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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

#311

Post by WalterBright »

Jensson wrote: post #301
WalterBright wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you do with the savings makes all the difference. For example, you could invest it to upgrade your job skills, making for a much higher income level. Investing it at the current negative 4% or so is not much better than setting it on fire.

Investing in yourself is only worth it if you are better than average. People who aren't just waste time and money trying. But if you are better than average then investing in yourself is huge. That is essentially the only reason investing in a start-up would be better than just investing in someone else's start-up, you have to bet that you are better than the other people. And then if you keep reinvesting in yoursel…

> Investing in yourself is only worth it if you are better than average.

Investing in yourself is how you become better than average.

I'm saddened by the persistent negativity I see here. Buck up, dude!

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#312

Post by pmorici »

endisneigh wrote: post #172
pmorici wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you citing individual income instead of house hold income? A household income of 100k puts you in the 66th percentile. https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

I cited individual income because that's what the comment I quoted was referring to?

I don't think they did.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#313

Post by torbTurret »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #184
vmception wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk with any patriotic person and you'll quickly notice that American exceptionalism relies on comparing the United States to the worst countries in the world and ignoring the existence of other developed nations. Eventually followed by "well at least we can talk about it, unlike " and so therefore all indiscretions must be absolved and ignorable since we have the "unique" ability to criticize the government at all,…

> and ignoring the existence of other developed nations I mean, Germany and France literally criminalized name-calling and teasing on the internet. They actively compel social media websites to delete posts and comments that make fun of people, or make them feel bad. USA doesn't exactly have the highest moral ground, but it has some higher moral ground for sure. So what exactly is USA supposed to learn from these oth…

Do you think a higher moral ground is more represented by providing free healthcare or by the allowance of insults online?

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#314

Post by torbTurret »

rpmisms wrote: post #83
mitigating wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has one of the lowest divorce rates in the entire country https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with...

California is ~1 point below the national average in marriages and divorces. By comparison, Maine is 4 points over the marriage average and 3 points under the divorce average. I should have remembered my audience and not made a joke about California's differences from the rest of the country. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/12/united-states...

Why is everyone not from CA so obsessed with it? Why did you feel the need to bring it up more than once?

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#315

Post by _kbh_ »

systemvoltage wrote: post #238
_kbh_ wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it’s hard to describe America as being at the “top rung” of health care with the stats linked. Those being 28/40 life expectancy 3/40 reported health 18/40 social inequality I can’t help but feel that that “reported health” is skewed with such a low life expectancy. For clarity within these rankings the lower the number the better.

Good points, also to keep in mind that US is massive. State to state differences are presumably wide.

This probably leads to wider social and economic inequality, the richer states are more likely to have the better hospitals and better public health systems.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#316

Post by forgotmyoldname »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #175
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, wars were fought over that and revolutions had. People decidedly did not like royalty, large so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve groups, being so far above them. For a while, people much preferred knowing they could work hard or smart and make progress from the bottom to the top 20%. We're talking about the top 20% here. Not the top 0.1%.

Doing hard things can be good. We shouldn’t try to stop people from doing things just because others find it difficult.

We shouldn't. But low social mobility and further stratified wealth divisions is a sign that the effort is pointless for a growing number of people.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#317

Post by LQexplanation »

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.

"From rags to riches" - typical communist nonsense, far from true American values, like working hard your whole life and staying poor because the party memb... Tfu, the richest are too far away to ever reach them.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#318

Post by csallen »

bawolff wrote: post #284
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But as is becoming increasing clear (again), society is worse off when relative wealth distinctions grow (at least, if they grow too large). Why is it clear?

Eventually, if the wealth divide becomes too great and ossified, the logical thing for the poor to do is have a violent revolution (since there is no other way to advance their station in life). This sucks for basically everyone, rich or poor. I think we all have a selfish interest in making sure it doesn't come to that.

Sure, but a big wealth divide does not imply ossification, it just means it's a longer path to get to the top. You can have a big divide and still have mobility.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#319

Post by csallen »

DarylZero wrote: post #263
csallen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> What would you prefer: a world where more or fewer people were able to amass that much wealth? To me, the obvious answer is more. Fewer. That wealth represents the obligation of other people to labor on behalf of the owner or their heirs. A world with lots of rich people is a world where the poor are born into indentured servitude. Equality allows the newborn to enter life debt free.

I think you have some flawed assumptions.

1. Wealth doesn't require a lot of labor to prop it up, especially not in an increasingly technological world where digital products enable infinite copies at no marginal cost, where code can "labor" in the background without manpower, and where the internet provides infinite distribution to all corners of the globe.

2. Labor today looks significantly different than it did in the past. It's increasingly fulfilling and service-like. In fact, many of the richest people spend exorbitant amounts of time "laboring," e.g. via writing or other creative pursuits.

3. A smaller wealth gap doesn't imply mobility of freedom from debt, any more than a shorter track implies faster sprinters. You can have a more equal society with a narrower distribution of wealth but also greater absolute poverty and misery.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#320

Post by diordiderot »

bawolff wrote: post #291
EricDeb wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Money is basically an abstract representation of power, so that's almost a tautology. > Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society This is an interesting claim? What is good for society, and relative to whom? I suppose the obvious comparison would be relative…

> What is good for society

Decarbonization, novel drug research, preventative medicine, high speed rural broadband, public transport, nutrient rich foods, exercise, education.

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