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Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

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Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#71

Post by cstross »

hga wrote: post #56
Mz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a guess: Healthcare. My understanding is that it is largely covered by the government in the UK but consumes somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of US incomes (figure remembered off the top of my head -- I really want to say about 22% but that implies more accuracy than I feel confident implying). So that one item alone should make a quite large impact on actual outcomes.

But, assuming we've been talking about before tax incomes, the mechanism by which you pay for your health care doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion, does it? I.e. the U.K. has higher individual tax rates in part to cover the NHS's expenses. That said, the U.K. spends a lot less as a percentage of GDP on health care, but then they have a substantially lower per capita GDP. ADDED: off the top of my head,…

Note that UK healthcare costs are lower than US healthcare expenditure in part because there's no parasitic insurance industry. (Or rather, there is, but it's tiny: private healthcare accounts for <10% of UK healthcare expenditure). Instead, there's a single payer that funds everything and doesn't bother with assessing individual eligibility for treatment except in edge cases (foreign visitors, or rare and horrendously expensive cancer cases, mostly).

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#72

Post by rmc »

tesseract wrote: post #21
gaius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same situation here in the UK - you become one of the hated "rich" at about GBP 37k where income tax goes up to 40%. Nowhere in the Home Counties is that enough to get a mortgage even on a 1-bedroom flat, let alone a house. A super-tax of 50% kicks in at GBP 150k - but an ordinary family home costs around GBP 500k. As normal in politics, the middle classes are being raped for the benefit of those at the top and at th…

> GBP 37k What is that percentile wise? As an American, I am perpetually shocked at how low UK salaries sound when I hear them, especially given that I know consumer goods are more expensive on your side of the pond. Is it made up for by comparatively lower cost of housing or other essential items or what? Or is there a huge transatlantic income gap that I never really hear about (mostly it's cost of living differenc…

Remember exchange rates aswell. It almost to to £1 = $2

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#73

Post by corysama »

Tycho wrote: post #50
_delirium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent survey found rather surprising consensus between people on different part of the political spectrum if you asked them what an ideal wealth distribution would be. Overall, people thought the top 20% should ideally own about 32% of the wealth; liberals preferred 30%, while conservatives preferred 35%. People making over $100k/year were slightly more pro-inequality, but still only gave 40% as their ideal target…

So what would that actually mean? If you put everyone on the X axis in order of their income, with the Y axis representing income, what would the curve look like in order for the top 20% to own 30% of the wealth? And if you left this running, what would the total wealth graph look like after say 50 years?

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States the total household wealth in the US is $55 trillion. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... says the US population is 313 million. $55t/313m = $175k per person on average.

The most conservative proposal from the survey splits the wealth at roughly 40:20:20:10:10. That means if we had an average representative of each of the 5 groups, they would each be worth 5* $175* (that group's percentage) = $350k : $175k : $175k : $87.5k : $87.5k

Meanwhile, the most liberal proposal was roughly 30:20:20:15:15 giving $262K : $175k : $175k : $131k : $131k

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#74

Post by hga »

cstross wrote: post #71
hga wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, assuming we've been talking about before tax incomes, the mechanism by which you pay for your health care doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion, does it? I.e. the U.K. has higher individual tax rates in part to cover the NHS's expenses. That said, the U.K. spends a lot less as a percentage of GDP on health care, but then they have a substantially lower per capita GDP. ADDED: off the top of my head,…

Note that UK healthcare costs are lower than US healthcare expenditure in part because there's no parasitic insurance industry . (Or rather, there is, but it's tiny: private healthcare accounts for <10% of UK healthcare expenditure). Instead, there's a single payer that funds everything and doesn't bother with assessing individual eligibility for treatment except in edge cases (foreign visitors, or rare and horren…

Are you asserting that the US system spends more effort "assessing individual eligibility for treatment" than the U.K.'s?

Well, I suppose so, the UK's NICE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Health_a...), much like our CMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Medicare_and_Medica...), establishes the impersonal guidelines, but in the US only those over 64 or on Medicaid are impersonally bound by them. In practice when our "parasitic insurance industry" addresses this it's about providing coverage beyond the CMS guidelines, since the latter are a floor which our legal system won't let the "parasitic insurance industry" go below.

That legal system and most especially its lack of the English "loser pays" Rule is probably a greater influence on costs, especially since the NHS has got to have some level of sovereign immunity.

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#75

Post by Tycho »

corysama wrote: post #73
Tycho wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what would that actually mean? If you put everyone on the X axis in order of their income, with the Y axis representing income, what would the curve look like in order for the top 20% to own 30% of the wealth? And if you left this running, what would the total wealth graph look like after say 50 years?

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States the total household wealth in the US is $55 trillion. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... says the US population is 313 million. $55t/313m = $175k per person on average. The most conservative proposal from the survey splits the wealth at roughly 40:20:20:10:10. That means if we had an average representative of each of th…

Heh, the fringe Scottish Socialist Party had a much maligned proposal to instate a wage cap of £250k (approximately $350k), which according to this study actually aligns with the conservative ideal. Just shows how firm a grasp of the statistics people have when it comes to this sort of thing.

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#76

Post by pjscott »

nice1 wrote: post #45
SamReidHughes wrote: post #2

The worst kind of article is the kind that makes you want to flag it for being inappropriate and rant about it at the same time.

The last tsar of Russia and his lot also practiced denial. The ensuing tragedy not only wiped them out, but also caused misery to countless people for almost a 100 years. Lets hope history won't repeat itself.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, you can apply that argument to just about anything.

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#77

Post by tesseract »

rmc wrote: post #72
tesseract wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GBP 37k What is that percentile wise? As an American, I am perpetually shocked at how low UK salaries sound when I hear them, especially given that I know consumer goods are more expensive on your side of the pond. Is it made up for by comparatively lower cost of housing or other essential items or what? Or is there a huge transatlantic income gap that I never really hear about (mostly it's cost of living differenc…

Remember exchange rates aswell. It almost to to £1 = $2

Google says that today, £37k = $60k. In the US that's above the median but no one would call a $60k household income "rich".

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#78

Post by onan_barbarian »

pg wrote: post #3

This is written more like a speech by a politician than as an attempt at analysis. The type of economic inequality that successful startups yield, and which accounts for a lot of the entries in the Forbes 400, is described merely as a theory cherished by the rich, and dismissed with evidence it would be a compliment to call anecdotal. And while there's a lot of talk about how the rich own the government, he doesn't e…

I like the use of the phrases "economic inequality that successful startups yield, and which accounts for a lot of the entries in the Forbes 400" and "evidence that it would be a complement to call ancedotal" in the same sentence.

Despite the very visible presence of Gates, Buffer, Ellison, etc at the top of the list the Forbes 400 isn't exactly a startup playground (a lot of mineral wealth, the Waltons, a still-pretty decent whack of inherited $$$). The idea that American inequality en masse has much to do with startups is an idea that, well... let's just say it would be a compliment to call it sensible.

I'm sure that the American environment has resulted in great inequalities of outcome among, say, _tech_ firms (e.g. big winners and losers rather than having IBM and the seven dwarves pootle along for decades) but this doesn't translate to a fraction of the effect of, say, big declines in the tax rate paid by the very rich, or changes in the USA's blend of manufacturing or service jobs.

Not staking a position here either way, just saying that bringing startups into this is absurd navel-gazing.

It's hard to see what you're achieving trying to undermine specific points in an opinion piece ("You didn't show evidence that X" looks a lot like "I think you're wrong about X but am trying to look like the bigger man here") with this rather pointless bit of drive-by snark.

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#79

Post by bfe »

pg wrote: post #65
drgolf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lacks in analysis because it's an opinion piece for a general audience, hence the use of anecdotes. Its not an academic article. No offense, but your articles often use anecdotes to make a point. For example, you write: "As anyone who has worked for the government knows, the important thing is not to make the right choices, but to make choices that can be justified later if they fail." What evidence do you have of…

I'm not complaining about the fact that this is, like my essays, in the form of an essay rather than an academic paper. I'm saying that it's a piece of advocacy rather than an attempt to figure out the truth. That's an important distinction. In advocacy, you start already knowing the conclusion you want to reach, and you try as hard as you can to convince the audience of it, the way a lawyer or a politician would. Wh…

The hardest thing for me going from studying physics and astronomy to law school was getting used to the idea of a form of learning that had little to do with figuring out truth.

Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

#80

Post by mkramlich »

lusis wrote: post #44
henrikschroder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main criticism isn't that "the rich" have a lot of the income and assets, or that their share is increasing, it's that the rest of the people are getting less. The american society as a whole is getting richer, but the majority of the members of that society are getting poorer. Is that really the way things should be? On the other hand, this piece only talks about inflation-adjusted net income. If you compare the…

Wealth isn't a fixed pool of stuff. Me having more wealth isn't taking away from someone else.

Not strictly true. In real life, sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the particulars.
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