An Idiot's Guide to Inequality • Hacker News Board

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#31

Post by Paradigma11 » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 5:08 AM UTC

eamsen wrote: post #4

"Oxfam estimates that the richest 85 people in the world own half of all wealth." This is not what Oxfam's estimates say, it contradicts them. Here is the original quote: "The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world."

This statistic is completely inflammatory and bullshit anyway.

Why?

It uses netto worth so for example academics with student loans and good social security or the bancrupt industrial tycoon are worse off than the indian farmer with his small farm.

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#32

Post by MaysonL » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 5:28 AM UTC

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #18

In discussions like this the numbers matter. To quote Heinlein, “What are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"(1) Piketty's book suffers from poor numbers and bad maths, making his conclusions useless. If he is right, he needs to support it with sound numbers. Chris Giles in The Financial Times found his numbers wanting. (2) In…

Of course, there have been quite a few criticisms of Mr. Giles's analysis of Piketty. It seems to have been substantially worse (my opinion) than Piketty's errors.

See [1],"FT journalist accused of serious errors in Thomas Piketty takedown", [2] "Have Giles and the FT gone too far in the attack on Piketty?" (where the answer is "..On most points, Piketty has answered the points in a reasonable (and to me generally persuasive) way.", and [3] Piketty's response to Giles.

1) http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/may/...

2) http://www.primeeconomics.org/?p=2723

3) http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014Tec...

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#33

Post by msandford » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 5:41 AM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

crdoconnor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being poor renders it very difficult to think long term as the survival instinct kicks in. If you have to constantly worry about whether you can put food on the table and pay the electric bill tomorrow, you simply stop thinking about what happens next month. This instinct kicks in on such a low cognitive level that it's almost impossible to suppress. This makes it very easy to leech profits from the underclasses thro…

You are conflating cause and effect. Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term but the lack of discipline required to make good short term choices has the effect of keeping you in poverty over the long term. A pattern of good short term choices tends to lead to getting out of poverty whether one is thinking long term or not. I lived a significant portion of my life in pretty severe poverty; I was…

I wonder how many people here criticizing you for saying you were able to work your way out of being poor loved the "A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of Y-intercept" article and can't see the parallels.

Yes I'm aware that there are feedback loops that make it much easier to say poor than to claw your way out. I have suffered them to a very minor degree. But from a systems perspective being poor is simply spending all the money you get and not saving any of it. It's not that we can't identify the problem; it's that people lack the awareness or education and potentially the will to make the changes necessary to not be poor. Poor is less about your income and more about the decisions that you make every day to spend all of it, at least in my experience. I know people making $40k who save a lot and are very peaceful and people making $150k living paycheck to paycheck and struggling financially and mentally.

I think one of the contributing factors is the low interest rates right now. If you're poor and struggling anything given up today is a BIG deal so you need a LOT more in a year to convince yourself that it's worth it. At 1% interest it's basically never worth it, but at 10% it might be.

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#34

Post by msandford » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 5:46 AM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #25

jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating cause and effect. Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term but the lack of discipline required to make good short term choices has the effect of keeping you in poverty over the long term. A pattern of good short term choices tends to lead to getting out of poverty whether one is thinking long term or not. I lived a significant portion of my life in pretty severe poverty; I was…

>Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term >I lived a significant portion of my life in pretty severe poverty My experience suggests the opposite. Much like the study. The fact that you suggested that it takes discipline , to me, also suggests that you felt the same uphill struggle to be able to do forward planning. It takes no discipline for me to do forward planning these days. It's easy to focu…

It's not that it's terribly difficult to think long term.

The problem is that any kind of plan which has a reasonable chance of building up some savings and giving you some financial stability involves sacrifice now, probably to a very painful degree.

In my view it's not the thinking that's the trouble but the execution. It's hard to not spend all your money full stop. Having less money means that any savings involves greater sacrifice.

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#35

Post by onetimeusename » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 5:46 AM UTC

One thing I have wondered is if income inequality is demonstrably bad. If you read closely the author says that our economy grew quicker post WW2 when income was more evenly distributed but that is not conclusive. The author also says income inequality is bad but the only evidence given for this is that the gini coefficient of US is approaching some banana republics and S. American countries. I personally don't believe income inequality in those countries is the cause of adverse conditions but an effect of it, particularly corruption. The author says that at a certain point the money is used to buy luxury goods in some sort of "arms race" of the rich but I really don't care what the rich do with their money.

I do agree that using the word inequality is worse than using opportunity. I also firmly believe corruption should be ended but I still have not seen a strong argument for why income inequality is bad and I think from a probabilistic perspective, net worth of the wealthy would increase over time so who is to say it isn't a natural process?

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#36

Post by wpietri » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 6:48 AM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

crdoconnor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being poor renders it very difficult to think long term as the survival instinct kicks in. If you have to constantly worry about whether you can put food on the table and pay the electric bill tomorrow, you simply stop thinking about what happens next month. This instinct kicks in on such a low cognitive level that it's almost impossible to suppress. This makes it very easy to leech profits from the underclasses thro…

You are conflating cause and effect. Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term but the lack of discipline required to make good short term choices has the effect of keeping you in poverty over the long term. A pattern of good short term choices tends to lead to getting out of poverty whether one is thinking long term or not. I lived a significant portion of my life in pretty severe poverty; I was…

> Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term

Citation needed. There's a fair bit of evidence otherwise. E.g.: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-having-little-means-much-eboo...

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#37

Post by Daishiman » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 6:58 AM UTC

webXL wrote: post #29

Daishiman wrote: post #2

It's amazing to me just how well some political factions in the US have indoctrinated the public to believe that the defense of the common good is some sort of threat to American values, which include, in theory the support and participation in your community. It's gotten to the point where not even poor people are willing to listen or support many of the policies that promote their well being while not being a signi…

I only know about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and e pluribus unum. Perhaps I'm indoctrinated, but are you sure you are free of indoctrination? The poor aren't supporting policies that promote their well-being? Without evidence, that straw man is pretty easy to knock down.

Do I really have to go through the motions? I'll bite:

- The US is, among the developed nations, the one with the highest income inequality, and growing - Unlike practically all wealthier and a remarkable number of poorer countries, the US has no social safeguard for people in case of medical emergencies. People die from not being able to pay medical procedures. And this is objectively a bad thing, from every possible metric. - The inequality in education among the rich and poor impedes social mobility, again in a manner unheard of in many places. - Countries who have succeeded or are succeeding in closing the inequality gap do so through a set of consistent, well-researched policies which all have the same effect and lead to overall greater quality of life. - The power of law enforcement in the US has fewer and fewer checks, leading to the police to have an oppresive attitude towards the populance which, when combined with the privatized prison system, leads to the highest incarceration rate in the world, not coincidentially led by poor people, with an astounding amount of non-violent offenders.

This list can keep growing as long as I have time, so I'll just leave it at that and conclude the American working class has a naive to nonexistant notion of class struggle and suffers tremendously because of it.

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#38

Post by crdoconnor » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 7:14 AM UTC

msandford wrote: post #34

crdoconnor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term >I lived a significant portion of my life in pretty severe poverty My experience suggests the opposite. Much like the study. The fact that you suggested that it takes discipline , to me, also suggests that you felt the same uphill struggle to be able to do forward planning. It takes no discipline for me to do forward planning these days. It's easy to focu…

It's not that it's terribly difficult to think long term. The problem is that any kind of plan which has a reasonable chance of building up some savings and giving you some financial stability involves sacrifice now, probably to a very painful degree. In my view it's not the thinking that's the trouble but the execution. It's hard to not spend all your money full stop. Having less money means that any savings involve…

I don't believe you were ever actually in poverty.

The mindset I'm describing is one where you are forced to prioritize necessities - rent/food/electric bill, not one where you sacrifice all the small luxuries in order to be able to cover your necessities and save.

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#39

Post by crdoconnor » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 7:27 AM UTC

msandford wrote: post #33

jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating cause and effect. Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term but the lack of discipline required to make good short term choices has the effect of keeping you in poverty over the long term. A pattern of good short term choices tends to lead to getting out of poverty whether one is thinking long term or not. I lived a significant portion of my life in pretty severe poverty; I was…

I wonder how many people here criticizing you for saying you were able to work your way out of being poor loved the "A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of Y-intercept" article and can't see the parallels. Yes I'm aware that there are feedback loops that make it much easier to say poor than to claw your way out. I have suffered them to a very minor degree. But from a systems perspective being poor is simply spen…

>Poor is less about your income and more about the decisions that you make every day to spend all of it, , at least in my experience.

Being poor is ABSOLUTELY about income and NOT about being a single $150,000 / year programmer who is one paycheck away from being on the street.

1) Financial hardship happens to almost everybody at some point.

2) Being poor happens to some.

3) Poverty happens to a subset of the poor. These people are the mainstay of payday lenders.

The very idea that people who USED to be in groups 1 and 2 and think that they can lecture group 3 from experience is a gross insult.

Re: An Idiot's Guide to Inequality

#40

Post by vixin » Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 8:33 AM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #24

jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating cause and effect. Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term but the lack of discipline required to make good short term choices has the effect of keeping you in poverty over the long term. A pattern of good short term choices tends to lead to getting out of poverty whether one is thinking long term or not. I lived a significant portion of my life in pretty severe poverty; I was…

He's not conflating cause and effect: There's plenty of Psychology and Behavioral Economics research on this. People end up thinking that the money they save will disappear with unexpected expenses, so they spend it, because the stress of not having enough money to eat is 'healed' by wasting money, which later makes sure you won't have any money to eat. It's a feedback loop, as bad choices lead to bad outcomes, which…

Go read the literature? What does that mean. It means anything you choose to select from it.

And apparently other's people's experiences are only significant if presented by you "I've seen it happen in people that you'd originally think that they had a whole lot of self discipline:"