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Average Is Over

nytimes.com

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Re: Average Is Over

#221

Post by mason55 »

ajkessler wrote: post #152
mason55 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not salary disparity though, as it isn't a problem in the first place. Salary disparity is very much a social problem. Crime is correlated much more highly to income disparity than it is to income. Even poor-on-poor crime is correlated to overall societal disparity, it's not just rich people getting mugged and secretaries embezzling funds.

How do you explain some of the highest income disparity in the last century with the lowest crime rates, well, pretty much ever?

Search "income inequality crime rates" and there are lots of scholarly articles out there discussing it.

Starting with Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality

Daly et al. 2001.[49] found that among U.S States and Canadian Provinces there is a tenfold difference in homicide rates related to inequality.

Re: Average Is Over

#222

Post by roc »

ajkessler wrote: post #189
roc wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the correlation between income disparity and crime rates remains despite a net drop in crime, how is that a refutation of inequality of disparity as a component to crime? Wouldn't a larger drop in crime in more-equal countries than less-equal countries only re-affirm that though there are clearly other factors involved, inequality is still a component? I don't actually know the numbers but I'd think it would be pr…

Sure. But since income disparity has soared in the last 40 years and crime rates have plummeted, even if they have plummeted everywhere, this indicates that inequality, if it has any effect at all, is likely pretty minor. I think this would be near impossible to test for though. So many factors affect crime rates across difference societies, and different societies experience wildly different types of income disparit…

> "since income disparity has soared in the last 40 years and crime rates have plummeted, even if they have plummeted everywhere, this indicates that inequality, if it has any effect at all, is likely pretty minor."

The big problem with a simple comparison of the plot of inequality and the plot of crime, is that inequality and crime aren't evenly spread across demographics. The young are disproportionately on the losing end of inequality and the perpetrating end of crime. (Regardless of how poor they are and how rich their neighbors, the elderly simply can't flip a car anymore.)

If you had, say, a bulge in the poor demographic around 1970 and expected crime to increase with a rise in inequality, you would expect to see the spike in crime from 1970 to 1990 and you would expect to see it subside as that bulge grew older and transitioned out of the age groups that perpetrate crime.

So, again, we cannot trivially rule out inequality as minor just because a simple plot of crime rates and a simple plot of inequality do not suggest a straightforward correlation.

Re: Average Is Over

#223

Post by spinchange »

funkah wrote: post #159
MaggieL wrote: post #101

When a liberal talks about how somebody "should have access to" something, hang on to your wallet. Because you will pay for it.

Do people seriously consider this guy a liberal? He spent most of the 2000s talking about how awesome globalization is and how the free market was gonna fix everything.

Also, the Iraq war.

Re: Average Is Over

#224

Post by anamax »

batista wrote: post #207
anamax wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When one person has the money of hundreds or thousands of others, they can wield significant power over them. Oh really? What is that power? The power to get govt to things on their behalf? There's your problem. Note that organizations also have power. Why should I be any happier when the AARP influences govt than Larry Page?

Oh really? What is that power? The power to get govt to things on their behalf? There's your problem No. That's one of the problems (others: cartels, influencing public opinion with your media, having people or ideas killed, using his money to buy influence with people, etc). And you seem naive enough to think that somehow we could do with him not getting govt to do things on his behalf. Maybe by reducing or eliminat…

>> Oh really? What is that power? The power to get govt to things on their behalf? There's your problem

> No. That's one of the problems (others: cartels, influencing public opinion with your media, having people or ideas killed

Having people killed is pretty much a govt thing.

Larry can't buy everyone, and gets no benefit from trying. Govt, on the other hand, does both.

> (2) government = the ONLY power that is elected and somewhat controlled by the general public and its will.

You seem to think that that's a feature. It isn't - it's a huge bug. I have no interest in being "controlled by the general public and it's will".

> And you seem naive enough to think that somehow we could do with him not getting govt to do things on his behalf.

If govt has power, it will act in his behalf, no matter how much you'd like otherwise. Since I don't want govt to act in his behalf....

Re: Average Is Over

#225

Post by mindcrime »

wladimir wrote: post #51
mindcrime wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still haven't seen any convincing argument that socialism is going to result in anything besides "trickle up poverty." How that's supposed to be better than what we have now remains a mystery to me. I'm also unconvinced that the basic premise of this entire discussion (that technology is going to completely obviate the need for human labor) is sound. Alarmists have been crying this out since at least the Luddites[1…

Alarmists have been crying this out since at least the Luddites[1] and it hasn't come true yet It hasn't come true yet . That doesn't prove or disprove anything. Either they were far ahead of their time, or it will never happen. That's not sure yet, and that depends on what people do today.

Either they were far ahead of their time, or it will never happen. That's not sure yet, and that depends on what people do today.

The more I think about this, the more I'm thinking that the Luddites and other alarmists might have been right AND that things might not come to the worst imaginable "post human labor" dystopia. Like you said, "it depends on what people do today." And that's been true all along.

I don't believe the future is set in stone... so the question is, what do we need to do now, that is both more and just and respects individual freedom, while also trying to guide us away from a future where most humans can't find gainful employment, and wind up living some sub-human lifestyle, disconnected from the rest of world.

One thing that history has demonstrated, is that technological innovation tends to create new jobs to replace the jobs it destroys. This process is part of what Schumpeter[1], referred to as "Creative Destruction"[2]. One open question, then, is whether or not this process will continue indefinitely, or if there's a "top" where no new jobs are created to replace the old ones.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

I don't claim to have the answer to this (I doubt anybody does, actually) but it's definitely an area worth spending some time and thought on. Being a technologist and entrepreneur, I find the idea that innovation and technological progress might ultimately prove to be a Bad Thing a bit discomforting.

Re: Average Is Over

#226

Post by astine »

rayiner wrote: post #218
astine wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like arguing we shouldn't oppose Internet censorship because censorship is just a kind of regulation and other regulations make the Internet possible. Besides it's totally possible for billionaires to exist without a state or regulations. It's just that they would look more like feudal lords than the relatively benign fellows we have today. So it is a matter of limitations in the legal framework. It's just an…

Feudal lords were the state. They created and enforced laws, in a form that is quite recognizable to us today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta (this is an 800 year old document created in feudal England). Our system of property law can be recognizably traced back to laws of feudal England more than a thousand years old. What you're thinking of is more along the lines of a warlord in a stateless place. Such a…

My point is, in a stateless society, the rich and power become the state. If they have good sense, they will encourage order and economic growth but they will be the wealthiest members of their respective societies and above any laws they make.

You're right however in pointing out that in current society wealthy people depend on the state and so must support it, somehow. I just find your logic confused.

Re: Average Is Over

#227

Post by jpadkins »

_delirium wrote: post #68
yummyfajitas wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 10th-percentile household income in the U.S. is around $12,000. If that's all you had to live on... It's not all you have to live on. People in these income ranges tend to have consumption of $18-22k. ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2009/income.txt The missing piece of the puzzle is that a lot of people in these income ranges receive many benefits which do not qualify as income.

That's what the first part of my reply is, isn't it? EITC, Section 8 housing, food stamps, Medicaid, etc., are where the extra money comes from. Which I agree is a good thing, and what makes it at all possible to claim that the 10th-percentile income is one that's possible to live on. But I don't think those programs are very secure (they've been significantly cut, many are hard to get into now if you weren't already…

Umm all of those programs budgets grow year over year every year.. Some of them spiking in recent years.

Cuts from future growth rates are not cuts, they just slowed growth of a program..

You might be able to paint a picture of cuts per capita, but that is due to immigration driven population growth, not cuts to the program.

Re: Average Is Over

#228

Post by gyardley »

sethg wrote: post #198
gyardley wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a completely wingnut idea. I first bumped into it in Hayek, who was in favor of it and not much of a socialist. The rationale works like this - given that some less-fortunate members of society will need assistance at some point in their life, and given that 'conservative' != 'asshole' and we don't want to just let them die in the street, we have to provide some form of limited welfare state. Since we have t…

My cynical opinion is that most voters would rather have their poor neighbors go through an intrusive welfare system than simply receive checks, even if the simpler system would be cheaper. There’s a perverse sort of transaction going on: you receive welfare in exchange for abasing yourself in front of a bureaucrat, acknowledging that the bureaucrat has the right to decide whether or not you belong to The Deserving P…

Maybe.

One of the reasons I'd ideally like (in that magic fairy land we can't get to from here) small, cohesive, homogenous communities to be the ones that take care of each other, instead of relying on some sort of centralized authority, is because it allows the community to set standards for morality and behavior - not just for the poor but for everyone. When you're dependent on a group, you're accountable to that group, and often held to a higher standard than you might hold yourself as an individual.

Wanting a bureaucrat to evaluate and judge welfare recipients worthy or unworthy is probably just that same desire for accountability - if you're drawing down the resources of a broader, nationwide group, you should somehow be held accountable to that group.

This isn't a bad instinct to have, but it's impossible to implement at the inhuman scale of federal and state governments - the welfare recipient doesn't feel particularly accountable to the abstract community of 'America as a whole', and 'America as a whole' has no shared standard to hold the individual to. So instead we get Byzantine shaming rituals that just waste everyone's time and money.

I was hoping the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives could lead to some interesting changes here, but unfortunately that's largely gone nowhere.

Re: Average Is Over

#229

Post by jpadkins »

batista wrote: post #200
lukeschlather wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unsafe, low-pay factory jobs will probably be replaced by robots before that happens. There are already a lot of cases for which Chinese workers are more economical than robots - but robots are more economical than low-pay Americans.

There's the problem of who will buy the robot-produced goods (and fund the robot factories), when the large masses earn shit because of being replaced by robots. Henry Ford had a lot to say on this very matter of paying employees well in general.

when goods are produced by robots, goods will be so cheap that people with low wages will be able to purchase those goods. The higher the productivity of economy, the less people have to work.

increased productivity helps all of mankind. At infinite productivity, nobody has to work anymore...

Re: Average Is Over

#230

Post by jpadkins »

orky56 wrote: post #204
adamgravitis wrote: post #63

The author's sudden and poorly supported conclusion doesn't really fit. Because people with bachelor's degrees have the least unemployment, it is imperative we pass a GI Bill to ensure everyone gets a bachelor's degree?! He's getting the causality wrong. It's not because they have bachelor's degrees that they're getting jobs. They're getting jobs because they're (minimally) bright and (minimally) ambitious. Printing…

Although your argument is perfectly valid, one should not underestimate the value of the Bachelor's degree as just a piece of paper. I'm not trying to be facetious but a lot of employers filter, and sometimes hire, applicants based on their education level. In these cases, some employers assume these people have the skills. The important point here is that skills can be acquired in post-secondary education or on your…

if 95% of the population have a BS/BA, then it no longer serves as a filter... Business will find a new filter.

Also if 95% have a BS/BA, then you no longer have negotiating power for your higher wages...

Giving everyone 4 more years of education will certainly benefit society, but it doesn't solve the inequality problem.

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