a service economy like the US.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#248

Post by ericd » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #240

ericd wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that they paid a large proportion of their income, I said they paid almost all the tax. That's because their incomes tend to be much much larger than those of the poor. I was responding to "because all taxes will be paid by workers.", which is complete nonsense.

That’s not true either. The top quintile accounts for a slight majority of income in the US, and someone at the 20% mark, while doing quite well, is far from rich.

When people talk about the top 1% owning almost all the wealth, they're typically referring to the global top 1% (at least that's the case with this article). The top quintile of the US is certainly considered rich globally, even if they don't feel like they are.

I'm interested to see your source for the US tax receipts by quintile, though. I could definitely believe I was wrong about the richest portion paying "the vast majority". I probably should have said the top half.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#249

Post by gwright » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

pohl wrote: post #204

theseatoms wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference is that you can opt out of your relationship with one, but not the other. At least they tend to lock horns. To the extent that the two collaborate, we should be suspicious.

The choice of opting out only exists where competition exists. Without a government to keep corporations in check, your ability to opt out would evaporate.

And yet a powerful government is really good using its power to limit competition, discourage competitors, protect incumbents, and so on.

Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030

#250

Post by jblow » Sat, Apr 07, 2018, 8:22 PM UTC

micky_25 wrote: post #232

cal5k wrote: post #60

Steven Pinker's new book, Enlightenment Now, has a pretty compelling section on wealth/income inequality. The basic position - and I think the data supports this - is that it really doesn't matter what the top 1% are doing so long as the bottom half are seeing improved living conditions. Furthermore, wealth isn't a static I win/you lose proposition - much of that wealth has been created in recent history. People spen…

>... so long as the bottom half are seeing improved living conditions. What about western countries where people under 35 are dealing with high student debt, unaffordable housing, stagnate wages and "gig" economy jobs? Things look pretty glum unless you've got some form of inheritance on the horizon.

The high student debt and unaffordable housing are almost entirely due to policies of the Democratic Party, a.k.a. the party that is supposedly trying to reduce income inequality.

Interventions often don’t do what you wanted them to do.