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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."
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.
Income inequality drives crime. When everyone is poor, no one steals from each other. When everyone is rich, everyone steals from each other, but there are rules. When some people are very, very rich and some are poor, the poor feel justified in evening out the unfairness through direct action. If everyone had their basic needs met, I don't think income inequality would matter as much. But as long as some people are desperare and feel they are being screwed, and they can find an easy target in a rich person, there will be crime.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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
Obviously that very narrow event does not cause greater violence, but it can certainly be argued that larger income disparity results in greater civil unrest, which will often manifest as violence and other criminal activity (looting, etc).
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.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
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.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
There is a limited amount of wealth in our society. It is not an entirely zero-sum game, but it is true that the more wealth the richest have, the less the rest of us have. If you were to take half the money of the richest 10% of Americans and spread it out among the poorest 40%, you'd probably take one of the biggest steps in history towards eliminating poverty.
Not only does America have greater income inequality, but it matters more in America. There's no universal health care, social security is dependent upon you paying into it (something many people forget), single parents are expected to work full-time from the time their child is about 2 months old, etc. Basic benefits that everyone shares equally reduce effective income inequality, and there is a well-known link between desparate poverty and crime.
Furthermore, think of the social problems associated with income inequality. The rich can basically buy and sell poor people, you can see this with many of the semi-rich sex tourists in SE Asia, but the same kind of things are possible in America. The poor have no reason to trust people who run a society that is blatantly rigged against them. Et cetera et cetera
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
...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
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...
Mod parent up, big time.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
I would tend to agree. I would attribute it more to ineffective police and court systems and massive corruption as opposed to an income disparity.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
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.
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
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 |
Well, it is hard to directly pinpoint cause and effect, but violent crime is on the rise in the US. Many experts are predicting that there will be a major crime wave in US over the next few years. See this story from NPR
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.
If everyone had their basic needs met, I don't think income inequality would matter as much.
Possibly, but as the article points out, happiness and contentment is not so much our absolute wealth, but our relative wealth. Many have their basic needs met, but still feel obligated to put in long hours to increase their relative wealth. The Economist's holiday issue had a nice article on this research.
Bingo - that's it on the nose. It's not that my stack of little green slips of paper is not as tall as you stack. It's that my child dies of leukemia because I don't have enough money to see a doctor, while you child goes to the best hospitals on the planet for a mild thyroid condition. It's about access to health care, education, nutrition, and in some sense luxuries. Imagine how it galls some people in brazil that a group of Porsche driving Yuppie kids spend more money in one night on dinner than they make in a year.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
I would attribute it more to ineffective police and court systems and massive corruption as opposed to an income disparity.
Because clearly, there is no relationship between these three. How could there possibly be a relationship between having lots of desparately poor people and an overworked/ineffective court system? Or between having obscenely rich folks and corruption?
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.
The other crazy thing he says is that based on the data element:
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.
he concludes:
that a nation may be collectively better off (using some abstract measure of well-being) with a smaller, more evenly divided pie than with a larger pie that's sliced less equitably
Didn't we just establish that people are unhappy unless they make more than their neighbor? Equivalence is not enough - just ask your neighbor! So the real result of this is that we should never publish who received the salary, so that you can assume that you are still the highest paid among your peers.
And that, I think are the key words: your peers. None of us aspire to being Trump - not with that hair. But we want to make more than our peers do - that's a common enough aspiration.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
This statement is simply wrong. Poor people who steal, steal from their neighbors. They don't go into the nice neighborhoods to do it.
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
The reason it matters more in America is because of the greater income inequality. In Sweden (good example since I live here.. :P), the higher taxation and minimum wages, and also a non-linear taxation where people who earn more will not only pay a higher tax but even a bigger share of their income, results in a smaller income inequality. This money goes into public healthcare and social security, in order to basically make sure that even if you're the lowest drug-addict scum on earth, you don't have to steal anything, but can just show up at the social security office and get more than enough money to buy everything they need (except, unfortunately for them, the drugs).
This does not stop all crime, of course, since the drug addicts prefer to buy drugs and alcohol for the money and then live on the streets, and there are always a lot of people that still aren't happy with what they got but rather want to have more. There are also the people that are here illegally, which means that they can't get any help from the government.
It does, however, help a great deal.
c++;
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?
So the bonus pay for a corporate executive somehow directly correlates with an increased crime rate?
Excellent summary of the linked article. That is precisely the question that the author of the article poses. He also offers a brief analysis of the pros and cons of inequal income distribution, and some research that facilitates pondering the question.
Or were you hoping that there would be some polemic pre-digested answer so you could rant one way or the other? Alas, the article is an invitation to cogitate, not to vent one's spleen.
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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
"But as long as some people are desperare and feel they are being screwed, and they can find an easy target in a rich person, there will be crime."
.....
... EVER.
PS3, XBox360, Wii, Nike Shoes
People have been Killed, robbed, beatened, and otherwise harmed by people's greed to acquire these products. Yet, none of these are items that are within the definition of "basic needs". Nobody "needs" these.
The "poor" Americans are some of the richest people in the world, just look at the obesity levels. Truly "poor" people are literally dying of starvation, worry about their next meal, wonder where they will sleep tonight.
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.
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
Americans are a bunch of whiney wimps who would rather get rich quick, while being poor, than work hard.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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.
Folks, if you bother to look at statistics, NEARLY ALL street crimes involving theft or some other form of pecuniary gain (like burglary, robbery, and the related murders) are committed BY poor people ON poor people, not by poor people on the rich. That's true in the US, and around the world. What most of the comfortable idiots in the US are terrified of is that poor people will finally wake up to the sources of their situation and do precisely what parent assumes is already occurring. Laughable; they've never done it before, why should they start now?
It is important to remember that no matter how horrific the crime, it happens for a reason. Those reasons are only rarely completely internal to the criminal. Calling somone a bastard, while a reasonable response to such horrors, isn't helpful. It amounts to throwing up one's hands and saying, 'the devil made him do it.' It's not an explanation, but an expression of emotion. In order to come to grips with crime, we must put aside emotion and analyze the root causes dispationately. I say this as a victim of violent crime who was permaently handicapped in an attack.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
income inequality drives crime.
Not really, the type of income inequality drives crime. Consider this...If the lower/middle class in the US made 100,000 while the upper class made an average of 10 million a year, you wouldn't see much crime.
When everyone is poor, no one steals from each other.
This isn't true, see Africa, or any ghetto in the US. It isn't income inequality that contributes to it as much as lack of income. A person who makes $0 will steal from someone who makes $15k, but we don't consider 15k to be anywhere near rich.
When everyone is rich, everyone steals from each other, but there are rules.
Not really, but I'm sure that will appeal to the marxist crowd.
When some people are very, very rich and some are poor, the poor feel justified in evening out the unfairness through direct action. If everyone had their basic needs met, I don't think income inequality would matter as much.
There will always be crime of some type, but yes poverty does fuel it. It doesn't matter that others are rich, so much as that you are poor and have nothing to lose. If you have stuff to lose (ie a middle class living, a family, your freedom) then crime isn't as 'worth it'. That doesn't eliminate crime, there are people who make a decent living who still steal or cheat, they just have less motivation to do so.
But as long as some people are desperare and feel they are being screwed, and they can find an easy target in a rich person, there will be crime.
'Rich' people aren't always easy targets, and there are a lot more factors that go into crime than just economics. To name a few: Race, Religion, Gender, Boredom, Drugs, Mental state, etc.
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.
This is true, in America and other places with high income inequality. It doesn't seem to be true in really poor countries, where even starving people seem to stick together. Why do you suppose that is?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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
Americans are a bunch of whiney wimps who would rather get rich quick, while being poor, than work hard
Ok, I'll bite. You had me up until that statement. You, sir, apparently like to make sweeping generalizations about a group of people you obviously understand little about.
I'll put this in a bite-sized mental morsel for you: There are -some- poor folks who live off the charity of others, and there are -some- rich people who live off their connections. Just like every other country in the world. But that doesen't apply to everyone, there is an extremely large group of hard working middle class folks propping up the economy here, if you really worked hard and came from the background you say you did, you would know that.
- 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
Income inequality does not increase crime in any significant way (in the US anyway). Throughout the history of the US there have been times where there was much more inequality than today and much less crime. Before income tax was introduced there were extremely wealthy and extremely poor people beyond the comprehension of people today.
Did you even read the article? The poor mostly attack the other poor in Brazil. Then, occasionally, other people are caught in the crossfire. The rich can afford security and protection, so the poor generally leave them alone.
Forget Brazil. Imagine how much it galls many Americans that watch some dumb yuppie on television fritter away a couple of million dollars when that's more money than they will ever see in their lifetime. I can tell you that it makes people very angry to think about that. Not angry enough to take things into their own hands, yet, but still angry. And your salary/wage is indeed your direct access to everything you need to survive. If it's below a certain point then you can't afford to buy things like health care and food because they cost more when it's expected that the average person can pay that.
In America we're creating an underclass where the values are completely different, even from the middle class. Our middle class is shrinking in size, with more people dropping below the line between the two classes and winding up poor. When our middle class is gone we lose the perception of class mobility, and then people start fighting.
I can tell you that I get pretty pissed off when I hear about million-dollar bonuses when if I had 1% of that money I wouldn't have to worry about college tuition for the rest of my career. It makes me angry, so I try to ignore it. Watching commercials also gets me a little mad because of the huge disparity between the way the "average american" is depicted on television, and the way we actually live. If you're willing to buy into the commercial vision, then you start to think that everyone but you is living like that, and then you start to wonder how you can get to that point. When you start to think that you can't, you get angry.
SRSLY.
Really?
That must be by there is no problem with genocide in Africa and everyone is one big happy poor family. Somalia called they want the society you described back.
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.
That does seem to suggest that "Income Inequality" does matter. That it's not just a matter of how poor you are in absolute terms, but how poor you are compared to your fellow citizens.
I am not a crackpot.
You have it all backwards. The amount of wealth is limited, but the amount of money isn't because when a bank needs a loan they go to the US central bank, and the US central bank prints it up. This system always guarantees that society becomes over-saturated in debt with ez credit, always guarantees that money gets watered down as more and more gets pushed into circulation, and always guarantees that the poor get screwed as the value of their meeger pay and savings gets watered down while those close to the central banking system always get a cut of any fresh new money loaned into the system.
In China during the 50's and 60's there were 10's of millions of people dying and suffering from starvation. No amount of charity and human aid could relieve the situation, no amount of government distribution was stopping it. So how did they solve it? Well they let the farmers have their private property rights back and the problem was solved within a year and it jump started an economic boom that has lasted for 20 years. To solve the problem in the US the poor don't need a handout, they need control over their money. We need to switch back to a gold system, that will put money power back into the hands of savers because money will need to come from them and not from the central bank via their cronies.
It is not an entirely zero-sum game, but it is true that the more wealth the richest have, the less the rest of us have.
I agree with everything you say, except for this statement. We do not have a zero-sum game, not even close! The way society works is that value is created by people typically working together, and then that value is haggled over to see who keeps what. Capitalism means the society gets the most (because in 50 years whatever you create becomes a commodity with very little profit in it), but the rest is divided amongst the people that had a hand in creating it - either developing it, funding it, or managing it.
The real problem is that you have "developing it" people negotiating their share with "managing it" people who are hired because of their ability to negotiate! That is the real inequality. For example, in general I am against a minimum wage - but once unemployment is low enough, setting a minimum wage is merely the government negotiating on behalf of the worst negotiators, the poor.
The reason I think this is important is that if you believe in a zero sum game, then you pull down the rich through taxes, and give it away to the poor. We know for an absolute fact that this damages the economy. If you understand that it is not zero sum, then you can use minimum wage laws to raise the poor instead of lowering the rich.
Personally, I would like to see laws passed that require employers to allow employees to hire negotiators to handle salaries, raises, and bonuses. I think that would help equalize things very quickly, and actually increase the economy instead of restraining it. (Note that this is not what a union does - pay still is individual based on performance).
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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
In Sweden (good example since I live here.. :P), the higher taxation and minimum wages, and also a non-linear taxation where people who earn more will not only pay a higher tax but even a bigger share of their income, results in a smaller income inequality. This money goes into public healthcare and social security, in order to basically make sure that even if you're the lowest drug-addict scum on earth, you don't have to steal anything, but can just show up at the social security office and get more than enough money to buy everything they need (except, unfortunately for them, the drugs).
How's the Swedish economy doing, btw? What is the unemployment rate and so on...
My point is that in a capitalist society, it is the rich that drive the economy. It is the rich that employ people and buy products. Granted, Paris Hilton doesn't need another yacht, but I'm sure the workers at the shipyard where that yacht is made will disagree.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
When some people are very, very rich and some are poor, the poor feel justified in evening out the unfairness through direct action.
I think I would go further and say that some amount of this can work (not be good or bad, but work) within a society. If those who take direct action are unskilled, unintelligent, and unmotivated, then the direct action will be little more than littering - everything else would be too hard.
The problem arises when there are skilled, intelligent, motivated individuals who see their society as unfair. When those people take direct action, very bad things happen. For that possibility in a microcosm, look at the horrific events in Columbine.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
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.''
People have been Killed, robbed, beatened, and otherwise harmed by people's greed to acquire these products. Yet, none of these are items that are within the definition of "basic needs". Nobody "needs" these.
You're mistaking the psychology here. People aren't stealing because their basic needs aren't met. They're stealing because they have been able to justify that action to themselves, usually with an internal dialogue along the lines of, "life is unfair. Nothing is fair. Thus stealing, is just another way to get what I want. Why should I be a chump and stay poor just because I was born that way? I'm going to make something of myself the same way a lot of the rich families did, by being unscrupulous and doing whatever it takes."
The "poor" Americans are some of the richest people in the world, just look at the obesity levels. Truly "poor" people are literally dying of starvation, worry about their next meal, wonder where they will sleep tonight.
Crime does not correlate to poverty nearly as well as disparity. People don't rob others because they are poor, they do so because they feel justified since others were born with so much more than they were. Take a look at internet crime, suddenly people in the third world with nothing can rob people in the US. Predictably, there has been an explosion of internet crime from the third world. "An American makes 500 times what I do, despite being a moron. I can live for years off of one case of fraud against them." Of course there are going to be more crimes do to this disparity. Within the US, it is the difference between the rich and poor, not the overall level compared to the world (which most don't see) that drives crime.
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.
Yeah for a lifetime of hard work and smart decisions you can make 1/100,000th what one of the people born to extreme wealth and who is a lazy idiot makes from investing all that inheritance in lending firms that lend you the money you need to get started and then collect interest. In fact, over the course of my life I'll make about as much money paying interest on my mortgage and other loans as I will make for myself. Someone else is making just as much off my hard work as I am and they've done nothing but start out with money. That sort of unfairness is what drives people to crime, although usually the crime is committed based upon opportunity, not targeting the wealth specifically.
Americans are a bunch of whiney wimps who would rather get rich quick, while being poor, than work hard.
Who wouldn't rather get rich quick? This phenomenon, by the way, is in no way limited to the US. Wealth disparity correlates to violent crime and robbery levels the world around.
I've worked at Lehman Brothers for a short time (I got bored and quit). On average, this year, I'd say the take-home pay for a reasonably high-performing associate at Goldman Sachs was about $200-250,000 (three years out of undergrad or first-year out of MBA). Another 2-3 years in and we're talking about half a million. So no, the bonuses are not equally distributed--Managing Directors can get $10m bonuses--but they're not paying minimum wage to the peons either. Of course the janitors get nothing, they generate no revenue--it's unfortunate but they are completely fungible and will not earn much more than McDonalds janitors.
And as for firing the CEO, this is a misconception that a lot of "perpetual peons" have--that the CEO sits around doing nothing and collecting a big paycheck. Guys like Hank Paulson at Goldman and Dick Fuld at Lehman have been CRUCIAL to their success; these are the top client leaders who fly around the world and drum up business for all the peons. Look at Lehman's stock price since the IPO and you can determine for yourself whether Fuld earned the $1b in pay + options he's received.
There is a limited amount of wealth in our society. It is not an entirely zero-sum game, but it is true that the more wealth the richest have, the less the rest of us have. If you were to take half the money of the richest 10% of Americans and spread it out among the poorest 40%, you'd probably take one of the biggest steps in history towards eliminating poverty.
What would that amount to? Without researching the numbers, you might end up giving each of the poorest 40% about $20-$200 each. What about those of us who are in the 50% range? Are we screwed? Yes, we would be because the people that run the companies we work for are not bankrupt, the companies have been sold to give $$ to the poor. Now us 41%-89% are the new poor because we can't find freaking jobs!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Yes, you're right. Someone living in a Brazlian favela is rich as Croessus compared to someone being massacred in a ditch in Darfur. Damned hypocritical favela-living welfare queens don't know how good they've got it and those people dying in Darfur have no idea how much better they've got it that people starving in Western Sahara. I mean, even a guerrilla government is better than NO government. They just don't know how to appreciate what they have...
Bingo!!!
Fun facts....
The rich can afford to have a new house built AWAY from crime and get the benefits of modern insulation and technology so heating and cooling thier home costs less than 1/3rd that of a older home from the 70's or 80's.
The poor (making $20.00 an hour or less) cant afford to build a home or buy a old home in lower crime areas... you just cant afford a $350,000.00+ mortgage when you make a paltry $20.00 a hour. So you are stuck buying a crapshack in the $200,000 range in a questionable neighborhood that you hope is not too bad. Here is the problem. your little 1200 Sq foot crapshack was built in 1955 and has no insulation. so heating it costs you over $200.00 a month during winter months. While the rich guy in his 4800 sq foot home get's away with $180.00 a month keeping it at 72 degrees because he has low E glass, south facing windows, thermal mass, decent insulation etc....
The gap is widening... I realize that I will never EVER be able to afford to build a house, the income gap has widened enough that I will never be able to catch up to the fact that housing is spiraling out of control in price. The depressing fact is that I see my 15 year old and know that she probably will never be a homeowner unless she does somethign stupid and get's one of those unrealistic mortgages, marries a rich guy, or becomes a doctor.
And this is in non-popular metro areas, Only the truely insane tries to buy a home in California near San Diago, LA or Frisco. (Where you have the $500,000.00 Crapshacks)
The rich are not only getting richer but they are dragging lots of things with them.
I am all for a guy that earns his money, but they also need to realize what they are doing to the rest of the world and how they are starting to create animosity.
Rich can not get surprised when they park their BMW 7 series sideways taking up 4 spaces at the local mall and come back finding it keyed.
Being rich is not a problem, it's being rich and an asshole that pushes most of the poor over the edge. It's easy to rob an asshole.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, because that person earning $110,000 needs to compete with people earning $200,000 if he/she wants to buy a home. If everyone else earns $200,000, the price of housing will increase so much that someone earning $110,000 won't be able to afford a home.
I know this isn't the point of your arguement, but there are real practical reasons why we might need to earn as much as our peers.
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
Interestingly, what you describe is exactly how the US is set up... how it's supposed to work.
But in reality, when I lost the use of my legs several years ago and couldn't hold a job, my welfare claim was denied - I survived by doing odd jobs and living in a cheap part of the country. Now that I have climbed up in society (which is due in a large part to my struggles in overcoming the obstacles I faced), I pay over a third of my income to the welfare lottery. Only people that the government chooses win that lottery - certain races, born in the right area, etc.
Having government services (like health care) help, I'm sure - but in the US, you can still get health care without any money, and I would be the one to know about that. My point is that, at least in my experience in the US, the poor get better (or at least more consistently) treated by private citizens and companies than by the government.
So make sure you know what you are talking about - I'm sure Sweden doesn't have these problems, but having a government system in placed does not mean there is no problem.
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that's a fallacy, for the most part people willing to commit crime will do so regardless of income or need, no respect for other people or property. Average income is still going down but crime decreasing in past few years, how do you explain that? I'll explain it for you, in past 50 years higher percentage of evil people in population, due not to income but to less family structure.
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
If the lower class in the US made 100,000 a year, how much do you think would a loaf of bread cost?
It's a hypothetical situation to illustrate that the low amount in inequality matters, not just the inequality. For example, poor people in the US aren't so poor compared to other countries. I don't advocate a minimum wage of $100K.
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.
There is a limited amount of wealth in our society. It is not an entirely zero-sum game, but it is true that the more wealth the richest have, the less the rest of us have. If you were to take half the money of the richest 10% of Americans and spread it out among the poorest 40%, you'd probably take one of the biggest steps in history towards eliminating poverty.
Rather than take money away from people who are actively building the ecconomy and producing thousands of jobs why don't you reconsider how well your education system is working?
The fact is that the education system is failing (pretty much) every student who graduates from high school and doesn't go onto college. Many people spend their life in low paying jobs with no future while higher paying postions are unfilled. Most education systems need to start to accept that most of their students are not well suited and have very little desire to have a University Education; I don't mean that they're dumb, but people have varying aptitudes and personalities of which most are not suited towards an academic route.
There needs to be a greater focus on the trades and on teaching people skills which will everyone become successful in whatever path they choose.
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.
"But as long as some people are desperare and feel they are being screwed, and they can find an easy target in a rich person, there will be crime."
Except that most violent crime in this country has the poor targeting each other.
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/
"People have been Killed, robbed, beatened, and otherwise harmed by people's greed to acquire these [Wii, PS3] products. Yet, none of these are items that are within the definition of "basic needs". Nobody "needs" these." You're quite right by saying that nobody *needs* these items, but it certainly wasn't the rich out there fighting the crowds for these products. Often, they were poor bastards who were paid by someone to stand in line for them, or people who didn't actually want the machines, but wanted to cash in on the reselling of these machines on ebay or whatnot. The point here is that America's poor are getting poorer, and the richer are getting richer. The concern is that America is losing the middle class. You like bitching about America now ... are you hoping for more material down the road?
Even if America's poor have a higher standard of living than the poor elsewhere in the world, does that mean America shouldn't continue to consider the situation of their own poor and continue trying to make America a better place?
"The "poor" Americans are some of the richest people in the world, just look at the obesity levels."
Actually, I'd say the obesity levels in America's poor aren't due to some great amount of nutrition they're getting, but more to the LACK of nutrition they're getting. Take a trip to a grocery store in a poor neighbourhood, and you'll see cart fulls of ramen, boxed meals, and red fruit drink - all full of questionable chemicals, MSG, and high-fructose corn syrup. These people are fat because they can't afford nutritious food like fresh fruits & vegetables.
I'd highly recommend a visit to the Southeast section of Washington, DC at some point. Seeing such neighbourhoods in person might change your mind about the poor in America, especially in areas like this where it's quite obvious that the poor neighbourhoods are defined by things like skin colour. Yes, such things do still matter.
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.
Adult crime started to fall 18 years after the introduction of Roe v. Wade. Perhaps not having so many people who grew up as unwanted children had something to do with that. But the data seems to show that the 'evil people' hypothesis is simply incorrect. Only a small percentage of the population has any tendency towards evil. Crime comes from societal causes, mostly income inequality. That is what the research shows, but you are free to believe any hypothesis you like.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"There is a limited amount of wealth in our society. It is not an entirely zero-sum game, but it is true that the more wealth the richest have, the less the rest of us have."
Uhm, no. Money creates money, quite literaly. When you put $100 in the bank, the bank then lends $90 out to some new business, who deposits it in a bank account which then lends it out etc etc etc.
Now you have 6 companies/people building business and spending money. In a growing economy it means that money is never close to a zero sum game. Someone else having money directly increases my access to it. If someone else has a lot of money it means that I have even more access to money as the market ineffeciencies of getting large sums for loans are reduced for the bank, there costs go down and everyone else get cheaper loans or more interest on their account.
Also realize that this is an INVESTMENT BANK under discussion. They literally make their money by directly financing other companies. So when they have a lot of money, they are just going to reinvest it in the economy anyway.
One other thing, people often reference the income gap as a point proving some sort of inequality. It seems like a far more interesting point of comparison would be the ease of movement of people between rich and poor. The rich dont stay rich forever, usually one person makes it and their kids all spend it. I dont have the number, but movement between the classes in the U.S. is VERY high.
Look, between my wife an I, we make just a bit over the poverty level. While I do live in a low cost area of USA, I find that I have plenty of money for my needs. I am well clothed and I have just bought a new home and I have money saved up for a rainy day. My point is this, if people work and live carefully then these scales will be unimportant. I don't need to steal as I live confortably (besides the fact that theft is wrong). Of course I don't own a PS3, HD-TV, or any other wizbang item and I don't eat out consistently. My nicest "toy" is a iPod Nano. With a bit of self-control, many of these people who are "economicaly disadvantaged" could have nice lives regardless of what some economist predicts.
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.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
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
-- Will program for bandwidth
According the the Gini numbers mentioned in TFA, this would mean that the US has one of the highest crime rates in the world! I don't think that is the case.
The US has more people per capita in prison than any other nation on the planet.
The US also has more people *in raw numbers* in prison than any other nation on the planet.
That's incarceration rate rather than crime rate, but they are related, so clearly it's reasonable to guess that we might well have one of the highest crime rates as well.
Did you actually have any reason to think that we don't?
By allocating capital to where it is best used Goldman Sachs produces huge wealth for everyone.
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. By giving some guy a 53M bonus, you're just shifting that money (aka POWER) away from an immediate group of people. The recipient, in turn, will probably spend a small portion of it on luxuries (high markup low value), and lock the rest away in the bank (or investments). The money that is spent will recirculate to some extent, trickling back down to the common people but still resulting in a pyramid of profit for the middlemen. The rest of the cash just sits idle and creates a void, which is then filled by inflation.
When you have more money than you can spend, you're actually creating a cascade of economic problems. Way back when money was invented, it represented effort and value. You trade the fruits of your labor for money, which could then by traded for other people's goods and services. Today's money has little to do with its ancestral purpose. What has Lloyd Blankfein done to tangibly benefit the people around him, that is worth 53 million ? 53 million bucks can build a shitload of houses, educate a ton of kids, or feed tens of thousands of people to satiety. Or it can buy one man some short-term entertainment, maybe get his kids through college and pay off a few gold-diggers.
To me, the only currency that matters, the only one whose value is fixed and whose purpose is clear, is energy. We are living on a planet with finite resources, yet population is growing out of control. All the money in the world won't help when there's no more oil to power factories, no more heat to cook our food, no more electricity to run our hospitals. The fact that such a disaster is centuries, perhaps millenia away doesn't make it less of a problem, that's where we're headed and unless something radical comes around to change our course, humankind will be doomed. It's hard to be rich and famous when you're extinct.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
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").
I agree fully. This is one of those things I hate hearing about. It's always "Help the poor", "the poor need X", etc. I remember a survey a few years ago where people below the federal poverty level have (on average) a washer and driver, color TV, microwave, iPod, car, often cable/satellite, and all sorts of other stuff. Some of this is because the poverty level may be too high. Some of this is just because of the choices those people make (hint: When you only make 12k a year, don't go getting yourself a $300 monthly car payment).
There are truly poor people out there, and for various reasons (lazy, mental illness, hard times, etc). But you can't decided someone has a bad life just because they are below the government's arbitrary poverty line. As you said, there are people all around the world who would think some of our poor live like kings.
As for income inequity, it matters the more skewed it is. While we have people earning minimum wage and CEOs and athletes earning ridiculous amounts of money, there is a great spread in the middle. We're not like some countries where you are either very rich or very poor with next to no middle class.
As you point out, I think this is a priorities problem. People decide they "must have" that iPod/xbox/new car/whatever that they can't/can barely afford and so they buy it and then struggle under the payments. They may have no savings or very little. This is a problem of learning to handle money and put off instant-gratification as much as it is CEOs getting paid too much.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
Take half the money of the richest 10% of Americans and spread it out among the poorest 40%, you'd probably take one of the biggest steps in history towards eliminating poverty.
... it's not like the wealthy are swimming giant money bins at night.
All you would wind up doing is drive up price inflation (too many dollars chasing too few goods). Not to mention sinking the equity markets and many businesses in the process since that's where the top 10% is invested
Your asset grab would make more sense in let's say a feudal or caste system.
You don't get out of Mommy's basement much, do you? My wife is from the Philippines - about as poor as Brazil - and I have visited there frequently. Yes, there are people, like my wife's brothers, who run a successful chain of department stores, and who make relatively lots of money. There are also many people, like virtually every politician and government officer, who live on graft, corruption, and crime. For example, we were introduced to the governor of her province, who also runs the meth trade. Police and armed forces officers supplement their incomes by kidnapping and ransoming rich kids. Ever practical, the Chinese, who run much of the trade, form associations that routinely pay local police and army officers protection money so that their children will not be touched.
Although the Philippines has lots of laws to provide services, they don't have the money. One reason is rich businessmen routinely "negotiate" their tax payments with the local official. Such negotiations always include a thick envelope for the official. So when you live in a country where the rich avoid their taxes, where the people who are supposed to uphold the law break it, and the government that is supposed to work for you steals from you, there is going to be a lot of crime because the social contract is routinely betrayed.
What was once true, is no longer so
Imagine a hypothetical inequality index (HII) -- something you can measure in an individual's circumstances at any one time.
At HII=x, let's say 1% of people get tempted into crime. Your dad is one of the 99% of people who behave.
At HII=2x, maybe 1.5% of people get tempted into crime. Your dad is one of the 98.5%.
The vast majority of people are law abiding. Fluctuations in the small number of criminals have a big effect on our perception of lawlessness around us.
The Bible does too... but I imagine we can just categorically ignore that source, right? ;)
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Wow you actually drank the koolaide. What about the poor people who produce a lot but don't get compensated for it. And what about the wealthy people who produce next to nothing and continue to get richer through unethical means? They exist and those tendencies are increasing on both ends of the spectrum.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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.
Well said!
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
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.
I couldn't disagree more. The rich don't drive the economy any more than any other consumer does. How is a single mother buying baby formula any less connected to the economy than Paris Hilton buying a new purse? You might be tempted into an argument of scale (that the purse costs thousands more), but this point is moot because there are far more single mothers than Paris Hiltons. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the rich, as a result of their savings accounts, contribute less to the economy, per capita, than an individual forced to live paycheck to paycheck. Therefore, measures aimed at reducing the wage gap would probably help the economy more than hurt it and would certainly provide greater incentive to produce products that people need and not spurious things like yachts.
This entire line of logic that the rich drive the economy by buying yachts is the modern equivalent of Broken Windows Fallacy.
-Grym
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
In fact, over the course of my life I'll make about as much money paying interest on my mortgage and other loans as I will make for myself. Someone else is making just as much off my hard work as I am and they've done nothing but start out with money.
And in return they give you a house you couldn't afford up front. That's how mortgages work. When you consider the opportunity cost of the few hundred dollars they give you, mortgates are rather cheap.
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.
So, what do you propose should be done because of the ability of people to rationalize theft?
I can tell you that I get pretty pissed off when I hear about million-dollar bonuses when if I had 1% of that money I wouldn't have to worry about college tuition for the rest of my career. It makes me angry, so I try to ignore it. Watching commercials also gets me a little mad because of the huge disparity between the way the "average american" is depicted on television, and the way we actually live. If you're willing to buy into the commercial vision, then you start to think that everyone but you is living like that, and then you start to wonder how you can get to that point. When you start to think that you can't, you get angry.
You get angry or jealous? There is a difference.
1% of one million is $10,000. I spent more than that on college but I'm sure you could get an education for less than that. But let's say that a million-dollar-bonus earner was forced to give it away in 1% increments. He would be able to give $10,000 to exactly 100 people (all before taxes of course). After taxes, he could give approximately $6000 to 100 people, who in turn would only receive $4000 each (after taxes again). Could you go to college on $4k?
Finally, in your perfect world where the rich have to give all their money to pay for your college, why would you want a college education anyway? You bust your ass through college, work hard, long hours in your job, and when you are successful, you'd have to give away your money to some angry kid who despises you for your hard earned success and is too lazy to pay for his own education!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
I agree with you, but to turn it around in a crazy twist its also wrong at the other end - if you have $100B in the bank, you no longer want to make yourself richer. The only way you can become happier is to raise others up, so that people will stop working on how to make more food (because that work will be done), and will start working on how to make rich people happier - because you created a market of rich people!
(Of course, this only makes sense if you remember that since economics is not a zero sum game you can make others rich without adversely effected your own wealth).
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
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.
When everyone is poor, no one steals from each other.
What do you base this on? If everyone's poor, those who steal from others are less poor. The only time I'd see this being irrefutable is when everyone's totally broke and thus no one has anything to be stolen.
It's not like people will think, "oh, you're as badly of as I am, we'll commiserate together." You'll have groups of people who think that way. You'll have the other groups who say, "I have X, he has X. I off him and take his stuff, I get 2X."
Exactly.
This is why Ophra opened a leadership school in Aouth Africa and not in the US.
She said in an interview (writting from memory): "whenever I went to South Central-like places, I'd ask to poor kids 'what is what you want?' and they would answer things like 'a pair of Nikes', 'an Xbox','a flat-screen TV'. On South Africa, when you ask poor kids what they want, they say 'a uniform so I can go to school', 'books for school','a pair os sandals to go to school'. This is why I built the school in Sout Africa".
Sad.
[quote]There are -some- poor folks who live off the charity of others, and there are -some- rich people who live off their connections.[/quote]
Indeed. That doesn't mean a thing. I give my charity to people who deserve it because they are trying to make their life better, like the 17 YO girl at my daughter's school who doesn't get enough to eat, because her parents either cannot or will not buy food. I give to her, rather than the "will (not) work for food" bums on the corner, because she is trying to do better, and isn't afraid to work hard to get a better life. She's a good kid that needs a chance at life.
It makes me feel good knowing that it isn't wasted, and actually is truly appreciated. She doesn't know who gives her the food, all she knows is that the food is waiting for her at school when she gets there.
"there is an extremely large group of hard working middle class folks propping up the economy here, if you really worked hard and came from the background you say you did, you would know that."
Indeed I do. However there is a large underclass of people who believe that life entitles them to 2 tvs, a microwave, nike shoes, xbox and a Nintendo, but don't feel like working for them. I don't own a Wii, or an Xbox or whatever. My shoes are $20 sneekers. My income last year was $40k, and I am debt free (LITERALLY). I don't own a credit card, make payments on cars or anything else. I have money set aside for retirement. I live in California and have my whole life.
I am unique among my peers. I don't have a bunch of stuff, and live a plain life. It is something I wouldn't trade for anything. WHY? Because I am satisfied with what I have, and don't compare myself to the Jones next door.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Yuppie kids or their parents also produce
Exactly WHAT are they producing? You can't eat stock options you know.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.''
That's incarceration rate rather than crime rate, but they are related, so clearly it's reasonable to guess that we might well have one of the highest crime rates as well.
Did you actually have any reason to think that we don't?
As a matter of fact, I do. It could be that the US has more people in prison because our justice system can catch criminals and put them in prison. Our economy is strong enough to afford police officers and a court system that will even pay for a lawyer for those accused of a crime (as poor as public defenders may be).
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
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").
But even if I concede your point, I disagree with your valuation. Unless the chairman of goldman sachs cures cancer, productizes cold fusion, and gets ROME a third season, there's no way on earth he is worth 200,000% more to society than the dude who drives the truck that brings milk to my grocery store, my kid's teacher, or the dude who just sold me a coffee.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
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!!
Yes. RTFA.
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.
That is one of the reasons I stopped watching TV about 15 years ago... commercials absolutely infuriate me (so do those morning "news" shows, and the normal news shows, and most of the rest of little breaks between the commercials). Granted, I still pick up a show on DVD every now and then if its recommended, but I haven't subscribed to or regularly wathed a live feed since middle school.
I agree... He had me up until that last line as well. Yes, we tout our relatively impoverished population a bit more than we should -- as a matter of fact, I think we pull them up too much, but a society is only as good as it's weakest link. After visiting several third world countries I've seen what truly impoverished people are (and oddly, they're happier than we are here) and we have none of that in the U.S..
Anybody has the possibility to make a decent living if they bother to try. But for the GP to say that everybody in the U.S. hasn't the foggiest about how to do those things is just a gross overstatement.
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.
This brings to mind the stuff in freakonomics about drug dealers. A guy in Chicago went into a gang and got to know them, and analyzed their economics. The guys on the street dealing the drugs, taking most of the risk, earn about $10 an hour all told. They work really hard at it, and regularly risk their lives. They are willing to do this for the chance it gives them of getting to the top, where they make a pretty decent living(~$100,000).
Basically, they are born into a crisis and never realize it, and they see the horrible 'career' of dealing drugs as one of the better ways out. Putting them in prison is an excellent waste of money, the next generation is always ready to replace them.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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?
PS3, XBox360, Wii, Nike Shoes .....
People have been Killed, robbed, beatened, and otherwise harmed by people's greed to acquire these products. Yet, none of these are items that are within the definition of "basic needs". Nobody "needs" these.
Of course nobody needs these to live. However, people do need them to protect their social status. There are groups of people that you could categorize as 'poor' given some bounding conditions, but within that group of people there is still social hierarchy, and many people will still strive to be at the upper end of it just as those in the middle class live beyond their means buying fancy cars and houses in expensive areas that they really can't afford, gambling their financial security on low interest rates and tax breaks.
So a poor person owns a pair of Nike's and an XBox360. Isn't everyone entitled to one or two 'luxury' items? Think about all the things you own that the upper class could argue that you don't 'need' and by saving or investing the money instead could elevate your status.
If I were poor, and my sole valuable possession was a pair of Nike's, would you turn your back on me?
And I am SICK of the "jobs that no Americans want" mantra. There is some truth to the mantra (lies usually have to be plausible to be believed) but the fact is that the market for low-end jobs is being shaped by a large population of people who are in the states in violation of the law. It may be true that there is a large population of lazy, welfare-addicted losers who won't mow a lawn or work in a kitchen, but the notion that there are jobs that no American wants is pure political bullshit. All those "jobs that no Americans want" were filled by Americans just a few years ago.
slashdot broke my sig
"... 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.
The childern are poor because their parent is poor. (usually it's just one, and usually it's just the mother) She may be poor because she is lazy, sick, mentally disturbed or all of the above. When you find the formula that allows us to raise all the children out of poverty without giving a handout the the parents, while keeping the families intact, you will be elected to sainthood.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
That really bugs me about TV too. I think it's really evident on television marketed toward teens unfortunately, or maybe they just watch TV too much to begin with. I was a teen a few years ago, and the wasteful culture promoted on MTV and channels like it really affects people. It's disappointing that broadcasters don't have more integrity these days.
The OP is talking about the same type of million-dollar bonuses the article discusses -- the bonuses that involve many millions of dollars. 1% of 53 Million dollars is certainly enough to provide tuition for College while also working full time. That you try to say the OP is invalid by misconstruing his statement shows exactly where you stand on this. And how willing you are to deceive yourself to remain in support of income inequality on the scale it is today. It is very clear you view yourself as the pre-rich. Sorry, Charlie, but chances are no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you spit on the poor, you won't be joining the elite ranks. At least not under this president. But, please, keep deluding yourself. I, on the other hand, will help my fellow human and do what I can to insure the government does the same rather than continues with the opposite.
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.
public void you(){
mouth = null;
}Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
If you define "worth" as "what people will pay you".
If I have goods, or can do work, as good as another who gets paid 10 times as much, because of the way he dresses, his accent, who he went to school with, then because of that I'm "worth" 1/10th as much as him. And thus you see the point of TFA, people who see no chance to climb up the greasy pole no matter how hard they work sometimes think they mught as well chop it down.
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.
What about greed?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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.
I couldn't disagree more. The rich don't drive the economy any more than any other consumer does. How is a single mother buying baby formula any less connected to the economy than Paris Hilton buying a new purse? You might be tempted into an argument of scale (that the purse costs thousands more), but this point is moot because there are far more single mothers than Paris Hiltons. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the rich, as a result of their savings accounts, contribute less to the economy, per capita, than an individual forced to live paycheck to paycheck. Therefore, measures aimed at reducing the wage gap would probably help the economy more than hurt it and would certainly provide greater incentive to produce products that people need and not spurious things like yachts.
This entire line of logic that the rich drive the economy by buying yachts is the modern equivalent of Broken Windows Fallacy.
Well, I was trying to keep it brief, but you make a good point that deserves a response.
The economic contribution of the wealthy goes beyond their purchasing power. What was Redmond before Bill Gates? What was Round Rock before Dell? What was Beaumont TX before the oil boom of the 70's and what is it now after the oil bust of the 80's? I'm not a big fan of Paris Hilton, but there are a lot of people working at Hilton hotels. There are many people who feed their families by supplying sheets and little shampoos to Hilton Hotels. So while I don't care for Paris Hilton, I would not want to see her family poor because that would mean that an awful lot of people would be out of work, unable to provide for themselves and their families.
I agree with the benefits of reducing the income gap. However, I don't agree that it can be achieved by knocking the rich down. What needs to happen is an increase in opportunity across the board. Yes, this means that rich will get richer, but it also means that the poor will be able to get rich also, or at least not be poor anymore. Those that do take advantage of the increased opportunity will remain poor, but we can't punish the rest of society for their lack of motivation and/or laziness. If you take away the ability for some to get rich, you remove the motivation for all.
Why would a mouse bother to navigate a maze if there was no cheese at the end?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The poor (making $20.00 an hour or less) cant afford to build a home or buy a old home in lower crime areas... you just cant afford a $350,000.00+ mortgage when you make a paltry $20.00 a hour. So you are stuck buying a crapshack in the $200,000 range in a questionable neighborhood that you hope is not too bad. Here is the problem. your little 1200 Sq foot crapshack was built in 1955 and has no insulation. so heating it costs you over $200.00 a month during winter months. While the rich guy in his 4800 sq foot home get's away with $180.00 a month keeping it at 72 degrees because he has low E glass, south facing windows, thermal mass, decent insulation etc....
The gap is widening... I realize that I will never EVER be able to afford to build a house, the income gap has widened enough that I will never be able to catch up to the fact that housing is spiraling out of control in price. The depressing fact is that I see my 15 year old and know that she probably will never be a homeowner unless she does somethign stupid and get's one of those unrealistic mortgages, marries a rich guy, or becomes a doctor.
And this is in non-popular metro areas, Only the truely insane tries to buy a home in California near San Diago, LA or Frisco. (Where you have the $500,000.00 Crapshacks)
It's this kind of pessimistic attitude, combined with excessive spending, that is keeping people from home ownership. I just got out of college and got a job as a software engineer, but my goal is to get a house in 5 years. I make about average money for a fresh out of school software engineer, which isn't great considering that I'm living in Silicon Valley and intend to buy a place here. I could take the "woe is me" attitude and resign myself to never buying a house, but instead I'm focusing on saving my money and setting myself up to get a house. Sure I don't have a lot of money to throw around on excessive consumption like I see out of many of my fellow grads, but it means that I'll be able to buy a house with an honest-to-God down payment and a real mortage, not some crazy ARM.
Being the son of an accountant, fiscal responsibility has been drilled into me since before I can remember. It still amazes me that some people fail to realize that if they curb their spending and plan for the future, it can do wonders to their financial and living situation.
I think that there's plenty of focus here on the "poor". I'm not going to go into that because I think that it's been debated plenty. What I think is being neglected are things like, for example, I don't get a raise, or my pension plan gets gutted, or I'm worried about the possibility of losing my job during whatever "resource action" happens to be going on at the time. All of this happening while the Execs of my corporation are reaping massive bonuses, getting raises without regard to the stagnation of wages in the ranks, having their pensions stable rather than gutted, and having the security that even if they run the company into the ground they still get a bonus for leaving the company. I'm middle class. I need to work to sustain my lifestyle, I need to save for retirement in an era where everyone says that you need to pay for your own retirement (but everyone kind of blows off the fact that it's tough to pay for your retirement when megacorps get away with changing the rules that govern your retirement plan), and I need to hopefully do this while staying ahead of the increases in cost of living. What is it that I'm supposed to think when I see executives reaping these benefits while the ranks are filled with people who get almost nothing from it? What am I supposed to think as a stockholder for that matter? That the few people up top are seriously worth that much? That the money that's being spent on their bonuses, pensions, and golden parachutes is not better spent on getting some better salaries and benefits for the rank and file that we'd like to have around as skilled employees or, God forbid, hire some more? yeah, I can see why it matters. I'm sure that people in lower income stratta than myself can fall into despair pretty easily. It's one of those things that people are quick to forget when the concept of the "new deal" comes up... Many people are quick to point out that the new deal was a bad idea and they think it elongated the depression. My perspective is that what he did probably is the only thing that could have staved off outright rebellion, French Revolution style. Anyway, I'll go back to my fine middle class IT job that refuses to pay for my Masters degree...
Regards, Ian
The things I don't understand include huge bonuses for failing/fired executives, increases in executive compensation while worker compensation stays flat, and the huge difference in income ratio compared to historical US data and current global data.
Your numbers are wrong btw. It was a million dollar bonus, not a 600k bonus. College students would pay maybe 1k on 10,000 income, but I don't remember paying taxes on my student grants and loans.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Income inequality doesn't drive crime. It may attract it, in that rich people make tempting targets. Look, people, this idea that rich people deserve to be target because their rich is bullshit. The idea that the "system breeds contempt because some people are successful" is bullshit. Perpetrating this myth is to encourage the lazy.
>market forces determine how much you make
It's not "market forces" when the CEO names the board that sets his compensation package. That's a big part of the problem. Not many people resent Tiger Wood's wealth, precisely because it was earned.
Anyone who thinks that climbing out of a minimum wage job is just a matter of working hard should read Nickel and Dimed, written by someone who actually worked bottom-tier jobs for her research.
If some one is making minimum wage and you see that they are wasting a huge per cent of that what incentive does one have to increase that wage? If one smokes, drink excessively or is hugely overweight what incentive does one have to get them health coverage? There are some people if you gave them $100,000 would spend it in less than a year and again be poor the year after that. Education would help but discipline in spending money and in taking care of oneself is also needed.
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
Granted I've never been to California, but I grew up in South Florida and live in Chicago. There are tons of well built, brand new condos and single-family homes in the $250,000 range.
Additionally, if you'd like to build a house construction loan programs today are pretty generous. You might be surprised.
Vitamins cost about $30 a year(That's for Centrum silver; what I have since dudes don't really need iron). Rice and beans costs about $1 for a days worth of calories(at US supermarket prices). That's ~$400 a year for a horrible, bland, nutritionally sound diet(a bit short on fiber, but ah well). About 3 weeks at a minimum wage job. Clean water isn't universal, but it is damn close, and if it is city water, it is almost free.
MSG and corn syrup are maligned because they are easy targets, but there is little evidence pointing to any actual issues caused by either. HFCS and regular old table sugar hit the blood in essentially the same exact way; enzymatic action in the small intestine rapidly splits the sucrose into glucose+fructose anyway. The problem is the volume of simple sugar calories, not the particular form.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.
The crux of your argument, which has been stated many times before, is that without incentive capitalism breaks down. That's true, but is being wealthy beyond your wildest dreams an incentive? If so, should it be? There are many studies showing that people who are extremely wealthy are no more happy then those with enough money to be comfortable. There's marginal utility in wealth and the fact is that an extra million to a top executive will do much less good there then just about anywhere else.
I didn't get a college degree to be a millionaire, and knowing that an exec just got another huge golden parachute gives me ZERO incentive to work any harder. I would bet that most people feel the same way.
More facts about Sweden: the Stockholm Stock exchange has done better the last 5 years than Dow-Jones [1] (I've been told that the last 20 years have done better but couldn't present evidence though). National debt is under control and is at 50.4% of GDP compared to 64.7% of GDP for the US [2] Unemployment could be better but there are differences between the countries that aren't of a direct economical nature. For example, if Sweden would choose to have as many prisoners per capita as the US that would cut down unemployment with an estimated 1% or more.
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You can find both exchange rates between SEK/USD and Dow-Jones at http://finance.google.com/
k order/2186rank.html
[1] Stockholm exchange 5 year history: http://www.bors24.se/bors24.se/site/index/index_d
[2] https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ran
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.
Not necessarily true. This is a common fallacy about mature capitalist societies. In a poor capitalist society, the most successful strategy to get wealthy is to create wealth, and capitalism rewards wealth-creators with more political power (in the form of money), establishing a nice positive feedback loop. But there are other paths to wealth as well. Those paths involve concentrating wealth without actually creating any new wealth, and their presence in every capitalist society to date shows that nobody has yet managed to align personal incentives with societal incentives.
In a mature society that has lots of money floating around, there's a certain instability to the system: if a comparatively small group of people collect enough wealth, then it becomes quite difficult to "break through" the cartels and become wealthy oneself. The incentives then tend to create an uberclass of, well, crooks and an underclass of exploited workers.
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.
For 90% of people, it's doing very well. The point is that despite very strong
social welfare and taxes the standard of living between Sweden and USA isn't that different over
decades, despite the right wing propaganda which would have you think it would descend into
a hell-hole. And many nations without realistic social welfare and taxes are still very unequal
crime-ridden hellholes.
"My point is that in a capitalist society, it is the rich that drive the economy. It is the rich that employ people and buy products. Granted, Paris Hilton doesn't need another yacht, but I'm sure the workers at the shipyard where that yacht is made will disagree."
Indeed, in a slaveowning society, it is the slaveowners that drive the economy. It's a trivial truism that the ones with the money govern demand. That's the entire point of the argument: a different distribution of wealth, and you have different people's demands being met.
"Granted, Paris Hilton doesn't need another yacht, but I'm sure the workers at the shipyard where that yacht is made will disagree."
At one point, shipbuilders made moderate boats for masses which some of them could afford to play with in the summer.
That'[s the point.
That's not true. People who steal usually steal from those near them and poor people generally live near other poor people.
I'd disagree there - unless their savings accounts were held in piles of cash under a mattress. That money is available to be lent by banks or invested by them back into the economy. The wealth that the rich don't spend probably does more for the economy than the purchase of a high dollar purse would do.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
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.
That's largely due to stupid drug laws. The back of my brain says that we do have a slightly higher rate of violent offenders than much of the world, but I don't feel like backing it up.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"Yeah for a lifetime of hard work and smart decisions you can make 1/100,000th what one of the people born to extreme wealth and who is a lazy idiot makes from investing all that inheritance in lending firms that lend you the money you need to get started and then collect interest."
.... Compare yourself to who you CAN BE, and not someone else or by someone else's standards.
That's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it. You want to be someone else, because you think life should be "fair". I hate to break it to you, but "life" is not fair. Some people are born blind. Is that "fair"? Some are born "deaf". Is that fair? Some people are born rich. Is that fair?
You can always compare yourself to others and be either disappointed or grateful. I can see which one you have chosen to be, and it is sad. Here's a lesson I've taught my kids
Life isn't fair. Stop trying to make it fair, because it is futile, and annoys those of us who realize it.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
This is based on the assumption that people earning $150K and people earning $5.15/hr are both being paid a fair market value for their work and that the labor market operates freely. Guess what? They aren't and it doesn't...for a looooong list of reasons.
No, we can't, nor should we. But we still have to live with the consequences of having a lot of poor people around, feeling generally miserable and cheated, even though it might be their own fault.
If you take away the ability for some to get rich, you remove the motivation for all.Would Bill Gates not have founded Microsoft if he knew that he would only get one billion dollar instead of one trillion or whatever it is that he has now?
In a society where everyone gets 100 $MONETARY_UNIT/month, everyone will be jealous of the one that gets 1000 $MONETARY_UNIT/month, and most people will probably try as hard to get there, as if that position would bring 2000 or even 10000 $MONETARY_UNIT/month.
No one is saying that we should make the rich people poor. Increased taxes will still make the rich people richer than anyone else.
c++;
I agree with this as well. It's as if saying, when a murder happens, blame it on the murderer.
Instead, one should find faults in a system that allowed the murder to happen in the FIRST place. Once faults in a system are found, then one can actually go about PREVENTING bad things from happening.
It's pointless to find blame without a goal of actually FIXING the fault. Blame should be used as a tool, instead of an excuse. It should be part of the feedback loop of any system for optimization.
Great. So south americans like to kidnap and murder each other. Now what? Cry about it? Punish kidnappers? We could make murder illegal? LOL
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!
No, you'd actually make things worse. Because being "poor" here in the US, where even "poor" people generally have their basic needs met, isn't usually so much a financial issue as a mental issue (which is probably made worse by all the feel-good crap I hear about being taught in the public schools these days...).
You would teach people that they deserve / are entitled to handouts and freebies. And teaching people that they're entitled to take things like this would lead to (1) much greater dissatisfaction / sense of 'poorness', and (2) a correspondingly higher crime rate.
I've met (online) a number of people (in the US) who are below the poverty line and think that it's way to high, because they don't consider themselves poor. And then there are the "vocal poor", who are pissed off about not being able to buy whatever latest thing they want (because they're entitled to it). And then there are other societies where the richest people have less than either these "vocal poor" or the below-poverty-line-but-happy people, and everyone gets along just fine.
Using that money to provide specific *basic public services* instead of handouts unfortunately would also probably have much the same effects, although probably limited to the areas the services were in. Basically, if the services aren't up to whatever standards (say, what richer people pay for for themselves), then people receiving the services can complain and be upset about this because they don't bear the cost of providing said services. Perhaps providing subsidized (but not free) basic public services would work...
Hold on. Nobody is suggesting that we ditch the whole money idea and turn to communism. That is a strawman argument.
As for the taxes part, that asks the listener to ignore the plight of someone who works hard for little income, and feel sympathy for someone who has an excessive amount of money, but must give away a larger-than-average portion of it. Now if we are to feel no sympathy for people who have no money, than how do we feel sympathy for people who are incredibly well-off, but could have more.
I'd just like to thank you for saying that teachers are equal in worth to the chairman of goldman sachs.
For the record... it isn't easy at all to live on a teacher's salary
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
It could be that the US has more people in prison because our justice system can catch criminals and put them in prison.
Of course, so do most other countries, so I'm not sure how this is evidence of anything.
Our economy is strong enough to afford police officers and a court system that will even pay for a lawyer for those accused of a crime (as poor as public defenders may be
Meaning that all else being equal, we should have *fewer* people in prison than if only the rich had defense attorneys.
Your own arguments don't do anything to back up your opinion and in the second case your own argument goes directly against what you're attempting to use it to demonstrate.
" Way back when money was invented, it represented effort and value. You trade the fruits of your labor for money, which could then by traded for other people's goods and services."
First of all let me say I see your point however I have to take issue with it. This is still what money is. I goto work and use my time, effort, and skills in exchange for a money. I then use that money to buy goods and services. Now Mr.MoneyBags might make more then I do, but that is because someone values his time, effort, or skills more then mine, and thus he gets paid more. What he does with his money, be it giving food to starving kids, saving it for his family, or blowing it all away on fast cars and fast women is his perogative and his choice. He earned the right to spend that money however he chooses (withing the confines of legally, of course)
"To me, the only currency that matters, the only one whose value is fixed and whose purpose is clear, is energy. We are living on a planet with finite resources, yet population is growing out of control. All the money in the world won't help when there's no more oil to power factories, no more heat to cook our food, no more electricity to run our hospitals."
This is exactly why quite a few people buy gold. It will pretty much always be worth something, as it has tangable value rather then just abstract value.
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
When everyone is poor, no one steals from each other.
Are you kidding? Greed and envy are primary human traits, just because everyone is dirt poor doesn't mean one person won't want more dirt than the next guy. And he'll be willing to take that dirt by force, if needed.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Is it highly correlated with income inequality, or caused by it?
An unwed teen mother of three might not realize that she made horrible choices, but it's a little over the top to wave your hands in the air and say that it must be because she was poor, especially when there are other poor people making better choices.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Here's an old saying I heard that kinda echos your post
"Whoever told you life was fair was lying, life sucks, then you die."
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
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.
News flash: every country has income inequality. That's true, even in communist countries where people are all supposed to be the same. There is no place in the WORLD where "EVERYONE is poor".
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/
Nice theory, but it isn't backed up by research. Research shows that inequality drives crime. Given the perception of a fair system, most people will play fair because our genes tell us that is the most efficient strategy. Unfortunately, while we are predisposed towards cooperation, it is a poor strategy when the system isn't fair. The cooperators get taken advantage of. Therefore, in an unfair system, people will play unfairly. Change the system, change the people.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You can't eat stock options you know.
No, but when someone invests their money in a public corporation, either by buying stock in the company or by buying shares of a mutual fund that holds stock in the company, then either one of two things happen: one, someone else sells their corresponding shares for money (which can buy food, which you can eat), or two, the company sells shares in itself directly, which raises capital to expand the business, which means it can hire more employees, whom the company pays with money, with which the new employees can buy food (and then eat).
So while investing in the markets doesn't directly enable you to eat, it does set off a chain of events on which our entire economic system is based and which eventually lead to people buying food and eating it.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Wow. Take a deep breath, comrade.
1% of 53 million dollars = 530,000
66% of 530,000 = 331,980 after tax
That's enough to buy a house, but hardly more than that.
Yes, Virginia, extreme income inequality is a bad thing. But so are frothy rants by people who should know better by now.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
People naturally want to contribute to society because they desire the respect of their peers. This is a basic drive, nearly as important as food and water. Research shows that a small minority of people will always cooperate and play fair. An even smaller monprity will always cheat. The vast majority of people will play fair in a fair system, because that is most efficient. They will cheat in an unfair system because they don't want to be taken advantage of themselves.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You bust your ass through college, work hard, long hours in your job, and when you are successful, you'd have to give away your money to some angry kid who despises you for your hard earned success and is too lazy to pay for his own education!
Ah but you are mistaken about the very wealthy. When you are so rich that you do not have to work at all.
It makes me ill that if I had 10,000,000 that I wouldn't ever had to work every again for the rest of my life... For the next 1,000 years with my current income.
Or if we have the Federal Reserve that money could pay for my life style forever if I just purchased CD's or left it in a bank (if I happen to live that long).
You see if you haven't been paying attention the US economy has gone from 25% financial 75% industrial to 75% finacial to 25% industrial in our economy.
Which means the most money being made is actually through money itself and not actual work. Credit card companies, Mutual Funds, Annuities, bonds, and of course the stock market.
Really... How much work does it take to leave your money in the bank? Or maybe buy a few thousand shares and wait till it rises in price?
Hell... Even I play the game with dividends and CDs. It is still minuscule to my day job, but I know well enough that if I had money I could simply use money to not have to work ever again and have all my needs met.
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.
Then the guilt passes and I hit the OK button and get the high of making money without working.
Although I am a small business owner myself I know that in the end I'm the one who has to feed myself.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
If you have drug related murders then you probably have a lot of drug crimes that you are not seeing.
(Not that i think most drug crimes should exist- I personally think we should legalize them and stop destroying central and south america.)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
A good economy rewards two things. Hard work, and risk. In order to function, it needs both of those things. Hard workers, and people willing to take risks.
The economy needs to reward both of these virutes, and it needs to do it in proportion to how important each is to society. It is right that Yuppies should be able to afford luxury cars and meals if they take the risk and invest their money in the creation of jobs, goods and ultimately benefit for society at large. If they do so, ultimately putting food in the mouths of and roofs on the houses of hundreds if not thousands of people, then what right has anyone to begrudge them the fruits of their labours?
That is, if they actually do benefit society.
The growing gap between incomes is telling us something. It's telling us that the risk takers are in real terms being rewarded more, while the workers are in real terms being rewarded less. Is this correct? Remember, the whole point of society even tolerating inequality was that society as a whole benefits. But if peoples incomes are decreasing in real terms, then what are we, via our taxes that finance the state in which the risk takers do business, actually paying for?
We, the people, have entered into a contract that says some of us may own more than others, because this benefits society accordingly. But when this arrangement breaks down, and those who benefit us less and less are rewarded more and more, why should we continue to support it? Why should I vote for lower taxes, or less market regulation , or even to keep private property itself legal, when to do so will only make me poorer and more miserable?
In the last century, when the inequality has reached enormous proportions, people asked themselves this question and gave the rational answer. They did not continue to support the system. Some chose radical steps; communism, totalitarianism, etc. But others chose a "New Deal". Basically a society where your risks are rewarded if they actually pay off for someone other than yourself. That's the society westerners have lived in for the last 60 years, and it worked.
But now the income gap is widening again. The question again faces us; should we continue to support the system as it stand, or should we change it? Happily, unlike our ancestors, we at least live in a democratic society where we don't need revolutions and world wars to decide this question. At least in theory.
May the Maths Be with you!
Greed and envy are societal traits. People are natural cooperators, as this is genetically most effient. When people perceive their society to be fair, most people will play by the rules because their genes tell them too. When people perceive their society to be unfir, they will cheat so as not to be taken advantage of themselves. This too is genetic. Your model of the problem is too simple by far.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I can only speak about Bulgaria in the 70s and 80s. There was no crime to speak of. I lived in a town of 300,000. I am pretty sure I heard of every murder, and there was less than one per year. Usually it was drunk teenagers killing one of their own, or pedophiles killing their victims. You could go anywhere after dark. Staying with your girlfriend in a park the whole night was not in any way risky. Most of the stealing was done by gypsies and homeless who did not get a paycheck, and it was relatively rare. Burglaries were only committed against people who were known to have worked abroad. Car thefts were nearly always for joyrides. The only brushes I've had with crime, or the law, were fights amongst individuals, schools, or locals/army boys. Using anything that cut or shot was considered unmanly. That included the militia (law officers). Damn these bastards were big and knew how to fight.
After the regime change, there was a lot of talk about crimes committed by the relatives of those in power. I am not sure the rumors had a significant basis, but even if they did, these could also be explained by inequality.
Once a visible class divide appeared, crime skyrocketted. Armoured doors, security guards, kidnappings, hitmen, yada, yada, yada
No good deed goes unpunished...
The truly rich don't have 'savings accounts' they have 'investment portfolios'. What do they do with them? Why, they finance industries that take raw materials and turn them into consumer goods and other weird things that give people jobs and access to wealth. The broken window fallacy doesn't apply to the yacht. Trickle down economics might(somebody gets paid to build the damn thing). Rich people aren't more connected to the economy than single mothers, but the are disproportionate participants. It might not be fair that some people are born with capital, and it sticks in the craw a little more because it is redistributable, but it isn't fair that some people are born healthier or prettier either.
It boggles my mind that there essentially wasn't medicine 250 years ago, and now access to heath care is a basic right, in a society where miracle drugs like antibiotics are free. Sure, you have pay the doctor, but that helps make sure that you don't ruin them(sort of, stupid flu). And yes, Walmart gives away less powerful antibiotics for free, among others.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Since when is 1200 square foot, sub $350k house built in 1955 a "crapshack"? I live in a perfectly decent 1100 square foot house (built in 1911) in a perfectly decent neighborhood in Minneapolis (not LA, but not a "non-popular metro area", either). I paid less than $200k (about $199k, actually) and I love it. I feel like you might be just a tad out of touch.
And since when is making less than $20.00/hr considered "poor"? I make quite a bit less than that and I think I'm a long way from "poor". Granted, my household has two incomes, but my wife doesn't make any more than I do.
Repo man's always intense.
Blaming people for their poor choices does no good. We must examine why people make poor choices and address that. It does nothing to simply say, "They are bad, lazy people." That is not a theory. It is not falsifiable and it makes no useful predictions. It is an expression of emotion and in no way helps fix the problem.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The points you're making in this reply, although admirable are irrelevant to your original statement, namely that "Americans are a bunch of whiney wimps who would rather get rich quick, while being poor, than work hard". I agree with you, 100% about living within means, hepling the poor, etc.
You keep repeating that there is this class of people who have a large amount of items but "don't feel like working for them". I submit to you that in my opinion (and based upon my life's experiences) it's highly unlikely that the majority of working Americans do, in fact, operate this way OR the economy would be worse off than it is.
You claim broad, systemic knowledge of how Americans live and what the economy is "really" based on, yet you offer no proof of what you're saying. On top of that you've "lived in California" all of your life (not exactly the paragon of "normal" Americans to anyone not living there).
Perhaps you should consider that your somewhat limited perceptions could use a...touch... more perspective? I hope so, although I will admit that in some cases simply bashing a large demographic of people because it's chic can be easier than truly thinking.
And in -that-, I suspect you are not in the least bit unique among your peers. Or is that a generalization that is unfair?
Not to mention that a million dollar donation to a scholarship fund would be tax-deductible.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
The intented reading was 'entitled to own' - i.e. have acquired legitamitely.
The problem with your original post and this last reply is that *you make the assumption* that people who own these things have involved themselves in criminal acts in order to acquire them. Poor != Criminal.
People like you feed the rationale for the types of crime I mentioned.
"People like me" realise that people have a basic need to live their lives every day with more than their absolute basic needs - or else what are they living for? When you hit rock bottom and feel you have nowhere else to go, that is when you're going to commit the crime to lift yourself up.
Gentlemen, you can't post smart, insightful comments here. This is Slashdot!
Meep.
Its interesting that you would use poor in quotation marks. It makes me think you've never actually been poor. If you had a job which paid more than minimum wage, you weren't poor. Did you have to eat ramen while you 'worked' your way thru college. Poor baby. There are Americans that have to decide if they are going to eat or go to the hospital when they are sick. Yes they have access to health care, which poor in many countries dont, but when you don't make enough money to use it AND provide for there families basic needs. That is the problem. Its alot easier to think of poor people as being lazy, as opposed to thinking of them as hard working. If you every thought of someone, who had less then you working as hard or harder then you, you may actually feel guilt. Your pretty naive if you think there are an unlimited amount of IT jobs, for people that want them. Or, an unlimited amount of any type of job. There are people who are trained IT professionals that can't get jobs, because they are being sent to Indian, or other countries. How are people who aren't trained going to get those jobs. There are allot of jobs, Americans don't want, because those jobs no longer pay a decent wage or have any benefits. 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.
These slashdotters are corrupting my precious bodily fluids!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Blame wasn't my point. If the problem is the lack of a decent decision making framework, fixing the poverty might help, but it might not. My point was that it is probably a good idea to make sure that the root problem is the one that society tries to fix; giving the poor choosing mother of 3 money is likely to do little to turn the 3 in to good choosers.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You know, maybe you're right, maybe I should just quit my job. That said, you missed my other point and if this keeps up and there's a massive disparity between rich and poor that just keeps growing, don't be surprised if the bastille gets stormed and you end up getting a really short haircut.
Regards, Ian
I don't make assumption that poor=criminal because I was once "poor" and didn't commit crimes.
What is criminal is people claiming poverty while wearing $150 shoes, and playing on a PSP, regardless of how they acquired them. I feel sorry for people whose self worth is built on what they have, rather than who they are as people.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Imagine how much it galls many Americans that watch some dumb yuppie on television fritter away a couple of million dollars when that's more money than they will ever see in their lifetime.
I am not so galled that someone wasted a million dollars which is more than I might see in my lifetime. I am galled that I couldn't think of something to sell those idiots. That is probably why I won't see that much in my lifetime.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
No, but you can invest capital in a fledgling bio company who produces a new type of corn that grows 20% more food per acre and with 10% less fertilizer which creates food for MILLIONS of people. A single person on the ground planting and picking corn may produce enough corn to feed a few dozen families. Besides, that farmer would not be able to produce any real amount of corn without the tank sized tractor engineered and manufactured by a company who received capital investments.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
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 what happens when your CEO gets a bonus for laying you and your coworkers off and outsourcing to India?
And then the job market is so bad you can only can get a job at Starbucks and can't afford your mortgage or car payments?
Wouldn't you be pissed?
This actually happened to coworkers of mine at "not to be named" ISP which I had quit out of personal morals because of policy changes to go to another company. Unfortunately when you lay off 1,000+ people form the same company nationwide you tend to get a lot of people with the same job skills looking for the same job.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
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.
But maybe it's too much to think that Americans think that much about the economy.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
They still do in the USA. You don't have to be "rich" to own a boat.
No matter where you go, there you are.
That seems logical, but oftentimes what seems logical is wrong. Can you back up that theory with anything besides personal anecdotes? I've seen some interesting research in economics that shows that fixing poverty isn't the answer, fixing unfairness is. When people perceive their society to be unfair, they themselves will operate unfairly so they aren't taken advantage of. When they perceive their society as operating fairly, they will cooperate because that is the most efficient, genetically speaking.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I don't think I've ever heard of someone *quite* so out of touch with life in the US before, with your 'paltry' $20 an hour job and $200,000 a year job. In at least 80-90% of the country you can live just fine on $20 an hour, and a $200,000 house will be very nice. Geez!
No. You were broke, but not poor. Poor people do poor people things like use their rent money to buy lottery tickets, or celebrate payday with a fifth of vodka and call in sick the next day (because they "earned" it). Broke people bust their ass to send their kids to school and improve their situation.
My mom's family defined poverty. I don't think she owned a pair of store-bought shoes until high school. Still, her mom sewed dresses for the girls and pants for the boys, made them wash when appropriate, and pushed them through school whether they wanted to go or not. My aunt runs a large, successful farm. My uncle was a successful contractor. My mom ran the communications department of a large railroad. Every single one of them did well for themselves because they learned that poverty isn't an acceptable way of life and then did something about it.
She was broke, but never poor. Neither were you.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
I live in a sub-$200,000 "crapshack". Of course, it's 4900 square feet on a half-acre plot in the good part of a nice town with first-rate schools. I admit that the hot tub in the attached sunroom has a broken thermostat, and it's difficult in practice to fit three cars in the garage when visitors come, but I think we'll persevere.
You decided to live in someplace with a hyperinflated housing market, but don't extrapolate your lifestyle choice problems to the rest of us who've found the good life elsewhere.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
So, what do you propose should be done because of the ability of people to rationalize theft?
People rationalize being unfair more when they are themselves subjected to unfairness. Striking a middle ground where taxes mitigate that unfairness to the right extent are likely to reduce crime. Progressive inheritance taxes on the extreme high end or wealth taxes as have been implemented in other places mean no one inherits more than a few million dollars. This is a good thing because it provides incentive for the wealthy to work and reduces wealth condensation creating instability. It reduces corruption in government by removing what amount to inherited titles amongst wealthy families. It provides funds or reduces taxes for the poor, improving their prospects for advancement. It reduces the number of people who justify violence and theft with their unfair starting position in life and reduces desperation, thus removing many people's motivation for crime. It may or may not work in the US, but it certainly seems to have done so elsewhere.
"If you're willing to buy into the commercial vision, then you start to think that everyone but you is living like that, and then you start to wonder how you can get to that point. When you start to think that you can't, you get angry."
I'd be surprised if most people do. To the extent that advertising leaks through my efforts to avoid it, I would no more want the piles of glitzy crap that I see "people" there enslaving themselves to then I would ask for a red hot poker in my eye. Which is okay, because those actors aren't portraying real life. Also, folks who do that are imho taxing themselves, it's kinda like the SUV craze, that happened (IMO) because people wanted SUVs. Those people paid a "tax" in the form of higher then normal profits to the carmakers. Thats true of most "premium" products. They are more profitable for producers so they employ more people and or ripple more money out into the economy. People should buy what they want, no always "the best" or what the advertiser says to buy imho.
Or in other words, you're well off and don't want to feel guilty about it.
The point is there are lots of people who KNOW that life is unfair, and telling them it's so doesn't make it any easier.
Some people are born tall, is that "fair" to people who are short? I'm 6'5" tall, is that fair? Should I be able to be a jockey on a race horse?
Don't put stupid arguments in my mouth. I don't want to work as jockey. But jobs I am perfectly capable of doing well are closed to me because I don't have the right social connections. And there is no way to break through. I'm not about to beat anyone up or set bombs. But I reserve the right to brood over it occasionally.
It doesn't matter whether dollars are backed by gold or not, as long as people have enough faith in their money. Inflation is also pretty irrelevant, since as you said it well, it's imaginary. The problem with inflation comes when it exceeds a certain limit and people start loosing confidence in the imaginary wealth. Fact is without money, you'd exacerbate poverty, since trading is a very bad way to exchange products... You'd spend more time trying to find someone willing to trade your goods for something you need rather then producing anything. Also, the Fed's main goal is to push growth while maintaining inflation to a decent level, so you attack inflation then attack the government's agency which tries to keep that same inflation under control? Granted you could expect the main goal of the Fed to be first inflation, then growth, like the European Central Bank, but i don't see how that would change the equality problem in the US... Oh and by the way, the banking system in the US is comparatively tiny (70% of the GDP) compared to the European one (300% of the GDP), and where banks do give loans based on your deposits, they are obligated to give to back to you, with interest... Would you rather have a system solely based on markets, where the margins are higher but you risk loosing everything all year long?
Quite frankly, if you want to intellectually combat a Capitalist society, attacking inflation (natural phenomenon), the Fed (which tries to keep the integrity of the monetary market) and banks (which have by far more contributed to lowering crimes then any other agency/sector/social reform), I'm afraid you'll only make a fool of yourself.
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.
Wouldn't it be more efficient just to provide the capital investments directly from the Government Treasury, and then use the people freed up from the dissolution of the financial industry to build the tractors and pick the crops? In other words, actually have them do real production instead of just producing a bunch of worthless paperwork?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"There is no sin greater than not knowing when you have enough."
I'm pretty much speaking from conjecture. Fair always makes me nervous, as it is very much in the eye of the beholder.
"The Undercover Economist" illustrates situations in landlocked African countries where a grower needs to get 50 signatures(or so, but that's the magnitude) to get his produce on a ship; the similar number in the United States is 5 or 10. The signatures in Africa also tend to be more likely to require bribes. Being unable to benefit from growing a crop, they tend to stop, which makes them poorer, and their country poorer. Business licenses in Ethiopia used to cast the equivalent of 3 years typical wages; the risk of starting a business was enormous. Here, it costs something like $1200, if you are particular about following all the details, otherwise, less. Those are arguments against (excess) regulation and corruption.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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
That's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it. You want to be someone else, because you think life should be "fair". I hate to break it to you, but "life" is not fair. Some people are born blind. Is that "fair"? Some are born "deaf". Is that fair? Some people are born rich. Is that fair?
Some people are tortured and killed and some people aren't is that fair? If you're walking down the street and someone shoots you in the back of the head and takes your money is that fair? Of course not. Is that an argument against using the law to ban murder? Of course not. The point is not to "be someone else" as you seem to think, but to make our country the best place we can using the laws to make life as fair as possible and as good as possible for the most number of people. You preach either selfishness or defeatism. Neither is in any way constructive or useful.
You can always compare yourself to others and be either disappointed or grateful. I can see which one you have chosen to be, and it is sad.
I was speaking about the psychology that motivates crime, not my personal feelings. The fact that you assume one is the other is presumptuous and suggests perhaps you're emotionally entangled with the issue. Trying to deal with guilt perhaps?
Here's a lesson I've taught my kids .... Compare yourself to who you CAN BE, and not someone else or by someone else's standards.
Here's another lesson you should teach your kids. The only way to make things better is to try. If you assume things will never be any better and never try to improve society you might as well shoot yourself in the head now.
Life isn't fair. Stop trying to make it fair, because it is futile, and annoys those of us who realize it.
Yeah, lets repeal all laws and go back to feudalism backed by force. Laws and government by the people are just trying to make life more fair, lets just abandon them. Your defeatism is pathetic. I pity your children.
So while investing in the markets doesn't directly enable you to eat, it does set off a chain of events on which our entire economic system is based and which eventually lead to people buying food and eating it.
Yes, but why mess with such a convoluted waste of resources, when instead we could cut out the middle man of the banking and finance system and just provide government grants to people directly, without the hassle of feeding a bunch of con artists? The point is, the stock brokers could be better employed driving tractors in the field creating food, or driving trucks to the third world to deliver that food, than creating a bunch of useless paperwork.
See, the problem to me is that I see profit as a waste of resources that could be better used in R&D or PRODUCTION. Better to be in a system of plenty than in a system of scarcity.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Gold has no tangible value. It is shiny, thus people want it, but it has no 'inherent' value. Sure, it can be used in a few manufacturing processes, but if that was all it was good for (i.e, not shiny), it wouldn't be worth much.
Sort of. They aren't going to be competing for exactly the same housing though, the separation in what they can afford is going to be rather large, especially if you look at what percentage of their income is pretty much entirely disposable(the guy with $200,000 has 2 or 3 times as much disposable income). Plus, the housing market isn't really all that tight. That's one of the things that the crazy 'everything is fine for everybody' right wing economists always point to, home ownership is at all time high levels right now.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The fact that "my household has two incomes, but my wife doesn't make any more than I do" means that you actually make a lot more money than you think. Assume you both make $20 per hour and work full-time, that's $99,480 before taxes which in any book is a lot of money since the median income in the US for a family of 4 is less than 60K.
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).
Your numbers are wrong btw. It was a million dollar bonus, not a 600k bonus. College students would pay maybe 1k on 10,000 income, but I don't remember paying taxes on my student grants and loans.
That's why I specified after taxes. The top tax rate right now is 35%, leaving 650k after a million dollar bonus. Of course, that top tax rate fluctuates. It was 70% in the 70's. Also, when you make, say 40K a year and you get an extra $10,000, you pay taxes on that $10,000 at a much higher rate than if you were paying $50k. You have to make up the difference in the tax rate you have been paying all year in the $40,000 bracket, for the $50,000 you are actually making. So the taxes you pay on that "free" $10,000 are going to be much higher than you would pay if that $10,000 was all you made. Of course, this is just Federal taxes, there is also Soc Sec, Medicare, Medicaid, State taxes, local taxes and so on. Then again, if all you made all year was the $10000, then no, you probably wouldn't have to pay taxes on it (Social Security, but not federal taxes), but you wouldn't be going to college either.
Also, you don't pay taxes on your student loans because they are just that, loans that you will be paying back. The money you will use to pay those loans back will be taxed, of course.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Actually under our federal income tax code, gifts are tax-free if they're under $12,000 (with some provisos which are satisfied here). So the rich guy wouldn't get a tax break (and thus you're correct that he only receives about $600,000 after tax) but the gift recipients would not be taxed on the gifts. See sec. 102.
\n.\n
I am unique among my peers. I don't have a bunch of stuff, and live a plain life. It is something I wouldn't trade for anything. WHY? Because I am satisfied with what I have, and don't compare myself to the Jones next door.
And your uniqueness is why your solution is not a realistic one for whole national economies. You have the mental discipline to avoid what buddhists call "comparison thinking" but the overwhelming majority of people do not. TFA cites a survey showing that a majority of respondents would rather earn $100k/year while everyone else earns $80k/year than earn $110k/year while everyone else earns $200k/year. People do compare themselves to others, and maybe they are wise to do so. For many important things in life relative wealth matters. When health care resources are scarce the relatively wealthy win. Epidemic crisis? (bird flu, etc.) Who do you think is going to get a steady supply of medicine and doctor care for their kids, you or your wealthy countrymen?
As harsh as AC sounds, this can easily be the case. Many people scrimp and save just to make a down payment on a house and have most of their income thereafter go toward the mortgage, utilities, and a million and one other things that you pay for when you have a house. All it takes is a accident, prolonged illness, layoff, etc disrupting that cash supply and you're out in the street.
I'm not dissuading the GP from fulfilling his goal, but he has to leave enough of a financial cushion for the unforeseen. Too many rush into getting a house and wind up in foreclosure. Take the time to do it right the first time, the penalty for messing it up may be too high to bear.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
> 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").
Some people are born blind. Is that "fair"? Some are born "deaf". Is that fair? Some people are born rich. Is that fair?
So, you're saying that the medical community shouldn't invest time or resources in mitigating blindness or deafness, because "life isn't fair"?
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"
The crux of your argument, which has been stated many times before, is that without incentive capitalism breaks down.
Close. My argument is "without incentive the economy breaks down." See Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Why would I go to school for 10 years to be a doctor when I could skip school all together and become cashier at the mall if both make the same amount of money?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I'm not saying that the government should do such a drastic income redistribution, but don't talk about a $53M bonus as if it were a $1M income.
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.
And of course the $6k taxes goes *poof*? O yeah...I forgot that in the Us, compared to other (EU) countries, it proportionally goes more towards military and intelligence than towards measures that could lower the GINI coefficient and give people more equal opportunities. There are two things that make me angry: 1. The enormous income gap that exists, and that most people don't seem to be aware of. Alot of people live lives that most of us (educated slashdotters) can not imagine. For example, imagine earning minimum wage and living from paycheck to paycheck. This would mean that you can't afford to rent a decent place because you can not pay a guarantee up front; instead you live in a motel and you pay more than you would otherwise. This situation would also mean that you can not change jobs because you would have to work for two weeks on probation without pay (which you can't afford). There is no way to get out of a situation like that. Also, these people are not stupid/criminal/drugaddicted/lazy, which leads me to the second thing that makes me so angry. 2. In US it's the public opinion that poor people control their own fate and that they are the only ones to blame for their own situation. There are tons of sociological scientific evidence that prove otherwise, just look up the discussion between Davis & Moore and Tumin.
It might be a fairly common aspiration to earn more than your peers, but it is important to consider that it is plainly an impossibility to maintain, unless you live in a society where income inequality is tolerated. Just think: the rich guy may have had exactly the same aspiration, and clearly succeeded. If everyone wants to earn more than everyone else, then you necessarily obtain income inequality (some person must be the best at it for some amount of time).
Besides, if one defines peers as all those people at approximately the same age around the world (I know, a very broad definition), then the very fact that you are writing or reading anything on the net implies that you are better off than most of your peers.
Guess what, Buttercup? Life isn't fair! And you sure as hell shouldn't be complaining about it. You were born in the United States of America. Because of that, you started out "ahead of" 95% of the world's population. How about you trade places with a starving son of a bitch in Rwanda, getting your teeth kicked in by one warlord thug after another? I'm sure he'd appreciate your cushy white-collar internet job, where you sit around reading Slashdot all day, whining because your boss makes more than you do.
Someone else is making just as much off my hard work as I am and they've done nothing but start out with money. That sort of unfairness is what drives people to crime, although usually the crime is committed based upon opportunity, not targeting the wealth specifically.
And that attitude is why you're a loser. You compare your success to the success of others, rather than by your own benchmarks. Really, you seem to think that "being successful" or "being happy" means "having a lot of money." This is the choice you've made, as evidenced by your jealousy of those with more money. So, you want to be rich, you're jealous that you're not...and then you're making decisions that are guaranteed to never make you rich, like working for somebody else. That's smart! Obviously your failings are somebody else's fault then, eh? Ehhhh?
You want to be rich? It's not hard in America. You don't have to invent anything. You don't even have to be that smart. Here's what you do. Quit your cushy job, and become a plumber. Buy your own truck and start your own company. After awhile, buy another truck, and hire another plumber. A year later, buy two more. Guess what? 10 years down the road, you're managing a fleet of trucks, your business is worth millions, and you're bringing in a few hundred thousand a year, all while providing a valuable service to your neighbors, and employing 25 other people so they can feed their families, and maybe strike out on their own someday to build the kind of fortune you have.
No, no, it's much easier to work that 9-5 and whine on the internet about how unfair it is that somebody pays you $50,000 a year to press buttons on a keyboard.
Here's another option. You can decide that money isn't what's going to make you happy. Instead, why don't you do something that will, like have a family? Or be an aid worker in some really shitty place? Or start a soup kitchen? Or move in with a commune and live off the land experiencing the great outdoors?
But you sure as hell don't get to sit there, more comfortable and better fed than 98% of the world and complain that the other 2% have more shit than you do.
Here's a thought. Close this web page, look around, check yourself for flies, dysentery, tigers, and angry men with guns, and then say a little prayer of thanks to whatever invisible man you believe in that you were born in the United States of God Damn America, and you're fucking grateful for it.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
My Anonymous friend, your ideas sound great, but you missed the one operative word in your parent's post: "corruption". While your scheme is a great idea that might actually work in the US, this one word wipes away any hope of recovery in most poor countries, and disqualifies your ideas completely.
Have you ever seen the police (routinely) taking bribes in the city streets in broad daylight? Maybe known someone who was killed by a policeman who was trying to steal his car?
People talk about how the US congress/administration/law enforcement/etc is in the corporate pocket, corruption, blah, blah... My friends, very few of you have ever seen corruption. Americans are amateurs. You want to see corruption? Go pretty much anywhere south of Texas.
Corruption is the single biggest problem holding poor countries down. Government won't take the money from that wonderful scheme of yours and build roads and hospitals, they'll use 90% of it to line their pockets.
This is why people try to get into the US, and why we're having this huge border fence debate now. It's because the US has hope of progress, where third world countries will always be third-world countries as long as the culture there allows wanton and unabashed corruption at the highest levels such as few Americans have ever seen. The governments cripple the people through high taxes, but the people seldom see their "tax dollars at work", unless it's that new Ferrari the President is driving.
Anarchy would probably be better for these countries, since it'd be almost the same effect on the people, without their having to pay for the privilege. The government is the peoples' worst enemy, and they're the ones with the guns.
The latest tale in corruption is Chavez's quest for dictatorship. I'm watching that story with interest. They say Liberty dies to thunderous applause, and it's happening in Venezuela right now. The people have elected their next dictator. I hope they like him, because it looks like he's going to be around for a while.
Hold on. Nobody is suggesting that we ditch the whole money idea and turn to communism. That is a strawman argument.
The GP suggested that it made him mad that the rich make a lot of money and implied that if he could get a percentage of that money, everything would better for him. In other words, take from the rich and give to the poor. I guess you're right. It's socialism.
As for the taxes part, that asks the listener to ignore the plight of someone who works hard for little income, and feel sympathy for someone who has an excessive amount of money, but must give away a larger-than-average portion of it. Now if we are to feel no sympathy for people who have no money, than how do we feel sympathy for people who are incredibly well-off, but could have more.
This is not about sympathy for anyone. I was simply pointing out that after taxes, that one million is not one million anymore and 1% of that would probably not pay for his college. I don't have a problem with a graduated income tax except for the fact that bonuses for those of us not in the top bracket are taxed at a much higher rate than normal income. Although I feel that a flat federal sales tax (necessities like food and medicine excluded of course) would be better as it would encourage savings and investment that would spur the economy meaning more and better paying jobs for all of us. The rich would still pay more as they spend more.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
As you should know, in the 1970s there was concern that the world's population would grow faster than the food supply. Well in the years since, farm production has improved it's yield while also less individuals work in the field now.
So pray what would adding more people to the farm industry do again?
Also, it might not be more efficient to provide capital investment directly from the government. It is fairly safe to assume there will always be more people looking for an investment than dollars to provide it. Now you need an army that researches the applicants, decides who gets what, and finally chases after people who don't pay.
Perhaps we can get the financial industry to do this, they are recently out of work and have the needed expertise.
Thus, I have demonstrated (at least in my mind) that the financial industry does serve a purpose - choosing and providing capitol investments. It may not always be efficient or equal, but neither would the system you are proposing either.
Exactly. And capitalism has shown it self to work a whole lot better than any other system of resource allocation. Europe didn't convert to the Euro and deregulate in an attempt at becoming more insular and poorer.
Your assumption that government is free of con men and cheats is scary. It's also hilarious that you think private industry generates more paperwork than the ultimate bureaucracy. All large institutions generate useless paperwork. There is a particular kind of organism that thrives on ass covering and rule following, and anytime something gets big enough that it starts needing rules to function, they move in and take over.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Their stated goal is reducing inflation. They are lying. It's that simple. If they really wanted to end inflation they would be able to do so within a few days, I imagine. After all, they are the ones managing our economy, right? Inflation is their goal. They often say they're trying to "reign in" inflation or "keep it under control" but they never talk about ending it. They would never want to end it; it's not in their interests.
Inflation is not natural. Inflation is not gravity or a rainbow or the weak nuclear force. Inflation is a flaw in a man-made system. In the Fed's case, I believe it to be an intentional flaw, that they deliberately avoid correcting. If you're operating on the gold standard there really isn't much inflation, because the gold supply remains relatively constant, mostly because we've already found and extracted most of it. Given that, the Fed looks to be responsible for inflation, especially since they were instrumental in getting us off the gold standard in the first place.
Speaking of making a fool of yourself, you're saying that banks have lowered crime?!!!! WTF are you smoking and where can I get a pound of it? Please provide a source for this wacky assertion.
By the way, "crime" is interesting because crime is defined by those in power. Those in power are rich. Thus, the rich decide what is a crime and what is not. Whereas a poor black kid from the streets will get 10 years for dealing illegal drugs, the rich fuckheads who sent us to war in Iraq will likely never see the inside of jail cell. What about that crime? What about war crimes? What about the crime of inflation, since inflation is government theft?
Electric Monkey Pants
If you think of it as giving the company access to capital, you might feel better about it. And that is what is going on, public companies are public for a reason, usually to get access to capital that they can then use to become larger. Stockholders aren't exploiting anybody.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
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.
Okay, sure, it's a distinction worth making, but you haven't answered my point. I agree that communism can't work because there is no incentive, but in pure capitalism, does the millions made by those at the top really give incentive to those at the bottom? Especially when you consider that there will be very few of those at the top, none in the middle, and likely no way to shift class no matter what your incentive. I think I would have more incentive to go to school if I saw college-educated professionals all around me living comfortably (buying big TVs, not big TV stations) rather then a few people making billions on the news.
It's not "giving the money away" - it's called "contributing to society". Twat.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
When everyone is poor, no one steals from each other.
Are you serious? So you contend that impoverished areas are have no property theft crimes? That is easily the most ignorant statement I have read this hour. (That's not as easy as it sounds, I just came from Digg.)
"Or in other words, you're well off and don't want to feel guilty about it."
..... it doesn't.
So, when you ASSume something, and are wrong, do you admit it and appologize, or is it your opinion only "well off" people can feel that way? You sir, are a bigot.
I made just over 40k last year, is that "well off" by your standards? It is compared to much of the world, but not here in California where I live. If I compared myself to others it might matter, but since I don't
"But jobs I am perfectly capable of doing well are closed to me because I don't have the right social connections."
Excuses. Go make those connections, nobody is stopping you except yourself. Plenty of people have done it before you, how did they manage it?
"But I reserve the right to brood over it occasionally."
You sure do. And how productive is that?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It's not inequality, it's inequality with the apparent lack of opportunity. Middle class people don't generally mug someone and take their Jag, and poor people with kids in college don't break into houses. Poor people who see drug dealing and crime as the only viable options do. College or subsidised apprenticeships would probably help this, although some of the bling culture could stand to go by the wayside.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
If everyone had their basic needs met, I don't think income inequality would matter as much.
Now you're getting closer. It's about having their basic meeds net. If everyone was earning the equivalent of $100,000/yr, it wouldn't matter if 5% of the population were earning $10 billion/yr. It's not the inequality that's the problem, it's the lack of wealth on the low side of the income spectrum. The high salaries or bonuses of CEOs, etc. are a popular target these days, but they are not the problem: The problem isn't that some people are making too much, the problem is that some people aren't earning enough. We aren't going to reduce crime by making sure CEOs are paid less.
But as long as some people are desperare and feel they are being screwed, and they can find an easy target in a rich person, there will be crime.
That's crazy. I admit I don't have any hard evidence, but I'm pretty darned sure that most crime is poor people on poor people, not poor on rich. Sure, it happens, but the majority of crime, it seems, is poor people committing crimes against other poor people.
In most third world countries ... the people at the top do far less work and produce far less goods than the people at the bottom
;)
Atlas Shrugged is about the *only* place were the people at the top work and produce more than the people at the bottom
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
"Without researching the numbers, you might end up giving each of the poorest 40% about $20-$200 each."
Population of USA: 300 million. 40% is 120 million
Take the mid range of $20 to $200 -$110. $110 x 120 million is $13.2 billion, double is $26.4 billion
10% - that's 30 million.
$26.4 billion / 30 million is $880
So this means you are suggesting that the richest 10% in the USA are worth an average of $880 each (net).
What a load of crap. You honestly think it's difficult to live on $40k+ working 9 months out of the year???
http://www.osba.org/lrelatns/salary/rankings.htm
Teachers and teachers unions have been spouting this "we're so poor" crap for so long people believe it but it's simply not true.You know, I love the idea of "trickle down" economics. But there's one little twist that would make it even better. Of every dollar that a poor person gets, 90 cents ends-up in the pockets of a rich person (Wal-Mart executive, McDonalds executive, Nike executive, ...) within a few days. So, if you want to stimulate the trickle down economy, don't give tax cuts to the rich; give cash to the poor. That cash will shoot to the top, and then trickle down. Who could argue with this plan?
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
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.
Wow. Take a deep breath, comrade.
1% of 53 million dollars = 530,000
66% of 530,000 = 331,980 after tax
That's enough to buy a house, but hardly more than that.
Yes, Virginia, extreme income inequality is a bad thing. But so are frothy rants by people who should know better by now.
The GP just mentioned million dollar bonuses so that's the number I used.
Of course, you have to consider that if you get 1%, I want 1% too! So, let's take 1% from the top 1.5% in America and distribute it among the rest of us. The average income for the top 1.5% is 250,000. Spread that money over other 98.5% of the population. (We'll use 1% and 99 for ease of math.) The US population 300,000,000. So 3 million times $2500 divided by 299 million is about $25 a person. Is that going to buy you a house?
Granted, the numbers are a bit off, but not by much, certainly not enough to buy a house, or even a muffler!)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
He would be able to give $10,000 to exactly 100 people (all before taxes of course). After taxes, he could give approximately $6000 to 100 people, who in turn would only receive $4000 each (after taxes again). Could you go to college on $4k?
No, but I'd have $10k, which can seriously supplement tuition at a good state school or pay a newborn's tuition entirely. Gifts aren't taxed up to about $11k per person per year.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
agriculture: 1%
industry: 20.4%
services: 78.7% (2005 est.)
Services include consulting, outsourcing, financial, hospitality, etc. While that in itself is interesting, it doesn't mean that most money is "labor free".
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
"Don't blame the kid for "needing" x or y. Blame the marketer for skewing wants into needs."
You sir, are a moron. My kids know the difference between "wants" and "needs". WHY?? Because as a parent, I taught them. They see all the cool stuff on TV, and know that I am not going to buy it for them, and if they want it, they have to earn it.
Ask my kids the same question, you will get a different answer altogether. Probably go like this, "I want graduate high school and start college as a junior". The answers reflect the values their parents have taught them. My kids know that the things they have do not define who they are.
Too many people are too busy to actually raise their kids and let Madison Avenue and Britney Spears do it for them.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Well, to him, sitting on your ass collecting dividends from your trust fund is being economically productive because that money is being made available for companies to invest in the economy. I just love how the country club Republicans square that logic with the old Protestant work ethic.
I don't know why you're so hung up on this. Let's make it simple. 2 options: 1) exec gets $1M. 2) 100 students get $10k.
option 1 the exec gets 650k after taxes.
option 2, 100 students pay a trifle in taxes, if anything.
Also, I never paid taxes on the GRANTS I got while going to college, and you don't have to pay back a grant.
If you need to involve the exec for some reason, he gets $1M, gives $1M away, writes off $1M on his taxes. After taxes is irrelevant to this whole scenario no matter how I try to look at it.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Free markets do work magic sometimes, and you are right, profit is often a cost of efficiency. It tends to be beneficial at least when it is lower than the gains in efficiencies.
One of my favourite libertarian economist summarized economics by two things.
One: Incentives matter. Two: There's no such thing as a free lunch.
And I tend to prefer free market solutions for a lot of problems. However, I find that pure libertarians often forget the dark side of incentives. Basically, incentives work both ways. In a laissez faire context, everybody has to compete. The actors in this system get incentives toward the two following strategies.
1) Improve yourself to be better and more valuable than others. Create value. This is where we you get efficiency gains and where the whole society benefits.
2) Destroy other's ability to compete with you. This is NOT a gain to society. In fact it can be a huge cost. Libertarians often forget that the same incentives that bring efficiencies also promote anti-competitive behaviours. It's a sword that cuts both ways.
This happens in almost all competitive situations. Why do you think there is always a need for referees in sports?
Another example I heard against the free markets all the time comes from the world of management. Apparently, some years ago, Microsoft had adopted an interdepartmental competition system in order to motivate sectors to innovate. The most successful projects would get more budgets for the following year and the less successful would get less or get killed. The projects were judged against each other instead of on their own merits and everybody knew that. What happened is that the different Microsoft applications stopped being interoperable with each other because no team would want to help another one at the risk of losing their own budget. The e-mail client stopped interacting well with the web browser, and the word processor would not play well with internet applications etc. Microsoft had to reform quickly in order to survive.
I think do think free market incentives are an important tool for an efficient society, however, this is only true in contexts where we can assure competition will be fair and that the gains in efficiencies for everyone is greater than the profit to a few select people.
I am sorry but Chicago and Minneapolis are non-popular areas.
t e2005/index.html
Yeah, because Minneapolis is only the 16th largest metropolitan area in the country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis-St._Paul and Chicago is the third http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago.
Chicago and Minneapolis are cold and icky
Have you ever been? Yes, they are cold for a couple of months in the winter, throw on a jacket and quit your whining. The parks and lakes available around Minneapolis are incredible. Boating, fishing, swimming, running, ice skating, skiing, it's all available.
Boston is, but it is Taxichusetts which is just a freak place.
You mean the Taxichusetts with a lower tax burden than most states and lower than the national average? http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbysta
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
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.
That's only $42/sq ft. My old house, before the boom, was about $92 and that was a bargain. Current prices are about $180 (cheap town) to $300 (a very nice town) to $1000 (where the rich folks live).
Also note that people are sometimes constrained where they can live by where they grew up and their professional abilities. Similarly, I can't live in Montana because I'm a software developer, so that's not a "lifestyle choice". Maybe if I grew up there and had some family to help get started, I could find a job in that sector, but just relocating there would really be difficult... you know that hot Montana software market. Maybe if I was dentist.
Or is it really that easy? Could you move over here at the drop of a hat, and I'm just missing how obviously easy it is?
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
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
A hypothetical question that includes words like "everyone" are hard to apply to the real world. If "everyone" earned twice as much as you, the market would only be interested in supplying houses to "everyone" else but you, and you'd indeed be out of luck. In the real world, if everyone's income went up by leaps and bounds, and yours only went up a little bit, you'd wind up with inflation, and your real purchasing power would drop. I don't think that was the point of the question, though. I think the original question was meant to only be about real purchasing power, and I'm just being obnoxious.
Plus, the housing market isn't really all that tight.
It depends where you are. In some areas there's no room to build more homes, so yes, it really is that tight.
The amount of information required to properly allocate resources with out prices is so staggering that it the resources required to house it in one place outweight the duplicated resources required to distribute that information accross a variety of agents acting in self-interest. That is why communism failed.
Look up diseconomy of scale. This is why places like restaurants are a certain side, while you may think it might be more efficient to have restaurants 10x the normal size it is in fact not more efficient. Hence, a diseconomy of scale develops. This is why the larger a centrally planned economy is the more waste it produces.
This is why Warren Buffet only buys stock in industries he knows. He does not know other industries and thus cannot properly allocate resources in those industries.
Correction!
I recalculated the math to include the top 1.5% and corrected that 299 million thing from the last post. Either way, the final dollar amount given to the bottom 98.5% of Americans comes to a grand total of $38.07.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
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
"Did you have to eat ramen while you 'worked' your way thru college."
Yes, I did. I also put myself through school, debt free, and without taking a single grant. It was hard, and I didn't do all the "cool" things other kids did, I worked, and studied. I worked at a resturant, so I could eat. I worked in the tech lab, so I could use the computers. I worked to earn what I needed. So there is no "poor baby" needed. I wasn't "poor" I had what I wanted and I had what I needed.
Meanwhile the rich babies were complaining about tuition going up $50 a semester. I mean they held PROTESTS in the quad over it, saying how hard it was going to be. I have little sympathy for them. I didn't complain, because the education was worth it. They were complaining because it wasn't worth it to them. THAT is the difference.
"Its alot easier to think of poor people as being lazy"
Actually, I think you got it backwards. Many lazy people are poor, not all poor people are lazy. There are a few people who are lazy and rich (Paris Hilton?).
"There are allot of jobs, Americans don't want, because those jobs no longer pay a decent wage or have any benefits. "
Yup, I know. I've had a few of them. Didn't stop me from working them, to earn enough to eat. But I also didn't let those jobs define who I was, which allowed me to escape.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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
Poor???? Most people would be more than happy making 20 dollars an hour and most work for far less!
Many people are thankful for a 10 or 12 dollar an hour job, which is like 1500 a month after taxes.
The housing market is just stupid right now. It'll drop in 5 years, or when everyone decides they cant heat their mc mansions and abandons them.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
How far along is that invention that allows me to stab someone in the face over the internet? This piece of shit is a prime test subject.
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.
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.
If you hand wave away inflation, so he actually has increased buying power, there is a very good chance that they guy 'only' making $110,000 would be able to buy a house. It would not be the best house in the best neighborhood, but he would very likely to be able to find something on the edge of town or whatever, or even have it built there. I interpreted the question to be more about relative inequality than inflation, and thus was my reasoning. The efficient market outcome in the described situation is for somebody to provide him a house.
Just to be argumentative, the housing market isn't tight, the popular geographic area market is tight. That's overly simplistic because of work considerations and the like, but there are some pretty nice (smaller) cities where you can get a good house for $100,000. I am using my mom's house as a reference.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
. . . until his spoilt brat kids get their hands on it and get a coke habit . . .
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So pray what would adding more people to the farm industry do again?
Well, the farm industry is always claiming that they don't have enough workers and that we need to let illegal aliens in to work. Kind of like the ITAA is always claiming they don't have enough workers as well, and thus we need outsourcing and H-1bs. It seems to me we'd have enough workers if we got rid of the useless paperpushing class.
Also, it might not be more efficient to provide capital investment directly from the government. It is fairly safe to assume there will always be more people looking for an investment than dollars to provide it.
Well, you see, that's the neat thing about government. Unlike the financial industry, they're the ones who print up the dollars. Need more? Just print more.
Now you need an army that researches the applicants, decides who gets what, and finally chases after people who don't pay.
Just give everybody everything. After all, inflation is the cost of a rising standard of living.
Thus, I have demonstrated (at least in my mind) that the financial industry does serve a purpose - choosing and providing capitol investments. It may not always be efficient or equal, but neither would the system you are proposing either.
It is in fact a huge waste of time and energy to choose between capital investements. Especially when the money supply is mythical to begin with.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Thanks, that's the type of statistic I was waiting for in this conversation and probably the one that matters most if you're arguing about income inequality. Considering that that $25 per person is most likely being reinvested to create more jobs and that the mobility between income 'classes' remains high and fair, then I think the United States is doing pretty well.
I've been reading a lot of Marxist works that are completely invalid in todays United States wholly for that reason. The battles between classes have always been about opportunity, not about income inequality. Relevant areas for complaint are in globalization practices (i.e. slave labor) that disrupt pre-capitalist economies and racial discrimination, which is prevalent, if not in the United States, then in Southeast Asia and probably in much of Africa and the Middle East as well.
In the United States, fair targets for criticism include monopolies, including government bureaucracy, which are inefficient because they don't have to be, and white-collar criminals (and even those who exploit loopholes like the RIAA)...
There's no need to persecute the rich just because they did everything right and got lucky a few times!
It's just basic economic - supply and demand.
This is still what money is. I goto work and use my time, effort, and skills in exchange for a money. I then use that money to buy goods and services. Now Mr.MoneyBags might make more then I do, but that is because someone values his time, effort, or skills more then mine, and thus he gets paid more. What he does with his money, be it giving food to starving kids, saving it for his family, or blowing it all away on fast cars and fast women is his perogative and his choice. He earned the right to spend that money however he chooses (withing the confines of legally, of course)
This, more or less, is how I explain money to my children: it's a stored barter, delayed value given for goods or services, that can later be redeemed at convenience, so it gives more choice and helps you meet your needs better.
However, I use this explanation because they are children. I don't need to confuse them with the details of what, for instance, their grandfather sees going on, as he manages the financing of new ventures and schemes.
My dad doesn't like to admit it very often but the larger the sum, the more opportunity to game the system (I wish that he would game it himself some, then he wouldn't be broke but rich). Huge amounts of capital mean everyone with decision making power who's in on it will make out large, and if some look the other way, everyone makes out larger. Think of high finance as The House, and in the casino, the House always wins in the end.
A big part of the gravity-like agglomeration of capital is how much gaming of the system is going on, under considerable secrecy. Finance is very compartmentalized under some valid privacy rules, and the nod-and-wink regulation that accompanies it. When incredible breaches like the Enron debacle make us think about rooting out corruption, we've just fallen into an ideological trap: 'the players are mostly fair, and the rules keep them that way.' How about this: many of the players are working for the House, and the House doesn't even legally exist, it's a loose syndicate that caan't be centralized or identified.
Hollywood and the utilities industries have had some of the more embarrassing schemes that I've heard of. The amount that people were getting paid just for retainer, and then rubberstamping things or scheming over coffee, would give you chills, and the amount of 'surplus' capital in these schemes that were budgeted into various hidden payouts was astounding--and this is the stuff I was allowed to see. I'm talking more money in minutes than you make in years. It's not that "someone values Mr. Moneybags time" more, and that it's fair value--it's just that the only people looking are in on it.
The most disturbing part of what you wrote (and how most of my country thinks) is in the way that you conflate exchange value with use value, as though there were some natural market force determining that $8,000,000 for 2 hours of handwritten expertise is equivalent in productivity to 150 years in the factory assembling automobiles. If you've seen the way nudge-nudge that it works, and the willful blindness and denial put to use by people in the position of directly supporting this global embezzlement, you'd know that something else is at work: avarice and deception, and an ideological outlook that blurs 'what you can get for it' with 'how useful it is.'
Damn those pesky terrorists
Exactly. And capitalism has shown it self to work a whole lot better than any other system of resource allocation.
Has it? I don't think so- it provides way too much to the few and way too little to the many. It is in fact an utter failure at resource allocation, being primarily a chaotic system that nobody can count on for anything.
Europe didn't convert to the Euro and deregulate in an attempt at becoming more insular and poorer.
Europe didn't convert to the Euro to provide a good living for people either. It converted to the Euro in a hopeless attempt at being able to compete with the third world.
Your assumption that government is free of con men and cheats is scary. It's also hilarious that you think private industry generates more paperwork than the ultimate bureaucracy. All large institutions generate useless paperwork. There is a particular kind of organism that thrives on ass covering and rule following, and anytime something gets big enough that it starts needing rules to function, they move in and take over.
Just eliminate such people with automation. A bureaucrat and an expert system have a lot in common- but the one big difference is that the expert system is incorruptable.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
it is plainly an impossibility to maintain
No,no - I gave the obvious way out. Everyone should lie about their salary! That way, everyone thinks that they are making the most money and is happy!
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
The amount of information required to properly allocate resources with out prices is so staggering that it the resources required to house it in one place outweight the duplicated resources required to distribute that information accross a variety of agents acting in self-interest. That is why communism failed.
The communists didn't have 1TB drives available.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That $331,980 would still take roughly 7 years to earn if you make the median household income of $46,326 (pre-tax I believe). Not a trivial amount if you look at it that way.
Or, another way, if you make the median household income (from the 2005 U.S. Census), in just 7 or 8 years, you too could make 66% of 1% of Lloyd's $53M bonus.
Lloyd must be doing some *very* good work.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
If poor areas are in the midst of rich areas, there will be property crime. The problem is the perception of unfairness. When people believe their society to be unfair, they act unfairly towards others so as not to be taken advantage of. In poor areas, other poor are the most likely target. When people believe their society to be fair, they act fairly towards others. I should have been more clear, when I said everyone, I meant EVERYONE. Think isolated rain forest tribes. No property crime there.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
I'm not a commie, and I'm not opposed to capital markets, but I think it's retarded to assume that just because some guy is getting massive bonuses, that means he earned them. It's equally (or more) likely that a situation has developed that lets a bunch of fat cats scratch each others' backs. GS is a public company. If I was a shareholder, I'd be pissed that that obscene amount of cash is going to the CEO and not back to shareholders, or to fund even more, better research into what to invest it, etc. (Not that the CEO has anything to do at all with where they invest.) I think that's one of the reasons BH is so successful -- Warren Buffet isn't perceived as basically raping corporate coffers as the current generation of CEOs is.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
...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?
Actually, if you want to be pedantic, the $25 per person is only mostly being invested, and the investments go to established companies-- that is, the money comes back into the economy in a 'trickle-down' fashion. If it were redistributed, it would most likely not be reinvested to any large extent and re-enter the economy through spending, benefiting the little companies as well.. not just feeding the corporations.
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.
That chart is BS.
It lists California as 10.2%, but the income taxes are 9.3% over 40k, sales taxes are 8.25%, and property taxes are about 4-5% on avg. That's ~20% (the overlap)
Add that to your federal, and you're looking at 50-55% taxes even if you're living in poverty. CA is significantly more taxed then any other state.
Noone quite knows how anyone can afford to live here, or any business is stupid enough to try, but they do! Hint: it's all debt, several times over.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
The free market is one big mechanism for increasing efficiency. Sometimes it values efficiency too highly (e.g., WalMart), but it is far better than government.
Aside from the fact that heavier taxation to support government investments in place of private ones is less free, it's also less efficient. Look at the Soviet Union for example.
More importantly if it were government based these researchers would simply provide capital to their 'friends.' In the capitalist system they may still provide money to their friends, but if their friends don't provide a sizable return on investment you soon run out of capital to invest. In the government scenario if your 'friend' fails to provide return on investment you simply pull more funds from the coffer to give to your friend, or another friend.
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Women like gold. Women have a monopoly on a desired commodity. That is why gold has value. That's pretty much why *anything* has value.
The world is not a zero-sum game
> * 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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I'm not even sure I know how to respond to this. The implied naïveté in your statement has thrown me off completely. "Most people will play fair" -- that doesn't cut it. If one person in 1000 does NOT play fair, then your theory would still be perfectly correct -- and we'd still have crime. This is not research, it's statistical fact -- look up the crime statistics in below-poverty areas throughout the US, and you'll find that the poor do, in fact, rob the poor. (And murder them, and beat them up, etc -- not all crime is theft.)
But let's say you're right, for argument's sake. Do you think everybody will be happy being perfectly equal? Even though some people are smarter, others more capable, and still others simply more willing? What you're describing is fundamentally communism, isn't it? Everybody is equal, all contributions are equal; everybody gets what they need and nothing more.
This fails to account for the fact that everybody is NOT equal in terms of their abilities. Some people /are/ smarter; some people /do/ work harder. And - humans being what they are - they expect to be rewarded for superior contributions. So given a few days after this great redistribution of wealth, we would once again have enterprising individuals using their talents and getting ahead. And we'd once again end up with the "haves" and the "have nots".
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
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Given that the odds are fairly high that IP here makes between 10k and 100k USD/year, and given that Paris Hilton makes between 30 and 300 times more than that for the simple life alone, IP is obviously worth, in his own eyes, between 1/30 and 1/300 as much as Paris. Personally, I suspect he's worth more than that.
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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Actually, if you want to be pedantic, the $25 per person is only mostly being invested, and the investments go to established companies-- that is, the money comes back into the economy in a 'trickle-down' fashion. If it were redistributed, it would most likely not be reinvested to any large extent and re-enter the economy through spending, benefiting the little companies as well.. not just feeding the corporations.
And the Bush tax cut was born!
Of course you have to consider that with "trickle-down" statement you made, that $25 still makes it into the hands of the population, but it is more than likely $100-$200 now. Even if it remained the original $25, you get the same benefits that you would if just gave it away PLUS the benefits to the corporations, which also pay all their employees as well as smaller companies that act as outsources.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Hmmm. Isn't what you suggest simply a protection racket? "Pay us off or we'll mug/kidnap/kill you."
"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/
Someone making $20/hr cannot (should not?) afford a $200k home. $20/hr translates to approximately $40k/year.
r d.html:
Using the mortgate calculator at http://www.mortgage-calc.com/mortgage/howmuchaffo
A 30 year mortgate on a $200k house with 0% down at 6% interest requires $1200/month payment and $51k annual salary (and that does not include property tax or other expensese).
Their stated goal is reducing inflation. They are lying. It's that simple. If they really wanted to end inflation they would be able to do so within a few days, I imagine. After all, they are the ones managing our economy, right? Inflation is their goal. They often say they're trying to "reign in" inflation or "keep it under control" but they never talk about ending it. They would never want to end it; it's not in their interests.
Yes, they could, just raise the interest rate, and it's done. Oh, but then of course there that little trade-off between inflation and employment thing. And of course an economy without inflation would mean an economy where Aggregate demand remains the same, since inflation after all is the result of a growing demand for liquid money, with an ever increasing economy, that would result in generalized poverty... GREAT idea!
Inflation is not natural. Inflation is not gravity or a rainbow or the weak nuclear force. Inflation is a flaw in a man-made system. In the Fed's case, I believe it to be an intentional flaw, that they deliberately avoid correcting. If you're operating on the gold standard there really isn't much inflation, because the gold supply remains relatively constant, mostly because we've already found and extracted most of it. Given that, the Fed looks to be responsible for inflation, especially since they were instrumental in getting us off the gold standard in the first place. Why would anyone want inflation? This means that people _have_ to keep investing their capital in order not to lose money... It would be much easier for everyone if inflation didn't exist... And the reason why the Fed abolished the Gold standard is because it had no reason to exist anymore, let's go back in history...
Act1: Post-WW1
After WW1, the whole economy was crippling in Europe, mainly because of the high War debt the Germans had to repay (they kept producing more and more to repay their debt, and dumped the European market with cheap goods, the other European countries couldn't compete and Germany wasn't even better for it since all the money they gained from their dumping where brought back into the production cycle in order to repay their debt and the cycle went on). Now with most of Europe (and the US as well by the way) crippled with commercial deficits, and everyone using the pound sterling as a reference currency, the UK had the great idea to devaluate their money, which would lessen their exterior debt since they had to repay in foreign currencies anyways... Every other countries sees that and boom develuates their money in turn, every money devaluates, hyperinflation, and welcome to the glorious age of the Great Depression!
END of ACT1
ACT2: After the nazis got their asses kicked
So, here we are a couple of years later, Europe just coming out of another big war, but this time, the US realized that overcharging the losing nations with huge war debts wasn't going to be good for anyone, and that they had to solve the whole Currency devaluation problem... So they set the US Dollar (which in the first part of the 20th century didn't even exist as a stable currency) as the standard for everyone. They put in place a global fixed rate currency market, where only currencies could only be exchanged for dollars, with a fixed rate, and every dollar was backed by Gold in the Central Banks... And all was well again.
END of Act2
Act 3: Damnit didn't think of that
But, as the world economies were slowly but surely rising again, the central bankers in the developped countries realized it was stupid for them to keep gold in their reserve, since every currency's value was guaranteed by the US federal bank anyways... So, they abolished the gold standard, and, in place, kept US government bonds, which not only were easily stored (compared to gold), but also had granted interest! And all was good for everyone (well except the US, which had to stockpile tons of gold with ever
They've tried that. It's called communism. In case you haven't been keeping up on current events, it didn't work out so well.
Or do you think a government bureaucrat is more efficient than one in a business?
A government leader doesn't have any incentive to spend money wisely. Seriously. Or haven't you noticed that 7 trillion dollar national debt? A business leader spending money irresponsibly like that would be in federal prison or at the very list fired by the owner(s).
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.
This may seem harsh, but maybe it would have been a "smart decision" not to borrow so much money. If you defer gratification until you have the means to afford it then you won't be paying interest to anyone.
That depends on a variety of criteria. Borrowing money to attend university that doubles one's annual earnings is a smart investment. Borrowing money to purchase a house such that the monthly mortgage and upkeep is very close to the cost of an apartment in the same area is also a good investment, as the money spent on apartment rent can instead be spent building home equity (and reducing income tax to boot).
Assuming the OP is referring to college and house, they likely made the right decisions to both maximize their earning potential and reduce sunk rent costs. And their point about still spending about half their lifetime income on interest may still be true if they live in an expensive area such as the California Bay Area.
The only criticism I would lay is in their decision not to move to a cheaper area such as the Midwest or into a rural area, but that too has its complications.
This is a good thing because it provides incentive for the wealthy to work and reduces wealth condensation creating instability.
Actually, at a certain point, there is no incentive to work hard. With the current tax system, I'd almost say that there is a disincentive to work hard. Why build up something great if the government just takes most of it now, and all of it when you die?
Institutional investors - the mutual funds to whom all the working stiffs have entrusted their retirements, can demand and get an end to this legalized theft. Individual investors don't have the clout, and the companies are set up in such a way that activist shareholders proposals for compensation reform are uniformly defeated. Why are the mutual funds allowing this?
Individual mutual funds don't like investing more than a small percentage of their portfolio in one stock or company - that defeats the purpose behind a mutual fund. To have a major effect, only the major mutual fund companies such as Fidelity could really put pressure on a company by leveraging the shares held across a line of mutual funds. But, why should Fidelity bother when there's a million companies out there? They can just sell the shares in the problem company and invest in twenty others that are more attractive.
The major mutual fund companies don't fix these companies because there's no financial incentive to do so. And no one else can fix these companies because they don't have that kind of clout.
"Many lazy people are poor"
Yeah. Again, like i said. Its easier for you to think of poor people as being lazy. Then thinking they do work hard and try to provide the best life for themselves and there family.
"Yup, I know. I've had a few of them. Didn't stop me from working them, to earn enough to eat. But I also didn't let those jobs define who I was, which allowed me to escape."
I don't think you understand the point. If you work in a town, with meat packing plant, and everyone in the town, either works at the plant, or provides goods and services to people working at the plant. Now, the plant starts hiring illegal aliens to compete with other meat packing plants that hire illegals. Wages go down, benifits are cut. You no longer have excess money to save for your own education or even your kids. I guess any one in that sitution is just lazy, right?
Also, wasn't it your degree that allowed you to escape? It wasn't some mystical force of will on your part. It sounds like you worked hard to get thru college. BUT. When you did work those jobs, you odivously made excess money, or else you wouldn't have money to pay your tuition. You didn't have to support any one else either. I don't believe you were completely on your own. Everyone I know that worked there 'own' way thru college had there folks pay at least some of thier tuition.
If the giveaway was done properly (via 501(c)3 scholarship funds), he wouldn't pay taxes on it.
And college tuition is tax-deductible, so that money would not be taxed.
What it boils down to, though, is equality of opportunity, which super-expensive colleges reduce. The average education available to those with money is better than the education available to those without. By "better," I mean more likely to result in financial rewards, since we're talking about incomes here.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Of course you have to consider that with "trickle-down" statement you made, that $25 still makes it into the hands of the population, but it is more than likely $100-$200 now
I have yet to see a convincing argument for this effect.
Last post!
"The poor (making $20.00 an hour or less)"
?!? $20 an hour? you consider that poor?! Geez, I wonder what you think of the people that get by on $5.15 an hour (and that's in Canadian, so closer to $4.80 USD / hr). I'm doing $18 CDN the in Dev. and I think I'm doing well for a first job. $200,000 can still get you an okay place in downtown Calgary IMO.
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.
The money does not go to job creators. It goes mostly to people who borrow to pay for a car, house or credit cards. Those people are charged interest so the bank makes money and the bank owners can get a new place on lake como so they can rub shoulders with george clooney.
In other words the vast majority of that money is being used to further squeeze blood out of that stone.
evil is as evil does
Congratulations! You re-invented socialism!
"You can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them." [Condoleezza Rice]
So, in short, Oprah is annoyed because these kids want to be Oprah. They see people like her, or Michael Jordan, or a host of others living "the good life", and they want it too. Shame on them for not having the same priorities as children in South Africa. Maybe next we can find a quote from Paris Hilton deploring the materialistic nature of today's youth.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Wow, talk about misleading. Great economic plan, genius. We'll just put everyone in IT!
But in actuality, one has to have both intelligence and luck to have a good career. In an information economy, "hard work" doesn't mean shit. It's smart work that makes a difference. "Hard work" was a good value for an agrarian economy, and maybe an early industrial economy. It is an outdated concept today.
Having a passion for learning, creativity, and a willingness to take risks will take you MUCH further than "hard work."
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Move. My house is well under $200K and would be worth over a million in "San Diego, LA or Frisco". I could easily make the payments ($400/mo, another $400/mo for property tax/insurance) making $20 an hour. But that would involve you moving to Texas, so I'm sure that's right out.
BTW, I'm also sick and tired of subsidizing your left-coast home interest deduction.
Redo the numbers. This time give the 1% to the bottom 1.5%.
evil is as evil does
You are right, I should have been more specific.
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.
Take a trip to a grocery store in a poor neighborhood, and you'll see cart fulls of ramen, boxed meals, and red fruit drink - all full of questionable chemicals, MSG, and high-fructose corn syrup. These people are fat because they can't afford nutritious food like fresh fruits & vegetables.
Last time I checked, exercise was free while TV costs money. Bananas cost something like fifty cents per pound, and (cheap) soda costs about the same as milk (when it isn't on sale), so I also doubt it's the food cost. I'm a college student, living in downtown Louisville, KY (not incredibly high crime, but much higher than surrounding areas). It's cheaper for me to buy (certain) fruits, rice, and such than to buy most TV dinners and far cheaper than to eat fast food on campus. I would agree that obesity and income level are probably negatively correlated, but I would disagree that it's a causation. Eating unhealthy food is a short-sighted decision. My guess is that people that often make short-sighted decisions tend to be unable to accumulate wealth, get an education, stay away from crime, or find/keep good jobs, and that is much of the reason why they are poor. Of course, that's a generalization, since I'm sure that doesn't describe only poor people, or all poor people.
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.)
Gold has no tangible value. It is shiny, thus people want it, but it has no 'inherent' value. Sure, it can be used in a few manufacturing processes, but if that was all it was good for (i.e, not shiny), it wouldn't be worth much.
Not true. This used to be the case where gold was an arbitrary and semi-universal measure for exchange, but money is not backed by gold anymore, and gold does have real tangible value.
Over 85% of all of the gold that has been mined in the world is still used. Its recycled, melted down and reused all the time.
Now, diamonds have no tangible value. Aside from industrial diamonds, diamonds are just shiny, and there is an artificial market for them created by the DeBeers people. Of course there is a lot more to the diamond industry than one sentence or paragraph, but my point is that gold does have real tangible value.
Read about specialization of labor, and incentives to produce. Your proposed system would be inefficient, and would require many laws and a police state to enforce.
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?
Data shows that capitalist markets produce far more, even if they distribute in a lopsided manner, a poor worker in a capitalist country(one that corrects for monopolies, does not engage in rampant subsidies, keeps corruption down, maintains a monopoly on the use of force, and corrects externalities) has more then someone elsewhere.
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
If you only consider purchasing power, then obviously he can buy more house with $110,000 than $100,00 (There I go, being obnoxious again). In fact, another poster pointed out that the original question was about house sizes not income, which gets around the discussion we're having http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216488&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=17577108.
However, since I seem to be enjoying this discusion...
It would not be the best house in the best neighborhood, but he would very likely to be able to find something on the edge of town or whatever, or even have it built there.
Ok, so perhaps he'd still be able to buy a house somewhere. But you've just agreed that the house wouldn't be a nice as would have been if everyone else was making less, which was my point.
You are correct that overall housing market isn't that tight. As long as there is room to build a house somewhere, the price of that house can't get much above the cost to build a house there, plus the land to put it on. But, yes, that's overly simplistic due to the need to find a job. Not surprisingly, people earn more in areas where the job market is good. The local housing prices reflect this and are higher. Depressed areas may be cheap to live in, but they also offer lower wages. Still, there are some good areas (where wages are high but land and housing is still relatively cheap) and there are bad areas (where wages are Ok, but land and housing is outrageous). The good areas, not suprisingly, tend to be places where there is still area to build more homes.
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.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Thats a nice quote, where did you hear it?
No
Ask my kids the same question, you will get a different answer altogether. Probably go like this, "I want graduate high school and start college as a junior".
The answers reflect the values their parents have taught them.
Well in that case, based upon your lack of articles and/or appropriate pronouns I'd assume that their answer would be "I want graduate school and go to big-big place where go fast in study".
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/
The above posting was mine. I didn't intend to post anon.
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
I can't even comprehend the level of mental confusion that would lead a person to make the assumptions you have made about my post. Nowhere do I claim it is possible to do away with all crime. Nowhere do I say that everyone should be equal. I said things should be fair. Inequality is fair, and most people, even substandard people, perceive it that way. Why else all the celebrity worship? People like it when excellence is rewarded, even if they themselves are not excellent. People like it when unfairness is punished, when non-cooperators and those who do not give back are shunned. That is perfectly fair. What is unfair is disproportional reward. No one person is worth millions of times what any other person is worth. That is what people consider to be unfair.
Haves and have nots are fine. Have millions and have nots, not so much. This level of unfairness is not an incentive for most people to work harder. It is an incentive for most people to cheat and be lazy, because they do not feel their hard work will be rewarded equitably, and others will profit unfairly from them.
The research I've seen (google 'equity reciprocity competition') shows that people are not motivated purely by self interest. They are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity, and will even do things against their self interest to acheive these ideals. The experiments dealt with sums of money that were on the order of 2-3 months salary for the participants. In situations where free riders can escape punishment, people start by acting fairly, see themselves being taken advantage of, and become free riders as a defense. When free riders can be punished, everyone acts fairly.
An economic system based on the falsehood that people always act selfishly is doomed to fail. It will be intrinsically biased against fairness, in fact encouraging laziness and selfishness. We need a system that recognizes the realities of human motivation and rewards fairness and reciprocity, as this will bring out the best in nmost people.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Assuming the OP is referring to college and house, they likely made the right decisions to both maximize their earning potential and reduce sunk rent costs. And their point about still spending about half their lifetime income on interest may still be true if they live in an expensive area such as the California Bay Area.
You're correct on all points. I'm pretty smart about money in general and both college and buying a house are saving me money over the alternatives. As to where I live, currently it is in the midwest, just a fairly expensive area thereof. I'm there because that is where the work is and being employed for the amount I am paid is the best economic choice, besides I enjoy my work which is worth a lot more than I would save in mortgage payments in a less enjoyable job. Just so people don't get the wrong idea, I'm not in favor of progressive inheritance and wealth taxes because they will benefit me personally. I'm on track to be a millionaire by the time I retire, if my investments all work out as planned. It's just that my smart moves and hard work are still going to benefit others nearly as much as myself, simply because of where I started in life.
Wouldn't it be more efficient just to provide the capital investments directly from the Government Treasury
Nope. Even unrealistically assuming no corruption, central planners can't allocate resources efficiently. See Hayek et al, or any history book covering the 20th century.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
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.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA...wait, wait, let me catch my breath...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
You must really believe in the "inherent good" of mankind. The simple fact is man is by nature competative, ruthless, greedy, etc. Socialism won't work because the most important variable in that system is man. Why should I work hard if I'm not compensated for it. The reason capitalism works much better is that it feeds the competitive and greedy nature of man. There will always be rich and poor, always has been and always will. As for your fear of guns I'm not sure what to make of it.
Protection - gun vs. pepper spray...gun wins, gun vs. martial arts...gun wins.
Hunting - meat is too tasty to give up.
Defending the Home - I'm sure I'll feel much safer with a burglar downstairs carrying a gun knowing that if he is spooked and kills me or my family my security company might catch him and avenge our deaths.
killing others needlessly - there's plenty of ways to do this, I can go get a bat and with one well placed swing kill a man. Guns definitely make it easier with less work, but don't underestimate man's ability to kill when he wants. Swords and spears are pretty affective and might make a comeback if guns were illegal. But don't fret, the illegal arms dealers will make a killing and so will all who will posses these illegal arms.
In the Star Trek world that you dream of,this might work, but back hear in realty we'll have to keep dealing with the problems as they come.
Although diamonds have a lot less practical value than gold, there are other important uses beyond abrasives (industrial diamonds). Diamonds have the highest thermal conductivity of any solid, and they show some potential as a semiconductor.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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?
Wow. You call $20/hour poor? That's $42k/year! The average adult in this country earns $35k/year. You just called the MAJORITY of the country poor. You are way out of touch with reality.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
but the bureaucrat isnt. how are only the corrupt to be eliminated? i am not sure what an 'expert system' is. i assume, since this is slashdot, that it is some sort of computer/software system. someone has to create that, and who is to say corruption/unfairness isnt built into it? how does it approve the set of building plans i submitted to the county this morning?
always mosh clockwise
Hmmm. Isn't what you suggest simply a protection racket? "Pay us off or we'll mug/kidnap/kill you."
What do you think the IRS is now? I merely stated that the unfairness of the system leads people to commit crimes, and I don't wholly blame them.
Ah...if ONLY I could somehow be in that lifestyle!!
I often joke with my Dad...I tell him how disappointed I am in him. I tell him I wanted to make my money 'the old fashioned say'.....INHERIT IT.
Hehehe...I tell him to get busy, he doesn't have long left...hahaha.
Dad's a good sport...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's not quite that bad since the money in the bank is not really just sitting there idle. You have a good point though - how much do the millionaires and billionaires of the world actually spend? It's an interesting thought experiment to imagine a society based on a use-it-or-lose-it currency.. how is the incentive to save/hoard mitigated? What social ramifications come about from having to spend all your money all the time.. if you can't spend it do your friends and family get a chance to spend it for you? It seems like a ridiculous idea at first, but if you try and entertain there are some interesting benefits.
bite my glorious golden ass.
Your linked article even says that the Phillips Curve has largely been discredited, and that economists that do use it are known to fudge their numbers to get it to work. So basically, that means they're making it up as they go along. GREAT idea! Then you can just embrace the status quo and shrug your shoulders if something goes wrong. Color me unimpressed.
Ah, you're far too trusting. Yes, inflation is bad for everyone, but those who know about it and control it are able to minimize the damage, or even benefit from it.
Think of it like a game of King of the Hill. Pouring icy water on the slopes hurts everyone, but it hurts those at the bottom the most because they don't have their footing yet. The people at the top of the hill are already in a good position, so they are able to use the discord caused by the icy water to their advantage. Obviously, inflation is icy water in this analogy. The rich knew it would sting, but they also knew it would hurt the poor the most because the poor don't have any extra money left over for investments, stock portfolios and the like. When you're struggling to make ends meet creeping inflation is the least of your worries, but it will still hurt you in the long run.
[insert inaccurate history lesson]
Your history lesson is a complete joke. You seem unaware that, first off, the Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression. Milton Friedman is one among those questioning the Fed's role in that debacle. And then, as the country languished in agony, the Fed and its instruments in government, including Roosevelt, used the moment to get us off the Gold Standard. Why? So he could use inflation to stimulate the economy!! In fact, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, which confiscated every American's gold! Read up on it if you don't believe me. It's referenced in the second linked article. Also, as that article makes clear, it wasn't until 1971 that the gold standard was totally banished, but that was just so we could keep inflating the money supply.
Because our economy is basically ruined already trying to bring back the gold standard without adequate control would indeed result in chaos. But allowing runaway inflation to continue indefinitely is also insane. I say we make the painful fix for our children's sake.
Well, technically, the private bankers are the thieves; they're just using the government as the bagman. However, your definition of inflation is incorrect. I think you're thinking of liquidity or something else. Here's a simple definition from Wiki:
"In mainstream economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of pric
Electric Monkey Pants
Actually, at a certain point, there is no incentive to work hard. With the current tax system, I'd almost say that there is a disincentive to work hard. Why build up something great if the government just takes most of it now, and all of it when you die?
You're only looking at half of the equation. People have little or no motivation to work when their efforts will go to nothing (extreme socialism) and they also have little or no motivation to work when they profit whether they work or not (feudalism). The point is to motivate people to work hard by letting them benefit from that work, while not letting them benefit when they don't work hard. Inheritance is entirely benefitting from not working, since it is money from someone else's hard work. As such, it should be taxed at progressively higher rates and provide diminishing returns. Why work at all if I can live my entire life gaining more and more money from interest on my inheritance?
Roe vs. Wade doesn't seem to explain http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/cjusew96/crp r.htm
income equality has been rising in the time of those graphs too, even the falling portion. maybe progressive social thinker professors spew b.s. about income inquality causing crime, and that's why people repeat it, but reality doesn't agree.
Elimination of criminals is a good solution for lowering crime rate. Prison with no parole. Death sentence for rape and murder. Illegally immigrate and join a criminal gang, get classified as invading enemy combatant/terrorist and put to death.
I'd love to know where that $75 to $175 of value is being made. Some of it can be accounted for in the extra efficiency (greater 'means of production' in Marxist parlance) provided by a large corporation. I'd bet it's no more than a percentage of the initial investment, so at most around a $20 return on the initial $25. To say that the trickle-down effect produces 700% (something like that) return on investment ($200 out of $25) would be to say that the wealthiest corporations are %800 more efficient than the average enterprise-- bullsh*t, unless you can account for the creation of money coming from elsewhere as well.
BTW, I don't necessarily disagree with supply-side or trickle-down economics, but I think it's been blown out of proportion and allowed a very few rich people to hold on to a few bucks they could probably do without.
You don't understand. The only reason I can't afford a house up front and have to pay interest is because of circumstances of birth. Some people are born wealthy and some are born poor.
The number of people who can buy their first house with cash is rather minimal and something that doesn't keep me up at night.
This inherent unfairness of wealth distribution is what a lot of people use to justify crimes. After all life is already inherently unfair to start with, what does it matter if they take an action that is unfair, but benefits them?
If we didn't live in a rather efficient meritocracy, that might be true. But this isn't the dark ages where the lower classes were confined by law to serve as serfs, tenant farmers, or the like. If you have talent and work ethic, you'll do well in the US. Hell, if you can show up to work on time and sober every day, you'll do quite well.
What it really boils down to is that some of us who were born without means choose to work our asses off to find a better situation, and others take the easy way out and steal what they want. I don't feel sorry for these people.
You see if you haven't been paying attention the US economy has gone from 25% financial 75% industrial to 75% finacial to 25% industrial in our economy.
Sure, because manufacturing has become far more efficient. Even China is losing manufacturing jobs due to increasing automation.
Really... How much work does it take to leave your money in the bank?
Well, it takes the discipline to not spend every dollar you make, which is beyond many people.
Or maybe buy a few thousand shares and wait till it rises in price?
Assuming it does. Sure, day trading is essentially a zero-sum game. But real investing is positive-sum; the combined actions of investors direct capital to where it can be most effectively used, and society as a whole benefits from that.
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.
How does buying and selling a company's stock have any impact at all on its employees? If anything, buying stock may help them since they're more likely to be stockholders, and you're increasing the demand for shares and thus raising the market price. Of course if you sell two days later the effect is canceled, but they're still not hurt.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
So what you are saying is biology makes it natural for adult humans to bear young. Economics makes it inadvisable for many humans. Their alternative is to supress their natural reproductive drive, at least until they can afford contraception (and since most contraceptives are less than 100% reliable, back up plans like abortions, raising the result in a pinch, extra medical care, etc.).
Now, stand in front of a bunch of young adults with typical drives. Tell them they are not allowed to reproduce. Act mystified if they get angry. If there are any other sources of interpersonal problems, such as the bunch being of a different ethnic or linguistic group, or some other historical division, expect some of the bunch to claim this is motivated by predjudice and not this 'invisible hand of the market' thingee. Act even more mystified if they don't immediately stop this speculation and believe you sincerely are not letting any such personal issues color your model, just because you said so.
Congratulations, you just fscked up and made a bad life choice. You said something extremely stupid to a bunch of people, and made a mob. You'll just have to work harder, or live (or die) with your decisions. It isn't up to the world to force people like me to re-up in the armed forces for another 13 years and protect you from the mob you're inciting. (I'm getting too old for that anyway, and you can protect yourself from the people you've so cavalierly dismissed without me and many like me, can't you?).
Who is John Cabal?
First of all, consider that an expert system needs someone to write the rules -- the legislative branch of a government. And you can't do that once and be done with it. There's a reason why the Senate/House of Representatives/Parliament exists all the time instead of writing some laws and dissolving themselves -- actually, there are several reasons, and "just to have something to do" is not the whole of it.
Second, you need people to feed the system date, interpret it, and enforce it. This means lawyers, notaries & clerks, judges, and policemen. (No, I don't think Robocop was a good idea.) That's pretty much what the judicial branch of government does.
And then you need people who can take decisions quickly to react to unforeseen events (no expert system can cover everything) -- the executive. (I think police is usually listed here, but I'm sure you get my point.)
And all that doesn't do anything to prevent hackers -- people who understand the rules better that others and can exploit any weakness for profit. That's exactly what criminals (in the general sense) do, from thieves and kidnappers to corrupt administrations. 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.
As to your other two statements, I don't agree with the first's premise, and I think the second is self-contradictory.
"I think I am a fallen star. I should wish on myself."
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?
Income equality has been falling drastically in the period from 81 to the present. Those graphs show no clear trends at all. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but you haven't done a very good job. I'm sure in your revenge fantasy driven world view, capital punishment and prison with no parole are great ideas, but reality and scientific research do not support your preposterous hypothesis. But you really don't care, do you? I know your type. It's all about making reality fit your little mental model of how it should be rather than the other way around, so you really don't care what I or anyone else say, you are simply to closed minded to even look at facts that might change your world-view. In fact, changing your world-view feels like dying, doesn't it? When something challenges your point of view, you get a tight, constricted feeling in your chest. Your heart rate increases and you feel angry, lashing out at the perceived cause of your pain. Well, the cause of your pain is inside your own head and you will never get away from it unless you change your point of view. I'm sure glad I'm not you. I did my time in hell, but I'm free now.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You make it sound as if the CEO's pry money from the peoples hands. Money moves around, get over it.
Nature also gave us a BRAIN and freewill, and you should use both for pretty much ANY life decision.
Hey..fscking is fun, I like to do it too...but, I've also balanced out that I don't yet have enough money to pay for kids/family and maintain my lifestyle. I therefore have lots of disposable income to travel and have fun with. I'm also not tied down to any one woman.
People all have choice. Combine that with 'life is not fair'...and you get what we have today. Use that large brain...if you have kids too early, well, you gotta live with it.
Your rant about a rioting bunch of young people is kind of strange and unrealistic...I don't really know how to react to that one.
But, really...having a family is a BIG responsibility, one not to be taken lightly. Everyone has freewill to keep it in their pants...and really who can't afford a rubber? Hell, I do believe they give them out at the free clinic, no questions asked. If you're too stupid to figure it all out...then you deserve what you get, eh?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It was really starting to sting, reading your post as I counted the two stacks of $1 bills I just picked up at the bank today so I could have a good time at the strip club tonight.
Damn, I must be growing a conscience or something. Tell you what I am going to do - tonight I am only going to tip the Brazilian strippers, make up for what their relatives back home aren't earning.
Deal?
A Porsche Driving Yuppy
(350z, actually, but who's counting)
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
The $25(pretend we are dealing with a larger sum of money) is leant to a bio-tech firm. They figure out a new way to plant corn, and make a lot of money, and then repay the investor with quite a bit of interest. Now the investor spends this larger sum of money on things that he likes, and it trickles down.
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.
Having the benefit of a high-prestige college is not worth as much as it seems; I've been there and it's not all that good. Perhaps the cheaper places are really terrible, but if that were so it would be cheaper and more effective to teach yourself. (Only for a minority of professions, such as surgical doctors, is this not possible.) People coming out of high-cost colleges tend to do better in life because they are better people (measured in terms of their abilities and perseverence), not because the college makes them better.
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You've been reading Ann Coulter, haven't you? There is a middle ground between socialism/communism, and some people complaining about the the amount of disparity between the rich and the poor, in this country, alone. We weren't communists twenty years ago, but the disparity wasn't as bad as then it is now. It was nowhere near as bad in the 1950's, or at any other time in America's history. So, there must be a middle ground between the average CEO pulling in 200 times what the average employee makes, and communism. America has spent it's entire histroy in that middle ground, and most of the world, not counting Brazil, Mexico, and China, is in that middle ground now.
Yes, it may be a little whiny to complain about being a poor person, in the richest nation on Earth, when enjoying privileges that are unheard of to the middle class in other countries, but the term "fair wage" is relative to what is possible, and to what others are earning off of your labor. So, someone who earns 200 times what you earn is not working 200 times harder. If they were, they'd have died from exhaustion long ago. They are not 200 times smarter. If they were, they wouldn't be spending their money on fountains that urinate Vodka. So, how can it be justified in a system where money is supposed to be earned?
Granted, one's time should be on an escalating scale. Someone who works 80 hours a week should get paid more than twice that of someone who works forty hours, because they are sacrificing so much of what is important to them. For the sake of intellectual honesty, I feel the need to point that out, but do CEOs really work that much more than factory workers. If given the opportunity to receive a 56 million dollar bonus, most factory workers would gladly work eighty hour weeks every day for a year (and then retire)
I hope I wasn't flaming on any part of this. I feel pretty passionate about the issue and get annoyed when someone says that it is the same as communism, because I feel passionate about it. It bugs the hell out of me to think that people like Paris Hilton and George W. Bush will have opportunity after opportunity, and, no matter how many times they screw things up, will receive a second chance, when most of us will have to work our entire lives in hopes of one day getting a shot at what was given to them as a graduation present.
I'm the guy with 6 trillion dollars and the rest of you are my serfs and thralls.
MWA HA HA HA!!
What has Lloyd Blankfein done to tangibly benefit the people around him, that is worth 53 million ?
That is the $64,000 question. The modern CEO is really little more than a symbol of elitist entitlement. There are a few notable exceptions (like the CEO of CostCo), but they are fast becoming a rare breed.
The number of people who can buy their first house with cash is rather minimal and something that doesn't keep me up at night.
Ahh, but therein lies the rub. It's not that a lot of people can buy houses with cash, but a lot of the wealth that would let most people buy houses is owned by a very small number of people. Last I looked about 50% of the wealth was owned by about 1.5% of the people. Thus 95% of the people can't buy houses and have to take out large loans, because 1.5% of the people started out with all that money instead of them and then loan that money to them and profit on the interest. If the money was equitably distributed to start with (this will never be possible 100%) then most people could buy houses to start out with, instead of having to take out huge loans. Worse yet, because having wealth truly is the key to getting more wealth, these numbers are heading towards even more extreme disparity, meaning that in the next few generations, people in general not only won't have cash for homes to start, but they will never own a home.
If we didn't live in a rather efficient meritocracy, that might be true.
Actually, we don't live in an efficient meritocracy. Statistically speaking the way to get wealth is to start with wealth. That is not to say there is no upward mobility, but it is much more limited than most people think.
If you have talent and work ethic, you'll do well in the US.
I have talent and work ethic. I'm really smart with my money and despite starting with little, I may very well be a millionaire when I retire. That doesn't fool me into thinking that is the route to wealth. Nearly 50% of my earnings go towards paying interest on loans and I was extremely lucky in my acquisition of those loans. 50% of all my hard work and good decision making is paying someone else who is doing nothing except having been born with money. It is called the wealth condensation principal. Quite simply, once money becomes distributed unevenly, the rate of increase of that money increases proportionally to the amount of the inequality. Without measures to counter the disparity, we steadily become less and less of a meritocracy and more and more of an aristocratic society. That is why we need socialist redistribution to nearly if not completely compensate for wealth condensation if we want a stable society. The alternative is that wealth will consolidate more and more until it is forcibly redistributed, probably by a bloody revolution.
What it really boils down to is that some of us who were born without means choose to work our asses off to find a better situation, and others take the easy way out and steal what they want. I don't feel sorry for these people.
Whatever the ethics of the situation, I'm a pragmatist. The rate violent crime and theft will go up and up the greater wealth disparity increases. I'd personally rather not be killed or robbed or have a violent revolution. I'm kind of fond of having a stable government and society.
You've just done a great job demonstrating why relative wealth in more important than absolute wealth. A 1200 ft^2 house is a big 2/2 or a small 3/2 and is larger than the average house in the U.S. built in the 1950's. 50 years ago, a house of that size would have been considered solidly middle class and adequate for 2 adults and 4 kids.
That being said, its shocking how much money some people make. All the real gains in wealth in the past 10 years have gone to the top 1/10th of one percent of the population. I have the "interesting" fortune in living in a community populated by these folks (many of whom still insist that they're middle class as they climb out of the Porsche Cayennes). It's a shame that as a slob making under $100k/year I'm barely getting by (paying for my wife's grad school is pretty painful).
I like my beverages with warning labels!
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
Yes, because that person earning $110,000 needs to compete with people earning $200,000 if he/she wants to buy a home. If everyone else earns $200,000, the price of housing will increase so much that someone earning $110,000 won't be able to afford a home.
Right, these sorts of hypotheticals are almost always poorly phrased. They should find a way to put the scenarios in terms of purchasing power parity, to make it clear that in the second scenario you'd be able to afford more stuff (including housing) than in the first, but your neighbors would be able to afford even more. I suspect that would push more people to the second.
Even modified in this manner, there are still arguments for the first, because sometimes relative wealth really does matter and not just because of envy. The obvious example is that all else being equal the guy in the first scenario is going to have better results with women than the guy in the second.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
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?
$20/hour X 2 people X 52 wks/yr X 40 hrs/wk = $83,200.. Perhaps years are longer where you live, or you assume a work-week of 48 hours?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Your linked article even says that the Phillips Curve has largely been discredited, and that economists that do use it are known to fudge their numbers to get it to work. So basically, that means they're making it up as they go along. GREAT idea! Then you can just embrace the status quo and shrug your shoulders if something goes wrong. Color me unimpressed.
The fact that the Philips Curve has been discredited has nothing to do with the absence of trade-off, the criticisms are mainly based on the too simplistic approach, the curve itself still explains the short term trade-off between inflation and employment, although it cannot measure it exactly.
Your history lesson is a complete joke. You seem unaware that, first off, the Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression. Milton Friedman is one among those questioning the Fed's role in that debacle. And then, as the country languished in agony, the Fed and its instruments in government, including Roosevelt, used the moment to get us off the Gold Standard. Why? So he could use inflation to stimulate the economy!! In fact, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, which confiscated every American's gold! Read up on it if you don't believe me. It's referenced in the second linked article. Also, as that article makes clear, it wasn't until 1971 that the gold standard was totally banished, but that was just so we could keep inflating the money supply.
Well I wasn't speaking of the Great Depression of the United States, if you read anything I said, the whole context happened in Europe, not in the US, but the events in Europe are still the starting point to the whole thing (as it is mentioned in your link). Milton Friedman (RIP) was a monetarist, although one of the most influential theoreticians in macroeconomics in the 20th century, he used to blame every economic problem on monetary regulation... His views on economy are far from being universal... And anyways, if you take Milton Friedman as a reference for your economic views, you have MUCH more ultra-liberal views on economics then I do... Indeed, as I said, they abolished the gold standard in the 70s, and it was, as i said, because the demand for dollars was so high that keeping such large gold reserves became impossible...
Because our economy is basically ruined already trying to bring back the gold standard without adequate control would indeed result in chaos. But allowing runaway inflation to continue indefinitely is also insane. I say we make the painful fix for our children's sake.
"Our" economy is far from being ruined, most indicators are pretty optimistic, although some say markets may be a little too optimistic, but that's another discussion... And inflation can continue infinitely, as it has been doing for the past 60 years, as you said in your first post, money is symbolic, so whether theres a 0 more or less doesn't change the game much...
Basically, if the US and other major governments were all on a gold standard (and actually lived up to its requirements) there never would have been a Great Depression. The sneaky moves of the UK, Weimar Republic Germany and the US undermined the gold standard and sent us spiraling into a depression. But if we were on a stable, universally accepted gold standard then the rich wouldn't be able to play their little inflationary games would they? And they wouldn't be able to make money simply by playing the always-volatile currency exchanges, would they? Nope. The rich like the Fed and the lack of the gold standard because it gives them so much more flexibility in manipulating our economy... to their own benefit of course.
Well the US financial world was quite a mess in the 20-30s, and the understanding of financial business was far from our understanding today... In fact the real reasons for the Great depression (in the US) are not so clear, but speculation around the gold standard were indeed a probable factor, and this problem is exactly the problem i was talking about in my prev
---- "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?
Is there something wrong with using socialist policies to ensure some semblance of fairness and equity in our society? Ok, check this out, I grew up in a very humble household - lower middle class, but I went to Head Start(socialism!) and I did good enough in public school(socialism!) to be able to attend a state college(govt subsidized-socialism!)
I didn't get any college money from my parents(they actually owed me money-cause I worked for minimum wage(socialism!) in hs), but I didn't qualify for any govt grants(!socialism) because George Bush Sr. thought that I should qualify as a Dependant and my parents should provide for my education. So I got me some govt loans(socialism!) with a lower interest rate and worked my way through college. Now Ive been working at decent job for 10 years, paid off the college loans, and have a nice modest house(property taxes!) and make enough to be in the upper-middle-class(income taxes!).
In my case all that socialism, tax & spend, has really paid off well, I have already paid the government back for my education several times over. And I don't mind paying high taxes as long as the money is used wisely, I wish more young people could get a decent college education. The problem is that over the last 15-20 years government spending on education & especially higher education hasn't kept pace with inflation and tuition rates have skyrocketed. Those that go to school end up with huge amount of debt, loans have been outsourced for higher interest rates, and most of our tax money is being wasted on bombs and poured into the sand.
The path to relative success(my and conversion from cost center to profit center) is not as easy for young people today as it was for me and it has a lot to do with the withering and neglect of good socialist programs in our government.
----
Yes, yes it seems that for the very wealthy one million is not much money these days, what with inflation and all. But 53mil is still a chunk of change, even to most rich people. The GP was talking about 1% of 53 mil which is 530,000 even after 40% taxes it would be 318,000 which would be a pretty swanky college fund for most students.
We have the best government that money can buy.
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?
It lists California as 10.2%, but the income taxes are 9.3% over 40k, sales taxes are 8.25%, and property taxes are about 4-5% on avg. That's ~20% (the overlap)
Uh, property taxes in California are capped at 1% of the assessed value plus the amount needed to pay off county bonds (which means 1.25% is typical in a high tax location) and the assessed value can only increase at 2% per year, which means most people pay FAR UNDER 1% in property taxes. Income taxes in California are very progressive, which means that while the tax rates on earnings over 40K (for a single person) is high, the rate is very low on the first 30K you make, so the average works out to be pretty reasonable. If you are single in CA and make 50K/year, you pay 5.2% in income taxes, which isn't that bad. Similarly, the actual sales tax rate is lower than you suggest because it doesn't cover food or housing, which are pretty big parts of your income. Unless you have a very high income, taxes in California are less than what you would pay in most other states since taxes are about average and a greater share are collected from the rich.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
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.
I found much of your post accurate in its fashion. Much of the poor diet typical of U.S. poor is not really required by their income, so much as their lifestyle. There's no need for most to go to red beans and rice more than 2 days a week, and most could afford chicken about 2 meals a week, lasagnia or spaghetti with beef 1x, etc. and have milk products in enough amounts to not need calcium supplements. Practically every kid that is now going to elemntary schools and needing a school breakfast program could be better fed at home on what the parent gets, either from a minimum wage job or food stamp programs, or both.
Much of the problem is getting educated and organized. Educated in how to cook and how to figure a balanced diet, special nutritional needs of kids and the elderly, etc., and getting organized enough so that there is time to shop and cook, including getting rides to grocery stores and such as needed. For most, pushing to get away from grabbing fast food on an irregular schedule between their two jobs and not letting the kids pick what they want are the two biggest improvements in organization needed.
But where you post about enzymatic actions, you're not really on target. When that enzymatic action slows or stops, we have what? Diabetes! The number of adult type 2 diabetics in the US is approaching 30 million, it's rising much faster than the population, AND much faster than the actual obesity rates, the distribution falls out heavily on economic lines, and people look at those figures and say "there is little evidence...". There's only little evidence if we assume in this case that corrolation definitely does not equal causation, and while it's not necessarily true that it does, it's generally the way to bet.
High Fructose Corn Syrup and regular old table sugar do not follow all the same enzymatic pathways - that's simply false. HFCS is generally either 42% or 55% fructose, with the other part being mostly Glucose, and almost no Sucrose (less than 1.5% of the non Fructose fraction)). Since Sucrose is normally split into Fructose and Glucose anyway, we end up the same sugars, but we also end up with HFCS not needing to be split. The Glucose portion goes swiftly into the bloodstream while the HFCS is still in the stomach, increasing the peak and trought effects of sugar metabolism over cane sugars or other such sources that have significant dextrose to be split later when the sugars reach the intestines. Whether HFCS also triggers excess production of insulin that ends up not being needed, or not, is still up for discussion among some well qualified researchers. I'll grant there's not nearly enough evidence for that yet to make it a factor in setting national policy, but there's enough evidence to make it an important area of research.
Prehaps of more concern, Significant quantities of more complex sugars, often reaching 6-8% of the total sugars, are included in some sources of HFCS. Many of those sugars are not found in any known natural sources (i.e. they don't compare at all closely chemically to the complex sugars found in similar levels in a naturally high fructose product, such as an orange). If all of these compounds follow the same metabolic pathways, I want it on record as absolute proof of intelligent design. It's a cinch Glucose itself doesn't follow the path, because it's already at the end point.
Comparative rates of obesity for Western European nations and Canada with the U.S. can be used to preselect a pool of countries where overall obesity problems are very similar, and the populations genetic heriatages are near identical on average, if this is done, we've ruled out most of the alternative explanations currently proposed for the known Diabetes increases, AND we end up with the US standing out for two factors.
1) Types 1 & 2 Diabetes are increasing at a much faster rate than general obesity.
Who is John Cabal?
Well, not really. While some money goes to fund consumer debt, I think you'll find that a great deal more goes to promote capital investment. Banks do not just make loans for consumption, and people don't just invest in banks. They also invest in equity and corporate bonds, for example.
Moreover, even if every cent saved by one group where loaned out to consumers, their spending would still employ more people and generate more income for someone. In your example, someone has to be making the car, building the house, and selling the goods.
As a guess, I'd say bank accounts and savings have been in integrated capital markets for almost 100 years now. If this were all some vicious cycle in which banks skim ever greater amounts off the capital of the proletariat, surely they should have all of it by now.
People are charged interest because there is a risk that they will not repay there debt, and because there is a time value to money; banks are compensated for the opportunity cost of not having that money in their pocket. If you'd like to switch back to a barter economy, I'm sure there's a tribe in the Amazon that won't kill you. If you'd only like to find a place where interest is banned, you need look no further than the tribal protectorates of Pakistan (I'd say any country under Sharia, but it's actually pretty easy to get around the injunction against making money from money provided you have someone to structure the transaction).
Please, for the love of God, no more car analogies.
Nwabudike Morgan was right!
man, that game gets creepier and creepier...
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Go make those connections, nobody is stopping you except yourself. Plenty of people have done it before you, how did they manage it?
Right, I'll just run out and hang with the Harvard folks.
Are you really so naive as to believe this crap you spew?
A blog about stuff.
Well, you're right. But if inheretance doesn't exist (or is severely limited), then there's little point for the parents to work hard to build up an inheratance in the first place. My parents, for example, are busting their butts so that my siblings and I can have a nice little nut when they die. Personally, I'm not breeding, so I honestly don't care what happens with my net worth when I die, but for a lot of people, that is the incentive that they have to work hard and build something.
And at the same time, there's an ethics piece. Is it ethical to tell somebody that they cannot give their hard earned money to their kids, if they so choose? I'm not so sure that it is...
The "poor" Americans are some of the richest people in the world, just look at the obesity levels.
By your logic, Bill Gates should be the fattest man alive. Poor diets high in fat and calories but low in actual nutrition are generally the cheapest. See McDonald's for details.
1) be poor /. financial advice
2) read
3) join Libertarian party
4) ???
5) lobby Congress
6) Profit!!!
That's largely due to stupid drug laws.
;-)
Absolutely.
The back of my brain says that we do have a slightly higher rate of violent offenders than much of the world, but I don't feel like backing it up.
Same here. Today at work I was working on closing out old issues rather than doing new stuff, so I'm in 'identify broken stuff' mode, hence the nature of my posts in this thread
I'm not an expert, but my understanding was that sugar absorption primarily takes place in the small intestine; the enzymatic action that breaks down sucrose keeps up with the glucose and fructose transport mechanisms, which are specific to those molecules. The proportions of glucose and fructose in hfcs are pretty close to the 50/50 found in table sugar. A naive analysis of those facts indicates that it is pretty unlikely that your body even notices what kind of sugar you put in your mouth. To me, that makes it a good deal more likely that the problem is how many calories and how little activity, not what kind of calories.
e stion/index.html
For the most part, digestion is a really smart process, it breaks food down into small components that it understands, sucks them up, and rejects stuff it doesn't understand. That's a huge over generalization, but it works for sugars and starches.
This:
http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/dig
might be glossing over things, but it pretty much backs me up.
It will be interesting to see what epigenics has to say about parental(and grand parental) diet and exercise, obesity and the transition from farm to industry.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.
Where do you live?
I can't imagine spending more than $1500 a month on living expenses, no matter where. Even in Mountain View, CA, I spent $750 on rent + maybe another $500 on food, gas, insurance, etc, etc, etc. I made $47k a year (well, only one year) and came out with about $30k which is currently invested for retirement.
I don't see how $40k is not enough for a single person.
"And what happens when they've spent all that money, and have now learnt to sit and do nothing but live on handouts? And what have the poor done to deserve those giant handouts? They won't work to better themselves, they won't live within the law, they won't know how to spend the money wisely anyway. ... ...
Perhaps then the solution is to not be a single parent? It's not societies fault that women get pregnant to men they're not going to spend the rest of their lives with.
But for every poor person who wants to work to better himself, there are a thousand who want to wallow in self-pity and hold out the begging bowl. Society needs more of the former and less of the latter."
Your diatribe against poor people only shows me that you have little compassion and make the worst assumptions about people you don't know. It's classless and classist to try to use this kind of shit as an intelligent argument.
And if you think that every single parent in a society with a 50% divorce rate got was single when they got pregnant, you grossly misunderstand the world, and I pity you.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
So, in short, Oprah is annoyed because these kids want to be Oprah.
Why plant a tree in the desert if you could just as easily plant it in fertile ground?
The poor (making $20.00 an hour or less) cant afford to build a home or buy a old home in lower crime areas... you just cant afford a $350,000.00+ mortgage when you make a paltry $20.00 a hour. So you are stuck buying a crapshack in the $200,000 range in a questionable neighborhood that you hope is not too bad. Here is the problem. your little 1200 Sq foot crapshack was built in 1955 and has no insulation. so heating it costs you over $200.00 a month during winter months. While the rich guy in his 4800 sq foot home get's away with $180.00 a month keeping it at 72 degrees because he has low E glass, south facing windows, thermal mass, decent insulation etc....
First off, $20/hr is poor? Put down the crack pipe!
Second, I have a solution for your scenario numbers: MOVE OUT OF CALIFORNIA!
It really works. I moved to Spokane and bought an 1120 sq ft home for $38,000 (in full, cash). Property taxes... about $750/yr.
Oh and, yeah... I bought all new windows (about $75-$150 per) and had insulation blown in ($1000). Using electric blankets and wearing sweaters goes a long way, too.
The depressing fact is that I see my 15 year old and know that she probably will never be a homeowner unless she does somethign stupid and get's one of those unrealistic mortgages, marries a rich guy, or becomes a doctor.
The depressing fact is that you can't even imagine your daughter being a homeowner...EVER? I mean, I bought my house at age 27 and most of my work years averaged well below $20/hr. (Enlisted military, check a military paychart and see). And on top of that, I have over $100k+ in investments. See? Not so hard, is it?
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.
Don't forget... the base numbers here in the US:
The top 1% pay 34.27% of all income taxes
The top 5% pay 54.36% of all income taxes
The top 10% pay 65.84% of all income taxes
The top 25% pay 83.88% of all income taxes
The top 50% pay 96.54% of all income taxes
The bottom 50%? pay 3.46% of all income taxes.
The top 1% is paying nearly ten times more federal income taxes than the bottom 50%.
The top 1% earns 16.77% of all income
The top 5% earns 31.18% of all the income
The top 10% earns 42.36% of all the income
the top 25% earns 64.86% of all the income
the top 50% earns 86.01% of all the income.
Nephilium
I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression. - Milton Friedman
For another flat federal sales tax idea... take a look at FairTax. The basic idea is all purchases are taxed, and everyone gets a rebate check monthly for (poverty level income) * (tax rate).
Nephilium
With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves. - Milton Friedman
The only value something (anything) has is the demand for the item... The want for it.
Deleted
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.
Sweet fscking Chebus! First... the financial industry does create money... Second... fiat currency printed just for the government to "pay" for things causes inflation.
You don't seem to really know the meaning of the word inflation.
Inflation means that the money you've got in your pocket buys less then it did before. As a simple exercise, lets say that in 2010, bread costs one dollar a loaf... as the government prints more money, the money becomes less valuable, meaning in 2015, bread costs five dollars a loaf. This is NOT a good thing. Meaning yes, the cost of living goes up, but your pay doesn't.
Nephilium
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output... A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it can make an important contribution to a stable economic society. - Milton Friedman
What the hell? Quit looking at my wife! Oh, by the way, your wife was a fox last night!
Since it's three times what I earn, yes.
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?
Alright, so we've established I can't do math. But seriously, think about this. 1% of a million dollar bonus for one person is 33% of what someone else makes in a year.
And i don't get jealous of your money. I get angry because people that make that kind of money don't often think of all the people who won't be making that kind of money. But no worries, 'eh? Let them eat cake!
SRSLY.
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!
He needs to actually spend some time around guns.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
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?
Wouldn't it be more efficient just to provide the capital investments directly from the Government Treasury, and then use the people freed up from the dissolution of the financial industry to build the tractors and pick the crops? In other words, actually have them do real production instead of just producing a bunch of worthless paperwork?
And who's going to be the grand overseer who decides how money is going to be spent? I have hard enough tyme accepting that my tax dollars are paying for a war I never wanted to begin with, forget about it paying for someone else's pet projects. At least in a relatively free market, I know one doesn't really exist but, I have some control of how my money is spent. If I don't like what corporation X is doing I don't have to invest in it, or if I do invest then I can try to influence what it does.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Meh. Class warfare is so passe.
Under his leadership, Goldman-Sachs made $9.5 billion. Sure the employees pick the investments and do the work, but he's "at the helm." I see no problem with a bonus of roughly 0.5% of earnings going to the person in charge.
MRSH-Recording device, corned beef sandwich with kraut, seafaring bird, and the foamy top of a beverage.
Why would someone go to school to become a doctor if they made the same money as a cashier who wouldnt have to go to school?
Umm.....because of their personal desire to HELP PEOPLE?!?!
That's why there are lots of doctors in Eastern Europe and Russia today. They know that they make the same money as cashiers, but they still do it because they want to help people.
Maybe that's why your average SL55 driving prick with an M.D. here in the US throws a girly-tantrum whenever they've got to deal with people who've only got the HMO that their job partially pays for....They're just in it for the money, aren't they? They know that a cash-paying uninsured, or an HMO isn't gonna make 'em rich, so they give the minimum effort...
I'd rather have a doctor who is motivated by the desire to HELP than motivated by the dollar-signs they'll receive if they do....
All you need is lurv.
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."
Support SETI@home
The money does not go to job creators. It goes mostly to people who borrow to pay for a car, house or credit cards.
Building cars, houses etc requires jobs.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
"Well, not really. While some money goes to fund consumer debt, I think you'll find that a great deal more goes to promote capital investment."
I have never seen any numbers that would indicate that.
"f this were all some vicious cycle in which banks skim ever greater amounts off the capital of the proletariat, surely they should have all of it by now."
LOL. They pretty much do. In most economies of the world financial services are the the biggest or definately in the top five.
"If you'd like to switch back to a barter economy, I'm sure there's a tribe in the Amazon that won't kill you."
I appreciate your false dichotomy. That's real cute. I might suggest you look into the fastest growing financial sector in the world which is islamic banking. Islam forbids charging of interest (actually christianity also calls it a sin but the xtians don't really pay attention to that one so much) so the banks act more like venture capitalists.
evil is as evil does
I'd love to know where that $75 to $175 of value is being made.
The number was extracted from my backside (you could say I pulled it out of my ass).
I see it like this. Company A wants to make toothpicks to sell at a a penny a piece. Spend $25 to buy a large block of wood and make 5000 toothpicks from it. This is a profit of $25 (for a boatload of toothpicks in boxes of 100 at 1$ each). They sell these toothpicks to the supermarket, which in turn sells them for $1.50 per box. The original lumberjack that cut the tree down only spent $10 on the saw he used to cut that block of wood.
Of course not all of this is profit as they had to pay the truck drivers to transport everything, who purchased fuel, coffee and dinner. The truckstop made a profit off of the truckdriver, as did the waitress, who spent the money she earned to buy groceries and.... wait for it.... toothpicks!
Now I could fudge the numbers further to make it come out to $75-125, but I think you get the point. Economies are not a closed system. Materials are processed into stuff that is worth more than the original materials and labor put into it. Just like a box of toothpicks is worth more than the block of wood that made it. No one had to get poor to make up for that difference in value. The money (or value) was actually created by the everyone involved in this chain.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
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?
You trade the fruits of your labor for money
Please define "fruits of your labor". Does that refer to how strong you are and how much you can lift? Is it knowledge or insider information or friendliness with the boss? In an "information economy" it is impossible to equate ability to value as there are just too many variables.
For the record, I think that execs earning millions per year and then getting millions more after screwing-up is a bad thing.
I finished Freakonomics recently. It's a great book to read. I found The Tipping Point and Blink to be less interesting but still worth a look.
But we want to make more than our peers do
Because "making more" equates to one of two gut-level motivators:
A) attractiveness to chicks
B) high status, by being Alpha in a group
Actually, forget B), as it stems from A)
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.
Actually, we don't live in an efficient meritocracy. Statistically speaking the way to get wealth is to start with wealth. That is not to say there is no upward mobility, but it is much more limited than most people think.
If your goal is staggering wealth, yes. But there is no ceiling to what you can do besides your own talent and motivation. If you expect riches for nothing, forget it. If it bothers you that the lazy are often rich by birth, well, life sucks. Don't know what alternative there is besides complete socialism, but that didn't work out too well.
The rate violent crime and theft will go up and up the greater wealth disparity increases.
1. I'm wary of confusing correlation and causality, so I don't grant that conclusion. 2. I would like to see how the income disparity rates are calculated and whaether it accounts for rates of immigration. That would skew things drastically.
Ultimately, the point is that deadneats generally have themselves to blame, as middle class is attainable for anyone who is responsible and motivated.
That's where we differ. I do not believe that "at the helm" entitles anyone to rediculously large payments like this. They ALL work for the same company, and if the company succeeds, the COMPANY should be rewarded- yes...all of the employees- the ones that made it all happen. Let's not even start with what happens when things go badly...oh, that's right...the CEO still gets rewarded. What a mess.
I have plenty of relative wealth. I feel obligated to put in long hours to decrease my relative wealth by helping people who are dying of poverty.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
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.
Then why is it that the best place to invest in equities, in the whole world, is the stock market in Communist China?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I guess when you run your own multi-billion dollar corporation, you can run it the way you like.
MRSH-Recording device, corned beef sandwich with kraut, seafaring bird, and the foamy top of a beverage.
If the Swedish stock market is any indicator, it's doing a hell of a lot better than the U.S.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Of course it would be better to earn 100,000 while everyone else earns 85,000 than it would be to earn 110,000 while every one else earns 200,000.
In the first case, you get 110/(85*n) parts of the global wealth. In the second case, you get 110/(220*n) parts of the wealth. Obviously 110/85 is
much much more than 110/220. Only an idiot would want to have less wealth than *everyone* else. That would be taking from the poor to give
to the rich.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
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-
Because they have done an excellent job abandoning central planning and transitioning to free markets and are still in the midst of what is basically industrialization, which offers much greater productivity gains than that provided by improvements to already cutting edge technology.
China is a pretty good story; somebody noticed that they were going to have a damn lot of mouths to feed and that if they didn't come up with some incredible improvements, they weren't going to do it. The Three Gorges Damn is an immense irrigation project that happens to provide power.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Ah, there's the two tripping points:
1. Glucose and Fructose in HFCS (with only traces (less than 1.5%) of Dextrose). Dextrose and Fructose in table sugar (with only 5% or less Glucose). That's for batch produced ADM 55% Fructose grade HFCS, and assuming you mean genuine cane sugar for table sugar. I haven't seen a source for how much dextrose is in the ADM 42% grade, and I'll bet table sugar varies by both origin and process, so if anyone wants to check for more sources on these numbers, there may be better ones than I could find, but ADM's own site doesn't mention the Glucose percentages, only the Fructose.
Glucose gets absorbed early and quickly, that's why they call it blood sugar, it goes straight into the bloodstream. Glucose is absorbed before intestinal enzymes get involved, some straight through the stomach lining. People are still working on just how insulin gets from the islets (where it's made) to the intestinal villi (where it's used). Transport is at least partially by the blood stream, but notice that people who need extra insulin don't inject it straight into the vein, but into muscle tissue, partially to smooth out absorption cycle effects. The high and low blood sugar cycles get greater amplitude with lots of glucose in the diet, higher peaks, lower troughs. That too, may or may not be a big deal, but the evidence at least tilts slightly towards 'it is'. It's enough evidence that standard medical practice is to perscribe multiple varieties of insulins that absorb at different rates to most patients, just to smooth out the same peaks and troughs. I'm not arguing that there is an air tight case for my position, just that where you said 'little evidence' in your first post, there's more than a little.
2. Since you were smart enough to stipulate that your explanation of digestion is a huge overgeneralization, I want to add just one word - "simple", as in simple sugars and starches. I'm not at all convinced that the traces of complex sugars in HFCS cause a seperate problem, particularly not that it's a different effect from complex sugars found in non-processed foods, but it's a fairly high probability hypothesis, by close analogy. Look at some other examples of enzymatic metabolic processes. Any of the traditional illegal drugs has a structure similar to a brain chemical in most repects, different in just a few. All the opiates, Heroin to Methaqualone, mimic the backbone of the natural endorphins, until you get to a methyl group or something hanging off to one side. LSD and the other halucinogens all mimic Serotonin or the other 'putative' neurotransmitters like GABA (and NO2 is both an externally administered drug, and the actual brain chemical used as a neurotransmitter in smaller amounts). Even borderline brain affecting chemicals such as Caffeine or Nicotine are chemically close to adernalin or the intermediate oxidation process compounds leading to adrenochrome. (Glucose itself is both a nourisher for general cell use, and what's sometimes called a 'neuromoderator', which is why I rate this analogy pretty highly and am not trotting out anything involving automobiles.).
All of these compounds pass through one or more enzymatic stages in breakdown, and most are broken down by the appropriate enzyme nearly as quickly as the brain chemical they mimic. Then in the later stages, the molecular differences show up, some successor process can't work, or is thousands of times slower since the mediator enzyme is inefficent to totally useless. Again by analogy, I could see some of the more complex sugars as having unusual effects, possibly even in trace amounts much smaller than what's in foods - after all, mere microgram quantities of LSD can totally screw with the brain for hours, even though the amount of actual serotonin normally in the brain is much larger. If you'd merely said there was little evidence for this part of the arguement, I'd have to agree - what I'm passing on there is specualtive, worth looking at but far from a reason for legal controls. The glucose up/down cycle in the bloodstream effects link looks more significant though.
Who is John Cabal?
Table sugar is primarily, nearly purely, sucrose. It is a glucose molecule linked to a fructose molecule. A 'disaccharide'. It is rapidly split in the small intestine by sucrase.
Dextrose and glucose are different names for the same thing.
Insulin has many effects, but it primarily increases cellular uptake of glucose and signals the liver to help regulate blood sugar.
Glucose is called blood sugar because it is the sugar that our metabolism makes primary use of.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Your rant about a rioting bunch of young people is kind of strange and unrealistic...I don't really know how to react to that one.
Go back and look at the origination of the thread, read the submitter's paragraphs, and note how submitter wrote about violent crime rates. That was the subject for the whole thread, and the part you are dismissing as a rant is obviously on topic. If you really don't know how to react (instead of willfully sticking you head in the sand and muttering "Denial is just a river in Egypt"), then you don't get this whole thread, not just me.
OK, so lets say I agree with you 100% - every single one of these people is very, very stupid. Now if someone doesn't start dealing with this right, the whole system will collapse, and all those very stupid (and often heavily armed) people will be trying to kill you, among other people. You don't even seem to be looking at that point. You're going around calling these people stupid, like they're gonna wise up and agree, instead of them deciding a French style or communist revolution is a good idea in response. You think affixing blame solves the problem, and that all the people you want to blame will eventually either listen or die quietly without affecting you, even if nothing else gets done to actually change things. Your philosophy therefore predicts an unrealistic outcome, because stupid, irrational people don't suddenly grow up if a crisis comes, they get worse. My philosophy says a lot of that stupidity is lack of education and contradictory or manipulative messages from people with more power to shape the future, and both those are fixable problems, if we act rationally.
Overall, you have a great philosophy there - if you honestly say it to most of the people it applies to, it has a good chance of getting you roughed up or even killed, but you don't see that as a weakness of the philosophy itself. Now I can say what I honestly think to 95% + of the people I think it about, and in general, I will not be attacked for it. There's a few exceptions, as in I'm not necessarily gonna walk up to a mass murderer and start telling him everything I think about him unless he is in no position to successfully attack me.
But I could tell a group of poor people, of just about any ethnic background, that I think their current problems are a mixture of their own mistakes and a whole lot of other peoples, and the most important thing is to fix the problems, and only worry about assigning blame where it helps fix things more quickly. I could say it's not all rich vrs. all poor, but specific rich, (i.e. ones who use the law to block new startups by consortiums of poorer people), or specific poor who prey on their neighbors by crime, or specific cops who don't enforce the law equally, or whatever, and even where people disagree with me, I'll largely get a decent hearing. I know there's more to the issues than your sound bites, and I'll listen enough to find out what else there is. What scares me is attitudes like yours polarize, and the U.S. is moving towards a bunch of idiots on all sides of the issues drowning out my voice.
I'll advise some people to avoid reproduction yet - hell there's people I'll advise not to reproduce ever. I'll also advise some people who can make a real change, the Social Security system is based on the idea that there will be a large new generation of working class people to keep it going. By many in government, the poor have to breed, or that same enormously powerful government can't keep the economy going. There are incentive programs rich and successful people have designed to encourage breeding. If a single system as large as SS is not stable we all have a problem. IF the entire economy is not stable, well, that should be obvious. No, the fact that you have private retirement doesn't mean you don't have a problem too. No, you can't just say "I don't need Social Security, and people who didn't plan better t
Who is John Cabal?
That's a persuasive set of statistics...
I don't suppose you'd care to share a similar set of stats comparing tax rate paid versus percentage of total wealth owned?
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
Exactly as I said. They wanted to have more dollars in circulation without having the gold to back it up. You seem to think there are altruistic reasons for this... What, pray tell, would they be? I only see excuses for manipulating the currency markets to their benefit.
What are you talking about?! An extra zero on the end most definitely matters for some people. Especially those who don't get all that newly inflated money. It's a great deal for those whom the money was created, but not so much for those with very little money. All they get is reduced purchasing power. That means they're even more fucked than they were when they were just poor. I can't believe you're missing this really obvious stuff. You seem to think the money masters are benevolent, but they are business men, not saints. I think you've been duped.
Gold standards are a bad idea for bankers because without a gold standard they can easily hide their financial trickery. A gold standard makes it more difficult to hide manipulation and inflate currency. If you are aligned with this elite group I can understand why you think the GS is bad, but for the rest of us it's a good thing because it means we don't have to continually invest our money in order for it to hold its value. You said yourself that continual inflation is bad, but you seem willing to accept it without question. I'm sure the bankers appreciate your misplaced faith, but you don't seem to realize that a depression is still very much a risk without a gold standard in effect. In fact, it is probably more likely because faith in the system has to be "imposed" as you say, instead of residing intrinsically in the value of gold. Since money is merely symbolic that is a huge drawback as far as public trust goes. Your variable rate system will doom us all.
Electric Monkey Pants
Don't know what alternative there is besides complete socialism, but that didn't work out too well.
Extreme socialism is a disaster. Moderate socialism is practiced in almost every location that is rated among the best places to live in the world. Inheritance taxes that are progressively higher on the high end, or simple wealth taxes both work to make sure people work for a living instead of via inherited fortunes.
I'm wary of confusing correlation and causality, so I don't grant that conclusion.
It certainly is not a given, but it is the most likely causation based upon every scrap of research I've seen to date. It has a logical causation, via established criminal motivation, and experimentally places that mitigate wealth disparity via progressive taxation tend to have decreasing levels of violent crime shortly thereafter.
I would like to see how the income disparity rates are calculated and whaether it accounts for rates of immigration. That would skew things drastically.
Immigration and the resulting culture clash almost always results in increased crime, as Sweden is now discovering, but in places with steady rates of immigration, thus self normalizing, changes in wealth disparity still track amazingly well with crime rates.
Ultimately, the point is that deadneats generally have themselves to blame, as middle class is attainable for anyone who is responsible and motivated.
That is not particularly useful if the ultra wealthy don't have themselves to thank (which they don't) then the disparity still motivates crime.
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/
Are you joking? Go to the ghetto where everybody is poor. Then look at how much theft there is within the community. When everybody is poor there is a greater likelihood that there will be a lot of basic things (like a small tv, or a bike, etc) that only a few of the community will have. Thus, they will be ripe targets for the rest of the community since for most of them the only chance of obtaining it would be theft.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
>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.
oops, meant to type "increasing income inequality", which is indeed the case during those years. More disparity but not steadily increasing crime. the rest of your noise makes you feel good, I'm sure.
>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.
You think that someone at the helm of a publicly-traded entity qualifies as running their "own" company?
I wish I knew as much about members of my society as you apparently do, and cared as little.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Exactly as I said. They wanted to have more dollars in circulation without having the gold to back it up. You seem to think there are altruistic reasons for this... What, pray tell, would they be? I only see excuses for manipulating the currency markets to their benefit.
:-)
As i said, if your money is backed by something else, the value of money itself disappears in the collective consciousness, this means that when things start to go bad, people want their Gold back, and the whole financial system crashes which brings the society in a "Great Depression". The whole monetary and financial system is based around trust from the people in the value of their currency, call it manipulation if you will, but unless you find a better way to trade goods, it is by far the best system for everyone.
Inflation does not diminish purchase power in the long term, since salaries are supposed to adjust themselves to the inflation, now if the salaries don't, then, indeed, you have a problem. But this has nothing to do with inflation or the monetary system, it's a direct cause of lack of social protection.
By the way, I'm a student in Economics, mastering in finance, so I'll soon become a banker, and believe me, my vision of the world is far from being "monetarist, greedy and no social protection", I'd give 45% of my income any day if it can guarantee that the people that were born without my luck get medi-care and some form of guaranteed living income. But this doesn't change the fact that going back to a Gold standard is 1) Impossible, 2) Quite Stupid and 3) will in no way guarantee that the labor class will live a better life (actually it will probably be the opposite since interest rates and inflation are one of the natural economic safeguards when things go bad).
Anyways, I doubt you'll still read my reply since it has fallen from page 1 AND 2
That I don't have... the numbers would be much harder to crunch, seeing as how people don't have to report their total wealth to anyone (unless applying for loans and such). Also, those numbers would be meaningless when discussing an income tax or income inequity. Both of those are related to income, not to what you have in the bank.
As a side note, income does include things like capital gains and interest.
Nephilium
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. -- Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love
Yeah, I probably shouldn't have put the Amazon thing in. Looks like you didn't quite make it to the end of my post, though. While private equity funds have been expanding into the Middle East, that's not really what investing under sharia is all about. Basically, the two components of Islamic banking are socially responsible investing (eg no alcohol companies), and structured products that skirt the prohibition against interest. It's fairly simple; say I want to borrow $10,000. You give me $10,000 worth of copper (or any commodity with a reasonably stable price), which remains in a warehouse, on condition that I sell it back to you for $11,000 in a year's time. No one has 'made money from money' since I held a nominal asset while I was making use of the loan.
For a simpler example, if I want a sharia-compliant mortgage, I just mortgage a house for, say, the present value of its actual worth plus interest payments over 20 years. It's not interest, I'm just paying more for the house than it's worth, and in installments.
It's usually pretty easy to overcome artificial constraints put on the financial system. You probably haven't, but ever wonder why Japanese institutions like their alternative investments to pay dividends? It's so that they can classify them as fixed income, rather than the speculative products they really are, and thus have a lower capital witholding requirement under BASEL II.
Please, for the love of God, no more car analogies.
For the intents and purposes of this argument, yes. Not to mention, CEOs generally own a lot of stock in the companies they run, so in a real sense, it is their "own" company.
MRSH-Recording device, corned beef sandwich with kraut, seafaring bird, and the foamy top of a beverage.
If they own a lot of stock, it's more than likely it was given to them as part of there "compensation". And again, this is a completely lopsided effort to reward one person despite the contributions of the many who made it happen.
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?
Again, those graphs don't show any clear trend at all. I'm guessing you must be a liberal arts major. Take some remedial statistics and learn to read graphs.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"...Disappears into the collective consciousness"? I didn't know economic theory had so much to do with Jungian thought. :-) You're correct in your analysis of the public reaction to money's transience, but you seem completely unaware that fiat currency only makes things worse. Instead, we're just betting on some future economic performance. Between the bondage of treasury bonds and the crippling debt of the national debt we are basically a nation of slaves. The bankers own our future and our present productivity and no matter how hard we work we'll never be able to get out of debt because the system was designed to enslave us in debt. The only good part about this scenario is that with fiat currency the money is completely imaginary. Perhaps the best thing to do to get on the gold standard would be to tell the bankers to go fuck themselves and stop any interest payments on the national debt. See how they like that.
By the way, there is a way to eliminate inflation, trade goods and yet not have to worry about a banking crisis: Abolish the Federal Reserve, move to a gold standard and make Fractional Reserve banking illegal.
It definitely does diminish purchasing power long term. When my parents were young they were able to afford a rent or mortgage without too much trouble, but for my generation it's been much more of a struggle. Many of my friends are still living at home with their parents, and it's not because they love their parents so much; it's because it's economically impossible to move out. You simply cannot pay for rent in my city with a low-paying job. If you're making 10 bucks an hour or less, you're screwed. This is what inflation does. Whereas my parents could get an apartment for 50 bucks a month it would now be a miracle to find one for 500 a month. Meanwhile, wages have not risen at a comparable rates. College, on the other hand, costs so much that it will soon be equivalent to taking out a mortgage for those of us not born of rich parents. We are definitely getting squeezed. I think this process is largely masked by the rise of computer technology. Computers, at least, keep getting cheaper and more powerful. When that growth eventually slows we're going to wake up and realize that we're nothing more than techno-serfs, working for the new nobility -- the banking class and their acolytes.
Well no wonder
Electric Monkey Pants
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.
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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.
Just eliminate such people
Yeah, I think Stalin tried that once. It didn't work out so well.
Seriously, communism has been tried, and it's failed. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it seems to work for most people. To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system ever used by man. Except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
the stock brokers could be better employed driving tractors in the field creating food, or driving trucks to the third world to deliver that food
What if that's not what they want to do? What if they genuinely enjoy being a stock broker? Are you saying people shouldn't have the freedom to pursue their dreams? Cause that's what it sounds like.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Stalin had artificial intelligence systems available to replace government with incorruptable machines? If so, he should have used it more- primarily on his own party. At least then the machines wouldn't have needed Ukranian food to survive the winter of 1954, saving him a lot of bother with famine and starvation.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I am speechless, friend.. Amen brother!
The bigger the machine, the greater its efficiency losses. A one-man company can't steal from itself (well, not successfully anyways). A ten thousand man company could have 9999 thieves and a single victim... then when that one guy gets too nosey, you just get rid of him. That's the corporate "landscape".
-Billco, Fnarg.com