Wealth & Income Inequality

Minimalist

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How about those people get off their asses, train themselves, find a job and pay for accommodation like everyone else has to instead of being unproductive junkies happy to piss away their lives on drugs and living on the streets. Unless someone is seriously handicapped or disabled there is no way you cannot find any job if you go out and work for it. Expecting people to donate the money they earned to provide free accommodation, food and utilities where they will continue being just as useless isn't gonna happen.
Most (genuine) homeless people are mentally ill. Can't be arsed looking it up but they've definitely studied it before. It's a shockingly high percentage of them.

Telling people to just get up off their ass isn't a solution for the masses and it never will be.
 

Wibble

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How about those people get off their asses, train themselves, find a job and pay for accommodation like everyone else has to instead of being unproductive junkies happy to piss away their lives on drugs and living on the streets. Unless someone is seriously handicapped or disabled there is no way you cannot find any job if you go out and work for it. Expecting people to donate the money they earned to provide free accommodation, food and utilities where they will continue being just as useless isn't gonna happen.
To think we could have saved the entire social security budget by shouting "pull yourself together". Who knew?
 

Carolina Red

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Yeah, read about this. In NYC, they call it gentrification, which essentially means most of low income people are forced to move out to make way for middle class. Honestly, I don't see any two ways about it. City has rent controlled apartments, but they only cater to population levels as and when they are implemented. New additional population are not covered, but this applies at all levels. I choose not to live there as I don't want to pay exorbitant prices. I reckon others should make similar choices too.
It’s basically a socioeconomic (and still largely racial) reversal of the “white flight” from urban areas in the middle of the last century.

The worst part is that it is pushing the already poor further away from their employment and so far out that there’s no public transit like there was in the urban setting, so they’re losing even more money having to buy transportation.
 

Carolina Red

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To think we could have saved the entire social security budget by shouting "pull yourself together". Who knew?
I know right. And to think, if my wife would have just pulled some double shifts when she was homeless a couple times as a kid...

(~25% of homeless people are under the age of 18. Doubt Moby knows that though)
 

Edgar Allan Pillow

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It’s basically a socioeconomic (and still largely racial) reversal of the “white flight” from urban areas in the middle of the last century.

The worst part is that it is pushing the already poor further away from their employment and so far out that there’s no public transit like there was in the urban setting, so they’re losing even more money having to buy transportation.
Honestly I think you're overstating this. In NYC very few live close to work in Manhattan. Almost everyone with kids move to suburbs with school zones and a 90 min commute to work is pretty much ok. Apartments (vs houses) in suburbs are not as expensive as City and finding a normal one should be OK.

I have not done a statistic lookup, but I think most low income neighborhoods are high in crime. Whether crime drives down prices or low income attract law breakers is debatable but one feeds off the other.

Low income crime free neighborhood seems like utopia which should not be the case. Not sure if more 'projects' are the solution. Perhaps if they start on a vacant neighborhood from scratch, it may work.
 
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Carolina Red

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Honestly I think you're overstating this. In NYC very few live close to work in Manhattan. Almost everyone with kids move to suburbs with school zones and a 90 min commute to work is pretty much ok. Apartments (vs houses) in suburbs are not as expensive as City and finding a normal one should be OK.

I have not done a statistic lookup, but I think most low income neighborhoods are high in crime. Whether crime drives down prices or low income attract law breakers is debatable but one feeds off the other.

Low income crime free neighborhood seems like utopia which should not be the case. Not sure if more 'projects' are the solution. Perhaps if they start on a vacant neighborhood from scratch, it may work.
The country is a lot bigger than Manhattan.
 

berbatrick

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“HOTHOUSE EARTH” CO-AUTHOR: THE PROBLEM IS NEOLIBERAL ECONOMICS

When journal papers about climate change make headlines, the news usually isn’t good. Last week was no exception, when the so-called hothouse earth paper, in which a team of interdisciplinary Earth systems scientists warned that the problem of climate change may be even worse than we thought, made its news cycle orbit. (The actual title of the paper, a commentary published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, is “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.”)

Coverage of the paper tended to focus on one of its more alarming claims, albeit one that isn’t new to climate researchers: that a series of interlocking dynamics on Earth — from melting sea ice to deforestation — can feed upon one another to accelerate warming and climate impacts once we pass a certain threshold of warming, even after humans have stopped pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The best chance we have for staying below that catastrophic threshold is to cap warming at around 2 degrees Celsius, the target enshrined in the Paris Agreement.

That’s all correct and plenty daunting. Yet embedded within the paper is a finding that’s just as stunning: that none of this is inevitable, and one of the main barriers between us and a stable planet — one that isn’t actively hostile to human civilization over the long term — is our economic system.

Asked what could be done to prevent a hothouse earth scenario, co-author Will Steffen told The Intercept that the “obvious thing we have to do is to get greenhouse gas emissions down as fast as we can. That means that has to be the primary target of policy and economics. You have got to get away from the so-called neoliberal economics.” Instead, he suggests something “more like wartime footing” to roll out renewable energy and dramatically reimagine sectors like transportation and agriculture “at very fast rates.”
 

PedroMendez

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https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default...ity-direct-assistance-and-economic-growth.pdf


Alleviating Global Poverty: Labor Mobility, Direct Assistance, and Economic Growth
Lant Pritchett


Abstract

Decades of programmatic experimentation by development NGOs combined with the latest empirical techniques for estimating program impact have shown that a well-designed, wellimplemented, multi-faceted intervention can in fact have an apparently sustained impact on the incomes of the poor (Banerjee et al 2015). The magnitude of the income gains of the “best you can do” via direct interventions to raise the income of the poor in situ is about 40 times smaller than the income gain from allowing people from those same poor countries to work in a high productivity country like the USA. Simply allowing more labor mobility holds vastly more promise for reducing
poverty than anything else on the development agenda. That said, the magnitude of the gains from large growth accelerations (and losses from large decelerations) are also many-fold larger than the potential gains from directed individual interventions and the poverty reduction gains from large, extended periods of rapid growth are larger than from targeted interventions and also hold promise
(and have delivered) for reducing global poverty.



pretty good paper and worth reading, because it highlights where the fight against global poverty is won/lost. Migration policies and economic growth matter, while the impact of classic development programms are negligible.
 

berbatrick

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What billionaires want: the secret influence of America’s 100 richest

A new study reveals how the wealthy engage in ‘stealth politics’: quietly advancing unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative policies


If we judge US billionaires by their most prominent fellows, they may seem to be a rather attractive bunch: ideologically diverse (perhaps even tending center-left), frank in speaking out about their political views, and generous in philanthropic giving for the common good – not to mention useful for the goods and jobs they have helped produce.

The very top titans – Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates – have all taken left-of-center stands on various issues, and Buffett and Gates are paragons of philanthropy. The former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is known for his advocacy of gun control, gay rights, and environmental protection. George Soros (protector of human rights around the world) and Tom Steyer(focused on young people and environmental issues) have been major donors to the Democrats. In recent years, investigative journalists have also brought to public attention Charles and David Koch, mega-donors to ultra-conservative causes. But given the great prominence of several left-of-center billionaires, this may merely seem to right the balance, filling out a picture of a sort of Madisonian pluralism among billionaires.

Unfortunately, this picture is misleading. Our new, systematic study of the 100 wealthiest Americans indicates that Buffett, Gates, Bloomberg et al are not at all typical. Most of the wealthiest US billionaires – who are much less visible and less reported on – more closely resemble Charles Koch. They are extremely conservative on economic issues. Obsessed with cutting taxes, especially estate taxes – which apply only to the wealthiest Americans. Opposed to government regulation of the environment or big banks. Unenthusiastic about government programs to help with jobs, incomes, healthcare, or retirement pensions – programs supported by large majorities of Americans. Tempted to cut deficits and shrink government by cutting or privatizing guaranteed social security benefits.

The answer is simple: billionaires who favor unpopular, ultraconservative economic policies, and work actively to advance them (that is, most politically active billionaires) stay almost entirely silent about those issues in public. This is a deliberate choice. Billionaires have plenty of media access, but most of them choose not to say anything at all about the policy issues of the day. They deliberately pursue a strategy of what we call “stealth politics”.

We have come to this conclusion based on an exhaustive, web-based study of everything that the 100 wealthiest US billionaires have said or done, over a 10-year period, concerning several major issues of public policy. For each billionaire we used several dozen carefully selected keywords to find all publicly available information about their specific talk or actions related to any aspect of social security, any type of taxation, or anything related to abortion, same-sex marriage, or immigration policy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...h-politics-america-100-richest-what-they-want
 

berbatrick

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Well if it's web-based that's good enough for me. What could be more impartial than 'carefully selected keywords' ?
How would you design the study, when these are the available facts?
Most of the wealthiest US billionaires have made substantial financial contributions – amounting to hundreds of thousands of reported dollars annually, in addition to any undisclosed “dark money” contributions – to conservative Republican candidates and officials who favor the very unpopular step of cutting rather than expanding social security benefits. Yet, over the 10-year period we have studied, 97% of the wealthiest billionaires have said nothing at all about social security policy. Nothing about benefit levels, cost-of-living adjustments, or privatization. (Also nothing about the popular idea of shoring up social security finances by removing the low “cap” on income subject to payroll taxes and making the wealthy pay more.) How can voters know that most billionaires are working to cut their social security benefits?
 

langster

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Those multi millionaire and billionaire cnuts have a moral and ethical (and it should also be a legal) obligation to share their wealth. It's fecking obscene they have that much money and a nurse who works 60 hours a week struggles to feed her family and spends no time with them.

It's only going to end one way and it's not going to be good.
 

barros

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Those multi millionaire and billionaire cnuts have a moral and ethical (and it should also be a legal) obligation to share their wealth. It's fecking obscene they have that much money and a nurse who works 60 hours a week struggles to feed her family and spends no time with them.

It's only going to end one way and it's not going to be good.
If they start sharing then they wouldn’t be billionaires anymore and besides they pay taxes ..cough, cough, ok some do and they can be billionaires or trillionaires if they don’t get involved in politics (buying the politicians) thats all good for me.
 

Carolina Red

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If they start sharing then they wouldn’t be billionaires anymore and besides they pay taxes ..cough, cough, ok some do and they can be billionaires or trillionaires if they don’t get involved in politics (buying the politicians) thats all good for me.
How much money could Jeff Bezos literally lose somewhere before he realized any difference in his daily life?
 

Maagge

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How much money could Jeff Bezos literally lose somewhere before he realized any difference in his daily life?
He could literally hand out $100000 to every single Amazon employee (of which there are ~613300) and still have about half of his fortune left.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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How much money could Jeff Bezos literally lose somewhere before he realized any difference in his daily life?
Forget Jeff Bezos, I knew a guy in Vietnam who literally went bankrupt due to gambling debts, was vice-COO of a national bank, and the only notable difference is after he lost his house, his residence changed to a plush hotel, expenses all paid by company.

The gulf between the haves and have-nots is obscene.
 

oneniltothearsenal

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5 Facts That Privileged Americans Don't Want Us to Know

1. Tax Haven Cheating Is Much Costlier Than the Annual Safety Net—But the IRS Keeps Getting Cut
2. Record Low Unemployment? Yes, Because One Hour of Work Counts as Employed
3. We’re Gradually Giving Away Our Country’s Wealth to the Children of the Rich; It’s not a Death Tax, it’s a Deadbeat Tax.


https://www.truthdig.com/articles/5-facts-that-privileged-americans-dont-want-us-to-know/
 
26 richest own as much as the poorest 50%

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World's 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%, says Oxfam

The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.

..

Oxfam said the wealth of more than 2,200 billionaires across the globe had increased by $900bn in 2018 – or $2.5bn a day. The 12% increase in the wealth of the very richest contrasted with a fall of 11% in the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...n-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report

Does anyone believe this kind of crazy inequality can result in anything other than mass chaos? With Trump, Brexit, the Gilet Jaunes, populist parties rising everywhere, it feels like we're racing towards a massive crisis that carries terrifying possibilities.

Back in the middle of the last century, top level tax rates of 80-90%+ were quite normal. Now they're seen as a ridiculous attack on the 'wealth creators'. With such a vast bulk of the planets wealth held by such a tiny number of individuals though, the question becomes whether even raising tax back up to those kind of levels would be enough. What about the capital they're sitting on and use to lobby politicians to their will?

Anyone see a way out of this that doesn't involve mass rioting and social restructure?
 

VorZakone

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https://www.theguardian.com/busines...n-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report

Does anyone believe this kind of crazy inequality can result in anything other than mass chaos? With Trump, Brexit, the Gilet Jaunes, populist parties rising everywhere, it feels like we're racing towards a massive crisis that carries terrifying possibilities.

Back in the middle of the last century, top level tax rates of 80-90%+ were quite normal. Now they're seen as a ridiculous attack on the 'wealth creators'. With such a vast bulk of the planets wealth held by such a tiny number of individuals though, the question becomes whether even raising tax back up to those kind of levels would be enough. What about the capital they're sitting on and use to lobby politicians to their will?

Anyone see a way out of this that doesn't involve mass rioting and social restructure?
Oh, nothing is gonna happen. There have never been better times for the world elite. The public has reached an unprecedented level of apathy.
 

Kentonio

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Oh, nothing is gonna happen. There have never been better times for the world elite. The public has reached an unprecedented level of apathy.
I think that might have been a fair statement 5 years ago, but looking around now I'm not seeing apathy, I'm seeing rage and the strong desire for radical change.
 

Pogue Mahone

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So what’s the craic with this 1% “Global Wealth Tax” suggested by Pickety? Anyone know what he has in mind?

Seems obvious that there should be some sort of cap on how wealthy any one individual can be, with punitive taxation above that point. It could be set very high too, so will never be an issue for the vast majority of people no matter how ambitious/successful they are.

How about setting the cap at assets of £10m per individual? Anything above that and you’re giving most of it away as taxes. Can anyone really object to this with a straight face?!?
 

VorZakone

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I think that might have been a fair statement 5 years ago, but looking around now I'm not seeing apathy, I'm seeing rage and the strong desire for radical change.
This is just like Occupy Wall Street some years ago. A few weeks of protesting and rage by a very small part of the population, then it's back to business as usual. Nothing's gonna happen.
 

Barca84

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https://www.theguardian.com/busines...n-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report

Does anyone believe this kind of crazy inequality can result in anything other than mass chaos? With Trump, Brexit, the Gilet Jaunes, populist parties rising everywhere, it feels like we're racing towards a massive crisis that carries terrifying possibilities.

Back in the middle of the last century, top level tax rates of 80-90%+ were quite normal. Now they're seen as a ridiculous attack on the 'wealth creators'. With such a vast bulk of the planets wealth held by such a tiny number of individuals though, the question becomes whether even raising tax back up to those kind of levels would be enough. What about the capital they're sitting on and use to lobby politicians to their will?

Anyone see a way out of this that doesn't involve mass rioting and social restructure?
A way out of it is, by definition, social restructure and therefore unavoidable.

You can start here in the UK by voting for a party that will, for example, tax the assets of the wealthy and use that tax to tackle the unprecedented level of inequality. Massive state intervention is required after over 40 years of free market fundamentalism that has lined the pockets of the few at the expense of the the majority and worst the most vulnerable.