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The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

johnkay.com

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Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#111

Post by mattmcknight »

saalweachter wrote: post #107
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to complain about 94% food security is something of a social miracle, in the grand arc of history.

Yeah, I'm not sure whether to say "only 85%[1]" or "a full 85%". Regardless, it's less than the 100% we should be aiming for. [1] Side quibble: 94% is capitalism + socialism; capitalism alone is only giving you 85%, and that's if you don't count minimum wage as non-capitalist.

charity isn't socialism.

"Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#112

Post by bsbechtel »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #108
bsbechtel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are opening up a whole other can of worms getting into labor. We tend to think of labor as a cost of production and something to be minimized. Maybe we need to start thinking of labor as a (actually, the main) party responsible for creating the value the firm produces for society. Anytime value is created, it can go to 4 parties - the consumer (lower prices), the government (taxes), the shareholders (through…

> Maybe we need to start thinking of labor as a (actually, the main) party responsible for creating the value the firm produces for society. Right. That's pretty much straight Marxist ideology. (I say this as a matter of fact, not as a matter of denigration per se.) Idea for you. It's a free country, relatively speaking. So if labor is truly primarily responsible for the value in something, perhaps you and a bunch of…

I actually run a painting company where we pay our employees roughly double the industry standard, and we're one of the (if not the) fastest growing painting companies in the state we are located. As owners, my business partner and I are investing every penny we can back into R&D and new technology to improve our efficiencies. Both provide value.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#113

Post by yummyfajitas »

specialist wrote: post #87
old-gregg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their disagreement stems from the difference in how they define "poor". Gates is certainly right (it just takes a bit of traveling to agree with him) that hungry-and-dying type of poor is rapidly disappearing all over the world. But if you look at living-hand-to-mouth poor, I can understand John's reasoning. Yes, average incomes (productivity) have gone up but you also see how prices on commodities are rapidl…

"Look at insane costs of healthcare/education in the US - no doubt caused, in part, by "free money" either through government-assisted programs or employer-sponsored insurance." Huh? Even with the modest ACA reforms implemented to date, the growth of healthcare costs has already slowed down. First time since the 90s. Medicare, which is most akin to single payer in other countries, is the most efficient guarantor (hig…

Medical loss ratio is a stupid metric. A simple way to increase it: reduce fraud protection. For example, suppose you reduce fraud protection by $1, resulting in an increase in undetected fraud by $2.

Medical loss ratio = (med cost + $2) / (admin cost - $1) will go up.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#114

Post by saalweachter »

mattmcknight wrote: post #111
saalweachter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm not sure whether to say "only 85%[1]" or "a full 85%". Regardless, it's less than the 100% we should be aiming for. [1] Side quibble: 94% is capitalism + socialism; capitalism alone is only giving you 85%, and that's if you don't count minimum wage as non-capitalist.

charity isn't socialism. "Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

"capitalism + redistribution of resources by the state", if you prefer. But I fear the American-English battle for the word "socialism" is lost.

While food banks are important, as nearly as I can tell most people aren't relying on private charity alone. (I wasn't able to find a number online, but the numbers I did find were that a boatload of people are relying on SNAP, and a huge fraction of the people on SNAP are also relying on food banks, and that number is roughly comparable to the number of people who visit food banks each year, so the number of people who visit food banks without relying on SNAP must be quite small.)

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#115

Post by specialist »

mattmcknight wrote: post #110
specialist wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Look at insane costs of healthcare/education in the US - no doubt caused, in part, by "free money" either through government-assisted programs or employer-sponsored insurance." Huh? Even with the modest ACA reforms implemented to date, the growth of healthcare costs has already slowed down. First time since the 90s. Medicare, which is most akin to single payer in other countries, is the most efficient guarantor (hig…

"Even with the modest ACA reforms implemented to date, the growth of healthcare costs has already slowed down." It's sort of hard to parse what you are saying, but the growth in spending (not costs) went down before the enacting of PPACA. This is likely due to the recession, and something of a counterpoint to those that claim healthcare is subject to inelastic demand. Having the highest medical loss ratio is not equi…

"Capitation is inferior to market pricing in many ways and not "required" to reduce costs."

Don't confuse markets with incentives.

"Another solution is to force providers to charge a single posted price to all consumers, instead of practicing price discrimination."

Not mutually exclusive.

"This achieves the purported benefit of single payer, while still allowing for people to choose how much they want to spend on medical services."

Until there's price collusion, an oligarchy, natural monopoly. In other words, the exact situation we had with the "free market". (The healthcare exchanges have introduced competition.)

"Tuition costs rose as subsidies increased."

What subsidies? State funding for higher ed has fallen thru the floor. Given the current trend, most public universities will be 100% tuition funded in a few years.

"you seem awfully sure of some counterfactuals"

You mean reality? I worked in healthcare and now higher ed. I'm reasonably sure I know the score.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#116

Post by kamaal »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #64
bsbechtel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Perhaps it's an inherent property of capitalism: some things always end up barely within reach of a lower class. I wouldn't say that's true, we just need to figure out ways to produce those things cheaply enough (through automation, other technologies) that everyone can enjoy them. Take a look at agriculture in the US...even the poorest people here have access to (not very healthy) food whereas just under 100 years…

> we just need to figure out ways to produce those things cheaply enough (through automation, other technologies) that everyone can enjoy them But, therein lies a paradox, right? I mean, when you seek to lower the cost of production through automation, technology, etc. you wind up displacing human workers, reducing labor demand, and putting downward pressure on wages. BTW, I'll add that lower wages are another signif…

>>But, therein lies a paradox, right? I mean, when you see..ay that companies reduce costs/prices.

There is hardly a paradox. Automation causes small term problems but great long term benefits. I won't go too far in history. But as early 1980's India saw massive protests and Nation wide bandhs to protest introduction of computers(and other automation) in the country. People just could not get themselves to accept that their jobs will be replaced by machines. But that event came to pass anyway. Many problems to people of that era in India, are even unknown to the youngsters in India now.

>>The net result is that profits increase, which benefits a relative few rich, while the quality of life for many is reduced or stagnant at best.

Again, I completely disagree. If you keep changing the definition of poor frequently then its nearly impossible to eradicate poverty ever. Poverty today is nothing like what it was even a century ago.

>> the world's wealth is accumulating to a very small number of people at an accelerating pace.

The world's wealth will always accumulate at places, professions and people which benefit from economies of scale. It doesn't matter which system of economics those people are in.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#117

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

quadrangle wrote: post #93
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #57

Inequality whining has already jumped the shark.

Because it's got nothing more to say and nothing relevant anymore? The "jumped the shark" reference is to absurd things after running out of ideas. It doesn't apply at all here. Non sequitur. Inequality whining is just getting started , given that we're on track for the problem to just get worse.

It never had anything to say, it never was relevant. These two facts are only now becoming obvious to more people, hence the shark jumping.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#118

Post by jacalata »

lmg643 wrote: post #17

Bill Gates would have to believe his efforts were worthwhile in order to keep himself motivated to try. He's essentially "all-in" on the Gates Foundation. His pronouncement on eliminating poverty is an aspiration he phrases as a "fact" and we are taken aback by the audacious claim, primarily because he's been wildly successful before, so hey, lightning might strike twice. What if? And why discourage him? It doesn't s…

In the US, it's becoming that anyone below the 33rd percentile is poor by that definition. So poverty is always with us in that frame of mind.

I think you are conflating the measures of Relative Poverty and the Supplemental Poverty Threshold [0]. Relative poverty is a measure of inequality and is explicitly labelled as such. The supplemental threshold is people whose entire income is less than the 33rd percentile of spending on necessities, and it is not intrinsically true that this group must always exist.

[0] http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental/...

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#119

Post by w1ntermute »

bsbechtel wrote: post #79
kiba wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, this "race-to-the-bottom" walmart-ization of our economy seems to be, in large part, responsible for the income disparity we see today. It does the poor no good if they can't even afford the cheapest good.

You guys are opening up a whole other can of worms getting into labor. We tend to think of labor as a cost of production and something to be minimized. Maybe we need to start thinking of labor as a (actually, the main) party responsible for creating the value the firm produces for society. Anytime value is created, it can go to 4 parties - the consumer (lower prices), the government (taxes), the shareholders (through…

> That means we have more people who can go work on things like curing cancer and colonizing space

Labor isn't 1-for-1 substitutable. You can't take a 50 y/o manual laborer with a high school education who's been displaced by robots and just turn him into a cancer researcher or rocket scientist.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#120

Post by mattmcknight »

specialist wrote: post #115
mattmcknight wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Even with the modest ACA reforms implemented to date, the growth of healthcare costs has already slowed down." It's sort of hard to parse what you are saying, but the growth in spending (not costs) went down before the enacting of PPACA. This is likely due to the recession, and something of a counterpoint to those that claim healthcare is subject to inelastic demand. Having the highest medical loss ratio is not equi…

"Capitation is inferior to market pricing in many ways and not "required" to reduce costs." Don't confuse markets with incentives. "Another solution is to force providers to charge a single posted price to all consumers, instead of practicing price discrimination." Not mutually exclusive. "This achieves the purported benefit of single payer, while still allowing for people to choose how much they want to spend on med…

>Don't confuse markets with incentives. I'm not confusing markets with incentives, I am suggesting that markets are the best known means of finding prices. Forcing capitation reduces the creation of new business models. The model already exists (in insurers like Kaiser that provide their own services), and can be chosen by consumers when appropriate.

>Not mutually exclusive. Didn't say they were, but you used the word "require", implying there is only one way.

>Until there's price collusion, an oligarchy, natural >monopoly. In other words, the exact situation we had with > the "free market"." The health care providers of the US do not consist of a monopoly and never have.

>(The healthcare exchanges have introduced competition.) No, they have reduced competition by declaring that you can only offer one of four products to consumers and by regulating the pricing. In many cases, the exchange features only one product.

>"What subsidies?" Loans and grants. State funding for private universities hasn't fallen through the floor, yet their tuition continues to rise.

The common thread is that subsidies on the consumer side (in higher ed, healthcare, and home ownership) increase demand and thus increase prices.

>>you seem awfully sure of some counterfactuals" >You mean reality? I worked in healthcare and now higher ed. >I'm reasonably sure I know the score." No, I mean counterfactuals, where you suppose how the world would be different if some set of things that didn't happen did happen. (e.g., if state subsidies for higher ed hadn't fallen over the past 10 years, private tuition costs wouldn't have risen faster than inflation for the past 30 years)

I didn't mean to make a personal comment there, I just tend to fixate on little things like when the confidence level seems to be overstated. Surely these things are rather complex, or they wouldn't be such difficult problems to solve.

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