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To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

nytimes.com

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Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#301

Post by fapjacks »

tchaffee wrote: post #189
AdrianB1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought the people that left Europe for USA did it for a different life, not to get socialism and get back in line with the herd. But it seems that the people in California had afterthoughts about this and decided to go commie. Not kidding, Hacker News commenters are very much biased towards socialism - take it from a guy that was born and lived in a socialist country and had the chance to feel it the hard w…

Universal healthcare helped get me over there and it's one of the reasons I'll settle down there. I think all the socialized services are great. Excellent value for the taxes you pay.

Yes! This is another huge misconception about raising taxes: The American government is massively wasteful in spending! We get so little value for the taxes we pay! People don't want to contribute even more money to the wasteful spending, which I can totally understand, but it doesn't have to be that way! In Sweden for example, you get tremendous value for the taxes you pay. The tax rate is higher, but you really do get quite a deal in exchange. Americans are completely unfamiliar with this kind of benefit.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#302

Post by erentz »

nnfy wrote: post #292
erentz wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to be. A "death tax" for example that takes 100% of a persons estate at death would be both simple, non distortive, and in terms of equality level the playing field every generation.

Yes, I look forward to being barred from sharing the wealth that I've accumulated with my children and other loved ones. Why should they have any advantage, right? After all, you probably think I didnt do anything myself, right? Who are you to make that decision for someone? And, frankly, you're delusional if you think an estate tax is non distortive. The entire meaning of wealth would change for the elderly. One can…

This thought experiment isn't about looking at your neighbors plate, it's about incentives for us as a society. I think the question to answer for yourself is whether you think everyone should start with a fair playing field or not and the implications such a tax would have on how you structure society to ensure that everyone gets the same shots at a good life.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#303

Post by dlp211 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #213
choxi wrote: post #180

We should tax wealth, not income. [1] The majority of income the top 0.1% make is from investments and gets taxed as capital gains, only about 15% of their income is taxed as ordinary income. [2][3] We have an economic system where it's dramatically easier to make money the more money you already have. If you have $50M, you can park it in an index fund to get 4% returns and make $2M every year just off of your invest…

Rather than tax wealth, tax spending: no taxes on your income, no taxes on anything until you spend it. That way people will have more money to invest in companies allowing the economy to grow and create wealth, and we kill the ludicrous idea that consumption creates wealth, rather than construction. It does have the issue that this hurts poor people, but that is easily solvable with a direct transfer of (electronic)…

We don't have a capital problem. Capital is available, it's cheap, and it is flowing.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#304

Post by acidburnNSA »

WalterBright wrote: post #209
acidburnNSA wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should said: "Investing in things that help society." Arguably, the bit of money in banks that gets loaned out as mortgages and then repackaged and sold off as mortgage-backed securities which then get bet on with even more leverage as collateralized debt obligations is helping the financial industry middle-men who cash out on the fees a lot. Obviously the classic depositing/loaning service of banks is essential fo…

> Investing in things that help society. People tend to invest in things with a high rate of return. That high rate signals it is doing things that people want done and are willing to pay for. I.e. it helps society. > a way to provide capital to people who need it That's exactly what banks do. My bank branch is plastered with posters trying to sell a loan to everyone who walks in. > passively invested in banks and th…

Have you seen The Big Short? It's on Netflix and is pretty good. The CDO manager in it claims that society must value what he does very much because he has an extraordinary net worth [1]. I'm trying to express the point expressed in that scene. You can get very rich and have high net worth while actively hurting most people. Things with high rates of return may be good investments but they may also be massive frauds, as we all learned in 2007.

Banks want people to take out loans because they collect fees and offload the risk via MBS. They give people loans who can't afford them and that's not good for anyone, but then they know they'll get bailed out again if something goes south. None of this is sustainable, healthy, or productive.

[1] https://youtu.be/A25EUhZGBws?t=331

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#305

Post by whack »

choxi wrote: post #180

We should tax wealth, not income. [1] The majority of income the top 0.1% make is from investments and gets taxed as capital gains, only about 15% of their income is taxed as ordinary income. [2][3] We have an economic system where it's dramatically easier to make money the more money you already have. If you have $50M, you can park it in an index fund to get 4% returns and make $2M every year just off of your invest…

The real problem though isn't wealth inequality, it's income inequality. If someone has a billion dollars that's invested in various stocks, and never tries to withdraw that money, leave him alone. The day he decides to sell his investments and start buying private jets, that's the time to tax him on his income.

The argument against a wealth tax, is that it penalizes savers, and rewards spenders. Which is not what we want as a society. It's better for both the individual and for society if people invested their money into productive enterprises, instead of spending it on luxury goods.

If the goal is to provide a more egalitarian quality of life across society, this can be perfectly achieved through an income tax alone. Specifically, by treating capital gains the same way as salaries, and by increasing the marginal tax rates for high earners.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#306

Post by Turing_Machine »

erentz wrote: post #286
conanbatt wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxation is both effective, and far less invasive to markets than many other solutions. I don't really agree with this. Taxes are distortive and doesn't necesarily help inequality. It might even make it worse. But also, there is taxation as a progressive system of government funding, as there is taxation as in "You will never own more than X, because the government will seize it". In terms of solutions, I'm not a p…

They don't have to be. A "death tax" for example that takes 100% of a persons estate at death would be both simple, non distortive, and in terms of equality level the playing field every generation.

Hmm... wouldn't that just result in people transferring the assets to their heirs before they died?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#307

Post by peoplewindow »

GuiA wrote: post #89
kirsebaer wrote: post #16

Gail Evans worked as a janitor at Kodak in the 1980s. "She received more than four weeks of paid vacation per year, reimbursement of some tuition costs to go to college part time, and a bonus payment every March... A manager learned that Ms. Evans was taking computer classes while she was working as a janitor and asked her to teach some other employees how to use spreadsheet software to track inventory... Less than a…

This is why it's so upsetting that companies in Silicon Valley (Google, Facebook, Apple, all of them) hire cooks/janitors/bus drivers/etc from 3rd party companies and offer them none of the benefits their full employees get. Just doing that would be a huge pipeline, and would play no small part in addressing the diversity problem they all claim to be preoccupied with (but don't do much about).

Google is famous for having made its early cooks and massage therapists into multi-millionaires by giving them stock options.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/technology/12google.html?m...

Remember that this NY Times article is designed to push emotional buttons. Their entire story revolves around comparing Apple against Kodak. There aren't really any deeper studies or figures provided. You could as well compare a contractor who worked at Kodak with a masseuse at Google and reach the opposite conclusion.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#308

Post by fatjokes »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #274
fatjokes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just means the worker is not as valuable to the company and easier to replace, so they have no incentive to "rate, engage and more importantly retain" the individuals. Why would a business want to pay the premiums (longer vacation, high pay) associated with long-tenure, non-essential personnel? More experience, institutional knowledge, etc. all make an employee more valuable. But how much of that do you need for…

If janitors don't matter, why have them in the first place? Why is Apple wasting shareholders' money on non-essential personnel? If they had no janitors the productivity for other workers would be 0 (think of the smell), so I would argue janitors are essential personnel.

Reductio ad absurdum. I'm not arguing for zero or even few janitors. Just that they're more interchangeable and thus have less negotiating power.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#309

Post by Forlien »

ebfd wrote: post #120
peatmoss wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard from smarter people than me that your parents' level of economic attainment is the best predictor of your economic attainment. Everyone may be broke in their twenties, but some of those 20 somethings presumably got a leg up from being in a good (pre, elementary, secondary, post-secondary) school and can ask mom and pop for help on the down payment for a home, etc. Suspect that's still the case, though the…

Score on IQ tests is a far better predictor of SES than parental SES. Someone in the 95th percentile for IQ will, on average, earn more than someone with parents in the 95th percentile of earnings. See: http://www.emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Intellige...

IQ might be a better predictor, but the linked paper says it's not a far better one:

"The results demonstrate that intelligence is a powerful predictor of success but, on the whole, not an overwhelmingly better predictor than parental SES or grades."

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#310

Post by fatjokes »

fatjokes wrote: post #54
hypersoar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the solution to lack of stability is to not allow some people to ever have it?

I don't see how having a contract job means never being able to move into a stable position.

I'm getting some downvotes but nobody explaining why.
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