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Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

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Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#271

Post by Vivtek »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #93
Vivtek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm pointing out that just owning land isn't enough. If you want to idealize the 1960's, no skin off my nose, although you're probably white and male. And you weren't alive in the 60's. The only reason to put "owning land" on a pedestal is because you can grow food on it. There's no other reason to care about land ownership. But you don't want to be a caveman and actually grub in the dirt - no, you want to be an…

I want land. I want to build my domain. I want to be master of my kingdom. I want to landscape it how I want. I want to pick which trees grow and which get cut. I want to slowly aquire/make the appliances I want. I want to build storage to house my wares. I want to have a machine shop. Honestly, for me, owning land gives me just another creative outlet. It's one more thing to 'Hack'. Do I line the driveway with sugar…

Well, OK, granted - I own my own home for exactly these reasons as well. But I bought my foreclosed home - bricks and mortar and 14 rooms and a carriage house - for $8000, in Richmond, Indiana, two years ago. I make my own freaking job online, which anybody here ought to be able to do.

The only reason to complain about the high cost of home ownership is if you think you must, must, must live right next to everybody else. Well, you can't. Not until you've gotten rich. But the rest of the planet is right here waiting for you to make it your own, and anybody who hangs out on this site should be more than capable of doing good deeds without hand-holding by all the cool kids.

In fact, if you want bricks and mortar in your cheap, cheap house, I heartily encourage you to adopt one of our antiques here in Richmond, Indiana. I'll help you pick one out and I'll even teach you how to mix mortar.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#272

Post by vannevar »

pg wrote: post #72
portman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality " Does that mean you are unfazed by growing inequality, and view it as an unavoidable byproduct of progress? Or do you believe economic inequality is a negative externality (like pollution) that needs to be remedied?

I don't automatically assume it's a problem, as so many people seem to. I don't assume that all economic inequality is the medieval type, where the rich are the winners of a zero sum game. At the high end of the scale it doesn't seem to be a problem. I've seen a lot of people go from middle class to rich when their startups succeeded. Most live pretty quietly. I would guess most of the damage done by economic inequal…

I would guess most of the damage done by economic inequality is at the low end.

Yes, I would imagine so. At least, up until the point the rioting and looting starts, followed closely by the guillotines.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#273

Post by _delirium »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #263
_delirium wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world can someone making $25k/yr (according to your graph of the 20th percentile) afford rent, cell phones, internet access, large screen tvs, dvrs, cars, refrigerators, dish and clothes washers, etc.? In most metropolitan areas just rent will eat up half of that, health insurance much of the rest, and a car all the rest. And don't even think about trying to buy a family with kids health insurance -- the aver…

This may sound trite, but it's easy if you stay single. When I graduated college (in the middle of the dot com bust), I made $30k at my first programming job. I lived in a cheap ($525/mo) apartment in Houston and drove a used car which was paid off. Not only was I able to live comfortably (see a movie, buy a cd or eat out whenever I felt like it), I was also able to pay off my student loans at an accelerated rate of…

I mostly agree, and I didn't feel particularly poor when I was a grad student making $24k/yr either. That was $24k with health insurance, though, which is probably another $5k value if I'd had to buy similar insurance privately. Also, I didn't have a big-screen TV, dishwasher, washing machine, or dvr, though I did have a cell phone, internet access, and refrigerator.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#274

Post by ianferrel »

kevinpet wrote: post #224
ianferrel wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't debt and income both denominated in $? What's the other unit?

One is in dollars, the other in dollars per time unit.

Ok, yes, that's true. But they're often compared directly. For countries, Debt-to-GDP ratio is a common statistic used to indicate the health of that country's economy/fiscal policy.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#275

Post by true_religion »

arethuza wrote: post #262
true_religion wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have growing inequity whilst at the same time having better non-monetary benefits for all. For example, in medieval times in Europe (and identically in sub-saharan africa), there was very low inequity. The ruling class did not own anything except the shirts off their backs. Their jewels were "crown jewels" and couldn't be sold. They had control of the land, but usually couldn't sell it between themselves. The…

"The ruling class did not own anything except the shirts off their backs." If they didn't own anything then why do their ancestors still own great chunks of places like the UK - where many members of the upper classes can trace their ancestries, and the lands they own, back to the Norman conquest? Life as a royal in medieval times was pretty tough, but largely because they were still expected to fight to maintain the…

Fair enough, they "owned" it but it wasn't a liquid asset. That much was what I was trying to get across.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#276

Post by Aylw »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #230
forensic wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dilemmas aren't false they just contain assumptions. Challenging assumptions is reasonable but don't assume that the presenter is unaware of their own assumptions. There are ALWAYS more assumptions available to be challenged. Plenty in your post for instance. Turtles (assumptions) all the way down. For instance, if the goal is to reduce poverty, you assume that it is mathematically possibly to take money from teac…

For instance, if the goal is to reduce poverty, you assume that it is mathematically possibly to take money from teachers. But if teachers are already on the brink of poverty, that won't work to reduce poverty. That's not an assumption, it's a simple fact. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=teacher+salary Teacher wages are not even close to poverty, and they get lots of non-wage compensation which costs real money (not to mention…

Did you check your link? It looks like the average salary for teachers is about average for America.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=income+inequality+in+america

That puts them well below the mark where they'd need to be to be to place in the top X% (10-30, depending on what study you use) that own 80% of American wealth. If you believe that shuffling around the remaining 20% will work, more power to you. But I'd have to disagree.

I will, however, agree that politically connected insiders mooching off the system is DEFINITELY an issue in the US. I would just point to Corporations and the Rich in place of Teachers on your list.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#278

Post by yummyfajitas »

Aylw wrote: post #276
yummyfajitas wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For instance, if the goal is to reduce poverty, you assume that it is mathematically possibly to take money from teachers. But if teachers are already on the brink of poverty, that won't work to reduce poverty. That's not an assumption, it's a simple fact. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=teacher+salary Teacher wages are not even close to poverty, and they get lots of non-wage compensation which costs real money (not to mention…

Did you check your link? It looks like the average salary for teachers is about average for America. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=income+inequality+in+america That puts them well below the mark where they'd need to be to be to place in the top X% (10-30, depending on what study you use) that own 80% of American wealth. If you believe that shuffling around the remaining 20% will work, more power to you. But I'd have to disagr…

I was responding to this claim: But if teachers are already on the brink of poverty, that won't work to reduce poverty.

The fact that teachers may receive average pay for below average work does not put them at the "brink of poverty".

As for finding the insiders, follow the money. Teachers and old people are some of the biggest recipients of government money.

http://usgovernmentspending.com/piechart_2009_US_total

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#279

Post by jeffdavis »

When looking at quintiles through time, remember that you aren't tracking people through time. That's because people move through the quintiles over time (how much, I don't know, but the groups are not static).

In other words, it could show simply a greater variance in income within individual lifetimes rather than a greater variance in income between people.

For instance, if people spend more time at school, but their incomes a few years after graduation are much higher, that would appear as a quintile disparity because they spent years in the bottom quintile (college and just after graduation), and then jumped into one of the top quintiles.

Similarly, as skills become more important, then (whether you go to college or not), you'll spend more time at low pay before your skill level matures, and then your income will rise rapidly.

Also, income is not wealth. Upper-middle class and rich people often spend a lot of time in the bottom quintile (unless they are so rich that they have a lot of passive income).

I'm not saying there isn't a problem. I don't have the data. But that particular measure is quite deceptive in my opinion.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#280

Post by gopi »

wanorris wrote: post #40
pg wrote: post #36

Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers. So the interesting question is not why economic inequality is increasing, but why for a few decades in the mid twentieth century the trend was reversed. There are probably several factors at work he…

Don't you think that the top tax bracket being slashed from over 70% to well below 50% had something to do with it as well?

You were confusing the top income tax rate with the effective tax rate. When the top income tax was 91% (from 1951-1964), the capital gain tax was 25%. So the effective tax rate paid by the rich was always the same, infact the rich pay more in tax today at the current top 35% rate than when it was 91%!
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