Income and Wealth Inequality...

[Sunstone]

An article in this week's New Yorker reviews some new books on income and wealth inequality and presents several ideas that many people might not be familiar with...

Why Inequality Persists in America - The New Yorker

Please discuss.

 

[BSM1]

What's your point?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

An article in this week's New Yorker reviews some new books on income and wealth inequality and presents several ideas that many people might not be familiar with...

Why Inequality Persists in America - The New Yorker

Please discuss.

I think addressing the problems of inequality and its impact, coupled with the courage to call out the systems responsible, is necessary for the survival of the ideals of a representative republic.

The Gini Index appeals to the numbers people, who see greater wisdom in the de-personalized statistics. And the narratives of children growing up and out of/into more poverty appeals to the folks who find greater wisdom in analyzing and identifying their personal experience with cultural poetry and myth.

I like both. Quantitative empirical data on one side, tempered by storytelling. We need more John Steinbecks around us, IMO.

 

[metis]

There are economists, both on the left and the right, that believe that the widening income disparity here in the States and elsewhere is a far greater threat to us than terrorism.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

There are economists, both on the left and the right, that believe that the widening income disparity here in the States and elsewhere is a far greater threat to us than terrorism.

It's this point where both sides are as complicit as they are aware. The system itself is corrupt as the inevitability of capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich....or as each side would say "corporate welfare" or "crony capitalism."

Another major problem is our nations inability to negotiate and compromise with the "other" side....and hence folks only want the wealth redistribution to people they like and agree with. Don't work with conservative Christians, they want to turn this country into a theocracy. Don't work with the NAACP, they want to give handouts to lazy black people who don't take responsibility for the criminal element in their neighborhoods. Don't work with Muslims, they want to instill Sharia Law and execute anyone who is an apostate or insults their prophet. Don't work with feminists, they hate men and want to enforce female privilege and superiority in a Wicker Man world. And on and on and on. Don't work with liberals. Don't work with conservatives. Everyone would rather fight than negotiate.

That doesn't assume calling out people for propagating oppressive behaviors or rhetoric is a bad thing or divisive. We already ARE divided based on perspectivism, but it's NECESSARY to learn how to negotiate and to actually do so in attempts to find the common ground, which is far wider than many are willing to admit.

The enemy isn't the bogeyman or the "other side". It's the system itself, that carries different oppressions and barriers and privileges for different people in myriad ways, and stratifies and classes people in ways that do not reflect what the ideals are for liberty and justice and the free pursuit to happiness.

Inequality happens. THIS kind of inequality, though, is unacceptable and dooms our resource acquisition and management into being funneled entirely to the top .01% in a planet of billions of people. We ought to go from this point, which is a problem the vast majority of people agree with.

 

[metis]

It's this point where both sides are as complicit as they are aware. The system itself is corrupt as the inevitability of capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich....or as each side would say "corporate welfare" or "crony capitalism."

Another major problem is our nations inability to negotiate and compromise with the "other" side....and hence folks only want the wealth redistribution to people they like and agree with. Don't work with conservative Christians, they want to turn this country into a theocracy. Don't work with the NAACP, they want to give handouts to lazy black people who don't take responsibility for the criminal element in their neighborhoods. Don't work with Muslims, they want to instill Sharia Law and execute anyone who is an apostate or insults their prophet. Don't work with feminists, they hate men and want to enforce female privilege and superiority in a Wicker Man world. And on and on and on. Don't work with liberals. Don't work with conservatives. Everyone would rather fight than negotiate.

That doesn't assume calling out people for propagating oppressive behaviors or rhetoric is a bad thing or divisive. We already ARE divided based on perspectivism, but it's NECESSARY to learn how to negotiate and to actually do so in attempts to find the common ground, which is far wider than many are willing to admit.

The enemy isn't the bogeyman or the "other side". It's the system itself, that carries different oppressions and barriers and privileges for different people in myriad ways, and stratifies and classes people in ways that do not reflect what the ideals are for liberty and justice and the free pursuit to happiness.

Inequality happens. THIS kind of inequality, though, is unacceptable and dooms our resource acquisition and management into being funneled entirely to the top .01% in a planet of billions of people. We ought to go from this point, which is a problem the vast majority of people agree with.

Well, said and I completely agree.

 

[icehorse]

I'll recommend "Who Owns the Future". In it Jaron Lanier characterizes economies as complex machines. Like all machines they need tweaking and fine-tuning.

Next I'll borrow from Robert Reich and point to the tweaks we had in place during the Eisenhower years. The economy was booming, taxes on the rich were staggering compared to today, education was booming, and on and on.

Finally, let me borrow from a TED talk by Nick Hanauer, the gist being that "Rich People Don't Create Jobs".

Bottom line, for the last 30 years we've been sold a bill of goods, and we've all got to start slamming politicians who continue to defend bankers, corporations and billionaires.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'll recommend "Who Owns the Future". In it Jaron Lanier characterizes economies as complex machines. Like all machines they need tweaking and fine-tuning.

Next I'll borrow from Robert Reich and point to the tweaks we had in place during the Eisenhower years. The economy was booming, taxes on the rich were staggering compared to today, education was booming, and on and on.

We should remember that that those weren't the only conditions during a booming economy.
Others......
- High marginal income tax rates were offset by systemic dodges.
- We had no significant overseas competition.
- There was a culture of shame in being on the dole.
- Economic regulation was much less than today.
- We had a large technological advantage in an era of rapidly changing technology.
Economic performance can never be reduced to....the taxes were such & such....so-&-so was prez...or any such single tertiary factor.

 

[Wirey]

We should remember that that those weren't the only conditions during a booming economy.
Others......
- High marginal income tax rates were offset by systemic dodges.
- We had no significant overseas competition.
- There was a culture of shame in being on the dole.
- Economic regulation was much less than today.
- We had a large technological advantage in an era of rapidly changing technology.
Economic performance can never be reduced to....the taxes were such & such....so-&-so was prez...or any such single tertiary factor.

Most of this is true, except for the part he probably edited out about how I'm better looking than him.

During Eisenhower's term the vast bulk of the rest of the planet was just getting caught up from having their industries pounded with high explosives for six years. America had established a huge advantage in technology that they would ride until the end of the Apollo program. American industry was rebuilding the planet and had enormous overseas markets to sell to with no competition from places like Japan and Germany (still smouldering). Comparing that era to this one is apples and oranges.

 

[Revoltingest]

Most of this is true, except for the part he probably edited out about how I'm better looking than him.

I've long conceded that you're the superior example of man meat!

But in me prime, I was quite studly....

During Eisenhower's term the vast bulk of the rest of the planet was just getting caught up from having their industries pounded with high explosives for six years. America had established a huge advantage in technology that they would ride until the end of the Apollo program. American industry was rebuilding the planet and had enormous overseas markets to sell to with no competition from places like Japan and Germany (still smouldering). Comparing that era to this one is apples and oranges.

Aye! But a complete & thoughtful comparison is interesting indeed.

 

[metis]

During Eisenhower's term the vast bulk of the rest of the planet was just getting caught up from having their industries pounded with high explosives for six years. America had established a huge advantage in technology that they would ride until the end of the Apollo program. American industry was rebuilding the planet and had enormous overseas markets to sell to with no competition from places like Japan and Germany (still smouldering). Comparing that era to this one is apples and oranges.

And we have to remember that during the Eisenhower era, resource levels were relatively high per capita and unions had many more members per capita. That combination led to a relatively wealthy and stable middle class, along with some other factor of course.

What we have been seeing is a gradual deterioration of the middle class especially, and this has been a gradual process that pretty much started in the late 1970's/early 1980's. Many states went after unions to weaken them, plus resources are getting harder and harder to find and their relative costs are going up, although not uniformly.

I've been saying for the last two decades now that we are going in the direction of becoming a "banana republic" (although "potato republic" may be more appropriate), with a wider disparity of wealth and more relative income being concentrated at the top, which was and is what we've seen with most countries to our south. This is a highly unstable situation if it continues, and the likelihood is that it will.

If we continue along this path and don't make intelligent economic and political adjustments, we're in for trouble. However, those with "privilege" will be a heavy wall of resistance because "money talks...", and we know how then end of that goes. The rather notable British anthropologist, Desmond Morris ("The Naked Ape"), in a 1970 or so interview, predicted this happening to us, and said he was worried because Americans, he said, don't know when to stop competing, and therefore we need to start spending more effort on cooperating with each other. If we don't, this could well tear us apart in the future.

 

[icehorse]

We should remember that that those weren't the only conditions during a booming economy.
Others......
- High marginal income tax rates were offset by systemic dodges.
- We had no significant overseas competition.
- There was a culture of shame in being on the dole.
- Economic regulation was much less than today.
- We had a large technological advantage in an era of rapidly changing technology.
Economic performance can never be reduced to....the taxes were such & such....so-&-so was prez...or any such single tertiary factor.

But...

- We invested heavily in infrastructure (interstate highways)
- We invested heavily in education (National Defense Education Act)
- We EXPANDED social security
- The median wage rose at record rates
- The incomes of the working class and poor rose at record rates

In short, we made it possible for a growing, healthy middle class to buy stuff. People buying stuff is what creates jobs.

 

[Revoltingest]

But...

- We invested heavily in infrastructure (interstate highways)
- We invested heavily in education (National Defense Education Act)
- We EXPANDED social security
- The median wage rose at record rates
- The incomes of the working class and poor rose at record rates

In short, we made it possible for a growing, healthy middle class to buy stuff. People buying stuff is what creates jobs.

There are even more factors than you & I have listed, which is why economics is a very complex social science. The ability to measure money flow & apply arcane math gives the illusion that it's a precise science. It ain't.
But "people buying stuff" does not create jobs.
People buying stuff in concert with people making & providing stuff comprise a system which creates jobs.
To overuse the chain analogy.....no single link makes a chain.

I'm reminded of an assignment we had in a junior high school biology class.....defend a particular system as the most important in the body. I got stuck with the endocrine system. But one couldn't do without the immune system, the circulatory system, the digestive system, etc. They all work together, & each is essential.

 

[icehorse]

Agreed that it's a complex system.

My main point is that we should all rail against anyone who cries "pamper the job creators". That's a damaging fallacy, and one that we've been implementing since Ronnie was in charge.

 

[dust1n]

I'm relatively convinced that UBI of 14,000 thousand dollars applying to all independent peoples (not dependent minors) (or perhaps adjusted for how costs will, I'm no expert) would solve a lot of the problems Americans might be facing.

For one, it empowers workers, who can gain access to basic wealth distribution and social services with minimized bureaucracy. It also cushions job loss, and prevents exploitative labor (makes it easier to quite jobs and search for new work). It helps small business owners who have a slight automatic cushion for failed attempts.

Well... that would be a start...