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Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

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Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#81

Post by heavyset_go »

Waterluvian wrote: post #45

I’m skeptical of the premise of this article, but I know that I saw an A&W advertising CAD $17/hr starting wage today. Not only is that above minimum wage but they are advertising it out front. Down the street is a factory asking for electricians at $40/hr. I hope that publishing wages/salaries becomes more normal. I think it’s an equalizer.

I see a lot of fast food places with similar signage, but if you get up close, there's an asterisk that notes that those starting wages are for full-time employees, which they don't actually hire because they don't want to give full-time employees benefits, or for management or corporate employees.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#82

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

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Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#83

Post by tomhoward »

heavyset_go wrote: post #82
willmadden wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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These tiresome ideological ping-pong battles, trading the death-counts and horrors attributable to simplistic labels of economic systems are useful only to remind less fanatical observers that said horrors are not innate or exclusive to any particular system or label, and that the primary issues are (a) scarcity of resources and (b) the brutality of nature, with everything else just being a case of humans trying desperately to cope with these grim realities.

Everyone can play the game of saying everything horrific in the past or today is directly attributable to the economic system that they oppose and that their opponents advocate, and we can even go further and play tricks like this: "Nazism was really a left-wing system in nature". See, it's great fun.

Ultimately it's pointless though; it doesn't persuade anyone to think differently about anything, and serves only to make the writer feel righteous, without needing to go to the effort of formulating and advocating something genuinely better and workable for the future.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#84

Post by acchow »

zozbot234 wrote: post #24
acchow wrote: post #12

> Remote work, deglobalization, stalled technology have started eroding some advantages of higher-skilled workers Their premise is broken. The largest inequality is not between highly skilled workers and everyone else. It is between the wealthy (top 0.1% or 0.01%) and the rest.

That's not what the literature says about differences in income - there, skills are indeed very relevant (though of course sheer luck and superstar dynamics matter a lot at the very high end). Wealth is a whole other ballgame, it's a stock not a flow; it grows globally when asset values rise (as they clearly have in recent times, due to r < g); and at an individual and subcultural level when people refrain from drawi…

This is the magic trick the ultra high net worth have done. The vast majority of their assets are never sold to realize any income. They just keep leveraging upwards to expand and also borrow against their assets to run their lavish life.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#85

Post by acchow »

rsaxvc wrote: post #32
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…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Uni... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Uni... It's all in the top 10 or 20%.

The ultra wealthy avoid having much income by borrowing against their assets instead of selling. So they usually never realize capital gains on most of their assets all the way until their death.

https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-av...

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#86

Post by marcusverus »

kristopolous wrote: post #80
marcusverus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"mainstream progressive" does all the lifting in that sentence. You knew for a fact that I could point to dozens of people so you guarded it with something you could move the goalposts on and then be "dude that's not mainstream enough". Cool. Not playing that stupid game. The entire internet is so fed up with all of these stupid right wing negging games. Nobody cares any more. You're liars frauds and scoundrels. Ever…

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Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#87

Post by kristopolous »

marcusverus wrote: post #86
kristopolous wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"mainstream progressive" does all the lifting in that sentence. You knew for a fact that I could point to dozens of people so you guarded it with something you could move the goalposts on and then be "dude that's not mainstream enough". Cool. Not playing that stupid game. The entire internet is so fed up with all of these stupid right wing negging games. Nobody cares any more. You're liars frauds and scoundrels. Ever…

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You're still being just a 4chan troll. It's the classic "touch grass" response whenever someone calls them on their games.

These words aren't for you, it's for others who read it so they can see the obvious patterns.

The troll playbook is thin.

Re: Wage inequality may be starting to reverse

#88

Post by marcusverus »

kristopolous wrote: post #87
marcusverus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You're still being just a 4chan troll. It's the classic "touch grass" response whenever someone calls them on their games. These words aren't for you, it's for others who read it so they can see the obvious patterns. The troll playbook is thin.

Are you under the impression that paranoid ravings are deserving of a considered response? You haven't engaged, you've only ranted. The fact that you lack the awareness to realize this is a sign.

Seek help.

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