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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

#181

Post by tempestn »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #145
merpnderp wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US redistributes enough money to the poor to make them richer than the UK, and likely many other wealthy nations in the world. It's not like the US is some Mad Max universe where the poor are forgotten and left without aid.

>The US redistributes enough money to the poor to make them richer than the UK Source? Also what do you mean richer than the UK?

I'm guessing parent means that the poor in the US are richer than the poor in the UK. (Not sure whether that would be in an absolute sense or relative to cost of living, nor have I verified it in either case.)

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

#182

Post by sytelus »

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

I think people are uncomfortable with the fact that despite of razor thin margins, multiple members of Walton family are in top 20 most wealthiest people on planet while majority of their workers lives on conditions that borderlines poverty. So somehow mass accumulation of wealth was possible at all but the top. Logically, this argument is weak because even if you redistribute all wealth from top, each employee would gain barely a one time payment of $10,000 just due to massive size of Walmart and would not significantly improve their condition over long term. So wealth re-distribution is not the cause of poverty of Walmart condition.

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

#183

Post by tempestn »

danieltillett wrote: post #170
yummyfajitas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As a non-member of the ultra rich all I can do is look in on the peeks they give us via the media. I am willing to admit that it is possible that they are exactly like you and me, but they certainly don't appear to be. In regards concrete claims the ultra rich appear to far more to the economic right than the average person. I am sure you are aware of this.

> In regards concrete claims the ultra rich appear to far more to the economic right than the average person.

Are you sure that's true? It may be, but there are certainly plenty of counter-examples. Gates and Buffett immediately come to mind, as well as presumably many of the people on this page: http://givingpledge.org/

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

#184

Post by vixen99 »

sytelus wrote: post #177
UK-AL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe in property rights? Having a legal/police system to catch people who forcebly take property? Using trade to exchange property? This is the core of our system. And that system will always generate inequality. Not necessarily a bad thing. You can have laws to take the edge off inequality generated, but at the core of the system you can't really avoid it.

If you truely believe in property rights, you will get in big trouble from philosophical point of view. For example, if you live in US then very likely you will need to surrender your property to last know Native Amarican owner :). In Saudi Arabia, the ancestors of Saud family declared entire country as their private property. The result was that when oil was found there in 1930s, about 2/3 of the income was used by…

But you choose to ignore the other extreme. I mean that of 100% abolition of property rights, i.e., a recipe for anarchy. Of course you can truly believe in property rights when they are set according to an evolved legal constitution. That's how human beings work to form a better society. There is no such thing as 'trouble from a philosophical point of view' unless one thinks that the space between ALL and NOTHING is blank.

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

#185

Post by tim333 »

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…

Maybe "rigged" is the wrong word but googling: "The 1976 top federal tax rate on regular income was 70% while the rate on capital gains was 39.9%"

Had they left things like that, present inequality would be much less. We don't live in a world of unregulated capitalism. We live in a world of regulated and taxed capitalism and the wealthy have modified those regulations and taxes in their favour.

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

#186

Post by sytelus »

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…

I think the intent here is political rule rigging such as capital gains taxes which leads to situation where middle class has higher tax rate than super rich. There is plenty of political purchasing goes on every day by big shots as Donnald Trump often reminds us (he obtained several permits with phone calls to politicians). Personally I don't think mom and pops shops died because of rigged rules. They simply can't compete with economies of scale and selection. That's just evolution and survival of the fittest.

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

#187

Post by zby »

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…

"Ending cronyism is fairly straight-forward" - I don't think so. Surely you can end one kind of cronyism by replacing it by another one - but it is practically impossible to have a system where those who are better off cannot use their resources for political ends. The bandaids is all there can be done.

And by the way it is also possible that democracy was only possible because of mass conscription - the state needed the masses so the masses got some share in power.

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

#189

Post by collyw »

merpnderp wrote: post #139
thatcat wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you didn't provide a capitalism death count to compare it to

The 100 million civilians murdered by communist/socialist governments is well documented. What are the numbers for capitalist governments murdering their civilians without even the semblance of a fair legal system?

Pinochet is the first person that comes to mind. He was capitalist wasn't he?

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

#190

Post by vonklaus »

thatcat wrote: post #112
vonklaus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Cable is being challenged. cable tv is being replaced by internet service through the same provider, with the fiber optic deployments being limited by legislation lobbied for by the original cable tv providers. >The monetary system is being challenged. Total BTC is about 4 billion usd, much smaller than most nations currency circulation.

i would have to disagree. SpaceX and OneWeb are making strides to do LEO satellite internet[0] and the successful recapture of the F9 rocket means that launch costs are going down. Couple that with the commoditization of cellphone hardware and there will be many distributed systems in space by 2020.

Google has bid on spectrum bandwith, don't have time to cite but Chris Sacca mentions it in basically every interview, just to keep Telecom players in check. They are an ISP now and have other holdings in the space.

Facebook is trying to bring internet to india.

People are building their own networks.

NYC announced it would put wifi in where phonebooths once stood.

> BTC marketcap is 4B

It has a cap of ~6.5[1] according to coinmarket. Obviously not a lot however the upside potential is large and there are many uses for the technology. Ethereum and Stellar are pretty awesome and Patrick Collison helming stripe might be keen to expand their BTC. So if stripe increases the infrastructure and people become more receptive it will become larger. I am not saying that it will replace u.s currency next year but obviously paper money isn't the currency of the future and clearly there needs to be oversite on how money is created. So something like BTC will obv win long term.

[0]http://www.wired.com/2015/06/elon-musk-space-x-satellite-int...

http://coinmarketcap.com

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