Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#51

Post by majewsky »

mcroft wrote: post #48
_m8fo wrote: post #7

I believe there's a fundamental assumption among many that with time, life is becoming better for all. Even if this is true right now, one day it will not be true. Once no longer true, humanity is going to have to ask itself if the massive increases of inequality were worth it. Whether it's: 1. Global warming 2. Nuclear war 3. Mass unemployment 4. Resource depletion Or something else, I suspect the effects of the "bi…

If you've never come across Hans Rosling before, I highly recommend watching one or two of his videos on world statistics. His overall point is that the world is doing much better than you may think. He uses a lot of data that he makes publicly available and shows which metrics are the best measure of progress and why. Aside from that, he's also a very entertaining and engaging communicator. Here's a relevant article…

Also, going in the same direction: https://ourworldindata.org/

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#52

Post by majewsky »

randomdata wrote: post #37
jsmeaton wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'd prefer to see this in wages and similar. Rather than increasing wages with respect to inflation, they've stagnated, and profits for companies, shareholders, and owners are much higher. > The problem comes in actually using that money to capture wealth instead of increasing your expenses elsewhere. The latter of which is very easy to do. Absolutely. I think this is where the idea of trickle down economics…

> Rather than increasing wages with respect to inflation, they've stagnated The data doesn't support this[1]. Wages are stagnant, but only with respect to inflation. Wages are increasing at rate of inflation, more or less. > Absolutely. I think this is where the idea of trickle down economics fails. For argument's sake, let's say that the 'trickle' has lead to food being $100/month cheaper. Do you put $100/month you…

> Wages are stagnant, but only with respect to inflation.

True, but at the same time, productivity (value produced per working hour) in the US has more than doubled in 30 years. [1] I consider this unfair: Workers should benefit from increased productivity as much as shareholders do.

[1] https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/819316887213449219

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#54

Post by randomdata »

majewsky wrote: post #52
randomdata wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather than increasing wages with respect to inflation, they've stagnated The data doesn't support this[1]. Wages are stagnant, but only with respect to inflation. Wages are increasing at rate of inflation, more or less. > Absolutely. I think this is where the idea of trickle down economics fails. For argument's sake, let's say that the 'trickle' has lead to food being $100/month cheaper. Do you put $100/month you…

> Wages are stagnant, but only with respect to inflation. True, but at the same time, productivity (value produced per working hour) in the US has more than doubled in 30 years. [1] I consider this unfair: Workers should benefit from increased productivity as much as shareholders do. [1] https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/819316887213449219

> Workers should benefit from increased productivity as much as shareholders do.

I mean, they do. The price of goods comes down. This is quite visible. Food, for example, went from 25% of income in the 1940s to less than 10% today as wealth concentrated among fewer and fewer farmers. If that wealth remained distributed, leaving every American still trying to run a small patch of land like they did in the 1940s, it would be highly inefficient and the price of food wouldn't have been able to decline.

But, okay, imagine (to stay with the previous comment's example) that the price of food remained the same and your income went up by $100/month instead. Your profit is still the same. Are you really any further ahead? Is having $100 clearly in your hand more apt to have you put it into the stock market, or similar, to captures wealth? Or are you still going to go out and spend that on a smartphone plan, or similar consumable, leaving no wealth to show for it?

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#55

Post by cmdrfred »

randomdata wrote: post #54
majewsky wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wages are stagnant, but only with respect to inflation. True, but at the same time, productivity (value produced per working hour) in the US has more than doubled in 30 years. [1] I consider this unfair: Workers should benefit from increased productivity as much as shareholders do. [1] https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/819316887213449219

> Workers should benefit from increased productivity as much as shareholders do. I mean, they do. The price of goods comes down. This is quite visible. Food, for example, went from 25% of income in the 1940s to less than 10% today as wealth concentrated among fewer and fewer farmers. If that wealth remained distributed, leaving every American still trying to run a small patch of land like they did in the 1940s, it wo…

You keep bringing up food. What of housing or healthcare? The costs there have risen dramatically at rates many times higher than inflation. Inflation adjusted the poverty line keeps rising while wages stay flat. I don't see how this is a sustainable system.

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#56

Post by randomdata »

cmdrfred wrote: post #55
randomdata wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Workers should benefit from increased productivity as much as shareholders do. I mean, they do. The price of goods comes down. This is quite visible. Food, for example, went from 25% of income in the 1940s to less than 10% today as wealth concentrated among fewer and fewer farmers. If that wealth remained distributed, leaving every American still trying to run a small patch of land like they did in the 1940s, it wo…

You keep bringing up food. What of housing or healthcare? The costs there have risen dramatically at rates many times higher than inflation. Inflation adjusted the poverty line keeps rising while wages stay flat. I don't see how this is a sustainable system.

To be honest, I'm not sure we have actually seen a concentration of wealth in housing. The homeownership rate is almost at the highest point in history (it definitely was in 2008), which means that said wealth is spread thinner than ever. Further, construction of homes is still quite accessible to small business, so we haven't even seen concentration of wealth into construction to see lowering prices there.

We might even go as far as to say housing perfectly demonstrates what happens when you don't get the trickle down effect. Granted, those rising housing prices are not all bad as you can make money from the gains on the property and the construction of. This is the system you want to have everywhere, right?

But housing is also interesting because people have changed where they want to live. In the 1940s, ~50% of the population lived in the middle of nowhere. Today, ~20%. Now, people are willingly taking the $100/month they saved on food (just to stick with the example) and are applying it to the rent in the big city so that they can have the opportunity to live there. If they were happy with 1940s-style living, and opted for a home in the middle of nowhere, they would be able to retain that $100/month and capture wealth with it. Like the smartphone, this is consumer choice to give up the wealth to get more (to live in the city).

As far as healthcare goes, I'm inclined to agree that wealth has been more apt to concentrated there. But like people choosing to pay more to be in the city, people are choosing to pay more to have state of the art healthcare. Would you really want to go back to 1940s style healthcare at a lower cost? I'm not convinced I would, even if it helps my balance sheet. The gains are still there, but utilized instead of being stashed away into wealth.

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#57

Post by ferdythebull »

rgbrenner wrote: post #23
apsec112 wrote: post #5

I'm richer than the poorest two billion people in the world combined, and I'm an upper-middle-class programmer with some modest savings. Please stop adding up the wealth of the poor: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/04/04/stop-adding...

that's a really interesting article.. I think the more surprising fact is that 7.5% of the bottom 10% are in the US. That's 50 million US citizens. That's pretty shocking. Edit: although since we're talking about people who have negative net worth.. perhaps it's only because they're able to borrow so much. I doubt a poor Indian or Nigerian would be able to borrow $100K for college.

I would be interested to see the relative poverty of the US poor vs the relative poverty of Indian poor. Things like affording food, shelter, and transportation based off their income.

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#58

Post by chiefalchemist »

rgbrenner wrote: post #26
chiefalchemist wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine that if you factored in "home ownership" it's much higher. That is, you don't actually own your home til the mortgage is paid. So that equity is a ruse of sorts.

net worth includes assets... so only if they were underwater on their mortgage.. and with the house prices in the US, I don't imagine there are a lot of people in that situation (at least since the subprime mortgages have all/mostly been foreclosed on by this point).

Okay. Thanks. But I'm gonna have to call that a false god none the less. Wealth on paper (i.e., stock) is bad enough, but to assume (Let's not forget that when you get a mortgage for say $500k, that's not what you end up paying (in total). The total and real cost of that loan is much high.

I digress? :)

Post reply on HN