What if incomes grew like GDP?
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What if incomes grew like GDP?
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Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#2I really like this analysis! Given this hypothetical income growth, what would the distribution of wealth look like today?
As far as I know, the distribution of wealth is even more skewed in favour of the rich, with some fraction of people at the bottom having 'negative wealth' i.e. more debts than assets. Wealth also seems to have a compounding effect, in that richer people have a higher savings rate and access to better investment opportunities. So would more equal income growth necessarily lead to a more equal wealth distribution, or are there other factors to account for?
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#3You’d have economic prosperity like in the USA between 1945 and 1970.
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#4I always like to say that we live in an exponential meritocracy, where your accumulated merit enhances your ability to accumulate more merit, eventually resulting in a small minority rapidly pulling ahead of the pack. Goes with the old adage: turning $100 into $120 is work; turning $100 million into $120 million is inevitable. Perhaps we need a linear meritocratic function.
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#5I always like to say that we live in an exponential meritocracy , where your accumulated merit enhances your ability to accumulate more merit, eventually resulting in a small minority rapidly pulling ahead of the pack. Goes with the old adage: turning $100 into $120 is work; turning $100 million into $120 million is inevitable. Perhaps we need a linear meritocratic function.
>Perhaps we need a linear meritocratic function.
So basically, some way to prevent wealth from being passed across generations?
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#6There is a huge definitional challenge here. For more on that see https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/wage-stagnation-much-m...
I seldom see addressed how they factor changes in group composition. If the 1% are a constantly changing bunch, the narrative is very different than if it's always the same group of people. I wonder if age composition also has something to do with it (I imagine retiree income differences are much more stark than at 30y)
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#7I always like to say that we live in an exponential meritocracy , where your accumulated merit enhances your ability to accumulate more merit, eventually resulting in a small minority rapidly pulling ahead of the pack. Goes with the old adage: turning $100 into $120 is work; turning $100 million into $120 million is inevitable. Perhaps we need a linear meritocratic function.
It doesn't need to be that complicated. Just increase taxes on the ultra wealthy to restore some semblance of equality.
it doesn't need to be communist russia. Just a little more money going around.
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#8I always like to say that we live in an exponential meritocracy , where your accumulated merit enhances your ability to accumulate more merit, eventually resulting in a small minority rapidly pulling ahead of the pack. Goes with the old adage: turning $100 into $120 is work; turning $100 million into $120 million is inevitable. Perhaps we need a linear meritocratic function.
It doesn't need to be that complicated. Just increase taxes on the ultra wealthy to restore some semblance of equality. it doesn't need to be communist russia. Just a little more money going around.
It’s really frustrating how simple and true this is yet difficult to brand and market correctly.
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't need to be that complicated. Just increase taxes on the ultra wealthy to restore some semblance of equality. it doesn't need to be communist russia. Just a little more money going around.
It’s really frustrating how simple and true this is yet difficult to brand and market correctly.
I don’t think it’s difficult to brand and market correctly, Bernie Sanders did a great job.
Edit: Hacker News, where even mentioning Bernie Sanders gets you downvoted.
Re: What if incomes grew like GDP?
#10The analysis needs to be deeper to draw any conclusions. For example, ~7% of U.S. GDP in 2017 is "Digital Economy", which basically did not exist in 1975 and does not involve a lot of bottom incomers to produce.