Wealth inequality

[basil67]

4 minutes ago, Ellener said:

I know. But it really is freedom or die to an American. It was honour or die when I was an English woman, but I could never have been free there with the class system as it was. I was working class which to be a hard worker is valued here, not looked down upon. If it makes me a millionaire people will encourage and applaud me, not resent it, though I do think wealthy people also have a duty to take care of the poor.

That's where we've been going wrong, when the world favours and rewards us we are meant to give it back!

I know it's an American thing.  Just pointing out that it's not an 'any society' thing.   Different societies have different values

[Ellener]

1 minute ago, basil67 said:

I know it's an American thing.  Just pointing out that it's not an 'any society' thing.   Different societies have different values

I know. Do you think all humans want the same things? I sort-of believe that we all do, whether it's societal or not.

[basil67]

5 minutes ago, Ellener said:

I know. Do you think all humans want the same things? I sort-of believe that we all do, whether it's societal or not.

No, all humans don't want the same thing.   Some are all about themselves and others see themselves as part of a community.   If we all wanted the same thing, our political differences would not be so fraught.

[Ellener]

6 minutes ago, basil67 said:

No, all humans don't want the same thing.   Some are all about themselves and others see themselves as part of a community.   If we all wanted the same thing, our political differences would not be so fraught.

My friend who died last week used to say question your love, are you doing this out of love, do everything with love.

I feel very attached to my community, Houston is the greatest city in the modern world as far as I am concerned. But we don't all have the same politics here and have had to learn to love each other anyway, and do.

[basil67]

@Ellener with all due respect, unless you have a zero murder and assault rate where you are, you're kidding yourself

 

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, basil67 said:

@Ellener with all due respect, unless you have a zero murder and assault rate where you are, you're kidding yourself

 

I don't know.

 

[Weezy1973]

12 hours ago, enigma32 said:

@basil67there were a lot of people who thought the BLM "protests" were moronic to hold in the middle of a pandemic, just sayin. IMO, much of the problem here is caused by the media being absolutely, 100%, completely full of crap. 

The media is only full of crap if it’s painting a situation differently from how one believes things to be. Fox News is full of crap to people on the left. MSNBC is full of crap to people on the right etc. 

[sothereiwas]

5 hours ago, basil67 said:

No, all humans don't want the same thing. 

I'd say that's technically correct, however for the most part most people want similar outcomes. There just seems to be a vast difference of opinion as to how those outcomes should be achieved. That difference of opinion seems to be at the root of the majority of disagreements presently. Very few people are in favor of school shootings, drug overdoses, homelessness, violent crime, and other issues. How to mitigate those things, the how, is mostly the argument. 

As for wealth inequality, I'm not convinced it's the biggest issue facing us, as long as the worst off among us see some improvement in their lives the difference between what they have and Jeff Bezos, Nancy Pelosi, and Bernie Sanders have seems less important. 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

1 hour ago, sothereiwas said:

I'd say that's technically correct, however for the most part most people want similar outcomes. There just seems to be a vast difference of opinion as to how those outcomes should be achieved. That difference of opinion seems to be at the root of the majority of disagreements presently. Very few people are in favor of school shootings, drug overdoses, homelessness, violent crime, and other issues. How to mitigate those things, the how, is mostly the argument. 

As for wealth inequality, I'm not convinced it's the biggest issue facing us, as long as the worst off among us see some improvement in their lives the difference between what they have and Jeff Bezos, Nancy Pelosi, and Bernie Sanders have seems less important. 

In terms of Wealth inequality, I think we have to define what is considered a reasonable want and an unreasonable want.

For me personally, I identify my happiness with my ability to meet my needs; I have also identified that most normal people around me, also have needs that need to be met and those needs are the same as mine, they do not differ in anyway or form and on this basis alone, I do not believe you are wealthy unless EVERYONE around you has their basic needs met.

If you have ever watched a nasty divorce happen or watched somebody die without a will and their estate goes to probate, one of the things you will be exposed to is the nature of a centralized population or a city, town, whatever you like to call it... The purpose of the city or town is for myself and the people around me, to have a place where I can diffuse my wealth... However, the wealth was not fully diffused, because the money predominately still stayed in the town. When you introduce a business like Wal-Mart, where none of your wealth is being diffused back, where the employee's who work at Wal-Mart just use their discounts at Wal-Mart and get even cheaper deals... It creates this thing, where the wealth is no longer diffused, it is just outright taken and thus, EVERYONE in the town starts hoarding wealth, rather than diffusing it.

Once the wealth is no longer being diffused, demand for skilled jobs decreases, hell, across the board jobs decrease... Pretty soon, we can't even afford to pay people minimum wage, we have to start outsourcing our labor.

Lets say I go to school and I get a PHD and become a professor; my students, will be under the impression that because I am teaching, there will be others to teach as well... So my students become teachers as well and now, since i'll be a teacher for the next 40 years, the competition for this job increases... This is not a sustainable system, like at what point do we look at this and recognize the pyramid scheme?

The second we started outsourcing labor, instead of asking where all our wealth went, we made our educational system largely redundant... Furthermore, not only are businesses like Wal-Mart not allowing the diffusal of wealth to occur, but now schools are doing it as well... There have even been scandals where people did not have the credentials to be in said school, but had enough money to buy their way in... 

Think about this, we live in a world today, where our brightest minds are in the heaviest bouts of debt... Where, even if their loan goes unpaid for 7 years, that loan will still be applicable to them... We are applying archaic laws to these people from a time where most of our wealth was diffused, in a time where wealth is being hoarded... We are literally at war with the academic community and the thing is, when progress meets the wall, the wall is supposed to dissolve... But what we have saw, is not only is the wall not dissolving, its getting taller and thicker by the minute.

[Weezy1973]

3 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

As for wealth inequality, I'm not convinced it's the biggest issue facing us, as long as the worst off among us see some improvement in their lives the difference between what they have and Jeff Bezos, Nancy Pelosi, and Bernie Sanders have seems less important. 

Wealth inequality is equal to power inequality. Wealthy people have way more power, and use that power to stay wealthy and powerful.

[sothereiwas]

9 minutes ago, Weezy1973 said:

Wealth inequality is equal to power inequality.

They are related but different things. 

[Weezy1973]

40 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

They are related but different things. 

But that’s the crux of the problem. Wealthy people have the power to stay wealthy. Poor people have no voice. So much so, that the main advocates for the poor are not poor. They’re wealthy.

[Ellener]

5 minutes ago, Weezy1973 said:

Poor people have no voice.

I write poetry.

I sing songs.

I may not be perfect in this earth's eyes, but I have power.

[Weezy1973]

28 minutes ago, Ellener said:

I write poetry.

I sing songs.

I may not be perfect in this earth's eyes, but I have power.

I think we’re talking about different levels of power. You have power over your own life, and perhaps some power over those close to you. But wealthy people have the potential for power over huge swaths of the population. And many use it. Media. Politics. Multinational corporations. Etc.

[sothereiwas]

39 minutes ago, Weezy1973 said:

Wealthy people have the power to stay wealthy.

This doesn't seem to be borne out by actual facts. Research says 40% of those in the lowest income quintile will have kids who are in a higher quintile and 40% of those in the highest income quintile will have kids who will be in a lower income quintile. That seems like significant churn to me. 

[amaysngrace]

A kid making $14k a year and doing better than their parent and another child who won’t be making as many billions this year as dad will is hardly comparable when it comes to top and bottom.    
 

I like the idea of that and all but the difference can be minuscule as far as a change in lifestyle goes.

[sothereiwas]

Just now, amaysngrace said:

A kid making $14k a year and doing better than their parent and another child who won’t be making as many billions this year as dad will is hardly comparable when it comes to top and bottom.  

It's a movement from the bottom 20% into one of the other quintiles, not just an incremental move up. Also, once in the middle three quintiles, those are actually the most volatile divisions, with people moving up and down within those quintiles even more rapidly. 

[amaysngrace]

thank you for clarifying @sothereiwas

Well then that’s a substantial shift for sure.  I know two of my three kids make more than I do and they’re only in their 20’s and I guess I was basing it off of that when I said lifestyle change but when it’s broken down like that it puts them into a whole different class almost, if that’s even a thing anymore. 

[Weezy1973]

36 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

This doesn't seem to be borne out by actual facts. Research says 40% of those in the lowest income quintile will have kids who are in a higher quintile and 40% of those in the highest income quintile will have kids who will be in a lower income quintile. That seems like significant churn to me. 

Income and wealth aren’t the same thing. 

[sothereiwas]

5 minutes ago, Weezy1973 said:

Income and wealth aren’t the same thing. 

That's true, however generating income and then hanging onto it is how wealth is made. 

[sothereiwas]

Here are some stats on wealth mobility:

For households in the lowest wealth quintile, 37% stayed in the lowest quintile a decade later, whereas for those in the highest wealth quintile, 39% exited that quintile 10 years later. So similar mobility when it comes to wealth, which shouldn't be surprising given income mobility. 

[Weezy1973]

9 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

Here are some stats on wealth mobility:

For households in the lowest wealth quintile, 37% stayed in the lowest quintile a decade later, whereas for those in the highest wealth quintile, 39% exited that quintile 10 years later. So similar mobility when it comes to wealth, which shouldn't be surprising given income mobility. 

And why are you using quintiles when the top 1% own ~45% of global wealth? That’s the people with the power I’m talking about. A tiny fraction of the population that has an inordinate amount of power due to their wealth.

[sothereiwas]

Robert Carroll showed that between 1999 and 2007, 50% who earned over $1 million a year did so just once during this period, while only 6 in 100 stayed millionaires for 9 years.

[pepperbird]

On 7/24/2020 at 2:53 PM, Ellener said:

As an American it's the basic tenet of our democracy- 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness', which definitions of who we are, who we love are personal, yes.

The shared culture of America is the free place to do that: freedom for you is freedom for me, and why we need to respect others even when we don't agree.

And why we need to stand up for others even if it doesn't look like the issue affects us.

 

No offence intended to you at all, but if you think only people who value those same principles are choosing to live in the USA, you might want to take a second look.

 

[Prudence V]

On 7/25/2020 at 8:24 PM, sothereiwas said:

This doesn't seem to be borne out by actual facts. Research says 40% of those in the lowest income quintile will have kids who are in a higher quintile and 40% of those in the highest income quintile will have kids who will be in a lower income quintile. That seems like significant churn to me. 

Are these figures worldwide, or America only?