I threw them out as countries with more inequal income distribution than the U.S, and as countries that the US is edging closer to in terms of income distribution - something you have said many times you don't have a problem with. You then undercut your own point by illustrating how people are fleeing from such countries to come to the US, which has more even income distribution. Thanks are in order I guess. So Thanks!
That would make all kinds of sense, if the US was anything like Mexico or Brazil in terms of how well off the people on the low side of the uneven income distribution are. Can you provide a single example of a country where the median person is as prosperous as seen in the US that had whatever nebulous problems (since apparently you weren't referring to rebellions or revolutions) you are concerned about based on income inequalities?
This argument gives you r****d strength. There has never been a country with a GDP or median income as high as the US's in world history in real terms, so accordingly one will not find a country in history to compare it too. You take this to mean that the U.S. is accordingly exempt from history due to its status. However if you are asking for examples of nations that were among the world's richest with huge income gaps and who experienced corresponding problems, the list is long and varied. And you know what? Each one of these nations could have made a version of the same argument you just made, right before such problems occurred. Instead of looking for a rhetorical trapdoor and trying to score BBS cool points with technicalities, why don't you address the real issue? It doesn't take specific knowledge of history to realize that the increasing stratification and calcification of wealth and power (which included political power) into the hands of a privileged few, as the emprical evidence shows us is occurring, and as the same privileged few are telling us is occurring) to an unprecedented degree is troubling to anybody who lives in a democracy as it is pretty much antithetical thereto. Even conservative thnkers (real thinkers, not establishment blabbers) will concede that too much inequality is harmful to democracy, see e.g. Judge Posner. YOu seem to be saying that you don't care about this erosion because it doesn't effect you. I think it speaks for itself that it does. I also think it speaks for itself that the effect tends to perpetuate and feed off itself. I dont' believe that it is a coincidence that among OECD countries, the US has both the lowest income mobility and the highest income inequality.
In other words, you need an excuse to leave the thread because all you have is your standard "i don't care if they're rich" fallback. Thanks but I'm digging a little deeper. Later Alligator!
Can you show me a semi reliable site stating these statistics? It would be interesting to see. I think most of us agree there is an income inequality, its the disagreement on how serious it is. I see all sides to the argument. I think its very foolish to disregard it due to the lower class being more prosperous than ever before. I believe this is a better sign than anything on the stability of our standards of living. When a family making 100k a year is struggling to make ends meet, there is a very serious problem. It doesn't matter what you make, its what you have to show for it at the end of the year. And maxing out your 401K/IRA is not going to get you to the promise land. 50 years ago, 20k from a single income family was suffice. Now to live comfortable, we must have a double income. Our education system (speaking of college) is becoming a disadvantage in teaching us to become a one dimensional employee. Our education system is not teaching us what we need to put us ahead of the guy who chooses not to goto college. In the end, you're still on the same ship as the poor and its a hell of a lot more crowded than what you think. When that ship starts sinking, there will only be a limited amount of life boats.
It was from this article but it is now only open to subscribers http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4174181 but the backup data is probably avaiable on OECD's website. But anway, you will find reported in various places that the US has the highest Gini coefficient and that the US and UK are tied for the lowest intergenerational mobility (among OECD nations)
I'm not leaving the thread, I am choosing not to let you reframe the debate in some asinine way that equates the US with Mexico and Brazil. The people that are not rich here in America (especially those who are not what you would define as rich, which requires a lot more than what most would say), are not going to have the degree of discontent that those who are not rich in Mexico have. Americans simply have a higher standard of living. If you want to provide an example that is actually relevant, you are welcome to do so. If you want to define what the negative consequences are (which apparently do not include rebellion) you may do that to. If you want to talk about how Brazil is a perfect comparison for the US, well that dog don't hunt.
1) Maybe. It would be difficult (if not impossible) to show empirical evidence of such a subjective statement. 2) Even if it is true, it won't last if this trend of wealth concentration continues. Comparing is a good thing, because (at a minimum) it shows what we should be actively working to avoid.
This was explained to you before, several posts ago: I'm not sure what part of this post you don't get. Nobody ever said the US had the same income inequality level as Brazil or Mexico. But the US' income inequality is trending up towards that level. Not a hard point to get. There is not really much debate as to whether or not highly inequal income distribution has deleterious effects. You seem to claim that it has none. One need only look at the most inequal countries and see a laundry list of failed states and authoritarian regimes. AMong concerns identified and conceded among conservative thinkers in the US are that the calcification of wealth and capital can have a tremendously disproportionate impact on the political process.
Interesting article from the latest Economist: The new (improved) Gilded Age Dec 19th 2007 From The Economist print edition The very rich are not that different from you and me; or less different, perhaps, than they used to be Illustration by Jac IN 1904 Willie Vanderbilt hit a thrilling 92.3 mph (147.7 kph) in his new German motorcar, smashing the land-speed record. His older brother's sprawling North Carolina manse, Biltmore, could accommodate up to 500 pounds of meat in its electrical refrigerators. In miserable contrast, the below-average Gilded Age American had to make do with a pair of shoes and a melting block of ice. If he could somehow save enough for an icebox, a day's wage would not have bought a pound of meat to put in it. Paul Krugman, of Princeton University, has recently argued* that contemporary America's widening income gap is ushering in a new age of invidious inequalities. But a peek at the numbers behind the numbers suggests that Mr Krugman has been misled: far from a new Gilded Age, America is experiencing a period of unprecedented material equality. This is not to deny that income inequality is rising: it is. But measures of income inequality are misleading because an individual's income is, at best, a rough proxy for his or her real economic wellbeing. Because we can save, draw down savings, or run up debt, our income may tell us little about how we're faring. Consumption surveys, which track what people actually spend, sketch a more lifelike portrait of the material quality of life. According to one 2006 study**, by Dirk Krueger of the University of Pennsylvania and Fabrizio Perri of New York University, consumption inequality has barely budged for several decades, despite a sharp upswing in income inequality. But consumption numbers, too, conceal as much as they illuminate. They can record only that we have spent, but not the value—the pleasure or health—gained in the spending. A stable trend in nominal consumption inequality can mask a narrowing of real or “utility-adjusted” consumption inequality. Indeed, according to happiness researchers, inequality in self-reported “life satisfaction” has been shrinking in wealthy market democracies, America included, suggesting that the quality of lives across the income scale are becoming more similar, not less. You can see this levelling at work in markets for transport and appliances. You no longer need be a Vanderbilt to own a refrigerator or a car. Refrigerators are now all but universal in America, even though refrigerator inequality continues to grow. The Sub-Zero PRO 48, which the manufacturer calls “a monument to food preservation”, costs about $11,000, compared with a paltry $350 for the IKEA Energisk B18 W. The lived difference, however, is rather smaller than that between having fresh meat and milk and having none. Similarly, more than 70% of Americans under the official poverty line own at least one car. And the distance between driving a used Hyundai Elantra and a new Jaguar XJ is well nigh undetectable compared with the difference between motoring and hiking through the muck. The vast spread of prices often distracts from a narrowing range of experience. Save money. Live better This compression is not a thing of the past. To take one recent example, Jerry Hausman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ephraim Leibtag of the United States Department of Agriculture, show† that Wal-Mart's move into the grocery business has lowered food prices. Because the poorest spend the largest part of their budget on food, lower prices have benefited them most. The official statistics do not capture these gains. As a rule, when the prices of food, clothing and basic modern conveniences drop relative to the price of luxury goods, real consumption inequality drops. But the point is not that in America the relatively poor suffer no painful indignities, which would be absurd. It is that, over time, the everyday experience of consumption among the less fortunate has become in many ways more similar to that of their wealthier compatriots. A widescreen plasma television is lovely, but you do not need one to laugh at “Shrek”. This compression is the predictable consequence of innovations in production and distribution that have improved the quality of goods at the lower range of prices faster than at the top. New technologies and knock-off fashions now spread down the price scale too fast to distinguish the rich from the aspiring for long. This increasing equality in real consumption mirrors a dramatic narrowing of other inequalities between rich and poor, such as the inequalities in height, life expectancy and leisure. William Robert Fogel, a Nobel prize-winning economic historian, argues†† that nominal measures of economic well-being often miss such huge changes in the conditions of life. “In every measure that we have bearing on the standard of living...the gains of the lower classes have been far greater than those experienced by the population as a whole,” Mr Fogel observes. Some worrying inequalities, such as the access to a good education, may indeed be widening, arresting economic mobility for the least fortunate and exacerbating income-inequality trends. Yet even if you care about those aspects of income inequality, the idea can send misleading signals about the underlying trends in real consumption and the real quality of life. Contrary to Mr Krugman's implications, today's Gilded Age income gaps do not imply Gilded Age lifestyle gaps. On the contrary, those intrepid souls who make vast fortunes turning out ever higher-quality goods at ever lower prices widen the income gap while reducing the differences that matter most. http://www.economist.com/research/a...ystory.cfm?subjectid=348918&story_id=10328935
I think thats the problem ... there needs to be a greater difference. Its not a debate about the haves and haves not. One of the bigger differences of the rich is that 6 months of no income will not bankrupt their entire life. There are some who live on SS of $6000 a year who are better off than those who are making 100k.
Oh really? Unless they have other income such as IRA I would like you to put up one example of someone living on 6000 a year living better than someone making 100k, just one example. Do you have any idea what it is like to live on 6000, have you ever done it? I have, and I tell you you have no idea what it is like.
Case in point. Instant gratification now. There are many retired people who do not have to have every luxury in the book. They have their houses and cars paid for. All they have to do is pay their minimum bills. While they may not have a large amount of money saved up, they have enough to cover any emergency needs. THese people can survive an economical hardship. These people are MUCH MUCH better off in the long run. Yes, they are poor. But they are wealthier than the guy who's debt to income ratio is nearly in the red, regardless of your income.
Well, these are the people with homes and cars, many retired people do not have these, oh they also have savings in your example. Do not forget the property tax on the home and utilities. 100k per year really doesn't get you very far these days, but if you spend wisely you can live pretty well in most part of the country. If you like to spend and spend, 250k year is not going to be enough for you. That doesn't mean 100k living is bad, it just mean the person have no self control.
Hayes: Quite interesting indeed. However, there seems to be subtle shift of argument involved. The argument (as I last understood it) is in regards to mobility, not material equality. The fact that the poor in America still live a good life (most own cars, no doubt all have TVs etc) is certainly a valid point in making the distinction, as StupidMoniker has done, that America is no Mexico/Brazil. But it is hardly an indication that America's poor are somehow more or less capable of earning more and getting the Plasma-TV upgrade. One could argue quite successfully that if the poor could stop mindlessly consuming those aforementiond TVs and cars, that they might be able to achieve better mobility. But given our national <1% savings rate I kind of doubt that is going to happen.
Sure. I think the article successfully points out that income disparity shouldn't be taken as the end all be all. I think we agree on that part.
Sure, and the article even comes out and saying it is not a rebuttal but rather more information/another perspective to consider when we're examining things like this.
The hard point to get (for you apparently) is that those countries are largely composed of have nots, while America is largely composed of haves. You are looking at one characteristic - stratification of wealth - and completely ignoring the other (IMO more important) issue - that the people who are on the lower side of the wealth gap in America are doing quite well, but the people on the lower side of the wealth gap in the countries you mention are doing poorly. It is OK to admit that you can't find a single instance of the (as yet unnamed) problems in countries like America and that is why you used Mexico and Brazil as comparisons. On the other hand, if you can find a country that is reasonably like the US, you should provide that example. A clarification of the problems that concern you would be nice as well instead of the generalities seen so far. EDIT: And it appears that the Economist agrees with me. When the poor are living lives comparable to the rich, I am not too concerned with the raw numbers showing an income gap, especially when that is at least in part driven by a few people having unprecedented wealth without depressing the value of others' money.
