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Why inequality persists in America

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Re: Why inequality persists in America

#21

Post by bryanlarsen »

tuna-piano wrote: post #6
yodsanklai wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this bad? Because they have more money that they can spend, while you an other human being is almost starving, and maybe can't access to education or healthcare. It's not only a matter of billionnaires. We can wonder if it is fair that we (most of us are middle-class of developed countries) live a life of opulence when others are struggling. It strikes me whenever I travel in less developed countries.

But is inequality the root issue or is poverty the root issue? If everyone in the world could afford 1 yacht, but 1% each had 1,000 yachts, that is mass inequality. But would that bother you?

It depends on how rivalrous the goods are. If everybody had enough money to buy a yacht, that would mean that the world had enough resources to create a yacht for everybody. However, the world could never have enough prime docking space for every yacht, nor would the world have enough people to crew every yacht.

Land, human labour and political influence are three of the most rivalrous goods, goods where the price goes up as fast (or faster) than the supply of money.

In a world with little poverty but vast inequality, everybody could afford TV's and video games; food would be expensive but affordable. Labour intensive services like education and health care would be unaffordable. Owning or renting a nice place would be unaffordable.

(I am not an economist)

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#22

Post by VLM »

tuna-piano wrote: post #6
yodsanklai wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this bad? Because they have more money that they can spend, while you an other human being is almost starving, and maybe can't access to education or healthcare. It's not only a matter of billionnaires. We can wonder if it is fair that we (most of us are middle-class of developed countries) live a life of opulence when others are struggling. It strikes me whenever I travel in less developed countries.

But is inequality the root issue or is poverty the root issue? If everyone in the world could afford 1 yacht, but 1% each had 1,000 yachts, that is mass inequality. But would that bother you?

The glorification and normalization of "lack of empathy" as a moral and ethical inherent good, is extremely disturbing to see.

The problem isn't unequal yachts, its when that same mindset is applied everywhere else in society, to political power, judicial protection, civil rights. "Why are you bothered by police gunning down unarmed black teen boys, you're not an unarmed black teen boy and the cops haven't done anything bad to you so far, you're getting enough justice its just that some small fraction get much less justice and thats OK because they're not you"

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#24

Post by tuna-piano »

onion2k wrote: post #14
tuna-piano wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is inequality the root issue or is poverty the root issue? If everyone in the world could afford 1 yacht, but 1% each had 1,000 yachts, that is mass inequality. But would that bother you?

For a luxury thing like a yacht it wouldn't bother anyone. When it happens to necessities like housing, food and healthcare then it's quite rational to be bothered.

Right, that is exactly my point. The fact that inequality exists doesn't bother most people, it's poverty (the lack of housing, food, healthcare...) that bothers people. Inequality is irrelevant to the core issue, poverty.

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#26

Post by icebraining »

mcherm wrote: post #16
b6 wrote: post #2

Sorry, I know I have some remedial reading to do on this subject -- I'm trying to fill in the gaps. One thing I never see in these articles is why the movement people are seeing in this indicator necessarily means that something bad is happening. Suppose I rake leaves for a living and only barely make enough to feed myself. Suppose technology allows someone else to succeed in ways that have not previously been possib…

> Why is this bad? That is an excellent question. Part of it comes down to the fundamentals of ethics. If I believe, for instance, that the bedrock of ethics is "do whatever is best for me" and I happen to be one of the rich folks, then this may not seem so bad. If I take as one of my basic ethical principles "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." then a high Gini index is patently unfa…

I just want to point out that when researchers repeated the experiment in other countries, the results varied a lot, with some countries having a rejection rate of 0%. See Cultural Differences in Ultimatum Game Experiments: http://www.econ.nagoya-cu.ac.jp/~yhamagu/ultimatum.pdf

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#27

Post by mycroft-holmes »

onion2k wrote: post #11
b6 wrote: post #2

Sorry, I know I have some remedial reading to do on this subject -- I'm trying to fill in the gaps. One thing I never see in these articles is why the movement people are seeing in this indicator necessarily means that something bad is happening. Suppose I rake leaves for a living and only barely make enough to feed myself. Suppose technology allows someone else to succeed in ways that have not previously been possib…

Having exceptionally wealthy people in a market puts an upward pricing pressure on goods that have a limited supply. For example, if two very rich people want the same house they can bid for it and one will win. That person who sold the house now has more to spend on their next house, so they pay more in turn, and so on down through the market. In theory that means everyone wins - with the notable exception of a pers…

But most people are not exceptionally wealthy.

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#28

Post by adaml_623 »

b6 wrote: post #2

Sorry, I know I have some remedial reading to do on this subject -- I'm trying to fill in the gaps. One thing I never see in these articles is why the movement people are seeing in this indicator necessarily means that something bad is happening. Suppose I rake leaves for a living and only barely make enough to feed myself. Suppose technology allows someone else to succeed in ways that have not previously been possib…

I look at the situation as, "If someone can work full time and 'barely make enough to feed' themselves then that system is bad". It might not be 100% bad but it certainly doesn't fit into the good category.

Should we legislate for a better economy even if we are taking money away from the rich? Well in some senses the rich are existing as part of the economy and part of our society. So if they choose to use our money then we can choose to take some of it back as tax.

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#29

Post by stevesearer »

twblalock wrote: post #9
stevesearer wrote: post #7

"The less representative the upper body of a national legislature, the greater the gap between the rich and the poor." Interestingly enough, one of the failed amendments to the Constitution was have each member of the House of Representatives represent a max of 50,000 citizens. [1] I've wondered whether this would be a good change to our modern system where some representatives have 1m+ constituents. I mean, how can…

If gerrymandering persists, the dysfunction of Congress will also persist, no matter how many members there are. Representatives have no incentives to behave responsibly under the current districting situation.

One of the intended consequences of increasing the number of members is that each one is more easily replaced if they do not accurately represent the views of the constituents.

My back of the envelope math gives the US 6400 member of the house at the current population which also has the effect of reducing each single member's importance.

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