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Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

nytimes.com

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Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#81

Post by ci5er »

sidlls wrote: post #51
200x0 wrote: post #30

Funny to see you people discussing petty caviar-allowance inequality so fervently within your own arbitrary Western borders yet never giving much mindshare to the rampant "developing" country exploitation that is the very source of your general prosperity. I'm a citizen of third-world country that is being sucked dry by the West for its resources and getting its people shackled to the ground by direct support for the…

What makes you think the conditions in your country don't exist here?

Just a question: How many countries have you visited?

In asking this, I'm assuming that since you say "here", your PoV is the United States. If that is incorrect, I apologize.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#82

Post by bittercynic »

diggernet wrote: post #69
bittercynic wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still a waste in the sense that productive people spent their time building and maintaining a boat for the benefit of a few rich guys. It would represent reduced waste if the money was instead spent to hire those productive people to build infrastructure for their own communities. Not trying to argue that luxury goods are pure evil, but there is a degree of selfishness in having luxury goods for yourself when t…

So you advocate firing all the hard working folks who designed, built, maintain, repair, clean, and operate that boat, and take care of the passengers? They they too will lack the basics, and the money you just protected from "waste" will need to be used to provide for them.

Not advocating anything of the sort.

Only saying it would be /even better/ if the people currently spending fortunes on yachts spent the money building libraries and the like instead.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#83

Post by candiodari »

TLDR: the public secret is that if you take away the top 0.01% who started businesses like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc, the big driver of inequality is not capitalism/economy/...

The big driver of inequality ( 0.01% to 1% ) is ... government regulation. Directly, as in the government hires tens of thousands of highly paid people. And, more offensive at least to me, government regulation giving massive advantages to specific businesses (most recent "wtf" example I think would be equifax, with the government rallying behind them and (worst of all) effectively forcing large banks to buy from them). Businesses pushed like this by governments include Boeing, Oil companies, Tesla, SpaceX, ... But this is only the very upper layer. There is a huge "second" layer that includes large parts of the legal space, the health care space, the education space, where hundreds of thousands of people make $400k+ per year because ... well because the government says so.

Which of course very much opposes most of the viewpoints taken on this site. Given that this is what gives over half of the 1% owes their wealth directly or indirectly to taxes (or in the case of things like equifax "hidden taxes". Taxes, as in government forces you to pay, but you pay in your mortgage bill, you pay in charges on your bank account, etc ...) ... there is a strong case to be made that more taxes ... will increase inequality. At least as long as the government doesn't slim down a LOT.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#84

Post by qntty »

diggernet wrote: post #69
bittercynic wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still a waste in the sense that productive people spent their time building and maintaining a boat for the benefit of a few rich guys. It would represent reduced waste if the money was instead spent to hire those productive people to build infrastructure for their own communities. Not trying to argue that luxury goods are pure evil, but there is a degree of selfishness in having luxury goods for yourself when t…

So you advocate firing all the hard working folks who designed, built, maintain, repair, clean, and operate that boat, and take care of the passengers? They they too will lack the basics, and the money you just protected from "waste" will need to be used to provide for them.

Somehow I don't think that's what she meant.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#85

Post by alexasmyths »

abrichr wrote: post #48
alexasmyths wrote: post #2

What I find interesting is that it is in the 'professions'. I would have thought it was massively wealthy equity owners/holders, hedge fund managers etc.. But yes - if we are paying doctors $1M/year then this will happen. At a nearby hospital in Canada, technology improvements have allowed doctors to diagnose using x-rays a lot faster ... but the Unions have kept pay scale the same. The doctor at the Orangevill hospi…

> The doctor at the Orangevill hospital earns over a million dollars a year, and he works from home. Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe - done. What kind of doctor is this, radiologist? I'm not aware of any mobile apps in use clinically, but a radiologist's job is to look at images on a computer screen. It doesn't matter where they do it from. Very little of it is automated. > One would think a private system would be more e…

My family member sits on the board of the hospital and described to me the technology advances enabling the doctors to 'do more' in the same time.

The fact is he ears over $1M working from home, inspecting imaging.

Doctors should probably be highly paid but this is too much.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#86

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

jjeaff wrote: post #57
llamataboot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"With a combined worth of $2.34 trillion, the Forbes 400 own more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the country combined, a staggering 194 million people. The median American family has a net worth of $81,000. The Forbes 400 own more wealth than 36 million of these typical American families." http://www.ips-dc.org/billionaire-bonanza/

That is the favorite to parrot around. It's not that impressive considering the large percentage of the world's population has a negative net worth. http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/04/04/stop-adding...

That quote also included the comparison to the median family net worth.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#87

Post by dcre »

humanrebar wrote: post #49
dcre wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you say is absolutely right about the very richest 0.01% -- unearned rents and inheritances are a big problem. But there are very few such people, and what really drives the top-line inequality numbers is the redistribution of income upward to the 5% or the 1%.

> ...unearned rents and inheritances are a big problem The Walton fortune was earned... by Sam Walton. If he wasn't allowed to leave it to his family, what does property even mean?

The Walton fortune was generated by Sam Walton's employees but captured by Sam Walton. What does property mean, indeed.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#88

Post by methodover »

Mitchhhs wrote: post #22

Is inequality a feature or a bug of capitalism? Seems like the general thinking is that its a feature in-so-much as it encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, etc. It seems like it becomes a bug when it reaches a level in which it creates a positive feedback loop of more inequality. As with anything, i've noticed the discussion is really about how much, not should it exist at all. Almost every debate in American pol…

Respectfully, did you read the article? The article argues that it is not capitalism -- competition in a free market -- driving the gap between the top 1% and the rest. Rather it is the efforts on the part of the 1% to monopolize, to drive out competition and protect their position that is the cause.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#89

Post by sidlls »

ci5er wrote: post #81
sidlls wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think the conditions in your country don't exist here?

Just a question: How many countries have you visited? In asking this, I'm assuming that since you say "here", your PoV is the United States. If that is incorrect, I apologize.

I've visited about a dozen countries. Some of them "third world." The US has pockets of communities that are as impoverished as anywhere.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#90

Post by mcguire »

jopsen wrote: post #31
vtange wrote: post #25

I'm surprised the words "capital gains" are not mentioned at all in the article. It's already well known that the richest of the 1% did not get there purely through a high wage/salary. Some might blame loose monetary policy for providing easy money for the 1% in the USA (if you can borrow money and speculate for free, why not, after all), but if that's the case Japan really stands out; they've been QE'ing since their…

> It's already well known that the richest of the 1% did not get there purely through a high wage/salary. This talks about the 1%, not the few super rich, which is less than 1 out of 100. It's confusing because often when people say "the 1%" they actually mean multi-millionaires; which is less than 1%. Most 1%'ers are elite professionals. And this articles argues they make more money because of regulation that create…

The threshold of the top 1% by wealth is $8.4 million in the US.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/economix/2012/01/17/measuri...

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