Wealth distribution

[Montmorency]

Do I want your money

!

So Mr. Above-average, I heard you were single...

[Husar]

Do I want your money, never noticed it.

Depends on which side of the wealth gap you're on.

[Fragony]

Depends on which side of the wealth gap you're on.

Well I am not on that side, far from it. I can manage.

[HoreTore]

It's not about "wanting anyones money", Frags.

It's about who gets what from the new money produced. Ie. making a model where you get a share reflecting the work you put in. We are not even close to that today. I don't get a share comparable to my effort, I get loads more than what I actually put in compared to effort and share of Joe Indiaman.

Why should I do less and earn more at the same time?

[Sarmatian]

Frags, you missed the point entirely. It's not about hating the rich for being rich.

The issue is that the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very few people and they're using that to change the system. Gradual change to allow them to become even wealthier and wield even more influence.

That kind of system is unfair and is a threat to democracy in the long run.

[Fragony]

Frags, you missed the point entirely. It's not about hating the rich for being rich.

The issue is that the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very few people and they're using that to change the system. Gradual change to allow them to become even wealthier and wield even more influence.

That kind of system is unfair and is a threat to democracy in the long run.

Perhaps. But there are some more pressing matters.

[Andres]

Perhaps. But there are some more pressing matters.

Like, for example...?

[Sarmatian]

Perhaps. But there are some more pressing matters.

New series of Kardashians? What, where, when???

[Andres]

New series of Kardashians? What, where, when???

Perhaps he's talking about Global Warming.

[HoreTore]

You two do realize that now the next 500 pages of this thread is going to be about Islam taking over the world, right?

[Husar]

Perhaps. But there are some more pressing matters.

Says the guy who is pretty well-off and doesn't have to worry about paying his rent every day...

[Fragony]

Like, for example...?

The EU is a much bigger threat to democracy than these few lucky few.

[Husar]

The EU is a much bigger threat to democracy than these few lucky few.

The lucky few are currently using the non-unity of countries in the world to evade taxes and to exploit the poorest but more unity in the world is obviously a far bigger problem than exploitation by the rich. Maybe the EU is only so problematic because it is only doing what those lucky few want because the rest of the people are bickering about leving the EU instead of using their political capital to improve it...

[Lemur]

Interesting take from The Economist:

The trouble with inequality isn’t primarily about consumables. As Elisabeth Anderson, a philosopher at the University of Michigan, pointed out a few years ago, public goods must be considered as well. The more inequality, the less rich and poor citizens tend to see eye-to-eye on these common benefits:

As economic inequality increases, the better off perceive fewer and fewer shared interests with the less well-off. Because they buy many critical goods—health insurance, education, security services, transportation, recreation facilities—individually from the private sector, or pool the provision of these goods within private gated communities or municipalities governed by zoning regulations designed to exclude the less well-off, they tend to oppose public provision of these goods to the wider population.

This is why Mr Obama calling inequality the “defining issue of our time” has moral resonance. It has nothing to do with the rabble envying Sub-Zero refrigerators. It is not about the iPhone/cheapo-cell phone gap. Inequality is problematic not because it makes some people jealous of others but because it effectively locks millions of people out of opportunities to improve their lives. Ms Anderson put it well: “To live in a low-crime, orderly, unpolluted neighborhood, free of run-down and abandoned property, graffiti-marred buildings, open drug dealing, prostitution, and gangs; to have access to public parks where one’s children can safely play, to well-maintained sidewalks and roads, to schools that offer an education good enough to qualify one for more than menial, dead-end jobs: how many cell phones and athletic shoes is that worth?”

[HoreTore]

Exactly.

To expand on that, having poor people means they do not contribute as much as they are capable of, and our personal level of wealth(regardless of where you are on the scale) is affected by the distribution of wealth in the wider society.

You may be Bill Gates, but that counts for nothing if you cannot hire a decent programmer to work for you. A fair distribution of wealth ensures that the masses are able to reach their potential work contribution, and so Mr Bossman has less problems hiring skilled workers to increase his wealth.

In short, raising the poor makes us all wealthier. It's far from a zero-sum game. If the homeless gets a proper job, it will result in both you and the homeless guy getting more money.

Henry Ford knew this well. Was he "jealous of other peoples wealth and wanted to steal their money" as well?

[Xiahou]

Yes, you are absolutely right. I will now abandon my ideals of an anarcho-communist utopia and will instead study and examine the life of Paris Hilton who, through her hard work, dedication and personal efforts, managed to become the daughter of a billionaire.

The rich are so much better than us ordinary people. They don't need us to demonize them. As superior beings, they are so much better at doing that themselves.

Because anecdote is the singular form of data right?

[Lemur]

Raising the poor makes us all wealthier. It's far from a zero-sum game. [...] Henry Ford knew this well.

So did Adam Smith. The men who actually created capitalism as we know it were far less doctrinaire and ideological than modern-day Libertarians.

[Fragony]

Income equality isn't a bad thing, it benefits the middle classes and is ultimatily better for the economy as more people have more to spend, but it doesn't justify asking the lucky few to pay for it. It's just symbolism not pragmatism. Cut out your own fat as we say here. The fat being the government who is always out of money because they spend too much. Lower the taxes.

[Sarmatian]

but it doesn't justify asking the lucky few to pay for it.

After 4 pages, you're still on square 1.

[Fragony]

After 4 pages, you're still on square 1.

All that means is that I haven't been convinced. I am open to be convinced, but it has to be convincing. If you keep asking the same questions you keep getting the same answers.

[Lemur]

I am open to be convinced, but it has to be convincing.

But don't you bear some responsibility? Isn't it at least slightly on you to respond to the various and very different points that have been made in-thread, rather than just re-stating the same position you've had all along?

A discussion, by definition, means back-and-forth. If you do not offer cogent responses, and just re-state the same point over and over ... well ... doesn't give your discussion companions much to work with.

[Fragony]

But don't you bear some responsibility? Isn't it at least slightly on you to respond to the various and very different points that have been made in-thread, rather than just re-stating the same position you've had all along?

A discussion, by definition, means back-and-forth. If you do not offer cogent responses, and just re-state the same point over and over ... well ... doesn't give your discussion companions much to work with.

My point is clear i'd say. Just neglecting other's opinion and not getting into it at all would be ruder. I don't agree. You will just have to suck it up that I look differently at things. My opinions aren't set in stone, I have changed my opinion on things many times.

[Husar]

All that means is that I haven't been convinced. I am open to be convinced, but it has to be convincing. If you keep asking the same questions you keep getting the same answers.

But my arguments are convincing. I have in fact convinced you, you just refuse to accept it.

edit: Maybe you'll like this argument: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgr...-poor-muslims/

[Myth]

I was pleasantly surprised by the OP and the responses on the first page. If everyone (well, most anyway) recognizes the problem, can we point a solution? Has there even been one in the past? The human desire to dominate and exert control over others is ever present, and the abuses of power and influence become more and more severe the more one gains.

If it's a capitalist western "democracy" faceless corporations will pollute, sue, extort, bribe, spread lies and propaganda and basically do anything for those few who own them. Those few then are above the law and regular folk. They can own politicians, media, patents, whatever. They are untouchable and further increasing their wealth is only a means to obtaining more power.

If it's some sort of totalitarian/autocratic government the same things happen but are done by the ruling party and the secret police.

The only difference is that in the first scenario the people are being given the illusion of freedom (you are free to buy a 2.6 million dollar house. No one is stopping you.) and in the second one you get some social benefits like health care, school and security, but at the cost of total control, indoctrination and the secret police labeling "enemies within".

Overall both systems suck hard. The flaw with today's society is that the whole currency system and the way we conceptualize economics is flawed. If all we ever had in the world were goods and services produced and exchanged between people, then each man would be worth as much as the value they provide to their community. But now we make money from money: loans, mortgages, forex, stock market and a thousand other tricks that make money out of nothing. We no longer see currency as a convenient means of exchanging goods or services, it is now its own demon that ran away with our lives.

And since the ones who manufacture money out of nothing also say how much it is worth and how much we get, it's easy to see how working hard and voting doesn't mean jack in today's world.

I am no expert on economics though. I'd still go back to gold standard, but hey, Qaddafi tried it and he got killed so... Actually, what is the official reason for removing the gold standard and allowing privately held central banks? Because the world bank said so?

[HoreTore]

So did Adam Smith. The men who actually created capitalism as we know it were far less doctrinaire and ideological than modern-day Libertarians.

Or is it that the men who created capitalism were doctrinaire and ideological, and it's simply the randroids who fail to understand what capitalism is about?

[Husar]

I was pleasantly surprised by the OP and the responses on the first page. If everyone (well, most anyway) recognizes the problem, can we point a solution?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...post2053575453

?

[Lemur]

The noted Commie pinkos from Google explain why stagnating and falling incomes for the middle-and-lower tier people are a bad thing all around.

The stagnation in middle-class wages is not just a middle-class problem. It's an economic problem. And it's one of the main reasons that global economic growth is so lousy.

Why do stagnant middle-class wages hurt the economy?

Because the middle-class folks whose wages are stagnant are the global economy's biggest spenders.

And when they don't have money to spend, their lack of spending hurts not just them but all the companies that depend on them for revenue.

Including, Schmidt pointed out, Google.

Put differently, one company's expenses (wages) are another company's revenues. So, collectively, when companies are cutting wages, they're also cutting their own future revenue growth.

Right now, companies are so focused on cutting wages — by paying their employees as little as possible and replacing them with technology whenever possible — that wages as a percent of the economy are now near an all-time low (see chart below). And this weakness in wages is the big reason demand in the economy is so weak.

Looked at from this perspective, ruthless cost-cutting with employees is just another variant of the Tragedy of the Commons.

The tragedy of the commons is an economics theory [...] according to which the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, act contrary to the group's long-term best interests by depleting the common resource.

Or to put it even more bluntly, when a Walmart executive complains that his customers have no money, he is whining about a mess he helped create.

[Fragony]

But my arguments are convincing. I have in fact convinced you, you just refuse to accept it.

edit: Maybe you'll like this argument: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgr...-poor-muslims/

I didn't bring islam into the equation, so why do you? Just because I don't like the islam that makes sense? How? Is there any double-standard I apparantly have, then please kindly oblige.

[HoreTore]

I'd still go back to gold standard

Going back to the gold standard makes no sense at all. Sure, you gain a thin layer of additional artificial stability, but at the expense of a severe lack of available money. The market is naturally flowing with ups and downs. Going back to the gold standard will do nothing to reduce the down periods, but it will do wonders at eliminating the periods of high growth we get. All around a very bad idea.

The noted Commie pinkos from Google explain why stagnating and falling incomes for the middle-and-lower tier people are a bad thing all around.

The stagnation in middle-class wages is not just a middle-class problem. It's an economic problem. And it's one of the main reasons that global economic growth is so lousy.

Why do stagnant middle-class wages hurt the economy?

Because the middle-class folks whose wages are stagnant are the global economy's biggest spenders.

And when they don't have money to spend, their lack of spending hurts not just them but all the companies that depend on them for revenue.

Including, Schmidt pointed out, Google.

Put differently, one company's expenses (wages) are another company's revenues. So, collectively, when companies are cutting wages, they're also cutting their own future revenue growth.

Right now, companies are so focused on cutting wages — by paying their employees as little as possible and replacing them with technology whenever possible — that wages as a percent of the economy are now near an all-time low (see chart below). And this weakness in wages is the big reason demand in the economy is so weak.

Looked at from this perspective, ruthless cost-cutting with employees is just another variant of the Tragedy of the Commons.

The tragedy of the commons is an economics theory [...] according to which the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, act contrary to the group's long-term best interests by depleting the common resource.

Or to put it even more bluntly, when a Walmart executive complains that his customers have no money, he is whining about a mess he helped create.

Again an excellent post, and I have to expand on it:

In addition to undercutting each others market, lower wages also means that technological progress is slowed.

When your wage costs are 10 million per year, you can easily buy a 500.000 dollar piece of machinery that will allow you to cut 10% of your wages through layoffs. You will end up making 500.000 from your 500.000 investment.

If your wages are half of that, you might not bother doing it, since you're not going to make anything on it, you are simply breaking even. With wage costs of 1 million, you are actually losing 400.000 if you try to increase your productivity through automation. This affects not only you, but also the technological progress, since that cannot occur without an end-user buying the stuff they invent(barring an active state).

This is part of the reason why African countries are piss-poor, yet cannot even compete on price.

And I love the mention of the tragedy of the commons: the mechanisms it describes is one of the main reasons I am a pinko-commie hippie. The free market simply has no mechanisms to counter the irrationality, so we have need of a strong and active state capable of regulating us from painting ourselves into a corner.

[Lemur]

The free market simply has no mechanisms to counter the irrationality, so we have need of a strong and active state capable of regulating us from painting ourselves into a corner.

Adam Smith would agree with you. So would Edmund Burke.

It's equal parts amusing and sad that the fathers of modern capitalism and conservatism, respectively, would be dirty RINO traitors by today's warped standards.