Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality • Hacker News Board

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#171

Post by matwood » Thu, May 17, 2012, 1:58 AM UTC

MartinCron wrote: post #162

dfc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do corn farmers have more homogenous viewpoints than billionaires?

Corn farmers all get their money in the same way. Billionaires? Not so much.

Well the corn farmers have helped the economy by getting ethanol into all of the gas. Doing that has lowered mileage (so we spend more) and destroyed engines (so we pay for more service). This doesn't count the extra stuff I now have to buy to keep the ethanol from destroying my engines.

At least many gas stations are starting to offer completely ethanol free gas now, although at a premium.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#172

Post by crusso » Thu, May 17, 2012, 1:58 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #71

waterlesscloud wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That only further demonstrates the income inequality in the United States. " So is this the basic issue, then? That there's income inequality? Because that's always going to be the case. Even in the most socialist nations, or even communist nations. There is always a strong disparity of income and power. Always. And there always will be.

The problem is not the disparity, but how wide it is. Inequality in the US is currently so wide, it's absurd. It's widening in Europe as well, but not as fast and not as radically as in the US in the last 30 years. This is not healthy, it's polarizing society and eroding the social contract. The only way to effectively balance this trend is through higher taxation.

First of all, doesn't anyone see the correlation between increased government power (revenue/spending) and an increase in the income inequality gap? Look at a graph showing govt spending as a percentage of gdp vs the inequality gap.

Secondly, assuming that the "inequality gap" is necessarily a bad thing, which I don't think anyone has shown...

Why do you assume that higher taxation will decrease the income inequality gap?

If anything, higher taxation means more money (ie power) in the hands of the government. More power in the hands of the government just leads to more crony capitalism that concentrates even more money and power into fewer hands. Worse, those companies that then have access to all that money and power are the worst sorts of companies that don't even need to provide good products and services to consumers. Instead they get more bang for the buck by sucking tax dollars out of the system.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#173

Post by sukuriant » Thu, May 17, 2012, 1:58 AM UTC

aliston wrote: post #86

georgieporgie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard a number of people (Grover Norquist included) make the claim that although the top marginal tax rates were higher, there were a far greater number of tax exemptions available. I have no idea how true this is, and I'm not aware of anyone who's studied the actual income, wealth, and taxes of America's rich over the decades.

In addition, the point at which the top tax rate kicks in has varied quite a bit throughout the 1900's. For instance, in the 1950's, when we had a top marginal tax rates over 90%, the top bracket also kicked in at 400k, which would be nearly 4 million in todays dollars. That's why merely looking at the top marginal rate is kind of misleading. http://ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.ht...

90% of the top bracket..? That seems like honest robbery to me, like saying "I'm sorry. You're not allowed to make a lot of money. The government needs this money."

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#174

Post by ktizo » Thu, May 17, 2012, 2:00 AM UTC

Here's the text of the actual speech, linked to from the article.

http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/the-inequality...

To be honest, it seems to be basic common sense, if this is too controversial for TED then they are seriously losing their way.

As for saying they had Melinda Gates talking about contraception around the same time and thinking that it was a reasonable excuse for backtracking. Well to me, that just doesn't even start to make the slightest bit of sense as an argument.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#175

Post by sukuriant » Thu, May 17, 2012, 2:01 AM UTC

driax wrote: post #154

ry0ohki wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why the size of inequality matters. If I make $20,000 and Rich guy makes $2,000,000, how does me making $20,000 and him making $200,000,000 million make any difference?

Because the money he spends raises the price of goods etc. Therefore your 20,000 becomes less money. This is easy too see in expensive cities. The same middle-class person would have to demand more money to live at the same standards as he/she would have elsewhere, simply because richness have driven up the prices.

How?

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#176

Post by ktizo » Thu, May 17, 2012, 2:02 AM UTC

timwiseman wrote: post #57

aeturnum wrote: post #29

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]. 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…

Well said. To go a bit further, limits on income are likely to encourage people not to try truly hard or truly risky ventures. Paul Graham addresses this at http://paulgraham.com/gap.html

Very few people have money as their prime motive.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#177

Post by anthonyb » Thu, May 17, 2012, 2:02 AM UTC

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #159

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put it this way. It sounds like you don't want the entire government budget to rest on taxing one class and one class alone, the upper-class. That's a pretty virtuous and equitable thought to have, very fair to people who probably have much more than you. Problem is, if income/wealth inequality is too severe, those guys are the only ones with money to contribute . So on some level, you need a certain level of…

When the poor people are fat, it is safe to assume the middle class has money to contribute to running the country.

They're fat because they can't afford decent food and have to eat crap.

Assumptions don't get you anywhere.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#178

Post by Daniel_Newby » Thu, May 17, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

anthonyb wrote: post #177

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the poor people are fat, it is safe to assume the middle class has money to contribute to running the country.

They're fat because they can't afford decent food and have to eat crap. Assumptions don't get you anywhere.

They get fat by not having enough money for food?! Seriously?!

Do you think they spend so much on lottery tickets because the rich so unfairly keep them out of derivative trading?

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#179

Post by anthonyb » Thu, May 17, 2012, 2:13 AM UTC

dgreensp wrote: post #164

akeefer wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a minute: you say that our expenses versus income is too high, but then also say that higher taxes won't solve anything? Unless you're arguing that higher taxes won't increase government income (which is a totally specious argument that people make all the time, but which isn't backed up in the least by any actual historical analyses), then higher taxes absolutely could solve the deficit problem. Federal tax rev…

The point is, if the government manages its money poorly, it should make better decisions rather than taking on more money. If I tell you, "Fred is always running out of money; in fact, he's deep in credit card debt," your immediate response is not going to be "He should get a raise so he can pay off that debt" or "Here, give this money to Fred."

Perhaps Fred is underpaid and needs a raise?

I'm not sure where you're going with that analogy. It all depends on whether Fred's spending his money wisely or not.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#180

Post by dgreensp » Thu, May 17, 2012, 2:15 AM UTC

As others have said, there is not a lot of substantiation in the talk to shed new light on frequently-discussed topics.

It feels intellectually shaky to assert that the economy will go back to growing, if only the middle class can go back to spending, which we can achieve by giving more money to the government.

Here's a different and more TED-like viewpoint: Perhaps economic growth actually requires movers and shakers. The US has had a good share of them. These people aren't going to be your archetypal rich fat cats, nor your average Joe living paycheck to paycheck. If they are rewarded with wealth, that is a good thing. And sure, some of that wealth can go into a pot to use for the common welfare.

If we want more consumer spending, let's give people better things to spend money on, things that help them in their own quest of fulfillment and creating value.

If businesses are reluctant to hire, it's only because they need to make correspondingly more money to make the hire worthwhile. As we know from start-up land, many tasks can't be done better by throwing more people at them, especially creative tasks. We're still trying to solve the problem of how individuals can cooperate and merge their individual strengths towards big goals. A full-time human ought to be a very valuable asset to a company, though, and many companies can be viewed as engines that take human effort and turn it into value, creating money.

Economic growth is not to be taken for granted. It requires innovation, optimism, and positive energy that comes from individuals. There are many things rich and non-rich people can do with their time and money to help, besides just giving their money to the government. Take something you're good at and provide a service, or make something and sell it. Lend a cup of sugar to your neighbor. Earn what you're worth. Invest in good businesses. Pay someone to do something for you. And on and on.