Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think • Hacker News Board

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#41

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #3

ryandrake wrote: post #2

And, it's only going to get worse while [1] 39% of Americans either believe they are already among the top 1% or believe that they one day will be. If your mentality is one of "Don't tax the top because that's me (or will be)", you're going to constantly vote against your own economic self-interest, and continue to support policies that help the real rich get ultra-rich. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/t…

39% of Americans either believe they are already among the top 1% or believe that they one day will be And how many people will actually be in the top 1% of earners at least once? EDIT: 12% http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/opinion/sunday/from-rags-t... What’s more, 39 percent of Americans will spend a year in the top 5 percent of the income distribution Not that far off.

Those figures include people who had a lucky year. I'd like to see data showing what percentage of people who start out in the bottom 99%, and end up at any point in their lives spending at least 10 consecutive years (or until their death) in the top 1%.

When we talk about "the 1%" we are not talking about that one hit wonder salesman or small business owner who cashes out and technically has >$1M income in one particular year. We are talking about year-after-year sustained income.

EDIT:

There's no question that there are problems with the phrase "among the top 1% of earners". It's not well defined. I think, though, it's safe to say that when the Average American talks about "the 1%" as a class, he's not talking about the person who had a single good year and went on to have a normal income for the rest of his life. He's talking about the class of people whose income is high and sustained. When the average person says, "I'll be among the top 1% of earners" he's imagining himself as attaining continuing membership in an economic class, not predicting a single-year windfall.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#42

Post by adaml_623 » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

brador wrote: post #24

sp332 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most telling polling result from the 2000 election was from a Time magazine survey that asked people if they are in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans say they are in the richest 1 percent and a further 20 percent expect to be someday.

Time magazine readers are not an unbiased sample of America. Not even close.

Your arguing style is very sad. You make a suggestion and then when it is rebutted you don't try to refute it very well at all. Find the data and then you can make arguments.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#43

Post by strommen » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

Wow, the "ideal" wealth distribution based on what people want is simply nuts. If top quintile owns 35% and bottom two own 25% (perhaps 15% and 10%, respectively)...that means the richest would own 3.5x more than the poorest, on average.

(If you think this makes any sense at all, consider the median American has a net worth of about $45K. Having 3.5x that amount wouldn't allow you to retire, or even own a 3BR house in Minneapolis.)

A person's wealth should (hopefully) increase as they grow older and save more money. It's clear that the responders to this survey didn't account for that at all.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#44

Post by joeclark77 » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

Nothing in the article explains why "economic inequality" is a bad thing. Which seems to be a logical pre-requisite to declaring it to be "worse than you think".

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#45

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

thecopy wrote: post #22

ghouse wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, but it also does not mean that he didn't take anything from me. Generally, the US tax code is designed in such a way that capital begets capital. Put differently, if you make money passively from the money you already have, you pay a lower tax rate then if you haul brick on your back, or teach children. Is this taking? No, not directly, but indirectly, sure.

I would argue that the state is taking, not the rich (which are not the only people with money invested in the market).

Feel free to head to Somalia then. I hear they have a wonderful libertarian system setup.

EDIT: Seriously folks, taxes pay for civilization. If you don't like it, don't work (so you don't have to pay) or leave. Roads, schools, fire, police, infrastructure aren't built with unicorn dust.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#46

Post by dandare » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

anon1385 wrote: post #19

dandare wrote: post #4

The fact that someone is rich does not mean he took anything from you, no matter how poor you are. Statements like "If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets" are not only stupid but also dangerous.

>The fact that someone is rich does not mean he took anything from you Of course it does. That's the definition of private property - if they claim to own it then you can't freely use it anymore. The creation of private property involves taking land that nobody owned and anybody could use, and using force to prevent anybody except the owner using it.

Wealth can be created, economy is not a zero sum game. Also you are confusing private property with land, 99% of wealth these days is created without the use of land.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#47

Post by Shivetya » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

fullwedgewhale wrote: post #11

The point of the article is that the meritocratic system in this country is broken. In part this is because we have systematically transferred wealth out of the bottom to the top. For example, focusing on tax cuts that benefit high income individuals while cutting support for public colleges. These two things are usually done at different times with tax cuts usually to stimulate the economy and spending cuts coming t…

Wealth transfer because of the tax code occurs all the time, every day. Yet some here I can guarantee would scream bloody murder if they lost their piece of that wealth transfer. Two of which are easy, the ACA and EV tax credits, both transfer wealth but in different ways. The first from the young and healthy who usually are at the beginning of their income generating years and hopefully their lowest pay in their career to those at career and life end where they might have the homes paid for, retirement incomes, and more. Then the EV tax credit gives to people making purchases of cars beyond the reach of average workers.

What is the point? The tax code created this imbalance and continues to do so as it is the number one means by which politicians separate us. They play us off each other and the tax code allows the to reward or punish.

Simplify the tax code so that anyone with a high school education can see the money and that will lead to people clamoring for a change.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#48

Post by dbpatterson » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

dandare wrote: post #4

The fact that someone is rich does not mean he took anything from you, no matter how poor you are. Statements like "If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets" are not only stupid but also dangerous.

So where did their wealth come from? Most likely, they made it through 'business' - which usually means, through benefiting from the work of other, significantly less paid workers. The fact that our economic and political system permits this (and to the extent that it does) is not some natural phenomenon.

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#49

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

proveanegative wrote: post #27

I think the popular conceptualization of economic inequality (effectively, "inequality is suffering") is misleading because it doesn't take marginal utility into account. What I mean is, take the pizza-dividing example and suppose we have doubled the pizza. The inequality (expressed as the ratio of pizza owned to the available total) would stay the same but those with the smallest part of the divide would be noticeab…

[deleted]

Re: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think

#50

Post by j09jfdasj2 » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

ghouse wrote: post #14

dandare wrote: post #4

The fact that someone is rich does not mean he took anything from you, no matter how poor you are. Statements like "If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets" are not only stupid but also dangerous.

Well, but it also does not mean that he didn't take anything from me. Generally, the US tax code is designed in such a way that capital begets capital. Put differently, if you make money passively from the money you already have, you pay a lower tax rate then if you haul brick on your back, or teach children. Is this taking? No, not directly, but indirectly, sure.

Apples and oranges. Ordinary income is not capital gains. If you buy your first stock, you are using money that was already taxed at the ordinary income tax rate.