Wealth inequality in America

[ApatheticNoMore]

My blood pressure still goes up thinking about $700B going to the big banks vs. what it could have done for several million homeowners, but (as before) I'm not privy to all the details and it's water under the bridge anyway.

QE3 (ie bank bailouts) are ongoing. Forever and ever? How should i know ... but now.

Almost every aspect of our lives is already subsidized by the government and will be paid for by our kids,

The kids benefit too, if grandma is on Social Security they don't personally have to support her (if they could afford to anyway). They might have to otherwise, can't let grandma starve right?

but now there are people who want it to do even more! Food, clothing and shelter, the classic big three for survival (need to add water, but that's a different thread...).

I'm not aware of any government subsidies that exist for clothing, there's such a glut we ship it to the 3rd world, there are charities that exist to help the poor get interview attire and so on, charities not government as far as I know. For shelter programs to help the poor with shelter like HUD exists, a few cities have rent control (never federal, always local). But OVERALL I don't see government involvement in housing as even aimed at making housing affordable! In other words I don't see it as a redistribution program that redistributes downward, that combats income inequality etc.. I think government involvement in housing in the last 10 years have been *aimed* mostly at propping up housing prices (in other words making housing unaffordable), there have been dozens and dozens of programs and tweaks to accounting rules and etc. etc. toward this end, a list I'm sure could be produced but that I've forgotten off hand because there's been program after program. Do I see it as government programs gone wrong due to unintended consequences? No ...... most of the programs are indeed disasterous, but I see it as more as bank bailouts plain and simple. The existing movers and shakers (the financial system) need massive, absolutely massive, government intervention to stay in power and they got it. It's not a failure of welfare policies or redistribution downward efforts (redistribution perhaps but not in that direction!). Take the profit out of it? All the banks who profitered on housing would be completely bankrupt if not for government. As for food I'm not sure farming can be made entirely free market, it is based on wild unpredictable fluctuations of natural conditions (even without climate change). However current subsidies definitely subsidize the WRONG model, they subsidize mass industrial production over family farms, cheap junky calories over vegetables etc.. Not to mention that not having to pay for the cost of the environmental destruction caused by industrial farming is a subsidy too.

[Spartana]

I don't think this thread is about redfox's personal life. I don't even think she takes the positions she does based on that. I mean really who knows, she'll have to speak for herself, but my assumption would be: she's working for a non-profit in some type of managerial social work role I think, and I figure working those types of roles gives you a lot of view of the down and out who she's advocating for.

Of course many of those helping roles don't make you yourself rich either but I think it's a choice people make, to choose things other than money, I respect that. As for what substances may be involved, well really noone's business, and actually even legal now , if she has a problem it's hers to work out, but it could be no more a problem than a single glass of wine after a hard day at work, or treating oneself with chocolate.

Exactly. And while I think those "helping" jobs (teachers, social workers, public saftey, etc...) should be much higher paid then they are since they are so valuable and needed, people who enter those job field do so knowing the kind of pay they will get. In many cases the career choices (or lack of) we make for ourselfs will mean that we never achieve wealth or even a middle class lifestyle. Like redfox, and several other's on this forum, I choose a career path that I knew would would never pay enough to live anything more than a very modest working class lifestyle thru out my life. One that would not allow me to buy anything more then a working class house (or rent) and then only with the help of a couple of roommates and a second job, or much of anything else, or fund my education (or my kids), or even have a good retirement fund. But, probably like Redfox and other's here, I chose that path for reasons that were of greater importance to me, and in which I felt I was making a difference, then merely aquiring wealth. I could have done something else - something that would allow the possibility to generate a much higher income - yet I didn't. However, I don't feel that those who choose to follow a different path and gained wealth, or were born to it, have any greater obligation to provide me with a higher lifestyle. yes they should pay their fair share of taxes just like the rest of us do and receive the same write-offs the rest of us are entitled to - no different. And yes corporation should pay taxes on their profits with write-offs only for losses or "real" job creation for others (start a few small manufacturing companys in the USA and hire US citizens). Otherwise we should all be treated the same. Higher earner will pay higher taxes even if we keep the same sliding tax rates (35 or so percentish for high earners) but it extremely unfair to ask them to pay 90% of their earned income (as well as a jarger percent on their passive income) to subsidize someone because they chose a working class income (or that was all they could attain), or to pay for their kids college or pay off their home loan when they borrowed against the equity to pay for theri kids college and now the house is underwater - or bail out banking institutions! With moderate taxes and budget cuts (military cuts too) there should be plenty to fund the poor, the sick, the disabled, the impoverished elderly, etc... all who may truely need it. Even to fund universal healthcare for all (something I feel we need as healthcare costs are crazy and can financially destroy even the high-income earner in a NY minute if they become sick or injured - often times through no fault of their own and leaving them unable to ever work again - heck it can destroy the average middle class family financially just trying to pay the $1,000/month premuims for each family member and meeting the $5000 - $10,000 annual deductiable before the insurance even kicks in!)) - as well as everything else without stealing 90% of the wealthy's income..

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well there is a certain class of individuals (not speaking about anyone on this board but I have met them) that I would classify as voluntarily low income, they usually come from middle class backgrounds and have things like advanced degrees, but don't earn much because they are doing good rather than well. I figure if they have the wherewithall to get masters degrees and so on (sometimes at very expensive colleges!) they could have chased the money if that's what they wanted! I don't see their situation as particularly analagous to a kid growing up to a crackhead mother in the ghetto or something, intergenerational poverty is quite a different thing that choosing to pursue something other than money. I don't even see their situation as analagous to some kid who really thought any old degree would get them a good job or something and it doesn't and they are depressed about it, because that situation is much sadder - it's one of ignorance and bad luck rather than choice.

[Spartana]

Well there is a certain class of individuals (not speaking about anyone on this board but I have met them) that I would classify as voluntarily low income, they usually come from middle class backgrounds and have things like advanced degrees, but don't earn much because they are doing good rather than well. I figure if they have the wherewithall to get masters degrees and so on (sometimes at very expensive colleges!) they could have chased the money if that's what they wanted! I don't see their situation as particularly analagous to a kid growing up to a crackhead mother in the ghetto or something, intergenerational poverty is quite a different thing that choosing to pursue something other than money. I don't even see their situation as analagous to some kid who really thought any old degree would get them a good job or something and it doesn't and they are depressed about it, because that situation is much sadder - it's one of ignorance and bad luck rather than choice.

I agree. And those kinds of low income situations - the voluntary ones when they had a choice - are the ones i don't feel tax payers should fund - although higher pay for teachers, etc... would be nice. It's those severely impoverished people who really have no alternatives who we should focus tax money on. And I'm not talking about providing an unlimited lifetime supply of welfare money and food stamps, I talking about grants and scholorships and job training so that they can better themselves (give a man a fish.. yadda yadda). Fund programs like Welfare to Work, ROP, trade apprentishships, and similair (programs that are already out there for the taking) rather than just fund the continued lifestyle of poverty. Those are the people who should be helped, not the average Joe who choose a career path that doesn't pay much, or choose a lifestyle that gave them large chunks of time off work to do other things like travel. However, in any case, I don't think our goal as a society should be income or wealth equality, but that of providing the means for people (lower income people with no other resources) to better themselves and be able to live a modest working class lifestyle. Once they are on a better footing, then they can make the choice to pursue wealth (with much of it's inherent risks financially) or not.

[redfox]

I was a social worker for nearly 2 decades, and have been in the non-profit sector my entire career - except for a stint at sheep farming! In the last 35 years, here is what I have seen of poverty...

1. It's mostly women who are in poverty, usually because they are fleeing an abusive home. They're protecting their children the best they know how, and are immediately deeply reliant on huge supports for everything. The data is that these women will succeed on their own if they get 2 full years of all basic needs met, so they can heal, and get whatever they need in place to go to work, and then they still need assistance with child care, and ongoing help meeting housing, food & medical bills. Women who divorce are in poverty for an average of 5 years.

2. People in poverty are deeply depressed. They cannot function to support themselves without a lot of intervention. I have NEVER met anyone who doesn't want to be independent, who chooses dependency. When someone appears to be doing so, look deeper, and mental illness, usually intractable depression, is underneath it.

3. Everyone needs a sense of purpose & belonging. Rather than penalize, judge, condemn, and vilify those in poverty, as we do in this country ('takers', etc.), compassion and understanding needs to be what leads efforts to provide tools for support. It may take a generation or two to get a family out of poverty, not a few years. It's intractable, but not impossible. How much do we actually care for our species?

4. Poverty is a crisis of spirit, of economics, and a failure of will and compassion.

[JaneV2.0]

Thank you for that, Redfox. It can't be said often enough.

Even thinking of that "47%" speech can set me off. How dare he!

[Gregg]

Redfox, I'd deeply value your opinion on this. I don't think of people trapped in poverty as takers, but it seems to me that we (as a society) only do enough for them to keep them strung out in our programs and nothing more. When the only hope a person has is that a check will arrive before the bills do or before the food runs out I would think that person could easily become depressed. I would.

What we do strikes me as a give-a-man-a-fish scenario. All we do for people is feed them for a day and then tomorrow they wake up right where they started the day before. Sisyphus had it easier than that. So my question is how do we make a shift to a place where we teach-a-man-to-fish instead of just offering handouts and can we use that approach to help people acquire a sense of purpose and independence and dignity? It seems so incredibly obvious that people realizing that kind of lift up would, in turn, become a huge asset to our our larger society. Am I just missing something? Where are the roadblocks?

Poverty is a crisis of spirit, of economics, and a failure of will and compassion.

+1

[redfox]

Redfox, I'd deeply value your opinion on this. I don't think of people trapped in poverty as takers, but it seems to me that we (as a society) only do enough for them to keep them strung out in our programs and nothing more. When the only hope a person has is that a check will arrive before the bills do or before the food runs out I would think that person could easily become depressed. I would.

What we do strikes me as a give-a-man-a-fish scenario. All we do for people is feed them for a day and then tomorrow they wake up right where they started the day before. Sisyphus had it easier than that. So my question is how do we make a shift to a place where we teach-a-man-to-fish instead of just offering handouts and can we use that approach to help people acquire a sense of purpose and independence and dignity? It seems so incredibly obvious that people realizing that kind of lift up would, in turn, become a huge asset to our our larger society. Am I just missing something? Where are the roadblocks?

+1

Thanks. I really appreciate your humanity. First of all, the language we use... takers, cheats, losers, deadbeats, it goes on and on and on. Dear God, I cringe when I hear that hate speech. Can you imagine being a single mom, fleeing abuse, getting your children safe, and being called a cheat & a loser?? Where is the humanity? I'd like to get rid of the word handout too. It's so demeaning. People need our help! We all need help. I am just facing a huge medical challenge, it will hit us hard financially, it scares the heck outta me, and I need help! If I didn't have a dependable spouse, friends & family, I would be on the streets too.

Instead of hand out, can we call it worthy assistance? And make it real! I agree that we string people along, and it's gotten worse & worse & worse, R & D alike. How do we even think it's cheaper, much less defensible, to allow for starvation level assistance, meagre, mean-spirited, prove-you're-not-a-cheat pennies?? It's hugely expensive, in displaced costs: ER visits, subsistence crime, delayed education, health deteriorating & child neglect - because it's so easy to maintain health & be a calm parent when you're terrified & hungry - but no, someone might get a few hundred of even a few thousand dollars they're not "eligible" for. I hate the welfare system, because it punishes people for being poor. It could be different.

What is our collective phobia about poor people? Why do we vilify the least among us? The amount of time & $$ spent making someone who needs our help beg, via forms that are often hard to decipher, is a system designed to fail. Two decades ago, the University of Washington School of Social work did a study that determined that it took a MA level command of English to correctly fill out an application for food & income assistance. That is no accident, and the impact is that it was a HUGE barrier for hungry people to get fed.

I am on a tear here, folks. We can do better. We are each other's keepers. Ok, gotta breathe...

[rosebud]

My parents did not have college degrees. They did not have special skills or training. They were able to find good corporate jobs with good wages, job security and excellent benefits. We did not lack for anything. They worked 9-5. Took vacations. Got pensions and did not even have to work more than 15 ywars to get them. They retired early. Never had to relocate or re-train in middle age.

That is an impossible scenario today. Workers are far more productive, work much harder and have far less of everything now. Yet we are constantly told that our financial insecurity is all our fault. That we made poor choices, are lazy, are greedy, envious, unwise. That it is somehow unfair and unjust to ask the people at the top to shoulder more of the burden for the commin good. That we are moochers and takers for wanting public policies that help us, like more funding for public education or avoiding the risk of bankruptcy due to medical costs.

Res ipsa loquitor. The income gap is just a system of economic policies that are geared to the elite.

[creaker]

My parents did not have college degrees. They did not have special skills or training. They were able to find good corporate jobs with good wages, job security and excellent benefits. We did not lack for anything. They worked 9-5. Took vacations. Got pensions and did not even have to work more than 15 ywars to get them. They retired early. Never had to relocate or re-train in middle age.

That is an impossible scenario today. Workers are far more productive, work much harder and have far less of everything now. Yet we are constantly told that our financial insecurity is all our fault. That we made poor choices, are lazy, are greedy, envious, unwise. That it is somehow unfair and unjust to ask the people at the top to shoulder more of the burden for the commin good. That we are moochers and takers for wanting public policies that help us, like more funding for public education or avoiding the risk of bankruptcy due to medical costs.

Res ipsa loquitor. The income gap is just a system of economic policies that are geared to the elite.

The world is definitely not what it was. Economic policies have always been geared to the elite. The thing that has changed is, like you have noted above, the elite are much less dependent on those that aren't. And as that increases, they have less and less incentive to have money pushed to those they no longer need.

I think one thing that gets overly discounted is we live in a different world - the rules and fundamentals have changed. And everything is shifting as a result.