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Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

nationaljournal.com

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Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#191

Post by dfc »

philwelch wrote: post #188
dfc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do corn farmers have more homogenous viewpoints than billionaires?

They've managed to get the government to subsidize them heavily, price their competitor, cane sugar, out of the market, and support corn-based ethanol production. Of course, HFCS is worse for you and doesn't taste as good, corn in general isn't a particularly healthy staple food, and it makes no technical sense to make ethanol fuel out of corn in the first place. The point is, policy isn't corrupted by billionaires,…

"because the political system works state-by-state."

Hamilton is rolling in his grave...

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#192

Post by smsm42 »

mikecane wrote: post #136
smsm42 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Because when people give voluntarily, there's no state involved. People can and do give without any need for the state to intervene. When the state intervenes, it always takes. It can not give anything without forcefully taking it from somebody first.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#193

Post by smsm42 »

crusso wrote: post #144
smsm42 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SS is funded by separate tax, but if there's a shortcoming, it is filled from the general budget, and if there's a surplus, it goes into general spending - so this distinction is an accounting fiction, both are incomes of the same government and as long as government fulfills its obligations nobody cares how the money got there. When SS starts running negative cash flow, the govt would have to refill that. Right now…

> as long as government fulfills its obligations nobody cares how the money got there I care. If they increase our debt or just start printing extra money, they have fulfilled their obligation to SS while screwing the rest of our economy pretty hard. > has very little meaning except taking part of the money out of circulation for no reason Very little meaning except having the government follow rules of financial dis…

For financial discipline it does not matter, government will borrow anyway because it can, and it will print money anyway because it can. Because borrowing and spending is politically easier than not spending. US government does not have any savings - taxpayers are its savings account. And as long as substantial amount of people think that raising taxes is a way to solve the problem of runaway government spending - this savings account will be used and abused endlessly. There's no reason for politically risky cuts if you could just borrow and tax. The sad fact is US government is addicted to deficit. And no addict was ever cured by giving them access to more of the source of their addiction.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#194

Post by anthonyb »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #178
anthonyb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Decent food. There are two main effects at work:

If all you can afford is ramen/bread/fast food, your body makes you overeat to get enough other nutrients (eg. vitamin C, B).

The second is that your insulin goes crazy with all those simple carbs and sugars (carbs are cheap, unlike protein, fish and vegetables, and get metabolised to glucose) so you get massive blood sugar swings. The low side of those makes you eat more and get fatter.

Lottery tickets are a strawman. Or, to quote a science fiction novel that I can't quite remember: "a tax on hope."

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#195

Post by Ygg2 »

crusso wrote: post #172
toyg wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Actually they have.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/osu-iil050812...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw

In face increasing Gini coefficient for 0.01 increases mortality in state for 122% after 12 years. Yes, it is a bad thing in almost all recorded metrics.

- First of all, doesn't anyone see the correlation between increased government power (revenue/spending)

Nope. I think revenue spending isn't really good metric of government power and so far no one has proved that. You are free to test your hypothesis though. I'd wager that there is quite a bit of income inequality if your gov. revenue is low but they spend a lot of money.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#196

Post by Daniel_Newby »

anthonyb wrote: post #194
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Decent food. There are two main effects at work: If all you can afford is ramen/bread/fast food, your body makes you overeat to get enough other nutrients (eg. vitamin C, B). The second is that your insulin goes crazy with all those simple carbs and sugars (carbs are cheap, unlike protein, fish and vegetables, and get metabolised to glucose) so you get massive blood sugar swings. The low side of those makes you eat m…

Complex carbohydrates are cheap. Fat is cheap. Eating simple carbohydrates is not an economic choice.

Vitamins pills and vegetables are reasonably cheap. And anyway if deficiencies caused obesity, the rate would drop off dramatically over some threshold income.

Lotteries matter because that's where poor Americans spend about 10% of their income. Taxing the rich to destruction will not fix that.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#197

Post by notJim »

ry0ohki wrote: post #141
georgieporgie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is this the basic issue, then? That there's income inequality? No, not at all. Who have you ever heard make such a claim? The issue is the size of the inequality, its growth , and the fact that historical periods with less inequality and a stronger middle class seem to correlate with strong overall growth and prosperity.

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?

Here is a Ted talk that prevents data about inequality: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

There's another take on it here: http://www.quora.com/Economic-Inequality/How-is-income-inequ.... In, that link says that the degree of inequality matters in the us because in the us, the poor are desperately poor, and the rich are fantastically rich. In other words, if the poor had a pretty good standard of living and the rich were absurdly healthy, maybe that would be ok, but that's not the situation we have.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#198

Post by tommorris »

smsm42 wrote: post #133
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 pla…

So all the libertarian sea-steading, private space missions and transhumanist Singularity madness isn't politics but just neutral science, right?

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#199

Post by tommorris »

potatolicious wrote: post #88
jakubmal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, don't back up. Just diss.

I've been just watching this discussion unfold up till now - and I've been impressed at the level of analysis coming from both sides - arguments that are at least in some minor way backed up by numbers. But your comment is offensive. Dangerously so. Your view is actually incredibly typical throughout history - its latest incarnation is Social Darwinism, where one mistakenly applies a biological and genetics principle…

Don't forget sexism and homophobia. Not giving women the vote and being mean to gays has been justified on the basis that it's the natural order of things as revealed by God and/or natural selection.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#200

Post by tommorris »

dfc wrote: post #134
philwelch wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Technically, there's two Kochs and one Soros. The whole brothers thing. ;-)
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