7 ms·

Agreed. I feel like this is a "can't see the forest for the trees" story. A median moving a few percent is pretty much meaningless in the context of the many mi

by MrTonyD 10y ago

Agreed. I feel like this is a "can't see the forest for the trees" story. A median moving a few percent is pretty much meaningless in the context of the many millions who are struggling and suffering. The fundamental causes of inequality are not being addressed.

hx87 10y ago
Those few percent mean that millions who aren't at the top are moving ahead.
throwaway12938 10y ago
You mean the transition to an information based society but without author-centric notions of copyright? Most of the successful companies of the last few decades deal mainly in intellectual properties. Most of the successful companies in technology derive their profits from other people freely giving away their intellectual property.
tjic 10y ago
Serious question: how do you propose to address (a) some people can't make meaningful contributions to the economy because they lack the intelligence to compete with machines (b) some people can't work because globalization means that their potential contributions can be done cheaper by someone in the middle class overseas who is happy to work for less than US minimum wage allows them to work for (c) some people refuse to work because the benefits safety net (including disability for unverifiable conditions (source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/disability-insurance-americas-124-billion-secret-welfare-program/274302/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/disabili... ) is more comfortable than work
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Raise the top marginal tax rates, strengthen social safety nets (social security, welfare, etc). Use Congressional authority to raise wage floors (minimum wage, threshold for overtime), thereby pushing corporate profits into labor's pocket. Perhaps even reduce the work week by 8-16 hours, considering the massive productivity gains over the last 40 years, which has gone primarily to corporate profits. Scandinavian democratic socialism. EDIT: This is just to start.
  - tjic 10y ago
    None of this creates new jobs. In fact, it destroys jobs (higher minimum wage, higher taxes). Do you have any thoughts on how to create jobs? There are lots of studies that show that welfare dependency is destructive to goodwill; it's not JUST about giving people dollars.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      > it destroys jobs The bedrock of corporate profit is consumer demand. We're in a vicious cycle where people are unemployed/underemployed -> consumer demand is depressed (because they have no money) -> companies don't hire (because nobody will buy their goods) -> people are unemployed You have to break the cycle by first propping up consumer demand, and the most direct way to that is by giving consumers money to spend.
      - mason240 10y ago
        That's exactly what President Hoover tried to prop up the economy after the 1929 stock market crash.
        smallnamespace 10y ago
        And he would've succeeded if he was willing to blow up the deficit further. That actually happened with our entry into WW2, sharp increases in spending and hiring, and immediate end to the Great Depression (note that weapons, ships, planes and the like are about useful to a peacetime economy as digging holes in the ground--the key is you need to hire a lot of people to make them)
        notfromhere 10y ago
        And exactly how the WW2 recovery happened. Government created demand for products, and deficit spent until the economy roared back. Subsequent gov't surpluses from increased tax revenue were then used to pay down deficit.
    - ianai 10y ago
- MrTonyD 10y ago
  I think each country should have a first responsibility to its own citizens - getting all of them to some standard of living before allowing immigration or offshoring or importing. This would work for all except a few countries (and then importing/offshoring/exporting by other countries would be able to help them.) We could simply define jobs for people, and stop importing products in those categories. Need more jobs? Restrict more product importation and offshoring. I should add that I've worked in factory automation - fully lights-out factories - and we are capable of creating a great quality of life for people. This isn't the early 1900's, we can create all the jobs we want for the people who want jobs. And there are competing studies about the effect of the safety net - since countries with the best safety nets also usually have the best economies and the most innovation (some think it is tied to the ability to take risks without becoming impoverished if you fail.)
  - rabidrat 10y ago
    > We could simply define jobs for people, and stop importing products in those categories. Need more jobs? Restrict more product importation and offshoring. It's becoming more common to advocate for scaling back globalization as a solution to local economic problems. It might even work; I wonder if there are any downsides?
    - Silfen 10y ago
      The commonly cited downsides include (a) rent seeking among protected industries and (b) prices of domestically produced goods are higher. How true these are in practice is probably somewhat controversial and difficult to measure.
- clavalle 10y ago
  >(a) some people can't make meaningful contributions to the economy because they lack the intelligence to compete with machines The underlying assumptions of this question would require significant justification to accept them as approaching truth. First it assumes the people are the problem rather then the job. Then, that 'intelligence' is the end all be all of valuable contribution. And add the 'machines will automate value creation away' and we've got a 'blame dumb poor people for not being able to keep up' trifecta. >(b) some people can't work because globalization means that their potential contributions can be done cheaper by someone in the middle class overseas who is happy to work for less than US minimum wage allows them to work for Define 'middle class' and 'happy'. This seems to be arguing for a race to the bottom but framing it as government interference keeping the magic of the market from happening while completely ignoring that minimum wage isn't even enough to keep up the cost of human capital in the US and that the 'cheaper' labor might have a lot to do with those wonderful happy low paid workers having no political voice to help protect them from absorbing all of the costs of negative externalities in their countries. >(c) some people refuse to work because the benefits safety net is more comfortable than work Again, the underlying assumption that people 'refuse' to work because they are comfortable not working. The hidden alternative being they get no safety net. The mechanism of either working or starve is somehow better? Markets can't work toward efficiency if people are negotiating against loss rather than for gain. A plausible alternative theory is that low end work is broken rather than the safety net. We allow people to be paid less than their upkeep and keep the threat of pain (starvation, homelessness) just visible so that it motivates them to take jobs that pay less than their time is actually worth to them if weighed outside of that threat to their wellbeing. So, their decision is to work for mere survival or not work for mere survival and many make the rational choice.
- wincy 10y ago
  Why not get rid of minimum wage? We'd open up opportunities for all sorts of new wage deals and payment structures. What's the point of having people on welfare who could be working as a servant or doing some sort of work? It would also disincentive automation when labor prices can be driven down and suddenly everyone becomes employable.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    As someone who immigrated to the US from a country where people have "servants" I'd fight very hard to ensure we never have such a system here.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      Out of curiosity, may I ask which country?
      - rayiner 10y ago
        Bangladesh.
  - notfromhere 10y ago
    That's one way to create a permanent underclass and cause a whole lot of other social issues.
    - jschwartzi 10y ago
      See the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in the US for plenty of examples of what this would look like.
- basseq 10y ago
  At a macro level, labor has benefited alongside productivity—automation and globalization—in the 19th and 20th centuries. So the question becomes how much society should insulate individuals from economic change. There are no guarantees that one's current skillset will always be relevant, one's current marginal value will increase, or that economic demand will remain in the same geography. Automation and globalization exacerbates these issues, but they're not new issues: textile workers in the 1800s destroyed machinery over concerns it would reduce the need for their labor. You have no unalienable right to keep your job. So I take issue with your hypothesis inherent in (a) and (b) that some people "can't work" because the economy has shifted. Opportunity and economic need for labor still exists; people need to adapt. But there is an issue here, and the solution is (re)skilling. We need programs that help and support people of all ages to gain the skills they need to get a job in high-demand fields. A basic income might help, too—e.g., to avoid the catch-22 of needing money to move to a new town to get a job to get money. If economic demand is dropping precipitously in certain locations, intervention action is needed in the form of state or county-level policy to retain or attract labor supply and/or economic demand. If benefits programs are more desirable than an alternative of working a low-wage job, then "refusing to work" is logical. If waste and abuse is egregious, then the programs should be changed. But at the same time, we need to get comfortable with the fact that some people will choose to do the bare minimum.
oldmanjay 10y ago
Once again, I foolishly wonder why the problem people identify boils down to envy and why I should care that people want things they don't have. I get that calling it "inequality" as opposed to "envy" makes it more emotionally resonant but it doesn't provide any actual reasons for me to latch onto. Is it some sort of attempt to head off a revolution that will never happen?
- burkaman 10y ago
  Many people cannot afford adequate food, shelter, and healthcare because of the things they don't have. There's nothing wrong with envy when you're in that situation. > Is it some sort of attempt to head off a revolution that will never happen? Sort of? I don't think Trump would be doing as well if inequality weren't so high. And as inequality gets worse, I think Trump-like movements will strengthen. I'm not really worried about an armed revolt, but that doesn't mean everything is fine.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>The fundamental causes of inequality are not being addressed. Well of course not! That would require breaking up monopolies and oligopolies, restarting the intellectual property treadmill that moves ideas into the public domain, and fighting rentiering in land, natural resources, and means of production by spreading ownership through the working population. A society built on rents cannot reduce inequality without re-building their society on actual, useful production.

by MrTonyD 10y ago

hx87 10y ago

Those few percent mean that millions who aren't at the top are moving ahead.

throwaway12938 10y ago

You mean the transition to an information based society but without author-centric notions of copyright? Most of the successful companies of the last few decades deal mainly in intellectual properties. Most of the successful companies in technology derive their profits from other people freely giving away their intellectual property.

tjic 10y ago

Serious question: how do you propose to address (a) some people can't make meaningful contributions to the economy because they lack the intelligence to compete with machines (b) some people can't work because globalization means that their potential contributions can be done cheaper by someone in the middle class overseas who is happy to work for less than US minimum wage allows them to work for (c) some people refuse to work because the benefits safety net (including disability for unverifiable conditions (source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/disability-insurance-americas-124-billion-secret-welfare-program/274302/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/disabili... ) is more comfortable than work

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Raise the top marginal tax rates, strengthen social safety nets (social security, welfare, etc). Use Congressional authority to raise wage floors (minimum wage, threshold for overtime), thereby pushing corporate profits into labor's pocket. Perhaps even reduce the work week by 8-16 hours, considering the massive productivity gains over the last 40 years, which has gone primarily to corporate profits. Scandinavian democratic socialism. EDIT: This is just to start.
- tjic 10y ago
  None of this creates new jobs. In fact, it destroys jobs (higher minimum wage, higher taxes). Do you have any thoughts on how to create jobs? There are lots of studies that show that welfare dependency is destructive to goodwill; it's not JUST about giving people dollars.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    > it destroys jobs The bedrock of corporate profit is consumer demand. We're in a vicious cycle where people are unemployed/underemployed -> consumer demand is depressed (because they have no money) -> companies don't hire (because nobody will buy their goods) -> people are unemployed You have to break the cycle by first propping up consumer demand, and the most direct way to that is by giving consumers money to spend.
    - mason240 10y ago
      That's exactly what President Hoover tried to prop up the economy after the 1929 stock market crash.
      - smallnamespace 10y ago
        And he would've succeeded if he was willing to blow up the deficit further. That actually happened with our entry into WW2, sharp increases in spending and hiring, and immediate end to the Great Depression (note that weapons, ships, planes and the like are about useful to a peacetime economy as digging holes in the ground--the key is you need to hire a lot of people to make them)
      - notfromhere 10y ago
        And exactly how the WW2 recovery happened. Government created demand for products, and deficit spent until the economy roared back. Subsequent gov't surpluses from increased tax revenue were then used to pay down deficit.
  - ianai 10y ago
MrTonyD 10y ago
I think each country should have a first responsibility to its own citizens - getting all of them to some standard of living before allowing immigration or offshoring or importing. This would work for all except a few countries (and then importing/offshoring/exporting by other countries would be able to help them.) We could simply define jobs for people, and stop importing products in those categories. Need more jobs? Restrict more product importation and offshoring. I should add that I've worked in factory automation - fully lights-out factories - and we are capable of creating a great quality of life for people. This isn't the early 1900's, we can create all the jobs we want for the people who want jobs. And there are competing studies about the effect of the safety net - since countries with the best safety nets also usually have the best economies and the most innovation (some think it is tied to the ability to take risks without becoming impoverished if you fail.)
- rabidrat 10y ago
  > We could simply define jobs for people, and stop importing products in those categories. Need more jobs? Restrict more product importation and offshoring. It's becoming more common to advocate for scaling back globalization as a solution to local economic problems. It might even work; I wonder if there are any downsides?
  - Silfen 10y ago
    The commonly cited downsides include (a) rent seeking among protected industries and (b) prices of domestically produced goods are higher. How true these are in practice is probably somewhat controversial and difficult to measure.
clavalle 10y ago
>(a) some people can't make meaningful contributions to the economy because they lack the intelligence to compete with machines The underlying assumptions of this question would require significant justification to accept them as approaching truth. First it assumes the people are the problem rather then the job. Then, that 'intelligence' is the end all be all of valuable contribution. And add the 'machines will automate value creation away' and we've got a 'blame dumb poor people for not being able to keep up' trifecta. >(b) some people can't work because globalization means that their potential contributions can be done cheaper by someone in the middle class overseas who is happy to work for less than US minimum wage allows them to work for Define 'middle class' and 'happy'. This seems to be arguing for a race to the bottom but framing it as government interference keeping the magic of the market from happening while completely ignoring that minimum wage isn't even enough to keep up the cost of human capital in the US and that the 'cheaper' labor might have a lot to do with those wonderful happy low paid workers having no political voice to help protect them from absorbing all of the costs of negative externalities in their countries. >(c) some people refuse to work because the benefits safety net is more comfortable than work Again, the underlying assumption that people 'refuse' to work because they are comfortable not working. The hidden alternative being they get no safety net. The mechanism of either working or starve is somehow better? Markets can't work toward efficiency if people are negotiating against loss rather than for gain. A plausible alternative theory is that low end work is broken rather than the safety net. We allow people to be paid less than their upkeep and keep the threat of pain (starvation, homelessness) just visible so that it motivates them to take jobs that pay less than their time is actually worth to them if weighed outside of that threat to their wellbeing. So, their decision is to work for mere survival or not work for mere survival and many make the rational choice.
wincy 10y ago
Why not get rid of minimum wage? We'd open up opportunities for all sorts of new wage deals and payment structures. What's the point of having people on welfare who could be working as a servant or doing some sort of work? It would also disincentive automation when labor prices can be driven down and suddenly everyone becomes employable.
- rayiner 10y ago
  As someone who immigrated to the US from a country where people have "servants" I'd fight very hard to ensure we never have such a system here.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    Out of curiosity, may I ask which country?
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Bangladesh.
- notfromhere 10y ago
  That's one way to create a permanent underclass and cause a whole lot of other social issues.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    See the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in the US for plenty of examples of what this would look like.
basseq 10y ago
At a macro level, labor has benefited alongside productivity—automation and globalization—in the 19th and 20th centuries. So the question becomes how much society should insulate individuals from economic change. There are no guarantees that one's current skillset will always be relevant, one's current marginal value will increase, or that economic demand will remain in the same geography. Automation and globalization exacerbates these issues, but they're not new issues: textile workers in the 1800s destroyed machinery over concerns it would reduce the need for their labor. You have no unalienable right to keep your job. So I take issue with your hypothesis inherent in (a) and (b) that some people "can't work" because the economy has shifted. Opportunity and economic need for labor still exists; people need to adapt. But there is an issue here, and the solution is (re)skilling. We need programs that help and support people of all ages to gain the skills they need to get a job in high-demand fields. A basic income might help, too—e.g., to avoid the catch-22 of needing money to move to a new town to get a job to get money. If economic demand is dropping precipitously in certain locations, intervention action is needed in the form of state or county-level policy to retain or attract labor supply and/or economic demand. If benefits programs are more desirable than an alternative of working a low-wage job, then "refusing to work" is logical. If waste and abuse is egregious, then the programs should be changed. But at the same time, we need to get comfortable with the fact that some people will choose to do the bare minimum.

oldmanjay 10y ago

Once again, I foolishly wonder why the problem people identify boils down to envy and why I should care that people want things they don't have. I get that calling it "inequality" as opposed to "envy" makes it more emotionally resonant but it doesn't provide any actual reasons for me to latch onto. Is it some sort of attempt to head off a revolution that will never happen?

burkaman 10y ago
Many people cannot afford adequate food, shelter, and healthcare because of the things they don't have. There's nothing wrong with envy when you're in that situation. > Is it some sort of attempt to head off a revolution that will never happen? Sort of? I don't think Trump would be doing as well if inequality weren't so high. And as inequality gets worse, I think Trump-like movements will strengthen. I'm not really worried about an armed revolt, but that doesn't mean everything is fine.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>The fundamental causes of inequality are not being addressed. Well of course not! That would require breaking up monopolies and oligopolies, restarting the intellectual property treadmill that moves ideas into the public domain, and fighting rentiering in land, natural resources, and means of production by spreading ownership through the working population. A society built on rents cannot reduce inequality without re-building their society on actual, useful production.