To be fair, I would expect that the more duels you win, the higher your pay would be over time. Like a really popular gladiator. Or Aaron Burr.
I think your misunderstanding. I manifestly do not think that it is bad decision-making that drives this wealth and income gap. That was DragonAsh’s claim. I believe that it is largely systemic effects that keep the poor poor, and reward the rich with more riches. I have also claimed that these effects have been exacerbated by recent (~20 years) policy changes.
My evidence is the increase of the gap combined with the lack of real wage growth at the bottom. I believe poor decision-making cannot account for this increase unless folks are getting worse at making decisions, or there are systemic pressures either (a) making their decision-making irrelevant, (b) punishing them more harshly for the poor decisions they do make, of (c) failing to reward them for good decisions.
In my opinion, all three of these possibilities reflect a systemic problem with US policy (taxation, finance, criminal justice, education, anti-poverty, and community development).
I think even your charts show that families (not really sure how that differs from households) did better from 1980 to 1988 and 1992 to 2000. This gain was only partially offset by the recession in the early 90’s.
The top quartile certainly did better but I don’t really care how well the top qaurtile does as long as the bottom quartile does better, Economic justice does not require that the poor become rich, it requires that the poor steadily becomes less poor and the poor have an opportunity to improve their lot in life.
Disparity in and of itself does not bother me (I’d rather be unequally rich than equally poor), but a lot of the things that are causing this increase in disparity do bother me. Gutting of organized labor. Exporting jobs that create a shortage of jobs and income relative to the level of consumption our economy needs to grow. It also suppresses wages which as people chase fewer and fewer jobs.
the post you were responding to was directed at curlcoat.
To be fair it was on sale.
The estate tax is alive and well. The exclusion amount is sorta high ($5,000,000 is exempt) but $5,000,000 is hardly a dynastic accumulation of wealth.
You are clutching at straws. I was being polite. I can’t think of a single situation where your tax rate exceeds 100% (which is what I believe you need to have your after-tax income increase after your pre-tax income has decreased.
Then you are missing something.
Its not because of taxes and you implied that it was.
Because when no other explanation is plausible, it looks like you are making shit up.
Tent cities spring up in LA - YouTube There has to be a way to get more out of these people.
And, again, why can’t it account for that increase if folks at the bottom are getting no worse at making decisions while folks at the top are getting better at it?
Our “system” rewards specific behaviour and traits. The most important trait is STILL having rich parents but in this country you can overcome having poor parents if you have other traits. If you want to become RICH, then you need at least a little luck.
Ah, a fair point. I have no idea why that would be the case, but I guess it’s possible.
True, it is back after it’s near-death experience. I think the limit is a bit high, and the rate a bit low, and it’s far too easy to avoid, but you’re correct.
I don’t disagree with any of that. The most important predictor of your economic outcome is your parents’ economic condition (and, I think, second is your race). Perhaps this is how it should be, but claiming that it’s solely (or even primarily) on the decisions made by each person is incorrect.
In the context of bad decisions, one should note that even if you make all [good decisions](Costly illnesses trigger about half of all personal bankruptcies, and most of those who go bankrupt because of medical problems have health insurance, according to findings from a Harvard University study to be released Wednesday.), you can still get royally screwed:
If you subtract the amount of income needed to stay alive, the rich have even more than their apparent share, and should be paying taxes on that. If it takes $20,000 to live in a town, and you have 10,000 people making $20,500 and 50 people making a million, should a fair share of taxes be levied on the entire income or income less than money needed to live? If you decide that the tax should be 10%, the poor starve and the rich have $900K left. If you levy it on the money left over, and least the poor have $450, but the rich have still almost $900K. The 50 rich people contribute $5 million to the tax pool, while the poor contribute $500K. Unfair to the rich, right? Now, is the increase in benefit to the poor from going from $50 in taxes to nothing greater than the cost to the rich of going from $100K in takes to $110K? Would they even notice a 1% decrease in income (after expenses) versus a 10% increase for the poor (after money needed to stay alive?)
Maybe you’re an outlier, but for the most part people aren’t like that. CEOs compare themselves to other CEOs, not the lowest paid in their companies. Baseball players compare themselves to other major league players, not people in the minors.
Because it is coming at their expense. During the bubble the rich were doing very well also, but so was the average person, so fewer people minded.
This has nothing to do with the poor, but has a lot to do in showing that happiness is not a linear function of money. It is like the ultimatum game, where people turn down a gain if they feel the other person, who set the amount of the gain, is getting too much.
I’ve never notices anyone being made at promotions going to people they indeed think are more qualified. There is only rancor when people perceive favoritism, or see it as an insult. If the entire raise pool was $100 a year, probably no one would mind it all going to one person. But, do you agree that winner take all in raises is not a reasonable approach when there is a reasonable amount of money?
The poor pay by sending their children to fight it. But, whether or not the poor supported the war, they weren’t the ones moaning and groaning about tax hikes to pay for it, were they?
The first ARMs I heard of were in the very early 1980s when high inflation rates made mortgages at even the prime unaffordable, and the expectation was that interest rates would go down, meaning you didn’t want to lock into really high rates.
However, unlike a few years ago, if you walked into a bank and asked for a mortgage with no money down and inadequate income, they would have thrown you out, politely no doubt. They didn’t want to be stuck with a nonperforming loan. Contrast that to conditions under the bubble, where brokers were compensated more for riskier loans, and they actively tried to sell crap loans to people who could afford better ones, including to whose houses were paid up.
Am I reading this wrong? Where you wrote “emailed” did you mean “threatened at gun point?”
How fucking stupid can you possibly be? What the fuck is wrong with you? People chose those fucking bullshit mortgages, and are poorer as a result. The exception being actual cases of fraud, and those are being dealt with (see Wells Fargo). That you so easily transfer blame from morons to bankers shows what a fucking imbecile you really are.
You think my premise is ridiculous because people got a bunch of spam? I had 3 credit card offers in the mail today. There are hundreds of shit offers in my junk mail folder. You know how many of them I respond to? Zero.
Only an idiot thinks a “expert” is offering them “a deal.” That’s how it works. People pretend to be experts, and take money from stupid people.
I’m sorry that you were one of those idiots, but hopefully you learned your lesson and next time will simply hang up. I got a call an hour ago inviting me to “a once in a life time investment opportunity.” It even came with $100 and 7 nights in a hotel. I hung up. Wasn’t that hard, assuming you’re smart enough to know how to do that. You I’m not so sure.
That looks good in theory. But what happens to your budget if just a few of those 50 millionaires move or go broke?
You established a $5.5million entitlement program that people were counting on. Now you’ve got a budget deficit of $500,000 that needs to be picked up by the remaining 45 millionaires, assuming you can’t reduce the handouts.
You’re arguing that folks don’t compare themselves to folks on a different level, which I’d think would mean they wouldn’t care whether the rich are getting richer…
How do you figure that? How could I hypothetically falsify it? Imagine two rich guys: one gets richer at the expense of his poorer countrymen – and the other gets richer, but not at the expense of his poorer countrymen. Is that possible? If not, why not? If so, how can we tell which is which?
I’m not sure. I’d like to hear the exact reasons given by the guy who thinks he’ll get the best results from a winner-take-all distribution, so that I could (a) try to sell him on the idea of getting better results with a different distribution, or (b) position myself to be the winner who takes all.
No, some poor folks never had kids, and some who have kids don’t send their kids off to fight. How can we make sure they pay as much as the ones you’re talking about?
Congratulations, that is the dumbest post of all time.
Spend a little time thinking. The ARMs and phony mortgages were products of the banks. There is no way a person is responsible for creating zero down loans, 100 percent mortgages or not assessing property. That was a wet dream of banks.
They offered these crappy and dangerous loans because they immediately sold them off. They moved the risk to major investors around the world who took horrible baths on them.
These major investment companies are the people who you somehow think are special smart people, not dumb like those people who forced the banks to give them a house they could not afford.
Try and buy a house today. The requirements are much more stringent. Like they were before the banks lowered them before. Note ,the banks lowered them before. I wish you could understand that. It is not difficult.