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Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

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Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#71

Post by harryh »

rayiner wrote: post #66
harryh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No economic rule I know of guarantees that to be the case. Certainly there is no economic rule, however, I think that most people generally believe that for most of human history it has been the case that at least in the medium-to-long-term, top line growth does accrue pretty cleanly to the middle 50%. There are certainly some people that are starting to wonder if this is no longer the case but personally I'm alway…

I agree that top-line growth accrues to the middle 50%, but I think the proper question is: what policies maximize the prosperity of the middle 50% (as opposed to maximizing the top-line number)? That said, I expect the answer to that question is more or less what the developed democracies are already doing.

If the top line number continues to accrue to the middle 50% then maximizing the top-line number and maximizing the prosperity of the middle 50% are the same problem (at least in the long term). That's really my point.

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#72

Post by DamnYuppie »

gk94 wrote: post #45
oldmanjay wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing new in the way the powerful wield more power than the powerless. It's a story older than history.

Slavery is a story older than history too. Just because it is old and ongoing doesn't mean we should ignore it.

As it is an ongoing problem around the world I would say we are still doing a good job of ignoring it. We are however doing a great job of renaming it....

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#73

Post by oldmanjay »

gk94 wrote: post #45
oldmanjay wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing new in the way the powerful wield more power than the powerless. It's a story older than history.

Slavery is a story older than history too. Just because it is old and ongoing doesn't mean we should ignore it.

Ignore it, wring hands about it, hell, produce an interpretive dance to proclaim it. Doesn't matter, because power is a fundamental feature of being human.

Hyperbolic comparisons to slavery intended to evoke some emotional connection between wealth and evil definitely won't change that.

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#74

Post by bobby_9x »

paulpauper wrote: post #38

Maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that the http://greyenlightenment.com/the-meritocracy-we-dont-underst... meritocracy is one stratified by IQ, with some having the cognitive potential to produce more merit than others, and those smarter people will tend to rise to the top socially and economically, too. But the benefit is we get new technologies, job creation, and higher standards of living. That doesn't…

Uprisings always make things worse. Pretty much every 'revolutionary' in the history of the world has ushered in soul-crushing fascism, except the american revolution.

This is what makes Trump and Sanders so scary for America.

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#75

Post by yummyfajitas »

mattzito wrote: post #59
tomp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> buy back their own stock so they make themselves rich while screwing ordinary investors and employees and companies I'm not sure how this is valid reasoning... Aren't stocks "bought-back" on the public market? If so, then buybacks would push up the stock price, which would benefit arbitrary investors directly (those who were willing to sell at a slightly higher price) and all investors indirectly.

I'm not 100% sure this is what the GP was referring to, but a common (and totally legal!) technique to prop up a flat or trending downward company is to start a share buyback program. You take cash that you have no idea what to do with anyway, and rather than return it to investors through a dividend, you start buying back shares. That props up your EPS, since there are fewer shares on the market, and you continue to…

This is the same as dividends, except that the shareholders pay lower taxes.

Suppose you own 100 shares shares worth $100. If they issue $10 worth of dividends, then you receive $10 and the stock price goes down to $0.90, so your 100 shares are worth $90. If they do a share buyback, you get $10 and your remaining 90 shares are worth $90.

The main difference is that in the first case you pay dividend tax on $10, in the second case you only pay capital gains tax on 10x($1 - cost basis), plus the cap gains rate is lower than the dividend rate.

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#76

Post by Eric_WVGG »

white-flame wrote: post #11

If the poor end of the wealth gap are still better off than 90% of the rest of the world, why does the wealth gap matter? That was my thinking for quite a while. However, the one thing that happens here in the US is that the wealthy have more representation and power in the legal system. Be it federal or local, the systems tend to get slanted against the not-wealthy because the wealthy take over the communications ch…

The wealth gap matters because it's a gap. The middle class disappears, which shuts down social mobility, and leaves a society that has more in common with medieval serfdom than “the American Dream”.

This chucklehead thinks that the solution to dealing with folks who have to work two full-time jobs at minimum wage salaries to make ends meet is to eat at McDonalds when he goes out with his less-fortunate friends and save the caviar and 16-year-old scotch for when he’s home or out with his investment buddies. It’s goddamned nonsense and, ironically, shows an unbelievable blindness to the very thing he’s trying to embrace — empathy.

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#77

Post by ZeroGravitas »

beat wrote: post #36
sharemywin wrote: post #10

Capitalism works best when two parties have similar information, resources, etc. Cell phone contracts are a perfect example. They've had teams of lawyers, arbitration and everything thing else on their side and lobbyists to write the laws to fit them. I can sign it or leave it. I also remember democracy isn't two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. So I'm not saying socialism's the answer either. I think t…

Read Peter Thiel. The perfect capitalism of frictionless competition and complete transparency is the enemy of its own intent. In highly competitive and transparent markets, profits are driven asymptotically to zero. Groceries, gasoline, airline tickets... these are extremely low-margin industries. Capitalism succeeds only when capitalism fails - when monopolies (global or local) appear that permit high-friction (and…

I thought Thiel was some kind of hardcore libertarian? But really he's just into some old skool robber Barron stuff?

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#78

Post by AnimalMuppet »

harryh wrote: post #71
rayiner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that top-line growth accrues to the middle 50%, but I think the proper question is: what policies maximize the prosperity of the middle 50% (as opposed to maximizing the top-line number)? That said, I expect the answer to that question is more or less what the developed democracies are already doing.

If the top line number continues to accrue to the middle 50% then maximizing the top-line number and maximizing the prosperity of the middle 50% are the same problem (at least in the long term). That's really my point.

> If the top line number continues to accrue to the middle 50%...

If. But whether that "if" is true was, I think, rayiner's question.

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#79

Post by ZenoArrow »

bobby_9x wrote: post #74
paulpauper wrote: post #38

Maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that the http://greyenlightenment.com/the-meritocracy-we-dont-underst... meritocracy is one stratified by IQ, with some having the cognitive potential to produce more merit than others, and those smarter people will tend to rise to the top socially and economically, too. But the benefit is we get new technologies, job creation, and higher standards of living. That doesn't…

Uprisings always make things worse. Pretty much every 'revolutionary' in the history of the world has ushered in soul-crushing fascism, except the american revolution. This is what makes Trump and Sanders so scary for America.

Violent uprisings make things worse, because even if they succeed they often leave behind a massive power vacuum, that some people are only too glad to try to fill.

However, peaceful uprisings have shown to be far less problematic. Think about the revolutionary movements led by Gandhi and MLK.

I see no evidence that a Sanders presidency (or a Trump presidency, for that matter) would lead to a violent uprising, so I'd suggest it's fine to calm down a bit, you're unlikely to see America fall apart (or at least, you're unlikely to see it fall apart because of a new president).

Re: Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it?

#80

Post by PaulHoule »

tomp wrote: post #21

> It doesn't matter to me at all that Bill Gates has more money than God, because he's empathetic to people who aren't as rich and aren't as great as he is, I'm glad he learned empathy in his old age; but keep in mind that he was ruthless, manipulative, exploitative, and caused a lot of long-term damage throughout most of his working life. That's the problem I have with the "rich" - our system (and lack of government…

The empathy gap goes the other way too. Some rich guy was bitching on CNBC that he didn't feel appreciated. When I was in grad school and a Linux zealot he thought that Microsoft was a great company because it empowered him to make his business work.

The political system is dominated by the 1%, but if you can really piss off 50% of voters you can cause a crisis. I think ordinary people in the U.S. are experiencing "future shock" and that is what drives them to Sanders and Trump -- no conventional politician can put together a story that makes sense at all.

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