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Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

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Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#151

Post by losvedir »

grecy wrote: post #44
rayiner wrote: post #10

Mr. Garret quotes Sanders: > The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire class has rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people of this country. I am rather puzzled that this idea gets so much traction. Does anyone really believe that if only the rules weren't "rigged" local shops and businesses would be able to compete against Wal-Mart a…

> Does anyone really believe that if only the rules weren't "rigged" local shops and businesses would be able to compete against Wal-Mart and Amazon? What would happen is that Wal-Mart and Amazon, et al. would pay their fair share of taxes, and the owners (or share holders) would not be multi-billionaires, only single-digit millionaires at most. The effect would be that every single person in the United States would…

> the owners (or share holders) would not be multi-billionaires, only single-digit millionaires at most.

Mmmm, I don't think your numbers add up...

There are 500 people in the US who have more than a billion dollars. If we made them all "single digit millionaires", we'd be looking at a one time wealth transfer of less than a $1T dollars, or about 25% of the US Federal Budget for one year. Sure, that would make for a good year, but then it's spent and we're back where we started...

I think you're dramatically overestimating how much private wealth there is in the hands of the upper echelon compared to how much the sorts of programs you want would cost.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#152

Post by gizi »

chimericray wrote: post #148
gizi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scriptural law, for example. Each religion enforces its own law. This solution may not be ideal in every possible respect, but to the extent that it puts a halt to the invention of new man-made laws, it will certainly mitigate the problem. Every man-made law represents a reduction in your freedom with the purpose of serving the interests of someone else. Therefore, I am in favour of any alternative solution that will…

Does any scripture cover traffic violations?

A consistent set of traffic rules is a mathematical problem. Mathematics emerges from the laws of nature. Traffic rules are a prime example of what would go totally wrong if you tried to solve it with typical man-made laws. Instead of giving priority to traffic coming from the right, we would end up giving priority to traffic of the members of the elite instead. In fact, that is what happens in many countries. Furthermore, in case of a traffic accident they always find man-made "legal" reasons why the elite is right and everybody else is wrong.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#153

Post by Terr_ »

rhino369 wrote: post #114
MrTonyD wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking to someone who has spent most of his life in the Fortune 50 - working with executives who routinely hide the bulk of their wealth from any accounting. These techniques have been widely discussed in the press (if you look). So I must assume that you have, for philosophical reasons, chosen to disbelieve that the rich hide their wealth. Edit: Not sure why I was downvoted. But I was in the room as we reass…

There is IRS accounting and GAAP accounting. You try to reduce profit for the former and maximize for the former. Off shoring subsidiary profit shaving is a fairly common practice for IRS accounting. But all the profit stays on the corporate parents books in one way or another (they own the subsidiary). The point isn't to make the executives rich, but to make the shareholders richer by avoiding taxes. Paying people i…

> The point isn't to make the executives rich, but to make the shareholders richer by avoiding taxes.

That's a distinction without a difference, since most of those executives' compensation comes through stocks.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#154

Post by jonathankoren »

codeismightier wrote: post #23
MrTonyD wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me years to realize that economics isn't physics - and it isn't ruled by physics-like laws. Instead, economics is governed by laws created by our society. And what we think of as "free market" is really just norms of trade which are created by our society. There is no reason why the bulk of the billions taken-in by WalMart should go to the Walton family while their employees live on food-stamps - that is just…

I don't understand the hate against Walmart. It only has a profit margin of 3.12% [1] and return on assets of 7.69%. Now I suppose you could argue that all the profits are hidden away somewhere, but that sounds like an unfalsifiable statement. It certainly would be illegal to hide assets from shareholders. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=WMT

Perhaps you should read up on it's labor practices. Two cases in point: They encourage their employees to sign up for food stamps, which results in a $6.2B government subsidy[1]. Also, the workers are intentionally paid so little (via only part-time employment) the company asks customers to donate food to their employees.

That company is scum.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-w... [2] http://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/20/wal-mart-defends-employee-foo...

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#155

Post by danieltillett »

merpnderp wrote: post #137
danieltillett wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are describing the upper middle income rich. The ultra rich are nothing like us in the main.

They use the same iPhone, have access to the same chemo, and watch the same movies. The only difference is they fly in private planes instead of commercial, drive high end Mercedes instead of Fords, live in mansions instead of apartments. But their HVAC cools just the same as my window unit, it's just quieter. Yeah, they have lots of things we don't. But the difference is smaller than between a rich person in 1915 an…

I think the life of the ultra rich is fundamentally different to the average middle income person in the same way that royalty lives a different life to a commoner. Sure we all breath, eat, sleep and procreate, but the differences in the concerns of the ultra rich and the rest of us is quite large.

A poor person today is richer in many ways to the rich of 1915 thanks to technological advance, but there still is a huge gap between the opportunities of the poor today and those of the ultra rich.

More fundamentally I just don’t think it is good for the ultra rich to live a life that is so different to the rest of society. These people have an enormous amount of power and it is not good for the rest of us if they live a life detached from the worries and concerns of us common folk. You just can’t make good decisions on the basis of bad information and if this is formed from the worries and concerns of your ultra rich friends and you then you are going to end up with a warped perspective of what life for most people.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#156

Post by iofj »

natrius wrote: post #79
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of social democracy, i.e. taking those ideas and not implementing them by being a murderous crazy dictator? It's working out just fine for the countries which are consistently ranked as the best to live in in the world. As opposed to the US, which is closer to third world status when it comes to things like low median wage, little to no maternity leave, expensive and poor healthcare system, school shoo…

I like social democracy. (I was just establishing the burden of proof, not taking a position.) I'm skeptical that America has enough social cohesion for such a thing to be fully implemented here. Literacy and median wages are fine for the white majority, so we've got most of the trappings of a social democracy for white America. Why would Americans use the state to benefit all people when Americans aren't even willin…

First thing that needs to happen to social cohesion in America is stopping focusing everything on race.

Yes, minimum wage affects different races differently. But so does everything else. And one thing I'm pretty sure about : the rich are pushing down minimum wage for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with race. Even if the people involved are racists, it still would have little to do with why this is happening. So race is absolutely not relevant to this discussion.

The way this works is that money is being used to make a subgroup of our society desperate enough to do whatever a number of rich folks want them to do, no questions asked. Nobody really cares who's in this subgroup, as long as it's not them and they're sufficiently desperate.

So can we please shut up about whether the amount of melanin in the upper epidermis of some subgroup of the poor is small, medium or large and start talking about the economics at work here ?

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#157

Post by natrius »

iofj wrote: post #156
natrius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like social democracy. (I was just establishing the burden of proof, not taking a position.) I'm skeptical that America has enough social cohesion for such a thing to be fully implemented here. Literacy and median wages are fine for the white majority, so we've got most of the trappings of a social democracy for white America. Why would Americans use the state to benefit all people when Americans aren't even willin…

First thing that needs to happen to social cohesion in America is stopping focusing everything on race. Yes, minimum wage affects different races differently. But so does everything else. And one thing I'm pretty sure about : the rich are pushing down minimum wage for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with race. Even if the people involved are racists, it still would have little to do with why this is happen…

The reason I mentioned race is because so many people around here want to ignore it. To ignore it is to ignore the reality that most Americans do not relate with minority groups. Bad news in a minority group is like bad news from the other side of the planet.

If your solution to a problem requires unity, you probably need to find another solution. America is not united.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#158

Post by yummyfajitas »

danieltillett wrote: post #155
merpnderp wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use the same iPhone, have access to the same chemo, and watch the same movies. The only difference is they fly in private planes instead of commercial, drive high end Mercedes instead of Fords, live in mansions instead of apartments. But their HVAC cools just the same as my window unit, it's just quieter. Yeah, they have lots of things we don't. But the difference is smaller than between a rich person in 1915 an…

I think the life of the ultra rich is fundamentally different to the average middle income person in the same way that royalty lives a different life to a commoner. Sure we all breath, eat, sleep and procreate, but the differences in the concerns of the ultra rich and the rest of us is quite large. A poor person today is richer in many ways to the rich of 1915 thanks to technological advance, but there still is a hug…

In what way is it different? You keep asserting this without making any concrete claims.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#159

Post by wutbrodo »

vonklaus wrote: post #91
cpursley wrote: post #68

If I could give away all my hn points and apply them as up-votes to this, I would. The op explains very succinctly the problem in this quote: > what is happening is that the ultra-wealthy are using their disposable income to buy political influence, then using that influence to get laws passed that allow them to collect rents. My primary beef with American politics is the "solutions" are always in the form of bandaid…

Interesting perspective. I wonder how much "cronyism" costs. It is a problem, but how big? Sort of the issue is that their is a systemic change taking place globally and it moves at a compounding rate. Most governments on a micro scale, are inefficient snd comprised of largely unaccountable people. They make (benevolent/naive view) decisions but are ill equipped with the skills to make the proper ones or (cynical) in…

> Luckily as PG notes there is a massive defragmentation

His essay is about a _re_-fragmentation, which is the opposite of a defragmentation. If this was just a typo, ignore me, but I wasn't sure if you had misunderstood the metaphor he was using.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#160

Post by tomp »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #143
afarrell wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious in what ways Monsanto is corrupt. Forgive me if this sounds like an obvious point, but I've seen too much GMOphobic noise around this to know where the signal is.

The problem with the GMO debate is hysterical people keep making unscientific objections to the general concept of gene modifications instead of specific objections to actual problems. Monsanto makes Roundup (glyphosate)-resistant crops. As far as anybody can tell the gene modifications have no inherently harmful effect on the resulting food. But then all the crops get sprayed with glyphosate and the food is contamin…

You're wrong at least 3 times in a single post.

Roundup doesn't contaminate plant products, because it's applied when the plant is still tiny. It does, however, contaminate rivers.

Farmers don't get sued by Monsanto because they accidentially get seed blown on their fields - that's practically legally impossible, given that Monsanto enforces its policies using licencing laws, not patent laws. If you disagree, please provide an example of such a lawsuit.

Monoculture is popular even without GMOs.

There are many things wrong with GMOs and surrounding industry, but what you list above are not problems, but lies.

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