131–140 of 606 posts
The problem can be solved with transition to communism. No one will own anything and there will be no wealth.
Wrong. Small ruling class will own everything. And the majority will have nothing and no rights to have something. It has been tried before.
Hate capitalism or not - it allowed more people to access / to possess something than communism or feudalism
So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.
You guys are so obsessed with inequality because you're always looking in the other guy's cup. I don't care about inequality at all - only absolute living standards. The US has been an unequal place all its history and it's a tremendous country to live in. Here's a recipe for happiness: stop comparing yourself to others and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. It's old advice, but it's clearly been forgotten.
Well the idea is that (correctly or incorrectly) lower inequality would result in significantly higher absolute living standards.
Arguably they had been going up at the pace they have over the last several decades almost entirely due to technological progress (and more arguably globalization/free trade).
Average productivity has been in increasing at a much faster rate than median or below median absolute living standards. Growing inequality is possibly the main culprit.
> looking in the other guy's cup
Well hard not to do that when the other guy has turned off the tap after filling his cup..
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Even the most basic of primates have a sense of fairness and get unhappy if someone is hoarding.
I exhort you to rise above the most basic of primates. I have transcended the flinging of my faeces and it has brought me great joy.
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Indeed, the bailout if banks in multiple countries is the biggest transfer from the rest of us, to the rich there has ever been. Absolutely enormous amounts of money.
All major banks paid back all those loans with interest. That was actually net income for governments that lended those money. Who really lost money directly were all those speculators who had 10 mortgages on them and just kept taking more and more. Look, I am all for hatin' the big man when he deserves it and he often does, but lets be a bit smart and not just throw random angry spits without checking the facts, sha…
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Financial education is useless if you don't have capital. Most poor people are just earning enough to live day by day. Getting financial literacy would help little.
I think the importance of financial education is pretty underestimated. But just to illustrate, investing $10 a month into an index fund would mean something like $100K saved up for retirement. Even if you’re poor, it is usually possible to find that $10.
The notion that poverty is a character flaw and that poor people just need to be better with their money, is just propaganda so that it's more palable to cut welfare programs.
To see how ridiculous it is, you just have to think about the other ned of the spectrum, the most financially irresponsible people one can observe are typically some rich kids, does it have any influence on their financial/economic future?
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There is always an exponential distribution of wealth, it isn’t rational to argue against it. What needs argument is what the exponent is.
I'm pretty sure wealth doesn't follow an exponential distribution. Power law, log normal or stretched exponential or maybe some sort of generalized Zipf.
I was very surprised by the holiday budget. Less than 2500$ for 80% of the population? Does that mean that no one from these 80% stays in a Hotel or AirBnB for longer than a week with their family? No one travels overseas, or if so, only every 5 years or so? 2000$ is what you can easily spend on plane tickets for a family of 4.
A lot of vacations also involve crashing at another family member or friends spare bedroom/fold out couch.
I grew up with family vacations like this (inflation adjusted) and I had a great time. It’s hard to wrap your mind around when you think vacations require significant travel.
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You guys are so obsessed with inequality because you're always looking in the other guy's cup. I don't care about inequality at all - only absolute living standards. The US has been an unequal place all its history and it's a tremendous country to live in. Here's a recipe for happiness: stop comparing yourself to others and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. It's old advice, but it's clearly been forgotten.
> I don't care about inequality at all cheap products from 3rd world cheap nature resources from 3rd world cheap labor from 3rd world that's why many of the free citizens of the Empire don't need to care about inequality at all when these things change, you will care
Obviously sarcasm, but taking your argument at face value this is what rational (not necessarily moral) citizen of europe/usa should think. For that reason I don't think this is a good argument.
So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.
I've never felt that I am entitled to any sort of property even when being software engineer to the core, even more a house, as a young person right after university. That was always a hard-won luxury, and I don't even mean some extremely well located place.
Some folks here often mention similar stuff and refer to some period in 50s/60s in US specifically where 1 salary could have done it in some more rural areas. Nobody mentions how rest of the population looked like, hardly whole US population was buying new houses with wife being stay-at-home mum.
When women started going to work too, suddenly such couples quickly outcompeted single earners from housing market. In Europe, this stay-at-home was never the thing in most places so we never even had such period, thus 0 such expectations. Properties, especially houses, were always a hard-won luxury.