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Inequality in Equalland

daemonology.net

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Re: Inequality in Equalland

#41

Post by cperciva »

jdp23 wrote: post #37

Imagine another country which has government-funded secondary education and pensions that cover the bulk of retirement expenses. Wouldn't the "necessary" inequality be noticeably lower in that case?

Actually, no. If the government of Equalland were to pay a $50k/year to each retired couple, they would need to save less and the entire graph would shrink vertically -- but the ratios would stay the same.

In fact, in the real world government pensions tend to increase apparent wealth inequality, since they are usually capped (e.g., in Canada the CPP pays out a proportion of your first ~$40k/year of pre-retirement income, but ignores any income beyond that point) -- in order to maintain the same standard of living post-retirement, the wealthy need to save a greater proportion of their income.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#42

Post by jshen »

lsd5you wrote: post #38
cperciva wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not as though all that money in mommy’s and daddy’s bank account makes their kids magically more intelligent. (But it can pay for private schools or for private lessons and so on.) FWIW, numerous studies have found that the vast majority of correlation between parental income and the academic success of children can be explained by a third factor: Parental education. Educated parents both earn more and provide f…

I feel that you are omitting genetics as a possible (probable) significant cause of academic success, which because of the corelation with the parents own academic success will be hard to disambiguate as a variable. According to horizon (a main stream medium-high brow documentary series in the UK), separated twin studies show that as much as 50% of 'measured intelligence' can be attributed to genetics - which was fai…

Just want to point out that you are assuming that everyone has access to decent public schools. I'll bet genetics is far less important if that weren't the case.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#43

Post by jshen »

MrDunham wrote: post #10
maeon3 wrote: post #6

I would like to live in Equal-land, I could live there, slouch around, work the absolute minimum and avoid work, and enjoy exactly the same benefits as those working the hardest to maintain that utopia.

I believe that was the promise of communism - which failed due to most people's inherent desire to be better than others or to excel. Also, people realized that they could/should do the absolute minimum, as there was no benefit for working harder. They did end up adding incentives (in the USSR) which started looking more and more like capitalism.

I'm so glad linus did the minimum when working on Linux, you know, since he wasn't getting paid and there was no perceivable financial gain in it.

This meme that money is the only significant benefit from ones efforts should be plainly false. Why smart people believe it is beyond me.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#44

Post by cperciva »

lotharbot wrote: post #39
cperciva wrote: post #2

This blog post was inspired by the article and conversation here (especially pg's comment about income vs. wealth): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2039503

I'm curious: were you also inspired by my previous posts, or did you independently develop the idea of "equalland"? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830974 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1904114

I'm pretty sure I didn't see your comments -- at least, I don't remember thinking about this distinction at all until the article two weeks ago.

Good to see that I'm not alone in thinking this way, though!

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#45

Post by bergie »

benmccann wrote: post #26
Unseelie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue, as a 22 year old economist just entering the workforce, that the fact that people just entering their retirement hold the most wealth is quite a social problem. For instance, the ability of the older wealth to influence politics.

Also, in real life, the generation nearing retirement has much better voter turnout than the generation exiting college. So not only do they have more money to influence elections, but they're a more desirable demographic to cater to due to their presence at the polls. We see this play out clearly in their ability to influence politics. E.g. they can vote themselves unsustainable entitlement benefits at the expense o…

...which is why we probably never get to retire. The weirdly shaped population pyramid in the Western world can make "maybe Google will buy us" a more reasonable retirement strategy than retirement funds

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#46

Post by Confusion »

drunkpotato wrote: post #22
gnosis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone agrees that some wealth disparity is a good and necessary part of a healthy economy." Nope.

While I agree with you and disagree with the original poster, indeed, not everyone agrees that some wealth disparity is a good and necessary part of a healthy economy, I think the discussion merits more than a dismissive "Nope". Perhaps, if you are one of those that disagrees, you could lay out your position and argument. It is difficult to see how to avoid wealth disparity. We can argue all day about whether that is…

You can't disagree with either cperciva or btilly, because they've merely been presenting facts and figures. I don't see an opinion there

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#47

Post by rsheridan6 »

Unseelie wrote: post #19
maeon3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a terrible motivator? lol. What's this nonsense? Give me your name and address, I'll write you a check for $1500 free and clear to take back what you just said.

And we could threaten someone's family to show the counterpoint to that point. Money's a great motivator until you're near your threshold earnings, and then other things start slipping in, like, for instance, the ability to make a point. Then, of course, is the discussion about why anyone wants money...and the fact that there's more direct ways to affect the value in someone's life. Hate to sound the sociopath, but m…

>And we could threaten someone's family to show the counterpoint to that point.

That's why a hell of a lot of people are working - if they don't work, their family would get to go live in a box on the sidewalk. That's another way of saying that workers are motivated by money, for a sizable fraction of workers.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#48

Post by j_baker »

johngalt wrote: post #35
j_baker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so we're playing the reductio ad absurdum game now? Ok, I'll bite. I'll pay you $1 million to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Wait, what was that? Money can't motivate you to do that?

Gladly. New meaning to the term golden parachute. Additionally I bet you'd find that there are people who would take that offer even if it meant their certain death. Fyi, reductio ad absurdum is a valid method of argument. I imagine I'd get a lot more applicants applying to my job post if I paid $1million vs. minimum wage. You may say money is a terrible motivator, but people will go through all sorts of horrible thi…

Reductio ad absurdum is only valid if the proposition is a binary true or false proposition. This question involves a matter of degree, not a binary true or false.

Also, it's important to note that if you posted the job for $1 million you'd get a lot of applicants, but they wouldn't be happy or last very long. It turns out that there is such thing as paying someone too much. The reason being that money is a form of external motivation. Too much external motivation decreases intrinsic motivation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrin...

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#49

Post by ericd »

jshen wrote: post #43
MrDunham wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that was the promise of communism - which failed due to most people's inherent desire to be better than others or to excel. Also, people realized that they could/should do the absolute minimum, as there was no benefit for working harder. They did end up adding incentives (in the USSR) which started looking more and more like capitalism.

I'm so glad linus did the minimum when working on Linux, you know, since he wasn't getting paid and there was no perceivable financial gain in it. This meme that money is the only significant benefit from ones efforts should be plainly false. Why smart people believe it is beyond me.

Linus really can't be used as an example of what normal behavior would be.

Noone's saying it's the only significant benefit, but for a lot of people, it is the overwhelming majority of the benefit of what they do. Programmers live in a privileged bubble compared to most.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#50

Post by johngalt »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #18
johngalt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right? Minimum wage, no benefits and 80hr weeks are required.

If the job was something he absolutely loved doing, that might be an attractive offer. What if the job was laying in a park, testing out the effectiveness of new marijuana strains?

It's not my point that there are no other motivations, merely that money is a primary one.
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