The One Percent Are Literally Rich Beyond Measure
We already know that the top one percent of income earners [sic] are getting more and more money while things stall at the bottom. But even so, the sheer amount we think they have is probably an undercount because it's so hard to measure.
The wealth of the most well-off people is under-counted because they hide it in tax shelters, keep it in foundations and holding companies, and don't respond to questionnaires, according to a Bloomberg analysis of recent research. Economist Gabriel Zucman had initially estimated that the top 0.1 percent, who have at least $20 million in net wealth, held 21.5 percent of all wealth in the United States in 2012, but after estimating what is hidden in offshore tax havens, that number is more like 23.5 percent.
Survey data is also faulty because the sample sizes are so small. The Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances found that the one percent held 34 percent of wealth in 2010, but that's more like 35 to 37 percent, according to a new paper.
Given the under-counting of data, this likely means that findings that wealth inequality had been dropping are wrong. With preliminary adjustments, the Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, stayed basically the same over recent decades. "With a 'top heavy' adjustment, the decrease in inequality - present when we use all other adjustments - almost entirely dissipates," according to a paper Bloomberg cites from December.
Related Stories
Income inequality has surged as a political and economic issue, but the numbers don't show that inequality is rising from a global perspective. Yes, the problem has become more acute within most individual nations, yet income inequality for the world as a whole has been falling for most of the last 20 years. It's a fact that hasn't been noted often enough.
The finding comes from a recent investigation by Christoph Lakner, a consultant at the World Bank, and Branko Milanovic, senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. And while such a framing may sound startling at first, it should be intuitive upon reflection. The economic surges of China, India and some other nations have been among the most egalitarian developments in history.
Of course, no one should use this observation as an excuse to stop helping the less fortunate. But it can help us see that higher income inequality is not always the most relevant problem, even for strict egalitarians. Policies on immigration and free trade, for example, sometimes increase inequality within a nation, yet can make the world a better place and often decrease inequality on the planet as a whole.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:41AM
Don't think you can count foundations against as part of their donor's wealth.
Once you gift it, its pretty well in the hands of the foundation.
And those live on long past the life of donor.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dry on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:20AM
80 years of IRS records show that the rich are not very generous when expressed as a percentage of wealth.
Other studies show that wealth brings a huge sense of entitlement.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:07AM
But once there is a foundation, that statistic hardly applies any more, does it?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:46PM
Who controls what the foundation does?
IIRC several foundations have engaged in actions that, while legal, benefited their donor(s). I can't think of any contrary examples. The donor officially not having any control over it does not translate into the donor actually not having any control over it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:17AM
> Once you gift it, its pretty well in the hands of the foundation.
Don't be so literal.
For example, Bill Gates has put a significant fraction of his money into the Bill Gates foundation which (among many things) stongly pushes foreign countries for intellectual property rights maximization by doing things like refusing to fund any programs that use locally produced generic drugs that are still patented back in the USA. Support for drug patents defuses into generalized support for all patents, including software.
Think of it as a form of money laundering except that the money gets converted into forms like political capital for some of the stages but ultimately it means more money coming back into their hands over the long term.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:35AM
The sooner atheists drop him as a role model ("good without god", etc.), the better.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:02PM
WTF? "Troll"? More like "Insightful".
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday August 10 2014, @09:04PM
Huh? Bill Gates a role model for atheists? what nonsense. Are you simply repeating some nonsense your preacher told you.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by FatPhil on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:23PM
Did you even bother following up the "good without god" pointer I gave? (It's hard to tell, maybe you did and were too fucking retarded to understand what you saw)
If not, which makes you a fucking retard, I was referring to this: http://brijux.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Bill_Gates_Philanthropy.png
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Monday August 11 2014, @10:53PM
Did you try going to the URL given on that image? It doesn't exist.
You've been trolled by someone making a photoshop image, moron.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 12 2014, @12:48AM
Here's the group behind it:
http://www.illinissa.com/p/secular-samaritan.html
And here's lots of people mentioning it:
http://www.liveimagephoto.com/2010/11/good-without-god-bill-gates-steve.html
http://brijux.com/2010/11/02/bill-gates-is-good-without-god-are-you/
http://www.onbeing.org/blog/warren-buffett-without-god-too/3579
http://harvardhumanist.org/2012/01/24/anatomy-of-a-successful-humanist-ad-campaign/
...
as you would have known had you the brains to type "good without god gates" into any decent search engine.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Tuesday August 12 2014, @06:38PM
So fat man, your evidence that atheists in general have Bill Gates as a role model is a web site that doesn't exist any more.
You really are as stupid as you look.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:09AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday August 10 2014, @09:01PM
Since the foundation is generally set up to further the ideals of the donor, you can certainly count it.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 11 2014, @12:17AM
No you can't. Its no longer under his control.
Its not his money any more. He spent it.
Learn what a foundation is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(United_States_law)#Types [wikipedia.org]
Foundations can further public causes. Even some causes that would be abhorrent to their founders. The Ford foundation does this all the time.
Bill Gates can't create a foundation to furnish him with Yachts and houses all over the world.
In exchange for exemption from paying most taxes and for limited tax benefits being offered to donors, a private foundation must (a) pay out at least 5% of the value of its endowment each year, none of which may be to the private benefit of any individual; (b) not own or operate significant for-profit businesses; (c) file detailed public annual reports and conduct annual audits in the same manner as a for-profit corporation; (d) meet a suite of additional accounting requirements unique to nonprofits.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Monday August 11 2014, @10:49PM
No you can't. Its no longer under his control.
Do you understand what "set up" means?
The Koch Brothers for example set up lots of foundations to further their political aims. That's a fact you simply can't argue with. Your opinion of the limits of foundations is simply wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers [wikipedia.org]
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:23AM
Back when I had a job (over 50 and was stupid enough to join a startup, unemployed 3 years now), I was a 1%'er. 6 figure salary with the leftmost digit being a 1. Living in San Diego, It took my salary to keep the house, and my wife's salary to pay for vacations.
It really says something that you can be a 1%'er, and still be struggling to make ends meet. Granted, we don't live paycheck to paycheck, but the monthly mortgage is an issue every month.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1) by DrkShadow on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:40AM
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-where-do-you-rank-as-a-taxpayer.html?si=1 [kiplinger.com]
Sorry, you don't qualify for the club. Unless, maybe, you had that in 2004 or so.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:42AM
Six figure salary doesn't come close to qualifying you as a 1%'er.
A million dollar salary only gets you into the 8%'er category.
There are 117.5 million households in the US.
9.6 Million of those have million dollar(+) incomes.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RobotMonster on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:16AM
A million dollar salary has seven figures. Count 'em: 1,000,000.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:57AM
I thought the same thing, but then I re-read what he wrote and realised that was what he said.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:05AM
Thanks for making my point. But I'm pretty sure that was obvious that if a million doesn't make him a 1%'er his under 200,000 salary doesn't come close.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:09AM
Yeah it does follow; I was confused by the way you jumped from discussing a six figure salary to a million dollar salary in the very next sentence; it seemed like you were discussing the same figure in both lines, whereas clearly you were not!
(Score: 1) by weirsbaski on Monday August 11 2014, @03:55AM
Citation please.
According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2009 there were 236,833
Americans making $1million or more a year. While the number is undoubtably higher
today, I doubt it jumped up by a factor of 40.
Source, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204346104576638981631627402 [wsj.com] .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @04:55PM
Intersting. The IRS thinks there are only 2.8 million households (2.3%) with income exceeding $250,000.
You're right that a low-6-figure salare doesn't qualify you for the 1%, but are you sure you're not confusing "income" and "net worth?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by umafuckitt on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:15AM
The degree to which you struggle on a given income all depends, to take the specifics of your post, on how you define "house" and how you define "vacation."
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:54PM
That's not true at either extreme end, but it's pretty much true in the middle. So it's true for the purposes of discussing this particular "1%-er", but not for either the homeless guy on the corner or the guy on the opposite pole who owns 3-4 tropical and temperate islands and a private ski-resort.
OTOH, you can find hobbies that will beggar the wealthiest, unless they start paying for themselves. Elon Musk has picked one.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Sunday August 10 2014, @09:22PM
I agree. If you're struggling to put food on the table then your financial buffer non-existent.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @12:44PM
Sheesh, no wonder the middle class keeps voting to cut taxes of millionaires who are many orders of magnitude richer than themselves while raising their own tax burden - they think 200,000/year makes them a 1%er! LOL!
(Score: 4, Informative) by dry on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:25AM
Actually global income disparity has gone down. When the bottom 10% double their income from (numbers pulled from my ass but probably close) from $1 a day to $2 a day and the top .01% double their income, well the average has shrunk.
It's a case of lies, lies and statistics, which can be twisted to show any outcome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:41AM
wealth inequality is at record high levels.
every other time it got this high in the history of the world.
a bunch of people died...
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:45AM
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/08/03/2018233 [soylentnews.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:51AM
To show that you have a clue what you are talking about, what was the level of wealth inequality throughout history? How do you know it turns into "bunch of people died" at the current level of wealth inequality?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:56AM
He stripped off the Related link I had made an effort to include.
(maxwell demon supplied it again for you.)
This time, I'd say azrael's own dept. wasn't as interesting as mine was either:
from the figures-don't-lie-but-liars-can-figure dept.
http://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=3274 [soylentnews.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Informative) by azrael on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:39AM
Actually I took your related link out of the main text and put it into the related stories section - given that's what the related stories section is for.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:01AM
The problem is that "related stories" on many sites tends to be based on word association, rather than anything genuinely related. It might be a good idea (if feasible) to have a "previously on this topic" section for cases like that.
Post topic: Blogger sent to Mars
Previously on this topic:
[earlier date] Judge threatens to exile blogger to Mars
[even earlier date] Blogger appeals ruling, argues with judge
Related: Experts say life on Mars shortens lifespans by half
(Score: 1) by azrael on Sunday August 10 2014, @02:19PM
(Score: 1) by Gertlex on Sunday August 10 2014, @02:57PM
Neat to hear how it works here. Nonetheless you're fighting what I reckon is a strong tend to ignore related articles due to how they're done everywhere else... so most of us just completely ignore them, unfortunately.
Additionally, dropping the related links in between the summary and the comments just means they get scrolled past, if a user is clicking to read the comments. For this reason I'm a fan of tying relevant links into the summary in the first place.
Keep up the great work, thanks!
(Score: 1) by azrael on Sunday August 10 2014, @03:54PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:26AM
So they have "wealth beyond measure", but if we were to find ways to accurately measure that wealth, it might be about 10% higher than current estimates. I think getting within a factor of two is pretty good here. Getting within 10% is astounding.
This inability to measure would have been just as bad any point in the past few decades and much worse to measure before the modern era. There's no actual evidence here to indicate that such findings might be in error or that the claimed problem might be getting worse.
I think stories like this illustrate the inherent dishonesty of the wealth inequality argument. Why should we be concerned that the most competent, oldest, and wealthiest have a number of orders of magnitude more wealth than the people who suck at personal finance? What should matter to us is how they got that wealth. If you get it by providing valuable products and services, then that's vastly different and more beneficial to the rest of us than getting that wealth by rent seeking or extortion.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:03AM
Wow.
Let's see, if someone doesn't suck at personal finance but is only paid $10k/year but their boss is paid $100k/year and rips off everyone underneath him, we don't include that.
If someone is paid $100k/year and is bad at personal finance, we don't include that.
But if someone is old and extremely rich, like the owner of my workplace, he's clearly good at what he does, right? But he was born into it. He didn't work his way to the top - and under his watch, the business is failing. He's getting rid of staff, doing everything he can to make more money, but since his current business (printed news media) is not diversifying, he'll be lucky if it's around in 20 years.
Unless the taxpayer spots him some more money, like it did a couple of years ago.
Now, I've been ripped off to the tune of $50k by them in the last two years. Does that mean that I'm bad at personal finance and should be counted, or my boss is a criminal? Because it really means that my boss is a criminal.
You, sir, are an idiot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:11AM
Uncanny how I anticipated that.
Moving on, you wrote:
That's a fair bit of money and I imagine you aren't claiming you're one of the 1%. In my book, getting ripped off for that much is a good indication of being bad at personal finance - especially, if it's a significant portion of your finances.
So going back to your boss, he got rich by being the son of the right people, soaking some public funding, and ripping you off. And somehow I'm an idiot for caring how he made (and apparently continues to lose) his money?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hottabasco on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:23AM
"Why should we be concerned that the most competent, oldest, and wealthiest have a number of orders of magnitude more wealth than the people who suck at personal finance"
1. "competent": is wealth is gained through competence - at anything other than being competent at fucking other people over. I am thinking of the bankers here, but they are not alone in that. And if its gained at the expense of fucking other people over, are we OK with that?
2. "people who suck at personal finance" I am sure that some people who are poor are in that position because they "suck at personal finance", but to lump all people who are poor in that category sucks.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:18AM
The answer is "yes".
Is the world made unfair because a person in a coma doesn't make as much as a CEO of a major corporation? Income inequality isn't about people who have substantial wealth-destroying disabilities, but rather able-bodied people.
(Score: 1) by hottabasco on Sunday August 10 2014, @11:06AM
your answer to point 2. seems to have very little to do with the question.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday August 11 2014, @10:06AM
There was only one question in that post. I was responding to point 2, not answering the question. My view here is that sure, you can contrive a situation where someone is poor through no fault of their own, such as a severe medical condition, like being in a coma. And there are a number of people who fall in these sorts of scenarios to some degree. I wasn't originally intent on labeling the entire poor as incompetent, though I think it is for the most part true.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 11 2014, @02:29PM
I used to work in Mutual Funds/Equities 25 years ago. There was a big push on personal finance then, with Kiplinger's as the standard bearer. The marketing message, pushed by them and many others, was to live below your means and invest the difference; that, we were told, was the path to middle class financial security. That wave crested with the failure of George W. Bush to privatize Social Security.
But what we know now, and are still waking up to every day, is that personal finance, trimming costs and saving the difference, is no path to financial security when the .01% have rigged the game to the extent that they are siphoning trillions of dollars out of the economy with total impunity. Forbes magazine reported in 2012 that an estimated $33 trillion have been squirrelled away in the Caymans alone.
How can an economy function the way it's supposed to when the fruits of its productive labor force are taken and not reinvested in the people that created that wealth?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by velex on Sunday August 10 2014, @11:23PM
Yes, that would matter quite a bit. I don't think these people got the money they did by frequently balancing their checkbooks and working weekends.
For me, personal finance means making sure my savings account keeps growing and learning how to do say basic plumbing around the home so I don't need to spend more money than I have to.
For these people, I mean, it has to be completely different. It's probably more like a game. This account is returning this percentage. I feel like steak for lunch today. That account has a better percentage. Oh, and we're paying that person more than minimum wage? Fire them. There's always fresh people happy to go through the meat grinder. Oh, and donate to that candidate who's fighting against raising the minimum wage.
I forget where I saw it put like this, but the problem seems to be that capital makes capital faster than labor ever could. There's no amount of hard work, at least without a good amount of luck, that can move somebody from the worker class to the capitalist/ownership class. The first thing, though, is definitely to become ruthless. Hard work? Every time I repeat the phrase "hard work" to myself I chuckle a little. No, ruthlessness, not hard work. Cocaine probably helps, or whatever other "cosmetic neurology" is popular with the kids.
But always is required the basic leverage. One has to have capital to play the game and has to be ruthless. If I were to play the game, instead of helping my best friend in the world when she was between jobs, I would have thrown her out on the street like a good capitalist and started renting out her room. An extra $400 or so per month would probably give me a leg up towards becoming a capitalist myself. Then I could have cut out my heart and locked it up in a box and become a salesperson or realtor or something.
This world rewards strange things, not things like "hard work" or craftsmanship or the simple virtue of managing one's personal finances. Cruel ruthlessness. Megalomania. Cocaine. That'll get you moving up. At best, as far as I can tell, "hard work" is a euphemism for cruel, heartless ruthlessness. Estimates? Timeframes? Project planning? Feh, you'll get it done because I have money to make, and I don't care that we never talked timeframes or project planning. Get me my damned money.
Eh, who am I kidding? The 1%ers don't have "personal finances." They have accountants for that.
All in all, somewhat agreed. It's a pointless debate. I'd also submit that it probably has nothing at all to do with actual money. It's all about power. Money is just the unit that power is measured in.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday August 11 2014, @04:31AM
That's a pretty fancy way to say you don't have a clue.
That's one of those things you have to think about to see that it doesn't make sense. Capital isn't easy to make more of, else everyone would have vast quantities of it and it would be valued far less than it actually is. And labor is a big component of making more capital.
What's actually going on is that globally, we're expanding our pool of labor from the sixth or so that was the developing world in say the 60s to almost all of the world. Expanding labor supply by a factor of five or six is going to result in a decline in the price that developed world labor will get.
Meanwhile capital didn't magically grow by that same amount. So we have labor value decline relative to capital value . For people who own capital, such as rich people, they're doing better as a result.
There's no amount of hard work, at least without a good amount of luck, that can move somebody from the worker class to the capitalist/ownership class.
Good amount of luck happens. The question is whether you're willing to do anything with that luck.
How many months was this? If that pocket change really was worth axing a friendship to you, then by all means do so. I gather it wasn't. Single minded optimization of one thing to the exclusion of all else generally doesn't work out. We tend to have more than one priority. Even rich people have that.
The term for this is "sour grapes", here, a bunch of rationalizations for why you wouldn't like something you're not willing to try. I don't mind people who aren't hard workers. They can still be useful and clever, sometimes more useful and clever than the hard worker. But I do mind people who clearly have no experience and considerable ignorance telling me a bunch of crap.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday August 11 2014, @04:34AM
As an aside, money is a terrible unit of power. The problem is that you can spend my money as easily as I can, should you get a hold of it. Rich people have money-based power only as long as they keep their wealth. That wealth is just not that hard to take away.
(Score: 2, Informative) by hellcat on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:02AM
We've got some confusion going on it appears.
Wealth distribution is not the same as income distribution.
You can make a 6 figure salary but have 6 figure expenses. Net wealth accumulation, 0.
You can have a (technically) $1 income but have wealth of over 20 million.
Wealth is what we own - free and clear. You can convert it into cash.
And yes, foundations can count as wealth, if they are set up to generate income streams for me.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:24PM
Foundations are also wealth if they are set up to generate control for you. Including political control.
Much of the argument is silly, because it assumes that a dollar has a constant value both over time and over degrees of wealth, when neither is even approximately true. Saying that someone who is living on minimum wage is poor because of poor management of personal finances is such a disconnect from reality that the mind boggles.
That said, it is also true that many people don't know how to manage money. Some because they never learned as a child. (If your parents never allow you to have any money OR give you nearly all the money you ask for then you won't learn to manage it.) But that merely teaches you to manage expenses. Most people aren't taught how to generate money. I wasn't. I was fortunate to be interested in science and math, and that gave me a decent income during a wealthy period of the country. And I experienced a *small* amount of hard work. Sufficient to convince me that I didn't want to earn my living that way. (Picking cotton is not a pleasant experience. Neither is working in a cannery.) But I never learned to be an entrepreneur...and I still have no skills in that area. Management is, or appears to be, the only "honest" way to make a lot of money "legally"...unless you already have a lot.
I suspect that I've described most people who come to this site. Some will be less well trained at spending less than they earned than I am, some will be more. Most will be technically skilled. Many will be more aggressive at seeking employment than I was. This does not equip one to empathize and understand the problems of those insolvent because they can't hold a job. You need to actually know some of them. I've known several, and their problems are not my problems. I often have a hard time understanding them. But they typically don't live extravagant lives, and I haven't met even one who was poor BECAUSE of poor management of personal finances. (Lots of other reasons, from being unskilled to having developed skills that there was no market for. One, a highly skilled piano player, periodically went insane (delusions of persecution). There was medication he could take to prevent this, but the side effects were so bad that whenever the memory of how bad it was when he didn't take it faded, he'd stop taking it. (Some people said once a year, but it wasn't either quite that frequent or nearly that regular.)
*That* said, my friends were all in many ways similar to myself. They were all well over average in intelligence, e.g., and all had had at least some college. So they are a more able than average selection of poor people. (I was probably the economically best off, but I may have had the poorest social skills. Which is probably why I fit in.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hellcat on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:15AM
There are truisms carved into hieroglyphs, equating to the "rich get richer" and "it takes money to make money."
We should'nt be surprised to hear that wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of fewer people. It's been going on for thousands of years. And it makes sense. Put 100 people on an island and make them all equal in terms of wealth. Feed them equally, and give them equal access to physical resources.
Yet they are still different; mentally and physically. As this group creates an economy, these differences result in wealth inequality.
It may be that wealth concentration reaches a critical value in some societies leading to revolutions - possibly violent. Historically, this is common. Common enough that we should consider this, natural.
What is less common is when societies take peaceful measures to try and balance wealth inequalities - in the belief that such inequality leads to less efficient economies. But that's another story.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mojo chan on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:09AM
It may be that wealth concentration reaches a critical value in some societies leading to revolutions - possibly violent. Historically, this is common. Common enough that we should consider this, natural.
Violent revolution is not a good way for society to correct imbalances. While it may be natural that is no reason to accept it.
What is less common is when societies take peaceful measures to try and balance wealth inequalities - in the belief that such inequality leads to less efficient economies.
Wrong on two counts. Firstly it isn't that uncommon, with many European states doing it for a start. Secondly it isn't done on the belief that inequality leads to less efficient economies for the most part, it is done out of a sense of fairness, humanity and the realization that for most people it improves their lives. The US and to some extent the UK are the odd ones out, where everyone screws themselves on the assumption that they will get rich one day and so better not vote for anything that puts their future-self's taxes up now.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:12AM
Violent revolution is not a good way for society to correct imbalances. While it may be natural that is no reason to accept it.
Wrong on two counts. Firstly it isn't that uncommon, with many European states doing it for a start. Secondly it isn't done on the belief that inequality leads to less efficient economies for the most part, it is done out of a sense of fairness, humanity and the realization that for most people it improves their lives. The US and to some extent the UK are the odd ones out, where everyone screws themselves on the assumption that they will get rich one day and so better not vote for anything that puts their future-self's taxes up now.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by hellcat on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:19PM
"While it may be natural that is no reason to accept it."
Good luck with this attitude. Nature always wins - always. It doesn't matter if you don't like the dark, ebola, or death. They exist, so deal with it.
"... Firstly it isn't that uncommon, with many European states doing it for a start."
Did you read TFA? The whole point is that their data is not valid. Econometrics is voodoo, at best. How can European states "do" anything if they can't validate their efforts?
"Secondly it isn't done on the belief that inequality leads to less efficient economies for the most part, it is done out of a sense of fairness, humanity and the realization that for most people it improves their lives."
Try defining fairness and humanity. I can easily define more equitable distribution of wealth and have that mean more efficient - even though I may not be able to measure it. (Read TFA.) But putting a bunch of touchy-feely goody goody words in your argument is like hitting me with a cream pie. Yummy.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:35PM
Nature always wins all right, but nature doesn't only have one mode of operation. Mutualism is more successful than predation as a life style, but both are natural. (Symbiosis is one form of Mutalism, but is only an extreme edge case.)
FWIW, I tend to consider most of the hyper-rich to be parasites. A very natural kind of relationship, but not, I think, one to be encouraged. Others are Mutualistic, i.e. their existence benefits the context within which they are embedded. I think Elon Musk is of this stripe. So, probably, was Steve Jobs. I count Bill Gates as edging towards the parasite group. Note, however, that it IS a gradient. You can name various positions along the gradient, but they don't define the possibilities. And even to get this model you need to either rate each action that a person takes individually, or form some sort of weighted average of all their actions, which which case the weighing algorithm is quite argumentative.
Symbiotes are MUCH less likely to kill of their hosts than are true parasites. And are much more likely to be tolerated by their host. (Those who get into fights with their mitochondria usually die of it.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @05:16PM
No, that is pretty much the foundation of everysociety. Every society is based on a certain extent of group organization, of sharing the responsibilities and privileges of organization across the population. Rome didn't demand its slaves pay taxes; Islam requires its adherents to pay alms; even stone-age tribes shared the hunt even with the sick, old, and infirm. Progressive taxes [wikipedia.org] (ie, those that demand the rich pay a larger percentage of their income) have been around forever.
Societies differ in how effectively they balance the natural tendency for wealth concentration, but not in the fact of their attempt to do so.
(Score: 2) by gallondr00nk on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:28AM
It wasn't significant, as much as some desperately wished that it gave an excuse to carry on as we are.
Another measure of inequality is wealth to national income ratios, which have been steadily climbing [voxeu.org] since the 1970s.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tomtomtom on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:48AM
That's hardly surprising though. Most assets (ie not counting things like fine art which are not a significant portion of the world's wealth) are valued in terms of their future income potential, discounted back using some interest rate. When interest rates fall, the value of an asset which is expected to produce the same amount of income rises without it needing to become any more productive. In the 1970s the world had very high interest rates; today they are much lower (and this is still very true if you strip out the effect of inflation before anyone brings that up). Hence, all other things being equal, I'd be very surprised if this wasn't the case.
As a secondary effect, the average number of people working in a household has increased due to increased female participation in the workforce over the same period of time. That makes it hard to do fair statistical comparisons (looking at household income and household wealth is much harder to do as accurately, particularly if you also consider that many countries have abolished joint filing during that period which means tax records are not useful as a comparator).
The reality is that this whole conceit about wealth vs income is just that - a conceit. The wealth of the very rich is not a problem in itself. If someone in a different part of the world to me buys a house 15x the size of mine, it does not make one jot of difference to me. Same if they choose to not spend a day of their lives working - I still have a job and find satisfaction and enjoyment in it. It is simply not relevant to me. What CAN be a problem is the power those people accumulate because of that wealth. But that is not a facet of their wealth, but of the political system which a particular country has.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:26AM
Kind of hard to follow this article, since "income" has a precise meaning in the US with our tax code. Wealthy people don't earn much income that's taxed as income. They earn money from investments, and wealthy in the form of land and other assets. Their earnings from investments are taxed much less than working people who earn income. (So they earn more marginal income per dollar than someone working for a living does, except for tax breaks.) And wealth isn't income. If I inherit thousands of acres of valuable land, I'm wealthy, but it's not income I've earned. So if the question is "income" inequality vs "wealth" inequality, we need to define our terms better to know what we're talking about.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @01:00PM
So? The article isn't discussing income inequality specifically within the US, its discussing it world-wide. Why would something discussing global trends care about how one specific country defines it in order to create loopholes?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:33PM
This very true. As I have climbed up from making 2-3k a year to 140k+ a year I have noticed something. It is simply easier to not get stuck. Not in that I am falling for a scams as such. But the fee's and extras seem to disappear people no longer try to nickel and dime me as much. I found it is actually easier to keep my wealth. I am not constantly hounded by this fee or that rent payment. They no longer exist. I noticed it about 90k. There seem to be armies of accountants and marketers out there looking to find new ways to rip off the poor. Unfortunatly having gone up thru the ranks I see the desperation people have. They want a quick 'im rich'. The amount of money people spend on lotteries is a good example.
Then there are those dipstick 10%'rs who get themselves upside down. Because they are trying to live the life of a 0.01%er. If you live in your means you can live *very* nicely past 70k. This does mean you will not be living in the select awesomeo parts of cali or ny.
Lucky at this point I have 3 years of wealth tucked away before I am standing in a SS line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:17PM
Why in the above, non-quoted sentence, is a "sic" inserted?
(Score: 2) by bootsy on Monday August 11 2014, @09:32AM
I think this is because of the assumption "We already know". Who is "we" and is true we actually know this? The original article may state this but it doesn't mean it is correct.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @05:46PM
When I think of "earn", I think "work".
My classic example of Capitalism is Paris Hilton sitting on her butt, waiting for a check to arrive.
That makes me think of a line out of the Bible:
if any would not work, neither should he eat
2 Thessalonians 3:10 (KJV)
-- gewg_