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US income inequality at record high
- Thread starter Tony Flow MMMM
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Actually, looking at that chart the title is misleading to say the least...
"Americans raised at the Top and Bottom Are Likely to Stay There as Adults"
... but 57% of people raised at the bottom leave the bottom and 60% of people raised at the top leave the top. Is this a new definition of "likely" that I've not heard of before?
Let alone the nonsense of the data made by the "income adjusted for family size" tiny print at the bottom.
Without sitting down and crunching the numbers - I'm at work and don't have time - my gut interpretation of that data is "the average American will move about half a band towards the middle and it's slightly easier to fall down than climb up"
"Americans raised at the Top and Bottom Are Likely to Stay There as Adults"
... but 57% of people raised at the bottom leave the bottom and 60% of people raised at the top leave the top. Is this a new definition of "likely" that I've not heard of before?
Let alone the nonsense of the data made by the "income adjusted for family size" tiny print at the bottom.
Without sitting down and crunching the numbers - I'm at work and don't have time - my gut interpretation of that data is "the average American will move about half a band towards the middle and it's slightly easier to fall down than climb up"
Hard work or lack thereof has nothing to do with the increased income inequality. On a personal level it has a lot to do with income and success sure but it doesn't explain away the ever widening gap. That gap is bad for all of us.
99% of us are working harder than ever for less. 1% are taking more than they ever have.
99% of us are working harder than ever for less. 1% are taking more than they ever have.
Pretty much all governements behave the same regardless of ideology communism, representative democracies, oligarchies, monarchies, feudalism etc, have a few key thing in common:
Rule by a small very wealthhy minority, control for the lower classes. The lower classes have very little control over their government.
The only system of government where everyone is equally represented is one that doesnt exist
Rule by a small very wealthhy minority, control for the lower classes. The lower classes have very little control over their government.
The only system of government where everyone is equally represented is one that doesnt exist
Nothing but themselves. Opportunity off shows up disguised in overalls and hard work. All of my life, I have been hearing about "The American Dream" and "Land of opportunity". I didn't have to leave my home country to get ahead. But I saw so much opportunity and have never looked back. Success in life, however you measure it, is in your hands. Sure, health and family circumstances may challenge that. But it challenges the successful as well as those less successful. It takes risk and not everyone has an appetite for risk.
Also, let's imagine that number were higher and say they owned 95% of the total wealth. What would that mean for the other 300+ million Americans and their living situations? It'd look similar to serfdom.
More than nothing. Stagnant wages, increased costs of everything from basic needs to goods and services. A full time job used to pay for things like health care, housing and education. it doesn't anymore which is why the public has had to shell out for these things. These are things a decent wage used to provide.
People aren't working less hard than they used to. Billionaires are not in any way working harder than they did 30 years ago. Yes they work hard but they are also keeping more.
Then stop shopping at Wal-Mart if you don't want them to profit so much. Simple as that. Start a campaign to get the poor to do the same. But before you start to campaign, please tell me how the poor would benefit if some of Wal-Mart's profits went to Food Lion and K-Mart rather than Wal-Mart. I would argue it wouldn't change a thing.
Also, while we're at it, where are the guys with guns forcing anyone to shop at Wal-Mart? The Waltons profit huge because they have figured out a way to provide goods and services for a better price than anyone else. But nobody has to shop there. "Vote with your wallet" as they say.
Are you attempting causality with this graph? That would not be a good case, on my opinion
If you work there you can't afford to shop anywhere else.
In capitalism we all benefit from more competition.
And some still do, but not at a percentage like they used to, and that's a problem.
When businesses do not pay a fair wage, provide certain benefits, etc... who ends up picking up the bill? The middle class tax payer does. Essentially, it's corporate welfare. They know if they don't provide those incentives then the government will. Obviously some welfare will always be needed, but if businesses picked up more of the slack then we'd be able to do away with a lot of the welfare systems we have in this country and could lower tax rates across the board.
Kinda on the same plain:
America makes up 5% of the worlds population and consumes 25% of the worlds resources.
Fair? Equal? Balanced? Serfdom on a global scale?
I'm assuming the part you're talking about starts with: "There can never be enough super rich people to power an economy". I agree with that, and I don't think he's wrong either when he talks about how middle class consumers are what powers an economy. While there are always going to be niche markets and items that cater to the super rich (expensive car manufacturers like Maybach, yacht manufacturers, etc.), most of the economy is targeted at providing services for, and thereby getting money from, the middle class, this is a truth, and I don't think I've seen anyone here denying it. The Walton family got fabulously wealthy by doing exactly that. Walmart is one of the largest retailers and employers in the world, and it didn't get that way because some guy decided to spend umpteen billions of dollars and hire a bunch of people, buy up land, and build stores that there wasn't a market for. Bill Walton and is company fulfilled a need and the public found their prices, selection, and convenience worth their business, so the company grew and expanded. Walton died, and gave his money to his kids, as most parents are wont to do. He just happened to be worth a whole wad of cash bigger than we'll ever see, and so they each got billons of dollars.
I still don't see how that's an issue.
In my limited experience the harder you work the less money you make. All the jobs ive had where I made real money had me doing very litttle actual work. The reason for that is very simple.
Any idiot can do manual labor, hence the employer has more leverage to pay you less money, because any idiot can do your job there is more competition and less job security. Jobs that "seem" to need very specialised skills will always pay way more, because the employer is more concerenced about retaining good talent.
I say "Seem" because you can train any human being to do any task thats what makes us human the whole idea of needing a college degree for any job is a joke. but thats a different topic.
Income inequality is not a symptom of a bad system its a necessary part of the system. As long as you have any system where you give over control to a small group your going to have inequality. As the system gets larger you'll have more corruption and even more inequality.
I think Abe Lincoln put it well. I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact words.
"You can not make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor."
"You can not make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor."
Unrepresented
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I don't think any single graph is going to be able to provide causality, but it is evidence that's there is a bias in economic mobility.
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