Defending the One Percent

Post by johanneskanybal » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:00 PM UTC

kabouseng wrote: post #6

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #2

A large number (majority?) of people who are proponents for american-style capitalism, advocating for less government intervention, are from big universities around the U.S, and will often earn a relatively high wage. Although it's very hard to quantify, I feel as though these people are very disassociated from the everyday life the claim to be studying. If you live near Harvard earning ~300k a year, how easy is it t…

Wow lots of strawmen here. "A large number (majority?) of people who are proponents for american-style capitalism, advocating for less government intervention, are from big universities around the U.S" Source? So what? "Boiled down - can people who are part of such a skewed system really produce unbiased studies and theories about the system?" Can people who are part of the lower earning rung of society give a unbias…

Post by walterbell » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:07 PM UTC

msandford wrote: post #5

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #2

A large number (majority?) of people who are proponents for american-style capitalism, advocating for less government intervention, are from big universities around the U.S, and will often earn a relatively high wage. Although it's very hard to quantify, I feel as though these people are very disassociated from the everyday life the claim to be studying. If you live near Harvard earning ~300k a year, how easy is it t…

Personally I think that the growth of the banking sector is the problem, as it tends to capture more and more of the profits and allocate them to the pay of the bankers. It's also a brain-drain on other industries. Finally, the banks do occasionally lose everything and then we have to bail them out. Remove the "bail them out" part of the process and you'd likely see a fair amount of income equality restored. Banking…

Post by murbard2 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:24 PM UTC

Sone7 wrote: post #4

This guy's a professor of economics at Harvard?! ...Actually that explains a lot.

Post by eitally » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #12

e12e wrote: post #10

The absurd example in the second paragraph put me off, so I didn't really find it in me to read the argument thoroughly. But if the premise is that a single man can "come up with an idea" and magically produce an ipod with comparable personal effort, and no reliance of a third world factory economy -- as an author can come up with a book -- then I don't think the author of the article has the required connection to r…

Did the iPod require a "third world factory economy", or was that merely the best way to make it when it was developed? Go back to the original Apple II and subsequent products, they were per memory and Wikipedia all made in the US until the late 1990s. The IBM PC was originally manufactured by SCI Systems in Huntsville, Alabama.

Post by qntty » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:31 PM UTC

murbard2 wrote: post #15

Sone7 wrote: post #4

This guy's a professor of economics at Harvard?! ...Actually that explains a lot.

Yeah, I was thinking that too... it is really well written, it makes compelling and nuanced arguments and it sets a nice thought framework for the debate. This is really an excellent piece, no wonder he's an econ professor at one of the most prestigious university in the world, that guy is brilliant.