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Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

paulgraham.com

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Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#111

Post by ThomPete »

chubot wrote: post #105
ThomPete wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic Inequality example. People in Harlem vs. People in Brooklyn. Extreme Economic inequality example. People working in Walmart for less than a working living v.s. the Walmart family or the Koch family.

What are you saying PG is confusing then? He is talking about economic inequality caused by technology. Are you saying that technology can't cause extreme economic inequality? Comparing a Wal-mart worker vs. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Paul Graham sounds like extreme economic inequality by your definition. I think you are missing exactly the point of the post, while accusing him of being confused.

No I am not missing exactly what he is saying. He is claiming that people are critiquing startups for creating unfair economic inequality, they are not. Most people have nothing against the inequality created by most startups.

However they do have something against someone like Uber or Wallmart or the Koch brothers.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#112

Post by chubot »

ThomPete wrote: post #111
chubot wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying PG is confusing then? He is talking about economic inequality caused by technology. Are you saying that technology can't cause extreme economic inequality? Comparing a Wal-mart worker vs. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Paul Graham sounds like extreme economic inequality by your definition. I think you are missing exactly the point of the post, while accusing him of being confused.

No I am not missing exactly what he is saying. He is claiming that people are critiquing startups for creating unfair economic inequality, they are not. Most people have nothing against the inequality created by most startups. However they do have something against someone like Uber or Wallmart or the Koch brothers.

You changed your criticism. First post:

"PG insist on confusing extreme economic inequality with normal economic inequality"

Last post:

"Most people have nothing against the inequality created by most startups"

His point was that startups can produce extreme income inequality (without the system being rigged). The whole point of his essay was to not lump all the causes of income inequality together.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#113

Post by vasilipupkin »

HSO wrote: post #103
spikels wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not arguing "categorically". You are simply misunderstanding. No strawman. Sorry.

Let me quote from http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html : > when I hear people saying that economic inequality is bad and should be eliminated, I feel rather like a wild animal overhearing a conversation between hunters. Nobody is arguing "inequality is bad and should be eliminated". People are arguing that inequality has increased too much and should be dialed back. The question is how (and what is a more reasonable l…

Yes, definitely a strawman. I am not aware of any mainstream politicians or economists proposing to eliminate inequality. Perhaps you can find an anarchist or a communist or two who are proposing that, but it's not on any agenda that has any policy relevance.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#114

Post by ThomPete »

chubot wrote: post #112
ThomPete wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I am not missing exactly what he is saying. He is claiming that people are critiquing startups for creating unfair economic inequality, they are not. Most people have nothing against the inequality created by most startups. However they do have something against someone like Uber or Wallmart or the Koch brothers.

You changed your criticism. First post: "PG insist on confusing extreme economic inequality with normal economic inequality" Last post: "Most people have nothing against the inequality created by most startups" His point was that startups can produce extreme income inequality (without the system being rigged). The whole point of his essay was to not lump all the causes of income inequality together.

I haven't changed anything I am just adding more context to what I mean.

PG believes that people are against the inequality startups create. They are not because most startups don't become family dynasties. Thats the point. Only PG is talking about startups. Thats not what people talk about when they critique economic inequality and that's what he doesn't seem to understand.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#115

Post by dawnbreez »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #77
dools wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody serious said inequality was bad or good Lots of very serious people say that inequality is bad: http://digitalcommons.bard.edu/hm_archive/333/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw&mid=5328 http://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2013/07/09/how-big-is-big... http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=11245 http://moslereconomics.com/2009/09/30/inequality-nothing-to-...

The issue is not static levels of inequality per se. The issue is why inequality should increase. If the 60%th percentile incomes grew 40%, then it is not clear why the bottom 20% percentile income also shouldn't grow 40%. The fact that it didn't is suboptimal and studying this phenomenon makes sense. That doesn't mean that every knee jerk attempt to fix this problem is good. Let me try to explain it like this. It is…

If possible, yes. But, barring a technological change that affects every single field of work in such a way that everyone is making more money, it is impossible.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#116

Post by chrispeel »

dools wrote: post #80
vasilipupkin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not static levels of inequality per se. The issue is why inequality should increase. If the 60%th percentile incomes grew 40%, then it is not clear why the bottom 20% percentile income also shouldn't grow 40%. The fact that it didn't is suboptimal and studying this phenomenon makes sense. That doesn't mean that every knee jerk attempt to fix this problem is good. Let me try to explain it like this. It is…

There is an acceptable level of income inequality, the same as there is an acceptable level of inflation. The determination of what that level of income inequality is, is a complex social analysis task. It's somewhat arbitrary (for example we currently view 3% as an acceptable level of inflation, but that could well be 10% if we wanted it to and we could still make society work). There isn't a single level of income…

this.

And the question is how do we get to that acceptable level. One option is a progressive income tax with a universal basic income, or (equivalently) having the progressive income turn negative at low incomes.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#117

Post by dools »

chrispeel wrote: post #116
dools wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an acceptable level of income inequality, the same as there is an acceptable level of inflation. The determination of what that level of income inequality is, is a complex social analysis task. It's somewhat arbitrary (for example we currently view 3% as an acceptable level of inflation, but that could well be 10% if we wanted it to and we could still make society work). There isn't a single level of income…

this. And the question is how do we get to that acceptable level. One option is a progressive income tax with a universal basic income, or (equivalently) having the progressive income turn negative at low incomes.

I'm more of the opinion that a broad based consumption tax with offsets given to people on a sliding scale would be more effective (after all, people are way less likely to refuse money than they are to try and get out of paying it ... ) This would cause a (once off) inflationary bump as wages adjusted to the price increase but this could be contained with effective fiscal policy.

Taxing consumption makes more sense since ideally we want less of it, but taxing income makes less sense because we want people to work more.

I like Randall Wray's idea of taxing the volume of people's houses, too[1] :) He also talks about abolishing all company and payroll taxes, because as soon as you let go of the notion that taxes pay for things, and that the role of taxation is actually to drive demand for currency and control aggregate demand/income inequality, your fiscal policy can get pretty wild.

It's funny how MMT can seem quite "conservative" at times because of things like abolishing company tax, but when you accept the basic tenets of MMT you can see that such things can be quite progressive (and good for society)!

[1] http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/06/tax-bads-goods.ht...

Re: Economic Inequality: The Simplified Version

#118

Post by [deleted] »

sly_foxx wrote: post #49

How about fixing dating/sexual inequality? You know, one guy sleeping with 15 girls is not fair to all the losers/ugly_guys like me who can't get a date. We have to redistribute partners and make sure that even the unattractive guys can get a date. We'll have to kidnap women who are into attractive/successful guys and then take them to losers like me. You think this is rape? It's not, just like taxes on goods are not…

[deleted]
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