The wealth gap has gotten so bad it’s almost unimaginable. I fear however that as bad as it is, that it’s going to be peanuts compared to what could theoretically be possible as AI and body modification Tech continues to advance at the pace it’s currently at. At some point the contradictions will be so massive, for all intents and purposes, they just won’t be visible.
Just Be Rich
141–150 of 1001 posts
Re: Just Be Rich
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I grew up in a family of 7 (4 younger siblings), during civil war, father was into gamling and drinking, mother was unemployed and constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown (understandable given the conditions she was living in). To paint the picture, I have vivid memories of vomiting a boiled onion I ate after not eating for days (I think I was arround 5 years old). And we were poor well into my early 20s untill…
That's the classic "you shouldn't give money to poor people, they are just going to spend it on alcohol, drugs etc." argument. This ignores that there are a lot of people who are unable to make ends meet despite having not one but sometimes several jobs. Maybe people would be less stressed if they knew they wouldn't lose their job if their car (>20 years old, which they can't afford to repair) breaks down...
Did you even read that comment? Or just skim it?
Re: Just Be Rich
#143In the United States, the measures we use for income inequality are outrageously flawed In almost all measures of the Gini coefficient two significant flaws exist: 1. Incomes are counted on a pre-tax basis 2. Incomes are counted on a pre-government transfers basis The consequence of this is that income inequality appears to be increasing _regardless_ of the level of social subsidies and redistribution. When you corre…
These are not so much "outrageous flaws" but conscious and reasonable choices. For example, not counting things like SNAP as income makes sense because a government policy targeted at reducing inequality is not the same as that inequality not existing. It is far more desirable for those programs to be minimized by eliminating the inequality in the first place. Also, keep in mind that Gini is most useful as relative i…
That doesn’t make a lot of sense. The EITC is a direct cash transfer to low income individuals that offsets inequality and is there money to do with as they wish.
Why would you not include that?
Re: Just Be Rich
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is all down to the basic human need of a home. In the 70s and 80s even 90s someone on a teacher's salary could own their own home in a major world city - say London. Now, literally zero chance. Because homes have become an asset class and the rich can outbid regular people so they are pushed out. That's the problem. I couldn't care less how many billionaires there are if regular people can afford a decent…
World population crossed 4B in the 1970s and 5B in the 1980s, now we are about to cross 8B in the next few years. I agree with your point about real estate becoming more heavily securitized, as well as being used as a method to escape capital controls. But, you cant ignore the fact that there are a lot more people both rich and working class competing for those major world city houses than there were 40 or 50 years a…
But the problem is the supply of housing hasn't kept up with that demand due to artificial limits placed on the market. Single-family zoning has made it illegal to build more of the dense housing that's needed in cities today.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities...
Re: Just Be Rich
#145A very well thought out and articulated essay. Essential to get the billionaires of the pedestal that they have perched on. Put your money where your mouth is and fund the wealth tax. Personally, I vehemently disagree with the 10x programmer narrative in IT. It fuels " management provides more value than replaceable workers". If there were no workers, then management is just sitting there coming up with random ideas.…
Why go straight to a wealth tax? In the US, there exists a comprehensive system for measuring economic activity and translating it to income. To measure wealth would require a huge invasion of privacy (not only of the wealthy but the 'suspected wealthy') and a whole new system of identifying and tracking things of value. Why not fix the income tax? At least try fixing it using the existing system, before creating thi…
Because it's more nuanced then that: the point of the uber-wealthy is that their net worth is tied up in investments. But because those investments have theoretically actualizable values, they can still "spend" them in the form of taking out loans against their assessed value.
Which then compounds because a loan devalues with inflation, the bigger the loan the lower your interest rate and so on and so forth. So it winds up taking very little increase in their theoretical investments to offset a slow drip of "actual money" they're borrowing to fund their lifesystems or buy off politicians or what have you.
They don't pay income tax like you or I pay income tax because the volumes involved are large enough that the "startup capital" for tax evasion is practical.
Re: Just Be Rich
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
World population crossed 4B in the 1970s and 5B in the 1980s, now we are about to cross 8B in the next few years. I agree with your point about real estate becoming more heavily securitized, as well as being used as a method to escape capital controls. But, you cant ignore the fact that there are a lot more people both rich and working class competing for those major world city houses than there were 40 or 50 years a…
Population in Germany has been pretty much constant since 1970. I'm relatively sure that this is true in many other developed nations too. A more important factor than total population is the fraction of people who want to live in a big city. Urbanization has been ongoing, because jobs have increasingly moved to urban centers. Real estate in small villages is quite cheap.
Its very similar in many european coutries. The problem is that cities are owned by someone else than people living in it. Many flats are empty because development cartels can wait long time before they rent it. This way they push the price and cost perception more and more. They will do so to infinity because they have monopoly.
Re: Just Be Rich
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Increasing income inequality does not necessarily imply that. In fact, the US poverty rate has been more or less stable for the past 50 years[1]. And the worldwide poverty rate is dropping like a stone. [1] To be clear, I very much view this as a failure given how much richer the US has become in the same period. Nevertheless, it is not true (or at least not clear) that the portion of people who are able to actualize…
This statistic is misleading. The U.S. government defines the poverty line based on a 1955 model of spending patterns. It's completely inadequate for modern needs. The poverty line for a family of four is defined as a household income of $26,200. Any reasonable person knows it's impossible to pay rent and feed and clothe two adults and two kids on less than $2200 a month. Nevermind owning a home, having a car, saving…
The poverty line is supposed to mark the very bottom of the scale, not the middle. $2200 is still a ton of purchasing power compared to almost any other country.
Re: Just Be Rich
#148There's a little company called MyTeksi. My is a for-profit social startup with a mission to revolutionise the taxi industry.
They started GrabCar, which killed off the taxi industry with higher wages, higher quality services, lower prices. To win the war against Uber, they'd lie about how long it took for a car to arrive, and they'd deceive drivers as well. A driver might be promised a $100 bonus for driving into an inaccessible area. And for the bonuses they could claim they'd be paid 70% because their fee was deducted from the bonus. Sometimes they'd ban a driver for small reasons like a customer complaining about leaving a water bottle. Not only would they fire you despite your 4.7 star rating, they'd take all your earnings.
Eventually, they outlasted Uber, acquired them. They didn't raise prices but they no longer offered discounts. Now they're simply called Grab.
They still hold on to the idea that they are the good guys who are improving the lives of others, but whose lives? It's billionaires getting rich off the hard labor of others. Don't get me wrong - the billionaires worked hard and took risks, but is it as hard as the drivers that they kick off the platform?
Re: Just Be Rich
#149> The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
Here he understates his own point. The rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer. The people getting poorer the fastest are the middle class.
Re: Just Be Rich
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty much every mainstream economist put the blame for this squarely on the massively increased regulation of the housing market since the 70s causing a massive decrease in the amount of new construction, not wealth itself.
Pretty much every mainstream economist defending the mainstream economy to preserve the status quo in that widening the income gap is a good thing for the mainstream economy you mean?
High housing prices is terrible for the economy. It's the cause of the decrease in worker mobility which is probably a big the part of the stagnation in productivity growth. Estimates put it at a full 10% of GDP lost.