Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 51 posts

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#11

Post by maxxxxx »

anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

Because a society doesn't work well if only a few people receive the benefits of progress. The big strength of the western economies since the 50s that most people benefited from advances. If more and more people start to feel that their life stagnates the economy will stagnate too.

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#12

Post by damon_c »

api wrote: post #3
anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

It would be significantly less of a problem if it weren't for massive inflation in real estate, tuition, and health care. There are other gravity-defying areas but these three are the real killers. Wages are stagnant but the cost of housing, education, and health care can only go up and up and up. There's a cause and effect connection too. All that wealth at the top increasingly has nowhere to go. Stagnant wages resu…

Yes.

90% of money being held by a few people whose material needs are already satisfied does not create demand for products and services but mostly inflates stock prices and real estate and other "wealth storage" types of assets.

Money in the hands of the bottom 90% gets spent on things like new cars and shoes and going out to restaurants or getting haircuts. Providing these goods and services is what jobs are made out of.

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#14

Post by grondilu »

jcriddle4 wrote: post #8
anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

"Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off?". Well actually for a large number of people it is getting worse. Here is data on middle class losing ground: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middl... Here is data on life expediencies: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/50466760...

> Well actually for a large number of people it is getting worse.

Maybe, but that's not what was complained about in the original article. So OP's point stands.

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#15

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

> Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off?

That's the thing that many don't seem to realize, large swaths of the country _are_ worse off. There is a very large chunk of the population that has multiple wage earners and are still barely scraping by. Younger people are being required to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt to start a career that makes significantly less than it did 20 years ago. Job concentration has made it so that the only places with good job prospects are becoming prohibitively expensive to live in, mostly because of housing and rental costs. Medical expenses are ballooning out of control, goods like food and vehicles are getting more and more expensive, and nowadays there are new classes of bills that are basically required to make it in the world like cell phones and internet bills.

What makes all of this even more difficult is that there are pockets of the country that are still experiencing economic growth. The people in those areas have been insulated from the wider economic truth that quality of life is declining for much of the nation. This is part of why there were pockets of the country that voted strongly one way while the interior of the nation voted the exact opposite. And the fact that extremists on both sides were nearly elected(Sanders) should be a sign that it's not just the political right that is feeling pressured, but a large chunk of the country overall.

So yes, it is a problem that is threatening our social, political, and economic stability, and needs to be addressed.

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#16

Post by GoldDust »

anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

This chart may be difficult to read initially, but do you notice how almost all of the grey line is above the orange line?

That's because almost all the population in 1980 was experiencing 2%+ income growth. Now the only people experiencing that level of growth the top 2% of income earners.

The vast majority of the US is stagnating as far as wealth growth, this can only lead to catastrophe if maintained, in my opinion.

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#17

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

hammock wrote: post #10
lawless123 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off?" But then nothing ever changes? shouldn't things improve for everyone? Otherwise what is the point of a society?

>shouldn't things improve for everyone? Are they not? According to the chart, income growth is positive (things improving) for everyone but those below the 5th percentile.

The income growth for the lower percentages has been below inflation. Combined with the fact that the middle class is shrinking while the lower and upper classes are growing, it means that things aren't improving for many, but growing worse.

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#18

Post by monocasa »

maxxxxx wrote: post #11
anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

Because a society doesn't work well if only a few people receive the benefits of progress. The big strength of the western economies since the 50s that most people benefited from advances. If more and more people start to feel that their life stagnates the economy will stagnate too.

> If more and more people start to feel that their life stagnates the economy will stagnate too.

Or worse, they start pulling out the guns and guillotines.

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#19

Post by sokoloff »

api wrote: post #3
anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

It would be significantly less of a problem if it weren't for massive inflation in real estate, tuition, and health care. There are other gravity-defying areas but these three are the real killers. Wages are stagnant but the cost of housing, education, and health care can only go up and up and up. There's a cause and effect connection too. All that wealth at the top increasingly has nowhere to go. Stagnant wages resu…

> Wages are stagnant but the cost of housing, education, and health care can only go up and up and up.

Wages are not stagnant.

From the article: The news regarding the American middle class is not all bad. Although the middle class has not kept pace with upper-income households, its median income, adjusted for household size, has risen over the long haul, increasing 34% since 1970. That is not as strong as the 47% increase in income for upper-income households, though it is greater than the 28% increase among lower-income households.

Nominal wages are clearly increasing. The "wages are stagnant" argument is more valid only if you discuss real wages (backing out inflation), but then you can't reasonably (IMO) say "real wages are stagnant, but inflation is happening".

Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

#20

Post by gnaritas »

anovikov wrote: post #2

Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off? Growth should go to the people who make it possible - in 1960s it were highly qualified, unionized industrial plant workers. Now these are people like us. Not some imaginary predatory capitalists.

> Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off?

First, humans are animals with an innate sense of fairness, it's a problem because it's not fair, and when too many people feel things are too unfair, war results. So it's a problem because this shit is what starts wars.

> Growth should go to the people who make it possible

That would be the workers, those actually doing the work, and that's the problem, they're not getting the growth. The capitalists aren't doing the work, they're not where the increased productivity is coming from.

> Now these are people like us.

No group of people should be capture so much of the economic improvement we create by eliminating those other people's livelihoods.

Post reply on HN