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Does Income Inequality Matter?
theodp is concerned about the following: "Alarmed by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's record-setting $53M bonus, Charles Wheelan (aka The Naked Economist) argues that income inequality matters. Wheelan notes that the Gini Coefficient (a measure of income inequality) for the U.S. has been moving away from countries like Japan and Sweden and closer to that of Brazil, where the murder rate is 5X that of NYC and crime is materially impacting GDP."
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It certainly can be argued that there are a number of factors contributing to higher rates of violence in cultures including steeper economic pyramids, loss of access to human services and disenfranchisement. For instance, in cultures that have a relatively high average wage and flatter economic pyramid, combined with services including universal health care, countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, and Canada among many others, there is a significantly lower rate of violence. Granted in all of those countries there are poor and those with fantastically extensive portfolios, but the statistical disparity is not as extensive as it is among countries like Brazil and the US.
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When the peons who live paycheck to paycheck while being the backbone for a company see executives get yearly salaries totalling more than they'll make in a year, do you REALLY expect them to work hard? For the average corporate employee, the most they can hope for is a middle management position where they take blame for others' mistakes while their bosses take the credit for anything good that happens.
Companies need to remember that even a genius CEO is worthless without the underlings who follow his successful plans. Imagine if that $53,000,000 had been distributed among the employees as a company-wide bonus.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
it is opportunity inequality that matters.
Does some CEO grabbing obscene bonuses (deserved or not) fuel social unrest? Historically, the answer is yes, but only if the bulk of the population is suffering. Then such things become flashpoints, ie "let them eat cake". However, that is not really the case for the bulk of the US population. Most people have plenty to eat, have their gadgets etc... Are there poor in the US? Yes, but there are poor everywhere, and not all necessarily the result of oppression. People with full bellies are likely to be pissed off at excesses, but not to the point of rioting in the streets. Brasil has huge problems with social inequality far beyond what is happening in the US.
If all comes down to what you believe about human nature. Roughly speaking, some people believe that poor people are poor because they are lazy and violent, while others believe that people are poor because they don't have opportunities available to them, so they turn to violence as an effective, but not ideal, way of problem solving in their miserable lives.
People on either side have fundamentally different views about reality and human nature, and thus there is no common ground in which to have a productive discussion.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Income inequality is a fact of life in a capitalistic society, and should be embraced, not scowled upon. The biggest problem facing the U.S. isn't the wage gap, but the surge of regulations that prevent the poor from becoming rich (and prevents small companies from becoming large one).
... enacting Japanese or Swedish social reforms will just put more strain on our economy as more people jump on the dole.
Regulatory reform (healthcare, business, education, legal, etc. etc.), and the return of governing powers to the states, is what we need to ensure the U.S. doesn't become a bankrupt ex-super giant on par with Brazil
Sure, there wouldn't be an income gap with such a system, but I'd rather have the opportunity to work hard and become wealthy than coast through life with a lower-middle class income after taxes.
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It's all Daniella Cicarelli's fault. That bitch.
I don't have as much of a problem with the pay gap as with the same people making these large sums not being serious stock holders in their company. Their paycheck is not directly related to company performance in many cases today.
It's unbelievable to me how easy it is for someone to work their way to the top of a company without having a serious amount of their personal wealth invested into the company and that this lack of investment is a safeguard against them not having to be overly concerned in the companies well being.
I know it's a simplistic way of looking at it but it's what makes sense to me.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
After reading Linked I've come to the conclusion that having a power law curve (the thing that gives you the 80-20 rule) is inevitable in any economy. There are only two questions to be answered.
First, how steep is that curve? Do you have excessive centralization. I think, but do not know, that the US's curve has been getting steeper over the years. This is likely not good.
Secondly, how easy is it to begin acquiring links because you're more attractive for whatever reason? This is where things that make it expensive for small businesses to start, compete or generally raise barriers to entry come in.
Personally, I think we ought to revisit a lot of laws we have concerning monopolistic behavior and financial transactions and tweak them using insights from that book. That book demonstrates through numerous examples that there are a set of powerful laws governing almost all networks that grow organically. Even the network of which molecules interact with which molecules in cells has characteristics that are similar to the network of hypertext links on webpages, which has characteristics that are similar to the food web.
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...because he only got a $10 million dollar bonus. Made me withdraw money from my MAC at gunpoint and requested notes no lower than $1000 dollar bills.
Causality is different, of course, though "indirect cause" is a very medieval concept.
I don't think anybody would suggest that paying a banker a lot of money will suddenly cause someone to become a street robber. But if there is a correlation become income inequality and crime, and given the high cost of crime, there is a case for investigating the nature of any relationship.
As an example, it is known that high incomes in the City of London are associated with cocaine use. This inevitably brings rich people into contact with drug dealers. Given the profits to be made, it might be that the existence of a rich and rather well protected class of drug users made them a very attractive target for drug dealers, causing increased competition for access to this market. Since drug dealing is an illegal, unregulated market, this might cause more turf wars and therefore more visible drug-related crime. That is a possible chain of causation which, if correct, could have implications for policy on drugs (e.g. toleration and a legalised market.)
The US has, I believe, nearly 2 000 000 people in prison. This is a big enougfh cost item that it needs proper study.
Pining for the fjords
There is a correlation between
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_ NationsIQ and the wealth of a nation.
Does IQ matter that much? Well provided a country doesn't have any natural resources a country needs skilled/creative workers to produce novel goods and services. And skilled workers are more prevalent in high IQ nations.Average IQ isn't going to change over night (barring brain augmentation technology. So expect the inequalities to remain static. (Apart from the exceptions, like China, due to it's poor choice of governance.)
What's up with all the anti-Brazil stuff here lately? I understand it with the YouTube thing -- Slashbots would denounce their grandmother if she somehow came into conflict with Google -- but what's the rest of it over? They're pro-Linux and they're still pretending they're buying millions of OLPCs.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Anyone who makes more than you is an evil overlord whose moral turpitude threatens the very fabric of our free society.
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I'm sure that our billionaires skew the stats a little bit. However its not coincidence that successful companies have CEO's that know they have enough money and that their underlings need to feel appreciated. Google, Apple, Wegmans, etc... A good CEO in my opinion is one that recognizes that the excessive payment that he may get from the board will do more harm to his company than good and should therefore decline most if not all of it and redirect it to the employees. No one is worth 2000% more than another individual regardless of how good you are at your job.
... having a fiat monetary system does. In a gold based system there are natural limits on the amount of money so that naturally limits the amount of debt and stabilizes prices over time. In a fiat system there are no natural limits on debt or money, so the economy tends to become over saturated in debt and prices tend to rise over time. However, fiat money systems fail for the same reason that any state central planed economy fails. In a gold system, if someone wants a loan or an investment - they can't print it up so they must get it from savers. In a fiat system, savers have no say and saving is punished because all loaned out money comes from the central bank. That takes investment power away from the people and puts it into the hands of central bankers (think central planners) and their friends causing all sorts of excesses - especially in the pay and bonuses of high level investment bankers who have close ties to the Federal Reserve.
"A hungry mob is an angry mob"
The reason the US founding fathers put in taxes on inheritance is that the sucess of one generation shouldn't create subsequent generations already ensconced in privalege. In a way this is unavoidable, but if the future generations aren't people of merit, they will eventually loose wealth. Now we're hitting a period in American history where ridiculous wealth is tied to a strong push to eliminate inheritance taxes. Already a number of families are bastions of old money and privilege, but watch as their wealth becomes a trivial matter of their heridity. The one thing the American founding father thought was odious about Monarchies - that mediocre men ruled the world because their great-great-great grandfather was a great man - is now becoming part of American society.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
Have a look at that figure. Are the workers getting 1/3M? No, not even close. So where is the lions' share of that bonus going to, to make the average up?
Yup. CEO.
Despite the fact that you could sack 100% of your CEO and work happily for YEARS before you noticed.
No matter what you do, society will always seem to end up like this. Some people are inherently better at acquiring wealth than others, some people are smarter than others, some people are stronger and have talents others don't have.
These differences usually aggregate over the course of time, to the point where you get rich/poor. Even if you evened everyone out....it wouldn't stay that way for long. And if you force on making everyone equal, as the article mentions, you make everyone equally poor, since measures to make everyone equal by law usually end up cutting output signifigantly, meaning that instead of an inequal distribution of a large pie, you get equal distribution of a small pie (in Soviet Russia, crop production when Stalin came to power was 5% of pre-revolution levels). Also, with the current "knowledge economy" the gains in productivity are essentially "found money", since there is no way to "force" a knowledge worker to produce at full output, or to do much of anything.
So it really boils down to allowing inequality, but providing class mobility (as the article mentioned). In the US, we have attempted that, but a lot of the measures backfire, such as subsidized student loans at low interest rates (free money essentially created price insensitivity and is largely responsible for the rapid rise in college costs ironically enough). And additionally, it is all relative. If everyone gets a college education, SOMEONE has to scrub toilets and work at McDonalds. So giving out college educations doesn't really help.
It's a very complex issue, and im sure the socialists will square off with the libertarians quite well over this issue
If you're at the top of the scale, it doesn't matter to you. You can get insurance, bodyguards, etc. to protect you from crime. if you're at the bottom, it doesn't matter to you, because you have nothing, no one's interested in robbing you. If you're in the disappearing middle section, you're being victimized both by the lower end which steals from you, and by the top end, by virtue of not being able to afford the insurance/bodyguards the top end affords.
stuff |
Things like the GINI coefficient are red herrings. One statistic rarely shows anything, and GINI shows even less. See Russel Roberts post on the top 1% of income at http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2007/01/the_top _1_is_a_.html to see why. The USA is the fastest growing industrial economy in the world; the CEO's of these companies produce more wealth than many countries. If they are compensated what the market will bear, who am I to complain? Besides, they are only going to invest most of that wealth back into the economy making it easer to get my next new car by funding both the auto manufacturer and the loan company.
What about the wealth gap? That's more what I'm worried about. Two people who make the exact same amount of money but aren't given the same options for saving it will have much less wealth to pass on to their children later in life. This perpetuates a cycle of slow growth for the non-wealthy and a cycle of faster growth for the already wealthy. Take housing, for example... the average house in a mostly Caucasian neighborhood appreciates much faster than the average house in a mostly non-Caucasian neighborhood. When you can sell your house later for $50,000 more than you bought it for, you've gained a measure of wealth that others don't necessarily have access to.
Things people that want money should do:
:-p
1.) Limit your liabilities; pay off your debts as fast as you can, especially credit card debt.
2.) Stop using credit cards. Seriously.
3.) Stop trying to hit it rich by playing the lottery, unless you find that particularly entertaining.
4.) Keep an emergency fund of some sort so you can stop using credit cards.
5.) Don't co-sign loans, ever.
6.) Spend less than what you make.
7.) Don't lease a car.
This list is based on what people do to get in financial trouble:
1.) People get in credit cards and pay more interest to Visa and MasterCard over years that they could have saved.
2.) People, especially poor minorities (see the statistics) try to win millions when the odds of being struck by lightning are less.
3.) People don't have money saved aside so they don't use credit cards, so they pay Visa and MasterCard interest instead of having money.
4.) People co-sign for other peoples things, they don't pay, so they're stuck with the bill.
5.) People pay ridiculous amounts of their income to car bills.
6.) People use credit to look wealthier than they really are.
The reasons for this are social ("use debt as a tool!"), cultural ("I need more stuff to impress people!"), patently unfair (the less educated are far more likely to be paid less, and so get into trouble more easily; medical problems), and selfish ("I 'need' this! I 'need' that!"), and could be a thesis, but they're hard to argue, and the concepts don't require an economics degree.
I think I've been listening to Dave Ramsey a little too much.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
I've lived in Canada for many years now, but before then I came from Taiwan, which as a country is really not as poor as it gets in southeast Asia. I can tell you that the wealth gap certainly does matter.
Fellow Taiwanese feel free to disagree - but as a child over there I was constantly being protected, my father having worked for one of the larger multi-nationals with an Asian presence in the 80s. Daily you would hear news of kidnappings, children being snatched on their way to their fancy private schools; chauffeurs, butlers, maids, and servants selling out their employers and helping in kidnappings, extortions, and other crimes.
I went to a fairly exclusive private school that taught mostly the children of foreign execs stationed in the country, and also the high-level Chinese that worked under them. All of our parents were paranoid about our security to the extreme. At many points it wasn't a matter of *if* someone makes an attempt to kidnap your child, but *when*. It wasn't the greatest of times to be a wealthy parent, though as a kid I never really felt threatened - I was probably too young to understand.
Then I came to Canada and that turned upside down. I can't remember the last time a kidnapping happened in Canada that was driven by the ransom - usually it's some sick f--- getting his jones on molesting little girls, not an organized group out to steal from the rich.
The difference? Canada has well-established social security. The average income is extremely high compared to most Asian countries, there is health care and welfare. In Taiwan (at the time) there was no health coverage *at all* for those who were not privately insured, almost no social assistance at all, and the wealth difference between the majority, still toiling for pennies in unsafe factories, vs. the newly-minted elite that was being quickly created by American investment, was massive.
America isn't quite at that point, but I get the distinct impression that the gap is widening. If it continues, we will reach a point where the majority of the country is unable to afford the necessities of life. Then the violence will start.
Perhaps a link to Paul Graham's Mind the Gap essay would be worth reading as well.
There's at least four fundamental errors that are made or implied by the Inequality Matters argument:
The summary mentions income disparity, but that statistic is only used because it is easy to measure. Sociologists modeling this issue actually find that wealth disparity, not income disparity has the closest correlation to violent crime of any observed factor. Another thing to be kept in mind is that "correlation does not necessarily imply a specific causation." This quote is often mangled by people with agendas. Correlation frequently does imply some causation, whether that causation is direct in either direction or both items are caused by another factor. Probably half of all science is finding correlations and testing for causations.
Finally, I'd like to address where the research on this subject has gone in the last few decades. The correlation between wealth disparity and violent crime fits neatly with research into motivation and de-motivation for criminal behavior. In the 80's and 90's corporations funded a lot of research into how to stop employee theft. At the same time a few other studies also tackled the same issue from a less mercenary perspective. The results of all this research led to some surprising changes in the way most sociologists think about crime. While threat of punishment is a deterrent to crime, it is nowhere near as important a deterrent in most cases as was previously assumed. In fact, the strongest motivation for not commit crime was moral, but in a rather unfocused way. In some instances a sign that says please don't steal (maybe Apple wasn't nuts) proved more effective at deterring crime than a security camera. Treating employees well and building up loyalty to the company is one of the most cost effective ways to reduce theft. Business schools in the US are just in the last 5 years starting to teach this, so it may take a while for it to worm its way into corporate culture.
By now you're probably wondering, how this fits in with wealth disparity. Wealth disparity allows people to justify their crimes, removing the moral motivation to not commit crimes. If one man is born with nothing and has to go into debt simply to get started and remains in debt for years while working hard and making good decisions, and another person is born wealthy, never has to work a day in their life and is an idiot, and makes 1000 times what the first person does simply by investing in firms that loan money to the first person and people like him and collect interest, it is easy to see that life has not treated the two people fairly. The smart and hard worker makes little and struggles while the lazy idiot gets a free ride. The more common and drastic this seems to our first person, the more likely they are to commit violent crimes and robberies. They can justify those crimes to themselves by looking at the inherent unfairness they have been subjected to. Now here's where it gets interesting. Remember where I mentioned earlier that the motivation was unfocused? While the potential criminal may have justified their actions via the unfairness, they commit their violence and crime based upon opportunity. That means they are no more likely to rob the rich than to rob other poor people.
So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a hypothetical causation between wealth disparity and crime, that is somewhat supported by statistical evidence. It also gives us clues to potential ways to reduce violent crime by addressing the motivations for crime. If we implement more progressive inheritance or wealth taxes and apply that money to socialist programs aimed at the very poor, will crime be reduced? I think it will, and that seems to be the case in other countries, but no one knows for certain. I also think rather than a dole for the poor we'd do better to address the culture of drug prohibition via decriminalization, set up addiction treatment and management programs, and address the healthcare crisis that exemplifies the percieved wealth disparity issue, if not the actual differentiation.
History shows again and again, a politically and socially stable country tends to have either
./er? No. In that way, reality definitely has a liberal bias. (to borrow a quote)
a) large and stable "middle class." Another way to describe it is good income distribution and consumption by a large number of people in the country/empire in question. More recently, that also includes political participation by all citizens.
b) Despots running the show.
In more recent times, Detroit as described in the part-documentary Roger & Me has excellent examples of the phenomena at a city-scale.
Is there a direct causal relationship that can be expressed in an equation that would satisfy a
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
As long as Lloyd Blankenstein continues to bat .325 with 120+ RBI's and his usual 30+ HR, than I think he's well worth the $53mil. I mean this is a Championship they're buying, right?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Income equality means almost nothing statistically...
What really matters is purchasing power, I was recently reading an economics text that dealt with this subject so I'll paraphrase as best I can and give the stats to the best of my recollection. Look at a country like Russia during communism or India pre-1990, income equality was much more even but people had much less purchasing power. Or for example compare 1970 and 2000 in terms of purchasing power, in 2000 the purchasing power of a person in the bottom 20% was higher than than that of the 50th percentile in 1970. Income equality doesn't put food on the table purchasing power does.
Also if you look at who comprises the bottom 20% and the top 20% you'll find that the young comprise the bottom and those in their 40s comprise the top. Generally a person at different points in their life are in different quintiles of earning. The percentage of people who stay poor or stay rich throughout their lives are very very small. 4/5ths of millionaires in the United States held a minimum wage job.
People with experience SHOULD earn more than people with out those skills, it is the differentiation in prices that allocates scarce resources to where they can best be used. Income inequality is a reflection of reality and not the other way around, you can get rid of income inequality but it means that resources will be poorly allocated. In a free market a company cannot pay their CEO substantially more than they produce or they will eventually go out of business. If a CEO is the only person that can find the 1% of the budget to shave on a 9 billion dollar a year business then they really are worth 50 million dollars, if they are not a companies will be driven to people who can do the job for less money.
I'm no fan of New York City, but he's definitely using a bogeyman here. In 2002, the murder rate in Washington, DC, was six times that of the Big Apple. New Orleans was nearly eight times more deadly, and that was before Katrina. The state of my birth, South Carolina, which is relatively rural, has a murder rate of around the same magnitude of New York City.
FWIW, I agree with the general thrust of the article, that such large wealth and income inequities are not a good thing.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I read this article yesterday, I don't think the submitter understood the point of it. I could be wrong. The point of the article isn't so much that income inequality is going to cause more crime in the US.
"Is this violence a direct result of income inequality? Almost certainly not. Brazil has a history of slavery and colonization that was far more brutal than the U.S. It would require a team of sociologists, historians, economists, and criminologists to explain the roots of violence in Brazil. Based on my knowledge of academics, I don't think they would come to a conclusion anyway."
I think the main point of the article is something "The Economist" talked about in last weeks issue. It's that even though the economies he discusses are doing tremendously well on average, the income gap still makes people unhappy and not content. The point is, it's not peoples absolute wealth that determines happiness, but their relative wealth.
From the article "In other words, we care less about how much money we have than we do about how much money we have relative to everyone else. In a fascinating survey, Cornell economist Robert Frank found that a majority of Americans would prefer to earn $100,000 while everyone else earns $85,000, rather than earning $110,000 while everyone else earns $200,000."
That's the upshot of this article, which I find quite interesting!
See that is what gets me. I am a person who isnt striving for a huge paycheck in life, just a fun job that pays the bills, supports my hobbies, and family. But this enormous gap in salaries is disturbing. It has nothing to do with job difficulty or stress, it is all about power. Bigger paycheck means more power, when was the last time you saw a supervisor make less than the engineer who's work the company relies upon. You have CEOs making millions upon millions a year, increasing the class gap, and benefits for their employees have not changed in 30 years. I would like to see someone draw up a fair model for salaries without destroying capitalism. Because if this class gap keeps increasing, soon we will be in a dangerous place as a republic.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
I think it matters, anywhere which develops a large enough gulf between the rich people and the ordinary people is likely to set its self up for trouble.
The first problem is that the rich people will most likely be the ones running the country and they will most likely tend to be running it more for their benefit than for the benefit of the ordinary person.
The second problem is when the ordinary people cannot see anyway to become as rich as the rich people or cannot see why they should have so much money whilst they don't. Especially if the off-spring of the rich people apparently do nothing but waste their lives in an orgy of pointless frivolity right in the publics face.
Ordinarily in these situations the ordinary people would get together and force changes on the way things are ran so they get more of a share in the wealth they are working to create but where the rich people have managed to put enough systems in place to prevent that happening successfully then they just give up and resort to crime since it is the only option left which is widely available and holds out the promise of great riches.
When did the financial pundits spewing pseudofacts about income inequity become "News for nerds. Stuff that matters."?
Get off my lawn.
Wealth couldn't be less of a zero-sum game. And I guarantee that if we tried your crazy plan of taking half the rich people's money and giving it away, within a year we'd be right back where we started. Why? Because the rich keep on making the decisions that made them rich, and the poor keep on making the decisions that made them poor*.
*Note: I don't believe anyone in America is truly "poor", except by choice.
Why comparing Brazilian murder rate to NYC instead of Baltimore? Accordingly with this wikipedia article, "murder rate per 100,000 of all U.S. cities of 250,000 or more population", being "six times the rate of New York City" and hence, bigger than Brazilian stated murder rate on the summary. I agree with that other poster, why the brazilian bashing on Slashdot recently? Got tired of bashing the usual suspects (China, Iran, North Korea) and need someone else for the axis of evil?
Anyway, at the rate things are getting better in Brasil (couldn't get any worse until we got rid of the U.S. backed dictatorship we had in the 70's and 80's), we are not that far away from U.S. anymore. The one thing we have to solve (and I agree wholeheartedly with the studies) is exactly Income Inequality. It means nothing to be the 10th GDP in the world if 50% of the population is below the poverty line. Poor people doesn't buy, poor people doesn't have motivation to excel, poor people doesn't have opportunity to improve the condition of their own homes, not to say the whole country.
I think you might find this interesting:
http://www.lcurve.org/
If only it was a good as 80-20
A goal is a dream with a deadline
"Does Income Inequality Matter?"
To the people at the bottom of the food chain, yes, it does.
To the carnivorous top feeders, no, it doesn't matter at all.
Seems to me that the difference is who decides where the money is spent. If one person decides where to spend $100 million, maybe he will buy a yacht, fancy cars, fine art, expensive condos ... the yacht and cars generate jobs, but the condos and fine art simply go into some other rich person's investment accounts. No one directly benefits. Plus there's not much variety there.
Whereas if 100 people spend $1 million apiece, there's more variety, more spent on manufactured goods which generate jobs, less spent on trading museum pieces around the shuffle board.
And in one million people spend $100 apiece, most of it is spent on food, booze, ciggies. Certainly generates jobs, but not good jobs, and no real opportunity to trigger investments.
The idea that a fired CEO deserves a $240 million golden parachute is just ludicrous.
Infuriate left and right
- Crime requires poor people. This is because rich people make the laws (or buy the politicians who do) and they're not stupid, so crime is what poor people do.
- But crime reporting requires rich people. This is because their taxes fund the police.
- So to get a lot of reported crime, you need both poor people (to do it) and rich people (so it's reported). Hence this apparant effect.
Does Income Inequality Matter? No, but it appears to matter.Reduce, reuse, cycle
Correlation is not causation.
Just because the murder rate and some economic figures coincide does not imply a causative relationship. Even if they always coincide, that doesn't mean they're related, at least not directly. That is, they could just happen to line up, or they could both be the result of some other unexamined set of factors.
For instance, the War on Drugs may play a part in the murder and violence rate. Gun laws affect the murder and violence rate: the tougher the laws, the higher the rate. Is that cause or effect? How the criminal justice system is run in general in a locality directly affects its crime rate. Those are just the factors I can think of without references.
Also, while TFA supposes that unequal income distribution causes crime, it could very well be that crime causes unequal income distribution. For an individual, being convicted of a felony is one of the surest predictors of low future income, predicting better even than current income. (Other major factors include having a child out of wedlock, gambling/drug abuse, and education level.) It would be surprising if felony crime were not higher where poor people are, given that one of the best ways to be poor is to be convicted of a felony.
sigs, as if you care.
Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. -- Homer Simpson
Economics has lots of numbers, measurements, indexes, and statistics. The Gini coefficient is one of them. But we as a society don't need to be a slave to a number. We need to ensure that there is a robust and equitable system that allows everyone, rich or poor (or middle class) the opportunity to build and continually improve their lives. If we have that, the Gini coefficient is irrelevant.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
all inequalities matter, and all have to be justified in the same way any other system should have to be justified. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with some inequality in income so long as that is for the right reason, which is to say that it makes the worst off people better off than they would have otherwise been. Of course that comes in itself with some caveats, and ideally everyone would get 125% of the pverty rate as a universal basic income even if they decided not to work, but the Rawlsian notion is just easier to put down
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
To put Wall Street bonuses in perspective:
"Just these bonuses -- for one year -- overwhelmingly exceed all the pay increases received by [other] workers over the entire six-year period," said Mr. Sum.
That comes from Bob Herbert of the NY Times (Jan 8, 2007) who provided these numbers: "There are 93 million production and nonsupervisory workers (exclusive of farmworkers) in the U.S. Their combined real annual earnings from 2000 to 2006 rose by $15.4 billion, which is less than half of the combined bonuses awarded by the five Wall Street firms for just one year."
The present situation in which the middle class is losing ground is not as some would have it, the mysterious workings of a competitive, dynamic free market economy. It's the direct result of decades of corporate controlled multi-national trade agreements and labor arbitrage provisions facilitating the offshore outsourcing of work and the importation of "cheap labor" into the U.S.
I've fought this fight in the IT sector for more than 5 years now. Middle and upper middle class American IT workers have been methodically targeted for replacement with lower wage foreign replacement workers. Carly "the Outsourceress" Fiorina was notorious for this activity but she is hardly alone. Her successor at HP, Mark Hurd was part of the same dynamic during his tenure at NCR in Dayton, Ohio. Larry Ellison and Bill Gates have been whacking their American workforce for years while whining to Washington politicians that they can't find qualified American IT workers. The result: politicians keep expanding the number of foreign "guest workers" permitted into the U.S. under non-immigrant visa programs such as H-1b. (There's a push underway even now for an increase.)
I think that the many Americans seeking a middle class life, well-qualified to perform even advanced work who may have lost jobs, are under threat of job loss and seeing their wages/salaries pushed DOWN by offshore outsourcing and NIV work programs SHOULD be outraged at both the politicians and the so-called business leaders and the Wall Street investors who demand that American workers get kicked to the curb.
The wealth now accruing to the already wealthiest segments of our society represents an illegitimate TRANSFER of wealth from the American middle class.
The increasing share of wealth controlled by the richest Americans is NOT the result of any Darwinian "survival of the fittest". Offshore outsourcing, "free trade" and NIV worker replacement programs are POLITICAL creations driven by lobbies funded by the wealthiest segments of our society.
This is a recipe for CLASS WARFARE. You'll find that Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia has spoken out re. this situation since before he entered the Virginia primary in which he defeated longtime ITAA pro-outsourcing and pro-NIV President Harris Miller.
For proof that you're incorrect, I ask you to compare America today to America 50 years ago. I posit that we are immensly richer now than we were then as a society- the improvements in medicine, technology, and manufacturing allow us to have much better goods for a smaller percentage of our income now than ever before in human history. What is that but the creation of wealth? How, then, can you say that wealth in our society is limited? The amount of wealth in our society is constantly rising, and it is possible to increase your own wealth without taking it from anyone else. Capitalism creates wealth in addition to redistributing it.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
This pattern has been repeated numerous times throughout history. It's been the case in the slave-based classical world, the feudal medieval world, and is no less true now. Today, we have markets for labor, capital, commodities, and these markets are more or less free - but the "free market" is an ideal that will only be in vogue as long as the ruling class are happy with their share of the pie, and the great unwashed have enough bread and circuses. The ideal of the free market is, for better or worse, a means, not an end. Most of human history has been spent without a free capitalist market - it's the height of arrogance to think that this is the end-all and be-all for humanity.
Of course inequality is of concern. Income inequality had a great role to play in the collapse of the classical and feudal worlds. It could have a role to play in a possible collapse of the capitalist world. The issue is: can the ruling class sustain its profit levels and at the same time leave enough for the rest of society to be satisfied? If it can, then all is well for now. If it can't, then our economic system is doomed.
Is this what it has come to? The only way to convince people that massive inequality is wrong is to suggest that it might lower the GDP?
Whether your background is Christian, Jewish, etc. Humanist, or even liberal (like mine), you probably believe in some sort of equality. Not because it helps the economy but as a matter of right vs. wrong. People used to talk about equality of opportunity as one of the basic values of democracies and now even that has been thrown away.
Now it seems that 'equality of opportunity' has been replaced by 'the American dream', which seems to mean that regardless of your socio-economic background, any level of success is still theoretically possible. Success might be extremely unlikely compared to a kid with richer parents, but it does still happen (and when it does we celebrate it on TV).
There is a limited amount of wealth in our society.
You lost me already. Wealth is essentially the "wellbeing" of people. How is that limited?
In a free society, there are transactions. Both parties enter into those transactions willingly, with the goal of increasing their wealth (wealth is another word for "wellbeing"). When I buy an item, I trade cash for it. To me, the item is worth more than the cash. The merchant I buy it from makes the opposite trade. To him, the cash is worth more than the item. Who is better off? Both. In a free society, each transaction benefits both parties. The benefit is an increase in wealth for each.
What's the limitation? The only limitations I can see are when government steps in and limits the transactions or fails to prevent fraudulent ones. To the extent "our society" is a free society, wealth is not limited.
Noah Webster, Miscellaneous Remarks on Divizions of Property . . . in the United States
Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution
Noah Webster, of Webster's Dictionary fame (the reason we don't spell color, colour), was the Federalist who gave the most detailed account of the nature of property and wealth to a free society. Essentially, he stated that the point of the Constitution was to break up power so that it would be too difficult to gain enough for one group of citizens to deny the rights of another group. The creation of 2nd class citizens (slaves were not citizens and indentured servants had rights) undermines the Constitution. The idea that Webster brought to the forefront was that wealth is power, therefore one the Constitution cannot survive an economic system that concentrates wealth and therefore power.
The second link was a paper written "at the request of the federalist leadership shortly after the ratification debate had begun" (Bailyn, Ideological Origins... p373). These ideas were in response to alleged errors made by Montesquieu first noted by the Willian Vans Murrary, an American law-student studying in London after the revolution.
Webster talks primarily of real property, ie land. In an agrarian economy real land is the primary infrastructure for the creation of wealth. Now that we have moved to a different economy, the fact that wealth equals power and the vulnerabilities of the Constitution have not changed, so we must adapt our regulations of the market in accordence. The historic record shows that the vast majority of the Founding generation would be shocked and deeply disturbed by the inequality of wealth in this country today and the trends regarding those statistics. They would see it as endangering the Constitution itself. I'm not for radical reorganization of wealth, I believe redistributing growth is much more efficient and fair than redistributing existing wealth. That's why income inequality is such an important factor and why it matters. It may not be the only problem and it may be a symptom of larger issues, but it's an effective measure given the current economic structure of the nation.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
While some personal bankruptcies in the US can be tied to foolish choices like taking on massive credit card debt, a large and growing share represents people who were not foolish with their money, but which suddenly got hit with large medical bills. The fact that insurance is generally tied to a job magnifies the problem - get sick, lose your job, lose your insurance (or pay lots more for COBRA) - things can go downhill quick.
You start with: The biggest problem facing the U.S. isn't the wage gap, but the surge of regulations that prevent the poor from becoming rich (and prevents small companies from becoming large one).
You end with: Sure, there wouldn't be an income gap with such a system, but I'd rather have the opportunity to work hard and become wealthy than coast through life with a lower-middle class income after taxes.
There's a numerous logical problems built into your quickie-mart economics.
1. Working hard == become wealthy (economic-level)
There is no correlation between the two in the capitalist system. History shows again and again that most industries are non-competitive and devolve to monopolies if there are no regulations limiting their reach.
2. Working hard == become wealthy (individual-level)
There is no correlation between the degree and intensity of your work and economic success. This is the core issue in "economic distribution" discussions. Work 40 years living in an apartment with one week off a year going nowhere because you can't afford it. Or, work 40 years with two weeks off a year, one spent in Aruba the other skiing in Breckenridge. Same hard work, two different outcomes.
3. Regulations...
I believe you are relying on the politically expedient interpretation of economic thinking that makes regulations bad. Is having clean water bad? Is having 100's of thousands of houses that won't fall down in an earthquake bad? Is having clean air bad? How about a 40 hour work week. Would you prefer working 7-days a week?
I'd like Chinese workers to have the same amount of regulations so I know all Chinese citizens are deriving some benefit from their economic growth and maintain political stability so I don't have to worry about being nuked by the Chinese.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Someone has to be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Which is part of the problem with a gold based system ... the basic assumption that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. The amount of gold in the world in 1507 versus 2007 is reasonably constant. However, the amount of wealth in the world is significantly higher in 2007 than in 1507.
Perhaps the term "wealth" is also misleading because it also connotes existing assets versus asset creation. The amount of asset creation -- value added if you will -- is significantly higher now than it was 500 years ago but again, the amount of gold in the world is relatively constant, making gold a poor measure of purchasing power over time.
Note that the above does not diminish your comments regarding the problems of a fiat system that is susceptible to political pressures. Both systems have problems, just in opposite directions.
Interesting reading here . For one, it specifically says that it can tend to favor smaller countries.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Wouldn't it be more precise to compare Brazils rate of murder with, lets say Washington D.C., instead of N.Y.? As WDC has also a 5 times higher murder rate than NY ....
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It all comes to unfullfilled desires. Why do people rob? (murders are a consequency of thefts and assaults) Because they want something that the other person has, and that they can't afford to buy. In a society of equality, there's no luxury - everyone has the same things, and the things that are avaliable to buy are affordable to anyone. In a unequal society, there are things that are targetted to the higher classes (luxury) and things targetted to the lower classes. If a poor person has a weak spirit, he'll develop a sense of inferiority, because he can't afford some of the things the higher classes have. This will lead some people to crime. As we all know, it starts with little crimes (like petty theft) but, with time, gets to the higher crimes (like murder). That's way there is a direct conection between income inequality and crime.
Thomas Paine advocated an inhertitance tax for England as a response to the rigid social structures of the old world, not the new world. The first levied inheritance taxes were used as financing during the Civil War circa 1860. The first permanent inheritance tax was levied in 1916.
if the Rich are left to hoard all the wealth, there's no capital flow to encourage new businesses and developments in science. Society stagnants and things got to hell for all but the very Rich and an small middle class serving them. This is how it worked for thousands of years until a couple of big wars and plagues depleted the supply of cheap labor ( and hindered the flow of cheap labor ), and this is where we're headin back to.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The notion is incorrect, based on false data and false conclusions. See http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6875
If the above poster had half a brain he'd have realized that the 9.5 billion was the EARNINGS FOR THE ENTIRE COMPANY, not the bonus.
Sure it's easy to missread things. But that's where the half a brain comes in. It doesn't take to much smarts to realize that there's no way each employee is getting a $370,000 bonus.
In other words, we care less about how much money we have than we do about how much money we have relative to everyone else. In a fascinating survey, Cornell economist Robert Frank found that a majority of Americans would prefer to earn $100,000 while everyone else earns $85,000, rather than earning $110,000 while everyone else earns $200,000.
Because, in an economy where there is less money available, that money is *worth* more and can buy things at a lower price than an economy where everyone has twice as much money. Consider the hypothetical "numbers pulled out of my butt" scenario:
If everyone has $85,000, an average car could sell for $20,000. If we double the amount of money to $200,000, that same car would now cost as much as $47,000. Having a few dollars more than the average in the first example is *always* going to be better than having half as much in the second. That hundred grand isn't worth as much! Consider that the "cost of living:" health care, transportation, even groceries are all going to increase by more than double.
It's not about how much money you have, but how much you can get with it. We can't assume that market prices stay the same when the amount of money available is doubled. It's why having a million dollars today isn't enough to be considered rich anymore -- too many people have a million dollars, and the luxuries attributed to "millionaires" in the past are now reserved for "billionaires". Meanwhile the price of necessities climbs faster than the average income, leaving our money worth less and less, until those on the bottom rungs are forced to choose, not between comforts, but between the basics. When the only food Grandma can buy with her Social Security after paying for her prescriptions necessary to stay alive has a picture of a cat on it, that's intolerable.
There were far fewer regulations in the late 1800s in the US and the disparity between the top and bottom was even greater than it is now. If you want to go back to the middle ages with the nobility walled up in their castles on hills you are on the right track. We already have more and more "elite" gated communities.
"but the surge of regulations that prevent the poor from becoming rich"
What are these regulations that you speak of? Where are these people with great ideas and inborn business skills who are being held back by, say, OSHA rules? Norway is one of those evil caretaker countries you despise and the people there are pretty happy and well off.
"I'd rather have the opportunity to work hard and become wealthy"
So are you wealthy now after all of your hard work? I know lots of people who work their asses off and struggle with high housing costs, layoffs, etc. Odds are it is an ideology for you and not a reality.
As far as bloated C*O pays goes, I wonder how much good it could have done for the company if more of it was reinvested into the company instead of looted. Maybe, god forbid, better pay for the employees who actually do the work?
If you believe in Darwinian sociology then the economic elite is simply in competition for grabbing as much resources as possible, not by any moral right or economic principal but just because they can and they want to. Everyone else has to fight against this constant force by what means they have and in a democratic society it is via their numbers which generally means the government.
There are very few executives versus peons, and only one CEO.
They earned their position by going through the ranks either at the company they are at or others. They don't work 40 hour weeks, 60 to 80 is the norm. They have to anwser for many things outside of their control.
In the end its up to the investors to determine what is appropriate pay. Not any government. Any other course is setting us up for disaster.
Amazing all the people who cry about CEO's getting big paychecks totally ignore sports stars and actors/actresses who rake in large amounts of dough. Sorry, but I have far more respect for any CEO that those other groups.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Is it any wonder the downtrodden guy went apeshit and blew away half of a McDonald's when he learned that the CEO got 50 million richer *because* 1500 people got "downsized"?
Yes, it is a wonder. Being poor does not give one a license to murder. Some of you all are going to have to face a really important fact at some point in your life: Life isn't fair. Get over it.
every been to an emergency room and "can't" pay?
first level- go with weak conditions, a 'cough' you'll wait for over 12 hours-maybe 24, lots of people will not go for weak conditions/issues and these can develope into more sever conditions. (like, TB)
second level- recieve a diagnoses of something chronic and treatable but expensive, they'll give you a diagnosis and prognosis and send you on your way- they will not include a remaining lifetime supply of meds or treatments
third level- can't pay, still get billed, fail to pay as indigent, and never recover financially, from the black mark on your credit report.
fundamental is not enough for it to be basic healthcare.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
For reference, the CIA World Factbook places their Gini index at 56.8, as of 2003. But I think there are bigger problems to talk about than a stupid number.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Note: I don't believe anyone in America is truly "poor", except by choice.
But whose choice was it?
For example, we know that the quality of primary education ties very strongly to your chances of getting into a good college (or even going to college at all) which ties very strongly to your future career prospects. What about nutrition and healthcare, which have a noted impact on adult IQ? What about how the presence of a strong and united family or the lack thereof affects people? What about the presence of discrimination against people with "ghetto-sounding" names?
Now, who gets to make the choices that shape your life as a child? Is it you, or is it your parents?
Anyone can say that a person made all the choices that led them to where they are today, but it takes a certain short-sightedness to think choices all happen in a vacuum or that all people have equal access to opportunity. Intergenerational income mobility has been on the decline in America because of the prevalence of people who have that philosophy: you sink or swim on your own; there are no hands to hold you up or to keep you down. The fact is that if you're born to poor parents, you're more likely in America than in any other industrialized nation to end up just as poor as them, and if you're born to rich parents, your more likely here to end up rich as well.
I think a lot of people just don't understand how expensive it is to be poor. Try buying things with bad credit, working jobs with no healthcare until you end up in the emergency room, working such long hours at pitiful wages to make ends meet that you can't raise your kids, renting in overpriced slums because you can't afford to pre-pay 1-2 month's rent, etc.
Public works to help cover medical, food, and education expenses does go a long way to giving children the opportunities that their parents don't currently have. A higher minium wage would let parents make ends meet without having to abandon their children, and less financial stress makes for happier relationships and better health. Educating people in school about debt management and about the impact of their choices would also help out a lot.
There are things we can do to improve the opportunity of people to make those good choices that keep one out of poverty. You're right that wealth is no zero-sum game, but there's something fundamentally wrong with our society that makes us think that the biggest pile is a greater sign of efficiency than the highest tide.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
While I largely agree with what you say (except 5%, which is incredible), I just want to add
that not all rich men are meritorious. Another thing is that people who manage people will
make a lot more than those who manage things. So the boss will never be underpaid, only
the underlying. And lastly, circumstances matter a lot. A son of CEO will get a job no matter
how poorly he does in everything, and probably he will get a promotion as well. And this is on
top of the best school, the best tutor, best everything.
It is true that ability helps, but so do low morale standards, in reaching the top. It is equally
true that a lot of ability go wasted because it does not have a chance to shine. Opportunities
matter more than regulations but opportunities are also very subtle, too much bound with customs
and norms, too much beyond the reach of laws and regulations. I guess in the end if a society decides to close itself
and commit suicide there is nothing any person or law can do.
If it was policy to take half the bonus of a top executive in a major company and distributed it to the other workers in the company who are *also* responsible for its success, and this was done routinely rather than rarely or with scummy tricks (view this recent thread of discussion for some examples), there's no question it would do a world of good for the whole of the economy and society. According to the article, the $9.5 billion the company earned is enough for $370000 per employee at Goldman Sachs, so, by simple math they have about 25675 employees. So, why the hell not give the CEO "only" a $26.5 million bonus this year, and hand out $1032 to each employee? Imagine the effect on morale! And they can't claim they didn't have the money -- they just gave it to the CEO.
Executive compensation *is* FAR out of proportion, and they get bonuses for, usually, keeping as few workers as possible in the company, keeping their wages as close to minimum, and extracting as much free overtime as is (sometimes) legal.
Of course these top people have big responsibilities and should be well compensated if they do a good job, but some of the numbers are insane.
You are mixing two entirely different things here: wage level/distribution and human services.
I live in Brazil and the human services here are *excellent*, entirely on par or better than in Sweden, another country where I have lived in the past. On paper, that is.
The Brazilian constitution states that "health is a right of the citizen and a duty of the state". Too bad you either pay for private health insurance or stand in line for three days to get a consultation at a public hospital. The law also guarantees thirty days per year paid vacations for workers and four months paid licence for child bearing. Too bad over 50% of the workers are either unemployed or working "informally", that is without a written contract.
The Brazilian law is very, very generous in distributing benefits to everyone, although in practice only a small minority can get those. Public servants can retire and keep working at the same job, effectively doubling their salaries. Judges salaries start at R$24500/month (about US$11400), which is 70 times the minimum wage and about ten times the starting salary for other university graduates, such as engineers for instance. And you can become a judge right after finishing law school, although there is strong competition for the job, having another judge in the family is a strong factor in getting the employment.
I have lived in four countries: Brazil, Colombia, Sweden, and the USA, so I know a little about the differences between them. I think it's a big mistake when the law tries to give unrealistic benefits to everyone, without regard to how it's going to be paid for. Universal health care is a big mistake, IMHO. Swedes pay dearly in taxes for all the human services they have available, even if, differently from Brazil or Colombia, those services are available to everyone who is entitled to them. In Brazil currently we have the worst possible situation, our entitlements, in theory, are on the same level as in Sweden, our taxes, in practice, are in the same level as in Sweden, and our human services, for most people, are way below those of the USA.
There are a million or so illegal Brazilian immigrants in the USA. Those are people who break the law to get away from a country where universal health care is guaranteed by the Constitution. They do it to move away from a country where the sales tax is up to 35%. Where taxes, in average, are about 42% of total prices. Where import duties are 100% over the price for many products.
In the end, the well-intentioned but misguided effort of legislators to grant so many benefits to everyone is one of the main reasons for the increasing crime rates in Brazil. With such absurd taxes, evasion is rampant and tolerated by officers. This causes widespread corruption and the consequent erosion of authority. When an officer accepts a bribe in exchange for a tax reduction, he is being conditioned to accept bribes for other crimes.
Income inequality is not bad, as long as it doesn't result from force. "Fixing" it by having government redistribute wealth at gunpoint is the real travesty.
Remember government == force when you get down to it. So big-government liberals (and conservatives) are violent people.
Zimbabwe is now infamous for having what is possibly the world's most messed-up economy. Their inflation rate was 1204.6% a year as of last August. Poverty is everywhere and only getting worse. And, of course, no one in their right mind is going to invest anything in the country. As Wikipedia puts it:
For reference, the CIA World Factbook places their Gini index at 56.8, as of 2003.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This kind of CEO example does not affect violence because it's not related to the people who are on the top, but to those that who are on the bottom. Violence is related to the income inequality between the poorest and the middle class. When everyone was dying because of simple diseases, both poor and middle man, healthcare was not as important as it is today. When all kids used to play at the same streets, playing the same games, going to the same schools, househould income was just a measure of things not really connected to the children's future.
Today things are different. Poverty affects life with more intensity than in the past. It's not just about going to "the city" to "work hard" anymore, as education and culture plays a big role in the modern world. If you read the history of ancient rich people like Andrew Carnegie and others, you'll find that all they needed at their time was entrepreneurship and perseverance. Good luck finding a good job at NY City today being nothing but "smart" and "hard working".
What the heck, if you even have a "poor people"-like name these days, your life will be affected by it. The problem is that violence is not really about buying food or elements needed to improve life (education and others), but to buy luxury and/or drugs. That is also why poor people today have less opportunities, because they're seen as greedy and useless people with no desire to improve life status. Unfortunately, part of that perception is true, as most poor people are really greedy underachievers with an inferior culture that praises stupid stuff like gangs and crime instead of education and hard work.
If you were poor at 1902, you were still "one of them": you had the same kinds of names (instead of "Shaquilla" and others), the same race, the same origin and, the most important, the same culture. At the current time, poor people are perceived as bad people, not just people with less resources. That's the difference between country-building immigrants, and job-seeking illegals.
The money that *anybody* honestly makes is nobody else's goddamned business. That is the short answer. Whether the millionaire got it from a lifetime of frugal savings, clever investments, winning the lottery, creating a business, singing songs, or whatever, it's his money and everybody else should keep their thieving hands off of it. If envious people want more money, they should stop spending time complaining and spend the time working smarter and harder.
This is really what all of the Marxist BS about "income disparity", in all of its infinite variations, is all about, rationalizations aside.
Not directly, but in the long run the larger the rich/poor gap, the worse off we all are. Notice all the countries with small gaps between rich/poor have much higher life expectancies (Japan is a prime example). I don't mean to be pulling Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc, but there maybe some greater correlation than coincidence and diet (pretty much every Japanese smokes all their life but they have a higher life expectancy. Wtf.). People criticize Japan for having a stagnant economy...but if everyone has more than enough to get by (even more than comfortably), does it matter?
No CEO is worth $53m. This is the problem with capitalism. The market encourages and rewards unrestrained greed. As history shows us this greed always ends with people getting hurt some way or another.
In 197x, GE's CEO/President made some like 30x what the lowest paid GE employee earned. Today it is something like 3000x. Or look at the average salary of an American, adjusted for inflation, in 1980 vs. now. If capitalism is indeed the best economic plan, then shouldn't more of us be benefiting than not? In 1980 the average salary was something like (don't quote me on this) 32k. Now, adjusted for inflation, it is ~31k. So Americans, on average, are making ~1k less now than they were 30 years ago. Meanwhile education and most other necessities of life either cost the same (adjusted for inflation) or more than they used to. Now throw out the low and high values in the scale (look at the median) and you'll see the the drop in pay is even greater, closer to ~3k. We have a greater proportion of society taking home less and less money every year, and an increasingly smaller portion of society becoming exponentially more wealthy ($53m bonus for example). Is this kind of pay necessary? Of course not. Does it hurt others? You bet. Why not just give this CEO guy $3m and take the other $50m and give everyone else that works a bonus for sticking with the company? Some people fuss about Americans thinking they deserve a raise or a bonus, just because...but when a manager has 4 secretaries, they could all be working their tail off but only one of them will get the new job opening. I'm not saying reward mediocrity, but if people are generally doing their job well and working to improve, why would you withhold a bonus or raise from them if you can afford it (clearly GS can)?
Capitalism is good, but we need some way to remove the incentive to better yourself and your company at the detriment of others. In this case, the detriment of others is some moocher gets to sit on a fat $53m wallet. This money would be of much more use to a university wanting to fund graduate research.
One option I've read about that interests me would be to make the highest salary you're allowed to take home with you some multiple of the minimum wage. Anything else would be taxed. The tax most people would pay would be whatever multiple of the minimum wage they're earning. If you were making 3x minimum wage, you'd only pay 3% in taxes. None of this funny business over income tax and estate tax and sales tax. If you work the numbers for last year, you'll find if the tax system had worked this way, 99% of America would have paid less in taxes. The other 1% would have paid [substantially] more. How would this not be best for everyone? If the people in the top bracket wanted to earn more, they'd have to increase the minimum wage. The goal here would be to eliminate wealth (your money works for you), but not eliminate incentive to work hard[er]. You'd still be able to save money, earn interest, and buy stocks, but anything you earn in interest beyond 10x (or 20x or whatever we choose) the minimum wage would we taxed. Sounds pretty nasty, but when you consider it, 100k is plenty for anybody. If it isn't then you lobby for raising the minimum wage. This would accomplish two important things:
-Eliminate Wealth (unneeded strain on the working class) while saving work ethic (work hard get rewarded)
-Remove the incentive for corporate rape of the environment, employees, and other
Some people can generate more wealth than other people, therefore they get paid more. It's only fair. If I can turn $10,000 of raw materials into $21,000 of goods each day, I'm worth 20x someone who can turn $10,000 of raw materials into $10,500 of goods each day. Even though I only produce twice as much, I generate 20x the profit, and I should be compensated accordingly.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Yes I know about the CPI .. but I want someone to define what basic needs are.
.. don't bitch about how you want the rich to pay you (via increasing their taxes, eliminating free trade etc.).
Like having health care, ability to live in a violent crime free atmosphere, being able to communicate and visit family and friends somewhat regularly.
Now, once that's done. We have a starting point.
Now the problem has become people who earn 150k claiming they're roughing it out. That may be true, but don't tell me some crap about how you're willing to exploit the extremely poor so that you can keep up payments on your Mercedes SUV. Or prevent people from foreign countries from selling their products here because with a 5% unemployment rate we lack the tens of millions of factory workers needed to maintain a high quality of life.
On the same token, if you're unable to find a job that pays over the amount needed for basic needs
Why not bitch? Because obviously the services and contibution you're providing is not worth the amount you are asking for. IT people especially have this. Just because they made the decision to go to school and major in something useless, they get pissed when they aren't offered the salary they want. Well shit, a fast food worker WANTS 150k too, but why isn't she being given that? Preparing fast food is hard rewardless work, yet it often pays barely above minimum wage. If going to school makes you somehow entitled to being presented with 150k why aren't people who are majoring in biology, or liberal arts like history asking for that? And yeah a liberal arts course isn't necessarily easier than computer science.
Ack. Ignore this post - a rogue < ate up half the content. And I should have replied to the grandparent anyway. Here you go: http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216488&cid =17576292 -- how about that? better? :P
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Actually, I think there's a basis for discussion if you consider the complex, and imperfect, nature of humanity.
For instance: Some of the basic problems with communism have to do with greed and sloth. People have a tendency to want all they can get, and not to work harder than they have to to get to it. Market economies better acommodate these basic imperfections of people, by providing disincentive for sloth and allowing productive uses of greed (with the danger that greed can get out of hand).
Income equality (as such, not considering simple poverty yet) has problems of encouraging envy and pride (pride in the sense of hubris rather than self-respect). Envy comes when someone feels entitled to something their neighbor has. Pride comes from when someone is so far "above" others that they no longer care about them. Excessive income inequality cause problems at both ends; some of the poor commit crimes to share in the pleasures of the rich, and some of the rich rig the rules of society to bias in their favor over others. (And *both* phenomena are easily noticeable in American society if you pay attention.) Taking some steps to rein in excessive inequality, while still living room for some to excel by greater productivity, can improve social cohesiveness by working with, rather than against, our common imperfections.
It's a natural tendency (which I've seen in this thread) for folks on the top to mainly notice sloth and envy in their worse-off neighbors, and folks on the bottom to mainly notice greed and pride in their better-off neighbors. But you need to notice and be aware of all of them, to understand the whole picture.
You are right, capitalism is fundamentally broken and can't be fixed because of its inherent nature. I don't really like a lot of Marx's thinking but he was right about the crisis of over-production. The WP article on it isn't great but it is worth reading into (I might write a better one this weekend...).
You are also right about how some people would sell their mothers tommorrow if they thought that it would make them a little more money than they already had, if only the western countries would go for a universal basic income (125% of the poverty rate paid to everyone even if they don't work) - that would make all this better. It is also a very interesting topic area to read on, maybe even to one day introduce
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I never stated that life is fair. But you know, please find someone who has continually gotten the short end of the stick and explain how life isn't fair. I'm sure they'll tell you that they know that first hand, and you're still a dick for thinking that they just need to "get over it." Have you ever tried giving someone a hand up instead of dispensing your amazing wisdom?
And for the record, I never said that being poor was "license to murder." I merely said that *I wasn't surprised by it* (you know, human nature being what it is and all...).
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Economic mobility is supposed to work both ways: stupid rich people are supposed to become poor when they are incompetent.
This is really the problem with both the income gap and the issue of executive pay that brought it up. Our version of capitalism is sliding further and further away from the ideal goal of meritocracy.
The problem is that most people who want to remove "the surge of regulations that prevent the poor from becoming rich" are really talking about the elimination of social services (and the taxes to pay for them) that help distribute risk for the poor. Our society, in the form of bail-outs for companies that can't fund their pension plans while paying multi-million dollar CEO benefits, is only moving towards covering the risks of the wealthy and ignoring the risks of the middle class and poor.
The whole idea of the free markets being fair is that people with great ideas will generate wealth, and people with poor ideas will get driven out of the market and out of wealth. This happens very rarely, though. Once you're in the big leagues, you can drive a company into the dirt and walk away with more money that an entire small town of people may earn in their lives.
Past a certain point, wealth is one-way without deliberate and reckless dedication to spending your way out of it. There's a whole world of difference in terms of risks between people who work for money (the salaried class) and people whose money works for them (the investor class).
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I mean, just because you wish not to play their *game*, you as a human have no value?
When said person gets ill?
Will things change only when bodies of the sick and poor are piled up at the government's doors?
The unions began this, but was outfoxed by business; simply give the poor enough to satisfy thier basic needs and they will once again be manageable, and profitable cows.
At what point will working people simply stop working for the system, and then for themselves?
Never? Is that why some do not want inexpensive education?
That we're all wishing we'd taken business courses and gotten jobs as brokers on wallstreet instead of our fancy technical degrees! :-)
I mean, who knew? I wish someone had told me about his back in High School, stupid guidence counseler!!
But that's half the point. As people become more productive, they deserve to reap the rewards of that productivity. It's true that if society becomes 5% more productive and the fed waters down the value of our money by 5% that nobody may notice and values will stay the same. But that's bogus, why should they get the dough? Why should they get the power? We're the ones who earned it, we're the ones that increased our value, not them. We deserve the lower prices that productivity brings, not prices forced up to stay equal while they rake the cream off the top. A thief who steals from your increase is just as much a thief as one who steals from your holdings.
Over the last couple decades, the US had a huge surge of immigrants (mostly poor to begin with) from latin American countries (mostly Mexico). Why should it be a surprise then that the US Gini Coefficient is trending towards that of countries like Mexico or Brazil.
Non caucasians do much better in mixed neighborhoods than when concentrated together. Concentration tends to reinforce negative attitudes and habits, especially with so-called African-Americans. Black people that emigrated post slavery tend to do much better. And it's not slavery or racism that keeps the slave descendants down. It's their attitude and the reinforcemment of the same from their leaders. People like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They''d be better off listening to people like jesse Lee Peterson.
Blaming crime on income inequality is no different from blaming murder on the exsitence of guns. It all comes down to personal responsibilty.
It's not income inequality that causes crime, it's peoples' obession with what everyone else is doing instead of worrying about themselves. The financial health of most people in the U.S is of their own making...this includes the richest and poorest people among us. There are exceptions at both ends. Some people are born into wealth and some into poverty. I don't care what anyone says, there is no excuse for any person in the U.S to be living in poverty except by their own choice. Whether it be having more kids than you can afford, not learning a skill or trade, not going to school...whatever it is, for 99% of people, it's their own fault. The remaining 1% is pretty much reserved for people with some sort of mental or severe physical disability. If you can wake up in the morning and dress yourself, you have no excuse.
Stop worrying about executive bonuses and CEO salaries...it's none of your business unless you're a shareholder. Worry about taking care of yourself.
Any attempt to create equality other than in the area of law, free market access to goods and services and the resultant application of those foundational principles, is a Utopian Delusion that occasionally rears its ugly head in response to the natural excesses of free market opportunism and the resultant profit and reward.
In societies where equality via socialism and communism are the cornerstone of economic and social policy, it can be said that these societies and forms of governments are not devoid of the wealthy and powerful, hence corruption that can stem from this sort of advantage. To what degree is where argument can be made.I say inequality and the corruption that can be found via money and power is more prevalent in societies and forms of governments (socialism and communism), where the promise of equality is given priority over the promise of individual freedom.
It is obvious that anyone who disagrees is either a fool, useful idiot or part of a larger campaign/movement whatever it be, to disrupt the unfettered and sometimes excess expression of social and economic freedom found in free markets.
I personally believe its the latter since the only way to conquer an enemy of who is united in the pursuit of happiness is to defeat them from within. Hence the constant barrage of junk science and socio-economic propaganda all designed to chip away at the confidence of a free and decent people.
The cold war never ended, it just morphed into the leftist social consciousness movement, very clever indeed.
1) Extremely high executive compensation attracts people for management who are extraordinarily greedy and selfish. These traits lead them to make business decisions that are both self-serving and short term in outlook; exactly the opposite of what any business needs to grow and prosper.
2) A top management receiving pay that is so much higher than most of the people working in the business allows them to live in ways far beyond the means of most other employees. As a result, they lose touch with the day-to-day problems and issues of their workforce and consequently make poor decisions.
3) People who are paid far above others soon begin to think that they are somehow wiser, more intelligent, more creative, harder working, etc than others and begin to devalue their contributions and opinions. This can have disastrous consequences for any organization.
4) Extremely high compensation usually carries a built-in obligation for a 100 percent time and life commitment, something that is unimportant to selfish people but critically important to many talented people who might otherwise seek higher positions.
The most talented top managers often seem to stumble into their positions by chance after the organization has been nearly destroyed by the self-seeking opportunistic managers to the point that those types no longer find the position attractive.
I have to laugh at anyone who feels like they need to make more money than their neighbor. If you think about it even for just a few seconds you'll realize you're going to be perpetually unhappy. What exactly does it mean to me as a person if I make more money? Does it mean I am a better person? More powerful? Of course not. It just means I have more things than the next person.
When will people wake up from the self-induced stupor of materialism?
"... happiness and contentment is not so much our absolute wealth, but our relative wealth"
This is almost correct. I read a research paper a few years ago ( If I can find the link again, I'll post it ) that said that it was a combination of relative wealth and opportunity that lead to contentment.
Specifically, the authors were looking at revolutions, and noted that they tended to occur when the top quintile made 40 times as much as the bottom quintile, AND there was little or no movement of individuals between quintiles. But if people had the opportunity to move, revolutions did not occur even with greater inequality.
In other words, if people believe that they can someday earn a pile of money, they are much less likely to resent those who have. They will view the rich guy as an incentive.
But if they believe that they cannot get rich - due to caste sytems, monopolies, licencing, racial laws, or some other artificial means of locking them out - then they are far more likely to become violent.
It was reassuring to me that the author said that the US has far greater mobility between quintiles than most developed nations.
And how do you propose to do that? Wealth is one of the most non-linear parameters you can use. You can distribute $10 million among ten million poor people and each will buy a hamburger. A rich man may have paid $10 million for a painting. There is no way you can cut a Picasso to get ten million burgers.
Distributing wealth is an ineffective way to end poverty because the more money people have, the less value they own per dollar. Having the economy organized so that everyone will get satisfactory paying jobs is much better.
Bullshit, there are billions of poor people in this whold who live perfectly honest lives and your assertion is a slap in the face to all of them. Inequality of wealth does not drive crime, inequality of freedom does. In this case it is the freedom taken away from all of us by the way the US Federal Reserve bank controls our money. It amazes me how many fools believe in this system, but then wine about all the inequality it creates by it's very nature. May I sugest that you educate yourself about nature of honest money vs banking by fiat.
Yes, if you're a socialist then it matters. I realize that many in this country (U.S.) use democracy to bring about socialism. They further use class-envy to stir up the populace. I don't like executives getting bonuses for leaving a company in the shitter, but it happens. I'm not prepared to cut down all the trees because maples are pissed.
There is a book by Paul Zane Pilzer called "Unlimited Wealth" that discusses the zero-sum game of wealth -- his main argument is that in a knowledge-based economy, scarcity of resources from the industrial age doesn't exist any longer and there are no limits -- although, unfortunately, I think this book is out of print. Worth tracking down, though, if you can, because it was written long before the Internet era as we know it, and quite a bit of what he says seems prophetic in hindsight.
*Note: I don't believe anyone in America is truly "poor", except by choice.
You might want to take a look outside of your parent's gated community and go see the world sometime. There's an awful lot of people who work long, hard hours and don't have much more than the shirts on their backs. If you'd take a look outside of your parent's gated community and get a brief glimpse of the world you'd know that, but the real world scares and confuses trust fund trash like you.
What does this question have to do with "News for Nerds"? Anyway, apparently income inequality doesn't matter, as we have massive amounts of people literally dying to come to the US and there hasn't been a mass movement to "remedy" the situation.
Criminals are just bad people with no morals?
There was a time in my life when I was poor. I drove a crappy old car. I had ratty old furniture. I lived in a really bad neighborhood. I saw wealthy people and their life style, yet, instead of envying what they had and trying to steal it, I worked my ass off and made something of my life. I'm not rich, but I'm not poor now.
We are spoiled brats here in the states. We whine and complain about the wealthy and get all worked up, when if we devoted that same energy to achieving something in our own lives, we would be much better off.
There was a time when movies had plots. So you knew who's ass it was, and why it was farting.
-Not Sure
Short answer "No" with a "but", long answer "Yes" with an "if".
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I simply disagree when somebody gets 500 (or whatever) times more money than another person in his or her organization. If the CEO has any respect to the low-end worker, he or she would limit the disparity to something much smaller. I don't know if income inequality is good or bad for society, but at the personal level I just don't respect people who let this happen.
Let's continue down this road. When our income inequality is the same as that of Brazil, let's take another look at the crime rate. If it's bad, we'll just redistribute all the dough, yes?
// This is not a sig.
It does matter, when you're attempting to use avarice, greed, hatred, envy, and other base human emotion to garner political power. Quite frankly, what some CEO makes isn't a bit of your goddamn business, unless you're a stockholder in the company. About 99% of the people reading /. make a whole FUCKLOAD more than your average 3rd world dirt hut living person; maybe we should do something about that? Or maybe the people in here who care so much about income disparity should do something about it themselves and give all their money away to people who have nothing. Of course, I'm high, you know.
Do NOT click that link!!! YUCK
of resources from the industrial age doesn't exist any longer and there are no limits
Woohoo!
unfortunately, I think this book is out of print
D'oh!
Incorrect. The poor person in this case is obviously not working as hard. He obviously didn't work as hard at school, nor has he worked hard enough to acquire the extra education needed to get a better job. He has not worked hard enough to learn how to make more money. He has not learnt the most productive ways in which to direct his hard work.
Let's not confuse physically hard work with actual hard work. It's intellectually easy to perform grunt work for 80 hours a week for 40 years. It doesn't require any thought, any planning, any ambition or any risk-taking. In fact it is the path of least resistance, i.e. the easy route.
Well in the end it at comes down to what you believe is best for humanity:
a) The Neo-Liberal viewpoint where everyone just wants to minimalize pain and maximalise pleasure, in other words where every individual does everything only to his own profit. The Selfish society model. In this case you vote republican and yes the inequalities will grow, and a permanent Matthew effect system will naturally come to place.
or
b) You believe in a Nashian "Game Theory" world where everyone has to try to make the best decisions for himself, but taking the others into account. This will mean a society with smaller numbers of symbolic goods (aka money), but a society with less tensions and probably a lot less crime.
In the end, it all comes down to morality, would you rather have more assets and more poverty, or less assets and more equality...
I wonder where this fascination for being ultra-rich comes from, is it the fear of having nothing that makes people want so much? Or is it because a Societal Matthew effect is already in place and people that are rich are seen as better, more worthy then others...
1. Is is ok for the government to give some money to all citizens, so that they do not indulge in any illegal and unethical activities?
2. Does flat income tax system reduce irrational wealth inequalities in America?
Slashdot = Sarcasm
The rich use their wealth to protect and perpetuate their power. The poor aren't just poor because they make bad decisions, they're poor because it's hard to stop a downward spiral.
You say people in America are only truly poor "by choice". But does an uneducated girl whose father abandoned her at birth have that much choice when she gets pregnant? Sure, she can say no, but is she really equipped to do that? Does the guy in Michigan growing up in what's left of an industrial town have what it takes to say no to the booze that drowns out the misery of his situation? Did George Bush choose to be rich? What about Dick Cheney (who got nearly all of his wealth from gov't contracts, buyouts and subsidies he obtained with his connections).
People don't choose to be rich and poor, it's mostly blind luck (or lack thereof) and nepotism. The real problem, the one you haven't considered, is what happens when the rich get so entrenched the poor can't move up. You saw that in 17th century Europe. There's an opera house in Berlin I think it is that couldn't be built today, because you couldn't get society to dedicate that much of it's resources to something as frivolous as an opera house. It's that kind of abuse of wealth that we're heading towards.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Whenever topics like this come up all the libertarians, fascist/corporatists and foaming-at-the-mouth capitalists come out of the woodwork to say that "anybody can make it in America!" even though none of them have been poor, black, suffering from disease and fleeing from hurricanes while still succeeding in business. Hey, I like kool-aid, too, but this is total horseshit. Let me be absolutely clear:
THE RICH "CREATE" POVERTY. Clear enough? Without rich people actively trying to fuck over poor people we wouldn't have the income disparity that we presently have. To see it in action, all you have to do is look at the Republican party and their collaborators in big business. They try their best to cut taxes for the rich and slash spending on social programs, no matter what the human cost. The Democrats help by increasing federal spending to obscene levels thereby necessitating increased taxation. We get fucked from both ends, like a double-sided dildo.
As amusing as it is to read white-bread, middle-class slashdotters talking about how easy it is for anybody in America to become a captain of industry, I feel compelled to take a shit on your Capitalism Cake. Fascism is alive and well in this country, which should be no surprise to anyone who knows what Fascism is: Corporatism. Basically, it's the merger of the state and big business. Fascism is the governmental system that is most favorable to business, bar none. Big Business is fascist not because they believe in Hitler's aryan fantasies but because they stand to gain from a government hopelessly devoted to improving market conditions for greedy multinationals.
The income gap is not a new thing because greed is as old as humanity. There is no such thing as being "rich enough." There is only MORE. More money, more power, more disparity. And how do you really know that you're rich unless somebody else is poor? How can you really enjoy being wealthy unless you have servants? The rich mindset is dead set on creating inequity because the rich benefit from it, and like I said, there is no limit to their desires.
This is aided, abetted and made possible by the Federal Reserve System. Each year the Fed increases the money supply, and each year money becomes worth less and less. That's the problem with fiat currency. Since it's not backed by gold the dollar bill has no intrinsic worth. It is just paper. Since it's just paper/electrons it can be created with a flick of the wrist. And so it is. When that money is created, who gets it? You? Does the government/private industry send you a check each year to account for inflation? No, the money is simply stolen from you by those who create it: The bankers. Bankers are the Kings of Capitalism. They are the new aristocracy, the ruling class that maintains control with an iron fist. They control the corporations and our government.
But this system, which appears impossibly strong from the outside, is actually rotting from within. Things are falling apart. If there was a run on the banks our economy would collapse into a pit that would make the Great Depression look like a tea party. That's because of the deposits vs. cash-on-hand ratio. Banks are able to create money simply by making loans. How? Well, they don't really have your money in the vault, you know. For each dollar you put in your savings account the bank is able to lend 10 dollars out because bankers have figured out that they only need to keep 10% of their total deposits on hand at any given time. (I'd like to have a 9x or 10x multiplier on my wealth. Maybe I should start a bank and screw you people over! It's the American way!) The Fed backs them in case of a run, but they don't have the money either. The money doesn't exist. It's imaginary. It's not backed by anything
Electric Monkey Pants
I am sorry but Chicago and Minneapolis are non-popular areas. Cali, Fla, New York, Boston are popular areas, also with limited space, driving prices up. Chicago and Minneapolis are cold and icky, Boston is, but it is Taxichusetts which is just a freak place. New York is cold, but where else in America can you walk our of your apartment or townhouse and go to a place to eat sushi off a naked hottie at 3 AM?
We are taught in school that europe overthrew the aristocrats and instituted democracy in its place. However, when you examine the evidence you will realise just how LITTLE of the world is free from aristocracy and plutocracy. The reality is the fact that America is a democracy or capitalist really matters little. America is really an aristocratic country, just like pre-revolution France.
I can tell you that when I was working at those sites I easily cleaned at 2-4x the rate as the vast majority of my "co-workers" who much preferred to work slow and do the same stuff repeatedly (to pretend to work). The notion that everyone that's getting paid to work actually works hard is simple and utter bullshit. I'm not saying that I'd want their life, but if you're getting paid $10/hour to work, you can at least pull your own weight while you're on the job (it's also a hell of a lot less boring). Furthermore, the quality of the worker and the work varied wildly and often had no relationship to the salary. I found that many of the union shops which paid $12/hour did much less work than the non-union shops that paid $8/hour.
Having too large a gap between the richest and the poorest is bad for society. Having too small a gap between the richest and the poorest is bad for society. The most positive situation lies somewhere between these two extremes. This is the philosophy of The Golden Mean.
Quoting from Wheelan's article:
Ask yourself: why doesn't society run amok? Why do citizens choose to live within the rules of society? Why do we choose not to rob, murder, and otherwise plunder our fellow citizens? Is it fear of punishment by the justice system? No doubt that has something to do with it. Do we fear losing our livelihood, our shelter, our food, our friends? I think this has a great deal to do with why most people choose to live within the rules of society. Most of us go to work every day, consume only what we earn, and in general act in the best interests of society because we believe that if we do so, then society will reward our hard work with sustenance, giving us a general sense of well being. This is called the Social Contract. Most people will respect and obey the rules of society if there is a reasonable chance of being rewarded by society. It is an unwritten principle that most of us live by.
What would happen if the Social Contract weakened or disappeared? What would happen if certain citizens began to believe that living within the rules of society would not be rewarded significantly or at all? Would they continue to be law abiding citizens? No doubt many of them would. But I would argue that by virtue of extreme differences in wealth, many poor citizens would begin to feel separate from society, and thus they would be more likely to violate the rules of society. And I don't believe that threats of punishment such as prison sentences would significantly alter this feeling of separateness.
On the other side of the issue, I would argue that extreme wealth redistribution such as that which existed under communist systems is equally negative for society. Citizens need things to strive for. If everyone has the same level of wealth, then society will stagnate because a significant motivator for action will have been removed. Citizens will tend not to work hard, and so the general level of wealth will be reduced.
The best option for society is a Golden Mean, somewhere between these two extremes. If wealth differences are too large, then large segments of society will tend to feel separate from society as a whole, and crime and lawlessness will increase. If wealth differences are too small, then society will stagnate. If wealth differences are managed effectively and optimally, then the general wealth and sense of well being of a society will increase.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
The poor aren't always the same poor from 20 years ago. The rich aren't always the same rich.
I would think the thing that would hurt the poor the most is inflation. If someone next to makes 1 billion dollars, except for envy and greed, it does me no harm. If inflation remains checked, the overall buying power of my dollar remains no matter if some people make a lot.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
However, in the US, while there are possibilities for many to achieve great economic prosperity, there is also the possibility of losing *everything* including health care coverage and the roof over your head and this in many cases drives desperation.
Interesting you mention this. The U.S. *used* to have fairly reasonable bankruptcy laws. In particular as a sole proprietor of a small business, it was perhaps not desireable, but at least FEASIBLE to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy to liquidate and start from 0. This allowed more entrepeneurs to take the chance and start their businesses.
However, very recently the major credit card companies pushed through legislation to revamp the bankruptcy laws. This made Chapter 7 virtually impossible to file for small business owners and individuals. You can still file Chapter 13 which is essentially a government-mandated debt repayment plan. Which can shackle you for a very long time. The end result is that now you get one shot at a startup business and if you fail, you're SOL, unless you're fortunate enough to have a rich relative or venture capitalist bail you out.
So you are stuck buying a crapshack in the $200,000 range in a questionable neighborhood that you hope is not too bad.
$200,000 will buy you a very nice house in a medium size midwestern city. $150,000ish got me a nice five bedroom three bathroom that was built in the 70s.
"There is no sin greater than not knowing when you have enough."
He obviously didn't work as hard at school, nor has he worked hard enough to acquire the extra education needed to get a better job.
Well how the fuck do you know? Maybe his school wasn't up to par -- like many of our schools are. If you don't get a good general education, your chances at college or other higher education are slim to none.
I'm not saying that all poor people are being screwed by the system -- but at the same time, not all poor people are simply lazy as you'd like to believe.
The way you denigrate physical labor shows your ignorance, imo. Physical labor isn't "actual" hard work? Why don't you do it 80 hours a week, for just one week. Then come and tell us how it isn't "actual" work.
Alright, I see where your misunderstandings begin.
Incorrect. The poor person in this case is obviously not working as hard....
She would argue differently. Not everyone is intellectually gifted. You doome the less intellectually gifted yet still valuable individual to a lifetime of menial labor with no reward. Who will dump your intellectually gifted wealth generated trash? This is equivalent to sharecropping and as a result individuals like this will get angry at you and others like you.
He has not learnt the most productive ways in which to direct his hard work.
Again, missing the context to the question. Distribution of wealth suggests that there are avenues to generating wealth, that opportunity exists. It's one reason why this is such an important indicator and shouldn't be discarded as some liberal propaganda tool.
Let's not confuse physically hard work with actual hard work. It's intellectually easy to perform grunt work for 80 hours a week for 40 years. It doesn't require any thought, any planning, any ambition or any risk-taking. In fact it is the path of least resistance, i.e. the easy route.
If it's so easy, then why aren't we all racing to the bottom of the economic ladder? Because you are propogating a political fiction used to consolidate wealth. It has been quite successfuly abused since the Reaganomics(sp?) days of "trickle-down" economics to legitimize eliminating the middle class through eliminating or minimizing paths to higher education, much less a basic education.
Reality has a liberal bias.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
While those that read slashdot come from many different background, I do not feel this is a topic most readers are equipped to answer. I would even say that this is a dangerous topic, because with economics many people feel like they know a lot more than they actually do.
Note that the description of the story tried to indirectly relate higher Gini coefficients with higher murder rates. While it might be true that Brazil does have these two conditions, is is much less likely so that one caused the other. Remember, when we look at statistics of a country we are looking at a very complex organism. To be able to point out one or two things as causes is very tough to do, and many times there will be lurking variables that are never caught in the analysis.
Now, to put in my two cents. Income inequality is a fact of life, resulting from the fact that epople are created with different abilities and are raised in different enviorments. To say that greater income inequality is bad, we would have to say that there is an optimal point of inequality. This point would not be at the zero mark, since then there would be absolutely no reason to work harder or engage in entrepreneurial efforts, since it would never really bring you ahead. We need a certain amount to encourage people and to reward tehm for helping others. Where this point lies is an utter mistery, if there indeed does exist such a point.
Finally, remember that the Gini coefficient is not the best measure of inequality. By studying the lorenz curve in full, we can get a better picture as to qho is actually falling behind or not benefitting from growth.
Do not assume more enequality is bad or good, becuase we don't have enough information about what the optimal level is
If the question of income inequality interests you, I suggest you read
i sbn=9780521855266:
Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
The authors analyze historical data to reveal factors that lead societies into democracy or dictatorship. Income inequality is one of the factors.
From the book's summary at http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?
"Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentives to overthrow it. These processes depend on the strength of civil society, the structure of political institutions, the nature of political and economic crises, the level of economic inequality, the structure of the economy, and the form and extent of globalization."
The redistribution of land was simply an excuse for Mugabe to attack his political opponents. By number, the vast majority of those discriminated against by Mugabe were black. His actions, such as destroying housing (Operation Murambatsvina) under a flimsy environmental/social pretext, have little to do with the redistribution of land and everything to do with destroying those in the population most opposed to his rule.
I would go further than suggesting that Mugabe does not care about the country's economy; I suggest that he is intentionally destroying parts of the economy and infrastructure in an attempt to hurt his opponents and cement power.
It's also clear that the Chinese government are supporting Mugabe (see http://www.google.com/search?q=zimbabwe+china and http://news.google.co.uk/news?q=zimbabwe%20china as a starting point). His loyalty is more likely to be to them; not the poor in his own country.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
> What business is it of yours how much the CEO makes?
> If a CEO gets an extra $100 and his employee gets an extra $1, is the employee worse off? No, he's better off by $1.
The obscene amount of money that CEOs make is at the expense of employees, stock holders, and consumers. If the yearly profit of a small company (say 150 people total) is $100 million and the CEO gets $60 million, that leaves only $40 million for the rest of the company's employees and stock holders.
That $40 million is not then evenly distributed. $10 million goes to stock holders. Another $20 million goes to various executives. $5 million goes to management. The remaining $5 million is allocated to the 125 employees that comprise 83% of the people in the company and are the only people actually producing the wealth that generated the $100 million in profit -- everyone else is, by definition, overhead.
So the reason what the CEO makes is everyone's business is that it is a zero-sum game. If a CEO gets an extra $100, his employee do not get an extra $1. Instead those employees lose $100 / numberOfEmployees. Typically, the CEO isn't getting an extra $100, but rather an extra $100 million. And $100 million / numberOfEmployees is still quite a huge chunk of change.
If CEOs were the ones actually producing the wealth, *maybe* those salaries and compensation packages would be merited. But CEOs do not produce any wealth. The are, at best, necessary overhead. At worst, they are charlatans. Most CEOs are between.
If our society ever started distributing wealth according to production instead of control, our GDP would increase ten fold in a year.
There once was a country called Zimbabwe.
This is the fallacy of Misleading Vividness. You are using the example of Zimbabwe's disasterous and ill-considered land redistribution scheme to cast an ill light on the concept of any form of redistribution. This is equivalent to someone saying in an abortion debate, "Pro-life advocates belief in the sanctitiy of human life," and you replying, "Eric Rudolph murdered doctors," in an attempt to discredit pro-life advocates as a populace.
Zimbabwe's wealth redistribution program is a disaster. However, that doesn't mean that programs like Medicare, public education, emergency services, etc. are equally harmful to a country as a whole. You argument is almost Godwin-esque in the level to which you find the single worst example you can think of to try to discredit an opposing side and doesn't significantly add anything to this discussion.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Money is more efficiently spent when it is more evenly distributed.
The rich can't spend their much too valuable time waiting for sales, using coupons, shopping around for the best prices, and haggling over things that aren't worth a meaningful portion of their income. It'd be "penny wise pound foolish" for the rich to do that. The rich therefore end up wasting money. It's just like people with more food than they can eat. They get sloppy and drop crumbs, or get picky and not clean their plates, throwing out perfectly good food.
The poor, on the other hand, must spend a lot of their time inefficiently grubbing around for a few pennies. Often they get stuck having to make do with old obsolete equipment that is slower and actually more expensive to operate. This inefficiency carries over to neighborhood shops. Basic necessities such as groceries are more expensive in poor neighborhoods. Perhaps the prices are higher to compensate for the losses from the higher crime rates, but there are plenty of other reasons. Like, can't get the economies of scale, and the already mentioned using older less efficient equipment. I wouldn't be surprised to see old style "ca-ching" cash registers still being used in some places. No scanners, and no prices tied to bar codes, so they have to spend money on price stickers and people to affix those stickers. Though the total cost of a new system would be less, the immediate costs of the old way are less, so they will spend money maintaining the old equipment.
Foolish, perhaps? Sure, they do sometimes mess up. Rather more often than average. But not always by being stupid. The poor probably know all about these things, but can't ever save up or borrow enough money to upgrade. If you make minimum wage in America, you can hardly not live beyond your means unless you live under a bridge. $5.15/hr is about $10K/year. Paying income tax and contributing to social security will cut it to somewhere around $8K. A cheap place to rent might run $300/month, so that's $3600/year. Careful shopping might keep the expense of food down to $100/month per person, but you're going to be eating beans, not chicken let alone steak. You probably get to pay for utilities too, so figure on average another $100/month for that, partly thanks to the apartment providing the most inefficient furnace and air conditioner imaginable, and crap insulation. Looky there, more than half that annual income already gone. You can hardly function in America without a car, which costs money to gas up, license, and insure. So you don't insure your car (which is of course illegal, but what can you do? Talk about unfunded mandates) and hope you don't get in an accident or that no cop pulls you over and goes nuts with the fines or even impounds your car (sticking you with the bill for towing and storage of course), thus completely blowing whatever budget you'd managed. And if you get sick or hurt, you are so screwed because you can't afford health insurance either. See how the poor have limited options and must choose between various risks no rich people would take?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I completely agree with your conclusion, but it is a corporate governance problem, not a situation that congress needs to 'fix'.
My personal theory is that the upper echelons of management are artificially scarce, as there is to much emphasis on risk aversion, and people who have proven that they will not make *horrible* choices command a high premium over people who are very unlikely to even make bad choices. In turn, I think this is driven by to much focus on short term results. Warren Buffett is a great example of the rewards of patience(of course, he also makes incredibly good decisions).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
2:30 pm...536 posts
i'd say it matters to the people posting here.
It doesn't require any thought, any planning, any ambition or any risk-taking. In fact it is the path of least resistance, i.e. the easy route.
I'm confused. You begin by talking about grunt-work, then describe CEO work.
I'm Brazilian and what I see here is somewhat simple. In very poor communities there are basically two groups: new-born Christian evangelicals and loosely religious / non-religious folk. Both have similar income, but while the first groups has an extremely low level of crimes, the other has a medium to high amount of crime. So, I cannot but conclude that inequality in and of itself has no relation to criminality, because if it had, then the evangelical group would have the same crime rate of the non-evangelicals. I would rather conclude that the belief system of the individual is far more central to whether he will or not commit a crime than any kind of disparity.
This situation also applied to more rich people. A lot of people involved in drug trade here, for instance, come from the middle class. If the reason for crime was income disparity, why would these persons be into this kind of thing?
Lastly, a more general reasoning: suppose there's a society with very little inequality, where the 10% poorer get $100/month and the 10% richer $1,000/month, a 10:1 ratio, and another society where the 10% poorer get $1,000/month and the 10% richer $10,000,000/month, a 10,000:1 ratio. Do you really believe that the 2nd society is worse than the first? I bet you that ALL the poor people in the 1st society would say you otherwise, talking how they would love to live in the 2nd one.
I think all these people that are against inequalities have a very weak grasp on how ACTUAL poor people really see reality. IMHO, they're too much driven by ideological abstractions, and as a result end up failing to see reality as it is.
A small income with lots of equality is NOT what a poor want. He wants a big income, point. If that means living in a society where a rich guy get 10,000 times more than him, hell, that's okay for him! More money is always better. More equality? That doesn't brings food to their children.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Corporatist Ethics:
... everyone, because institutions are not human have no feelings, human-rights, cannot think, never find a better way, but humans do all that important stuff and more. Institutions are just golems performing the intents and reflecting the nature of the people controlling the monsters.
.... ... all gone.
... I made a mistake." It is all really very dark-humor funny, very pitiful, but very vary funny in many delusional self-centric cosmic ways.
Income inequality is more Devastating to poor folks.
Income inequality is less Important to ignorant exploited/oppressed folks.
Income inequality is more Essential to wealthy folks.
Income inequality is less Significant to schizoid dogmatic/plutocratic folks.
Ignorant-beliefs or truth-spin
Institutions of businesses, governments, or religions have thoughts.
Institutions of businesses, governments, or religions have civil liberties.
Institutions of businesses, governments, or religions have life and happiness
Institutions of businesses, governments, or religions have a better way.
All the above dehumanizes US, EU
Income inequality does greatly benefit the clueless and valueless few by abuse and subjugation of most others. Sounds like aristocratic feudalist-industrialism more than democratic capitalist meritocracy.
Oh well; the more things change, the more shit stays the same for US, EU
Evolution is too slow; So, until the species is extinct expect status-quo sustainment. Insipidness or greed of businesses, government, or religious leaders will be the death of all our descendants eventually including their own
As a god; might say, "too hell with all y'all
!HAVEFUN! !HAVEFUN! for we are all dead "tomorrow, tomorrow the sun will come out tomorrow," but eventually without humans or dinosaurs [THANK GOD!].
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I think the parent slipped up a bit. When he said "actual" work, I believe he meant "intellectual" work. It's far harder to rebuild a car engine or a server than it is to dig a trench. A few guys can dig a trench in a few hours and it takes nearly no mental power. They just need to know how long and how deep. In contrast, working on a car or a server takes a lot of mental power. There's usually a lot of troubleshooting involved in the latter as well.
So while digging a trench is very hard work, it's far easier than working on a car. There's also A LOT more people that can dig a trench than there are people that can successfully work on a car. This is why auto mechanics make more money than ditch diggers.
If wealth disparity is higher in the US than in Europe, and wealth disparity leads to crime like robberies, how come I'm so much more likely to be robbed in Europe than in the US? I mean, they do exactly as you recommend in Europe. High taxes on the rich and universal health care and other social services. So why all the robberies?
When traveling in Europe, I use a money belt to avoid pickpockets, I never walk with a pack on my back, etc., yet I never take those precautions in the US. Not in large cities, not out in the countryside. Nowhere.
And don't tell me that my fears are unfounded because I know many people who have been robbed in Europe. And also don't tell me it's because I'm American, because it happens to my European friends, too.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
So criminals have somehow had a physical collision with the abstract concept of GDP? I think this is impossible. It is not possible for something physical to impact something intangible.
The words affect and effect might as well be gone from the English language as "impact" is so much more popular and makes so much more of an impression. It makes what you are talking about sound important, it is overused by the media horribly.
IMPACT != AFFECT/EFFECT
Perhaps it is because people could never figure out how to use affect and effect properly?
Grrr! Bitch, bitch, bitch!
I'm confused by the whole "wealth disparity causes crime" argument. It seems clear that there's correlation between poverty and crime, but what's unclear is the direction of causation, if any. I think you can argue equally well that crime causes poverty. Or that there are external causes for the two to be correlated. Look at the effect of crime on poor areas, and on the families of criminals. The case of a wealthy person being materially affected by a poor criminal is very rare. But poor people are materially affected dramatically by both rich and poor criminals often.
This is an area I've been involved in researching as a graduate student so I'd like to answer some questions and direct some people to research about this issue if they would like some further information.
t twilkinson.pdfIncome Inequality and Population Health: A Review of the Evidence. This article, published last year in a major peer reviwed Journal, examines basically every study that has been done on income inequality to determine what level the strongest correlations between health and income inequality exist. In a nutshell, the strongest relationship was discovered at the national level.
First, on causality. Determining causation is incredibly difficult, and I would argue, not even remotely possible within the social sciences. I'm sure there are people who will disagree with me, but when we are talking about life and all the forces that impact it how can you possibly narrow things down sufficiently to determine a causal connection? Your statistical tools can't help you, nor can your models, you have to accept that you cannot determine causality, make some generalizations/abstractions (and qualify them) and move forward with the research. So really the best we can hope for here is high degrees of correlation.
Second, Income Inequality is one of the http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/Social Determinants of Health which suggests that the distribution of income has a significant impact upon the health of populations. A good place to start when looking at Income Inequality is http://www.democraticdialogue.org/documents/picke
Third, there is a difference between the health impacts of 'absolute' variations in income (poverty) and relative variations in income (income inequality). Much of the discussion here has focused upon how if you are poor you can't afford: a good house, good food, good education, so you're forced to live in a poorer neighborhood and on and on. This is true and legitimate. The difference with income inequality is that the pathway for the health impact is psychosocial. You 'might' have enough income to have a decent house, live in an ok neighborhood, and eat decent food - but that's not the issue. The issue is how you are impacted by your relative social position within a society, essentially a class debate.
I hope those links are somewhat informative and if anyone wants some more links to books about these issues I'm happy to provide them,
Nathan Klassen
What kind of brainwashed bullcrap is that ? There is no way to "produce wealth for everyone", at least not in material form. Being wealthy essentially means having a lot more money than the average joe. If everyone were equally "wealthy" then the word would lose its meaning. You cannot truly create wealth out of thin air, you simply transfer value from one entity to another. There is no net gain.
Herbert Hoover talked about there being a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. This dream of wealth seemed impossible, and yet, as I look around today, I see this to be almost entirely fulfilled. All Americans except the very poorest have cars and can afford chicken (or Tofurkey if they'd prefer). This wasn't always the case. The entire point of industry is to increase the net wealth of a society. Where it backfires in the inadequate distribution of this created wealth between social groups.
Democracy itself is founded on the basis of a middle class who has enough free time and materials at their disposal to inform themselves of the happenings of the day during their leisure time to make informed electoral decisions. Once the majority ceases to be well-informed, propaganda will carry they day, and political parties will have as much distinction as professional sports teams. Some would argue, this has already come to pass.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Eliminate inheritance. Parents can provide for their kids through college, then it's hands off. When someone dies, their money can be donated to non-profits or is returned to the collective in taxes.
:)
It would still allow for some kids to have an advantage, but not be professional consumers. It would also keep the capatalistic motivation in place.
To paraphrase Warren Buffet, why should your parents' accomplishments make your adult life better?
I'm sure my feelings on this will change when I have kids, but it sounds good now
Nice flamebait.
Of course, this FBI study was completed before the results of the congressional elections were finalized, so...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
What about teachers? Granted, they get much more than a week off, but many of them must take on summer jobs to support themselves during their "vacation". I've never been a teacher, but have many friends that are teachers, and that job looks pretty hard to me: long hours, lots of standing, planning, meetings, creative challenges, regulation, etc. There are plenty of teachers who are very hard working, have impressive educational credentials, and certainly direct their hard work in very productive ways.
Much "grunt work" involves physical risk-taking. There is also much "grunt work" required to maintain our comfort level. As much as we want to deny it, such comfort does come at a price.
So do you scoff at physical laborers when you see them? E.g., the people building our roads or picking up our garbage or making signs for new businesses?
For the same reasons some extremely talented and capable people become teachers (knowing they'll never make the money they could in other fields), some people choose to do "grunt work". It's not because they're lazy or risk-adverse; it's what interests them. My girlfriend's brother works in a sheet metal union for a sign company. He's not lazy, he's not stupid, but he's not at all interested in "intellectual" type jobs. He likes what he does and is good at it.
...New Zealand...
What's the ethnic and cultural diversity within each of these countries? I know Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, and Netherlands are relatively homogenous.
New Zealanders of European descent pretty much dominate New Zealand but aboriginals, the Maori are reclaiming their culture. A good example of this is the movie Whale Rider , made in 2002. Keisha Castle-Hughes, the star of the movie, went to NY to receive an award for her part. Japan isn't so homogenous as many think. Many of those "Japanese" aren't aboriginal to the islands of Japan. The aboriginals are the Ainu. In the Scandinavian, northern European, countries of the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, they have experienced the immigration of Muslims from different Middle Eastern countries. And Switzerland isn't homogenous either. Three, now four, languages are frequently used. In the north a Germanic language is used, to the west French is used, and to the south Italian is found. And then there's English. Overall Europe isn't as homogenous as many Americans in the US think.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You sir, are a cock.
Then you either fail to understand the scientific method or you are basing beliefs on weak evidence and don't want those challenged. There is no "correct" quote, the fact is simple: a correlation does NOT imply a causation. You have to test for causation in addition to correlation, and it's often much harder. It's easy to find things that are correlated, or at least appear to be. It's often much harder to find out what really is the cause.
Just because a correlation supports your viewpoint doesn't mean that there's anything to it. Couching it in language like "this indicates a causation" or "shows there's very likely a causation" is just plain dishonest. One is not the other.
Looking at per capita middle income households ($25k-$45k) we see some interesting ecological correlations. Take note of where the "-" minus signs show up (anti correlations):
) ) ...
http://tinyurl.com/ygsr48
77 with -FamiliesWithIncome125000to149999PercapitaIn1990
(sqrt) 75 with -FamiliesWithIncome150000ormorePercapitaIn1990
(log) 75 with -sqrt(AIDSTotalPercapitaThru2001)
75 with log(FamiliesWithIncome20000to22499PercapitaIn1990
(log) 75 with WhitePercapita1990
(log) 75 with WhitesPercapita1990
74 with -FamiliesWithIncome100000to124999PercapitaIn1990
(sqrt) 73 with -ImmigrantsNonWesternPercapita1998
(log) 70 with -AlcoholConsumptionPercapita1986
(log) 70 with -JewishPercentOfWhites
(log) 69 with -DoctorsPercapita1990
68 with log(FamiliesWithIncome17500to19999PercapitaIn1990
67 with -FamiliesWithIncome75000to99999PercapitaIn1990
67 with -ImmigrantsTotalPercapita1998
(log) 66 with -RobberyPercapita2001
(log) 66 with log(GSPIndustriesPerGSP1999)
(log) 66 with sqrt(RuralPercapita1990)
(log) 66 with -BlacksOrHispanicsPercapita1990
(log) 66 with log(SuicidesPercapita1999)
(log) 65 with -IncarceratedPercapita1993
(log) 65 with -AlcoholConsumedPerDrinker1986
(log) 65 with -WhiteYearsSchooling2000
64 with -log(West_IndianPercapita1990)
etc.
Seastead this.
> * Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home
>owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with
>one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
Define "own". You mean they have the title, or they, like everyone else, have 30 more years of mortgage before they "own" it? I find it hard to believe that 46% of poor people have the title to their property.
> * The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris,
> London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average
> citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Hooray. Now let's talk about the average cost per square foot of the properties under comparison.
> * Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago,
>only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
> * Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
> * Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or
>more color televisions.
> * Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
> * Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
Wow! Golly! Just look at all those consumer electronics the poor own! Their quality of life just must be freaking awesome, eh?
Let's take a look at this, shall we?
Air Conditioner: $300
TV: $300
DVD Player: $50
Microwave: $150
Stereo: $200
Dishwasher: $400
TOTAL: $1400
Wowee-Zowee - a whopping $1400 worth of nicities, along with maybe a $5000 car you're making payments on.
Are these nicities things that the average person didn't have 50 years ago? Sure. So what! Today they don't amount to squat - a mere $6400 worth of cheap trinkets.
And why is it that the poor have a weight problem? Could it be that the cheapest foods are the ones that are worst for you?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Are people really to blame if they are not given the same opportunities as others?
What if someone is born into an underfunded, crime-ridden, and academically poor school district? Are they still at fault when their education doesn't take, or they feel no need to press on in a terrible learning environment? What about the cost that unequal access to health care can have on a family's future chances of success, or what if someone has to immediately find work in the 14-16 age range to help support their family?
This is the sick thing about the conservative mindset towards poverty and it's effects; no matter what the circumstances of someone's life, circumstances they have no control over, it is irrelevant in the face of the cry of "personal responsibility!" Utter rubbish. Yes, you can point to a few examples of people succeed no matter what obstacles are placed in their path. However, this is anecdotal and statistically irrelevant. It is much easier to point to hundreds of thousands of examples of wealthy children being given more opportunities and resources to succeed, and then, shockingly, succeeding.
Poverty is most certainly a self-propagating cycle and it must be viewed as such. Providing equal opportunities, the "level playing field" other aspects of the conservative ideology like to discuss, is an exercise best left to the whole of society.
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So, you want 1.5% of the population? ( 300000000 ), making avg 250000 each. To do so such that the rich ones arent left with anything, its simply this: .015) / ( 300000000 - (300000000 * .015)) => 250000 * .015 / (1 - .015) = $3807.11
Ammount per rich person * number of rich people / number of all other people
$250000 * (300000000 *
quite a bit more than $25, but also wrong, you want to use Households: 113146000 (referencing the same page you got your initial numbers from), but it wont make a difference for the above calculation, since its based solely on percentage and income.
Whats more applicable, is if we bring the top 1.5% down to the US national avg ($46326), noting that this doesnt account for the other 48.5% above the avg, or those below, so in fact it doesnt make too much sense:
($250000 - $46326) * .015 / (1 - .015)) = $3101.63
Maybe not enough to buy a house, but I wouldnt mind having an extra $3k laying around...
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
anyone who suggests otherwise is just being silly. Ignoring human limitations and blaming the individual for _everything_ is either ignorance or a rhetorical tactic. Put another way, if she was diagnosed mentally ill would you still blame her for choosing wrong?
It's easy to say he should find work elsewhere. It's not so easy to just go 'elsewhere' when you lack the capital to do that. It costs money to move to a new state, let alone a new country. Michigan is sort of a bad example. A better one is Iraq, with it's 20% unemployment rate, violence and being surrounded by hostile countries, our hypothetical man has nowhere to go, and a measly 1 in 5 chance of getting a job, even a lousy one.
Bush is a wealthy man, so I'm not surprised he got past his drinking problem. Heck, I'm surprised he had one the first place.
Exeptions to the rule ( Bill Clinton and Sheldon Adelson) prove nothing. Our society, thanks to technology, is changing rapidly, allowing many people to move up quickly. Whose to say things will stay that way? Are you willing to risk maybe a thousand years of dark ages betting on that? What I'm worried about is a small group of absolutely wealthy hording nearly all of mankind's wealth and capital to the detriment of everyone else, simply because they can. With the gap between rich and poor growing every year (and with it being a pretty huge gap right up until about the end of WWII, or in other words the first several thousand years of recorded history), I think this is a valid worry that ought to be addressed with something more substantial than blaming the poor for being poor.
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"Incorrect. The poor person in this case is obviously not working as hard. He obviously didn't work as hard at school, nor has he worked hard enough to acquire the extra education needed to get a better job. He has not worked hard enough to learn how to make more money. He has not learnt the most productive ways in which to direct his hard work."
That's a nice steaming pile of shit from the back end of the GOP elephant.
Out of high school I worked as a ditch digger for years trying to pay my way through college. I would get up at 4 a.m. and work until 5p.m. 6 days a week. When I came home, I collapsed into bed, usually too tired to eat supper or even watch TV. I slept covered in dirt and sand from the ditches. Social life, hah! I was one of the lucky ones because I had a fairly good head on my shoulders. I was able to alternate working 6 months and 6 months of college. (Living with my parents at low rent and getting all the financial aide I could, and driving a $220 car.)
Many of my coworkers were too stupid to go to college or otherwise better their income. They worked harder than I did since I'm just a pencil necked geek. They are stuck in that kind of work through no fault of their own. They absolutely were not lazy. They worked their asses off an had very little to show for it. I escaped with a ruined back and arthritis is many joints at age 25.
I do thinking jobs now. Having done both, I can say you are totally full of shit if you think desk jobs and hard academic work can hold a candle to hard manual labor. The only nice thing about manual labor is your mind is free to think, however, that is only when you aren't delirious from heat and exhaustion which was most days in Florida.
http://www.marxist.com/
I too am sick of that mantra.
Just recently the feds conducted raids on meat processing plants, removing the illegal alien workers. The next day, there was a line out the door of Americans looking to take those jobs.
There seems to be this odd belief in certain circles that wealthy people are like Scrooge McDuck and they keep large quantities of physical money in a gigantic Money Bin, and if you could take all of this money out of the money bin and redistribut it all of the worlds economic problems would be solved. The reality is that we do not live in a Disney Cartoon and this is not how wealthy works.
Most of the wealth in the world is not horded in a physical form which prevents it from being used but is invested in the Stock Market, as venture capital, or in Real Estate; regardless of the form of the investment their wealth is typically circulating throughout the ecconomy, producing jobs and creating further wealth for themselves and everyone else.
When the land was taken from white land owners, they took the land away from people who knew how to manage the resource efficiently (who would spend a lot of money locally on equipment, general labour and supplies) and gave it to people who had no idea how to manage a farm; the best result would be the land underperforming and less money being generated to buy equipment, supplies and pay for labour.
I'm not saying that all forms of making the economy more "fair" are wrong, but simply redistributing the wealth is one of the most moronic ideas ever! The correct approach is to take a small ammount of money from people and re-invest it in a way which will lead to people being able to make a greater income and (if invested carefully) build their own wealth; the only investment which matches this criteria is education.
When everyone is poor, no one steals from each other.
Maybe it was that way a long time ago, but this is not the case now. Visit places like Pacoima and Watts and Downtown LA and you will find poor people robbing, shooting and killing each other. And you will find Black on Black crime, Black on Brown crime, Brown on Black crime, Brown on Brown crime, and poor Whites stealing from everyone including each other. Not only are poor folks stealing from and killing each other, but poor folks are becoming as racist as rich folks have always been.
One feature in Brazil I wonder will make it to the Blade Runner-esque streets of LA in the year of no lord 2007 is death squads hired by rich folks to kill poor youths. Considering there is a move afoot to gentrify the Downtown LA area, I wouldn't be surprised if this was coming.
B.R.I.N.: Blade Runner is now. We have learned nothing since the riots of 1992 and 1965. Expect more soon.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
the condos and fine art simply go into some other rich person's investment accounts. No one directly benefits.
Actually, the money invested goes back into the money supply as well. Either it goes to a bank account which then represents more funds the bank has available to lend out as loans for construction, business loans, or anything else. Or, if it goes towards an investment like a stock purchase then the other half (the sale) of that transaction represents someone who now has an equivalent amount of money to use to purchase goods or invest. The only ways for an individual to take money out of the money supply are to 1) stuff cash into his mattress or burn it or 2)send it overseas or use it to buy imported goods. (But even buying imported goods keeps a portion of the money in the local economy due to retailer fees, shipping fees, tariffs, etc.)
First of all, the connection between income inequality and crime rates is interesting, and dramatic, but it doesn't strike me as being the biggest problem.
The main trouble with "income inequality" is that it's incompatible with democracy: money can buy elections, bribe officials, undermine the very legal system and so on.
That's pretty obvious, and if it doesn't strike you as a problem, I would guess it's because you've got the idea that rich people are smart and wise and can do a better job of controling the political system than poor people (poor people, after all, are lazy and stupid and just want government handouts so they can watch TV and drink beer all the time. Right?).
This is an idea that was considered by the founding fathers, and explicitly rejected. You're not supposed to get any political edge by owning wealth. Everyone gets one vote, everyone can run for office, bribery is illegal, etc.
Further, I might point out that places that have tried a tight association between rulers and the wealthy are not exactly shining examples -- the polite term for this sort of thing is "crony capitalism", or "fascism" if you're not afraid of over-worked political rhetoric.
Myself, I used to be a hard core advocate of free markets. Back around 1980, if a lefty tried a line on me like "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer", I would point out that historically what really seems to happen is "the rich get richer and the poor get richer". I used to sneer at their complaints about increasing income inequality as (a) a statistical blip and (b) politics of envy.
But here we are 20 years later, and that statistical blip still hasn't gone away, and the United States is starting to look like a strange country that I barely recognize...
Anyway, my advice to conservatives: stop fighting the cold war, and pay attention to what's really happening... "Markets" are legally defined entities, and there's room to wonder if definition we're using is the right one. And my advice to liberals, I suppose, is to think about other ways of fixing problems like this than just raising taxes.
And speaking of not being afraid of over-worked rhetoric... allow me to recommend: Paul Krugman on the New Class War in America
It has very little to do with what anybody "deserves" to be paid. A company makes profits. Some of that profit should be reinvested in the company to ensure it's healthy. Some of that profit should go to the shareholders who invested in the company in the first place. Some of that profit should go to the employees to reward their hard work. The problem is that the people deciding where profits go (the management) are mostly selfish bastards, who decide to give it all to themselves rather than distribute it in some more reasonable manner. Couple this with the American work ethic that you should work yourself to death regardless of how you are treated, and nothing is going to change. What should happen after CEO X pays himself a $200 million bonus is that all of his employees should quit. But instead, most of them settle for much smaller bonuses, and continue to toil away under the delusion that they might be CEO someday. Board Members (who are supposed to manage such irresponsible greedy behavior) don't object because they get their own huge paychecks to keep quiet.Thus, the CEO "market" has no downward pressure on salaries, and they just keep getting higher and higher. I'm not sure what the solution is. Some kind of government rules on compensation? The requirement that stock options be declared as liabilities in company accounts was a good start, but there's a long way to go.
Can be done. Not always easy. Not always fun. But if you are physically able (a substantial if) and havn't committed any crimes (totally within your power to control), there is an almost guaranteed path of upward mobility for those who choose to work hard.
Good thing you added "almost" to the front of the statement on the subject line, though I'd change "guaranteed" to "possible". I came from a lower income, not lower middle income but lower income, background and I went into the army to save money so I could afford to go to college. After getting my AA degree, I started at a community college because it's cheaper and students don't have to fight for tyme with a professer trying to get a grant or doing research, after having left campus after my class I was hit by a moving van while riding my bike because of which I now have a permanent disability. However it's not a directly a physical disability, instead I am a survivor of a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury. Because of my injury even if I had wanted to continue with the major I had, which was Computer Engineering, I would of had to retake almost all of the classes needed for the major. And then it's possible I could never do the work as my memory was damaged and it can be difficult if not impossible for me to remember simple things like how to solve a physics 101 problem, and I was taking physics as a minor. SO while I worked hard to get where I was headed, a few microseconds changed it all for me.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Socially, the US is much closer to a third-world country that happens to be very wealthy than it is to most of the societies in Western Europe. And politically, the US has a lot in common with societies ruled by jumped-up trigger-happy kleptocratic generalissimos like Pinochet than it does with politicians in a correctly functioning civil society. Arbitrary invasions, draconian laws, the death penalty, inadequate or nonexistent social services, an overworked population, the rich living in walled enclaves while poor people starve-- these are all signs of decadence, barbarism and corruption.
The majority of us who work hard and don't hurt other people are being ripped off and exploited by (to revive a historical phrase) malefactors of great wealth. As we contribute to the economy, it doesn't escape our notice that we're putting in a lot more than we're getting back, and yet the scale of parasitism and looting continues to grow.
Suffice to say that this is not a sustainable situation.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Thats a nice quote, where did you hear it?
No
I've directly and indirectly encountered a mindset in American management and investor groups in which productive, skilled and well educated American technical workers are considered disposable and replaceable.
t -democracy-webb-and-dobbs.html
Ironically, American technical workers are the same people who carry on the most innovative and creative work permitting companies to build and keep markets and generate profits.
Though, I think that disparaging programmers and software engineers hit a high point under the Carly Fiorina years at HP when the Outsourceress lectured American engineers that their jobs weren't theirs "by right". I don't ever recall reading or hearing of American engineers or technical workers making such a claim but it was seeming useful for Fiorina to tar American workers as essentially lazy, second-rate and unreasonable while she axed them at HP by the thousands and pocketed enormous salaries, bonuses, stock options and retirement "contributions" before she left with a hefty "gold parachute". This situation is/was in now way unique as anyone who has worked at NCR, IBM, Oracle, Intel, Siemens, or Microsoft (to name but a few) will attest.
Sen. Jim Webb of VA wrote an interesting opinion piece for the WSJ several months ago on this topic. I copied it to my blog here: http://modernpatriot.blogspot.com/2006/11/populis
I can think of many things that would tend to cause both crime and income inequality. I can also think of things that would cause only one, or the other. I am not sure how we'd isolate these or determine what the relationship is.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
What you don't understand is that the military was designed to harvest people like you who had no other choice. When I was in the military the vast majority of the people I "served" with were there either to get money for education, to get out of their rinky dink town, or because they just could not cut it in the real world.
I didn't see it that way when I was in the army, then again maybe it was because of my mos which was 11b, small arms speciallist or infantry. I'd say less than a quarter of those in my units were saving for college though some like me were. Some others were lifers, some just burning tyme, and some who didn't have an idea about their future. I recall one lifer though, a sergeant in my unit, who took college classes when he could. Finally after 8 years he got his BA, that day was the happiest I ever saw him. What I found kind of supprizing was that he wanted to stay enlisted in the army, he didn't even want to go the OCS, Officer Cadet School to get his commission as an officer which since he had his degree he could have done.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This system will lead to abject serfdom and governmental tyranny
Physical work can easily equate to a rich and rewarding life (NBA, NFL, MLB and now MLS) just as an intellectual life can equate to a dead-end meaningless job (15th century Eastern French History majors =) I do think that hard work, in whatever you do, does make a difference (though results can vary). As someone famous once said, "The harder I work, the luckier I seem to be"
There are tens of thousands of teachers who make $35,000 after spending 5-7 years in college with no means to increase their salary other than moving away from their friends and family to a new area with a higher cost of living, or slowly get older as they toil in their shitty unappreciated job.
Relevant areas for complaint are in globalization practices (i.e. slave labor)
Are you talking about "sweat shops"? While people working in them get much less pay than what an American would make in the US, most of the workers make more than workers who weren't able to get a job in the shop. But because they have good steady jobs, provided the work conditions aren't hazzardous to health, they can afford more where they live. This then helps others in the area by creating more jobs.
If you really want to talk about how globalization hurts the world's poor, then what you really need to talk about is the industrialized world dumping cheap food on under or un-developed countries. Take Mexico, do you want to stop the "illegal aliens or immigrants"? Then stop dumping corn in Mexico to sale for less than Mexican farmers can grow it. The US government gives US agribusinesses $Billions which allows these businesses to dump food in Mexico. And because of NAFTA there's nothing Mexicans can do about it. And it's not just the US that does this, the EU and Japan subsidizes their agriculture industries more than the US does. That is why the WTO meetings in Geneva fell apart this past summer. India along with other countries tried to stop the EU, Japan, and the US from dumping food in their countries.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I am getting a kick out of all the humanist responses to the clearly humanist writings of the article in question. We're all gods, and we can solve all our own problems by careful analysis and then mitigation of the "problems" that we find. Yeah, nice try.
Aren't we forgetting the core reason that criminals are criminals? They neglect the rules! They disobeyed! They have given into their own desires to do that which is considered, or mandated by the state, to be wrong - a crime. You could have perfect disparity between the richest and the poorest, or you could have perfect equality between the richest and the poorest (meaning there would be neither a 'rich' or 'poor' class) and it absolutely would not cause permanent reduction in the crime rate. Has Capitalism resulted in a societal utopia? No. Has Socialism? No. Communism? No. It really wouldn't matter which system was chosen to attempt to reduce crime because it's ultimately not about the 'economics' of what drives crime. Sure, that can be a contributing factor in some criminal cases, but if we are honest with ourselves, it's because there are wrongful people in the world doing wrongful things, or even generally good people in the world doing some wrongful things that causes a 'crime rate,' not how much or how little they don't have.
The huge economic disparity gaps in a country (compared to other countries) only points out one thing to us: that a country has generally more rotten people in both groups (the rich and the poor), than in the other societies it is being compared to, generally speaking. The evidence for this is the resultant crime rate and/or severity of the crimes. But shrinking that economic disparity gap WILL NOT come from a grand scheme to change the nation as a whole, such as instituting Communism in Russia after WWII. It will only come from changing the individual hearts and minds of the people in that nation, and that cannot be enforced through any form of broad social schema - they all fail eventually. Revolutions generally take place to cause a massive change because many swept up in the ideals of a given "Revolution" believe that broad change is required to change society, and while it does for a time, at the heart of it it is the people's individual hearts, minds, and attitudes that have already changed that institutes the real, worthwhile change.
People generally don't generally pay any taxes on money they donate to charities, so that million dollar bonus would still be a million dollars that could be split into theoretical donations for college kids. Sure, their employer may take that money out of the payment initially if it went to a person first, and a charity afterwards, but all that would be returned once a tax return was filed with the deductions.
It doesn't quite work that way when filing for US income tax, you don't get a dollar for dollar reduction on your taxes. Instead say you're tax bracket is %35, if you donate $1000 your tax would drop by $350 dollars, not the full $1,000 you donated. It may drop more, but only if because of the donation your tax bracket drops too, say from %35 to %30. In this case your income taxes be be lower than in the above example.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You make it sound as if the CEO's pry money from the peoples hands. Money moves around, get over it.
The US would be much wealthier overall if more than 50% of the federal budget were not sunk into unconstitutional expenses like welfare, social security, food stamps, and other wealth transfer schemes. When you spend a lot of money on something, you get more of it. In many federal cases we are spending money on poor people, making it easier to be poor, and (surprise!) we're getting more poverty.
People with extremely low incomes generally have very little personal property and thus don't need more in terms of a dwelling than a portion of a room. Such people can share a room; throughout the country there are people who rent out single rooms at very modest rates. Sharing a room with someone else cuts the expense further. There is something very seriously wrong with a working person in the US who cannot afford this sort of an arrangement.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Then you either fail to understand the scientific method or you are basing beliefs on weak evidence and don't want those challenged. There is no "correct" quote, the fact is simple: a correlation does NOT imply a causation.
Either your understanding of statistics is flawed or your understanding of English is. A correlation frequently implies a causation. A correlation does not imply any particular causation. Do you understand the difference? Because violent crime and wealth disparity correlate this implies that it is likely that either wealth disparity causes crime, crime causes wealth disparity, both, or both are caused by a third factor or group of factors. It does not imply that any given one of these causes is likely.
You have to test for causation in addition to correlation, and it's often much harder.
Because correlation implies causation it is useful to then test for specific causations to determine if a causation really exists and what it is. Because their was a strong correlation between wealth disparity and crime, researchers investigated probable causes (the psychology of criminal motivation) and looked at test cases, where governments mitigated wealth disparity via socialism. The results of both of those provide a logical reason for wealth disparity causing crime and demonstrate that in at least some test cases, lessening wealth disparity decreased crime.
By following the scientific method this makes this the leading theory, and the most probable causation.
Just because a correlation supports your viewpoint doesn't mean that there's anything to it. Couching it in language like "this indicates a causation" or "shows there's very likely a causation" is just plain dishonest. One is not the other.
I think you're confused about the difference between correlation and causation. A correlation does imply a likely causation, which is why this was investigated. It was the research thereafter that indicated which causation most likely explained the correlation.
The problem is that I can't tell you which CEOs earn their money and which don't. Some CEOs- like Steve Jobs- seem to earn their paycheck. Others, of course, don't. The same could be said for almost every profession, though. In the long run, though, the companies that overpay their CEOs will do worse than those that don't, and the market will figure this out.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I'm the guy with 6 trillion dollars and the rest of you are my serfs and thralls.
MWA HA HA HA!!
The basic idea is, that some political view points aren't based in any kind of reality whatsoever and more factually based observations are discredited as biased in some derogatory way.
So, if you are a NeoCon, you might claim that safety regulations like cars must be sold with seat belts are "ruining" the U.S. economy and our global competitiveness and the liberals are to blame for creating these troublesome rules. Objectively, seat belts mostly protect people and lower social costs.
Reality, in this example has a liberal bias.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Let's try this experiment, smegma-face. How about you come down here to Phoenix for a week or two in July to do eight hours of manual labor on a road crew. The heat radiating off of blacktop at this time of year can easily reach 140. I'd like to see how long you last until your foreman has to haul your passed-out candy-ass off the crew. You want to talk about risks? Try working in a position where the only thing standing between you and an SUV speeding by at 60mph is five feet and a plastic barrel. To say nothing of the bone and back injuries they face on a daily basis. The only physical "risk" we highly-paid technology workers take is our daily commute and carpal-tunnel syndrome.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
And of course, people leave out un"PC" realities of socioeconomics that are harsh but TRUE. NOT EVERYONE IS SMART. Now, the trick is not making generalizations like, "My garbageman is only a garbageman because he's uneducated with an IQ of 80 and can't find another job." That would be false. However, it's tough to miss the fact that economic growth in this country is not coming from skilled jobs being added to the economy. The majority of jobs are added in hospitality/healthcare/retail and entertainment. That means that Bushes' "Great" employment numbers are really consisting of people working menial mindless drone work. There is no such thing as "productivity" in these fields because nothing is being produced. Everything we consume is made in China or Mexico now. As a country we don't DO anything. All we do is spend money, manage spending money, come up with new ways to generate money out of thin air, and of course eat and drink. Everyone in this country is on drugs, from the poor bums drinking their wine and shooting smack to the rich housewife's Xanax and Valium.
You said:
The poor person in this case is obviously not working as hard. He obviously didn't work as hard at school, nor has he worked hard enough to acquire the extra education needed to get a better job. He has not worked hard enough to learn how to make more money. He has not learnt the most productive ways in which to direct his hard work.
You contradict yourself on the last 3 lines. It's not that he's not working HARD enough, it's that he's not working SMART enough. And, because of differences in every human, some people are dumber than others, so they may NEVER work SMART enough to compete with someone with more intelligence. In general, anyway.
The thing we Americans are so arrogant about is that hilbilly barely graduated from middle school nascar watching bible thumping HICKS think they are smarter than all Chinese people, all Iraqis, all of everyone pretty much. Insensitivity is standard and faith is being fancied over reason. And this arogance breeds new arrogance in their spawn, and it's spreading. The idiots are taking over, and they are going to destroy this country if the upper classes let them. But they won't. Instead, they'll be enslaved. And while the government continues to appear to be stupid, the people who really run things behind the scenes bring us all that much closer to doom. Sooner or later, the population will be large enough that no matter how rich you are you'll have a neighbor. And at that point they'll start killing people.
Ok, so maybe this is all a bit extreme, but acceptance will breed it. I don't think anyone on Slashdot really has to worry about it, because most people here are above-average intelligence. But there's going to be a great war or something soon, there has to be. It may not involve the U.S. but it will have world changing consequences.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
did you mean to reply to me? I didn't even mention taxes.. I was rebutting an asertion that emergency room healthcare is acceptable fundamental healthcare..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Sometimes I even feel guilty when I set limit order sells on stocks that I only bought a few days ago because I know I'm just playing this system to vampire blood out of actual working people at that company.
Ah, do you Swing trade? A brother-in-law used to day trade. He and my sister were setting up an account for me to trade as well but then they missplaced everything. I'd do it myself only my income is disability and it's not much.
FalconShould there be a Law?
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Let's not confuse physically hard work with actual hard work. [...] risk-taking.
Risk taking is not work. Risk taking is also stupid if you are living on the edge. The risk (death via starvation except for the possibility of charity) doesn't make sense for someone living on the edge. But how smart you are and your ability to apply that are irrelevant to how hard you work. They may be relevant to the value of your work, but that is not what you said. Construction is hard work. There are a number of construction workers that do work you are completely incapable of doing. That is hard work. It may not be as valuable, but it is hard. You are discounting the value of the work by claiming it is not "hard" but by regular definitions of "hard" the work is hard, just low-value.
Learn to love Alaska
You missed the point here a bit I think. Personal responsibility.
If you don't make enough money to support and take care of a child...DON'T HAVE CHILDREN. Make sure you have done what you need to do without the shackles of marriage or children to get to where you can afford to raise and take care of a family.
If you fsck up, and make bad life choices...well, that's tough my friend. You just have to work harder, or live with your decisions. It isn't up to the world to make your decisions for you, or make up for when you make poor ones.
It's not always a matter of personal responsibility, sometimes things happen that are out of your control. It happened to me, I was in college and one day after my class I was riding my bike when moving van hit me. I wasn't riding wrecklessly or where I shouldn't be riding, instead the driver of the van was compleatly at fault. Witnesses said he was swerving all over the road and it was only a matter of tyme before he hit someone. Months after I came out of a coma and was in therapy I was told that he was a diabetic and had a seizer while driving, however he had caused two accidents prior to mine and was admitted to the hospital twice for the sane reason. He even moved from one state to the state I lived in because the police there issued an arrest warrent with his name on it. Anyway, through no fault of mine, I am a survivior of a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury. In a heartbeat, I went from being a Computer Engineering student to being disabled and not able to finish the degree. At least not without a lot of assistance and struggle.
FalconShould there be a Law?
slave labor in the old American south proved more expensive than the employer/employee relationship in Great Britian at the time (pre-1850 or so) for just this reason
Yeah, I read a study several years ago that concluded that slavery would of ended in the US without the Civil War, that slavery was economically unsustainable. Without the Civil War, slavery would ended within a score of years, 20 or there abouts. And just for the same reasons you bring up, it's cheaper to pay employees a living wage than it is to own slaves. I wish I had a link to the study online.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I already know that. But here goes anyway:
I am hardly an expert, but what I have to say is experiential. With no offense to my Brazilian friends, the difference between the income gap in their country and the income gap in the United States is not even close to similar.
I spent a couple of years in Brazil, and I associated with families in high-rise apartments overlooking the beautiful Atlantic, and with families crammed into a single room dwelling without running water or electricity.
Similarly, I currently work in a private welfare organization where I spend lots of time in the homes of the poor right here in the United States. And while it is true that there is plenty of suffering and misery to go around, the situations are just not comparable.
I should fully admit the limitations of my experience: my work has been limited to a few cities in the United States and a few cities in Brazil. So, take it for what it is worth.
As for the violence, you also cant compare our two cultures. They are so widely divergent in terms of cultural values, national identity, and history that it is entirely disingenuous to blame violence on wage inequality.
My 2 bits.
Your neighbor might be making half what you do, or ten times as much. Unless they foreclose on his house, or unless they buy fully tricked out his and hers Benzes, you don't know. Therefore, within that context, it can't possibly matter.
OTOH, when you drive your nice new car through a poor neighborhood where everybody has to take the bus, you are likely the object of hate. When have and have not are readily distinguishable based on mode of dress, transportation, or abode, it matters.
People walking through the city with North Face jackets and iPods get mugged. Guys walkig around with beat-up walkmen and nondescript jackets are generally left alone, but what leads one to be a target of crime is more complex than that. The MO for muggers in my neighborhood is usually a small team of men no older than 30. One guy distracts the victim with an innocent request to make him stop, the other 2 rob. The rude city boy who "keeps moving and literally won't give you the time of day" is doing so for for this reason most likely.
What's with the word agenda? When did it become a bad word?
Man in crowd: Look out! The man's got an agenda!
Shrieks of terror from crowd.
Police officer: Sir, I need you to drop the agenda and slowly raise your arms above your head.
Who doesn't have an agenda?
Real world? WTF are you talking about. In the real world people can't print up money and loan it out whenever they need it without causing disaster. In the real world, people are employed by rich people, not poor slobs on welfare. In the real world we are loosing the war on drugs. In the real world, social security is a bankrupt ponzi scheme. In the real world, public ecducation sucks and the overfunded US system is the worst in the western world. In the real world, medicare subsidized medical costs are skyrocketing and Canadians have waiting lists a mile long for simple procedures. In the real world, government is 30% as efficient at allocating resources and money as the private sector. Hypocrite! You're the one that needs a dose of the real world pal.
1) be poor /. financial advice
2) read
3) join Libertarian party
4) ???
5) lobby Congress
6) Profit!!!
She could make bad decisions 99% of the time and still be rich. That's because she is part of the American equivalent to the old landed gentry, and only a huge, HUGE effort can destroy the system of self-perpetuating wealth.
PS - The fact that she has so much DOES diminish what you have. Right now, let's say, she has (using big numbers to prove a positive, the scale is different) 90% of the wealth in America and you have 10 percent. No one else has any wealth. If 8/9 of her money were burned, suddenly you would control half the wealth in America, up from one tenth! Furthermore, right now she can use her wealth to buy fame, notoriety, and back the political candidates who, to get her money, are encouraged to support policies like "Tax everyone who does what mega-monkey does! because they don't work as hard!" and "Tax relief for the Hiltons! They support our economy more than mega-monkey!" etc. etc. And so you get screwed, by virtue of her relative wealth.
Reality is a more complex story, but the same economic motivations for the rich to screw the rest when they can, and our country's morality of "Poor people deserve it, anything for money is OK" means there's less and less social pressure for the rich to act benevolently.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Because of our tax structure and other factors, class mobility in America is actually low. This is only going to get worse with the damage done to the estate tax by Republicans and useless Democrats. Right now, studies show, "parental income to be a better predictor of whether someone will be rich or poor in America than in Canada or much of Europe. In America about half of the income disparities in one generation are reflected in the next. In Canada and the Nordic countries that proportion is about a fifth." See this in the not-at-all-liberal magazine, The Economist: http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?st ory_id=7055911
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
The guy who owns the barber shop can't get a reasonable rate on "insurance". (our "insurance" being more of a buyer's club)
The poor are covered by all sorts of government programs, not even counting the law that prevents hospitals from rejecting emergency patients.
"Now let's talk about the average cost per square foot of the properties under comparison."
No, lets's not, because it doesn't matter. What matters is what they get. Is something better if you pay more for it??? WTF??? Maybe to impress the neighbors with conspicuous consumption, but otherwise no.
The facts are rather simple: the poor have these things. It really doesn't matter if a car costs them $1 or $12345678; what matters is that they can afford the car.
Extremely classist argument. If I had mod points, this deserves a troll rating.
The wealthy commit crimes too. Duh!
Monopolistic firms love regulations because they present barriers to entry for potential competition. Take the American Association of Railroads, an anachronistic organization if I've ever seen one. They require railroad suppliers to be certified to their standard even though at this point it is a carbon copy of ISO. There is no value added by adopting this standard, but it gives the government a foothold in business preventing free markets from operating the way they should. If a major railroad supplier is in well enough with the AAR, their competition will not have a chance to enter the market. Monopoly wins, consumers lose.
Regulation is a necessary evil only when neighborhood effects prevent the free market from working to the benefit of the consumer.
The example (fable??) about two equally hard working individuals is a straw man. The first individual should learn a skill that is in demand so they can negotiate a better situation for themselves. Otherwise they have no one to blame but themselves. (I suppose they could take refuge in Marxism, but that probably wouldn't help).
Finally, inflicting same amount of regulations the US has on China would have terrible consequences. Their economy would contract, and this would likely lead to a global recession. Regulation does not lead to stability. Nor does it prevent nuke-lobbing demagogues from coming to power. In Road to Serfdom, Milton Friedman makes a strong case that interventionism (i.e. excess regulation) is a necessary condition for deterioration of democratic societies to autocracies. There was plenty of regulation in Nazi Germany. Somehow I trust Hu Jintao with a bomb more than I would Adolph Hitler (or Iran / N Korea for that matter).
Good thing you're not making policy. Maybe I'll see you at Breckenridge.
You're poor if you LACK THE OPTION to live like this:
Single-income, married, with 2 to 4 kids. No TV, beer, junk food, tobacco, air conditioning, radio, or other such nonsense. You have a sanitary means to dispose of bodily waste. You have protection from rain, snow, mosquitos, and freezing temperatures. You skip Christmas toys. You never go to movies or eat out. You have electrical power, but you minimize the usage. Your grocery list looks like: 50-pound bag of rice, 20-pound bad of dried beans, the cheapest fruit (likely apples or bananas), the cheapest vegetable, maybe some dried milk, and sometimes chicken parts when they are on sale. You drink tap water. You only have a vehicle if required to get to work, and you rarely use it for any other purpose.
With 2 incomes and 0 kids you get more luxeries of course, but everyone should be able to sacrifice to keep a parent at home.
Goldman handed out $16.5 billion in total compensation to 22,000 employees worldwide. I'm pretty sure that while no one would turn down an extra $2400 (about $1500 after taxes), it's not going to matter much to them either way.
You might also claim that nothing past the first $20,000,000 of holdings matters and that such people don't need compensation of any kind. What are they going to do with a $53,000,000 bonus, buy a gold bathtub? If they want, sure. That's not the point.
The point is that the money should be put to better use. $53,000,000 could be spent on a lot of things that make working for the company suck less. Think of a gyms and more employees so you have to use a gym. Hell, they could have simply bought people new office chairs. Instead, it's spent on a moral busting bonus. That bonus was your reward for putting in 60 hour work weeks in an office where they turn the damn AC off at 4:30. Nice.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The money does not go to job creators. It goes mostly to people who borrow to pay for a car, house or credit cards.
Ah but that car, house, or whatever was bought with those credit cards was made by somebody. If nobody bought them then those jobs won't exist.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I was not trolling to enrage. I was not trolling to entertain. I was not trolling for fish. I was not trolling, damn this is a bitch.
... I was simply stating the unacceptable probable demise of all humanity, and that comically cosmically it just ain't that important for any one planet to have a species of questionable intelligence and instability survive [have a destiny or past].
Global warming, melting glaciers and ice-caps, floods, storms
I am sorry some would feel this is trolling on my part, and not delusional mythological self-importance on their part.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
You're confusing effort with outcome, when the correlation isn't nearly as certain as you want to mislead us into believing.
Some people work very hard, but lack the innate gifts necessary to fully take advantage of schooling. Or they might never have been taught proper study techniques. Or they might have had to devote too much of their hard work to simply providing themselves with the means to attend college. Or they might not have any good role models to pattern their success after.
Meanwhile, a person with great innate gifts, a little bit of ambition, and a basic support structure will have a very easy time succeeding. Beyond that, a person who has neither gifts nor ambition might succeed entirely due to the resources his family can bring to bear on his behalf. I'm talking to you, Mister President.
You talk about physical labor like someone who has never done it. Or maybe you had a roofing job for a couple of summers after high school. Hard labor forty hours a week for forty years, without medical insurance, will wear your body out and put you in an early grave. If anything, sitting at your computer typing clever things, and getting paid well for it, is what more easily deserves to be "mistaken" for hard work.
Finally, do we as a society have no obligation to teach people how to direct their hard work in rewarding ways? Certainly we do, even if only for self-interested reasons. So if this person "has not learnt the most productive ways in which to direct his hard work," that is partly our shame, and our loss.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Thanks. I would just add that ambition, drive, and ability to delay gratification are also unequally distributed (there is a definite genetic component to all these traits).
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Someone who exploits the tax code (for instance) is a hacker just as much as someone who exploits a vulnerability of a computer program. It's just the machine that's different.
A hacker hacks the system sure but they don't cause harm. Someone who causes harm, rips off, or steals from anyone else is a cracker, script kiddie, or plain crook but they are NOT hackers. Boy, this being slashdot I'd think people here would know what a hacker is and what the hacker ethic n. is about. It seems more and more like those who have the knowledge are allowing the mass media dictate what words mean.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Nor would communists ever develope them, communism does not offer much incensive for a person to create something. That's why copyrights and patents are awarded, to encourage progress by giving people an incentive to create something new, it's called the "profit motive".
FalconShould there be a Law?
Come on, do you really think people realized how inflation would affect the economy? Regular people say "just print more money" is a good plan.
The question had to be made in a way that normal people could comprehend. For you, imagine it is a fantasy world without inflation.
Perhaps the best way for you to see things: Consider one neighborhood having salary adjustments. This wouldn't greatly affect the larger economy.
People want to look better than their neighbors. This is why people buy such crazy cars and expensive clothes. What matters is being better than others. People are just not satisfied unless others are worse off.
This is natural and should be expected, given that humans compete for mates. We naturally compete for resources, but we need to go far above the minimum so that we win the competition for good mates.
The cheap places are cheap for a reason. Besides yucky weather and so on, there just aren't many jobs.
Finding a job is bad enough, but what about if you lose a job? You'll have to move to a new house, change careers, wait years, or commute 100 miles. In the expensive areas, you have a new job a week later and you won't have to commute or change careers.
If interest is charged to mediate risk, why is there also collateral?
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
I am SICK of the poverty pimps of America describing the "plight" of the American poor. With very little effort, and one can get a job, find a place to stay, and have a life, as evidenced by the MILLIONS of Latinos streaming across the boarder to take jobs that no American wants.
Yeah, right, it's easy for everybody to get a good paying job. NOT!!! I've worked with homeless people and though there were some who just didn't want to work, most of them worked their asses off when they could get a job.
I know, I've been "poor". I've also know what its like to have to get up off my ass and get a job, and do crappy work for a living. If one works hard, is honest and never stops learning, one can end up in IT, with a decent wage. But it does require SOME effort, and not quitting ... EVER.
And how do I know homeless work their asses off? Because like I said above I worked with them, not figuratively but literally. I was and am poor, and I worked like a lot of homeless people I met through a day labor pool. I'd get up early in the morning and head to the labor pool hall where I'd signup for work. Not all the tyme but most of the tyme I'd get sent out on a jobsite, and there always was a number of us sent out, and depending on where it was we may have it relatively easy working but more often than not we busted our asses. And though I wasn't homeless myself those who were would work as hard if not harder than many others I knew who weren't homeless and had good jobs.
However now, my situation is totally different. Though I worked through a day labor pool, I didn't work everyday, instead I worked parttime while attending college majoring in CE. That all ended when I was riding my bike after class and a moving van hit me. While I was in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if lived. NOT!!! I am now a survivor of a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury. Even if I wanted to continue with the major, I would have to repeat most of the classes I took as my memory was seriously damaged. And because it is damaged it is excedingly hard for me to remember, retain, some new subjects. For instance I started attending college again even though I wasn't sure what I would do as I no longer wanted to go into CE. I figured programming would be easy enough untilI knew what I wanted, however I realized how wrong I was when taking Java. Where I was taking Java was a 3 semester sequence, and no matter what, how many tymes I took it, I could not recall what I learned in Java I by the tyme Java II started, even with an "A" in Java I. I basically had to have a refresher. The last tyme I took Java II, the disabilities, handicapped servives office, spent several weeks looking for tutor for me before they gave up. The professer helped them and me however he couldn't find anyone himself and he wasn't always available.
Americans are a bunch of whiney wimps who would rather get rich quick, while being poor, than work hard.
It really pisses me off when I have to deal with people that have this sort of attitude. I keep wondering how they would survive if they were in my shoes, had to go through a disability like my TBI.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This is Heritage Foundation crap. Only a true believer could think that it's acceptable for 13% of any group to experience hunger. Oh, I forgot, thanks to the current administration, we don't call it hunger anymore. It's now "inconsistent access to food."
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It is because of illegal immigration. There were Americans willing to do those jobs, until they had to compete with some one willing to take half or less pay.
I pretty much agreed with you until I got to this, above. The only reason there are "illegal immigrants" is because congress, the opposite of progress, passed and the president signed stupid laws making immigration illegal. And it has gone on since the founding of the USA. The first instance I know of is when Benjamen Franklin wanted to bar Germans from immgrating to the USA. Then there were the Know Nothings in the 1850s who wanted to bar Irish Catholics from immigrations. The Chinese Exclusion Act, which as the name is explicit about, was about excluding Chinese and passed in 1882. Fact is is that many nationalities or ethnic groups were at one tyme or another targets of anti-immigrants activists. Now, it's aimed at Latin Americans. Such as from Mexico. Instead of jumping on Mexicans, if you really want to stop them from immigrating to the US, many of whom are Mayans and whose ancesters have been living in the Americas longer than Europeans, then what you really want to do is stop the US federal government from giving US agriculture the hugh subsidies it gives them. Because of these massive subsidies and NAFTA US agribusinesses can ship to and sale food in Mexico cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow it. Allow Mexican farmers to make a decent living on thier farms and they won't feel the need to either immigrate to the US or move to Mexican cities and thus push those already there to immigrate to the US. Now you may not be one of them but many xenophobes, those in fear of "the other", let their fear rule them and try to persuade the government to change or pass a law that supports their view without any solid data or facts supporting their position that can not be explained any other way. This also ignores the fact that about 8,000,000 ilegal aliens pay income tax and social security. In fact they pay about $50 billion, keeping SS solvent. This is because of the Immigration Reform Act of 1996, the IRS issued fake SSNs illegal aliens could use to get jobs. So while the 8 million got them and pay taxes they can never get either medicaid/medicare or Social Security income.
FalconShould there be a Law?
i.e. rich people stealing from the poor. and btw alot of crime is when the very poor steal from the average .... the very rich usually live in gated communities far away from the very poor.
...the day you were supposed to take economics. Ec. is not simple at all. In fact, it is a "complex" system mathematically, with only ecology being more complex. If it were simple, the fed decision to increase interest rates at the end of the Clinton administration would not have resulted in the unintended crash it caused. The crime rate at that time was the lowest it had been in decades. This directly attributable to the simple fact that jobs were abundant enough that even your average potential criminal could get one that paid well enough that both basics and the commoditized crap marketed as "essentials" could be afforded. One of Greenspan's stated concerns was that wages were too high. With near 100% employment, the work place was an employees' market, and wages were driven by the "shortage" of labour. By raising interest rates the fed hoped to "cool" the economy and increase the pool of available labour by reducing employment. Well paid labour is inflationary y'know. Of course, the first to be laid off are the bottom feeders that turn to crime when they can't get the low-level jobs that keep them out of jail. That causes an increase in crime.
Increased economic "inequality" in effect means that wealth - which is socially useful only in circulation - becomes sequestered in the hands of the most wealthy. As it becomes sequestered, additional money has to be printed, forcing inflationary changes in the economy, and reducing the purchasing power of your wages. This in turn can force additional unemployment and additional increases in interest rates. Increases in economic social inequality follow, accompanied by increased unemployment, and ultimately causes increasing crime. So, sure, you may get a raise, but that huge chunk the CEO recieved and buried in an investment means that additional money has to come from somewhere to fill the gap. For those that don't have it, that means borrowing from a bank that maintains a fractional reserve, but is happy to write a loan check lending money it doesn't have and collect interest from you on the same. That fiat money is inflation and it reduces the value of any wage increase you might recieve.
Obesity has little to do with _how much_ food one is consuming and far more to do with _what types_ of food one is consuming. If you have ever been to the food bank and read the nutrition labels you would find High Fructose Corn Syrup in just about everything there.
If one doesn't have a lot of money they are more likely to eat out at McDonalds rather than a fancy resturant that doesn't serve food pumped full of preservitives.
Just because poor people aren't as poor as people in other countries doesn't mean there isn't anything to complain about. The issue isn't how well off are poor people in America, rather it is income inequality; another matter entirely.
i dont care how much you 'curb your spending' . on $7/hour, that basically means saving 1 months wages so you can buy christmas presents. if your car goes out, you have to go into debt to get it repaired. i dont care how much you 'cut back', morons like you just do not fucking understand the problem and you wont until you are in the situation. so go fuck yourself.
Blame evolution. Wealth acquisition is capitalism's version of male competition. The winners attract the best mates. Men are simply hard-wired for the rat race.
That is a very comfortable position to take, but have you realized how the bottom 10% lives ? Have you worked at, say, a poultry plant ? That's what a friend of mine was doing, moving poultry on an assembly line, with sickening odors and getting RSI's on the first week of work (and having to keep working after that).
I'm well-off so (thank God) haven't experienced that, and I grew up in Mexico, and have seen much worse poverty, but to say that the bottom 10% is the 'idle-rich' is idiotic.
I am sure there are abuses in the welfare system, but, for the most part, it sucks to be in it. The vast majority of people on welfare are neither idle not rich.
If you are a healthy, single adult in the US, it is definitely easy to make a living (a crappy living maybe, but a living), but with kids or sick it would be really hard, maybe even impossible.
The article talks about preferring 110/(85*n) parts of the global wealth over getting 110/(220*n) parts of the global wealth as though it were evidence of a preference for relative wealth over absolute wealth. It is not. It is evidence of the ability to reason about fractions.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
In that example reality still doesn't have a bias. It's still a liberal bias that says "People are too dumb to want seat belts so the free market will never demand them" and a conservative bias that says "Don't make us put things in our cars that we can't objectively prove there is a demand for"
This stamp duty, of course, has nothing to do with the modern estate tax. The estate tax is assessed as a percentage of the estate's value, whereas a stamp tax is just a "processing fee". The stamp tax in 1797 was the same amount irrespective of the value of the estate.
To say that this stamp duty proves "the US founding fathers put in taxes on inheritance is that the sucess[sic] of one generation shouldn't create subsequent generations already ensconced in privalege[sic]," is intellectually dishonest.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I think you should know, I am a manual labourer in a factory, and often work 72-84 hour weeks. In fact today I finished work at 7am. That does not mean that I begrude people with more ambition and talent than me.
Your post seems to have proven my point. You put your labour in the right place, and so have reaped the rewards. Whereas your less intelligent colleagues haven't managed to better themselves.
So if those road workers are so hard-working and risk-taking, why are they working on roads? Maybe they should have put the same effort and risk into getting an education so they could get better jobs.
You said "The poor person in this case is obviously not working as hard." That if he had just applied himself in the right way, he would no longer be poor. In other words, if I understand you correctly, you say the poor person is poor because he is lazy. He is too lazy to look into ways to better himself. So he takes up a cushy manual labor job.
What I am trying to say is that the poor person may be stupid or have suffered circumstances you cannot even begin to comprehend. He may be poor and stay poor through no fault of his own. It isn't the 'moral' shortcoming on his part your self-righteous tone seems to imply.
I am also saying that there is nothing cushy about many manual labor jobs compared to most thinking jobs.
http://www.marxist.com/
>The air conditioner, TV, etc. are things that help to make life quite pleasant even if a person doesn't have a lot of money. It's what makes
>our poor "rich" by historical standards. Why are you pissing on these things?
I'm not pissing on those things. I'm just saying, being "rich" by "historical standards" does NOT make you rich, well-off, or even average by today's standards.
It's absurd to say that today's poor should be thankful they have it so good for simply owning $1400 worth of chinese-made electronics.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Is something better if you pay more for it???
I didn't say it was. My point is, let's not try and say that the poor are enjoying a nice slice of American prosperity by owning $1400 worth of cheap electronics and a beat-up car.
>The facts are rather simple: the poor have these things. It really doesn't matter if a car costs them $1 or $12345678; what matters is that they can afford the car.
Wealth equity DOES matter. As was pointed out in another thread just yesterday here on Slashdot, perceived wealth equity matters. It matters because when the disparity in wealth becomes great enough, and those at the bottom come to believe that the socioeconomic ladder is broken and there is no way to advance in life, they come to believe that life is unfair. When this happens, the author pointed out they resort to random crimes of opportunity, as they feel that since life is unfair they, too, can resort to unscrupulous means of aquiring wealth.
I would point out to the original author, though, that the thrust of their frustration is not always unfocused or random - sometimes, als the French Revolution or 9/11, it becomes quite focused.
When the poor realize that their $1400 worth of chinese-made electronics are just table scraps and all they are going to get, the fabric of society begins to unravel.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
My TV was given to me as a gift back in 1998, and so was my dishwasher just this Christmas.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"Asia" is a very large place. You're probably thinking specifically of "Thailand".
The same way that I think of "Czech Republic" when I think about young, tender caucasian kids being fucked in the ass by tourists.
You racist fuck.
Ditch digging is just one example, most menial, unskilled jobs are not as physically straining and they bare easier, you do the same thing every day and it's much harder to screw up.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
If people borrow for pay for a car. house or credit cards, they are paying for goods and services that keep other people employed.
Unless a rich person puts his money on a mattress, the money does not sit idle.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most truly creative people don't create things for money. They create because they can't avoid creating- their brains work differently from you financial folks who couldn't create an escape from a paper bag. Capitalism is actually an impedment to such progress, because it requires creative people to work in mind-numbing jobs just to get food, clothing, and shelter.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Most truly creative people don't create things for money. They create because they can't avoid creating- their brains work differently from you financial folks who couldn't create an escape from a paper bag. Capitalism is actually an impedment to such progress, because it requires creative people to work in mind-numbing jobs just to get food, clothing, and shelter.
Yea, most artists like painters don't paint for profit but most don't support themselves by painting either. If anything most painters paint in their free tyme and not professionally. My sister for instance, she was the artist in my family painting murals and such but now she's a CPA, Certified Public Accountant running her own accounting firm. I used to paint some, and want to start painting again for my own personal satifaction. Actually I want to be a professioanl painter, paint with light, as I want to be a professional photographer. Without copyrights whatever photo I shot someone else could make money off without me benefitting from it. With copyright though, I can prevent someone else from making a profit off my work. You would suggest they could make profit without me seeing anything for my work. Same with others such as writers, why should anyone slave away writing a book if someone else could come along and copy it to sell? This is what capitalism is about, a person being able to sale what they create.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Capitalists are capitalists and the corporate aristocracy is the corporate aristocracy, equating them is just twisting meanings. They are totally different animals.
The real problem with communism is that it was tried too early- before we had alternate forms of labor other than human, and before we had the ability to categorize each consumer's wants and needs down to the very last atom.
One, I don't want to be someone else's idea of a consumer, and more importantly I don't want anyone else tell me what I need, "down to the very last atom".
We don't need to be wasting human effort with jobs better done by machines anymore. And if we let capitalism rule the transition to robotic labor, well, we will deserve what we get.
If you have a machine do the job of humans you take something away from the human. Me, I prefer to work and not sit around all day doing nothing accept read /. and/or watch tv, which is pretty much what I do as I have a disability. If not working I rather be taking classes and or volunteering. I want to have some meaning in my life and not just be a consumer. Life is for living.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Wow, I had posted the following and it was moderated down to "troll". It must have ticked off the freedom-hating socialists to hear the naked truth.
-------------
Income inequality is not bad, as long as it doesn't result from force. "Fixing" it by having government redistribute wealth at gunpoint is the real travesty.
Remember government == force when you get down to it. So big-government liberals (and conservatives) are violent people.