Wealth Distribution in the USA

EmptyTree

KyussBishop wrote: »

Sounds a far sight more risky and stressful for the 1000 people below

Ha.

KyussBishop wrote: »

with the ability of the person making the decision, to be at practically no real personal risk, due to their salary.

Cant say I'd agree with this completely, nobody every few want to see their business damaged/go toes up or would risk their business on a stupid gambl. At the higher end of the scale reputation is everything in order to move over to the next company and get paid even more

drumswan

drumswan wrote: »

This is the crux of the libertarian argument at its ugliest. .

Em, no, it's the crux of the socialist argument insisting, like yourself, that the poor will never achieve anything in life

gaffer91

KyussBishop wrote: »

Even when that is shown to be harmful to society overall, with income inequality having well documented negative effects? Even when giving people the ability to gain excessive wealth, grants them greater de-facto power over society, through their ability to get more favourable treatment in the legal/political systems? (among many other ways of exerting greater power through money)

But you see, I think that a culture that doesn't reward success and hard work handsomely has a more harmful effect on society overall. I do agree that money can have a corrosive influence on politics and that is definitely something that a close eye must be kept on.

KyussBishop wrote: »

It's not just the poor and the rich, it's the poor, working classes, and the middle classes (i.e. the vast majority of society), who all are at a disadvantage due to income inequality, and all of the related societal issues.

Working and middle classes are disadvantaged by higher taxes as well. Many people would find the low level at which the higher rate of income tax kicks in and things like the USC to be more than a little unfair.

donegal__road

awec wrote: »

Why would anyone want to be a CEO if the financial side of things didn't outweigh the tremendous responsibility and stress?

why would anyone want to become an airline pilot, in that case?

clairefontaine

drumswan wrote: »

This is the crux of the libertarian argument at its ugliest. The poor are lazy and have everything handed to them by some imaginary hero-elite that the libertarian is always part of. The reality that the poor need to expend the same amount of work just to thread water in our system is ignored. Its truly nauseating.

Luckily there are only about 20 of these nuts in Ireland. Ive better things to do than argue with such cretins.

Poverty is not a destiny.

The US has a very flexible class system and many roads inwards. I can see how you might have your views in a European context where class is more fixed and more socialist. Odd that isn't it, the more socialist a place is, the more classist it is.

drumswan

bluewolf wrote: »

Em, no, it's the crux of the socialist argument insisting, like yourself, that the poor will never achieve anything in life

Another strawman. I claimed it is more difficult, not that its impossible. Which it is. Its a libertarian fairytale that everyone has equal chance at success.

KyussBishop

gaffer91 wrote: »

Define "already wealthy". I think it is highly possible for someone in Ireland growing up in a household making close to the median income to move up the economic ladder if he or she so wishes and provided he/she is willing to put in the requisite effort.

But has it ever occurred to you that for many people becoming CEO of a company is not a top priority? I'd wager most people would be happy enough with a partner, some kids, a reasonably well paying job, good health and a nice house in a crime-free area. While nearly everyone is attracted to large amounts of money in the abstract, most people are not ready to devote the time and energy it takes to rise to the top of the economic ladder and are quite happy to settle for a bit less in their pay packet if it means an easier life. This doesn't mean we should be looking to take as much money as possible off people for whom it is a top priority.

With a wealthy enough family to get to the right schools, form the right business (sometimes political) connections, and often with the right amount of money to actually start off a businesss - or just a family that already owns/runs a business.

If you want to start a business, make that business successful and sustainable, and grow that into a larger business, then the barriers to entry and to success, are fairly high for anyone who is not already very well off (or from a family that is).

For those that are well off enough to get this opportunity, it's possible (and it should be extremely well rewarded monetarily, when it succeeds), but in these discussions the barriers are extremely underplayed to an unrealistic degree - these barriers ensure that it is largely those in the 'top percentiles', who get the privilege of taking these positions within business, and income inequality just exacerbates that, through its negative societal effects.

So don't forget the significant amount of privilege involved in getting to even undertake this in the first place - it's not an area where there is equal opportunity to even try, it is not a level playing field or a meritocracy, and often can be more about luck than exceptional talent.

K-9

gaffer91 wrote: »

Primary and secondary education are free and grants are provided for people at third level. So all of your solutions already exist. Whether the system is "decent" or not is another matter.



My point was disadvantaged areas are already being helped out via welfare transfers, free housing etc. You must realise that the answer to everything is not always more spending. Perhaps a better approach would be to try and get a cultural shift in attitudes to education among poorer socio-economic groups so that poorer households and environments would become more hospitable to learning and intellectual development.

Well that post is in a different context to the one I responded to.

While income inequality may seem unfair, I'd have to say that it would probably be more unfair for a young man or woman who has worked and studied hard from the age of 15 or 16 to get a good leaving cert, do well in college and excel post-graduation to be taxed into oblivion so that more money can be funneled to those closer to the bottom of the pyramid (and I wouldn't necessarily consider myself very right-wing.

I can only respond to what you post, and you stated you'd prefer income inequality than getting taxed to oblivion and that money used to help those at the bottom of the pyramid. I didn't know if you think we are taxed to oblivion as it is.

A big part of the problem is that free third level fees hasn't had that much of an effect on disadvantaged areas, if anything the middle and upper income levels benefited most. Some right wingers would suggest that means the system has failed, I'd say it targets the wrong people.

Turtwig

bluewolf wrote: »

That's funny... if you're born poor we're going to do our best for you by insisting to your face you'll stay poor forever and never come of anything because it wasn't handed to you

With all due respect bluey, this is whopping big strawman. I don't think anyone is claiming that the poor will stay poor forever. Certainly there's always a chance for people to move up their social and financial ladders. However, the issue, is that the chances of people successfully doing is quite low. Maybe that's a necessity for society to function. Who knows? But your point doesn't really address it. I'm not for one second claiming the extreme that people will always be poor. I'm saying that if America keeps going the way it's headed it will become increasingly harder for people to bridge those income gaps. Not that it won't be impossible. And certainly that it isn't impossible now. Just that it is probably more difficulty and challenging than it should be.

Jernal

Jernal wrote: »

With all due respect bluey, this is whopping big strawman.

All I've seen on the last two pages is "you can't do anything if you're poor, you can't even get into an IL college" which is demonstrably untrue. It was CF's point, and I don't think she was far off the mark with it either. If you're being told a lot you can't do anything or go to college or that you can't run a big company ever or whatever else because you're poor, it might well introduce a psychological barrier. in combination with the other points raised especially

K-9

EmptyTree wrote: »

You can be sure consultants and advisers get paid very handsomely indeed. Not to mention all the other executives that help inform the CEO's decision.

Oh they do, no argument from me on that. My argument would be that resources are wasted on waste like that and should be targeted at the actual delivery of the health service, others just see cut, cut, cut.

Amirani

I'm somewhere in between where a lot of posters on this, and find myself agreeing with aspects of both sides.

I do believe the state has a responsibility to its citizens in this area. That responsibility for me is in limited redistribution of wealth (basic social welfare payments) and perhaps more importantly in creating an environment that promotes and facilitates social mobility. Victorian England failed here, Modern "caste system" India fails here and so do many others.

People have no inherent right to wealth that is in any way proportional to what the "1%" get, they do however have an inherent right to have the opportunity to earn that level of wealth. "Earn" is a tricky word here, as many people clearly have very different views on what this is. Seeing as such differences of opinion exist on what "earning" constitutes, it seems fairest to let the overall society, via the market system, decide on fair pay scales. Obviously, actual post-tax income is an extension of this.

So for me, income inequality is only a big issue when social mobility is also.

This OECD report gives a good indicator of levels of social mobility across its members: http://www.oecd.org/eco/growth/49849281.pdf

KyussBishop

Sleevoo wrote: »

It's very simple, what people get paid is generally determined by supply and demand.

And this supply is constrained, largely to those in the 'top percentiles', who have more favourable opportunity to develop the right skills, with those in the lower percentiles having much higher barriers to entry.


Lets also point another thing out: There can only be so many businesses out there, because labour is limited - this puts a constraint on 1: the number of businesses, and 2: the size of businesses.

This limits the supply of managerial/CEO jobs, and restricts the number of people who get the opportunity to take those jobs - these are not jobs open to contesting from the markets, mostly they are hierarchical, with pretty high job security - certainly, when managers/CEO's do a bad job, often the company ends up covering their ass rather than firing them, so I'm not convinced it's all down to skill/merit at all (in a lot of cases it is, though equally, in a lot of cases it is not...).

This would lead me to think, that it's not the number of capable of qualified leaders out there that is of limited supply, it is more the jobs.

UCDVet

bluewolf wrote: »

Hmmm

http://www.admissionsconsultants.com/college/ivy_league_financial_aid.asp

Harvard is committed to meeting 100% of admitted students' demonstrated financial need.
Financial aid is available for international students.
All applicants are automatically considered for the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, which expands aid to middle- and lower-income families. Families with annual income below $60,000 are not expected to contribute to educational costs. Families with income between $60,000 and $150,000 are expected to pay zero to ten percent. Families with annual income over $150,000 are expected to pay proportionally more.

Yale Families with annual income of $65,000 or less are not expected to contribute to educational costs

100% correct.

In addition to school specific programs, the US Federal Government backs all of the student loans. People in the US don't pay to go to college, and they don't need jobs or credit history. They fill out paperwork and wait for their check. Each year they can get more and more money.

The idea that poor people can't afford to go to college in the US is crazy.

There are lots of US students at UCD who borrow 80k USD per year, for their educational costs. And they are posting pictures of their fancy holidays and yacht cruises. All financed with their student loans.

Wibbs

Jernal wrote: »

That's one of the reasons why I really appreciate Ireland. The system is still to a relative degree very open about getting poorer classes into education and other skill acquisitions, making it that bit more possible for them up to move up the ladder. There is a creeping element of the poor being lazy sneaking in now but thankfully it wasn't always there was enough for most of my family to prosper. I think JK Rowling (?) gave a fantastic speech on this.

That would be my take too. My overall view would be that both your "left" and "right" wing approach equality from different angles. One suggests all are equal, whereas the other sees life in more social darwinian terms*. I see it as a patently obvious nonsense to suggest we're all equal, however I would see it as self evident that for the good of society that it be or at least strive to be equitable.

In a lot of these debates it seems in opposing corners of the squared circle we have the Market in one and the Government in the other. Again IMHO neither alone or in the majority position will ever give rise to an equitable society. Both see these issues in the other side, but rarely in their own.

So I see Society(tm) first. Not a society based in an ism, political or otherwise, but a society that is striving to be equitable. In order to be equitable it needs many tools to do so. The market is, or should be a tool of society, just as government is, or should be a tool of society. Neither should be the way to run or control society.

What's wrong with government? Or better what's wrong with waht our US cousins say "big" government? Quite a bit. One standout is power corrupts and power tends to attract the corrupt. There's a reason why in every society since the Greeks people have been dubious of politicians. "How can you tell a politician is lying? His/her lips move". That's not a new joke. Secondly, over involvement by government can stifle progress**, by blocking a minority who may change things for the better for the sake of the majority who don't really care. I'd also have issues with some areas of current democracy but that's for another day.

What's wrong with the market, or a more complete reliance on it? It's naturally based on resources and that's fine, but when everything has a price, if you're in a position where you're unable to afford that price, you can easily be screwed from birth and society doesn't do well from it. I'm not talking about fancy goods here BTW. If all a market led society meant was that you couldn't afford a Mercedes or a Rolex that's fine. It's when essentials are marketised the problems start. When personal resources are required to access areas like health and education then you get a big shift towards a less equitable society and all that brings. A full market led society would and has led to more access to fancy commodities(cars tellies etc), however if the same market is applied to the essentials it doesn't raise all boats, indeed it tends to increase the gap. And worse it does so from birth. If by an accident of birth you're born to the havenots, or barelygettingbys, then from birth you are at a major disadvantage. A two year old can't be an entrepreneur, a go getter, it's reliant on parents and wider society to build it's potential. In a fully market led world where health and education are down to an accident of birth then that society is losing out. Elites form and as it goes on the non elites with less education and health get further and further distanced and that's really bad on all sorts of levels. These become real barriers, not philosophical ones.

Sorry to go all geek here, but one thing I love about the interweb and indeed Boards. We're having a back and forth debate and unless someone tells us we've no clue what "class" our debaters are, nor what educational background, nor gender, nor "race", nor creed. The debate stands or falls to points on both sides, your accent, your money, your gonads, your skin colour don't matter. It's a more equitable platform. So long as you have access in the first place you can play ball. Now I'm not suggesting for a second that "the interwebz is society!!", I leave that to nerds in darkened rooms to muse on , but it's that kind of model for society at large I would argue for and I would be happy to pay for through my taxes. Again for me I judge the value of a society, not by how it's elites live, but how it's lowest do.







*Both the left and the right took much comfort in including pseudo darwinism in their initial development. American culture really took it to it's heart. Thankfully due to a better philosophical environment and the sense of individualism didn't take it near the level of the later Fascist or Communist collectivism.

** not always of course. Sometimes monolithic governance can drive progess, by focusing all resources on big projects, QV the Pyramids, the Soviet space programme. Neither societies many would be clamouring to join by choice mind you.

Amirani

clairefontaine wrote: »

The US has a very flexible class system and many roads inwards. I can see how you might have your views in a European context where class is more fixed and more socialist. Odd that isn't it, the more socialist a place is, the more classist it is.

Any statistics to back this up? Pretty much every report I've read has ranked Nordic European countries way ahead of the US in this regard (and the UK and France considerably behind). Generalising about Europe as a whole is silly, it's massively diverse in this regard.

Turtwig

bluewolf wrote: »

All I've seen on the last two pages is "you can't do anything if you're poor, you can't even get into an IL college" which is demonstrably untrue. It was CF's point, and I don't think she was far off the mark with it either. If you're being told a lot you can't do anything or go to college or that you can't run a big company ever or whatever else because you're poor, it might well introduce a psychological barrier. in combination with the other points raised especially

Yes, it probably would raise a psychological barrier. Easy thing to rationalise too. But do you accept the point I'm making about traversing gaps probably being harder than it ought to be? Society's goal should be to optimise access for a high quality of living for everyone. How that's achieved I'm not so sure. I certainly haven't seen anything from the libertarian argument to even suggest that's a model worth following.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

What's wrong with the market, or a more complete reliance on it? It's naturally based on resources and that's fine, but when everything has a price, if you're in a position where you're unable to afford that price, you can easily be screwed from birth and society doesn't do well from it.

And yet...
http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/private-education-is-good-poor-study-private-schools-serving-poor-lowincome-countries

http://www.cato.org/policy-report/septemberoctober-2005/private-schools-poorest-countries

KyussBishop

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Except again, nobody said that. What was said, was that the barriers to entry, make starting up a successful business and being successful, something that is disproportionately more about privilege (wealthy family) and background, and that the cases where this is not true, are the exception rather than the rule (far from impossible, just don't pretend its a level playing field).

Jernal

Jernal wrote: »

Yes, it probably would raise a psychological barrier. Easy thing to rationalise too. But do you accept the point I'm making about traversing gaps probably being harder than it ought to be? Society's goal should be to optimise access for a high quality of living for everyone. How that's achieved I'm not so sure. I certainly haven't seen anything from the libertarian argument to even suggest that's a model worth following.

I don't know. "Ought to be" by comparison to what? Are we comparing people who have really tried and failed or people for whom a lot of money is not a priority in life in the first place? What specific things do you mean by high quality of living for everyone and what people don't have it and why?

KyussBishop

awec wrote: »

How are they falsely credited?! It's their company, they are responsible for all of it. Do you think that a CEO has to be physically in the room with the employees responsible to claim credit?!

I did justify it, you just chose to ignore it because it didn't fit with what you are saying. I can lead a horse to water and all that.

You seem to be evading the point of what I'm saying once again, and constantly doing that here, just saying variations of 'already answered that' when you didn't.

KyussBishop

awec wrote: »

Of course not, when you work that hard and get yourself that far up the ladder then of course you're not going to be as close to the breadline as other people.

That tends to be one of the benefits of being successful - you have a lot more money. There is nothing wrong with this.

Rather than focus on how to drag them all down there should be a focus on telling people, particularly young people how they can raise themselves to that level.

And again this was a bout risk, and now you're running off on a non-sequitur which has nothing to do with the original point of risk...

UCDVet

KyussBishop wrote: »

Except again, nobody said that. What was said, was that the barriers to entry, make starting up a successful business and being successful, something that is disproportionately more about privilege (wealthy family) and background, and that the cases where this is not true, are the exception rather than the rule (far from impossible, just don't pretend its a level playing field).

To be fair, I think everyone has examples of how someone coming from a rich family ended up putting them on top. All of the most successful people I know, if you really get to know their story, they really owe their success to someone else.

True story (anecdotal, I know, but I like it)...

I had a brother-in-law who graduated from the same University as me, three years earlier. He immediately started his own business. I didn't know much about it, but I really admired the guy. I was like, 'I want to start a business....but how? And doing what?'.

Over some months and a few family gatherings I got to talk to him some more. He was a nice guy, smart, friendly; but I learned some of the details of his business. At first, I was even more impressed. He borrowed a bunch of money and bought a FACTORY. A whole FACTORY. I mean, I wouldn't know what to do with a factory, but he did. He bought a super expensive machining tool and he made machine parts that he sold.

Honestly, how does a 22 year old just wake up and say, 'I'd like to produce generic machine parts!' and make it a career? But he did. I'd say, 'That's so cool - but how'd you decide to make generic machine parts? And how do you know who to sell them to?' His answers were always pretty vague, but he was friendly and encouraging (IE - 'Oh, it's not too hard. Just look for an idea and run with it!')

It was another two years before I was at a wedding with him and *his parents*. That's when I found out the whole story.

His Dad? He was an upper-middle-manager at a company that bought all sorts of machined parts and sold them. He was responsible for working *with factories* to get the parts they needed.

The company his Dad worked for....just happened to be his son's first and ONLY customer for the first full-year of operation. During that time, he was able to build up a brand and word of mouth and advertising, and he landed his second customer. Last I heard, he's doing really well, over a dozen customers buying parts from him.

The loan for the factory? Co-signed by his Dad.

So his Dad provided him....the ability to buy the factory, got him his first and longest standing customer, gave him all the knowledge of what machines he needed and what parts to produce. His Dad had 20+ years of experience (and contacts) in the industry and had even hand selected the first dozen or so parts he was machining.

When I finished Uni, my Dad bought me a suit.

Not quite the same.

If you read his Bio or even talked to him...he'd tell you he started a company fresh out of college, worked really hard, and make a success out of himself. And he *did* work really hard. But you'd have to dig to learn the rest of the story, that without his parents, he'd just be another generic business major with 'okay' grades who'd have been fighting for an internship. He might have still worked hard and been successful, but it's very unlikely he'd be as successful as he is now.

TL;DR - meaningless post that proves nothing. Cheers!

opr

I don't really even understand how the last few pages relate to the OP. The original post was about the 1% versus the 99% idea. If education was to be talked about in those terms in its current form then really is about for the most part creating workers for the 1%. It's a system of indoctrination which educates workers in a very limited scope to provide decent paying jobs for those who can complete the courses involved. The idea that you go to college, get educated to do a specific job etc isn't a bad thing only in a way all it perpetuates is creating a type of better paid slave class for the elite.

This would be fine at least in my eyes if the production of wealth at the higher levels was going back into the system so to speak but it only acts as someone earlier put it in this thread to hoover wealth for the already existing 1%.

The idea now being talked about in the thread about the ability of people to get into education to gain a decently paying job would seem a completely different topic to discussing the 1% of the population of the USA own 40% of the wealth.

Edit - Maybe Chomsky describes it better than I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVqMAlgAnlo

Opr

Turtwig

bluewolf wrote: »

I don't know. "Ought to be" by comparison to what? Are we comparing people who have really tried and failed or people for whom a lot of money is not a priority in life in the first place? What specific things do you mean by high quality of living for everyone and what people don't have it and why?

Quality of living: Health, Energy and Food* aren't a issue for people. For the financial aspect, I like the expression "to have enough money that the fear of money is taken off the table". Not necessarily comparing the two pairs you mentioned above. More, posing the question about the challenges for people to have access to a standard of living that is acceptable. Should these people be facing these challenges?


*Availability of education, entertainment and other excesses are dependent on how much freedom the person has towards affording the 3 core requirements and how much of the 3 they're willing to sacrifice.

UCDVet

opr wrote: »

I don't really even understand how the last few pages relate to the OP. The original post was about the 1% versus the 99% idea. If education was to be talked about in those terms in its current form then really is about for the most part creating workers for the 1%. It's a system of indoctrination which educates workers in a very limited scope to provide decent paying jobs for those who can complete the courses involved. The idea that you go to college, get educated to do a specific job etc isn't a bad thing only in a way all it perpetuates is creating a type of better paid slave class for the elite.

This would be fine at least in my eyes if the production of wealth at the higher levels was going back into the system so to speak but it only acts as someone earlier put it in this thread to hoover wealth for the already existing 1%.

The idea now being talked about in the thread about the ability of people to get into education to gain a decently paying job would seem a completely different topic to discussing the 1% of the population of the USA own 40% of the wealth.

Edit - Maybe Chomsky describes it better than I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVqMAlgAnlo

Opr

Completely agree. We're way off-topic here.

Amirani

UCDVet wrote: »

Completely agree. We're way off-topic here.

Posting that we're off-topic is also off-topic.

Turtwig

NiallSparky wrote: »

Posting that we're off-topic is also off-topic.

So does your off topic post of an off topic post make your post on topic. A negative of a negative making a positive, or do posts work like that?

UCDVet

NiallSparky wrote: »

Posting that we're off-topic is also off-topic.

Fair enough - but we're in After Hours

KyussBishop

clairefontaine wrote: »

drumswan wrote:

Thats a pretty representative sample. What about the billions who were born poor and died poor in the same period. I suppose these were just lazy when compared to you and the individuals above you attach yourself to.

Many possible reasons for that.

I'd say one reason are the artificial barriers liberal ideology puts in their heads.

I'd say another is no ethic at home.

I'd say another might be single parenting and not enough time and attention at home because there is only one parent.

Many many possible reasons.

That's a staggering oversimplification of some really huge societal issues, which puts the problem almost entirely on the poor - and without any kind of evidence to back it, just pure speculation...


Unlike the word/label Libertarian, which people who that word is associated with by other posters, actually openly self-identify with that themselves (thus justifying the label), extremely broad labels like 'liberal'/'socialist'/'marxist' and all of that, are far more broad and inaccurately applied (so broad and selectively used, that they can literally apply to anyone, making the labels meaningless), and people/groups who have those labels applied to them, often do not associate with them (or may associate with one part of the label, but not other parts that are being applied to them, in order to dishonestly slur them).

So applying terms in general to a group of people, saying they are affected by 'liberal ideology' when they don't self-identify as that, just fosters "Us vs Them" type thinking - this kind of "Us vs Them" stuff is what real ideologues absolutely depend upon, to get people on 'their side', and to blind their followers from views not from the same 'side'.

When you see "Us vs Them" stuff like that (don't know where you saw it first), when the group doesn't self-identify that way, time to be ultra-skeptical, that the source is bad and trying to spin nonsense to you...