21–30 of 106 posts
"Most Americans would look at these charts and conclude that inequality is out of control. The president, on the other hand, seems to think that inequality isn’t big enough." Would nobody else reading this want some further information to back up this statement? Its a shame it wasn't nearer the beginning of the article as I could have stopped reading earlier.
It's an interesting question. Most of peoples incomes are rising, it's just whose incomes are rising more than others. Is that still fair?
Economists don't generally buy the buy idea that you can make some people better off without making others worse off. In short, if all the gains happen for one group, even if the other group isn't directly losing money, their purchasing power will be eroded by the rich. And I'll add that this sort of thing keeps stacking up, because as the rich continue to be able to buy up things like land at a higher rate than the…
Which economists? Economists generally support freer trade, more open borders and the like because they see trade as fundamentally not a zero sum game: if two parties are willing to make an exchange, it must be because the exchange somehow makes them better off than they would be without it. All of developmental economics is built on this: it's why the majority of the world's population enjoy an incredibly greater standard of living than they did 100 years ago. Everyone is better off.
Which is not to say there aren't situations where economists recognise trade-offs. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_price_equalization: a commonly accepted economic theory that proposes that international trade between poorer and richer countries will make unskilled wages in the poorer countries higher and in the richer countries lower.
It's an interesting question. Most of peoples incomes are rising, it's just whose incomes are rising more than others. Is that still fair?
Personally, I think it is blatantly unfair. It's like if we had a big bad of skittles and every time I took 1 skittle, you took 10 skittles.
It's an interesting question. Most of peoples incomes are rising, it's just whose incomes are rising more than others. Is that still fair?
Personally, I think it is blatantly unfair. It's like if we had a big bad of skittles and every time I took 1 skittle, you took 10 skittles.
It looks to me that QE3 was a huge part of that later uptick. its no surprise to me that if you juice the markets and inflate asset prices (mostly stock), that the richest benefit most. what was surprising to me is how bad actually making stuff did. I understand that juicing the markets might not benefit that, but it seemed as though QE3 actually hurt producing tangible things.
Also, something seems off. The animated chart is not data for a given year, it's for the last 34 year ending in that year. Since you're averaging growth over 34 years, the only way the top percentile can go from 3% growth (over 34 years) to 5% is if you average in really huge growth.
Also, the 34 year measurement makes me suspicious. Seems like an odd time period to capture. Maybe if you made it 30 or 40 years the data isn't quite so compelling?
If everyone gets 2x as much tomorrow as today, income inequality rises. Ask people if they would support everyone getting 2x their income tomorrow.
wait, wouldn't scaling income by a constant multiple be the same as not changing anything? Your income and expenses are both doubled. this would just kill the bank accounts of anyone holding cash.
It's an interesting question. Most of peoples incomes are rising, it's just whose incomes are rising more than others. Is that still fair?
No, it's not fair. If you're an anarcho-capitalist, "what is this minimum wage thing?," if you're a communist "seize the means of production!"
I thought eliminating the minimum wage was a common sense libertarian ideal. Google Economist Walter Williams!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I think it is blatantly unfair. It's like if we had a big bad of skittles and every time I took 1 skittle, you took 10 skittles.
More like, if we had a big patch of strawberries and every day I picked 100 and you picked 1000, why should I get to take yours?
It looks to me that QE3 was a huge part of that later uptick. its no surprise to me that if you juice the markets and inflate asset prices (mostly stock), that the richest benefit most. what was surprising to me is how bad actually making stuff did. I understand that juicing the markets might not benefit that, but it seemed as though QE3 actually hurt producing tangible things.
Exactly. The distributions looks reasonable until ~2008, when things go wonky. That coincides quite nicely with the bottom of the equities market and the subsequent bull run. Also, something seems off. The animated chart is not data for a given year, it's for the last 34 year ending in that year. Since you're averaging growth over 34 years, the only way the top percentile can go from 3% growth (over 34 years) to 5% i…
> (The economists used 34-year windows to stay consistent with their original chart, which covered 1980 through 2014.)
In other words, why graph income and not wealth?