http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/
The saddest part for me is that I have labored under the myth of hard work gets one ahead. It's simply not true. Being born into wealth is the best way to be wealthy.
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http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/
The saddest part for me is that I have labored under the myth of hard work gets one ahead. It's simply not true. Being born into wealth is the best way to be wealthy.
Of course, being born into wealth is a pretty good way to be wealthy, but it's certainly not the only way.
Personally, I've found that getting ahead is not so hard to do over the course of a lifetime if you work at it. I've also found it to be self-defeating to think in terms of wealth inequality, and empowering to focus on gradual improvement. If I focus on who has more than me I'll probably be unhappy and yet if I focus on how far I've come, I consider myself blessed.
Perspective is everything.
I heard of an "economy" kind of game played in some classrooms but the name escapes me. The interesting thing about it is that at some in the game those winning get to start altering the rules. An interesting side effect is those on top really get intense about playing but the ones underneath tend to lose all interest. Which may not sound fair for a game but it certainly sounds closer to reality.
Since I'm not in the wage earning work force, I suppose talk is easy. But even with the loss of middle class jobs to automation and overseas I don't think advancing into the ranks of middle or upper class is all that difficult for most. It is more than working hard, but choosing job skills that are in demand and retooling for a changing work environment. There are obviously some who get dealt a bad deal in life and struggle to prosper regardless. The few uber-rich I met in my day worked extremely hard, had excellent organizational skills, and could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. I would not want the burden of their work life or their rewards.
Then again, I consider "The Great Gatsby" as the great American novel of wealth and am occasionally reminded of the opening lines...In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
There will always been some folks who think they're going to strike it rich and that's what's going to save them. Look at all the people who spend lots of money on the lottery or think a crazy business venture is going to do the trick.
On the contrary, it's getting an education and/or learning a trade, working hard, and living within your means.
My motto is "Work smarter, not harder."
When I realized that others with a similar income as me seemed to be managing their money better. I knew I had to get smarter with what I was earning. Will I ever be rich? Not likely, but then I have so much of what makes me happy already that more money is unlikely to make me happier.
There has always been a disparity between rich & poor in the world, I just don't see that changing in my lifetime.
Here's another good fact sheet (though I wish they'd update it; it's almost two years old now).
Wealth Inequality
I think there are always going to anecdotes about people who beat the odds and make out well, just like there are always going to be anecdotes about people who under-perform reasonable expectations, but the real story here with wealth inequality is the long-term overall trend. It cannot help but increase the odds against working one's way out of poverty, and making the current lack of financial independence more of a barrier to future financial independence. So while it is true that there will always be rich and poor in the world, is it a good thing that we're now very clearly on the backside of the hill, descending from the peak of wealth equality? Does anyone know of a reasonable justification for what is effectively an economic offensive against those less fortunate?
The power in the data for me is not at the individual level, though it is grimly good to have the data confirm my own experience of pedaling fast and going backwards. The value is in driving public policy.
Our society does better when everyone does better. The trajectory we have been on as a society is the anti-model. It's beyond time to reverse this trend, with distribution of wealth approaching the Robber Baron era. It is time to redistribute wealth by governmental policies.
I tend to agree, but cannot conceive of a fair way to do this. Heavy taxation doesn't seem like the answer, at least to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by redfox
Probably no surprise that I'm going to disagree with that redfox. There is a big difference between making wealth achievement easy and making it possible. Redistribution implies making it easy (but please feel free to rebut if you have a different thought in mind). Opportunity implies making it possible. There will always be those who gain wealth and power as a birthright, no policy will change that. What we should really be concerned with is making sure anyone who didn't inherit that has a chance to achieve it on their own. Btw, that should be true for any dream, not just wealth in the monetary sense. Anyway, wealth is not static, not zero sum. We can create as much as we want to. Rather than taking from one to give to another why not just help the ones who don’t have it generate more? In any structure I’m familiar with it is always more practical to reinforce the bottom rather than tear off the top. If you redistribute the opportunity the wealth will quickly follow without anyone having to be penalized because their achievement came before the rules changed.Quote:
Originally Posted by redfox
ETA: Redistributing opportunity is fairly easy needn't be painful to do using public policy. It would boil down to redistributing money in the budget. For example only, but you could take 5% of the DOD budget and apply that to aid for the bottom 5% of high schools in the country. That kind of redistribution I could get behind. I think most people could.
I am happy for people of wealth whether by birth or otherwise and of which I am not one. Inequality is a fact and I am just glad to make financial ends meet in a right/ honest way and I am happy for me too.
All we can do is control the things we can. Encourage our children to get a useful trade or education. Taking $100,000 in student loans to major in English is a pretty big hole to dig out of. $20,000 to go to Nursing school at a community college or hospital is probably an excellent investment. Also, having children young, not limiting family size, impulse spending, eating out, buying too big of a house and fancy cars, and getting divorced are big factors that make many people much more poor than they ever need to be from my observations of people from years working all kinds of people in nursing.Quote:
Originally Posted by redfox
Many people have gotten the short end of the stick, they haven't won the life lottery and do just fine. Learning basic skills like cooking, living in small places in inexpensive neighborhoods, limiting spending on anything not essential goes a long way towards becoming financially secure. It is really hard if you don't have the right color skin, or have a single mom or a drug addicted parent, and giving opportunities to better themselves seems a much better way to do things. Unfortunately, it is hard for some kids to even get through high school.
You know I am reminded of the saying that goes something like this "give a person a fish, and they eat for a day, but teach them to fish and they eat for life".
There will always be someone who is better off than you and someone who is far worse than you. I have to be learn to be content with what I have, who I am, and my blessings in the present moment. Once you can master that, you realize that you are wealthy beyond belief....at least that is what I am finding out :) Money is a piece of paper...yes, it can make life easier for you, but it is not the end all, be all.
Exactly how I feel!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by citrine
I was born dirt poor and I will probably die dirt poor but oh the experiences and life I have had!!!
This is why my Nanna and Papa are my heroes. They came from nothing, had nothing their whole lives and died with nothing but they were the nicest, happiest people I can think of. They enjoyed life, even if they didn't have what others had and no amount of hard work would make them "rich" in the pocket.
I wish that all successful people would donate of their time to mentor youth at that critical stage when their lives can go either way. I know if I had some positive role models when I was 10-12, I probably would been a much more productive and satisfied adult.
I thought we resolved this reasonably well the last time it was discussed. We shouldn't drag people down just because they succeed. These inequality arguments are based on flawed zero sum thinking. I don't know what our gini ratio is here, but if one of us has the good fortune to invent the next big dot com idea or get drafted by the Yankees the rest of us aren't any worse off for that, even though inequality has increeased. We should make sure people at the bottom have a reasonable situation and opportunity, but they don't deserve a cut of someone else's success just because. So let's work on a fair floor and ladders up, but don't impose an artificial ceiling.
Perhaps, instead, you just thought your comments should be acknowledged as overriding by all, when it reality that wasn't the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
Economic fairness doesn't drag successful people down - it lifts everyone up. Your characterization would only make sense if you assess your own value solely by how much money you have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
This comment indicates that you really never cared enough to actually read and/or understand the arguments you disagree with, or you have chosen to mischaracterize them as an ongoing rhetorical tactic. The reality is that arguments against economic inequality are based on rather sound historical data - evidence of what has actually happened in reality. If you are concerned about zero-sum thinking, then propose changes whereby economic resources are arrayed in a reasonable manner, by simply placing comfort and luxury at the end of the line, as their actual priority would warrant, rather than in a manner that flies in the face of human decency.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
Good thing that nobody has suggested that anyone get a cut of someone else's success "just because". You seem to be relying heavily on this Straw Man argument, whenever the matter gets raised.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
Er, no, they weren't really my comments, and you never get all, just a working consensus.Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
Yep, that's me, Scrooge McDuck.Quote:
Your characterization would only make sense if you assess your own value solely by how much money you have.
I'm not smart enough to follow all that so I'll just give you a simple example. If the Google guys had been living in Russia, the economic inequality in the US would be lower. How would that be a good thing?Quote:
This comment indicates that you really never cared enough to actually read and/or understand the arguments you disagree with, or you have chosen to mischaracterize them as an ongoing rhetorical tactic. The reality is that arguments against economic inequality are based on rather sound historical data - evidence of what has actually happened in reality. If you are concerned about zero-sum thinking, then propose changes whereby economic resources are arrayed in a reasonable manner, by simply placing comfort and luxury at the end of the line, as their actual priority would warrant, rather than in a manner that flies in the face of human decency.
Then please don't talk about economic inequality again. We can talk about adequate access to education, healthcare, job opportunities, etc as making sure that people have the right opportunities. But once you reach that level, then it doesn't matter what someone else has so any relative comparing is off base. On what basis do you make policies when comparing the relative wealth of Larry Ellison and Bill Gates? None, Larry has enough, we don't expect Bill to give him any regardless of how unequal their wealth is. But when you propose redistribution to lower income people just because you think the inequality is too high, that's redistribution just because, not because you have identified some basic need that is unmet. That's why IMHO it's better to focus on what folks need, not the amount the top end has. Once everyone has what they need, or at least a fair shot to get it if they work for it, the relative differences should be irrelevant absent some abuse.Quote:
Good thing that nobody has suggested that anyone get a cut of someone else's success "just because". You seem to be relying heavily on this Straw Man argument, whenever the matter gets raised.
One of the problems is see with the trends in income distribution is that with money comes power and influence. I think the true drivers in social, economic, and political arenas could be at risk of being more and more under the influence of a smaller and smaller handful of people that may not have the well being of the majority as a primary consideration.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
I can't relate to the jealousy and acrimony toward others who are perceived as having "more." Anyway, true wealth redistribution would be worldwide and would cause a big drop in the standard of living for any rich American citizen on these boards for we are rich, you know. But maybe that would be ok with the unhappy folks here because then everyone is equal, or equally miserable, or ?
I really don't know because I don't understand the mindset.
My sense is that our Founding Fathers weren't trying to craft a society with a tiny percentage of wealthy "royals" at the top running the show to benefit themselves and a mass of peasants below them grubbing in the muck for leftovers, which I sometimes fear is where we're headed.
I was struck not long ago listening to an interview in which a high-ranking European politician asserted that he had no desire to be a rich man in a country of poor people, and thus approved of their progressive tax structure. He would be considered the worst kind of turncoat among his peers stateside.
Agree. It's the "more" that they have is more power, which is undermining our democracy. One man, one vote is becoming an antiquated notion.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
As for myself I am pretty happy living with less and rather pity those think they need financial wealth and belongings. My concerns are that we are becoming a polarized society where only a small end of the polarization is running the show.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iris lily
And I take issue with the idea that jealousy is behind protesting continual wealth redistribution upwards. I might envy individuals their youth, their strong knees, their focus or energy levels, or any one of a number of attributes, but I've never once thought to myself "Oh how I wish I were a billionaire."
And this right here, sums up nicely why I so respect many of the European countries.....unfortunately, many of them are not doing well right now - but then again neither are we in the US.....RobQuote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
Here are the government subsidies which I know of, that proved to be very effective in getting my parents into the middle class, after being born into rural America in 1927, and these need to be enhanced & further supported:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
1. GI Bill. Got my Dad an education; a BA & a law degree.
2. GI bill again. Mortgage assistance for their first home.
3. Higher tax rates on upper income earners to pay for GI bill programs.
" Few government programs have delivered on america's promise as a land of opportunity as explicitly as the GI Bill. When it was signed in June 1944, the Servicemen's Readjustment Act (the policy's official name) offered a college scholarship to all those who had served in uniform, whether or not they had fought on the front lines. In the decades since, benefits have fallen far behind the cost of university tuitions, prompting Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel to draft a new GI Bill that would offer soldiers full tuition at any state school.As generous as that sounds, the 1944 bill--among the most significant pieces of legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress--included much more. Its education benefits threw open the doors of élite academies to the masses: in 1947, veterans made up almost half the nation's college students. It also offered low-interest, no-money-down mortgages, backed by the U.S. government, that allowed millions of families to purchase their first homes. The move helped spark the postwar baby boom and the suburbanization of America in the 1950s: it effectively created the American middle class.
By 1956, when the initial program ended, close to half the nation's 16 million veterans had either gone to college or received job training. A generation flourished."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...#ixzz2Me0lb9UI
Here are the social realities that proved to be very effective for my parents, which government policies can affect for the better for all:
1. They are caucasian, and have the immediate advantage of race in a racist society.
2. They are heterosexual, and had access to legal marriage. Thank goodness this is changing, as filing married makes a difference.
3. They got educated, with lots of federal support, as noted above, and at affordable tuition rates.
Our various levels of government have the power and the role of creating policies to support all the people who live here, not just some of them. Wealth disparity is inexcusable, most especially when the end results are vast numbers of people dying in poverty, hungry, homeless, without access to the VERY BASICS - health care, housing, food, education, safety. Our great country was founded to create equality and equal opportunity. Those very foundational qualities have been systematically undone, and regardless of intent, the impacts are the disasters we have today. Redistribution of wealth by taxation creates opportunities in both the public & private sectors to further growth. If the wealthy having virtually all of the resources and power led to a society of equality, we would not be having this conversation.
We are better than that.
They benefitted from the GI bill and almost certainly achieved more economically than they ever would otherwise, but it's folly to romanticize those times. Because THEY THEMSELVES might have much rather have lived in a world that was not at war!! But the world was at war and there was a draft. War is hell, always has been, even if it's one of the more justifiable wars, and even you get a few bennies afterward.
By the way you can get a low interest almost no money down mortgage backed by the U.S. government today, it's what FHA loans are (it doesn't benefit that many people today of course because the housing stock is so restricted and the prices so high - it was designed as a bank bailout me thinks).
Did my post suggest I was romanticizing the era? The point was that in my immediate family, this one robust program, funded by taxes, made a huge difference, for us & millions of others. It's a worthy model. And, given the numbers of returning vets, it would restart this economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore
There are many other programs that give a much needed assist for those hoping to get into middle class. Head Start, equal opportunity college admissions, public housing, etc. Yes, it is time to raise taxes, on the wealthiest first. Like I said, if the 1% really were job creators, we'd be in fine fettle in the US.
This is how I "read" what redfox wrote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg
I immediately thought of better and more appropriate spending of our tax dollars, plus also reforming certain industries such as regulating banks and the like (since it's the deregulation that caused some of the problem in the first place).
I don't necessarily believe in take from the rich and give to the poor, but I do believe that there are economic and social policies and methods that the government could consistently employ that would create better opportunities and long-term outcomes for individuals and the society.
And, I think a certain measure of social safety net (this is the poverty line in our country -- agreeing to what is acceptable in our developed nation) is also a viable area to look at the distribution of tax contribution.
I just feel like everyone is so short-sighted.
In terms of individuals, I agree about education, re-tooling, and being flexible in the market place. I also believe in real entrepreneurship -- which requires creativity, ingenuity, flexibility, adaptability, and good work ethic -- as well as living within your means/simplicity.
I work to educate the 22 yr olds on how to create their own opportunities, because becomng a company man/woman is dumb as in this modern coprorate environment.
If you say so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
And ice cream has no bones.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
You think the fact that you argue against things no one has said means that you get to dictate what other people discuss? Who died and made you God?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
No one does that. That's just your Straw Man argument. Reasonable people who disagree with your overall policy bent make policy proposals based on what is fair and reasonable, building from the foundation up, not from some arbitrary and irrelevant comparison between different people within. Until you learn that, you'll never understand the matters that are being discussed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
Case in point:
Some people continually blind themselves to the merit in this by mischaracterizing the rightful manner that this intention affects taxes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoebird
from the following articlesQuote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery..._United_States
Thomas Jefferson owned plantations totaling thousands of acres and owned hundreds of slaves during his lifetime.[Like other slave-owning presidents, Jefferson brought trusted members of his household to work in the white house. Slavery was firmly established by the time the United States sought independence from Great Britain in 1776. From the 16th to 19th century almost 700,000 slaves were bought from Africa to the US.
Slaveholders and the commodities of the South had a strong influence on American politics: "in the 72 years between the election of George Washington and the election of Abraham Lincoln 50 of those years [had] a slaveholder as president of the United States, and, for that whole period of time, there was never a person elected to a second term who was not a slaveholder."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant
Indentured servitude was a form of debt bondage established in the early years of the American Colonies. Farmers, planters, and shopkeepers in the colonies found it very difficult to hire free workers, primarily because it was so easy for potential workers to set up their own farms. Consequently, a common solution was to transport a young worker from england or germany who would work for several years to pay off the debt of their travel costs. During the indenture period the servants were not paid wages but were provided with food, accommodation, clothing and training.
One of the more interesting things I have done is toured a plantation. While the owners lived in big beautiful houses the slaves toiled in the hot sun, doing things like clearing swamps for planting and picking cotton.
Prostitution, child labor and horrific work conditions kept many people from starving to death but there is a reason that the laws that exist today got on the books. In fact, in many countries around the world, there are children in sweatshops and women in prostitution, as well as horiffic working conditions for low wages.
Since the beginning of time there has been violence, poverty and slavery. Iris Lilly commented on the fact that if we really were worried about wealth distribution our last worry would be here in the US which I heartily agree with. All around the world people are living in slums, shacks, on the streets etc. at a much higher rate than we can ever imagine here. Our idea of poverty is so skewed that I wish everyone would have the chance to visit a third world country and see real poverty. It changes you forever.
As I mentioned in another thread, why not get away from thinking it has to be "socialiism/redistribution of my hard earned wealth" vs. "what's mine is mine" Can't we think creatively about other solutions? Like demurrage?
From Charles Eisenstein in Ascent of Humanity:
And he explains how demurrage would keep the flow going in a more natural cycle:Quote:
"our present system of money-with-interest generates the necessity for endless growth, .. it embodies linear thinking, .. it defies the cyclical patterns of nature, and .. it drives the relentless conversion of all forms of wealth into money. As well, interest is the wellspring of our economy's ever-intensifying competition, systemic scarcity, and concentration of wealth."
Quote:
Demurrage produces a number of profound economic, social, and psychological effects. Conceptually, demurrage works by freeing material goods, which are subject to natural cyclic processes of renewal and decay, from their linkage with a money that only grows, exponentially, over time. As established in Chapter Four, this dynamic is what is driving us toward ruin in the utter exhaustion of all social, cultural, natural, and spiritual wealth. Demurrage currency merely subjects money to the same laws as natural commodities, whose continuing value requires maintenance.
Gesell writes:
Gold does not harmonise with the character of our goods. Gold and straw, gold and petrol, gold and guano, gold and bricks, gold and iron, gold and hides! Only a wild fancy, a monstrous hallucination, only the doctrine of "value" can bridge the gulf. Commodities in general, straw, petrol, guano and the rest can be safely exchanged only when everyone is indifferent as to whether he possesses money or goods, and that is possible only if money is afflicted with all the defects inherent in our products. That is obvious. Our goods rot, decay, break, rust, so only if money has equally disagreeable, loss-involving properties can it effect exchange rapidly, securely and cheaply. For such money can never, on any account, be preferred by anyone to goods.
Only money that goes out of date like a newspaper, rots like potatoes, rusts like iron, evaporates like ether, is capable of standing the test as an instrument for the exchange of potatoes, newspapers, iron and ether. For such money is not preferred to goods either by the purchaser or the seller. We then part with our goods for money only because we need the money as a means of exchange, not because we expect an advantage from possession of the money.
In other words, money as a medium of exchange is decoupled from money as a store of value. No longer is money an exception to the universal tendency in nature toward rust, mold, rot and decay—that is, toward the recycling of resources. No longer does money perpetuate a human realm separate from nature.
This is a very good video to watch. It doesn't take much time, but will open your eyes about wealth inequality in America. It explains it, for those of you who can't quite wrap your mind around this concept.
http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-...act-2?g=2&c=ag
peggy, that's the same video that the OP, redfox, posted. It's gone viral. I saw it on FB from The New Economics Institute.
I don't hate rich people either... In fact, I rather like them, being a non-profit fundraiser. I hate the structures we have in place that create poverty. It drags us all down, is inhuman & cruel. Blaming the victims is further inhumanity. I'll say it again; we're better than that.
Me too. The breakup of family, the soft bigotry of low expectations, drug usage, the welfare state, the decline of moral values, etc., all contribute to poverty. I'm not sure what effect the redistribution of wealth would have on those underlying factors.Quote:
Originally Posted by redfox
Thomas Jefferson had slaves? Who knew... http://www.kolobok.us/smiles/standart/grin.gif
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoebird
Exactly Zoebird. +1 (Emphasis mine.)
There are lots of influences at play, but we had a very solid economy back when the top federal tax rate was in the nineties (more like Europe). Of course the robber barons hadn't yet shipped all our jobs overseas...Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan