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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

#341

Post by bawolff »

diordiderot wrote: post #320
bawolff wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sure those are all good things (although not the only definition of "good"). The question remains: would a different capital allocation achieve them any better

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#342

Post by DarylZero »

csallen wrote: post #319
DarylZero wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What flawed assumption do you think I'm making?

Wealth represents owed labor, because ordinary people have an obligation to pay rent, and otherwise buy resources from the previous generation of humans, who allocated nature before they were born; so they have an obligation to work for owners; and wealth takes the form of ownership of a share of the work done by them.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#343

Post by rsynnott »

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.

> People don’t like the United States being labeled as anything less than exceptional.

I mean, it _is_ exceptional. Americans, per the article, are exceptionally overly optimistic about social mobility.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#344

Post by rsynnott »

pentae wrote: post #97
refurb wrote: post #58

Again, it's highly problematic defining mobility as "moving from bottom quintile to top quintile". - Moving from bottom quintile to 2nd highest is significant mobility and completely ignored in this analysis. - The analysis ignores the fact that the highest quintile in the US is higher in absolute terms than other countries. So moving from bottom to 4th may give more income than bottom to 5th in other countries. - Th…

The economist has been pushing a certain political agenda for a while now, I cancelled my subscription a while ago because of this reason

I think you're possibly thinking about this the wrong way. The story here isn't "noted communist magazine the Economist is trailblazing by writing about social mobility problems", it's "social mobility has become such a problem that even _the Economist_ is now covering it". This isn't a new concern, by any means, and at this point I would think that _most_ serious media has covered it; the Economist is just grudgingly catching up.

Note that they couldn't resist trying to find a bright side (the numbers are still quite _bad_, just not as bad as people think they are):

> But in Europe, climbing the ladder is easier than most people believe

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#345

Post by candybar »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #63
rfrey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not your main point, but in the spirit of Americans overestimating social mobility, you may be overestimating "family values" among the working class. According to the 2015 US census, the share of people who have been divorced at least once is 46% (poor), 41% (working class) and 30% (middle and upper class). Similarly, people who report they are "very happy" in marriage are 54% (poor), 56% (working class) and…

I think his definition of working class is perhaps different to the definition in your study. It's one of those terms that are loosely defined (at least in certain societies) and mean very different things to different people. Is an electrician earning US$80k/year middle class because he's well compensated for his work, or working class because he's doing manual labour?

However you cut it, divorce rates are substantially higher among the working class. If you look at educational attainment:

% divorced among those married, by age 46:

Did not graduate from high school: 58.8

High school graduate, no college: 49.1

Some college or associate degree: 48.5

Bachelor's degree or higher: 29.8

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/pdf/marriage-and-d...

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#347

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

WalterBright wrote: post #289
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of people, it's not about how hard or how smart one works. It's about the support networks that kick in when you screw up or when bad luck befalls you. Lots of middle class kids (like mine) get multiple chances to try and fail. Their parents' wealth and social connections gets to work and cushions their landing, and like Silicon Valley folk, they get to try again. The children of working class families do n…

All those immigrants streaming over the border with nothing manage to do it. Nobody said it was easy, but it is possible.

You've got data on how many southern-border-crossing immigrants make it into the US middle class? I couldn't find any.

Most immigrants in the US do not "stream over the border", more are arriving from Asian countries than Latin American countries. Those that arrive by air from another country typically have more than "nothing" on arrival.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#348

Post by DarylZero »

WalterBright wrote: post #285
DarylZero wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With so much income inequality, differences in savings rates cannot possibly be that important.

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.

But I would just say the same thing. The differences in income inequality are going to completely swamp any such effect from differences in spending.

Maybe paying for college is an exception to the rule -- only because of all the grants, scholarships, loans, and income-based tuition.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#349

Post by DarylZero »

WalterBright wrote: post #311
Jensson wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

That's really not how.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#350

Post by jollybean »

rpmisms wrote: post #137
jollybean wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's definitely possible. But your personal experience more or less indicates that it can be done, not that it commonly is. "it just has to be a known opportunity" - and this is the rub. I think that this is far, far more than simply 'informing them they can go to college'. It's an entire life outlook, set of conscientious behaviours, that's almost impossible to contemplate if you're completely outside of positi…

Again, I did not go to college. That's not a necessary step for working in tech.

Again, your personal anecdote is not important, because it's not representative of the normal story in the US. Your story is exceptional.

The number of people who 'don't go to college and end up in in highly paid tech jobs' in the US is very, very small.

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