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> Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. this statement is literally true, but aside from "

> Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. this statement is literally true, but aside from "in relative terms", the wording of the whole sentence seems to evoke a zero sum game. I see this type of writing in most articles about inequality and I wish the authors would strive to be more explicit. it's an important distinction, even if we agree that relative gains are just significant as absolute gains.

temp-dude-87844 8y ago
The explicit invocation of the concept "zero-sum" is avoided because it's a lightning rod for criticism, where someone will inevitably chime in to point out the realization of absolute gains of utility among the losers also; specifically, that important metrics like living standards have been improving for wide swaths of the population, even those whose share of wealth declined over time. And therein lies the disconnect: both can be true, because one of them is a tautology; and it just so happens that relative disparities in wealth among the pool of people in market for a service will cause the competition to attain some elements of an auction, and cause the poorer parties to lose out.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  to be clear, I am not criticizing the author for not explicitly using the term "zero-sum game"; however dysfunctional the economy may be, it is clearly not that. I am criticizing the author for writing about relative gains using language (e.g. "pie", "taking from", "giving up") that is clearly evocative of a zero sum game. it encourages the uncareful reader to conflate absolute and relative gains.
tachyonbeam 8y ago
Except it isn't really true. Much of the economic recovery post 2008 was fueled by the FED buying assets. They've been buying stocks and bonds to keep the prices rising. So the FED has been directly handing money to people who own stocks and bonds. We can argue as to whether this is better, worse or functionally equivalent to directly taking money from the middle class, but it isn't exactly the same thing. I personally wish that instead of printing money to buy stocks and bonds, they had enacted something like UBI instead. Give the money you're printing to people who need it. I think it's actually better for a capitalist economy, because then corporations still need to compete to get that money from consumers, instead of just being bailed out, which rewards failing corporations.
- harryh 8y ago
  The FED hasn't been buying stocks. That is wrong. The FED's assets are nearly all in US Gov't Treasury Bond's & Mortgage backed securities. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/quarterly_balance_sheet_developments_report_201711.pdf https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/quarterl... Your policy preference completely misunderstands the role of the FED in the economy. Any proposal in that area would have to be run by the Federal Government, not the FED Bank.

temp-dude-87844 8y ago

The explicit invocation of the concept "zero-sum" is avoided because it's a lightning rod for criticism, where someone will inevitably chime in to point out the realization of absolute gains of utility among the losers also; specifically, that important metrics like living standards have been improving for wide swaths of the population, even those whose share of wealth declined over time. And therein lies the disconnect: both can be true, because one of them is a tautology; and it just so happens that relative disparities in wealth among the pool of people in market for a service will cause the competition to attain some elements of an auction, and cause the poorer parties to lose out.

leetcrew 8y ago
to be clear, I am not criticizing the author for not explicitly using the term "zero-sum game"; however dysfunctional the economy may be, it is clearly not that. I am criticizing the author for writing about relative gains using language (e.g. "pie", "taking from", "giving up") that is clearly evocative of a zero sum game. it encourages the uncareful reader to conflate absolute and relative gains.

tachyonbeam 8y ago

Except it isn't really true. Much of the economic recovery post 2008 was fueled by the FED buying assets. They've been buying stocks and bonds to keep the prices rising. So the FED has been directly handing money to people who own stocks and bonds. We can argue as to whether this is better, worse or functionally equivalent to directly taking money from the middle class, but it isn't exactly the same thing. I personally wish that instead of printing money to buy stocks and bonds, they had enacted something like UBI instead. Give the money you're printing to people who need it. I think it's actually better for a capitalist economy, because then corporations still need to compete to get that money from consumers, instead of just being bailed out, which rewards failing corporations.

harryh 8y ago
The FED hasn't been buying stocks. That is wrong. The FED's assets are nearly all in US Gov't Treasury Bond's & Mortgage backed securities. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/quarterly_balance_sheet_developments_report_201711.pdf https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/quarterl... Your policy preference completely misunderstands the role of the FED in the economy. Any proposal in that area would have to be run by the Federal Government, not the FED Bank.