Economists Are Rethinking the Numbers on Inequality

Post by darawk » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 11:25 PM UTC

likpok wrote: post #269

darawk wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relationship is causal. Married couples are a household. Married couples consist of two people. Two people is more than one person. Two incomes is more than one income, etc. Even though all married households are not dual income, those that are shift up the mean for the rest. This is an artifact of measurement via 'household'.

You've missed rayiner's argument, which is that the household income is more than the sum of the median man and the median woman. That is: two married people make more than two single people. There are a number of arguments you could make as to why (for example: married people tend older and so are farther in their careers), but it's not just "married households have two incomes and single households have one".

Post by vernie » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 11:35 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #148

jimbokun wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the rich get richer but the middle class has a better quality of life than what the rich had 200 years ago So no changes are called for until quality of life is literally as bad as it was 200 years ago? In more recent times, quality of life and economic metrics are flat or down in the USA, at least. Life expectancy has gone down multiple years in a row now, for example.

> Life expectancy has gone down multiple years in a row now, for example It's been established that the cause of this, in America, is opioids and obesity, none of which are the fault of billionaires, broadly.

Post by harryh » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 11:38 PM UTC

shajhansbx wrote: post #232

harryh wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property taxes are not wealth taxes, they are consumption taxes. You can easily tell this because a person who owns a home outright pays the same tax as someone who owns a similar home but has a large mortgage. These two people have different levels of wealth but pay the same tax. This is because their consumption is the same.

Hmm, I wonder if this is the first good argument for the mortgage interest deduction.

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 11:43 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #276

vernie wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those poor Sacklers...

Hence my usage of the phrase “billionaires, broadly”. Nobody is denying that the Sacklers are culpable for opioids, but what about Buffett, Bezos, Brin, Jay-Z, and Jerry Seinfeld? They’re all “billionaires” too, and it would be foolish to blame them m for obesity and opioids, and in turn, the falling average life expectancy.

Post by tootahe45 » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 11:55 PM UTC

ranie93 wrote: post #205

bhupy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this line of thinking is 1) The amount of wealth held by ultra-billionaires isn't nearly enough to solve our poverty problems. If you seized literally all of the wealth of the the entire Forbes 400, it would fund the US federal government for 8 months. 2) Wealth is illiquid, and if one were to seize it, you can only seize it once. It isn't an ongoing stream unlike, say, income. So to amend the last s…

Without checking the figures, I can agree with the idea that a one-time seizement wouldn't assuage much. Certainly Bill Gates and his endeavors have created immense value for many. None of these points are being contested or purported in the "line of thinking" you mention (the letter I linked I assume?)