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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #100 on: February 07, 2018, 05:18:50 AM »
PBS is airing a show called "The Gilded Age" that traces historical roots of plutocrat takeover of US government more than a hundred years ago. Quite refreshing, PBS has been more an apologist for Empire of late.

I crosspost to the "Must Read" thread.

sidd

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #101 on: February 08, 2018, 08:35:54 PM »
America's finest news source on FBI's latest warning:

" ... millions have already fallen victim to the long-running grift ...promised great prosperity and success ...  only to find themselves swindled and left with virtually nothing ... susceptible parties are made to believe that class mobility is possible simply through ability or achievement ... Many even travelled across the world ...drawn in by wild promises ...  got played for suckers ...investigating a number of upper-middle class white men who have suspiciously benefitted ... "

https://www.theonion.com/fbi-warns-of-american-dream-scam-1822834360

"It's called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it." -- George Carlin

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #102 on: February 13, 2018, 12:25:56 AM »
Choose your parents carefully. Slightly less care needed on grandparents:

" We directly link family lines across data spanning 1910 to 2013 and find a substantial “grandparent effect” for cohorts born since 1920, as well as some evidence of a “great-grandparent effect.” Although these may be due to measurement error, we conclude that estimates from only two generations of data understate persistence by about 20 percent."

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22635

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #103 on: February 16, 2018, 03:07:54 AM »
Two papers:

1) Bonica et al. 2013 doi:10.1257/jep.27.3.103

Very good paper. The title enquires why democracy has not slowed rising inequality; the paper shows the beginnings of an answer. I attach figure 6 showing that the politicians now rely on the top ten thousandth of the money pyramid for more than 40% of campaign money. Fig 6 has a more detailed breakup for the Democrats.

2) Presentation by Piketty in January this year which is a closer look at voter breakup in France and USA. He oserves that the leftist parties in France and the Democrats in the USA have been taken over by well educated, highly paid globalists and proposes a model to guide future analysis.

piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2018PoliticalConflict.pdf

many nice graphs

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #104 on: February 16, 2018, 07:58:00 AM »
Killing off the poor, the rich folk don't need as many of the great unwashed labor force these days:

"On average, a boy born in one of the most affluent areas will outlive one born in one of the poorest by 8.4 years.

That was up from 7.2 years in 2001, the Longevity Science Panel (LSP) found. "

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43058394

and right on cue, dead homeless guy by Parliament. And a comment by Corbyn, reminds me of Helder Camara: "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-43063019

sidd
« Last Edit: February 16, 2018, 08:12:07 AM by sidd »

Buddy

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #105 on: February 22, 2018, 07:53:30 PM »
Gates and Buffet are BOTH known for thinking the economic disparity is far too high....and the wealthy should pay a much higher rate.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-paid-over-10-191900392.html?_fsig=uxC7dQ7KyrgFyIyxJLA8sA--

And the graph below shows the following for US income tax:  (1) highest marginal rate (2) lowest marginal rate (3) number of brackets.
FOX (RT) News....."The Trump Channel.....where truth and journalism are dead."

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #106 on: February 25, 2018, 08:06:56 PM »
A (small) study shows that outcomes for disadvantaged children are inversely correlated with their beliefs in a fair and meritocratic society.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/internalizing-the-myth-of-meritocracy/535035/

sidd

zheega

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #107 on: February 25, 2018, 09:37:44 PM »
Quote
Gates and Buffet are BOTH known for thinking the economic disparity is far too high....and the wealthy should pay a much higher rate.

And there is also no need to raise the max marginal rates. Just kill all the loopholes and bring back all the untaxed money from tax havens.

US has declared many stupid wars, why not just declare a war on tax havens? I doubt Virgin Islands have much of a military. Domestic tax havens (such as Delaware) and UK's tax havens can be dealt with through legislation.

There is predicted to be ~$30 trillion hidden in tax havens. Tax all money in tax havens at 50% if obtained legally, at 100% if the owner can't prove that it was obtained legally. Distribute it between the countries where those people are from.

Problem solved.

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #108 on: February 27, 2018, 12:01:08 AM »
Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism pointed me to a 2016 paper by Mir and Storm which compares national carbon emissions on the basis of consumption rather than production. Unsurprisingly they find the Kuznets curve is largely a myth, since developed countries export carbon release. They find that the maximum carbon release, when plotted against per capita income is not at 36K USD as in the production based model but rather at 113 KUSD for the consumption based model. Since the latter level of per capita income is outside the range of all nations in the study, they conclude that "  ... the relationship between per capita income and per capita carbon emissions is monotonically increasing and the consumption-related CO2 emissions per capita do not decouple from economic growth within sample range. "

https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/carbon-emissions-and-economic-growth-production-based-versus-consumption-based-evidence-on-decoupling

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #109 on: February 27, 2018, 12:08:40 AM »
An article in Rolling Stone about climate migrations quotes Solomon Hsiang:

--
"Most people don't realize how much climate affects everything, from their property values to how hard people work," says Solomon Hsiang, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who led a recent study that predicts, as the climate warms, there will be "a large transfer of value northward and westward." And the wealthy, who can afford to adapt, will benefit, while the poor, who will likely be left behind, will suffer. "If we continue on the current path," Hsiang says, "our analysis suggests that climate change may result in the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the country's history."
--

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/welcome-to-the-age-of-climate-migration-w516974


Hsiang has many good papers out

http://www.globalpolicy.science/solomon-hsiang-publications

From doi: 10.1126/science.aal4369

"Combining impacts across sectors reveals that warming causes a net transfer of value from Southern, Central, and Mid-Atlantic regions toward the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes region, and New England (Fig. 2I). In some counties, median losses exceed 20% of gross county product (GCP), while median gains sometimes exceed 10% of GCP. Because losses are largest in regions that are already poorer on average, climate change tends to increase preexisting inequality in the United States."

sidd
« Last Edit: February 27, 2018, 02:28:16 AM by sidd »

TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #110 on: February 27, 2018, 02:53:05 AM »
A (small) study shows that outcomes for disadvantaged children are inversely correlated with their beliefs in a fair and meritocratic society.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/internalizing-the-myth-of-meritocracy/535035/

sidd
Thanks


California was in the process of integrating their schools as I washed up on their shores. What was noticeable was that a number of the minority kids quit trying when thrown to the wolves among the better prepared students.
Kids that may have done well when competing among students with similarly ill prepared peers were disheartened when their best just wasn't enough to compete with children raised in homes where english was spoken, and education was valued.


I don't know the answer, but this isn't working.
Terry


Iceismylife

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #111 on: February 27, 2018, 03:48:56 AM »
I read a letter written in about 1890 or so by someone with the name Rockefeller it went a bit like this he liked the way someone was educating back people as all they were good for when that person was done with them was factory work.

The way black people in the US have been treated has me pissed.

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #112 on: February 28, 2018, 09:42:24 PM »

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #113 on: February 28, 2018, 09:54:32 PM »
Varoufakis Agoniste:Review of Varoufakis' latest on the rape of Greece:

"It was a bailout—but for banks in Germany, France, and elsewhere, not for Greece."

" the creditors were lending Greece money only so that it could keep paying back those same creditors. In effect, the Greek state was paying a substantial tribute to its creditors each year for the privilege of remaining in debt to them. "

“we were dealing with creditors who did not really want their money back.”

Schauble:
"Europe was losing competitiveness and would stagnate unless social benefits were curtailed en masse. "

"For German conservatives such as Schäuble, Greece is indeed just somewhere to make a start; the real target is the larger and stronger welfare states of Europe—and ultimately their own working class. "

"What if the actual goal was austerity, and the crisis and unpayable debt just convenient openings to pursue it?"

Quote from the Economist lays out motiavations for the rape of things to come:

".The real problem, not just for Italy and France but also for Germany, is that, so far, life has continued to be too good for too many people."

"In short, Greece had to be made an example of so people in the rest of Europe wouldn’t get ideas. "

" The dejected Tsipras has a clearer view of the situation when he replies that new proposals don’t matter: “They want to destroy us.” "

The last sentence is:

"Game theorist that he is, Varoufakis must know that the bargaining power of the weak depends on their exit options.  "

https://bostonreview.net/politics/j-w-mason-austerity-design

Read the whole thing. In fact read all of Varoufakis. A good start is

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/

sidd

Iceismylife

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #114 on: March 01, 2018, 12:32:26 AM »
Varoufakis Agoniste:Review of Varoufakis' latest on the rape of Greece:

"It was a bailout—but for banks in Germany, France, and elsewhere, not for Greece."

" the creditors were lending Greece money only so that it could keep paying back those same creditors. In effect, the Greek state was paying a substantial tribute to its creditors each year for the privilege of remaining in debt to them. "

“we were dealing with creditors who did not really want their money back.”

Schauble:
"Europe was losing competitiveness and would stagnate unless social benefits were curtailed en masse. "

"For German conservatives such as Schäuble, Greece is indeed just somewhere to make a start; the real target is the larger and stronger welfare states of Europe—and ultimately their own working class. "

"What if the actual goal was austerity, and the crisis and unpayable debt just convenient openings to pursue it?"

Quote from the Economist lays out motiavations for the rape of things to come:

".The real problem, not just for Italy and France but also for Germany, is that, so far, life has continued to be too good for too many people."

"In short, Greece had to be made an example of so people in the rest of Europe wouldn’t get ideas. "

" The dejected Tsipras has a clearer view of the situation when he replies that new proposals don’t matter: “They want to destroy us.” "

The last sentence is:

"Game theorist that he is, Varoufakis must know that the bargaining power of the weak depends on their exit options.  "

https://bostonreview.net/politics/j-w-mason-austerity-design

Read the whole thing. In fact read all of Varoufakis. A good start is

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/

sidd
I've thought that what the Greeks needed to do was issued paper curency that is good only in Greece.

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #115 on: March 01, 2018, 12:56:38 AM »
"Greeks needed to do was issued paper curency that is good only in Greece."

That was part of Varoufakis' plan, as set forth in the article, to create a nationall parallel payment system.

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Iceismylife

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #116 on: March 01, 2018, 03:00:18 AM »
Local currency, good only in there.  Hand it out to the pensioners, that should control inflation.

I'm not conversant with the plan.  But handing out 20 euro notes that are good for paying taxes. At one to one.

If you want to service the debts you need everyone working and at a high rate of pay.  Austerity isn't practical at paying debts. 

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #117 on: March 02, 2018, 12:04:10 AM »
I have posted a comment by the Pope previously in this thread:

""The principal ethical dilemma of this capitalism is the creation of discarded people, then trying to hide them or make sure they are no longer seen. A serious form of poverty in a civilization is when it is no longer able to see its poor, who are first discarded and then hidden."

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=post;topic=2143.0;last_msg=144056

Now here is an editorial from the LA times, that unwittingly echoes the point:

"The increasing visibility of homelessness and destitution contributes to the uneasy feeling that the problem is closing in on everyone."

Of course, if they were invisible, this would not happen. Unfortunately, the homeless are, by their too obvious existence, discomforting their betters.

The editorial makes some well meaning suggestions and bemoans the lack of action. In that it once again repeats the Pope:

"Gambling companies finance campaigns to care for the pathological gamblers that they create. And the day that the weapons industry finances hospitals to care for the children mutilated by their bombs, the system will have reached its pinnacle."

Yes, so now the very system that creates the homeless is to build shelters for them. Perhaps easier to not create homeless in the first place? Naah, that might mean looking in a mirror.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-homelessness-impact-on-others-20180301-htmlstory.html

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #118 on: March 02, 2018, 01:54:29 AM »
Jail the poor for twice as long, that'll learn 'em.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43214596

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TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #119 on: March 02, 2018, 10:57:10 AM »
Jail the poor for twice as long, that'll learn 'em.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43214596

sidd
And it keeps them out of sight! 8)


In Las Vegas the cops come through with bulldozers about once a year to "encourage" the homeless to move elsewhere, preferably outside the city limits.


With automation and AI threatening everyone's livelihood we'll soon have many more to hide, but far fewer to hide them from.


Terry

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #120 on: March 02, 2018, 11:40:38 AM »
Maybe also reintroduce ättestupan; geronticide? At least for everyone over 50, or some other arbitrary economic efficiency level.
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
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TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #121 on: March 02, 2018, 12:02:44 PM »
Maybe also reintroduce ättestupan; geronticide? At least for everyone over 50, or some other arbitrary economic efficiency level.


AAAUUKKK!!!


Firstly, I believe that robot ownership should be limited to humans, corporations need not apply. Secondly, the number of robots owned by each person needs to be regulated and equalized. No one gets two robots until every adult has one.


AI is a bit more challenging. ::)


Terry

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #122 on: March 03, 2018, 07:21:24 AM »
Of course I am, Terry. Unless you refer to, the now extinct, Great Auk?  ;D

You commented sidd's post above on how we deal with those pesky groups in society, so I took it to where all of us risks seeing the effects of discrimination, ageism. As an example:
https://www.nextavenue.org/whats-ageism-got-to-do-with-it/
All forms of discrimination intersect with and compound one another.

But maybe we joke a bit more about ättestupan in the Nordic countries, than you over there. What would I know.
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #123 on: March 05, 2018, 07:19:52 PM »
A doctor describes how the poor get screwed by the medical industry:

"I think it’s appalling that one person’s illness would be an opportunity for another to make money."

" ... employers use employer-sponsored health insurance as a form of control over workers ... If you have a sick person in your family on your plan, you’re afraid to leave your job, because your loved one needs the coverage."

"If you try to organize a strike, you will find your health insurance canceled as soon as the strike starts."

"I’ve written about an uninsured landscaper who didn’t have a steady winter job. He ran a snowblower and drove a plow, but the work was pretty sporadic. When there was a major snowstorm, he tried to work a twenty-hour day, to make up for lost wages. But because he had an infected tooth and had not been able to eat much for a few days, he collapsed after sixteen hours. I ended up admitting him to the hospital."

"President Harry Truman began to champion the idea of national health insurance. In response the AMA hired a Madison Avenue advertising firm to counter Truman’s initiative. They came up with the term “socialized medicine” to defeat Truman’s agenda, again disparaging the idea as a communist plot."

"I once had a clinic patient who needed to be in the hospital, but she refused to take an ambulance after having previously been billed a large amount for one. So I drove her forty miles myself. Some of my colleagues were shocked to hear this, asking, “What if something had happened while she was in your car?” "

"The uninsured pay with their lives. For every million people without health insurance in the U.S., about a thousand deaths occur that could have been prevented."

Kill the poor.

Read the whole thing:

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/507/the-end-of-insurance

sidd



TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #124 on: March 05, 2018, 07:52:35 PM »
sidd
I can't bring myself to even read the article.


When I moved back to Canada I had no idea how the healthcare system would work. I was using a cane and Nevada's best doctors gave me less than 6 months to live. I figured that it didn't matter much at that stage.


I went to a walking clinic on a Tuesday, that evening I had a phone call from one of the world's few specialists in CIDP, and an appointment for the next month, since that was in remission.
Thursday morning I was having my recurring cancer chopped out (again), and this time it didn't come back for 5 years. Quite a difference from the back in 90 days results I'd experienced 6 times in Nevada.


Long story short I haven't picked up my cane in over 7 years, and I've been without cancer for 8 years. So much for the dead in 6 mo. guys.


It's not just that everything is free, it's the quality of the care received.
It's not all about those who die because of crap medical care, it's about the years of pain, and the loss of lifestyle that accompany the high mortality.


American women should have fewer deaths during childbirth than Cuban women. It's a disgrace that costs nothing to fix - except for the costs to politicians who will lose their healthcare gratuity.


Terry

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #125 on: March 05, 2018, 09:26:02 PM »
A very nice site on inequality is

https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality

Especially the list of references. I note it has a graph from Saez, Zucman and Piketty.

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #126 on: March 06, 2018, 12:10:13 AM »
Our minister for health [uk] is doing his best to demoralise and ruin our health service. I expect he'll grow very rich very quickly if he succeeds. We've had twenty odd years of pfi initiatives diverting funds from healthcare into servicing debt, and increasing privatisation of cherry picked services. Long term i guess they're trying to introduce a private healthcare insurance model similar to the US, but it has to be done by stealth since supporters of every party, in the majority, support the current system. So they have to dress the private sector as a white knight coming to the rescue of a failing [by design] system. https://nhaparty.org/

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #127 on: March 07, 2018, 12:33:50 AM »

oren

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #128 on: March 07, 2018, 11:07:42 AM »
America's health care system is truly horrible.

ivica

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #129 on: March 10, 2018, 11:32:23 AM »
Economic Update: A System Rigged Against Us


In this video Richard D. Wolff gives (brief historical: Great Depression ... Today) description of "inequality" situation majority faces today. And the active role of Democratic party in it. He ends (27:45) with:
   "if you don't deal with that institutional arrangement, if you don't deal with that structure of the enterprise, all your efforts and an equalizing of our inequality will come to the sad end that we just saw. They won't work."


< As Concentrated Corporate Power grew so is The CO2 Problem. Can we stop it? >



sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #130 on: March 15, 2018, 10:56:14 PM »
Parramore on the disappearance of the middle class in the USA:

"In one of these countries live members of what Temin calls the “FTE sector” (named for finance, technology, and electronics, the industries which largely support its growth). These are the 20 percent of Americans who enjoy college educations, have good jobs, and sleep soundly knowing that they have not only enough money to meet life’s challenges, but also social networks to bolster their success ... count themselves as lucky to be Americans. "

...

"The FTE citizens rarely visit the country where the other 80 percent of Americans live: the low-wage sector. Here, the world of possibility is shrinking, often dramatically. People are burdened with debt and anxious about their insecure jobs if they have a job at all. Many of them are getting sicker and dying younger than they used to ... While members of the first country act, these people are acted upon. "

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #131 on: March 21, 2018, 05:47:46 AM »
Freeze the poor. In a very cold winter

"According to the Authority’s own figures, between October 1 and January 22, 143,000 apartments, representing more than 80 percent of residents, lacked heat and hot water for periods averaging 48 hours, many for much longer."

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/20/nych-m20.html

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #132 on: March 21, 2018, 06:34:42 AM »
$1,800 per month for a two-bedroom apartment, that's falling apart?  ::)
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SteveMDFP

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #133 on: March 21, 2018, 02:55:11 PM »
$1,800 per month for a two-bedroom apartment, that's falling apart?  ::)

Not surprising, really.  Rents in general are very high in NYC.  In public housing rent is often a third of income.  Very poor people pay much less than middle-class folk.  So a shrinking number of middle-class tenants (moving out because the places are going to heck), means less money from renters to maintain the overall system. This leaves only the poor, paying little rent. This is a socio-economic positive feedback.  "Positive" in this case meaning adverse.

Public housing is part of the nation's *infrastructure*.  But the largest source of funding for this infrastructure is the Federal budget.  There was an effort under R administrations to shift Federal housing spending from public ownership of public housing to Section 8 subsidies, to put people in private housing.  I think it's, in theory, not necessarily a bad idea (though it is a neo-liberal concept).  It only works if enough Section 8 vouchers are available.  Not nearly enough are.

It was an obscene paradox during the housing market collapse.  Many more homeless in America, while simultaneously much housing vacant and being foreclosed.  It shouldn't have been too hard to solve each half of the problem with the other half of the problem.  Didn't happen.  More here:

Chart Book: Federal Housing Spending Is Poorly Matched to Need
https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/chart-book-federal-housing-spending-is-poorly-matched-to-need

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #134 on: March 21, 2018, 04:25:38 PM »
Appreciated your explanation, Steve. Thanks.
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
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Science is a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings.

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #135 on: March 21, 2018, 07:16:06 PM »
Catherine Austin Fitts wrote about how corrupt public housing was some time ago. https://dillonreadandco.com/hud-is-a-sewer/

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #136 on: March 21, 2018, 11:13:41 PM »
How the USA was engineered for inequality: Lapham lays it out

"The prosperous and well-educated gentlemen assembled in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 shared with John Adams the suspicion that “democracy will infallibly destroy all civilization,” agreed with James Madison that the turbulent passions of the common man lead to reckless agitation for the abolition of debts and “other wicked projects.” With Plato the framers shared the assumption that the best government, under no matter what name or flag, incorporates the means by which a privileged few arrange the distribution of property and law for the less fortunate many. They envisioned a wise and just oligarchy—to which they gave the name of a republic—managed by men like themselves, to whom Madison attributed “most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society.” Adams thought the great functions of state should be reserved for “the rich, the wellborn, and the able”; John Jay, chief justice for the Supreme Court, observed that “those who own the country ought to govern it.” "

" ... by the end of the summer of 1787 the well-to-do gentlemen in Philadelphia had drafted a document hospitable to their acquisition of more property."

“The fundamental division of powers in the Constitution of the United States is between voters on the one hand and property owners on the other. The forces of democracy on one side…are set over against the forces of property on the other side.”

" ... by 1980 the only constitutional value still on the table was the one making the world safe for the acquisition of property."

" The separation of values treasured by a capitalist economy from those cherished by a democratic society has resulted in the accumulation of more laws limiting the freedom of persons, fewer laws restraining the license of property, the letting fall into disrepair of nearly all the infrastructure (roads, schools, rivers) that provides the citizenry with the ways and means of its common enterprise."

"What is moral is what returns a profit to the judgment of the bottom line "

Read the whole thing, and the article by Ralph Nader in that issue:

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/rule-law/due-process

sidd

ivica

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #137 on: March 22, 2018, 12:33:20 AM »


Segments:
  0:05:00   INEQUALITY IN AMERICA TOWN HALL
  0:21:40   EXTREME POVERTY IN AMERICA
  0:42:10   COLLAPSE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
  1:03:50   THE RISE OF OLIGARCHY
  1:23:40   WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Nice to hear there that Michael Moore is also one of those who say "there’s more of us than there is of them". (1:14:45)

sidd posted about it already, guardian link here:
Re: The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1937.msg146635.html#msg146635

< TYT link has 85K views, Guardian has 24K, there are others: HOT NEWS 1.6K, Intelligentsia 0.7K
is that YT pushing on view_counter_break hard there? ;) >

« Last Edit: March 22, 2018, 02:42:38 AM by ivica »

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #138 on: March 23, 2018, 02:03:50 AM »
Hudson on debtor's prisons:

"And we’re having a situation now that is very much like antiquity where the entire economic surplus has to be paid out to the creditors."

"They have to spend all of their income paying the creditors. Now if they don’t the enforcer of that is… well, if you don’t, we’re going to have to just put you in jail and you’re going to have to work to make a surplus for the privatizers who run the jail."

"I asked what happens when the credit card companies make more money on penalties than they make in interest. When you miss a payment on your debt (this is before you go to prison) and you can’t pay the electric bill or a credit card bill, your rate goes up from 11 percent to 29 percent.

The answer they gave us was: “That’s not interest. We count that as a financial service, and financial services are an addition to GDP.” So all the added penalties that people pay for falling behind in their debts for arrears are counted as a growth in GDP – as economic growth! "

read the whole thing:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/22/modern-day-debtors-prisons-and-debt-in-antiquity/

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #139 on: April 03, 2018, 07:30:35 PM »
Surprise: losing three quarters of all your money increases your doubles of death.

"When people lose 75 percent or more of their total wealth during a two-year period, they are 50 percent more likely to die in the next 20 years, the study found."

if you didnt have any money, your chances are worse ...

"The study also examined a group of low-income people who didn't have any wealth accumulated and who are considered socially vulnerable in terms of their health. Their increased risk of mortality over 20 years was 67 percent."

doi:10.1001/jama.2018.2055

Open access. Read the whole thing. I attach fig1.

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #140 on: April 07, 2018, 07:25:50 PM »
If anyone can track down the House of Commons Library Research report, please let me know.

" ... if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world’s wealth by 2030. "

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/07/global-inequality-tipping-point-2030

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TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #141 on: April 07, 2018, 09:38:00 PM »
If anyone can track down the House of Commons Library Research report, please let me know.

" ... if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world’s wealth by 2030. "

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/07/global-inequality-tipping-point-2030

sidd


Do we really need to struggle to improve productivity? Why not just raise taxes on the wealthy and distribute it to the poor?
Terry

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #142 on: April 08, 2018, 05:14:04 AM »
And, of course in the USA, losing your money means your available health care sucks.

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #143 on: April 11, 2018, 08:53:31 PM »
How municipalities get screwed: Banks game rates, SEC looks the other way

https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/banks-broker-dealers-charged-with-widespread-fraud-and-collusion-over-vrdos

I suspect this administration will do little to prosecute, but state level actions may prove costly for the banks.

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #144 on: April 11, 2018, 08:56:28 PM »
Some replief for the homeless: Panhandling bans being struck down, violates rights to free speech:

http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-panhandling-homeless-supreme-court-reed-gilbert.html

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sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #145 on: April 13, 2018, 08:40:23 PM »
Some numbers economic gap between the politicians and the citizenry, explaining the Gilens and Page study on how the poor get screwed in legislation.

"In 2015, more than 70 percent of Senators were millionaires with the median net worth of Senators hitting $3,132,848.  In the case of the House, the median net worth of Congressmen and Congresswomen was $888,508."

"not all members of the House and Senate are wealthy when they enter office, however, many of them are wealthy when they depart"

http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2018/01/wealth-in-congress.html

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #146 on: April 15, 2018, 09:32:39 PM »

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #147 on: April 20, 2018, 12:46:52 AM »
You deserve to get poisoned or die of thirst if you can't afford Nestle bottled water.  This is indeed a strange an terrible land.

"In a turn of events so ironic it could have been scripted by Franz Kafka, on April 2, the state of Michigan awarded Nestlé Waters, the world’s largest bottled water corporation, the right to draw 167 percent more water from the states’ aquifers than it did last year. Four days later, Governor Rick Snyder announced the state would no longer distribute free bottled water to the residents of Flint, Michigan, whose water was contaminated by lead due to actions of state and local officials."

Nestle CEO statements:

"one opinion which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution."

"I’m still of the opinion that the biggest social responsibility of any CEO is to maintain and ensure the successful and profitable future of his enterprise ... "

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/04/19/nest-a19.html

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #148 on: April 22, 2018, 01:59:13 AM »
A commentary on Piketty in March on the elimination of political parties representating workers

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/04/21/pers-a21.html

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #149 on: April 28, 2018, 06:18:21 PM »
Michael Hudson interview: History of debt and jubilee:

" ... I wanted to study the background of Clean Slates, debt cancellations, and I found out that they begin in Sumer, and Babylonia, around 2500 B.C., and every new ruler, when they would take the throne, would start his reign by canceling the debts. "


" ... the first textual sources are the Laws of Hammurabi, the debt cancellations of the Sumerians, Enmetena, Urukagina … In my book I go epoch by epoch. Sumerian, the neo-Sumerian, Ur III period, the intermediate period, the Babylonian period, right down to the Egyptian Rosetta Stone, which is a similar debt cancellation."

"Business debts were not forgiven. The debts that were forgiven were personal debts, agrarian debts, and the idea was to liberate the bond servants so that they could be available to perform the corvée labor, which was the main kind of taxation in the Bronze Age, and serve in the army."

"The Romans were the first society not to cancel the debts, and there was civil war over that. A century of civil war from 133 BC, when the Gracchi Brothers were killed by supporting the population, to 29 BC when Augustus was crowned. There was a civil war where the advocates of debt cancellation were put to death. Just as Cleomenes in Sparta, in the late third century, was put to death, and Agis, his predecessor earlier in the third century BC, were put to death for advocating debt cancellation. So there was three centuries of constant civil war over this, and ultimately the creditors won, largely by political assassination of the advocates of debt cancellation ..."

" ... the major debt cancellation of the modern era was in 1947 and 48, the German monetary reform, called the German economic miracle. The Allies canceled all German debts, except for debts owed by employers to their employees for the previous month, and except for minimum bank balances. It was easy for the Allies to cancel the debts, because in Germany most of the debts were owed to people who had been Nazis, and you were canceling the debts owed to the Nazis, the Nazis were the creditors at that time. And that freeing Germany from debt was the root of its economic miracle ..."

Hudson is excellent here. Read the whole interview.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/04/michael-hudson-bronze-age-redux.html

sidd