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Author Topic: Economic Inequality  (Read 130960 times)

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #400 on: September 11, 2019, 07:20:36 AM »
Thanks sidd. Horrible. Hard to imagine. The richest country in the world. Being rich = low morality (it creates poor people).
I am poor by choice and am so glad that I don't live in the U.S.A.
In the U.S.A. I probably would be suffering and faced with violence and bad food.
I very probably would have left the U.S.A..
Message to poor people in the USA: Go go go now. Leave to the north or east or west. It is a vanishing option. Organise. Cooperate.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #401 on: September 18, 2019, 05:49:21 PM »
Inequality: What We've Learned from the 'Robots of the Late Neolithic'
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-inequality-weve-robots-late-neolithic.html

Seven thousand years ago, societies across Eurasia began to show signs of lasting divisions between haves and have-nots. In new research published in the journal Antiquity, scientists chart the precipitous surge of prehistoric inequality and trace its economic origins back to the adoption of ox-drawn plows.

... Their analysis of data from 150 archeological sites reveals a steep increase in inequality in Eurasia from around 4,000 BC—several millennia after the advent of agriculture. According to the researchers, it was not agriculture per se that ushered in substantial wealth inequalities, but instead a transformation of farming that made land more valuable and labor less so.

"Ox drawn plows were the robots of the late Neolithic," explains co-author Samuel Bowles, an economist at the Santa Fe Institute. The oxen were a form of labor-saving technology that led to a decoupling of wealth from labor—a decoupling fundamental to modern wealth inequality. "The effect was the same as today: growing economic disparities between those who owned the robots and those whose work the robots displaced."

... "The usual story—that the societies that adopted agriculture became more unequal—is no longer valid because we observed that some societies who adopted agriculture were remarkably egalitarian for thousands of years," says co-author Mattia Fochesato, an economist at Bocconi University.

Before around 4,000 BC, societies across the Middle East and Europe cultivated a patchwork of small garden plots, which Bogaard likens to present-day "allotments" in the UK. Families would have grown a variety cereal grains, as well as lentils, peas, and other pulse crops that needed to be harvested by hand. Notably, they would have tilled the soil by hand using hoes, in some cases also with the help of unspecialized cattle (such as aging milk cows) to pull plows, and carefully monitored their gardens during the growing season to protect them from wild animals. "It was quite a busy landscape, with lots of people working in and around these garden plots."

Then something changed. Farmers who were well resourced enough to raise and maintain specialized plow oxen saw new opportunities in farming additional land. A single farmer with an ox team could cultivate ten times or more land than a hoe farmer, and would begin to acquire more and more land to cultivate. Those who owned land and ox teams also began to opt for more stress-tolerant crops, like barley or certain kinds of wheat, that didn't require much labor.

By the second millennium BC in many farming landscapes fields stretched to the horizon, and societies were deeply divided between wealthy landowners, who passed their holdings on to their children, and land-poor or landless families.

Quote
... "So long as labor was the key input for production, inequality was limited because families did not differ much in how much labor they could deploy to produce crops, " ... "But when the most important input became land, differences between families widened because land and other material forms of wealth could be accumulated and transmitted over generations. By chance, or force, or hard work, some families came to have a lot more than others. Then radical inequality arose."

Open Access: Mattia Fochesato et al. Comparing ancient inequalities: the challenges of comparability, bias and precision, Antiquity (2019)
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Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #402 on: September 18, 2019, 06:21:44 PM »
Thank you vox_mundi!

Re: why do we have rich people? Ownership? High technology? Lower morality?

To me and from reading your excerpts from the article: The answer seems to be just a different mindset; that having rich people is not a logical consequence of settling and agriculture. Not all humans behaved like that. Am I correct?

-----
By the second millennium BC:
"wealthy landowners, who passed their holdings on to their children"

[sarc]Don't you love it: Our, by culture (tradition), forced monogamous lifestyles with family and inheritance?[/sarc]

In that system, which we have now, you get these: "land-poor or landless families".
These weren't there before. Very very sad for all those humans that have had 'bad luck' (i.e. having a poor father) throughout all of civilisation history.

"Robot"
The term comes from a Czech word, robota, meaning "forced labor"
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Aporia_filia

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #403 on: September 20, 2019, 09:39:11 AM »
In different places in Africa, (Senegal,...) not that long ago, being rich was socially rejected. The social believe was that is very easy to go through difficult times when you'll need help from others, when you'll be short of food or any other need. So, the best thing to do was sharing what you have because with everyone doing the same the chances of being in need were minimize.

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #404 on: September 30, 2019, 07:07:57 PM »
High Wealth Inequality Linked With Greater Support for Populist Leaders
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-high-wealth-inequality-linked-greater.html

People who live or think they live in a more economically unequal society may be more supportive of a strong, even autocratic leader, a large-scale international study shows. Their findings appear in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"The results suggest that the growth in support for populist leaders who are happy to abandon democratic principles to achieve particular outcomes may partly be due to increasing levels of economic inequality," said Jolanda Jetten, a psychological scientist at the University of Queensland in Australia and an author on the report. Led by Stefanie Sprong of Trinity College Dublin, the collaborators conducted a series of surveys and experiments. In these studies, the researchers examine the effects of economic inequality on people's wish for a strong leader, and investigate whether this link can be explained by perceptions of anomie—the perceived breakdown in social fabric in society.

... In analyzing the data, the researchers found evidence that people in countries with high levels of economic inequality, both real and felt, were more supportive of a strong leader. But only perceived inequality appeared to have any relationship with a sense of societal and governmental corrosion.

... "This strengthens our reasoning that economic inequality perceptions enhance the feeling that society is breaking down ... fueling a desire for a leader who will restore order (by whatever means necessary)," the authors conclude.

Sprong, S; Jetten, J; Wang, Z; et al., "Our Country Needs a Strong Leader Right Now": Economic Inequality Enhances the Wish for a Strong Leader" Psychological Science (2019)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #405 on: October 01, 2019, 01:10:02 AM »
Loaded dice: screwing the poor kids

Palast has a revealing article on how the education system is rigged against the poor:

"my daughter wanted to be filmmaker.  Problem:  she was illiterate.  “Dyslexic” was the diagnosis."

"So we sent her to a private school, the best; De Niro sent his kid there too. The tuition – $50,000+ a year. I didn’t have $50K, but I had $5K to pay for expert doctors and a lawyer.  Armed with the expensive doctor’s report, our lawyer successfully sued the City of New York to pay the total tuition for the swish private academy."

"The expensive summer program got her noticed, and she was offered early admission and a scholarship.  Then her mom and I hired the SAT tutors so my daughter could make the minimum score to collect the scholarship."

"I wanted my own kids to have every privilege I didn’t have. "

" what I did was not without victims. What I did meant that a kid who awkwardly filled out their own college application, who didn’t have a clue about the submission date for the scholarships, the campus tours, whose parents or parent lacked the juice for the tutors, French lessons in France, the made-for-applications extracurricular activities, the kid who went to a school like mine, next to the city dump — that child got in to a lesser school, or no school."

"My son had his heart set on a certain top-tier college.  But his test scores sucked and his grades kinda sucked too. So, as with his sister, we shipped my fortunate son to the university’s excellent (i.e. expensive) summer workshop for high schoolers. There, the college, impressed, said they’d ignore his test scores if he could produce a college-level research paper."

"It took him a year of nose-to-the-grindstone, but he finished a truly top-tier research paper. Kinda. He wrote all the words. But every single syllable, statistical chart and footnote was guided, carefully, artfully, by an award-winning author.  Let’s just use his code name: “Dad.” My son got in."

"I wanted my own kids to have every privilege I didn’t have. "

"At my twins’ graduations this year were the uninvited ghosts of those who could have, should have, been admitted to their schools, but were crowded out by the privileged winners of the game."

" what I did was not without victims. What I did meant that a kid who awkwardly filled out their own college application, who didn’t have a clue about the submission date for the scholarships, the campus tours, whose parents or parent lacked the juice for the tutors, French lessons in France, the made-for-applications extracurricular activities, the kid who went to a school like mine, next to the city dump — that child got in to a lesser school, or no school."

"The real crime is not that the privileged kids get these advantages but that well over 100,000 deserving low-income students in California do not."

https://www.gregpalast.com/confession-i-fixed-my-kids-admission-into-top-colleges/

sidd

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #406 on: October 04, 2019, 04:12:00 PM »
Uber Seeks to Crush Souls of Greater Pool of Gig Workers
https://gizmodo.com/uber-seeks-to-crush-souls-of-greater-pool-of-gig-worker-1838744088

Uber, a company arguably just exploiting human workers while it figures out how to pivot to automation, is evidently looking to expand its labor pool beyond cab drivers and food delivery.

The company announced Wednesday in a blog post that it is launching Uber Works, a platform meant to connect employers with workers for gigs such as line cook, event staff, or warehouse worker. Uber says that through its Works app, pre-vetted workers can select from a range of shifts and opportunities for temporary roles.

...  Uber said in its announcement that for employers, Uber Works will provide a “reliable pool of vetted and qualified workers.” For workers, Uber said the platform will “ensure timely payments” and provide “more transparency and opportunities for feedback in the marketplace.”

Uber said it’s partnered with the staffing agency TrueBlue, which it notes “employ, pay and handle worker benefits,” among other agencies. The Uber spokesperson said its partner agencies will provide employee benefits to workers as mandated by law.

... Neat as this whole job-on-demand thing sounds on paper, it’s still Uber. And Uber, as history has shown, tends to view human beings as a means of generating more money while it waits out the inevitable automation of service jobs. It also hasn’t been entirely forthright or even decent about employee classification for its Uber drivers. Whatever it claims now, there’s little evidence to indicate Uber will go out of its way to do right by its Works gig workers.

-------------------------

How Corporate Delusions of Automation Fuel the Cruelty of Uber and Lyft
https://gizmodo.com/how-corporate-delusions-of-automation-fuel-the-cruelty-1834627595

Studies have repeatedly found that after fees and expenses, Uber drivers make less than minimum wage in major markets. One found that half of all Uber drivers in Washington, D.C., lived below the poverty line.

... Dara Khosrowshahi, said in a January, 2018 interview that he expected Uber to have self-driving cars on the streets, in operation, within 18 months.

Drivers, meanwhile, are meatbag placeholders whose general wellbeing is a concern relevant only to the extent that its degradation might disrupt service right now. They are therefore temporary and eminently replaceable.

-----------------------------

Stern:   “. . . The Jews themselves receive nothing. Poles you pay wages. Generally they get a little more. Are you listening? . . . The Jewish worker’s salary, you pay it directly to the SS, not to the worker. He gets nothing.”
Schindler:   “But it’s less. It’s less than what I would pay a Pole. . . . Poles cost more. Why should I hire Poles?”

- Schindler's List (1993)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #407 on: October 08, 2019, 05:54:02 PM »
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-decline-entrepreneurship-west.html

The idea that we are living in an entrepreneurial age, experiencing rapid disruptive technological innovation on a scale amounting to a new "industrial revolution" is a pervasive modern myth.

... "These days Americans are less likely to switch jobs, less likely to move around the country, and, on a given day, less likely to go outside the house at all […] the economy is more ossified, more controlled, and growing at lower rates."

... after 2000, job creation in the US shifted from the creation of high-paying jobs to low-wage (low-skilled) ones.

... the share of entrepreneurs with higher education in the US declined from 12.2% in 1985 to 5.3% in 2014. As economist Nicholas Kozeniauskas puts it, "the decline in entrepreneurship is concentrated among the smart".

... As Geoffrey West has stressed, the same growth curve that characterises living organisms also applies to the growth of cities, economies and companies. After growing beyond a certain threshold, size and complexity stabilises and growth levels off. So it becomes more challenging to create and use new valuable knowledge once you reach a certain size. And, the more complex a production process is, the more that can go wrong.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #408 on: October 09, 2019, 12:45:49 AM »
Ryan at wired on the unfeeling rich:

"I was in India the first time it occurred to me that I, too, was a rich asshole. I’d been traveling for a couple of months, ignoring the beggars as best I could. Having lived in New York, I was accustomed to averting my attention from desperate adults and psychotics, but I was having trouble getting used to the groups of children who would gather right next to my table at street-level restaurants, staring hungrily at the food on my plate. "

"There were no shelters waiting to receive them. I saw them sleeping in the streets at night, huddled together for warmth, like puppies. They weren’t going to spend my money unwisely. They weren’t even asking for money. They were just staring at my food like the starving creatures they were. And their emaciated bodies were brutally clear proof that they weren’t faking their hunger."

"With what I’d spent on my one-way ticket from New York to New Delhi, I could have pulled a few families out of the debt that would hold them down for generations. With what I’d spent in New York restaurants the year before, I could have put a few of those kids through school. Hell, with what I’d budgeted for a year of traveling in Asia, I probably could have built a school."

"I wish I could tell you I did some of that, but I didn’t. Instead, I developed the psychological scar tissue necessary to ignore the situation. I learned to stop thinking about things I could have done, but knew I wouldn’t. I stopped making facial expressions that suggested I had any capacity for compassion. I learned to step over bodies in the street—dead or sleeping—without looking down. I learned to do these things because I had to—or so I told myself. "

"people in expensive cars were four times more likely to cut in front of other drivers, compared to folks in more modest vehicles. When the researchers posed as pedestrians waiting to cross a street, all the drivers in cheap cars respected their right of way, while those in expensive cars drove right on by 46.2 percent of the time, even when they’d made eye contact with the pedestrians waiting to cross. Other studies by the same team showed that wealthier subjects were more likely to cheat at an array of tasks and games. "

"people of higher socio-economic status were actually less able to read emotions in other people’s faces. It wasn’t that they cared less what those faces were communicating; they were simply blind to the cues. And Keely Muscatell, a neuroscientist at UCLA, found that wealthy people’s brains showed far less activity than the brains of poor people when they looked at photos of children with cancer."

“It is beginning to seem that the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability that gives them a market edge. The problem is caused by the inequality itself: It triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains. It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen.”

“What we’ve been finding across dozens of studies and thousands of participants across this country,” said Piff, “is that as a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases.”

https://www.wired.com/story/why-are-rich-people-so-mean/

sidd

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #409 on: October 09, 2019, 05:21:26 PM »
Thank you very much sidd. I saved (screenshot) your post as "unfeeling rich.SUPREMACY.INSANITY.png". Evidence for my theories and understanding.

Most rich people think that texts like in sidd's post only apply to people richer than them. That is a very wrong thought.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Neven

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #410 on: October 13, 2019, 12:19:47 PM »
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #411 on: October 14, 2019, 12:03:41 AM »

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #412 on: October 15, 2019, 12:51:27 AM »
Hobbes at huffpo: meritocracy or idiocracy ?

“There’s a lot of talent being wasted because it’s not able to rise, but there’s also a lot of relatively untalented people who aren’t falling and end up occupying positions they shouldn’t,”

"the likelihood of the rich passing their status down to their children — “stickiness,” in economist-speak — has surpassed the likelihood of poor children remaining poor. "

" “The greater the inequality, the greater the impact on opportunity,” Fishkin said. “There’s a self-fulfilling class anxiety among the middle- and upper-middle class because they sense that the spaces are scarce now. There are fewer secure jobs. And the scarcer they are, the more valuable they are.” "

“There’s a fixed number of people who will be upper class in the future, and elites have the tools to make sure that their children are among them,”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-glass-floor-is-keeping-americas-richest-idiots-at-the-top_n_5d9fb1c9e4b06ddfc516e076

sidd

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #413 on: October 15, 2019, 09:59:45 PM »
The rich are different. So are their feces. Starr at sciencealert on economic differences writ large in sewage:

"In wealthier areas, biomarkers were consistent with a better diet. "

" Wealthier and better educated areas also had much higher concentrations of the biomarkers associated with eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as grains. All of these are associated with a healthier overall diet."

"In lower socioeconomic areas, there were significantly higher levels of prescription medication for treating depression (desvenlafaxine, amitriptyline and citalopram), chronic pain (opioids such as methadone, codeine, tramadol and oxycodone, as well as pregabalin, for neuropathy) and blood pressure (atenolol)."

"They were even able to link demographics with specific types of antidepressants. A higher proportion of labourers were prescribed desvenlafaxine. Amitriptyline was most often prescribed to people who didn't finish high school. And people taking citalopram tended to live alone, and were often separated or divorced."

paper (open access) at PNAS: doi:10.1073/pnas.1910242116

article at

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-can-now-distinguish-wealthy-areas-by-looking-at-your-sewage

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #414 on: October 17, 2019, 11:29:40 PM »
From the belly of the beast: Former health care shill Wendell Potter on industry efforts to kill the poor

" I led public relations for Humana"

" I began working behind the scenes to help craft a strategy to protect the bottom line of the health insurance industry — by manipulating and misrepresenting democratic will so that the public rejected the very policies that would have delivered the reform they sought."

"Our efforts paid off. "

" The reality is that U.S. health care is a classic example of market failure. For a free market to function, consumers need to know how much a good or service will cost them and then decide whether to purchase it accordingly. But price transparency is largely nonexistent in health care. Moreover, patients often lack agency in the treatment they receive. An unconscious victim of a car accident, for instance, has no ability to decide on the procedures being done or caregivers operating on them. Yet when they are revived, they will be responsible for whatever bill is sent out."

"the outfit running the industry’s propaganda campaign is a Washington PR firm that last year launched a group called the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future "

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/health-care-debate-shows-lies-i-told-insurance-companies-about-ncna1067331

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #415 on: October 19, 2019, 09:16:34 PM »
Eubanks at the guardian on the merciless state:

"75-year-old Tim Pegues"

"received a letter from IDHS warning he owed the agency a $7,866 overpayment. They openly admitted that the overpayment was their error"

"set up a payment plan: $5 on the 25th of every month. At that rate, it would take him 131 years to clear the debt. Even this modest payment was a significant loss for him. “A lot of people don’t think $5 is a lot of money,” he said. “But if you don’t have it, it’s like a million dollars. It could be a meal: a can of pork and beans, a loaf of bread.” "

"He wrote the check every month for the next 16 years."

"he received a letter from the Bureau of Collections thanking him for his $5 payment in March 2018 and informing him that it was too late to appeal against the overpayment decision."

" I’m 75, about to be 76, and the fights I’ve had wore me down. I’m tired. They keep saying you’re in the golden years, but I ain’t found no gold.” "

"After the cost of billing and postage, appeals and case management, Illinois is losing money collecting from people like Pegues. "

Read and weep:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/oct/15/zombie-debt-benefits-overpayment-poverty

sidd

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #416 on: October 20, 2019, 02:19:15 AM »
World Bank Pandemic Financing Scheme Serves Private Sector Interests Over Global Health Security, Analysis Suggests
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-world-bank-pandemic-scheme-private.html

The World Bank's Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) – set up to ensure swift funding to countries and agencies responding to pandemic outbreaks of disease—does not deliver on this promise, new research from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has shown.

... The report shows not only has PEF's insurance scheme not released any funds since its inception, there are only two occasions since 2006 when it would have been triggered: the outbreak of Rift Valley fever in 2006 and Ebola in 2014-16. This is while other emergency funds (such as the World Health Organisation's Contingency Fund for Emergencies or the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' Central Emergency Response Fund) have consistently paid out.

The report finds that PEF has, however, paid $114.5 Million to private investors as coupons, mainly financed through public funders. This has lead the authors to suggest PEF appears to be serving private investor interests more than contributing to global health security.

Bangin Brim et al. Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility: struggling to deliver on its innovative promise, BMJ (2019)
https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l5719
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #417 on: October 21, 2019, 08:42:20 AM »
Weird, this thread was locked, i had to unlock it ? wonder if i clicked the lock button by accident.

Nyhoo, here is the state going after dead folks homes for medical bills:

"her mother started showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. For a while, one of Tawanda’s brothers cared for Edna, but he was sick himself and died in 2004. A guardian of the state admitted Edna into a nursing home and signed her up for the state’s Medicaid program, MassHealth. Tawanda was relieved that her mother was being cared for while she was busy arranging her brother’s funeral. But when she arrived in Boston from Brooklyn, where she and her husband had settled, she heard rumors about MassHealth “robbing people of their homes” as reimbursement for their medical bills."

"A representative for MassHealth told her not to worry: If she took her mother out of the nursing home, the agency would remove the lien and her mother could continue to receive Medicaid benefits."

" the end of 2009, when Edna died, at home, in Oliver’s arms. Afterward, Tawanda received a letter from the Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services, which oversees MassHealth, notifying her that the state was seeking “reimbursement from [Edna’s] estate for Medicaid payments made on her behalf.” For Edna’s five years on MassHealth, she owed $198,660.26."

"Tawanda’s hair started falling out soon after. She and Oliver, who was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, had no savings and no jobs. “I said to myself, I don’t care what they do to me. I can take care of myself,” she told me. “But I couldn’t have my dying husband thrown out into the street.”"

"She and Oliver had a combined monthly income of just $1,400, well below the threshold to claim financial hardship, and she had taken care of her mother at home for more than five years. But Tawanda told me the state rejected her requests for both exceptions"

"  “what they didn’t tell me then was that they had the right to reinstate” the claim on the property after her mother’s death.  "

"Bill Clinton signed the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program into law as part of his deficit-reduction act in 1993. Previously, states had the right to seek repayment for Medicaid debts; the new law made it mandatory."

" the overwhelming majority of estates are not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2005, the Public Policy Institute of the AARP published a study of the first decade of mandatory estate recovery. Massachusetts, it found, recovered an average of $16,442 per estate in 2003, in total offsetting a little more than 1 percent of its long-term-care costs that year. That made its efforts among the most effective in the nation. In Kentucky, by contrast, the average amount collected from an estate was $93; the state recovered just 0.25 percent of its long-term-care costs."

“It’s a terrible program, it’s a punitive program, and it doesn’t do anything to reimburse the billions of dollars spent,” she told me. “The purpose of recovery was to support Medicaid and bring money back, but how? By collecting anything from the poorest of the poor? It’s ridiculous.”

“It says I owe the state of Kansas a half million dollars or they’re going to take my home.”

"the state can collect his house and land, worth an estimated $40,000, to put toward his wife’s debt."

" If my mother stays on Medicaid, the state will almost certainly take our house when she dies; if she transfers it to my or my brother’s name, her Medicaid benefits will be suspended. Unable to afford other insurance options, and unable to go without insurance as a cancer survivor, she has no choice but to remain on the government program."

"it’s possible to protect your assets by putting them into an irrevocable trust or transferring a deed to a family member before you reach retirement age."

" The mortgage-interest deduction alone—a set of housing subsidies that primarily benefits Americans in the top 20 percent of the income distribution—cost the federal government $66 billion in 2017. By comparison, letting every family of a Medicaid recipient keep their property would cost just $500 million, according to 2011 data "

" a 56-year-old secretary in Nashville, told me she’ll be homeless when the state forecloses on the house she’s been living in for the past eight years to collect on her late mother’s $171,000 Medicaid debt. "

" “No, we’re not able to reduce the bill,” she said was the state’s response. “Go live on the street, live in a box under the bridge. We don’t care; we want our money.” "

"for the first time in her life, Tawanda Rhodes didn’t vote. When Election Day came she pulled up in front of the polling station and sat there for a minute, then drove off. “It did not make me feel good,” she said. “But I felt like, Vote for what? No one cares about me.” "

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/when-medicaid-takes-everything-you-own/596671/

sidd

Neven

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #418 on: October 21, 2019, 11:23:59 AM »
Quote
Weird, this thread was locked, i had to unlock it ? wonder if i clicked the lock button by accident.

I noticed yesterday. I thought I'd await your statement first.  :)

Quote
“But I felt like, Vote for what? No one cares about me.”

Stupid woman, she must have seen one of those Russian ads.
The enemy is within
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vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #419 on: October 21, 2019, 11:40:20 PM »
Study Shows Class Bias in Hiring Based on Few Seconds of Speech
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-class-bias-hiring-based-seconds.html



Candidates at job interviews expect to be evaluated on their experience, conduct, and ideas, but a new study by Yale researchers provides evidence that interviewees are judged based on their social status seconds after they start to speak.

... The researchers based their findings on five separate studies. The first four examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on a few seconds of speech. They found that reciting seven random words is sufficient to allow people to discern the speaker's social class with above-chance accuracy.

... Prior to sitting for a formal job interview, the candidates each recorded a conversation in which they were asked to briefly describe themselves. A sample of 274 individuals with hiring experience either listened to the audio or read transcripts of the recordings.

The hiring managers who listened to the audio recordings were more likely to accurately assess socioeconomic status than those who read transcripts, according to the study. Devoid of any information about the candidates' actual qualifications, the hiring managers judged the candidates from higher social classes as more likely to be competent for the job, and a better fit for it than the applicants from lower social classes. Moreover, they assigned the applicants from higher social classes more lucrative salaries and signing bonuses than the candidates with lower social status.



... Despite what these hiring tendencies may suggest, talent is not found solely among those born to rich or well-educated families.

Michael W. Kraus el al., "Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech," PNAS (2019)
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TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #420 on: October 22, 2019, 01:50:45 AM »
Jesus H Christ!
Can any country that treats her elderly and their offspring in this manner hope to escape without a rebellion?
Stealing grandma's house may bring smiles to the beancounters lips, but those who watch as their inheritance is snatched away might do more than simply withhold their vote.
Terry

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #421 on: October 22, 2019, 05:40:33 AM »
Keeping it in the family: Jones at wsws on nepotism in UAW

"Derik and Justin Jewell, sons of former UAW Vice President for Fiat Chrysler Norwood Jewell, gave their ok to the agreement with GM that sanctions the closure of the historic Lordstown Assembly Plant and there other facilities in Warren, Michigan, Baltimore, Maryland and Fontana, California, and lifts any cap on the use of temporary workers."

"Norwood Jewell pleaded guilty earlier this year to taking $40,000-$95,000 in illegal payments for travel, lodging and other perks from Fiat Chrysler officials"

" the UAW covered $213,000 in Jewell’s legal fees last year and his two sons continue to be employed by the UAW International at its misnamed Solidarity House headquarters in Detroit, making over $120,000 each annually. After Norwood Jewell resigned from his post in 2016 the UAW still paid him a full year’s salary of over $200,000 in 2017 and 2018."

" six of the top negotiators for the 2015 Fiat Chrysler sellout have been convicted or implicated of taking bribes by Chrysler executives to keep them “fat, dumb and happy” or misusing union funds for their personal benefits."

"Another UAW official, David Shoemaker, who added his signature to the GM sellout, may be familiar to veterans of the former Pontiac truck manufacturing complex. David Shoemaker is the son of former UAW Vice President Richard Shoemaker. The younger Shoemaker first got his cushy, annual $139,000-plus position on the International UAW staff in the wake of the 87-day strike in 1997 at the Pontiac truck manufacturing complex."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/21/jewe-o21.html

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #422 on: October 24, 2019, 11:51:49 PM »
Krugman recants:

"during the 1990s, a number of economists, myself included, tried to figure out how much the changing trade landscape was contributing to rising inequality. They generally concluded that the effect was relatively modest and not the central factor in the widening income gap."

"Does the surge in the trade deficit explain the fall in employment? Yes, a lot of it. A reasonable estimate is that the deficit surge reduced the share of manufacturing in GDP by around 1.5 percentage points, or more than 10%, which means that it explains more than half the roughly 20% decline in manufacturing employment between 1997 and 2005."

But the words stick in his throat. He qualifies:

"It’s possible, and probably even correct, to think of these models as accurate in the long run."

"Consensus economists didn’t turn much to analytic methods that focus on workers in particular industries and communities, which would have given a better picture of short-run trends. This was, I now believe, a major mistake — one in which I shared a hand."

"To make partial excuses for those of us who failed to consider these issues 25 years ago, at the time we had no way to know ... "

That's your fucking job. You should have known. It's called due diligence. Before you screwed over a an entire generation. But of course, it's too late. There is no alternative.

" Rapid change now appears to be largely behind us: Many indicators suggest that hyperglobalization was a one-time event"

"We might have done things differently if we had known what was coming, but that’s not a good reason to turn back the clock"

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-10/inequality-globalization-and-the-missteps-of-1990s-economics

Fuck off Paul. You sold a lot of people out. Of course, they weren't your kinda people anyway, they didnt count. Until they elected Trump.

I used to see him on the train to NY from Princeton in the early 2000's. By then the gutting of what remained of  the rust belt was almost complete.  Pity I didnt take the opportunity to kick him hard in the crotch. Someone should drag him outta his tony NY apartment and send him to live on a few hundred bux a month from a pizza delivery job in section 8 housing in Lordstown with no health insurance.

He might last a week, before one of the kids of the families he put on the street caps him.

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #423 on: October 25, 2019, 04:51:14 PM »
Virtual Spaces Mirror Income Inequality
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-virtual-spaces-mirror-income-inequality.html

Income inequality drives social segregation and polarization not just in urban neighborhoods, but in online communities as well. That is the conclusion of a new paper by the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) published in Royal Society Open Science. Importantly, this societal fragmentation is more than just the top one percent versus the bottom 99: it exists between every economic class.

The Internet democratized the exchange of information, but the evolution of online social networks has mirrored the segregation of urban neighborhoods in real cities, according to NECSI's analysis of millions of tweets. Social media users have organized themselves into economically segregated echo-chambers. This breakup of information reinforces the fragmentation and polarization of communities.

... The results show that people primarily interact with their own socio-economic group. Different income groups are distant both in the physical space and online. They are neither found in the same places, nor discussing similar issues. This divide exists not just between the wealthy and the poor, but more granularly between socio-economic classes.

... Analysis of hashtags reveals the divergent topics being discussed in rich and poor neighborhoods. In American cities, lifestyle hashtags abound in richer areas, while sports, zodiac signs and horoscopes seem to be more popular in poorer areas.

Open Access: Alfredo J. Morales et al. Segregation and polarization in urban areas, Royal Society Open Science (2019)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #424 on: October 25, 2019, 06:46:35 PM »
^^
Very interesting vox, thanks.
I have observed this. Great to have some science backup :).

This phenomenon is very dangerous. Dehumanizing. Us and them etc.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #425 on: October 25, 2019, 06:48:51 PM »
I'd like to recommend this book in this thread: "Robert Tressell - The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists".
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #426 on: October 26, 2019, 05:25:13 PM »
Thanks Vox


That's both unexpected and more than a little disturbing.
I would have expected an intellectual/educational divide, but not one based on wealth/income.


Terry



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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #427 on: October 26, 2019, 06:54:09 PM »
I think this is an example of surpremacy feelings inducing insanity/bad behaviour.

Thanks Terry!
It really ought to change one's worldview, don't you think?
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Ranman99

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #428 on: October 27, 2019, 02:57:55 AM »
Well it does seem the hominid with it's hand stuck in the jar would be the most apt plaque for this lineage to leave behind ;-)  8)

Reminds me of the scene in Quest for Fire where the little fellow is having a go with the ladies when their tribe is attacked and the best he can do is go faster ;-)
😎

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #429 on: October 27, 2019, 12:48:28 PM »
  I had a visit from my benefits assessor – and now I fear the state more than poverty
  by Rob Palk

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/26/benefit-assessor-more-afraid-state-poverty

When the Department for Work and Pensions deemed me ineligible for payments, I realised: there is no safety net

 Quotes:
"Being accused of faking my visual impairment was my first experience of being treated like a criminal"

"Her report said that I had no visual impairment and could see well enough to drive. I was surprised by this, as I hadn’t been able to drive even when I could still see. It said I did not suffer from stress and anxiety, on the grounds that I was engaging, made eye contact and “seemed calm”. While this was flattering it didn’t consider that I had tried my best to be all these things because I was meeting someone with the power to ruin my life. The report complained that I went regularly to the theatre, without mentioning that I’d been working in a theatre and had to quit because of my condition.

It also observed that I “had written a novel”. This was my biggest mistake. Novelists are famously free from mental health problems and bad eyesight."

"The report concluded that I was ineligible for any payments. I lodged an appeal and waited. I’ve been waiting for 80-odd weeks.

During this wait my eyesight has got worse. I have had three more operations on my brain. I have written another novel and have done my best not to starve. I have got used to the panic when an unexpected bill has arrived, the sleepless nights from dreading an undetermined future."

"They wrote to me asking, more in sorrow than anger, why it had taken so long to chase the results of my appeal. The fact that I didn’t know it was happening only added to their suspicion."

"In periods of joblessness I resisted signing on, to avoid the threat of sanctions. I may have known my rights but it felt safer not to assert them."

"More than 17,000 people have reportedly died while waiting to hear if they were eligible for PIP. Sometimes if you avoid tackling a problem for long enough, the problem goes away."

&

Link to interesting comment BTL:
https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/134778479
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #430 on: October 28, 2019, 05:19:41 AM »
Presser at propublica on medical debt in Kansas town: The system, the judge, the victims and the vultures

"medical debt collection day, a monthly ritual in this quiet city of 9,000"

"Some wore eye patches and bandages; others limped to their seats by the wood-paneled walls."

"had to take a day off from work to be there ... if he didn’t show up, he could be put in jail."

"four months pregnant, she had reported a money order scam to her local sheriff’s office only to discover that she had a warrant; she was arrested on the spot. A radiologist had sued her over a $230 bill, and she’d missed one hearing too many. Another woman said she watched, a decade ago, as a deputy came to the door for her diabetic aunt and took her to jail in her final years of life. "

"Judges don’t need a law degree in Kansas"

"The first collector of the day was also the most notorious: Michael Hassenplug, a private attorney representing doctors and ambulance services. Every three months, Hassenplug called the same nonpaying defendants to court"

" If debtors can post bail, the judge almost always applies the money to the debt. Hassenplug, like any collector working on commission, gets a cut of the cash he brings in."

"Some debtors who have been arrested owed as little as $28."

"Since the Affordable Care Act of 2010, prices for medical services have ballooned; insurers have nearly tripled deductibles — the amount a person pays before their coverage kicks in — and raised premiums and copays, as well. As a result, tens of millions of people without adequate coverage are expected to pay larger portions of their rising bills."

"The sickest patients are often the most indebted, and they’re not exempt from arrest. In Indiana, a cancer patient was hauled away from home in her pajamas in front of her three children; too weak to climb the stairs to the women’s area of the jail, she spent the night in a men’s mental health unit where an inmate smeared feces on the wall. In Utah, a man who had ignored orders to appear over an unpaid ambulance bill told friends he would rather die than go to jail; the day he was arrested, he snuck poison into the cell and ended his life."

"collection attorneys have turned this courtroom into a government-sanctioned shakedown"

"Each time she woke up, she repeated: “Don’t take me to the hospital.” "

"Biggs was still on the hook for the bill that had landed him in jail; bail had covered only part of it, and the rest was growing with 12% annual interest. The hospital had garnished his wages, and the radiologist had garnished his bank account, seizing contributions that his family had raised for Lane’s care. Living on $25,000 a year, Biggs couldn’t afford to buy insurance. His family was on food stamps but didn’t qualify for Medicaid, a federal insurance program for people in poverty. Other states were about to expand it to cover the working poor, but not Kansas, which limited it"

"five perfectly maintained motorcycles, Yamahas and Suzukis, were propped in a line. To their left, nine pristine, candy-colored cars were arranged – a Camaro SS with orange stripes, a Pontiac Trans Am, a vintage Silverado pickup with velvet seats. He [Hassenplug] toured me around the show cars, peering into their windows, and mused about what his hard work had gotten him."

Read and weep:

https://features.propublica.org/medical-debt/when-medical-debt-collectors-decide-who-gets-arrested-coffeyville-kansas/

sidd

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #431 on: October 28, 2019, 07:57:01 AM »
Thanks sidd for all your great posts here regarding horrors of the USA.

For all the poor people at the receiving end, it really is HELL.
Social security? Safety net? Nope. Just trying to survive in HELL.

Put in jail, just because of being ill and poor. What a dystopia. Imagine it happening to you!

Do empathy and social cohesion still exist?
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #432 on: October 28, 2019, 08:49:51 AM »
Thanks sidd for all your great posts here regarding horrors of the USA.

For all the poor people at the receiving end, it really is HELL.
Social security? Safety net? Nope. Just trying to survive in HELL.

Put in jail, just because of being ill and poor. What a dystopia. Imagine it happening to you!

Do empathy and social cohesion still exist?


Although it's the elderly and enfeebled that initially are effected, their relatives and prospective heirs will ultimately foot much of the bill. Those directly affected are too weakened to put up much of a fight, but once the heirs understand that they have been robbed a backlash may occur.


Fear that "others" will be advantaged is often what drives voting white Americans. That and $Billions well spent on propaganda.


Terry

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #433 on: October 28, 2019, 09:43:19 AM »
Thanks for the information Terry.
Please note that poor people don't have heirs or inheritance to worry about. Those are rich peoples' worries ;).

In my post about the UK benefits system, it is not just the elderly and feeble but everyone who is in need of a safety net to survive.
The NHS health system in the UK is still far superior to the USA systems.

In the Netherlands many councils put unemployed <50yo people who are receiving benefits, to mandatory work. A lot of times at a conveyer belt without a contract, a salary, a prospect of a contract or fitting work. It is slave labour. If you refuse to work as a slave you can and likely will get financially sanctioned by those councils.
Most working poor people here have no job security. No contract. My last job-secure contract was with Reader's Digest and ended in 1999. Afterwards only a couple of 1 year contracts and the rest zero-hours contract, stand-by contract, outplacement contract. All temporary and insecure. If you're over 50yo your chances are even lower.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #434 on: November 02, 2019, 01:05:08 AM »
Slave markets in your pocket: Google, Facebook, Apple

"The sellers almost all advocated confiscating the women's passports, confining them to the house, denying them any time off and giving them little or no access to a phone.

The 4Sale app allowed you to filter by race, with different price brackets clearly on offer, according to category.

"African worker, clean and smiley," said one listing. Another: "Nepalese who dares to ask for a day off."

When speaking to the sellers, the undercover team frequently heard racist language. "Indians are the dirtiest," said one, describing a woman being advertised.  "

 "Trust me she's very nice, she laughs and has a smiley face. Even if you keep her up till 5am she won't complain."

"You will find someone buying a maid for 600 KD ($2,000), and selling her on for 1,000 KD ($3,300),"

"no significant action has been taken against the platforms"

" at the time of publication, hundreds of domestic workers were still being traded on Haraj, Instagram and other apps"

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50228549

sidd


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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #435 on: November 03, 2019, 11:47:48 AM »
Fascinating research reported in Scientific american.
The origins of inequality are hotly debated, but might have been hiding in plain sight—in a well-known quirk of arithmetic. This method uses agent-based models of wealth distribution , which begin with an individual transaction between two “agents” or actors, each trying to optimize his or her own financial outcome.
If you simulate a very simple transactional economy, a variant of the yard sale model, you will get a remarkable result: after a large number of transactions between, say, 1000 agents, one agent ends up as an “oligarch” holding practically all the wealth of the economy, and the other 999 end up with virtually nothing.
It does not matter how much wealth people started with. It does not matter that all the coin flips were absolutely fair. It does not matter that the poorer agent's expected outcome was positive in each transaction, whereas that of the richer agent was negative. Any single agent in this economy could have become the oligarch—in fact, all had equal odds if they began with equal wealth. In that sense, there was equality of opportunity. But only one of them did become the oligarch, and all the others saw their average wealth decrease toward zero as they conducted more and more transactions. To add insult to injury, the lower someone's wealth ranking, the faster the decrease.

This outcome is especially surprising because it holds even if all the agents started off with identical wealth and were treated symmetrically.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/

gandul

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #436 on: November 03, 2019, 01:07:10 PM »
@Heifastos Fascinating and very important piece of scientific work providing evidence of the falsity of "trickle down" economics (and possibly remedies to help valiant politicians).

Neven

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #437 on: November 03, 2019, 03:19:25 PM »
Thanks for this, Hefaistos. That's very interesting.
The enemy is within
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blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #438 on: November 03, 2019, 03:34:31 PM »
+1

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #439 on: November 04, 2019, 01:36:58 AM »
I've been following Boghosian for more than a decade now, and i like his work. But i must point out the importance of this para in his SciAm article, that shows how the game is rigged from the start:

“What if I stay for 10 flips of the coin? A likely outcome is that five of them will come up heads and that the other five will come up tails. Each time heads comes up, my ante is multiplied by 1.2. Each time tails comes up, my ante is multiplied by 0.83. After five wins and five losses in any order, the amount of money remaining on the table will be:

1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 x 0.83 x 0.83 x 0.83 x 0.83 x 0.83 x $100 = $98.02

so I will have lost about $2 of my original $100 ante.”

Following Bogossian's notation let the fraction won or lost be w. The simplify the case above to just two transactions. The most probable outcome is that you win once and lose once, for a net resultant wealth of (1+w)(1-w)=1-w^2 which is strictly less than one. Your probable outcome in a repeated game is a loss of wealth.  In general for N repetitions of this game, the most probably outcome is (1-w)^(N/2)  * (1+w)^(N/2) =  ( 1 - w^2)^(N/2) strictly less than one. With some work you can show by summing over all the expected outcomes in pascal's triangle that you will lose.

The rest of his work is showing how this game screws you and some mitigating and exacerbating factors. Nice read all about it. The second paper in the references to the article can be found as open access at arxiv.

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #440 on: November 10, 2019, 06:19:40 AM »
Some may recall my post in June about a friend, now dead.

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1482.msg207954.html#msg207954

I went by an stuck my head in the door, found her crying. They're coming after his wife for the medical bills. the only money left is from a life insurance policy, and the couple had some equity in the house. Both together fall far short of the bills. They gonna put her on the street.

What really worries me is that there are firearms in the house, and she might use one on herself.  I might have to go over and take em away, tell her that i'm gonna get them appraised. Hate to see another death of despair.

sidd

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #441 on: November 10, 2019, 06:26:43 AM »
Speri interviews Karakatsanis at the intercept on the criminal injustice system in the USA:

"The American legal system ... has been an instrument of ruling class oppression. The legal system, from its founding, was about preserving distributions of wealth and property and white supremacy. "

" if you don’t attack the underlying systems of oppression that lead to a problem, a court ruling isn’t going to solve them."

"we use terms like “law enforcement,” which make it seem like we enforce all laws against all people, when in fact law enforcement in this country just enforces some laws against some people. The language that we use is really important."

"It’s just a really significant bureaucratic achievement to transfer that many people and their bodies and their lives into government-run cages. And to do that, the system basically has to ignore the main constitutional rights that are provided for in the Bill of Rights"

"The way that law is enforced reflects distributions of power in our society."

"If you actually think that its purpose is controlling certain populations, oppressing certain people, conserving the hierarchies of wealth and power, then it’s actually functioning very well. And the people who’ve been running our criminal legal system for decades aren’t stupid. They weren’t trying to do one thing but woefully failed, they were trying to do what the system has been doing, which is to keep certain people controlled."

"It’s a massive bureaucracy, and what do bureaucracies do? They try to expand and preserve themselves."

https://theintercept.com/2019/11/09/criminal-justice-mass-incarceration-book/

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #442 on: November 10, 2019, 04:17:16 PM »
Some may recall my post in June about a friend, now dead.

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1482.msg207954.html#msg207954

I went by an stuck my head in the door, found her crying. They're coming after his wife for the medical bills. the only money left is from a life insurance policy, and the couple had some equity in the house. Both together fall far short of the bills. They gonna put her on the street.

What really worries me is that there are firearms in the house, and she might use one on herself.  I might have to go over and take em away, tell her that i'm gonna get them appraised. Hate to see another death of despair.

sidd
Jesus - I'm sorry for him, sorry for her, sorry for you, sorry for their friends & fearful for any family they might have. - are they now in line for the bill(s)?


When I left 15 years ago the misnamed Health Care System was broken. I watched friends die from botched procedures, misdiagnosis, & suicide after botched procedures and misdiagnosis took their toll. Almost all had comprehensive HMOs & at least no one went after their modest estates.


I "saved" a neighbor from suicide, but I'm unsure that I did him a favor. He died 2 operations and 5 years later, after adjusting to pooping into an odiferous bag taped to his side.


I hope this isn't too goolish, but would they have escaped this outcome if he'd survived until 63, or whatever the minimum age is for Medicare/Medicaid? Would lowering the minimum age for these programs help in a case like this?


Stay busy sidd.
Know that your posts are very much appreciated. You've opened many eyes, and many hearts.
Terry

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #443 on: November 10, 2019, 05:19:03 PM »
Quote
Stay busy sidd.
Know that your posts are very much appreciated. You've opened many eyes, and many hearts.
Terry
Thank you Terry for your general capacity of empathy

Seconded. Your posts are of high quality and I learn a lot, thanks sidd. I think you are a beautiful human.

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #444 on: November 17, 2019, 10:09:37 AM »
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

TerryM

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #445 on: November 17, 2019, 04:34:24 PM »
^^
NDIS = National Disability Insurance Scheme


An interesting omission is the case that sidd wrote of last week. A woman contemplating suicide when she realises that her husband's unwanted and unsuccessful medical intervention has cost her her home - another example of American Exceptionalism I suppose.


Terry

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #446 on: November 17, 2019, 05:34:57 PM »
I think that without omissions, the cartoon would not fit on this page  :'( >:(.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #447 on: November 17, 2019, 06:17:48 PM »
Here is about yet another barbary taking place.

Let's talk about the happiest prisoner...


sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #448 on: November 17, 2019, 10:21:49 PM »
"I was born in garbage, I’ll die in garbage"

Decades ago, I walked the streets of that neighbourhood. It was hell then, and worse now.

https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/i-was-born-in-garbage-i-will-die-in-garbage/

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kassy

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #449 on: November 17, 2019, 11:50:46 PM »
We are so privileged in the west. That was quite a heartbreaking story (especially all the grandchildren not going to school).  :(
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.