Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now • Hacker News Board

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#211

Post by Gormo » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 2:42 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #176

Gormo wrote: post #33

Every time I see this kind of chart, I always wonder why the aggregate income distribution of a population is a metric that anyone ought to be concerned about. What does one person's income have to do with anyone else's - why would you aggregate everyone's separate incomes into a single figure in the first place? And if someone's particular income is insufficient to meet their needs, how do the aggregate population d…

I find the lack of increase in (inflation-adjusted) median wages to be the more interesting headline, not the distribution of wages per se. In effect, the average person has not seen any improvement in prosperity from the large productivity improvements that technology has brought us. I think that's problematic, in part because it makes it harder to argue that the tech sector's growth will bring prosperity to the ave…

Perhaps the earlier "jobs are obsolete" argument is right, and people aren't reaping the benefits of technology as much as they might because the productivity improvements that it creates inhere in an economic abstraction layer that they're not participating in to the extent that they might.

If we imagined the way modern technologies might be applied to the productive capacity of a family homestead, for example, the improvement that technology brings to the homesteader's quality of life should be directly apparent, without the need to rely on macro-level metrics at all.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#212

Post by ianferrel » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 2:46 AM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #190

learc83 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food - I read a report recently that said the amount of hours the average person has to work to feed himself has dropped dramatically over the last 100 years. Rent - accept 60s level housing and you can easily afford it, 1 bathroom each kid doesn't get his own bedroom etc.. Childcare - not applicable if you are living a 60s lifestyle you're wife won't work. Education - Expensive b/c the govt subsidizes it. Healthcare…

Rent -- I've lived in multiple places built in the 1960s and all had enough bedrooms for 2 kids and a separate bathroom for parents and kids. These places were built for middle class families. This comparison also matters where you are. At least in the SF Bay Area, housing prices have doubled in real terms since the mid 1980s (for the same house!). You aren't getting better housing now.. just more expensive housing.…

> Rent -- I've lived in multiple places built in the 1960s and all had enough bedrooms for 2 kids and a separate bathroom for parents and kids. These places were built for middle class families.

Survivorship bias. The average house has increased in size steadily, just as families have become smaller. People really did have a lot less room then. Houses that end up too small for current tastes tend to get expanded or torn down and replaced.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#213

Post by ianferrel » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 2:54 AM UTC

kevinpet wrote: post #115

"debt exceeded income in 2001" I read until I find a fundamental error like comparing two values with different units. Only if it doesn't make any fundamental errors do I consider whether it's valid or makes any subtle errors.

Aren't debt and income both denominated in $? What's the other unit?

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#214

Post by prodigal_erik » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 3:04 AM UTC

OstiaAntica wrote: post #207

wanorris wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, because there is no evidence I'm aware of that any tangible, real-world action originates from the belief that the poor should be "elevated" in some other manner. When the government gives poor single moms peanut butter to make sure that her kids have protein to eat, that gets measured, and we can perform efficacy studies on it. When the government gives housing stipends to poor families so that they h…

The government has largely crowded out private action. Before the American welfare state was created, mutual aid societies and churches filled the welfare gap. These institutions were generally more effective in their mission than government today, and the fabric of our society was far richer for it. Today, helping the poor largely means lobbying for more spending for some program.

There was very little to be crowded out. When funding was opt-in, the result was a vanity safety net far too weak for any serious problems. That's why Dickens portrayed such a hellhole. Why communities organized around private charity declared defeat and posted "OKIES MOVE ON" signs during the Great Depression (which is what led to creating a welfare state that actually kind of met the needs). Why even churches need government funds to keep their own food banks open. The problem is bigger than the number of volunteers paying more than their share.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#215

Post by forensic » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 3:06 AM UTC

OstiaAntica wrote: post #209

forensic wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the point that HN seems to be oblivious toward. HN people live in a bubble and seemingly have never met anyone who is in real poverty -- they think because in college they had to eat Ramen they were poor. They are clueless. Real poverty is being illiterate, being malnourished in the womb, being raised in a crime-zone, growing up without dental care.

This type of "Real Poverty" has massively increased since the government launched its "War on Poverty" in the 1960s. The dropout rate is higher, crime is higher, more families are broken.

The War on Poverty was launched in the 1930s, and before that it was the mission of various religious organizations.

The increase in the "Real Poverty" is due to economic factors like giving all the jobs to China, dumbing down education, and civil rights/feminist revolutions which led to social destabilization and people falling through cracks.

Sweden and Norway and France and Holland are not having issues with "Real Poverty." And they all have big welfare states.

The welfare state concept is sound. It lifts segments of the population in Real Poverty out of poverty. The problem in the USA is that for every social program helping a family out of poverty, there are 10 programs putting them back in their place.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#216

Post by forensic » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 3:19 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #196

forensic wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics and morality are intimately related. There are SOME free market ideologues who believe that unrestrained corporations will enrich the poor, however I believe they are in the minority. You may be one of them. The majority of libertarians believe that individual property rights are sacrosanct and that it is wrong to forcibly redistribute wealth to prevent poverty, hunger, suffering. This is the argument of the…

So many false dilemmas. Proposition (a) only demands a non-zero level of redistribution (call this X). One might believe (a), but also believe that our current level of redistribution is greater than X. Assuming one does believe (a), and also believes that our current level of redistribution is lower than X, it still does not follow that we need to redistribute from the rich. We could also redistribute from political…

My dilemmas aren't false they just contain assumptions. Challenging assumptions is reasonable but don't assume that the presenter is unaware of their own assumptions.

There are ALWAYS more assumptions available to be challenged. Plenty in your post for instance. Turtles (assumptions) all the way down.

For instance, if the goal is to reduce poverty, you assume that it is mathematically possibly to take money from teachers. But if teachers are already on the brink of poverty, that won't work to reduce poverty. You're creating new poverty cases as you solve old ones.

Politically connected insiders are less relevant than those who actually have the majority of the money. It's not teachers, and it's not unions. It's software entrepreneurs, MBAs, and oligopolists. They have the far majority.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#217

Post by raldi » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 3:47 AM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #56

pg wrote: post #36

Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers. So the interesting question is not why economic inequality is increasing, but why for a few decades in the mid twentieth century the trend was reversed. There are probably several factors at work he…

I think this comment only acknowledges the existence of white collar jobs. You used to be able to pay for a house, a car, and the kids' college education with a factory job. While the wife stayed at home. Now, that scenario is eye-popping unbelievable. You're probably at wal-mart or starbucks if you don't have some sort of specialist skill or a connection into the white collar world. I'm not endorsing a particular so…

> You used to be able to...

And you still can, if you live like it's 1960. Cancel cable, Internet, and everyone's cell phones. Never fly. Don't buy organic food. No HDTV, iPod, iPad, or laptop. Have a modest wedding. Don't send your kids to college. Live in a one-story house with one bathroom and a small garage for your one car.

If people today have to work harder and smarter than their 1960s counterparts, it's because they choose to pursue a correspondingly higher quality of life.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#218

Post by alsomike » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 3:51 AM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #77

pg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than people think. Back when taxes were so high, the rich were really good at tax avoidance. So the rate doesn't tell you the whole story. As one of the people whose opinion about working for a large company changed during the 1970s, I know I didn't consciously think about tax rates. (It's possible they affected me unconsciously though, via the examples of people who'd cleared more after tax due to lower rates.)

It is impossible not to notice that this trend started when Reagan took power and neo-liberalism was adopted as the reference in economic policy. The theory: More wealth produced, better for everybody. The practice: More wealth produced, better only for the top earners.

Agreed, but Carter was the first neoliberal president.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#219

Post by randomdata » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 4:04 AM UTC

forensic wrote: post #38

Vivtek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give up 100% of my silicon-based technology if in exchange I can afford to own some land. Easy choice. You can't possibly be serious. Why aren't you already in Nebraska, then? There's plenty of land in the United States, most of it dirt cheap (being dirt). If you're not already from the country, you probably don't know why we all left the country. (Myself included.)

I'm not talking about any crappy dirt pile anywhere, I'm talking about owning my own place to live in a community where there are jobs and 1960s technology. I could move to Nebraska but it is unlikely I could find a job that would afford me a residence. This isn't about social norms, this is about whether the computer revolution has been worth it for the great majority of Americans. A lot of Americans would kill righ…

If you honestly want to live in the 60s, you can pick up 1960s era farm equipment for the price of a song. The job is right there on your land. Commodity prices are strong right now and with no real machinery capital outlay, you'll have no trouble making a living as a farmer.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#220

Post by dpatru » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 4:06 AM UTC

msutherl wrote: post #195

learc83 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because I might disagree with your methods of equalizing income, doesn't mean I "believe poor people deserve their lot and should wallow in it." You've turned a political disagreement about the methods to accomplish some desirable goal do so into a moral argument. You've decided that if I think there is a better way to elevate the poor than your way, I must want them to stay poor and thus must be evil. Why do yo…

The reason that the government should take care of the poor and the sick is not because it is the most efficient and moral way to do so. Indeed, given appropriate conditions, I concede that "the market" and the goodwill of "the people" would be capable of ensuring that their needs are met in a more efficient and, according to libertarian logic, more ethical manner. The reason that the government should provide this w…

> The reason that the government should provide . . . welfare . . . is that it results in an incredibly desirable situation where any citizen of the United States would know that, no matter what . . . it is guaranteed that they will be taken care of.

I don't see it desirable to disconnect causes from consequences. Quite the opposite. Society functions best when people are very aware that their choices have consequences and when they choose to act in ways that produce good consequences. In fact, individual responsibility is essential to civilization. Society would just fall apart if more than a few percent of people began acting irresponsibly.

For example, America has a problem with education. There are a lot of children not learning despite a lot of money being spent. I think a root cause of the problem is students knowing that nothing bad will happen to them if they don't work hard in school. If all the unmotivated students would be put to work for a few weeks in picking crops, with the promise that this will be their lot in life if they don't learn, I suspect the education problem would solve itself quickly.

We live in a world where it is possible to be tremendously productive and wealthy. But it is still necessary to labor and be disciplined to achieve wealth.

Retirement, doing nothing productive knowing that you will still be able to eat tomorrow, should be the reward of years of diligent work, not the entitlement of the lazy who want to benefit from the toil of others without contributing.