Income Equality

Post Reply
User avatar
Xan
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 4392
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 1:51 pm

Income Equality

Post by Xan » Tue Aug 30, 2022 11:38 am

Hopefully this is free to view:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/income-equ ... 1661781351

The idea is that after taxes and transfer payments, if you're in the bottom 60% of income in the US, it doesn't make much difference to your income whether you work or not. The authors are pointing out that this is terrible for labor participation, as the rational actor would choose to not work and get paid the same amount.

Thoughts?
User avatar
Mountaineer
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 4959
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:54 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Aug 30, 2022 2:40 pm

Pulling the wagon boosts self esteem much more than riding in the wagon. Too many riding results in a downhill spiral and depression (double entendres). Depression leads to unpredictable results.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
boglerdude
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1313
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 1:40 am
Contact:

Re: Income Equality

Post by boglerdude » Tue Aug 30, 2022 7:55 pm

https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/com ... e_problem/

But that sub's gone far left over the last couple years, like most of Reddit. Not sure we'll ever have another Milton Friedman. No one wants to hear that things have costs and that men with guns at the border maintain their standard of living.
User avatar
I Shrugged
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2062
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:35 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by I Shrugged » Tue Aug 30, 2022 8:14 pm

Xan wrote:
Tue Aug 30, 2022 11:38 am
Hopefully this is free to view:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/income-equ ... 1661781351

The idea is that after taxes and transfer payments, if you're in the bottom 60% of income in the US, it doesn't make much difference to your income whether you work or not. The authors are pointing out that this is terrible for labor participation, as the rational actor would choose to not work and get paid the same amount.

Thoughts?
Can’t read it, but it sure sounds like a problem.
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by Kbg » Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:18 am

Xan wrote:
Tue Aug 30, 2022 11:38 am
Hopefully this is free to view:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/income-equ ... 1661781351

The idea is that after taxes and transfer payments, if you're in the bottom 60% of income in the US, it doesn't make much difference to your income whether you work or not. The authors are pointing out that this is terrible for labor participation, as the rational actor would choose to not work and get paid the same amount.

Thoughts?
I think it's one of the key items that created a good part of the movement of the working class over to the R side. I'm not a Maga guy at all but where I live I'd say a majority are and I think there's some definite legit issues in what motivates them from an economics stand point.
User avatar
Xan
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 4392
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 1:51 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by Xan » Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:20 am

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the most dramatic and consequential change in the distribution of income in America in the past half-century isn’t rising income inequality but the extraordinary growth in income equality among the bottom 60% of household earners.

Real government transfer payments to the bottom 20% of household earners surged by 269% between 1967 and 2017, while middle-income households saw their real earnings after taxes rise by only 154% during the same period. That has largely equalized the income of the bottom 60% of Americans. This government-created equality has caused the labor-force participation rate to collapse among working-age people in low-income households and unleashed a populist realignment that is unraveling the coalition that has dominated American politics since the 1930s.

On these pages, we have debunked the myth that income inequality is extreme and growing on a secular basis by showing that the Census Bureau measure of income fails to include two-thirds of all federal, state and local transfer payments as income to the recipients and fails to treat taxes paid as income lost to the taxpayer. The Census Bureau measure overstates current income inequality between the highest and lowest 20% of earners by more than 300% and claims that income inequality has risen by 21% since 1967, when in fact it has fallen by 3%.

Our most significant finding from correcting the census income calculations wasn’t the overstated inequality between top and bottom earners. It was the extraordinary equality of income among the bottom 60% of American households, regardless of employment status. In 2017, among working-age households, the bottom 20% earned only $6,941 on average, and only 36% were employed. But after transfer payments and taxes, those households had an average income of $48,806. The average working-age household in the second quintile earned $31,811 and 85% of them were employed. But after transfers and taxes, they had income of $50,492, a mere 3.5% more than the bottom quintile. The middle quintile earned $66,453 and 92% were employed. But after taxes and transfers, they kept only $61,350—just 26% more than the bottom quintile.

Even these figures don’t tell the whole story. In the bottom quintile, there are on average only 1.92 people living in a household. The second and middle quintiles have 2.41 and 2.62 people respectively. After adjusting income for the number of people living in the household, the bottom-quintile household received $33,653 per capita. The second and middle quintile households had on average $29,497 and $32,574 per capita, respectively. The blockbuster finding is that on a per capita basis the average bottom quintile household received 14% more income than the average second-quintile household and 3.3% more than the average middle-income household.

It should be noted that while per capita comparisons are widely used, they tend to overstate the effects of household size. Two people living together can achieve the same material well-being for less than they could living separately. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has developed a measure widely used internationally to adjust for household size, and the Census Bureau has a similar adjustment it uses in its supplemental poverty measure. Since the results produced by the OECD and the Census Bureau adjustments are so similar, we simply use the average of the two below.

The nearby chart compares the after-tax, after-transfer incomes of the bottom three quintiles of American households with no adjustment for household size, on a per capita basis, and using the average of the OECD and census adjustments for household size. We found that the average bottom-quintile household has $2,401 (or 6.6%) more income than the second quintile and only $3,306 (or 7.8%) less than the middle-income quintile.

The average second-quintile household earned almost five times as much as the average household in the bottom quintile, because it had 2.4 times as many working-age members working and on average each worker worked 80% more hours. The average middle-quintile household earned almost 10 times as much and had 2.6 times the percentage of its working-age people working, each working twice as many hours. Yet the bottom 60% of American households received essentially the same income after accounting for taxes, transfer payments and household size.

Given the surge in transfer payments since the war on poverty, it isn’t surprising that the percentage of working-age people in the bottom quintile who actually worked plummeted from 68% in 1967 to 36% in 2017. With transfer payments giving recipients about as much for not working as they could earn working, only a mandatory work requirement as a condition for receiving means-tested benefits will bring them back into the labor market. While official statistics don’t count two-thirds of those transfer payments and don’t show the income equality they produce, Americans who work hard to make ends meet are aware of it. Despite Democratic politicians’ efforts to provoke resentment against the rich, when was the last time you heard working people complain that some people in America are rich? The hostility of working people is increasingly focused on a system where those who don’t break a sweat are about as well off as they are.

This justifiable resentment is the economic source of today’s American populism. It is ravaging the increasingly unstable Democratic political alliance between welfare recipients and blue-collar workers. It was already building in the 1980s, with what were then called Reagan Democrats, and it was fully manifested in the Trump blue-collar political base. It is now driving political realignment among Hispanic voters, who are disproportionately middle-income earners.

By eroding self-reliance, worker pride and labor-force participation, government-generated income equality undermines the very foundations of American prosperity. A democratic society won’t knowingly tolerate it.

Mr. Gramm is a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Early served twice as assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This article is adapted from their book “The Myth of American Inequality,” forthcoming Sept. 15.
User avatar
Mountaineer
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 4959
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:54 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:44 am

Xan wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:20 am
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the most dramatic and consequential change in the distribution of income in America in the past half-century isn’t rising income inequality but the extraordinary growth in income equality among the bottom 60% of household earners.

Real government transfer payments to the bottom 20% of household earners surged by 269% between 1967 and 2017, while middle-income households saw their real earnings after taxes rise by only 154% during the same period. That has largely equalized the income of the bottom 60% of Americans. This government-created equality has caused the labor-force participation rate to collapse among working-age people in low-income households and unleashed a populist realignment that is unraveling the coalition that has dominated American politics since the 1930s.

On these pages, we have debunked the myth that income inequality is extreme and growing on a secular basis by showing that the Census Bureau measure of income fails to include two-thirds of all federal, state and local transfer payments as income to the recipients and fails to treat taxes paid as income lost to the taxpayer. The Census Bureau measure overstates current income inequality between the highest and lowest 20% of earners by more than 300% and claims that income inequality has risen by 21% since 1967, when in fact it has fallen by 3%.

Our most significant finding from correcting the census income calculations wasn’t the overstated inequality between top and bottom earners. It was the extraordinary equality of income among the bottom 60% of American households, regardless of employment status. In 2017, among working-age households, the bottom 20% earned only $6,941 on average, and only 36% were employed. But after transfer payments and taxes, those households had an average income of $48,806. The average working-age household in the second quintile earned $31,811 and 85% of them were employed. But after transfers and taxes, they had income of $50,492, a mere 3.5% more than the bottom quintile. The middle quintile earned $66,453 and 92% were employed. But after taxes and transfers, they kept only $61,350—just 26% more than the bottom quintile.

Even these figures don’t tell the whole story. In the bottom quintile, there are on average only 1.92 people living in a household. The second and middle quintiles have 2.41 and 2.62 people respectively. After adjusting income for the number of people living in the household, the bottom-quintile household received $33,653 per capita. The second and middle quintile households had on average $29,497 and $32,574 per capita, respectively. The blockbuster finding is that on a per capita basis the average bottom quintile household received 14% more income than the average second-quintile household and 3.3% more than the average middle-income household.

It should be noted that while per capita comparisons are widely used, they tend to overstate the effects of household size. Two people living together can achieve the same material well-being for less than they could living separately. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has developed a measure widely used internationally to adjust for household size, and the Census Bureau has a similar adjustment it uses in its supplemental poverty measure. Since the results produced by the OECD and the Census Bureau adjustments are so similar, we simply use the average of the two below.

The nearby chart compares the after-tax, after-transfer incomes of the bottom three quintiles of American households with no adjustment for household size, on a per capita basis, and using the average of the OECD and census adjustments for household size. We found that the average bottom-quintile household has $2,401 (or 6.6%) more income than the second quintile and only $3,306 (or 7.8%) less than the middle-income quintile.

The average second-quintile household earned almost five times as much as the average household in the bottom quintile, because it had 2.4 times as many working-age members working and on average each worker worked 80% more hours. The average middle-quintile household earned almost 10 times as much and had 2.6 times the percentage of its working-age people working, each working twice as many hours. Yet the bottom 60% of American households received essentially the same income after accounting for taxes, transfer payments and household size.

Given the surge in transfer payments since the war on poverty, it isn’t surprising that the percentage of working-age people in the bottom quintile who actually worked plummeted from 68% in 1967 to 36% in 2017. With transfer payments giving recipients about as much for not working as they could earn working, only a mandatory work requirement as a condition for receiving means-tested benefits will bring them back into the labor market. While official statistics don’t count two-thirds of those transfer payments and don’t show the income equality they produce, Americans who work hard to make ends meet are aware of it. Despite Democratic politicians’ efforts to provoke resentment against the rich, when was the last time you heard working people complain that some people in America are rich? The hostility of working people is increasingly focused on a system where those who don’t break a sweat are about as well off as they are.

This justifiable resentment is the economic source of today’s American populism. It is ravaging the increasingly unstable Democratic political alliance between welfare recipients and blue-collar workers. It was already building in the 1980s, with what were then called Reagan Democrats, and it was fully manifested in the Trump blue-collar political base. It is now driving political realignment among Hispanic voters, who are disproportionately middle-income earners.

By eroding self-reliance, worker pride and labor-force participation, government-generated income equality undermines the very foundations of American prosperity. A democratic society won’t knowingly tolerate it.

Mr. Gramm is a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Early served twice as assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This article is adapted from their book “The Myth of American Inequality,” forthcoming Sept. 15.
.

This was the basis for my wagon comment above.

.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
User avatar
vnatale
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 9422
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:56 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Income Equality

Post by vnatale » Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:51 am

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:44 am


.

This was the basis for my wagon comment above.

.


Side issue but put here because so many here are church going ...

40 years ago I was the treasurer of a church and was meeting with the pastor and the deacons and discussing his pay raise for the upcoming year.

Everyone, including the pastor, was using his salary alone and considering it low (compared to what we were getting paid).

I pointed out, however, that the church was fully paying for a place to for him and his family to live including all the utilities. I further went on to say that all of us have to pay those costs with after-tax money. That led me to grossing up those costs to what we have to earn on a pre-tax basis so as to be able to have enough to pay those costs on an after-tax basis.

I added that amount to his salary and now his compensation did not look so low. It now looked quite generous!

I think it was later that I discovered the concept of a "parsonage allowance" which we implemented which led to even more tax savings for the pastor -- special tax savings not available to anyone reading this. That resulted in an even higher real compensation to him.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by glennds » Wed Aug 31, 2022 11:08 am

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the quoted article. I do think it makes some very valid points.
But all the same I think it's worth pointing out that there is a difference between income inequality and wealth inequality.

Wealth appreciation in the US has not been driven by rising incomes as much as by appreciating asset values. This has been across nearly all classes of appreciating assets (stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate, artwork). Anyone who has not been participating in asset appreciation over the past 30 years has been left behind. Whether that's a problem or not is a matter of personal opinion, I'm simply saying income is not the primary driver of economic disparity in the US IMO.

To the original point of the thread, I do agree with Mountaineer's wagon comment, and that throwing money at the problem is not the solution.
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by Kbg » Wed Aug 31, 2022 11:46 am

glennds wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 11:08 am
Wealth appreciation in the US has not been driven by rising incomes as much as by appreciating asset values. This has been across nearly all classes of appreciating assets (stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate, artwork). Anyone who has not been participating in asset appreciation over the past 30 years has been left behind. Whether that's a problem or not is a matter of personal opinion, I'm simply saying income is not the primary driver of economic disparity in the US IMO.
Also true.

As I understand it (and possibly wrong), a significant part of this is a result of the outrage in the 80s/early 90s (?) on CEO compensation via high salaries so the law was changed to favor stock based compensation.

Additionally, anytime a group of smart folks figure out/start up companies associated with a new technology they tend to get very rich comparatively for a awhile and usually by just the thing growing insanely fast/large and via exploiting non-understanding of the new technology for personal/corporate benefit. Eventually, society and government catches up and they get reigned in to having to essentially play by the same rules as everyone else as modified for the new tech. I think we are seeing this happen now to the software world and internet spaces. An example of this was when e-commerce didn't have to pay sales taxes. That was a huge advantage over brick and mortar and an unfair one.

In our day and age...combine the two above, voila super wealthy.

And I think the Fed has also played a huge role in the wealth disparity via free money for large corporations for a very long time. The only "normal" people who where able to take advantage of free money were those who took mortgages out at artificially low rates.
User avatar
Mountaineer
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 4959
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:54 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:00 pm

I don't quite get what the problem is with wealth. You can transfer wealth (e.g. like bartering, or when the wealthy one dies) but you can't spend wealth without turning it into some sort of income. Why should I care if someone has a lot of wealth? It doesn't impact my life or my lifestyle. What am I missing?
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by glennds » Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:28 pm

Kbg wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 11:46 am

As I understand it (and possibly wrong), a significant part of this is a result of the outrage in the 80s/early 90s (?) on CEO compensation via high salaries so the law was changed to favor stock based compensation.....


....And I think the Fed has also played a huge role in the wealth disparity via free money for large corporations for a very long time. The only "normal" people who where able to take advantage of free money were those who took mortgages out at artificially low rates.
I think all the items you list were factors, but far and away the biggest IMO was the modern phenomenon of ultra low interest rate policy. In a nutshell, interest rates and cost of money forms the cap rate by which other assets are valued. As interest rates drop, the rise in asset values based on cap rate is exponential.
I have seen this firsthand with the commercial real estate market, where cap rates were dropping, driving up sale and purchase prices with no other factors being different. In the equity markets we see it manifest as increase in P/E ratios. The 80's bull market happened for its own reasons, but from the 90s onward, you can see the precipitous rise in stocks coincide with Greenspan's interest rate policies.
A version of this occurs with housing by substituting cap rate for mortgage rates.

The low rates also had the effect of punishing savers and pushing them into risk assets which increased market participation.

I don't know that this is necessarily bad policy, if the outcome is to reward entrepreneurs who create business and reward investors who take risk. If the wealth increase in turn stimulates increased investment which in turn stimulates increased economic base, i.e. jobs, then all is well save for the occasional asset bubble.
Where there is a question is what happens when inflation forces us to raise rates, tighten monetary policy, in an environment where the economic base is not necessarily growing. We go from wealth creation to wealth destruction.
User avatar
I Shrugged
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2062
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:35 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:40 pm

“End the FED!”
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by glennds » Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:40 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:00 pm
I don't quite get what the problem is with wealth. You can transfer wealth (e.g. like bartering, or when the wealthy one dies) but you can't spend wealth without turning it into some sort of income. Why should I care if someone has a lot of wealth? It doesn't impact my life or my lifestyle. What am I missing?
There isn't a problem with wealth. You shouldn't care about someone else's wealth.
You care if you don't have it yourself and asset values have inflated to the point where you are priced out of acquiring them. Most likely consumer prices will have also risen to the point where in real terms they have affected you more than your asset owning fellow citizens. And that does impact your life and your lifestyle.

When you sell an asset to "spend your wealth" you are monetizing an asset, not creating income. The IRS recognizes the difference by distinguishing gain from income. But as a practical matter, if your income (i.e. salary) did not change over a say 10 year period, but your home and investments increased by 100%, then you are considerably wealthier than your co-worker who makes the same salary but did not own a home or any investments. Your wealth increased significantly, and your co-worker was left behind even though no income inequality.
This is an investing forum so you know all this. Am I not getting your question?
User avatar
Mountaineer
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 4959
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:54 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:16 pm

glennds wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:40 pm
Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:00 pm
I don't quite get what the problem is with wealth. You can transfer wealth (e.g. like bartering, or when the wealthy one dies) but you can't spend wealth without turning it into some sort of income. Why should I care if someone has a lot of wealth? It doesn't impact my life or my lifestyle. What am I missing?
There isn't a problem with wealth. You shouldn't care about someone else's wealth.
You care if you don't have it yourself and asset values have inflated to the point where you are priced out of acquiring them. Most likely consumer prices will have also risen to the point where in real terms they have affected you more than your asset owning fellow citizens. And that does impact your life and your lifestyle.

When you sell an asset to "spend your wealth" you are monetizing an asset, not creating income. The IRS recognizes the difference by distinguishing gain from income. But as a practical matter, if your income (i.e. salary) did not change over a say 10 year period, but your home and investments increased by 100%, then you are considerably wealthier than your co-worker who makes the same salary but did not own a home or any investments. Your wealth increased significantly, and your co-worker was left behind even though no income inequality.
This is an investing forum so you know all this. Am I not getting your question?
Thanks for your response. Yes, I do know this. It just seemed to there were a bunch of knickers getting twisted about wealthy people. I probably misinterpreted intent or read the posts too quickly. The issue for most people likely has more to do with income (whether from wages or monetized assets) not keeping up with inflation (of both essential goods and property) more than wealth per se.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by Kbg » Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:18 pm

It's not the wealth per se, it's how the wealth was gained and is retained.

If you're on the far right side you should be able to instantly get this example.

Company X hires illegals. Illegals suppress wages. Company X has more wealth now and took your potential wealth for themselves by pocketing the difference.

Get it now?

Or how about one for all the numerous lefties on the board.

Large Hedge Fund (or bank with a zero cost of capital due to Fed access) has a much cheaper cost of capital than you. They decide to buy all the houses in the neighborhood you wanted to buy in pricing you out of the market.

Large hedge fund pockets the difference in the "spread" between their cost of funds and your loan cost. (Actually, if you are on the right and dislike the Fed this is a bipartisan example)

Get it now?

Wealth isn't a cloud hanging out over someone. It must be gained and then maintained, grown or lost/reduced.
User avatar
Mountaineer
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 4959
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:54 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:41 pm

Kbg wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:18 pm
It's not the wealth per se, it's how the wealth was gained and is retained.

If you're on the far right side you should be able to instantly get this example.

Company X hires illegals. Illegals suppress wages. Company X has more wealth now and took your potential wealth for themselves by pocketing the difference.

Get it now?

Or how about one for all the numerous lefties on the board.

Large Hedge Fund (or bank with a zero cost of capital due to Fed access) has a much cheaper cost of capital than you. They decide to buy all the houses in the neighborhood you wanted to buy in pricing you out of the market.

Large hedge fund pockets the difference in the "spread" between their cost of funds and your loan cost. (Actually, if you are on the right and dislike the Fed this is a bipartisan example)

Get it now?

Wealth isn't a cloud hanging out over someone. It must be gained and then maintained, grown or lost/reduced.
Isn’t the key question why the left and right examples you gave happened? In the first example the impact on me is my meat and restaurant meal costs less. In the second, shame on those who didn’t invest in that hedge fund or didn’t manage their money in ways to not need to borrow. Just kidding, sort of. In other words, the root cause of the problems is me and you. Mankind has been corrupt since the beginning in an endless variety of ways - see thread about Joe and Hunter. 😉
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
User avatar
I Shrugged
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2062
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:35 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Aug 31, 2022 2:40 pm

OK but the Fed's interest rate policy is the main cause of the degree of wealth inequality in the developed world. As kbg said, when you give investment banks money at zero, the prices of investments are going to be bid way up. Driving up the costs of lots of things. The people who get to use the money first (bankers) get the most benefit. Same thing is true during inflation.
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by Kbg » Wed Aug 31, 2022 5:42 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:41 pm
Isn’t the key question why the left and right examples you gave happened? In the first example the impact on me is my meat and restaurant meal costs less. In the second, shame on those who didn’t invest in that hedge fund or didn’t manage their money in ways to not need to borrow. Just kidding, sort of. In other words, the root cause of the problems is me and you. Mankind has been corrupt since the beginning in an endless variety of ways - see thread about Joe and Hunter. 😉
Call me crazy, I have expectations for my fellow human beings. And I expect my government to make as level a playing field as possible.

Completely insane...definitely. :-)
User avatar
dualstow
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 14225
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:18 am
Location: synagogue of Satan
Contact:

Re: Income Equality

Post by dualstow » Wed Sep 07, 2022 11:07 am

Interesting article. Maybe I should opt back in to this Politics §. I miss a lot of stuff.
RIP Marcello Gandini
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by Kbg » Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:34 pm

dualstow wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 11:07 am
Interesting article. Maybe I should opt back in to this Politics §. I miss a lot of stuff.
You should...no one's typical political views have changed, but the articles cited are thought provoking from a range of views, conversation is good with people making really good counterpoints and the tone is civilized. I'm actually posting regularly there again because it is back to being like it was pre-covid.
User avatar
dualstow
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 14225
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:18 am
Location: synagogue of Satan
Contact:

Re: Income Equality

Post by dualstow » Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:47 pm

Good to hear.

I wish Sophie were here. I always enjoyed reading her posts on Basic Income.
RIP Marcello Gandini
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Income Equality

Post by Kbg » Thu Sep 08, 2022 6:08 pm

+1

A definite board loss. I miss MachineGhost as well.
User avatar
Maddy
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1694
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2015 8:43 am

Re: Income Equality

Post by Maddy » Sun Oct 09, 2022 8:41 am

One more reason to aim for the mean. Yes, I know it's "median," but that's not the expression.
Post Reply