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Why inequality persists in America

newyorker.com

31–34 of 34 posts

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If gerrymandering persists, the dysfunction of Congress will also persist, no matter how many members there are. Representatives have no incentives to behave responsibly under the current districting situation.

One of the intended consequences of increasing the number of members is that each one is more easily replaced if they do not accurately represent the views of the constituents. My back of the envelope math gives the US 6400 member of the house at the current population which also has the effect of reducing each single member's importance.

By drawing district lines around politically homogenous populations, gerrymandering guarantees that representatives accurately represent the views of their constituents and enables hyper-partisan behavior without consequences. Adding representatives does nothing to change that. 6400 gerrymandered districts will give us the same results as 435.

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#32
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a luxury thing like a yacht it wouldn't bother anyone. When it happens to necessities like housing, food and healthcare then it's quite rational to be bothered.

Right, that is exactly my point. The fact that inequality exists doesn't bother most people, it's poverty (the lack of housing, food, healthcare...) that bothers people. Inequality is irrelevant to the core issue, poverty.

Except that in the US inequality is a large factor in the maintenance of poverty since your super rich & rich corps seem so keen on keeping your broken markets in healthcare and removing any social safety net on food whilst they drive up the price of high demand housing.

Re: Why inequality persists in America

#33
post #20

The article mentions the book talking about how we don't care about other peoples kids as being one of the problems. I think that is a symptom of realizing that the world at large doesn't care for us, and if we only have so much time and energy to give we give it to our own. Also it seems like inequality is multifaceted. Everyone has more now then they have ever had, more stuff, more tech, more access to everything y…

>Everyone has more now then they have ever had, more stuff, more tech, more access to everything you need to survive.

more debt, more inequality, less security about the future.

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