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U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

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Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#201

Post by Flavius »

opportune wrote: post #158
Flavius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "the lowest"? Percentage wise? Because I'm sure they pay millions or even billions in some cases. I agree that the rich might not pay the same percentage that you pay, but that's not even the real problem. The real problem is that we don't have equal opportunities. That gives the rich people a huge advantage when it comes to earning more money. We don't need to tax the rich more, that doesn't real…

As a percentage of their own income, of course. How does taxing the rich more not help you when you're poor? Those taxes could go towards funding for training and education, medical expenses, infrastructure, all of which would work towards creating more equal opportunities

It doesn't help you because the money don't go directly to you. They go to companies own by other rich people, companies that have contracts with the government. So you keep taxing the rich and they keep getting their money back.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#202

Post by imtringued »

throwaway1748 wrote: post #161
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A UBI is literally the purest form of redistribution of wealth. It takes money disproportionately from the rich and then gives it equally to everyone. There are only three classes of people who oppose it: 1) people who oppose all redistributive programs, 2) people who favor the centrally planned farce of the existing welfare system because it allows them to covertly insert corrupt industry-specific subsidies into the…

I don't think there are only 3 groups of people that oppose it. You can draw some nuance here. For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions. A "basic minimum job" might still be a re-distributive system, but with some nuance.

>For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions

Working as a teacher and having a second job to subsidise the first is considered purposeful. Working as a teacher and receiving the rest of the income as UBI is suddenly no longer purposeful?

The pro UBI argument is:

UBI removes the incentive for people to work at jobs they hate. It gives them negotiation power. If people are looking for purpose in their work then arguably not being restricted by financial considerations is allowing them to find purpose and be more happy. People get to decide what purpose means to them. I believe this is what women are doing in exchange for lower pay.

The anti UBI argument is:

Someone must force their own definition of purpose on them and if they weren't forced to work bad jobs they wouldn't have any purpose at all. They need someone that "thinks" for them because they are unable to "think" for themselves.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#203

Post by imtringued »

dzonga wrote: post #59

Those that are okay, with this are 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires' who don't have millions yet. Fact, remains only people that love capitalism are capitalists themselves. for the rest of us we're doomed, if we don't embrace BI, Unions and a massive welfare state. Also full 100% inheritance tax.

> Also full 100% inheritance tax.

Everytime I see this proposal it's of the "burning bridges" type. To ensure that everyone starts at the same crappy starting position. There are never any considerations what to actually use the tax revenue on. It's only intended purpose is to take away money from the "evil" rich parents. The justification is that the income is unearned but the flaw with this type of justification is that the parents clearly earned the money and paid taxes on it.

So far I haven't seen any proposals to redistribute the money to actually decrease inequality other than by making everyone equally poor. How about distributing that money back either in form of a UBI or some kind of trust fund that children can withdraw from at the age of 18. I haven't seen anything like that and therefore I'm against a 100% inheritance tax.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#204

Post by edanm »

evanlivingston wrote: post #127
hueving wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there has been a successful campaign to vilify the 1%. When you look at income levels, the 1% includes doctors, lawyers, lots of small business owners, and even many software engineers that got good stock grants in Silicon Valley. So picking 1% as the threshold was very ill-conceived because now it includes many expert professionals and small business owners. So it's very easy to relate to them if you are als…

er, small business owners making $800,000+ a year? I don't think that's very easy to relate to. Who is waging this campaign? I don't think is a campaign to vilify the 1% as much as it's an increased awareness by the 99% that no one needs to be making $800,000 a year. As people see home ownership being increasingly implausible, healthcare difficult to afford, fulfilling work unable to be found and less than $1000 in s…

People being upset is a poor sign that things are actually wrong, or that they could change.

I'm upset when natural disasters occur, but I don't blame anyone for them. I'm upset when it's too cold outside, but I don't blame anyone for that.

The problem is that, when it comes to the economy, people for some reason think that it's nothing like a force of nature - they (sometimes subconsciously) assume that if one person is rich, that means another person is poor. Or even, that if someone is rich, than that has something to do with whether she "deserves" it. That's close[1] to being as nonsensical as asking if someone "deserved" to die in a hurricane.

[1] I write "close", because this only applies in a good capitalist economy. There are of course ways to cheat, whether by directly stealing money from other people (in which case you'd go to jail in a well functioning society), or by changing the laws to benefit yourself (which is a subversion of the capitalist system, but it can happen. It's not what people are usually complaining about though).

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#205

Post by runamok »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #133
ryandrake wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old article but probably still relevant today: 39% of Americans think they either are (19%) or one day will be (20%) among the top 1% incomes [1]. You can’t get someone to oppose enriching the richest if that person thinks he’s one of them! 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hop...

That's because a surprisingly large fraction of them are right. At any given time a person is more likely to be a student, in an entry level position, or retired, than be at the height of their career. 39% in the top 1% is still an overestimate, but it's probably not far wrong to say that 39% of people will at some point in their lives be in the top 5% . The problem is with using "1%" as the threshold, because that j…

No source but I read an article that agreed with your idea. A surprisingly large percentage of people were in the upper income range (iirc it was top 5% or so) for at least one year though it could also be due to a windfall like inheritance, insurance claim, sale of a business, etc. On mobile but will try to add source later.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#206

Post by ryandrake »

runamok wrote: post #205
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because a surprisingly large fraction of them are right. At any given time a person is more likely to be a student, in an entry level position, or retired, than be at the height of their career. 39% in the top 1% is still an overestimate, but it's probably not far wrong to say that 39% of people will at some point in their lives be in the top 5% . The problem is with using "1%" as the threshold, because that j…

No source but I read an article that agreed with your idea. A surprisingly large percentage of people were in the upper income range (iirc it was top 5% or so) for at least one year though it could also be due to a windfall like inheritance, insurance claim, sale of a business, etc. On mobile but will try to add source later.

I suppose the question is open to interpretation. When asked, “will you one day be among the top 1%?” some people might think, one year out of my 70 on earth, I will sell my house for $400k and therefore for a brief moment be among the 1%, so I should answer Yes. I’d expect that most people think of “being among the top 1%” as a more persistent class change.

What’s most amusing to me are the 19% who think they are currently among the top 1%. That’s just math fail.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#207

Post by marnett »

eanzenberg wrote: post #164
marnett wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern day big-pharma would have shelved the polio vaccine in place of a daily pill one must take for the remainder of one's life.

Error, wrong, incorrect. Modern day big-pharma developed vaccines such as HPV. Current market forces incentivizes "best" treatment (heavily regulated of course as it should be). Don't spew false facts to try to push an agenda.

> Modern day big-pharma

the polio vaccine was released in 1955. My thought experiment literally cannot be "error, wrong, incorrect."

I'll solidify my thought experiment to Valeant. Valeant would have bought the polio vaccine, hiked the price, and reported significant growth in returns while the disease was not being eliminated.

Not to mention your assumption a pharma company created the first polio vaccine is false - it was developed at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with heavy backing by the U.S. government.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#208

Post by Consultant32452 »

icebraining wrote: post #198
Consultant32452 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you dump a bunch of people into the low end of income pool it's going to move the distribution curve.

And yet, despite massive immigration (from low income countries) for centuries, the US is one of the countries with highest salaries.

Sure, once the people here today have had a century of assimilation I suspect they will not impact the income distribution curve.

If you were happy with the income equality from a century ago, I'm willing to adopt the welfare and tax systems of that time so all the incentives are the same.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#209

Post by closeparen »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #126
closeparen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the “inequality” framing is that your victory condition is dragging everyone down into the crap systems. Engineering greater total suffering so that you don’t have to be indignant at others suffering less, is not exactly noble. We could end education and healthcare inequality today by shutting down all the good universities and banning all good health insurance. But that’s backwards.

>The problem with the “inequality” framing is that your victory condition is dragging everyone down into the crap systems. Yes but that's good. >Engineering greater total suffering so that you don’t have to be indignant at others suffering less, is not exactly noble. I actually think it would reduce total suffering, just that it's a short-term vs long-term thing. >We could end education and healthcare inequality toda…

If you have the electoral majority to drag down the wealthy, then you have the electoral majority to lift up the poor. Using public policy to compel support for other public policy is nonsensical unless the former has broader support.
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