Audie
Veteran Member
Only way it happens is if it's
somehow a zero sum game.
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Income Inequality.
- Thread starter Kfox
- Start date
somehow a zero sum game.
When Trump became president and he had a meeting with CEO’s of various companies introducing his new Trickle-Down economics plan but said they needed to share the wealth with line workers, and Walmart, Target, and many other companies raised their minimum wages, and gave bonuses to their employees.
Walmart raises wages, gives bonuses after GOP tax cut
Retail giant said will pay bonuses of up to $1,000 per worker and increase starting salaries to $11 per hour
www.cbsnews.com
Those companies made record profits the following years. That would be an example of raising wages without the rich getting poorer. Now what evidence do you have that when I do get a raise, the rich gets poorer?
Skid row is about poor people and has nothing to do with the income gap
Wait! So the Government fires the current board of directors and hires a new one? How does the Government do this with only 15% of the stock? The other 85% of shareholders will not go along with it. And when the Government tries to sell the 15% of Tesla stock that will likely destroy the company, causing the share price to drop through the floor!
What do you mean change it into a corporation? Tesla is already a corporation! Am I missing something? Or are you not making sense here. Please explain.
My point is during economic hardships the poor are worse off, and during economic prosparity, the poor are better off.
Because if it did, you would have shown that it does.
Well, if income inequality was actually good for the economy, then we would see actual tangible results, wouldn't we? Do we have anything to show for it that's good?
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Koldo
Outstanding Member
When Trump became president and he had a meeting with CEO’s of various companies introducing his new Trickle-Down economics plan but said they needed to share the wealth with line workers, and Walmart, Target, and many other companies raised their minimum wages, and gave bonuses to their employees.
Walmart raises wages, gives bonuses after GOP tax cut
Retail giant said will pay bonuses of up to $1,000 per worker and increase starting salaries to $11 per hour
Those companies made record profits the following years. That would be an example of raising wages without the rich getting poorer.
Is their higher profit a direct consequence of raising wages though? Can you establish cause and effect? Because what I see here is them getting record profit despite of raising wages.
And even if you can establish cause and effect, you would most certainly agree that after a certain point they would start losing money by raising the wages even further, right?
Ask your employer why he doesn't want to double your wages starting from tomorrow.
EconGuy
Active Member
Sure, easy.
There have been a number of cases in the United States where for-profit prisons have been accused of paying kickbacks to magistrates in order to increase sentences. In one particularly well-known case, two Pennsylvania judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, were convicted of accepting $2.8 million in kickbacks from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. In exchange for the kickbacks, Ciavarella and Conahan shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and sent hundreds of children to the for-profit facilities. Many of the children were sent to the facilities for minor offenses, such as truancy and smoking on school grounds.
The case of Ciavarella and Conahan is not the only example of for-profit prisons paying kickbacks to magistrates. In 2015, a federal judge in Texas sentenced a former magistrate to 12 years in prison for accepting kickbacks from a for-profit prison company. The judge, Abel Limas, was accused of accepting $100,000 in kickbacks in exchange for sending defendants to the for-profit prison company.
Source
In 2015, Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of Daraprim, a life-saving drug, from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
I don't need to source this I hope.
The Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, have been accused of misleading doctors and patients about the addictiveness of OxyContin, a painkiller that has been linked to the opioid epidemic. The Sacklers have made billions of dollars from OxyContin, while millions of Americans have become addicted to the drug. And who suffered the most at the hands of the Sakler family? Ding, Ding, Ding......The poor.
Oh, and let's not forget the payday lending industry. Just doing their civic duty ensuring that poor people have money in a pinch, right?
Wealthy individuals and organizations can donate to political campaigns, which gives them a significant advantage in elections. This means that politicians are more likely to listen to the concerns of wealthy donors than the concerns of the poor.
- In 2014, a study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that 80% of payday loan borrowers rolled over their loans at least once, and 20% rolled over their loans six or more times. This means that many borrowers were trapped in a cycle of debt, and they were paying much more than they borrowed.
- A 2012 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that payday loan borrowers were more likely to experience financial hardship than borrowers of other types of loans. The study also found that payday loan borrowers were more likely to have trouble paying their rent or mortgage, and they were more likely to have their utilities shut off.
- A 2017 study by the National Consumer Law Center found that payday loans can have a negative impact on borrowers' mental health. The study found that payday loan borrowers were more likely to experience anxiety and depression than borrowers of other types of loans.
Then there's Clarence Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch have all been connected to wealthy billionaire doners and law firms, ALL of which had business before the court. And while I won't cite any specific case that harms the poor, it's not hard to use your imagination to think that what Harlan Crow isn't fighting for is higher pay, training and education for the poor...lol
Oh, one of my faves....
A hedge fund called Alden Global Capital has been buying up mobile home parks across the United States in recent years. The company has a plan to drive up rents until people can't pay and take over homes many of which are owned but are too expensive to move and are purchased for pennies on the dollar. Then they rent them out. Not only do they do this, but they give their investors tours of the properties they own and have taken over in order to attract more investment.
Alden Global Capital is a private equity firm that specializes in buying distressed assets. The company has a reputation for being a "vulture capitalist," meaning that it buys companies that are struggling and then cuts costs and sells off assets in order to make a profit.
In the case of mobile home parks, Alden Global Capital is buying up parks that are often owned by small, family-owned businesses. The company then raises rents and cuts maintenance, making it difficult for residents to afford to stay. In some cases, Alden Global Capital has even tried to evict residents in order to take over their homes and rent them out for a profit.
This practice has been criticized by consumer advocates and mobile home park residents. They argue that Alden Global Capital is taking advantage of low-income people who are already struggling to make ends meet. They also argue that the company's practices are driving up the cost of mobile home living and making it harder for people to afford to own their own homes.
In 2022, a group of mobile home park residents in Michigan filed a lawsuit against Alden Global Capital, alleging that the company had violated state law by engaging in unfair and deceptive practices. The lawsuit is still pending.
The case of Alden Global Capital and mobile home parks is a reminder of the power of wealth and the need for regulation. When wealthy investors are able to buy up essential assets, such as housing, they have the power to drive up prices and make it harder for people to afford to live. This is a problem that needs to be addressed, and it is one that is likely to become more urgent in the years to come.
Source
Economically, higher levels of income disparity mean that the wealthy have a higher share of resources, like buying up real estate around lakes and making them private. Using higher levels of income to speculate on homes drive up costs. Same for energy prices.
It would be pretty easy to fill a book with examples of how income disparity harm the poor.
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EconGuy
Active Member
According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, 14 of the 15 CEOs who attended the meeting did eventually raise wages for their employees. However, the report also found that the wage increases were not as large as Trump had promised.
The report found that the average wage increase for the 14 companies was 2.4%. This is below the average wage increase of 3.1% that occurred in 2016.
The report also found that the wage increases were not evenly distributed. The largest wage increases went to employees at the highest levels of the companies. For example, the CEO of Walmart received a 10% wage increase, while the average hourly wage at Walmart increased by only 2%.
The report concluded that the wage increases that occurred after Trump's meeting with the CEOs were "modest" and "did not significantly boost wages for low- and middle-income workers.
In 2015 the inflation rate was 0.7% and in 2016 it was 1.26%, meaning if the wage increase averaged 2.4% for low waged workers, the real increase would be 1.7% in 2015 and 0.78% in 2016.
And let's not forget, that wages had been falling behind for decades before these "raises". Now, it's anecdotal, but in 1987 I made $5.25 washing dishes at a mom-and-pop seafood restaurant near Boston. In 1989 I worked in the Deli at a grocery store in rural Maine for $7.80, now adjust for inflation that's $15.80 and $18.40 respectively in a time when my college was $65 a credit (in some places in NY college was free).
Rising tides and all?
I think not.
I didn't say inequality was good for the economy, I said when inequality is at it's greatest, the poor are better off, and when it is at it's least, the poor are worse off.
Because during economic hardships, inequality is less, and during times of economic growth, inequality is at it's greatest.
No; it was the result of tax cuts. But my point was, just because the line worker gets a raise does not mean share holders lose money.
EconGuy
Active Member
This is demonstrably false.
In my examples of how the poor suffer from income inequity, I didn't point out that greater income inequity leads to greater ownership by the wealthy who in turn rent to the poor, capturing an increasing share of their income/ labor.
I guess your going to tell us when the wealthy have more money they spend it in ways that benefit the poor. That's simply false. Money is saved as unrealized investments (to avoid taxes), stock buybacks, and speculation to name just a few.
How does private prisons make people poor?
So your argument is when crooks rip people off, the poor are mostly effected? That may be true, but that’s not the result of income inequality, that’s just an example of crooks do what crooks do regardless of inequality. IOW even if the gap between the rich and the poor were less, those crooks would still rip people off.
There are political PAC’s for the poor as well; PAC’s exist regardless of income inequality; IOW even if equality were less, PAC’s would still exist.
The examples of crooked business dealings have nothing to do with income inequality because if the gap between the rich and poor were less, these shady deals would still go on.
This has nothing to do with what I was talking about, my point was; just because a worker gets a raise, doesn't mean the rich lose money.
Your examples had nothing to do with inequality, it was about people with money ripping other people off. Do you understand the difference?
Income inequality does not allow the wealthy to own property, even if the poor were slightly better off, the rich would still own property.
You are missing the main point here.
Wealth is power and influence. If the wealth is concentrated in say, 5% of the population, then that 5% effectively determines all the policies, laws and also have the power to act without worrying about the law. Thus the policies of the nation no longer represent the interests of the majority, but cater to a minority affluent group only.
There is a reason why very few people were imprisoned (and mostly for light sentences) for the 2008 Wall Street disaster that caused suffering to millions of people, while a poor person can spend 5-10 years in prison for relatively minor robberies and theft that affect one or two people at most. Because the laws are created to look after the interests of the rich.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Some CEOs have taken a lower pay to pay more to their workers. Unsurprisingly worker satisfaction is high, turnover is low amd they are very productive.
Oh stop acting like wealth is the only type of power that exist! Academia is power, social media is power, cancel culture is power; there are countless ways people exhibit power; not just through wealth.