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Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

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Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#131

Post by philwelch »

anon1385 wrote: post #38
gadders wrote: post #18

Inequality is a stupid measure. What matters is absolute poverty. If I have a comfortable standard of living, what do I care if Bill Gates has a million times more money than me?

Inequality of wealth means inequality of power. High levels of inequality mean a small number of people have vastly disproportionate power to shape society in their own interest, at the expense of the majority. Now whether or not you think that is a problem depends on whether you care about things like self determination, democracy and social justice.

Rich people don't act as a cabal though. For every Koch there's a Soros. So while individual billionaires do have a lot of power, probably more than they should, it's still very strongly tempered by the mob, so to speak.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#132

Post by mikeash »

aeturnum wrote: post #29
webXL wrote: post #9

Another rich guy trying to persuade average folk that all our problems would be solved if people like him were taxed more. Never mind that the Buffet-rule (minimum 35%) would net $31 Billion over the next 11 years versus $7 Trillion in estimated deficits. ( http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74232.html ) Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power…

Though I support the idea that wealthy people should pay high taxes, perhaps even higher taxes than they do now, I think it's also worth noting that the US already gets 70% of all its taxes from the top 10%[1]. As long as we're keeping capitalism, I don't buy the argument that simply being rich is wrong. I'm also fairly skeptical of set limits on income, as setting those limits is very hard. What goes into it? How mu…

You say 70% of all taxes, but your link only discusses income taxes. That is horribly misleading.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#133

Post by smsm42 »

tommorris wrote: post #5

TED: Ideas worth spreading, so long as they don't challenge the power of the 1%.

The idea of "tax the rich" is hardly needs or worth spreading - you can't open a newspaper or turn on the TV without seeing another extremely well paid TV pundit preaching it to you. It's not new, not original, not revealing and not illuminating. It's something you can read in any speech of any left-wing politician. I'm glad TED refuses to become a platform for election-campaign speeches and resists hijacking its platform for opportunist political purposes - be it left wing or right wing or any other wing politics. There are more appropriate forums for that.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#134

Post by dfc »

philwelch wrote: post #131
anon1385 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality of wealth means inequality of power. High levels of inequality mean a small number of people have vastly disproportionate power to shape society in their own interest, at the expense of the majority. Now whether or not you think that is a problem depends on whether you care about things like self determination, democracy and social justice.

Rich people don't act as a cabal though. For every Koch there's a Soros. So while individual billionaires do have a lot of power, probably more than they should, it's still very strongly tempered by the mob, so to speak.

You think there is a one to one ratio between Koch and Soros type billionaires?

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#135

Post by spenrose »

gte910h wrote: post #24

Why is this on Hacker news?

Because I submitted it and it got some upvotes. I submit a fair number of hey-pay-attention-to-the-political-economy-of-our-wealth links, and this is the first (?) that's gotten traction. It may be the last, and if so that's fine.

Why did I submit it? My tremendous admiration for and personal gratitude to pg and the HN community is tempered by a sense that the community, composed as it is of human beings, tends to think that it deserves the good things that happen to its members. In the case of the extraordinary wealth, the good things that happen effect what we might call the political economy of ideas in the community. I thought this incident might cause a few HNers to think about that: not Hanauer's ideas, but how deals are actually closed in the proverbial marketplace of ideas in which we are all participating.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#136

Post by mikecane »

smsm42 wrote: post #128
mikecane wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your car breaks down, your cellphone gets no signal. You'd be pretty happy for a "handout" you'd self-describe as "assistance" or "help" or a "good deed."

Does it mean I have the right to take a car and a cellphone from any nearby person that looks rich enough to afford another one? After all, I need it clearly more than he does, so forcefully taking it from him is completely justified. In fact, if he objects, I'm completely justified to call him a greedy pig - I gave him an opportunity to do a good deed, and he dares to object? Despicable.

Really, do you tend to see everything in the form of "take" instead of in the form of "give"?

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#137

Post by rdl »

I don't have a big problem with income inequality, compared to wealth inequality (averaged over a long time). Consumption taxes and "death tax" (or at least a strong social convention toward donating assets in excess of a certain level, rather than heirs inheriting them) would go a long way. Income inequality is largely due to differences in economic contribution, and encouraging people at the far right of the power curve to do more (and be more numerous) produces positive externalities.

The main quick fixes to the tax code which I'd like to see are immediately taxing carry as income, getting rid of deductions for employer health insurance and mortgage interest, and a national sales tax or VAT (ie consumption tax), ideally highly progressive or exempting the first 50k/yr or something. Then, look at lowering income tax rates to something like 25% flat and setting lt capital gains and dividends at slightly less (20%) or the same as income but indexed for inflation. Get rid of the AMT, and maybe lower corporate rates to try to get firms to repatriate more and avoid abusive tax structuring like the double Irish sandwich and such.

A more transparent tax code, even if revenue neutral, would boost economic activity. A more transparent tax code, taxing things with negative externalities and not discouraging positive externalities, raising more income while cutting expenditures greatly, would be even better.

Not that there is much chance of any of this happening.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#138

Post by mikecane »

Discussions like this sometimes stagger me personally. Did Dickens write for nothing? Does everyone really wish to be Scrooge or Bounderby? Did Jack London write The People of the Abyss and waste his time? How many times must we relive that age before the lessons we learned from it at that time are permanent and inarguable?

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#139

Post by meej »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #83
Arelius wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Though I support the idea that wealthy people should pay high taxes, perhaps even higher taxes than they do now, I think it's also worth noting that the US already gets 70% of all its taxes from the top 10%[1]. You do realize that if you make about $80K/year, you are already in the top 10% right? With that perspective, I feel that 70% of taxed income is absurdly low, the fact that 30% of all US tax dollars come from…

Your point doesn't stand. Read the rest of the data. Namely, notice that according to this data, the median AGI of the United States is $32,396/year. So half the population is making less than $32k/year. Yes, the top 10% and the top half of the population are taking on almost all of the income-tax burden.... because they (we, in my case) have almost all the income. There's nothing fair about demanding tax money from…

"We're operating a tax system designed for a bell-curve income distribution when what we actually have is a power-law income distribution."

Well said. I'd upvote more than once if I could.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#140

Post by msabalau »

What is odd to me is the parocial yardstick that the TED curator is reportedly using to judge what's controversial. "We already have Melinda Gates on contraception"

With whom other than the socially conservative wing of the US Republican party is birth control "controversial"? A few thousand people in Vatican City, some other religious leaders of their ilk, and a scattering of anti-colonialist thinkers.

I would have thought TED would have taken a more cosmopolitan view of what counts as controversy.

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