Wage inequality may be starting to reverse • Hacker News Board

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#61

Post by DoughnutHole » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:50 AM UTC

tracerbulletx wrote: post #17

The premise of this article is absolutely disgusting. The inequality that matters isn't the difference between blue collar workers and college grads with marketing and tech jobs. This is just propaganda to destroy the middle class.

Why is idea of decreasing inequality between the lower and middle classes so offensive? This isn't a zero-sum game.

The college-educated middle class aren't losing anything here - their wages went up too.

All that's happening is that the wages of low income workers increased more.

This is great if you actually care about the quality of life of low income people. The difference between middle class people like me and the lower class in terms of the meeting of basic needs (food, health, education, housing) is enormous - far bigger than the gulf in quality of life between me and Jeff Bezos. I don't have a crippling yacht addiction I desperately need to deal with.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#62

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:52 AM UTC

willmadden wrote: post #21

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of communism, but that ideology produced two of the major world powers. Entire generations of illiterate peasants were educated, entire economies were completely reconstructed in a way that is pretty much unprecedented. There was immense repression, the human cost of Stalinism for example is uncountable. But capitalism has caused immense suffering as well. It's better to simply speak plainly of the effe…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#63

Post by noyoudumbdolt » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:56 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #57

noyoudumbdolt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a broken premise at all. The focus on the ultra rich is mostly just a political ploy since it's easy to villainize extravagant wealth. But the vast majority of income (I'm including capital gains in this) is made by the middle class and wage-earning upper class, not by the ultra rich. If you take all the wealth of the ultra rich and distribute it evenly, every person would get a one-time, nice, but not life-chang…

Weird that you think incomes that can approach effective tax rates of ~50% are the problem and not the capital gains that are taxed at 15% to 20%. If you are wealthy you don't need an income that's taxed a high rate for the plebs, when your wealth is generated by capital gains. Surely you knew this. Also, your hypothetical is a bit weird. The point of investments isn't to liquidate them immediately, but to reap retur…

Like I said, I'm including capital gains income in my figures. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make in your first sentence. Capital gains are taxed lower because, in theory, that income was already taxed at the corporate tax level, since capital gains come out of corporate profits. Wages, on the other hand, are a corporate expense, so they're exempt from the corporate tax. This whole thing is somewhat broken by the corporate tax being easily avoided for large corporations. But anyway, this whole thing is an aside and irrelevant.

Look here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Uni... . The Top 1% is the small bright pink part of the furthest right bar. You can raid them at 50% tax every year if you'd like, but that's not going to make a big difference.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#64

Post by polodomor » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:56 AM UTC

willmadden wrote: post #21

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of communism, but that ideology produced two of the major world powers. Entire generations of illiterate peasants were educated, entire economies were completely reconstructed in a way that is pretty much unprecedented. There was immense repression, the human cost of Stalinism for example is uncountable. But capitalism has caused immense suffering as well. It's better to simply speak plainly of the effe…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#65

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #57

noyoudumbdolt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a broken premise at all. The focus on the ultra rich is mostly just a political ploy since it's easy to villainize extravagant wealth. But the vast majority of income (I'm including capital gains in this) is made by the middle class and wage-earning upper class, not by the ultra rich. If you take all the wealth of the ultra rich and distribute it evenly, every person would get a one-time, nice, but not life-chang…

Weird that you think incomes that can approach effective tax rates of ~50% are the problem and not the capital gains that are taxed at 15% to 20%. If you are wealthy you don't need an income that's taxed a high rate for the plebs, when your wealth is generated by capital gains. Surely you knew this. Also, your hypothetical is a bit weird. The point of investments isn't to liquidate them immediately, but to reap retur…

Capital gains are created by investing income that has already been taxed. Any tax on capital gains, at least in principle, is double taxation. (This doesn't mean that the optimal tax on capital gains should be zero because in practice, lots of capital gains correlates with lots of competence at generating earned income - so, in a way, that double taxation can be seen as earned-income taxation in disguise. It does mean that there's plenty of reason not to treat them the same.)

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#66

Post by noyoudumbdolt » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #59

kristopolous wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The focus on the ultra rich is mostly just a political ploy No, it's about the power asymmetry that breaks the promises of democracy that comes with it.

This is pure conspiracy thinking, it sounds just like those people who obsess over Bill Gates and George Soros. Please explain how the ultra-wealthy can be so powerful if they aren't spending down much of any wealth, and a lot of what they do spend is on charitable grants made in the public interest to 501(c)3 organizations, which must be politically neutral as a matter of law.

501(c)3's are some of the most political organizations out there. The only thing they can't do is be directly involved in electoral politics. But social influence and ideologically driven work, that's totally fine.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#67

Post by willmadden » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 2:02 AM UTC

polodomor wrote: post #64

willmadden wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

I know people with relatives that died in the Holodomor. Wow, just wow.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#68

Post by danaris » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 2:05 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #59

kristopolous wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The focus on the ultra rich is mostly just a political ploy No, it's about the power asymmetry that breaks the promises of democracy that comes with it.

This is pure conspiracy thinking, it sounds just like those people who obsess over Bill Gates and George Soros. Please explain how the ultra-wealthy can be so powerful if they aren't spending down much of any wealth, and a lot of what they do spend is on charitable grants made in the public interest to 501(c)3 organizations, which must be politically neutral as a matter of law.

It's not conspiracy to say that the ultra-rich use and abuse their wealth to work to tilt the system further in their favor.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that "many people with a common characteristic working in ways that mutually benefit the whole group" is necessarily a conspiracy. Sometimes it is, sure, but very rarely. It's much, much more common for members of a group—like, say, the very wealthy—to individually recognize "hey, if I do X, it makes things better for me!"

That's what happens with massive wealth inequality.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#69

Post by polodomor » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

willmadden wrote: post #67

polodomor wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I know people with relatives that died in the Holodomor. Wow, just wow.

[flagged]

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#70

Post by marcusverus » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #34

noyoudumbdolt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a broken premise at all. The focus on the ultra rich is mostly just a political ploy since it's easy to villainize extravagant wealth. But the vast majority of income (I'm including capital gains in this) is made by the middle class and wage-earning upper class, not by the ultra rich. If you take all the wealth of the ultra rich and distribute it evenly, every person would get a one-time, nice, but not life-chang…

> The focus on the ultra rich is mostly just a political ploy No, it's about the power asymmetry that breaks the promises of democracy that comes with it.

Nah. Have you ever heard a mainstream progressive offer up a concrete plan to actually address the existing power asymmetry? All you get is impotent platitudes about reversing Citizens United, or the implied belief that tax-and-spend policies (i.e. the progressive platform) will naturally solve the problem over time.

In other words, the pitch is something like, "The ultra rich are have too much influence. How do we fix it? Why, just vote progressive!" which is exactly what you would expect if the focus on the ultra rich was merely a political ploy.