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Since there are no top level comments putting this out for probably obvious reasons, here is a supportive comment for the article. This is what people feel in

Since there are no top level comments putting this out for probably obvious reasons, here is a supportive comment for the article. This is what people feel in their guts when they drive out on tattered roads and avoid going to the hospital even though they are sick, when they don't have a real increase in wages but are working longer hours. They have the sense that something isn't right, that there are two sets of rules and they got the shaft when it comes to that. Where police forces are cashstrapped and turn to civil forfeitures and ticket quotas while they see famous celebrities and politicians get off for things magnitudes more illegal than what they've done, whether it's smoking a joint or driving while black. People already have a sense that things aren't fair. There's a reason why tax reform is polling so poorly. There's a reason why most of the country thinks taxes should be higher on the wealthy and corporations. They have a feeling that they are not seeing the rise of productivity in their own life, and they want justice. My SO lives in SG. She is lower middle class (going to school, father works in a factory) and I asked her about income inequality, for there it's quite extreme. She says it's not that bad because people there have a reasonable standard of living; they can go to school, they can go to the doctor, they have access to affordable food, etc. Income inequality I think isn't a bad thing as long as the poorest among us have some basic level of livelihood. The problem is that in the US, that isn't true, and so, people clamor for justice.

thecrazyone 9y ago
I empathize with your condition and your thoughts. However, the problem is not the rich. This is a classic case of [tall poppy syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome). There indeed are a two sets (or multiple striated on your lobbying power) of rules. The rich lobby to get exceptions, we don't 'cause we can't (afford it). TL;DR It's the government which is to blame here for the rich stashing their wealth in tax havens rather than deploying them productively in the economy. Details: - The rich don't like stashing their wealth in tax havens. I'm not rich myself to have first hand experience, but let's logically think this through. - If you've capital, you want it deployed and earning money for you. And you'll choose the best risk adjusted ROI you can get (you'll be especially rational about this if you have the means to hire consultants like the rich do). - Therefore, we can reach the poignant conclusion that stashing it away in tax havens, which in fact costs money to do, is the best option you've. There is a lot of cost involved even if you want to re-route money to invest it via tax havens - 1) Risk of government(s) confiscating your money 2) Cost of setting up and operating complicated corporate structures. - Taxation is theft. Pretty radical, but please humor me and read through. This is not even an original idea, this is a common notion in libertarian circles (eg: https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruction https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruct...). Let me share a few points why: - Why #1: Government is a bad monopoly. The ditches on the road you referenced, is because you can't stop paying govt for doing a bad job on roads and enlist an alternative vendor. The reason why it's _bad_ is because it's forced upon you - you cannot stop paying taxes to enlist someone else to make your roads better, you'll be put in jail. Google is a good monopoly, because we all voluntarily use google. If something better comes around, you can use it and google wouldn't (shouldn't) force you to use theirs. They can persuade, but not force. - Why #2: Government (policy makers) are humans. They put their self interest above yours (just like you do) and make bad public policy as a result. Paying them money (tax) blindly is silly. - Why #3: Government (policy makers) don't understand (or perhaps deliberately mislead everyone on) economics. We still think public roads are good, public healthcare is good, public police, public (fiat) money, rent control, import tariffs, export controls and more are all good. They are all patently bad for reasons which you can google out. This distortion is a wealth destroyer and distorts & cripples the economy. Paying them money (tax) when the policies don't benefit you is insane. ## Conclusion: There is an alternative system to government which works - privatize everything a.k.a Free Markets. This is also known by the rather dire name "Anarcho Capitalism" (please don't go by the bad connotations of the name). Why use free markets: - Why #1: They're ethically, morally superior to government. All transactions in an economy are voluntary and involve no force. Force is immoral, and unethical. Every action that government does implies force - if you don't pay taxes, you get jailed => force; etc. - Why #2: Good monopolies. Everyone competes to be a monopoly by providing the best service at the lowest cost, which is a benefit to society, if they don't, you can choose an alternative. Note: Monopoly here rarely means the strict definition of just one compnay providing a good, there are usually alternatives. Edit - formatting
jacobolus 9y ago
SG = Singapore?
- ttul 9y ago
  Southern Georgia? Slovenian Georgetown? Sicilian Goosefeathers? Saucy Gobstoppers?
- cozzyd 9y ago
  SG is the ISO code for Singapore.
- noobermin 9y ago
  Sorry, I'm so used to writing SG in for singapore that I do it without thinking.
VHRanger 9y ago
It's important to note that, in the US, worker __compensation__ has increased steadily. However, __wages__ have not. A lot of this has to do with employer provided health insurance and ballooning healthcare costs, which are fairly specific problems to the US. Housing and education costs have also increased much faster than overall worker compensation.
- mtremsal 9y ago
  Couldn't you argue that an increase in compensation driven by 'ballooning healthcare costs' wouldn't actually improve the standard of living of workers? Comparing wages (rather than total compensation) to cost of living would seem more pertinent in this regard.
  - swagasaurus-rex 9y ago
    He's pointing out how there are many facets to the problems we see in America. Healthcare, education, and housing in many areas take massive chunks out of people's livelihood. I hear a lot about the politics of the poor and the rich, but not about how to actually solve these problems we see in our economic system today. There's something rotten in Denmark.
  - will_pseudonym 9y ago
    This may be an unpopular opinion, but new medications for difficult to treat diseases do raise the quality of life for those populations, despite being incredibly expensive. I'm certainly not saying they shouldn't be less expensive, mind you. :)
    - mtremsal 9y ago
      I agree with your point, but are you also implying that 'new medications for difficult to treat diseases' are a primary driver of 'ballooning healthcare costs'? I don't think healthcare costs are increasing as quickly in other developed countries while they do benefit from constant medical advances.
ianai 9y ago
They clamor for justice behind Donald Trump though. He’s used the mass’ frustrations to his own end, and they loved it enough to vote him into power.
- interstitial 9y ago
  The stupid ignorant masses don't appreciate their intellectual betters on HN. They ignored hollywood, silicon valley, the media, and voted for Trump (with Russia's help of course).
- erentz 9y ago
  To be fair a lot were clamoring behind Bernie Sanders. But Hillary bent the DNC to do some fairly corrupt shit and so you got Trump. The democrats are still trapped by this neolib-technocrat-west-wing fantasy-land where the best person at debating wins regardless of the fact they don’t actually stand for anything.
  - aslkdjaslkdj 9y ago
    What corrupt shit? What specific action did the DNC do that caused Bernie to lose?
    - Buttes 9y ago
      Hillary won like every southern state, the Bernie folks are living in fantasy land if they think the DNC could control that outcome.
      - colordrops 9y ago
        She won due to superdelegates and DNC corruption as well as media capture. The fact that Bernie did as well as he did in the face of this is a testament to how bad of a candidate she was.
        Buttes 9y ago
grondilu 9y ago
> politicians get off for things magnitudes more illegal than what they've done, That indeed demands justice. > I think isn't a bad thing as long as the poorest among us have some basic level of livelihood. The problem is that in the US, that isn't true, and so, people clamor for justice. That is not a demand for justice, but charity. Words have a meaning, please don't misuse them.
- halfteatree 9y ago
  How is this charity? Isn't "the poorest among us have some basic level of livelihood" exactly justice, and exactly the job of a government? Please don't use this kind of argument to turn HN into reddit.
  - grondilu 9y ago
    In my humble opinion, the job of the government is absolutely not to give money to the poorest people, not even to maintain a "basic level of livelyhood". I'm also fairly certain this has nothing to do with the concept of justice.
    - rco8786 9y ago
      What's so bad about needing help? And what's so bad about society helping it's neediest maintain a basic level of existence?
      - chii 9y ago
        Overwhelmingly large number of people in society are selfish. They say that social welfare is good, but when time comes to increase taxes to fund it, either they oppose, or build in clever loopholes to work around it (the rich do anyway). What's left is the middle to lower class getting the burden, and that causes them to also reject tax increases.
    - ZeroCool2u 9y ago
      Then what is the role of government, in your opinion?
vonnik 9y ago
A friend of mine has been working on this same angle since Trump was elected. Politico covered his work in August: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/20/trump-bombshells-robert-mueller-sleuthing-241811 http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/20/trump-bombshells-ro... His website is here: Weird money in, weird money out https://ragepath.org/weird-money-in-weird-money-out https://ragepath.org/weird-money-in-weird-money-out And below is his working hypothesis: We've documented Trump's relations with a variety of Soviet and Russian individuals and organizations in the attached bullet book. Financial crimes and money laundering explain a large part of Trump's wealth. Trump's basic grift seems to be one that he learned from his father. A loan is just a tax-free transfer of cash. So don't pay yourself income when you can loan yourself cash instead. Whether it's embezzled FHA mortgages, Mitchell-Lama funds, NJHFA funds.... it doesn't matter. Borrow way more than you need, live off the borrowings, use the loan payments to offset gains from other legitimate sources of income. 40 Wall Street in NYC would be a great example of this. Trump bought the building for $1 million cash in the latter half of 1995 (a time of many highly suspicious cash transactions for a man who was allegedly $900 million in the red). He borrowed $35 million supposedly to renovate it (maybe). Let's imagine that it loses money, let's go wild and say it's losing $1 million a year (an overestimate) for 20 years. Overall, Trump's out of pocket by $56 million. But he's borrowed $160 million against the building. That means his net cash position is $104 million. And many of his deals are structured in a similar way. This looks to us like a classic money-laundering scheme known as a "loan-back." Let's say Trump's brother Robert loans a company $500k which it then uses to open up a $5 million account offshore (Financial Performance Corporation) and another company affiliated with Robert (Management Technologies) spends nearly $13 million buying a shady group of international companies called Winter Partners... which Midland Associates (a Trump family partnership) then loans an unknown sum secured against all their future accounts receivable. Management Technologies would later write off its Winter Partners investment as a complete loss. So we can show that Robert Trump was shoveling money overseas in 1995. And just when Trump needed it, investors from Hong Kong showed up and bought the mortgage on Riverside South, overing him insanely generous terms. When they sold the mortgage later for a billion dollar profit, Trump freaked out (even by his standards) - a reaction that makes more sense if you realize that the loan was originally Trump's money, and the Hong Kong investors were only supposed to act as nominees. After they cashed out their profit, they ended up selling their 70% stake, which found its way into the hands of Trump's friend at Vornado Realty, Steve Roth. So that's the core of the insight we've had. It's an explanation that seems to hold up well when we examine individual deals that Trump's been involved in. So many of his ventures lose money because the loans themselves are just part of a money laundering show - a tax free way to legitimately receive a pile of cash you're not otherwise entitled to. And the lender has access to an offshore asset as security, so even if you eventually default, they'll be made whole. We're not sure how much of it is Trump's money. Here's a quick dash through the overall timeline of Trump's life that we think we see: 1974-1987: Trump comes up in New York real estate rubbing elbows with various mobbed up figures (Cohn, Salerno, Tomasello, et al.) and working as a kind of front man for the Genovese, Gambino and Scarfo crime families. A lot of his early projects are just classic mob grifts. Borrow a bunch of money to build something, hire a bunch of mob contractors, pay too much... Trump's being taken care of but not enormously so 1988-1990: Trump borrows $3 billion in the course of 2 years, $650 million of which is mean to finish construction of the nearly completed Taj Mahal. Within two years the money is gone, despite the fact that many of the construction contractors hadn't been paid. So this is the period where we think Trump embezzled the money, got a cut, and had to hide it offshore until the statute of limitations had cleared. 1991-1995: Trump's laying low. The Soviet Union collapses. Tamir Sapir, Sam Kislin, Eduard Nakhamkin ... three (at least) Russian figures suddenly leap from working-class Russian immigrants to international financiers in control of huge sums of money. Our working theory is they were ex-KGB, after the Soviet Union's fall they began collaborating with American counter-intelligence officials at the FBI and CIA, and they used their positions in New York to help their former associates back home embezzle billions of dollars in state-owned assets out of the former Soviet Union. 1995-2005: Trump begins repatriating his own money in some of his most bizarre business deals. Trump perhaps realizes he can syndicate this model and also begins facilitating loan back schemes for Russian investors by putting his name on their buildings (the whole Bayrock period) 2006-2015: Most of Trump's money has come back to him by now, and he's basically running a money-laundering syndicate for Russian oligarchs (though there are still some Italians and Asians in the mix) - some of whom are in favor with Putin and the state, others who are decidedly not. If we're right, it's an audacious scheme that he's managed to pull off right in front of our faces. He's managed it by exploiting our preconceptions about debt and net worth. All the fights over Trump's wealth have been about his net worth - what's the value minus the liabilities? And we look at a debt as a zero-sum transaction. But the Trump enterprise really seems to be operating on net cash flow.
ejnulls 9y ago
My question for America is, given the current system if every single person was smart and capable enough to be a physician is it possible that no one would live in poverty? I've been thinking about this question for years and all evidence I can find and understand points to NO, we cannot provide the basic necessities for our population (with our current) even if everyone was an "upstanding member of society." So, if the system cannot insure that every one is taken care even if every member of the system is highly skilled and capable then the system is WRONG. If we can't take care of an entire population of skilled and contributing members of society, we certainly can't take care of a population where many members are not highly skilled or capable.
agumonkey 9y ago
Tiny note: it's been many decades of the same issue, people work, people share, things go weird, they get angry (and rightly so). let me blame the victims slightly (barely at all, it's mental exercise). Isn't the problem in the tax -> action function ? it's a big black box. That's always the case when people get angry about anything, it's because they have to deal with an unpredictable and costly black box. Solution: no more big, no more black. We need a more tractable and open system that can be more efficient. More questions: should people be able to see all what their money does ? or would it backfire into micromanagement and critics ?
- pas 9y ago
  budgets are public, no? FOIA works pretty well, no? people don't look, don't have time to understand it, and usually don't think, they just demand.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    That's is also true. But I firmly believe that the solution is not to make two systems fight but rather to find a middle ground. - Make a system that is slightly clearer and smaller - Entice people to be more educated
bousaid 9y ago
It’s interesting. In other third world countries like Tunisia (my mother’s homeland) income inequality is even worse, yet the lower classes are content with where they are. In America it seems like everyone is crawling to “make it.”
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>People already have a sense that things aren't fair. There's a reason why tax reform is polling so poorly. There's a reason why most of the country thinks taxes should be higher on the wealthy and corporations. They have a feeling that they are not seeing the rise of productivity in their own life, and they want justice. There's also just the sheer sense of stagnation. I get mildly enraged every time I look at America's idea of a middle-school and high-school curriculum, then compare it to what people learn abroad. How is it that "everyone else" has more leisure, suffers less stress, and still winds up doing harder things than Americans more easily? America has started thinking like a less developed country, that productivity arises from suffering.
- curious_fella1 9y ago
  > and still winds up doing harder things than Americans more easily Can you elaborate?
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    I was in the thread about "lessons from MIT", and thinking of a degree curriculum I looked at from the UK one day. It basically expected that students (who were going to learn PL theory) start off with a higher level of math knowledge (right out of secondary school) than most American CS students have in sophomore year. AFAIK, their students don't suffer as much stress or depression as the cohort of Americans who've done "sophomore-level" math in high school. But for another example, well, every other country seems to have an easier time running a working train system than America does, including those who are running top-of-the-line high-speed rail. Or, to take another, the French have one of the highest per-hour productivity rates on Earth, but take four to six weeks of vacation each year. Likewise, the Germans have one of the most productive economies on the planet, but work some of the shortest hours. Again and again, we find a principle that efficient, productive, intelligently-arranged systems deliver greater results with less sturm und drang.
    - ajdlinux 9y ago
      > But for another example, well, every other country seems to have an easier time running a working train system than America does Going somewhat OT, but in contrast, America seems to have an easier time running a working freight train system than most other countries.
jpatokal 9y ago
I'm somewhat surprised to see Singapore mentioned as a paragon of social equality. This is a rich country where maids are treated like slaves (locked in apartment and on call 24/7/365, sleep on the kitchen floor etc) and many elderly have no pensions at all, and are forced to work in menial jobs like cleaning bathrooms until they die. It does show how bad things in the US have gotten though...
- dopamean 9y ago
  I didn't get "paragon of social equality" from what he said at all.
- twic 9y ago
  I asked her about income inequality, for there it's quite extreme. She says it's not that bad because people there have a reasonable standard of living I think the point is not that Singapore is a paragon of equality, but rather that its rulers have had the sense to provide adequate comfort for their subjects, rather than trying to take absolutely everything.
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  Singapore isn't a paragon of social equality, not at all. However, in spite of that, the PAP has done a very good job of ensuring there's just enough by way of public services and subsidies to keep enough people happy that the government continues to command the people's respect and the opposition will never quite have enough fuel to build a viable political movement. ...and it's still better in many ways than large parts of the US.
T2_t2 9y ago
Assuming SG is Singapore, that is a really specific example, because it is a tiny Island of 4 million people with a lot of very unique attributes - it is a major shipping and airport hub, as well as a financial hub in a notoriously corrupt region. The USA has similar areas - often much larger, usually with very similar outcomes. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per... and compare it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... and you can see that if all the state where their own country, the USA would have the richest by GDP PP per capita (DC), as well as Mississippi, a state that would hover around Slovenian levels of wealth. That's the thing that as an Australian I never understood. The USA - the United States of America - varies so greatly by state. We don't have that - most countries don't. Even when there is variance, UK with London, north and south of Spain and Italy, it is not quite so dramatic. Back to the example of Singapore, I expect most everyone in Connecticut (GDP PPP per capita of $64,511, population 3.576 million) to have very similar results to Singapore. I don't expect South Carolinans (GDP PPP per capita $37,063, population 4.961 million) to have anywhere near the same results. The angst in America is a uniquely MASSIVE country phenomenon - hits somewhere north of 100 million mark would be my guess - maybe even higher. People in Milan don't compare themselves and their outcomes to those in Berlin, even though they share an economic zone, but people in Idaho do compare their lot to Silicon Valley. I don't have an answer BTW, just a vague notion that large countries have it tough - and that China will likely face similar issues in the very near term, as first world level economies like Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin are compared with the outcomes for Gansu (which has Ghanaian levels of GDP PPP per capita - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...).
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  US levels of wealth disparity are not entirely out of line with other very large countries or regions. The US is better thought of as an empire. It is carved up into a large number of territories (states), 50, as compared with Australia's ... well, it's complicated, but let's look at the six principal states: NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territories, Queensland, and Tasmania. Each major Australian state is comprised, largely, of a single principal city, and ... everything else. Australia has, unlike the United States, relatively little inland settlements: the land tends to be arid, there are no major river systems. The result is ... a rough parity between Australian states, though you'll find a tremendous variance within them. If you consider other large countries: Russia, Canada, China, Brazil, Indonesia, or India, you'll find that there are in fact large variations in wealth across territory. Or the EU, if considered a single state, ranges from Germany and France to Portugal, Greece, and the Balkan states.
throw2016 9y ago
A society that values financial and individual success above all else will inevitably lead to an impoverished society with concentrated pockets of wealth that once concentrated are adept at perpetuating themselves. Its obvious something fundamental in governance changed in the late 70s that has directly led us here. While technology, progress, wealth are important the magic is always people and humanity that elevate life beyond the mundane and brings happiness into lives. There is no point being wealthy if most around you are suffering and and in desperate conditions. This can't make anyone happy, except sociopaths. You have to care for other people and society beyond just your immediate interest and benefit.

thecrazyone 9y ago

I empathize with your condition and your thoughts. However, the problem is not the rich. This is a classic case of [tall poppy syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome). There indeed are a two sets (or multiple striated on your lobbying power) of rules. The rich lobby to get exceptions, we don't 'cause we can't (afford it). TL;DR It's the government which is to blame here for the rich stashing their wealth in tax havens rather than deploying them productively in the economy. Details: - The rich don't like stashing their wealth in tax havens. I'm not rich myself to have first hand experience, but let's logically think this through. - If you've capital, you want it deployed and earning money for you. And you'll choose the best risk adjusted ROI you can get (you'll be especially rational about this if you have the means to hire consultants like the rich do). - Therefore, we can reach the poignant conclusion that stashing it away in tax havens, which in fact costs money to do, is the best option you've. There is a lot of cost involved even if you want to re-route money to invest it via tax havens - 1) Risk of government(s) confiscating your money 2) Cost of setting up and operating complicated corporate structures. - Taxation is theft. Pretty radical, but please humor me and read through. This is not even an original idea, this is a common notion in libertarian circles (eg: https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruction https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruct...). Let me share a few points why: - Why #1: Government is a bad monopoly. The ditches on the road you referenced, is because you can't stop paying govt for doing a bad job on roads and enlist an alternative vendor. The reason why it's _bad_ is because it's forced upon you - you cannot stop paying taxes to enlist someone else to make your roads better, you'll be put in jail. Google is a good monopoly, because we all voluntarily use google. If something better comes around, you can use it and google wouldn't (shouldn't) force you to use theirs. They can persuade, but not force. - Why #2: Government (policy makers) are humans. They put their self interest above yours (just like you do) and make bad public policy as a result. Paying them money (tax) blindly is silly. - Why #3: Government (policy makers) don't understand (or perhaps deliberately mislead everyone on) economics. We still think public roads are good, public healthcare is good, public police, public (fiat) money, rent control, import tariffs, export controls and more are all good. They are all patently bad for reasons which you can google out. This distortion is a wealth destroyer and distorts & cripples the economy. Paying them money (tax) when the policies don't benefit you is insane. ## Conclusion: There is an alternative system to government which works - privatize everything a.k.a Free Markets. This is also known by the rather dire name "Anarcho Capitalism" (please don't go by the bad connotations of the name). Why use free markets: - Why #1: They're ethically, morally superior to government. All transactions in an economy are voluntary and involve no force. Force is immoral, and unethical. Every action that government does implies force - if you don't pay taxes, you get jailed => force; etc. - Why #2: Good monopolies. Everyone competes to be a monopoly by providing the best service at the lowest cost, which is a benefit to society, if they don't, you can choose an alternative. Note: Monopoly here rarely means the strict definition of just one compnay providing a good, there are usually alternatives. Edit - formatting

jacobolus 9y ago

SG = Singapore?

ttul 9y ago
Southern Georgia? Slovenian Georgetown? Sicilian Goosefeathers? Saucy Gobstoppers?
cozzyd 9y ago
SG is the ISO code for Singapore.
noobermin 9y ago
Sorry, I'm so used to writing SG in for singapore that I do it without thinking.

VHRanger 9y ago

It's important to note that, in the US, worker __compensation__ has increased steadily. However, __wages__ have not. A lot of this has to do with employer provided health insurance and ballooning healthcare costs, which are fairly specific problems to the US. Housing and education costs have also increased much faster than overall worker compensation.

mtremsal 9y ago
Couldn't you argue that an increase in compensation driven by 'ballooning healthcare costs' wouldn't actually improve the standard of living of workers? Comparing wages (rather than total compensation) to cost of living would seem more pertinent in this regard.
- swagasaurus-rex 9y ago
  He's pointing out how there are many facets to the problems we see in America. Healthcare, education, and housing in many areas take massive chunks out of people's livelihood. I hear a lot about the politics of the poor and the rich, but not about how to actually solve these problems we see in our economic system today. There's something rotten in Denmark.
- will_pseudonym 9y ago
  This may be an unpopular opinion, but new medications for difficult to treat diseases do raise the quality of life for those populations, despite being incredibly expensive. I'm certainly not saying they shouldn't be less expensive, mind you. :)
  - mtremsal 9y ago
    I agree with your point, but are you also implying that 'new medications for difficult to treat diseases' are a primary driver of 'ballooning healthcare costs'? I don't think healthcare costs are increasing as quickly in other developed countries while they do benefit from constant medical advances.

ianai 9y ago

They clamor for justice behind Donald Trump though. He’s used the mass’ frustrations to his own end, and they loved it enough to vote him into power.

interstitial 9y ago
The stupid ignorant masses don't appreciate their intellectual betters on HN. They ignored hollywood, silicon valley, the media, and voted for Trump (with Russia's help of course).
erentz 9y ago
To be fair a lot were clamoring behind Bernie Sanders. But Hillary bent the DNC to do some fairly corrupt shit and so you got Trump. The democrats are still trapped by this neolib-technocrat-west-wing fantasy-land where the best person at debating wins regardless of the fact they don’t actually stand for anything.
- aslkdjaslkdj 9y ago
  What corrupt shit? What specific action did the DNC do that caused Bernie to lose?
  - Buttes 9y ago
    Hillary won like every southern state, the Bernie folks are living in fantasy land if they think the DNC could control that outcome.
    - colordrops 9y ago
      She won due to superdelegates and DNC corruption as well as media capture. The fact that Bernie did as well as he did in the face of this is a testament to how bad of a candidate she was.
      - Buttes 9y ago

grondilu 9y ago

> politicians get off for things magnitudes more illegal than what they've done, That indeed demands justice. > I think isn't a bad thing as long as the poorest among us have some basic level of livelihood. The problem is that in the US, that isn't true, and so, people clamor for justice. That is not a demand for justice, but charity. Words have a meaning, please don't misuse them.

halfteatree 9y ago
How is this charity? Isn't "the poorest among us have some basic level of livelihood" exactly justice, and exactly the job of a government? Please don't use this kind of argument to turn HN into reddit.
- grondilu 9y ago
  In my humble opinion, the job of the government is absolutely not to give money to the poorest people, not even to maintain a "basic level of livelyhood". I'm also fairly certain this has nothing to do with the concept of justice.
  - rco8786 9y ago
    What's so bad about needing help? And what's so bad about society helping it's neediest maintain a basic level of existence?
    - chii 9y ago
      Overwhelmingly large number of people in society are selfish. They say that social welfare is good, but when time comes to increase taxes to fund it, either they oppose, or build in clever loopholes to work around it (the rich do anyway). What's left is the middle to lower class getting the burden, and that causes them to also reject tax increases.
  - ZeroCool2u 9y ago
    Then what is the role of government, in your opinion?

vonnik 9y ago

A friend of mine has been working on this same angle since Trump was elected. Politico covered his work in August: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/20/trump-bombshells-robert-mueller-sleuthing-241811 http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/20/trump-bombshells-ro... His website is here: Weird money in, weird money out https://ragepath.org/weird-money-in-weird-money-out https://ragepath.org/weird-money-in-weird-money-out And below is his working hypothesis: We've documented Trump's relations with a variety of Soviet and Russian individuals and organizations in the attached bullet book. Financial crimes and money laundering explain a large part of Trump's wealth. Trump's basic grift seems to be one that he learned from his father. A loan is just a tax-free transfer of cash. So don't pay yourself income when you can loan yourself cash instead. Whether it's embezzled FHA mortgages, Mitchell-Lama funds, NJHFA funds.... it doesn't matter. Borrow way more than you need, live off the borrowings, use the loan payments to offset gains from other legitimate sources of income. 40 Wall Street in NYC would be a great example of this. Trump bought the building for $1 million cash in the latter half of 1995 (a time of many highly suspicious cash transactions for a man who was allegedly $900 million in the red). He borrowed $35 million supposedly to renovate it (maybe). Let's imagine that it loses money, let's go wild and say it's losing $1 million a year (an overestimate) for 20 years. Overall, Trump's out of pocket by $56 million. But he's borrowed $160 million against the building. That means his net cash position is $104 million. And many of his deals are structured in a similar way. This looks to us like a classic money-laundering scheme known as a "loan-back." Let's say Trump's brother Robert loans a company $500k which it then uses to open up a $5 million account offshore (Financial Performance Corporation) and another company affiliated with Robert (Management Technologies) spends nearly $13 million buying a shady group of international companies called Winter Partners... which Midland Associates (a Trump family partnership) then loans an unknown sum secured against all their future accounts receivable. Management Technologies would later write off its Winter Partners investment as a complete loss. So we can show that Robert Trump was shoveling money overseas in 1995. And just when Trump needed it, investors from Hong Kong showed up and bought the mortgage on Riverside South, overing him insanely generous terms. When they sold the mortgage later for a billion dollar profit, Trump freaked out (even by his standards) - a reaction that makes more sense if you realize that the loan was originally Trump's money, and the Hong Kong investors were only supposed to act as nominees. After they cashed out their profit, they ended up selling their 70% stake, which found its way into the hands of Trump's friend at Vornado Realty, Steve Roth. So that's the core of the insight we've had. It's an explanation that seems to hold up well when we examine individual deals that Trump's been involved in. So many of his ventures lose money because the loans themselves are just part of a money laundering show - a tax free way to legitimately receive a pile of cash you're not otherwise entitled to. And the lender has access to an offshore asset as security, so even if you eventually default, they'll be made whole. We're not sure how much of it is Trump's money. Here's a quick dash through the overall timeline of Trump's life that we think we see: 1974-1987: Trump comes up in New York real estate rubbing elbows with various mobbed up figures (Cohn, Salerno, Tomasello, et al.) and working as a kind of front man for the Genovese, Gambino and Scarfo crime families. A lot of his early projects are just classic mob grifts. Borrow a bunch of money to build something, hire a bunch of mob contractors, pay too much... Trump's being taken care of but not enormously so 1988-1990: Trump borrows $3 billion in the course of 2 years, $650 million of which is mean to finish construction of the nearly completed Taj Mahal. Within two years the money is gone, despite the fact that many of the construction contractors hadn't been paid. So this is the period where we think Trump embezzled the money, got a cut, and had to hide it offshore until the statute of limitations had cleared. 1991-1995: Trump's laying low. The Soviet Union collapses. Tamir Sapir, Sam Kislin, Eduard Nakhamkin ... three (at least) Russian figures suddenly leap from working-class Russian immigrants to international financiers in control of huge sums of money. Our working theory is they were ex-KGB, after the Soviet Union's fall they began collaborating with American counter-intelligence officials at the FBI and CIA, and they used their positions in New York to help their former associates back home embezzle billions of dollars in state-owned assets out of the former Soviet Union. 1995-2005: Trump begins repatriating his own money in some of his most bizarre business deals. Trump perhaps realizes he can syndicate this model and also begins facilitating loan back schemes for Russian investors by putting his name on their buildings (the whole Bayrock period) 2006-2015: Most of Trump's money has come back to him by now, and he's basically running a money-laundering syndicate for Russian oligarchs (though there are still some Italians and Asians in the mix) - some of whom are in favor with Putin and the state, others who are decidedly not. If we're right, it's an audacious scheme that he's managed to pull off right in front of our faces. He's managed it by exploiting our preconceptions about debt and net worth. All the fights over Trump's wealth have been about his net worth - what's the value minus the liabilities? And we look at a debt as a zero-sum transaction. But the Trump enterprise really seems to be operating on net cash flow.

ejnulls 9y ago

My question for America is, given the current system if every single person was smart and capable enough to be a physician is it possible that no one would live in poverty? I've been thinking about this question for years and all evidence I can find and understand points to NO, we cannot provide the basic necessities for our population (with our current) even if everyone was an "upstanding member of society." So, if the system cannot insure that every one is taken care even if every member of the system is highly skilled and capable then the system is WRONG. If we can't take care of an entire population of skilled and contributing members of society, we certainly can't take care of a population where many members are not highly skilled or capable.

agumonkey 9y ago

Tiny note: it's been many decades of the same issue, people work, people share, things go weird, they get angry (and rightly so). let me blame the victims slightly (barely at all, it's mental exercise). Isn't the problem in the tax -> action function ? it's a big black box. That's always the case when people get angry about anything, it's because they have to deal with an unpredictable and costly black box. Solution: no more big, no more black. We need a more tractable and open system that can be more efficient. More questions: should people be able to see all what their money does ? or would it backfire into micromanagement and critics ?

pas 9y ago
budgets are public, no? FOIA works pretty well, no? people don't look, don't have time to understand it, and usually don't think, they just demand.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  That's is also true. But I firmly believe that the solution is not to make two systems fight but rather to find a middle ground. - Make a system that is slightly clearer and smaller - Entice people to be more educated

bousaid 9y ago

It’s interesting. In other third world countries like Tunisia (my mother’s homeland) income inequality is even worse, yet the lower classes are content with where they are. In America it seems like everyone is crawling to “make it.”

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

>People already have a sense that things aren't fair. There's a reason why tax reform is polling so poorly. There's a reason why most of the country thinks taxes should be higher on the wealthy and corporations. They have a feeling that they are not seeing the rise of productivity in their own life, and they want justice. There's also just the sheer sense of stagnation. I get mildly enraged every time I look at America's idea of a middle-school and high-school curriculum, then compare it to what people learn abroad. How is it that "everyone else" has more leisure, suffers less stress, and still winds up doing harder things than Americans more easily? America has started thinking like a less developed country, that productivity arises from suffering.

curious_fella1 9y ago
> and still winds up doing harder things than Americans more easily Can you elaborate?
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  I was in the thread about "lessons from MIT", and thinking of a degree curriculum I looked at from the UK one day. It basically expected that students (who were going to learn PL theory) start off with a higher level of math knowledge (right out of secondary school) than most American CS students have in sophomore year. AFAIK, their students don't suffer as much stress or depression as the cohort of Americans who've done "sophomore-level" math in high school. But for another example, well, every other country seems to have an easier time running a working train system than America does, including those who are running top-of-the-line high-speed rail. Or, to take another, the French have one of the highest per-hour productivity rates on Earth, but take four to six weeks of vacation each year. Likewise, the Germans have one of the most productive economies on the planet, but work some of the shortest hours. Again and again, we find a principle that efficient, productive, intelligently-arranged systems deliver greater results with less sturm und drang.
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    > But for another example, well, every other country seems to have an easier time running a working train system than America does Going somewhat OT, but in contrast, America seems to have an easier time running a working freight train system than most other countries.

jpatokal 9y ago

I'm somewhat surprised to see Singapore mentioned as a paragon of social equality. This is a rich country where maids are treated like slaves (locked in apartment and on call 24/7/365, sleep on the kitchen floor etc) and many elderly have no pensions at all, and are forced to work in menial jobs like cleaning bathrooms until they die. It does show how bad things in the US have gotten though...

dopamean 9y ago
I didn't get "paragon of social equality" from what he said at all.
twic 9y ago
I asked her about income inequality, for there it's quite extreme. She says it's not that bad because people there have a reasonable standard of living I think the point is not that Singapore is a paragon of equality, but rather that its rulers have had the sense to provide adequate comfort for their subjects, rather than trying to take absolutely everything.
ajdlinux 9y ago
Singapore isn't a paragon of social equality, not at all. However, in spite of that, the PAP has done a very good job of ensuring there's just enough by way of public services and subsidies to keep enough people happy that the government continues to command the people's respect and the opposition will never quite have enough fuel to build a viable political movement. ...and it's still better in many ways than large parts of the US.

T2_t2 9y ago

Assuming SG is Singapore, that is a really specific example, because it is a tiny Island of 4 million people with a lot of very unique attributes - it is a major shipping and airport hub, as well as a financial hub in a notoriously corrupt region. The USA has similar areas - often much larger, usually with very similar outcomes. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per... and compare it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... and you can see that if all the state where their own country, the USA would have the richest by GDP PP per capita (DC), as well as Mississippi, a state that would hover around Slovenian levels of wealth. That's the thing that as an Australian I never understood. The USA - the United States of America - varies so greatly by state. We don't have that - most countries don't. Even when there is variance, UK with London, north and south of Spain and Italy, it is not quite so dramatic. Back to the example of Singapore, I expect most everyone in Connecticut (GDP PPP per capita of $64,511, population 3.576 million) to have very similar results to Singapore. I don't expect South Carolinans (GDP PPP per capita $37,063, population 4.961 million) to have anywhere near the same results. The angst in America is a uniquely MASSIVE country phenomenon - hits somewhere north of 100 million mark would be my guess - maybe even higher. People in Milan don't compare themselves and their outcomes to those in Berlin, even though they share an economic zone, but people in Idaho do compare their lot to Silicon Valley. I don't have an answer BTW, just a vague notion that large countries have it tough - and that China will likely face similar issues in the very near term, as first world level economies like Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin are compared with the outcomes for Gansu (which has Ghanaian levels of GDP PPP per capita - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...).

dredmorbius 9y ago
US levels of wealth disparity are not entirely out of line with other very large countries or regions. The US is better thought of as an empire. It is carved up into a large number of territories (states), 50, as compared with Australia's ... well, it's complicated, but let's look at the six principal states: NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territories, Queensland, and Tasmania. Each major Australian state is comprised, largely, of a single principal city, and ... everything else. Australia has, unlike the United States, relatively little inland settlements: the land tends to be arid, there are no major river systems. The result is ... a rough parity between Australian states, though you'll find a tremendous variance within them. If you consider other large countries: Russia, Canada, China, Brazil, Indonesia, or India, you'll find that there are in fact large variations in wealth across territory. Or the EU, if considered a single state, ranges from Germany and France to Portugal, Greece, and the Balkan states.

throw2016 9y ago

A society that values financial and individual success above all else will inevitably lead to an impoverished society with concentrated pockets of wealth that once concentrated are adept at perpetuating themselves. Its obvious something fundamental in governance changed in the late 70s that has directly led us here. While technology, progress, wealth are important the magic is always people and humanity that elevate life beyond the mundane and brings happiness into lives. There is no point being wealthy if most around you are suffering and and in desperate conditions. This can't make anyone happy, except sociopaths. You have to care for other people and society beyond just your immediate interest and benefit.