I don’t like the attitude that the wealth should be yours to choose how it’s distributed. It’s not like there’s a big pot of leprechaun’s gold we found and are deciding how to divvy up. That wealth is in the hands of people like Bill Gates / Jeff Bezos / millions of middle-class families throughout America. It should be their choice how it’s spent.
Then why label him a “hoarder” with all the negative connotations that dredges up?
Fair enough. My rapid metabolizing liver had sobered me up already. However my original point still stands, I don’t believe there is any correlation between per capita GDP in either PPP Or nominal dollars with income inequality among high income countries.
As a nation moves from low and middle income status to high income status, income inequality tends to go down. But I don’t believe there is much difference between the OECD nations. Once a nation reaches upper income status, the gini coefficient is about 25-40 but where it falls on that 25-40 scale seems random.
The fact that the US is an outlier is likely more due to government policy than anything. Lower minimum wage, more regressive taxes, lower rates of unionization, less government assistance to the middle class and lower class, things like that.
Yeah, it wasn’t really intended as a rebuttal or anything, just an interesting aside about an Irish idiosyncrasy.
Interesting that you specify families that have done those good things, there. How many generations of success are you talking about here? Does your point not apply to cases where an individual member of a family has done well, but other members haven’t (or haven’t yet)?
Wealth has traditionally been managed and passed down through the family. If a successful person passes down wealth to an irresponsible steward who doesn’t satisfy consumer desires, that person will find that his or her wealth dwindles correspondingly.
I didn’t label him a hoarder. Why are you saying I did?
“Families” don’t do any of that; individual people do. Really, it’s one thing to argue for socialism, but you’re arguing for social-insect-ism.
I have no problem with any of these people choosing how to spend the money they made.
Actually I think he’s arguing for an aristocracy. A group of privileged people who will pass their privileges down through the generations.
It was, as Will noted, a popular system for millennia. But I think it was far from the best system. I feel that wealth and political power should arise anew in each generation based on meritocracy.
That said, I can see why somebody would like to be an aristocrat. But I don’t understand why anyone would long to be the subject of an aristocratic system. Do the people that romanticize aristocracies imagine themselves as the aristocrats? Or do they actually want to be serfs and peasants?
Yes, and chocolate is part of a balanced diet!! Should we eat one gram per day, or one kilogram?
Repeating this error five times just makes you five times as wrong. (We can lead a Doper to a link, but we can’t make him click.)
Just for you, puddleglum, I have taken the 15 highest GDP per capita Western countries shown at Wikipedia and looked up the two Gini coefficients shown at the two sources given upthread. Here is the result, ordered by GDP per capita:
Luxembourg (which has the highest per capita GDP, almost twice the U.S) 30 to 35
Switzerland 30 to 31
Norway 26 to 27
Ireland 31 to 32
Iceland 27 to 28
USA 41 to 45
Denmark 29 to 29
Australia 30 to 35
Sweden 25 to 27
Netherlands 28 to 30
Austria 29 to 30
Finland 21 to 27
Canada 32 to 34
Germany 27 to 30
Belgium 26 to 28
United Kingdom 32 to 33
I’m afraid my eyeballing of this data shows something different from yours. :rolleyes: I see Ginis of about 30 whether the country is rich (Switzerland) or “poorer” (Germany). The one clear fact that stands out in this chart is that countries named “U.S.A.” have a GINI half again as big as their peers.
Your claim, which we now know to be based on wishful thinking rather than fact, fails at the other end too. With a few exceptions, the countries with highest GINIs are among the world’s poorest.
Does this help? Would you like to move your goalposts again?
Oh, this is a fun game!
- If lowering tax rates on the rich is so good, why not make them negative? Anyone earning over $1 million should get a check for an addiitonal 10%.
- If pro-choice is so good, why not force every woman to get pregnant so she can have an abortion?
- if guns are so good, shouldn’t we give them to every American and require that they practice on themselves?
- If inciting Palestinian violence is so good, why haven’t we napalmed the Gaza strip?
Is this what dialog is like on the Yahoo blogs?
And BTW, I don’t believe that the financial benefits of having free universal health care are included in many of these financial figures. Not only does this mean that the effective GINI is actually lower than shown in all but one of the world’s developed countries, but the GDP figure is effectively inflated for that one developed country without UHC: GDP includes unproductive spending on care-denial bureaucracies, inflated drug prices, etc.
The top 1% earn 25% of all personal income reported to the IRS. The top 0.1% earn 13% of all personal income reported to the IRS. It is wrong to under-emphasize this problem.
Nevertheless, it is correct that the top 20% is a powerful force against progressive policies in the U.S.A. This was shockingly clear in a thread about the GOP tax plan. With the attendant reductions in education subsidies, Medicare, etc. the GOP tax plan is a huge trillion dollar transfer from the poor to the rich. Yet, on this supposedly liberal message board, discussion was dominated by Dopers at or near the 20% threshold wondering if they personally would make a few $thousand with the plan or lose a few $thousand. :eek:
When discussion does turn to “progressive policies” here — or for that matter at right-wing sites — focus is on social policies (guns, gays, bathrooms). The pain and dangers of the ever-growing wealth and income gaps between rich and poor get little attention.
My policy at the polling booth is to vote to help the country as a whole. Since one vote is unlikely to sway an election anyway, it should be easy to follow Kant’s Categorical Imperative at the polling booth, rather than simply pandering to one’s personal greed.
And pay about 40% of the income tax.
And pay about 16% of all income tax.
What problem?
Regards,
Shodan
No, there’s no guarantee of that. Let’s say I inherit 250 million dollars from my successful parents. I put it in the bank, never touch it, and live off the interest. I am an irresponsible steward who doesn’t satisfy consumer desires - and my wealth isn’t dwindling. In fact, it might even increase.
On a first order, other people doing even more betterer doesn’t lessen the betterment of the rest of us because we aren’t dealing with a fixed pie.
That said, the OP might be interested in Joseph Stiglitz’ Price of Inequality, which I read on recommendation from septimus and others have read as well.
The figures come from the I.R.S. so of course they are used as the basis for income tax. Note that the income figures do not include unrealized or unreported gains.
But more importantly,*** the super-rich with 13% of the income pay less than 7% of all federal taxes.*** Right-wingers love to forget the regressive payroll taxes when lamenting the onerous burdens we place on the super-rich, though are happy to include SocSec and Medicare payouts when lamenting what the money “stolen” from Job Creators is spent on. :rolleyes:
Cite?
OK, so what value is there to society in giving billions of dollars to Paris Hilton and her crowd that exceeds the social value of food stamps?
America taxes its citizen and its residents on their worldwide income. And the estate tax is levied against all property they own.
Now that I think about it, tax rates above 50% are too easy to get around so lets cap it at 50%