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The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

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Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#171

Post by tatersolid »

yesenadam wrote: post #109
majewsky wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn’t the problem with inequality that it makes the society less stable? Yes. However, too much equality also makes society too static, because no one is incentivized to innovate anymore. The problem, as always, is maintaining the right balance.

>However, too much equality also makes society too static, because no one is incentivized to innovate anymore. Sorry if this is a naive question, but is that really true? What's the evidence for believing that, much less treating it as fact?

> Sorry if this is a naive question, but is that really true? What's the evidence for believing that, much less treating it as fact?

The economic collapse of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact counties, Venezuela, North Korea.

By allowing a free market invasion in their Communist utopia, the Chinese Communist Party long ago abandoned their core ideology in favor of “pragmatic authoritarianism.” They get to stay in power, while reaping economic benefits impossible in a truly communist economy.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#172

Post by [deleted] »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #102
squirrelicus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally you get downvoted for doing so, but people still try to argue. I have a lot to say on the subject, but one thing I still need an argument for is why inequality is bad intrinsically. I'd love to hear a cogent argument that addresses that fundamental point, but what I end up seeing in the wild is camps of people who think inequality is some intrinsic evil, and those that don't think it's relevant to anything.

(1) A political system is a distributed decision making process that a community uses to, well, make decision that affect large sections of the community. One characteristic of a good political system is one where everyone gets roughly equal say. (2) Most current politico-economic systems across the world have the feature that any given rich person has much more say in the political process than a poor person. (3) It…

[deleted]

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#173

Post by ido »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #129
tim333 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the rising inequality in the US is really a result of the poor countries getting richer. Lots of other developed countries have traded with the world with much less of that eg. Germany, Scandinavia. It's more a result of the kind of politics Fox News pushes.

Globalism was literally a concerted effort to off-shore blue collar work with the expectation that the population of richer countries would become more educated and work in information intensive jobs (also siphoning off value from said off-shored industries). Where it went somewhat awry is that computers and automation have meant that less jobs are actually required in those sectors that we envisioned people having,…

All European welfare states have been in the process of dismantling & privatising post Reagan/Tatcher (e.g. in Berlin the city sold most public housing estates to private investors decades ago).

They haven't deteriorated as fast as the US and UK but the trend is clear.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#174

Post by ido »

capnprotonmail wrote: post #78

I watched an interesting interview with a billionaire a while ago, who said that after you reach a given net worth it actually becomes very hard (unless you're unlucky) to significantly diminish your wealth through consumption, and that in fact consuming more goods often just increases your net worth: Luxury cars, apartments, mansions, real estate, parks, yachts or resources like gold often appreciate in value with t…

I don't know if someone else also said it, but Bill Gates did too. He also said something to the effect that past $5m or so[0] wealth doesn't really affect your material quality of life & it starts becoming about what you can do with that money other than consumption (with e.g. business investment or philanthropy).

[0] this may have been a couple decades ago, apply inflation but it was more or less in that order of magnitude.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#175

Post by Gibbon1 »

coldtea wrote: post #86
opportune wrote: post #9

The article mentions globalization but doesn't view inequality through a global lens. If you look only within rich nations, yes inequality has increased, because the poor and blue collar middle class have lost a lot of jobs to poorer countries. But that phenomenon is actually reducing inequality as measured from a global view. The biggest issue I have with the article is that it ignores the geopolitical trends that w…

> The article mentions globalization but doesn't view inequality through a global lens. If you look only within rich nations, yes inequality has increased, because the poor and blue collar middle class have lost a lot of jobs to poorer countries. But that phenomenon is actually reducing inequality as measured from a global view. Actually inequality (of percentage of the world's resources amassed) between poor and ric…

> But that's a red-herring. Even if inequality among countries was lessening, that could just be part of poor countries getting richer, building infrastructure and so on.

Simpson Paradox. Inequality inside of countries can increase while the average inequality across all countries goes down.

Also: The change in world inequality is all about China.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#176

Post by majewsky »

fkdo wrote: post #104
majewsky wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free Software is a miniscule part of that process, if it even is a part at all. The main reason is reduced transport and communication costs making it feasible to outsource work across continents.

Free software plays a very large role in our communication infrastructure.

Yes, but it's easy to imagine a world where the Free Software movement never happened, yet there still is a ton of communication infrastructure.

For proof, just consider that globalization started way before Free Software.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#177

Post by ListeningPie »

idrios wrote: post #124
quietthrow wrote: post #25

I see people throwing ideas and most of these ideas rely on politicians and/or govt doing something. Is there a non govt or non politician dependent way of solving inequality? facebook connected the world not govt or politicians. Google made knowledge and information available to the whole world not a politician or a govt. (I understand there are down sides to these companies products but so is there to govts/politic…

I know that what you're going for is to solve inequality by working within the means of the established political system, and that you're wondering if there could be something like a startup or company that somehow makes a profit by reducing inequality. After all, when starting a company the first problem anyone should solve is "What is the need" and economic inequality is a pretty big need. Unfortunately, I just don…

Solving inequality with a profit generating business would change drastically change our society.

The closest example I can think of is Kiva. They provide micro loans for new businesses that cannot access traditional banking services. For us the lender, it is temporary charity as we get no interest, but Kiva field agents collect interest.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#178

Post by Mikeb85 »

aries1980 wrote: post #161
Mikeb85 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decreasing the cost of labour through immigration is the same. Most immigrants also send money back home. So yes it's the same effect even if the it's not quite the same amount.

But discounting the labour cost is not the only dimension. These immigrants are spending money domestically, increasing the domestic output, creating new market demands, paying rents, etc. I do understand your logic, but my argument is while offshore money is spent outside the borders, immigrants spend most of their income domestically and pay their taxes, which is a too big difference to put it into the same categor…

Because their income is discounted, they are more likely to receive social assistance and they send money abroad, in the short-medium term their economic effect is similar to offshoring.

Long term, they bring their family over, raise families in the host country, get better jobs and integrate (culturally and economically) so the offshoring effect disappears.

The main problem is, especially concerning the rise of populism, when the short term effects become too severe, the long term outcomes don't matter to those who have been affected by lowering wages during their working years. And it's not every industry, perhaps not even a majority who are affected, but for those who are, they feel as though their social contract has been broken, and they vote for whoever promises to fix it.

This forum is mostly IT workers. For awhile, wages in this sector in the US were suppressed by things like cartels and H1B visas, and subsequently action was taken to enforce proper employment laws and increase the wage requirements for H1Bs. That was 1 sector, not even that much immigration, and wages showed a noticeable dip. People here were outraged too, but it was before the Trump years so the whole conversation had a different tone.

Anyhow, I don't think immigration is bad, but there are pros and cons, different effects on the economy and people, and these definitely need to be accounted for.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#179

Post by asdff »

capnprotonmail wrote: post #78

I watched an interesting interview with a billionaire a while ago, who said that after you reach a given net worth it actually becomes very hard (unless you're unlucky) to significantly diminish your wealth through consumption, and that in fact consuming more goods often just increases your net worth: Luxury cars, apartments, mansions, real estate, parks, yachts or resources like gold often appreciate in value with t…

Very few things in life are priced for billionaires. Millionaires, sure, but a lot of people forget that a billionaire is literally 1000 millionaires, or the equivalent wealth of 80,000 people at the poverty line. It's pretty hard for anyone to fathom that egregious level of personal wealth.

Re: The Rich Can't Get Richer Forever

#180

Post by asdff »

aledalgrande wrote: post #105
human20190310 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inevitability of people trying to beat the system isn't a reason to abandon the principle.

But it forces you to think if there is a better solution.

The IRS filing your taxes automatically would be a start.
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