Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who rules America

sociology.ucsc.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 34 posts

Re: Who rules America

#21

Post by iwr »

A small adage: the poor of yesterday are not necessarily the poor of today. Immigrants arriving in the US are usually at the bottom of the ladder. As long as the US receives immigrants, it will have a somewhat bottom-heavy income distribution (more than otherwise).

Also note that while it may be tempting to "soak the rich", they are the most mobile segment of society. Arguably too, they are the most productive private users of capital. (I'd make a distinction here between real private capitalists and bankers/financialists etc)

Finally, technology allows individuals today to be vastly more productive than their potential peers. The differences are much more stark in a high division of labor society. Whereas, if you are a great hunter your productivity could be maybe 2-3 times better than average, a guru programmer can be a few orders of magnitude above the otherwise average skilled professional.

Re: Who rules America

#22

Post by Hoff »

callmeed wrote: post #10

People seem to love pointing out income distribution numbers (seemingly to pit people against the wealthy, but maybe I'm wrong). But let's not forget who also pays the taxes: http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html (top 1% pay 38% of income taxes)

The NTU distributions appear somewhat oddly presented in those tables, and odd portrayals of data make me curious. Odd displays can indicate the existence of information that a presenter intentionally wishes to avoid highlighting, or information that the presenter simply does not recognize is present, and that information can be as interesting as what a presenter does choose to highlight.

Based on the Slate data referenced elsewhere in the comments here, there looks to be around 84% of the aggregate income for the top 20% of the earners.

Then interpolating the data buckets shown within the NTU tables and particularly guessing that the 20% range is around 80% of the taxes paid, and matching that with the Slate income charts.

This implies that the folks with 80% of the income pay somewhere roughly around 80% of the taxes. Give or take.

I'd be interested in seeing a NTU-like breakdown matched with what data Slate has shown for relative incomes; matched with what looks to be the income and with slicing the income based on the different AGIs.

Re: Who rules America

#23

Post by callmeed »

jfoutz wrote: post #15
callmeed wrote: post #10

People seem to love pointing out income distribution numbers (seemingly to pit people against the wealthy, but maybe I'm wrong). But let's not forget who also pays the taxes: http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html (top 1% pay 38% of income taxes)

So, 42% of the wealth supplies 38% of the tax base? That's pretty close, of course, but when you're talking about trillions of dollars 4% is quite a big shortfall.

And it's 4% the other direction if you use the net worth number. He defines wealth as (net worth - home value) so I don't know that it's a good metric

Re: Who rules America

#24

Post by kenjackson »

endtime wrote: post #16
antidaily wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leftists are obsessed with money I believe it's actually the other way around.

The right is obsessed with its own money; the left is obsessed with other people's money.

The right is obsessed with ensuring that other people don't get the money they inherited, even it is for things like subsidized lunches for poor children.

And the reason I call out "inherited" is I notice a fundamentally different position between people I know who have earned their wealth versus those that have inherited it (even for relatively poor/middle-class people who have inherited their position through things as basic as being white in the US -- which tends to mean you've had generations to accumulate capital that can be transferred).

Re: Who rules America

#25

Post by tzs »

If you sort people by wealth (or height, or IQ, or penis length, or any other numerical quantity), and then divide them into the top N% and the bottom 100-N%, the top N% will have more than N%, unless everyone has the same wealth, height, etc..

The wider the range of the distribution, the bigger the concentration will be.

I wonder how much of the wealth distribution disparity is simply a consequence of the fact that we have a wide range (near $0 to many $billions).

Re: Who rules America

#26

Post by kenjackson »

lionhearted wrote: post #2

People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not. Take Google, for instance: -The founders, early hires, and investors made a lot. This is their top 1% accounting for 35% of the wealth -The rest of the employees made not as much, but still quite a lot. This is the next 19% holding 50%. Then there's people who didn't have anything to do with building Google, who own none of Google. That's the other 80% o…

So sure, give Thomas Jefferson and George Washington a huge percentage of the profit from this country.

A better analogy is that Sergey Brin's kids will never have to lift a finger in his life, and he'll still make more money than all of your grand kids combined, regardless of how smart, good, and ambitious they are.

Re: Who rules America

#27

Post by Goladus »

lionhearted wrote: post #2

People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not. Take Google, for instance: -The founders, early hires, and investors made a lot. This is their top 1% accounting for 35% of the wealth -The rest of the employees made not as much, but still quite a lot. This is the next 19% holding 50%. Then there's people who didn't have anything to do with building Google, who own none of Google. That's the other 80% o…

People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not.

Before reading this article, did you know that CEO pay has grown twice as fast as the S&P 500, three times as fast as corporate profits, and sixty-nine times as fast as production workers? And that the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has not grown at all and has in fact lost ground?

Yes, it's true that good companies make everyone wealthier in absolute terms, but that's not the whole picture either. Not every company is Google.

Re: Who rules America

#28

Post by d2viant »

Goladus wrote: post #27
lionhearted wrote: post #2

People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not. Take Google, for instance: -The founders, early hires, and investors made a lot. This is their top 1% accounting for 35% of the wealth -The rest of the employees made not as much, but still quite a lot. This is the next 19% holding 50%. Then there's people who didn't have anything to do with building Google, who own none of Google. That's the other 80% o…

People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not. Before reading this article, did you know that CEO pay has grown twice as fast as the S&P 500, three times as fast as corporate profits, and sixty-nine times as fast as production workers? And that the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has not grown at all and has in fact lost ground? Yes, it's true that good companies make everyone wealthier in abso…

Why should you or I care how fast a company is increasing the pay of their CEO? That's an issue for their shareholders. If I'm not a shareholder I don't care, it's not my money.

Re: Who rules America

#29

Post by d2viant »

russell wrote: post #20

One thing that's missing, particularly in the tax cuts for the rich debate, is the difference in actual tax rates for us middle class and the rich. From my pay check withholding (single) I'm paying about 30%, plus my employer is paying another another 7.6% for SS, plus sales tax and my taxes are pushing north of 35%. The rich on the other hand pay mostly capital gains which maxes out at 15%. Throw in deductions for t…

It's not their fault you chose to depend on earned income for your livelihood. Judging from your comment, you're obviously aware that they were smart enough to earn their livelihood from portfolio and passive income so instead of punishing them for that, why don't you do the same thing?

Re: Who rules America

#30

Post by vannevar »

lionhearted wrote: post #2

People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not. Take Google, for instance: -The founders, early hires, and investors made a lot. This is their top 1% accounting for 35% of the wealth -The rest of the employees made not as much, but still quite a lot. This is the next 19% holding 50%. Then there's people who didn't have anything to do with building Google, who own none of Google. That's the other 80% o…

Are you seriously maintaining that someone who inherits $10M and lives off the interest is contributing more to America than someone who works for Habitat for Humanity for $35K a year? It's much more logical to suggest that the American system allowed the top 1 % to accumulate much more wealth than they would have amassed by their wits alone, and consequently owe a disproportionate share back to society.
Post reply on HN