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Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

economist.com

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Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#221

Post by vitus »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #171
echelon wrote: post #8

America is being attacked by pervasive narratives like this. News rags the whole world over are shitting on us, meanwhile authoritarian regimes are rising to power. It's a narrative dismantling, and we're being played like fools. America is still the best country in the world to start a business and take risks. America still has more freedoms (speech especially) than most of the world. (Side note: The left wants to p…

>Globalism is something that should be reevaluated The global logistical issues caused by COVID, alongside China's recent belligerence, are seeing to the reversal of a certain amount of globalisation. >Our capital is being invested into the capabilities of rivals, and it doesn't pay dividends. Americans have been turned into buyers of cheap plastic goods, and we've lost the ability to make our own critical components…

> Isn't The Economist a US publication?

"The Economist Group (legally The Economist Newspaper Limited) is a media company headquartered in London, England. It is best known as publisher of The Economist newspaper and its sister lifestyle magazine, 1843."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#222

Post by DarylZero »

tlear wrote: post #207
csallen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

It is the normal propaganda of the class war. Identify Kulak, murder kulak.. profit (or mass famine). Usually they start with top 1% or a bit more, these guys jumped straight to 20%. But I am sure if you vote properly and donate to “causes” you Kulakness can be overlooked for now, proper public self flagellating is also necessary.

Or you could pay taxes, but no, better to die!

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#223

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

jollybean wrote: post #114
Swizec wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few lessons for social mobility I learned while joining the SF techie class, coming here from a relatively poor country in Europe. 1. If Americans can’t read your emotes they put you in a “Uh this feels weird, that person is an emotionless robot” camp. You have to practice 2. It is not okay to ask “What’s that?” when someone proudly mentions which college they went to (because as a European you only recognize 4 or…

To be fair, #5 is kind of trolling. Taxes are not 'charity'. Also, the 'money talk' thing - that's Anglo, not American, and it's nothing to do with not understanding low income, it's basically avoidance of blunt status bragging, it's considered a bit crude. Which is why you'd have to talk about your investments in order to humble brag.

> To be fair, #5 is kind of trolling. Taxes are not 'charity'.

The point of #5 is that in a number of other countries, people believe that taxes should pay for the social services required by the unfortunate, the sick, the indigent, and so forth. Charity plays a minor role, because it is the job of the state to take care of its citizens.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#224

Post by DarylZero »

maxerickson wrote: post #191
fourtrees wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of my big take-aways from the article. My great-(great?-)-grandparents from Eastern Europe armed with nothing but excellent numeracy, some English, and the clothes on their backs. They could reliably expect to enter move out of post-immigration poverty based on skills cultivated for the purpose of success in the US. My great-x-grandfather ended up a bank manager. And they passed money and knowledge along…

As far as earnings, median household income is very achievable (~$68,000). Associates degrees in medical fields lead to $50,000+ salaries. How far those earnings go relative to other periods is debatable. Catching up in terms of wealth is probably a lot harder (because we continue to get richer).

Median of all things is always achievable to half of all people everywhere.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#225

Post by DarylZero »

Kinrany wrote: post #147
csallen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

> Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? To be pedantic, exactly 20% are that wealthy. > The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better. So-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve can only be defined compared to people who can't achieve it. Medieval kings were in that category but lived worse that we do.

Medieval kings definitely lived better than you do.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#227

Post by DarylZero »

ianbutler wrote: post #189
theonemind wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unreachable tier of society indicates a fundamental social injustice. They're in the top 20% of wealth...not intelligence, or in any other factor making them deserving of it. Some of them did work hard, and probably deserve it if you consider hard work deserving of it...but, some people worked harder and didn't make it, so it's not a 1-to-1 equation. So there's a huge element of luck, which is kind of like a slave…

"if you consider hard work deserving of it" Do you mean to say people who do nothing deserve wealth?

LOL where are these "people who do nothing"

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#228

Post by flavius29663 »

twobitshifter wrote: post #95

I think the first step is to admit we have a problem. People don’t like the United States being labeled as anything less than exceptional. If you look at the Amazon workers, Uber drivers, door dashers, etc in this country it’s amazing how hard people can work and not get ahead. 2nd and 3rd jobs can be necessary to just make ends meet. The story that hard work is all it takes in America does need to be questioned.

This kind of complaint is usually made by people who haven't lived in other, more socialist first world countries, for example in Europe. If you would have the chance to do so, you would realize how bad it is in Europe when you're stocking shelves or driving a taxi.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#229

Post by tshaddox »

csallen wrote: post #155
tshaddox wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better. Aren’t you just literally saying that social mobility is bad?

No, I'm saying that there's always going to be some level of wealth that's difficult to achieve. We can all pull a number out of thin air that's just super high, that's tough to imagine people in the bottom 20% commonly getting to in their lifetime. For argument's sake, let's say that number is a net worth of $500K. (Because that just so happens to be the minimum net worth to be in the top 20% of Americans[0].) What…

> No, I'm saying that there's always going to be some level of wealth that's difficult to achieve.

Social mobility isn’t really about the “difficulty” of achieving any particular level of wealth. It’s about how many people who start at some lower level of wealth achieve some higher level of wealth. Income inequality is also not really about the “difficulty” of something. It’s not exactly “difficult” to inherit the wealth of the wealthiest person in the world, either, but it obviously can only happen to a very small number of people in the world.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#230

Post by EricDeb »

csallen wrote: post #100
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... that doesn't detract from the problem at all. That just says there's a massive wealth divide and that moving up to the mere top 20% (the group 1 out of 5 people belong to) should be considered a ridiculous proposition unless you're born into it. Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic?

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

One reason is because it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society. Some do, most don't. We tend to hear about the ones that do.
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