Economic Inequality

[Neven]

Next you'll be saying I'm a communist. 

I believe in private property rights, and in inequality. But they need to be fixed instead of infinite, or you get this vicious cycle of misery that can last thousands of years and ends up destroying the planet.

[Neven]

Let's imagine that it's possible/doable to put a cap on how much someone can own. What would happen?

[jacksmith4tx]

Let's imagine that it's possible/doable to put a cap on how much someone can own. What would happen?

If the point of having extreme wealth is power and status then forcibly removing that wealth will redirect human ambition to other behaviors that will achieve similar goals. In history we have had kings, spiritual leaders, dictators, generals all make it the top and become immortal (their names will never be lost to history) but money was not the critical factor in their rise to fame. Homer illustrates this when he reveals what Achilles desires above all else:

"The truly precious things in the world are those that cannot be bought, sold, seized, or commodified in any way. These include glory and life itself."

[magnamentis]

and we combine all those reasons that have their fair portion of truth and find out how we gonna get there.

each discussion above a certain level end in an either or argument instead of as well as and/or co-existence of different ways as long as they don't hurt others.

hope i made myself because i wanted to keep it short, else i'd have to post a few hundred pages

[magnamentis]

How would you aim to do that? What kind of law can be made to decide what is the maximum one can be worth? I would call slippery slope.

we have to talk it out, my proposal would be something like 10 million €uros per 1st degree family member. the downside of getting larger rich families does not only have downsides, after all the fact that the currently overly procreating part of the population is often a bit behind in ethics and education is certainly not helpful, IMO it's kind of a time bomb where a little compensation could be even helpful.

of course it's not that easy to weigh all positive and negative feedbacks but then that would set a clear top to wealth, even for those with 20 kids and then of course this has to be based on a monogamic system and even then, those with 4 wives would make it 4x20x10M which is still way less then what we see now.

this is brainstorming pure, no claim that it's good and can hold all reasoning but as a starting point for a definition of top-wealth-levels the thought could serve and yes, i'm aware, some current billionaires would have trouble to cope since they prefer their own kind (put as political correctly as i could)

[jacksmith4tx]

Homer illustrates this when he reveals what Achilles desires above all else:

"The truly precious things in the world are those that cannot be bought, sold, seized, or commodified in any way. These include glory and life itself."

Despite such ancient truths still next to nobody has worked out why Donald Trump ran for the Presidency in the first place. Despite how obvious it all was and still is.

Trump has a burning hate for Obama and everything Obama touched. Sounds too simple but is Trump such a complicated man? At his core he's narcissistic and vindictive.
By the way, You're Fired!

"Trump administration is making two big moves that will get him closer to his goal of erasing President Obama's biggest policies."
https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-administration-barack-obama-legacy-health-care-energy-36e9b7f3-28ce-476e-8f7c-ccdd095408b1.html

[magnamentis]

Homer illustrates this when he reveals what Achilles desires above all else:

"The truly precious things in the world are those that cannot be bought, sold, seized, or commodified in any way. These include glory and life itself."

Despite such ancient truths still next to nobody has worked out why Donald Trump ran for the Presidency in the first place. Despite how obvious it all was and still is.

Trump has a burning hate for Obama and everything Obama touched. Sounds too simple but is Trump such a complicated man? At his core he's narcissistic and vindictive.
By the way, You're Fired!

"Trump administration is making two big moves that will get him closer to his goal of erasing President Obama's biggest policies."
https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-administration-barack-obama-legacy-health-care-energy-36e9b7f3-28ce-476e-8f7c-ccdd095408b1.html

he is not complicated but "simple" which is much worse, the seeming complication results from his simple mind that can't cope with complex tasks as well as complex mechanisms and then there is that inferiority complex many such people try to camouflage with bold and often contradictory statements, turning the flag after the wind.

[sidd]

Reuters: Poor in the USA get poorer:

"the bottom two quintiles of households make, on average, $11,587 and $29,414 a year in pre-tax income, respectively. Their expenses, meanwhile, are $26,144 and $38,187, respectively. This means that the bottom quintile has an average net loss of $14,557 a year and the next quintile a loss of $8,773, prior to taxes."

"while the bottom 60 percent of the population generally saw its expenses outpace its income between 2012 and 2017, the income of the top 20 percent increasingly outpaced its expenses over this same period. On average, the top 20 percent of the population makes $188,676 and spends $112,846. This layer makes more money than all of the other income quintiles combined."

Read the whole thing:

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY-CONSUMERS/010071CJ2NK/index.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/08/03/econ-a03.html

sidd

[sidd]

Roosevelt Institute argues that wages are suppressed in favour of stock repurchase to enrich executives and large shareholders:

"The restaurant industry spent more on stock buybacks than it made in profits, funding buybacks through debt and cash reserves. Buybacks totaled 136.5 percent of net profits." 


"Companies in the retail and food manufacturing industries spent 79.2 percent and 58.2 percent, respectively, of their net profits on share buybacks. 
"

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/curbing-stock-buybacks-crucial-step/

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/The-Big-Tradeoff-Issue-Brief-Retail-Industry_072618.pdf

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/The-Big-Tradeoff-Issue-Brief-Food-Manufacturing-Industry_072618.pdf

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/The-Big-Tradeoff-Issue-Brief-Restaurant-Industry_072618.pdf

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/08/02/pers-a02.html

sidd

[SteveMDFP]

Roosevelt Institute argues that wages are suppressed in favour of stock repurchase to enrich executives and large shareholders:
 

Sort of true, but not really.  That cash was never going to higher wages, regardless of buybacks.
Corporations aim to pay exactly as much in wages as they need to in order to maximize profits.
Pay less, and the workforce is inadequate in quantity and/or quality for best profitability.
Pay more, and the shareholders get less then they might, due to sub-optimum profitability.

Under the current system, the alternative to share buybacks is more money going out in dividends.  Share buybacks elevate stock price, giving execs bonuses, and giving shareholders capital gains instead of dividends.  Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than dividends, so this is more valuable to shareholders.

Trying to regulate away buybacks isn't what workers need, and wouldn't help them.  A higher minimum wage, or mechanisms to reduce competition with overseas labor is what's needed.  As the unemployment is low, a higher minimum wage would be my suggested first step.

[sidd]

Killing the poor. Who needs em anymore, right ?

"the rich live longer and the poor die younger"

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-poverty-impact-well-being-hard.html

sidd

[sidd]

Screw the pensioners. No good to us anymore.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sears-canada-pension-retirees-1.4773283

sidd

[johnm33]

Looks like the plan is to cut pensions one small group at a time, in the UK they shifted the ground under the feet of women with barely any notice, then populated the protest with quislings who folded straight away. Most company schemes are not only underfunded but have been specifically targeted by M+A then asset stripped. My guess the last two groups standing will be the police and bureaurocrats.

[sidd]

County by county map of GINI coeeficient in the USA:

https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/2012/acs/acsbr10-18-fig01.pdf

sidd

[sidd]

Pink tax on women: they pay more for mortgages, cars, credit rates:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/pink-tax-applies-to-mortgages-cars-and-other-markets-report-finds/

sidd

[TerryM]

County by county map of GINI coeeficient in the USA:

https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/2012/acs/acsbr10-18-fig01.pdf

sidd

A lower # equals more equality

A similar map, but with less detail for Canada that also compares Canadian Providences to various Countries.
https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/provincial/society/income-inequality.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Terry

[sidd]

Soak the poor. They don't pay much in taxes, anyway.

"roughly 60 percent—of those fees were charged to people who were represented by a public defender."

Even if charges are dismissed (!!)

But even if the plea fee is eliminated, there are still other fees that can be imposed on Pennsylvania defendants. For example, if a criminal case is dismissed, a state rule allows the imposition of fees and restitution.

Then throw em in jail again coz they can't pay ...

" ... in 2016 more than 4,500 cases where defendants were jailed for failing to pay their court debt in Pennsylvania. "

Criminal justice system is criminal. But this is no justice.

https://theappeal.org/in-pennsylvania-defendants-pay-a-fee-just-to-plead-guilty/

sidd
 

[jacksmith4tx]

John Oliver was all over this public defenders scam.

[sidd]

The poor don't deserve a roof over their heads. Let 'em live in the street. Then we can bust them for vagrancy.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/29/private-renting-now-unaffordable-low-income-tenants-risk-homelessness/

sidd

[sidd]

Old and poor ? screw em, what did they ever do for us ? Just shut up and die already.

"In the last year, nearly 300,000 Americans 85 and older were working. That number is up 3 percent from the start of the 2006 recession."

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/national/87-year-old-ohio-man-takes-trucking-job-to-cover-wife-s-medical-expenses-and-he-s-not-alone

sidd

[SteveMDFP]

The poor don't deserve a roof over their heads. Let 'em live in the street. Then we can bust them for vagrancy.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/29/private-renting-now-unaffordable-low-income-tenants-risk-homelessness/

sidd

I agree the picture presented for the UK is not good.  From what I can glean, it's far worse in the US, where locally a family of 4 with no income gets only $600/mo TANF, plus inadequate food stamps, and a >1yr wait for Section 8 housing voucher.  Of course, if the kids were put into foster care, the foster parents would get paid more.  Madness and shameful care of the nation's children.  The country will reap what it sows.

[sidd]

“We are talking about 10 people have the same as 60 million Mexicans,"

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/10-Richest-Mexicans-Earn-More-than-50-Percent-of-Public-ECLAC-20180830-0011.html

sidd

[sidd]

" The country will reap what it sows."

Should be the present tense, rather than the future tense.

sidd

[sidd]

Pricing the poor out of life:

"He died less than one month after going off of his mother's insurance. His family thinks he was rationing his insulin — using less than he needed — to try to make it last until he could afford to buy more. He died alone in his apartment three days before payday. The insulin pen he used to give himself shots was empty."

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/01/641615877/insulins-high-cost-leads-to-lethal-rationing

sidd

[sidd]

Scheer and Quart discuss the evisceration of the middle class, the rise of the precariat and the "class ceiling" in the USA:

" ... the delusion of a middle class is supported by the people who basically control the narrative. They write the big stories, they run the magazines, they run television. They’re the tenured professors. And they’re not experiencing the extreme anxiety of the precariat"


'And your book is really about the suffering of people who did everything right by the normal standards of the meritocracy. They paid their taxes, they worked hard, they went to school, they took the opportunities there. And you know what? They were conned into a life of poverty and desperation."

"Yeah, I mean, they were conned. And some of the con still continues. You know, you have $1.5 trillion student debt. You have, an income inequality thrumming under all this ... And you have this whole world of counselors and coaches and certificate programs that, I think of them as like vultures on the carcass of the middle class. "

" I think once you realize that you’re part of a precarious class, you might vote with others that are also precarious. Middle-class and working-class people voting together and finding common cause–that’s the hope. "

"the rise of Trump is best understood by the gap between the elite and suffering middle class, or the disappearing of a real middle class."

" a trap that people fall into, and they can’t get out of it. And they get desperate in how they vote. "

" ... this is the most powerful, corrupting message this society puts out: if you fail, it’s your fault. And you better go to a self-help group, or you better have a better attitude, or embrace your inner blah blah blah. And the whole idea that maybe the game is rigged–rigged–is, you know, that’s considered radical and negative thinking."

"Under Barack Obama, the great president of hope, they bailed out the banks for destroying the economy. Right? And they didn’t bail out homeowners. They didn’t do anything fundamentally to help homeowners who lost their houses, not through any failure on their part, because the game was rigged by these, basically, thieves on Wall Street. So, I mean, isn’t it really cutting to the chase the issue, are you going to blame yourself, or are you going to blame the system?"

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-collapse-of-the-middle-class-and-the-rise-of-a-new-precariat-audio/

sidd

[sidd]

Ten years later: Still screwed

“If you look at average numbers, the economy is doing great," he added. "If you differentiate the economy by who’s doing well, it stinks.”

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/404653-ten-years-later-wounds-run-deep-from-2008-crash

sidd

[TerryM]

"precariat" - those reduced to being supplicants, from the latin precarious, "to obtain by prayer" -
ouch!


I particularly liked your description of coaches, counselors and certificate programs as "vultures". I'd thought I was unique in despising these cons.


Terry

[jacksmith4tx]

"precariat" - those reduced to being supplicants, from the latin precarious, "to obtain by prayer" -

Canada will be 'precariat' to Trump.
Soon.

[TerryM]

"precariat" - those reduced to being supplicants, from the latin precarious, "to obtain by prayer" -

Canada will be 'precariat' to Trump.
Soon.

That Sucks!

[magnamentis]

" a trap that people fall into, and they can’t get out of it. And they get desperate in how they vote. "

so is it but how get this into peoples head before it's too late and without getting into trouble oneself ? this is what i ponder over for years. the facts are clear and in the open, people even know them, one can see that when carefully listening.

what most people don't do is to make the connections, see the scheme and try to get out of the trap.

it is possible to get out of the trap but one has to leave the reminder of the pseudo-comfort-zone and this is a huge price tag which most are not willing or able to pay.

however i thank you a lot for this post because the absence of this kind of information all over the place is what keeps people from waking up (not a coincidence of course) hence each time this is brought to peoples attention is on step closer to the downfall of the system, which, unfortunately, will not happen quietly and painlessly.

a reboot will be needed, probably several reboots and mankind is only rebooting when not much to loose is left at that time.

[sidd]

Sanders, Khanna introduce bill to tax companies whose workers receive food stamps, housing subsidy or medicaid:

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/stop-bezos-act-2018?id=C2E88AC5-C629-4680-8F8D-9EE74F343560&download=1&inline=file

Can you say "snowball's chance in hell ?" But if they can force a vote, that will expose the corporates. Bet the thing doesn't make it outta committee. Too many sweet,sweet campaign contributions on the line.

sidd

[sidd]

Plutocracy and effects:

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/09/05/plutocracy-now/

sidd

[sidd]

Top 1% screwing the bottom 50% since 1980 in the USA: Reagan-Thatcher deform of the economy.

 "the incomes of the top 1% collectively made up 11% of national income in 1980, but now constitute above 20% of national income, while the 20% of US national income that was attributable to the bottom 50% in 1980 has fallen to just 12% today."

Ain't that special.

https://www.thisisinsider.com/income-inequality-us-economy-chart-thomas-piketty-2018-9

sidd

[sidd]

28% of 65+ USA thinks they will die in debt.

"I want the last check i write to bounce to heaven." (No that's not in the article, an old geezer told me that once, only to be sharply contradicted by his wife. But as it turned out, he survived her, so he might still do it.)

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/1-in-10-americans-say-they-will-die-in-debt-2017-01-11

sidd

[sidd]

31 trillion US$ ain't enuf, it's just a beginning:

"a group of oligarchs equal in number to the population of Plano, Texas or Nottingham, England own more than the poorest 80 percent of the world—some 5.6 billion people."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/08/pers-s08.html

sidd

[sidd]

Increasing economic gap between rich and poor cities in the USA:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-chasm-among-american-cities-is-growing-ever-wider/

sidd

[sidd]

America's Finest News Source excoriates Trump for taking credit for rise in inequality, should really be attributed to Obama.

“While Trump is right that economic inequality is increasing under him, he cannot ignore the Obama administration’s significant contributions to the current wealth gap,”

https://politics.theonion.com/trump-unfairly-claims-credit-for-rise-in-economic-inequ-1828972539

sidd

[sidd]

Frontline on Dayton, Ohio. An hour long, worth watching, to see the death of the heartlands. Left behind, indeed.

They're stacking the dead from the opiod epidemic like cordwood in reefer trailers, they ran outta room in the morgues. Predominantly in areas where people were emplyed in physical labour, wore themselves out, got laid off and pension stolen, got hooked on pankillers thru the pharm lobby, then turned to the street when they had to. Those are deaths driven by desperation.

The plight of the black population is briefly alluded to, mostly in the context of white flight. It does not cover the sorry history of when it was a "sundown town."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/left-behind-america/

sidd

[sidd]

Ten years later, still screwed:

"As of June 30, nearly one in 10 American homes with mortgages were “seriously” underwater, according to Irvine, California-based ATTOM Data Solutions, meaning that their market values were at least 25 percent lower than the balance remaining on their mortgages."

"Now 66, she and husband Michael were counting on equity from the sale of their house to fund their retirement in Florida. For now, that remains a dream."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-underwater-insight/millions-of-americans-still-trapped-in-debt-logged-homes-ten-years-after-crisis-idUSKCN1LU0EP

sidd

[sidd]

Graeber and Wengrow in a provocative and challenging piece at eurozine on the origins of inequality. There are a couple videos linked there which i ought to watch.

https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/

Very much worth reading.

sidd

[sidd]

A thoughtful article on effects of inequality and segregation in schools in the USA:

"They add that “the only areas where levels of intense segregation have declined since the early 1990s for black and Latino students are in rural areas and smaller towns.” "

"The problem of segregation is thus twofold. First, it physically separates more privileged students from those less privileged. Second, segregation both reflects and reinforces the political, social, and economic inequalities present in the broader society. While much attention is rightly paid to the first part of the problem, the heart of the injustice lives in the second, because inequality isn’t just reflected in school segregation — it’s the root cause of it.


And of course, this general inequality, in schools and otherwise, is in large part due to lack of funding for public institutions in a neoliberal, capitalist economy. US schools receive the vast majority of their funding through property taxes at the local level, allowing wealthier suburban towns and cities to avoid paying for poorer families’ schooling. This is perhaps the largest barrier to fair school funding today."

"Segregated schools have different needs: an upper-income school has no interest in school-based health clinics because those families have employer provided insurance. A low-income school whose families have no health insurance certainly do."

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/07/the-socialist-case-for-school-integration

Read the whole thing. especially the UCLA report linked in the article.

sidd

[sidd]

More and more men dropping out of the labour force in their prime working years in the USA:

"The share of prime-age men—between the ages of 25 and 54—that is neither working nor looking for work has been rising for decades. "

"in 2013, 11 percent of prime-age men were outside the labor force. "

"only 12 percent of able-bodied prime-age inactive men indicate in household surveys that they want a job or are open to taking one."

"just one in four prime-age inactive men spent time looking for work in the preceding year."

https://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/9/inactive-disconnected-and-ailing-a-portrait-of-prime-age-men-out-of-the-labor-force

No point playing a rigged game.

sidd

[jacksmith4tx]

This guy knows how to drain a swamp.

Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday hailed steps by the new Congress to cut the salaries of government officials, part of a raft of measures he promised to battle corruption and inequality.

Lopez Obrador vowed to cut his own salary to 40 percent of what outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto earns to 108,000 pesos ($5,718) per month - a sum well below many high-paying government jobs in the current administration.

He has also promised to waive his bodyguards and sell the presidential jet as well as a fleet of government aircraft.

Local media have reported the cuts could hit around 35,000 officials currently earning more than Lopez Obrador’s proposed wage.

On Friday, Lopez Obrador also said the bill would allow him to fulfill another campaign promise - to end generous pensions enjoyed by former Mexican presidents.

Lopez Obrador, who takes office on Dec. 1, won a landslide victory in July after pledging to save billions of dollars through anti-corruption and austerity measures to fund scholarships for students, pensions for the elderly and infrastructure projects in Mexico’s poor south.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-politics/mexico-president-elect-hails-passage-of-public-sector-pay-cuts-idUSKCN1LU2KW

[sidd]

Surprise, surprise.

"profits and pay at Wall Street securities firms soared at double-digit rates last year"

 “Wall Street profited every year since the end of the recession in 2009, and compensation last year reached its highest point since the financial crisis.”

"Between 2016 and 2017 the wage of a typical US worker grew by a negligible 0.3 percent. This year, wages are barely keeping pace with inflation. Meanwhile, according to a report published last month by the Economic Policy Institute, average CEO pay at America’s 350 largest companies grew by 17.6 percent between 2016 and 2017. The typical chief executive received $18.9 million in compensation."

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/19/wall-s19.html

Some people don't remember which administration empowered this transfer of wealth. As i have said before, it must be nice to be able to forget so easily.

sidd

[Sleepy]

Thanks. FWIW; he's spot on regarding Sweden.

Edit, downloaded the full interview (linked below the one posted by Lurk above) and snipped out that part where he talks about Sweden, Finland and the US.

[Sleepy]

https://blog.ted.com/we-the-future-talks-from-ted-skoll-foundation-and-united-nations-foundation/

A daring idea to reduce income inequality. Every newborn should enter the world with at least $25,000 in the bank. That is the basic premise of a “baby trust,” an idea conceived by economists Darrick Hamilton of The New School and William Darity of Duke University. Since 1980, inequality has been on the rise worldwide, and Hamilton says it will keep growing due to this simple fact: “It is wealth that begets more wealth.” Policymakers and the public have fallen for a few appealing but inaccurate narratives about wealth creation — that grit, education or a booming economy can move people up the ladder — and we’ve disparaged the poor for not using these forces to rise, Hamilton says. Instead, what if we gave a boost up the ladder? A baby trust would give an infant money at birth — anywhere from $500 for those born into the richest families to $60,000 for the poorest, with an average endowment of $25,000. The accounts would be managed by the government, at a guaranteed interest rate of 2 percent a year. When a child reaches adulthood, they could withdraw it for an “asset-producing activity,” such as going to college, buying a home or starting a business. If we were to implement it in the US today, a baby trust program would cost around $100 billion a year; that’s only 2 percent of annual federal expenditures and a fraction of the $500 billion that the government now spends on subsidies and credits that favor the wealthy, Hamilton says. “Inequality is primarily a structural problem, not a behavioral one,” he says, so it needs to be attacked with solutions that will change the existing structures of wealth.

[silkman]

This might be somewhat off topic but economic inequality adds to the issues associated with natural disasters.

The final story of the recent earthquakes and tsunami in Suluwesi has yet to be written but this video, one of the first from the Donggala area, should make the First World step up to the plate. Will it? I wonder.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2018/oct/01/the-car-is-on-top-of-the-house-footage-emerges-from-quake-ravaged-donggala-video

[Sleepy]

Thanks silkman. Maybe some activity as long as the spotlight lingers and then sweep it under the rug?

[mostly_lurking]

The Pathology of the Rich – Chris Hedges 23 mins interview

Human DNA dictates that it will never change. It might morph a bit like it has over thousands of years but inherently it will be the same. Even "pitchfork and torches" will not change more than on the surface. MAYBE a world wide catastrophe (wiping out all digital records let say) might help for a while (along with everyone else suffering terribly) but even then , those with tendency will rise again and rebuild the"elites"..might not be all the same people exactly but still will happen.

[sidd]

A more gilded age: Lord at truthdig compares the gilded age to our own, and we suffer in the comparison.

" no matter which of 1918’s titans of wealth you consider, the corresponding slice of America’s 2018 elite controls a greater portion of the country’s wealth."

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/in-2018-the-u-s-is-even-more-gilded-than-in-1918/

I fear more and more, that the remedy will be a very old one. One oligarch, one lamppost.

sidd