Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think • Hacker News Board

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#131

Post by dandare » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:18 PM UTC

efuquen wrote: post #66

dandare wrote: post #4

The fact that someone is rich does not mean he took anything from you, no matter how poor you are. Statements like "If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets" are not only stupid but also dangerous.

I hate this type of argument because it completely circumvent the point. The point isn't that if you're rich that means you've stolen something from the poor. It's the belief that the way our civil society is organized is broken, and plenty of riots have occurred for that reason in the past. The idea is that increased concentrations of wealth to an increasingly smaller percentage of people leads to a less innovative…

Gosh, strawman is such popular word these days .. hey, at least look around you before you start speaking about what others believe. Here, right in this forum: "Unjust wages", "business is benefiting from work of others", "the filthy rich", "top 1% have made the rules to their favor", "economic output of the planet", "if they claim to own it then you can't freely use it anymore", "People don't get rich in a vacuum", "they get rich because of the thousand of workers in their offices and factories" ... these people are saying black on white that the rich stole something from them.

On the other hand this is the first I witness someone to cry strawman to pull a strawman, how creative!

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#132

Post by proveanegative » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #112

proveanegative wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[retracted due to a misleading argument from analogy]

you have a lot more work to do to establish that "the poor are not worse off in absolute terms". to conclude that you would have to take into account cost of living, inflation, quality of their (local, regional, and national) community, quality of their living situation, access to quality education, access to quality medical care, ability to meaningfully participant in civic life and governance, level of political pa…

You are right. I take back my comment.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#133

Post by Taek » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

You want the economy to be top heavy. You want the best people managing the most money, and you want them to have the strongest incentive for managing it correctly.

When you have 10 billion dollars in capital and you are trying to figure out what to do with it, you want the people managing that money to be top-notch, 0.1% or better. And you want to make sure they have an appropriate amount of personal stake in the game. It's not necessarily fair to the 99% that they aren't given similar opportunities to manage that much wealth, but it's what's healthiest for the economy.

It's also healthy to heavily emphasize education, and make sure every kid is brought to their full potential. It's downright unhealthy to have an intelligent human being caught in a poverty spiral.

My point is that the emphasis should not be on the fact that we are a top-heavy economy. A healthy economy is going to be top heavy, potentially extremely top heavy. The emphasis should be on the bottom, where people are getting completely bottlenecked by their own poverty. The question shouldn't be 'how can we redistribute wealth?'. The question should be 'how can we give every person a proper education' and 'how can we make sure poverty does not get in the way of a person's creativity and potential?'

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#134

Post by burntsushi » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #116

icebraining wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context was the differences in tax rates, not taxes as a whole. You can support the concept of taxation while considering the State takes more than it should from certain groups.

Taxes in the US are at the lowest levels since 1941 [1]. OP I replied to commented that the State was taking from them. Of course the State takes. It provides the framework you operate in that allows you to make that income. If anything, taxes should be much higher for a number we should agree on (whether that's $500K/year, $1MM/year, or $10MM/year is TBD). What group is the State taking "more than it should" from? […

> Of course the State takes.

Then you're agreeing with the commenter that you initially responded to!

> I would argue that the state is taking, not the rich

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#135

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #116

icebraining wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context was the differences in tax rates, not taxes as a whole. You can support the concept of taxation while considering the State takes more than it should from certain groups.

Taxes in the US are at the lowest levels since 1941 [1]. OP I replied to commented that the State was taking from them. Of course the State takes. It provides the framework you operate in that allows you to make that income. If anything, taxes should be much higher for a number we should agree on (whether that's $500K/year, $1MM/year, or $10MM/year is TBD). What group is the State taking "more than it should" from? […

[deleted]

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#136

Post by rhino369 » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:21 PM UTC

totalrobe wrote: post #57

snarfy wrote: post #25

The estate tax should be near 100%. We do not need dynasties. I don't mind people making the wealth, but they can't take it with them. It shouldn't just transfer to their children.

You haven't quite thought this out. Young parents die too, and children need to be provided for.

It is trivial to create exceptions to fix this. An up to 1-2 million dollar trust that reverts to the state after the minor turns 22 for example.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#137

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:24 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #47

fullwedgewhale wrote: post #11

The point of the article is that the meritocratic system in this country is broken. In part this is because we have systematically transferred wealth out of the bottom to the top. For example, focusing on tax cuts that benefit high income individuals while cutting support for public colleges. These two things are usually done at different times with tax cuts usually to stimulate the economy and spending cuts coming t…

Wealth transfer because of the tax code occurs all the time, every day. Yet some here I can guarantee would scream bloody murder if they lost their piece of that wealth transfer. Two of which are easy, the ACA and EV tax credits, both transfer wealth but in different ways. The first from the young and healthy who usually are at the beginning of their income generating years and hopefully their lowest pay in their car…

There are more EVs sold with an after-credits price under $25K than over $50K.

And there's an awful lot of people driving $25K new ICE cars, so I can't agree that the EV credit is mostly going to cars that are beyond the reach of average workers. (I also don't think that the average worker is financially well-advised to buy a new $25K car, but they're doing it in droves, so...)

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#138

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:31 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #87

300bps wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a difference between "anyone can become CEO" and "everyone will become CEO" I favor a system that guarantees equality of opportunity. I do not favor a system that guarantees equality of outcome.

Well, neither of those systems exist, so discussing the differences between them is kind of pointless. EDIT: See the response by cgearhart in a different thread for links to actual citations. Upvote that user's comment instead of mine.

Convenience link to the comment referenced:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9296654

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#139

Post by icebraining » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:31 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #116

icebraining wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context was the differences in tax rates, not taxes as a whole. You can support the concept of taxation while considering the State takes more than it should from certain groups.

Taxes in the US are at the lowest levels since 1941 [1]. OP I replied to commented that the State was taking from them. Of course the State takes. It provides the framework you operate in that allows you to make that income. If anything, taxes should be much higher for a number we should agree on (whether that's $500K/year, $1MM/year, or $10MM/year is TBD). What group is the State taking "more than it should" from? […

What group is the State taking "more than it should" from?

The poor, arguably (e.g. through regressive taxes).

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#140

Post by tormeh » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

mason240 wrote: post #54

tormeh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The allocation of money is about the same as the allocation of the economy's output. Someone's getting more out of it than others. If "him" disappearing from the economy would damage the economy more in dollars than he earns, then he's not taking your money. Otherwise he is. My guess is that the filthy rich add orders of magnitude less to the economy than they take out. Warren Buffet and Steve Jobs are probably excep…

This view seems to come from the mindset that the output of the economy is static and that there is a fixed amount of wealth.

I explicitly discussed the problem with a variable total economic output. Explicitly. RTFC.