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The majority are a lot poorer and the rich have gotten a LOT richer. We've seen what happens before when we don't redistribute opportunity effectively haven't w

The majority are a lot poorer and the rich have gotten a LOT richer. We've seen what happens before when we don't redistribute opportunity effectively haven't we. EDIT: Seriously the down voting! Here are some resources for you to think about: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(book) I suggest the rise of populism is caused by increases in wealth going to the very richest while in real terms the majority of people are poorer than ever.

tzahola 8y ago
>We've seen Where? When?
- matlock 8y ago
  Russia 1918, France in the revolution for example. Also what happens all over Europe with right wing parties tearing apart the EU based on fear created in part by inequality
  - paulpauper 8y ago
    over Europe with right wing parties tearing apart the EU based on fear created in part by inequality that is due to concerns over immigration , not wealth inequality Russia 1918 this had to do with famine and massive unemployment as a consequence of ww1, not merely wealth inequality. America is a long way from being as bad as Russia was in 1918. The Great Depression is far worse than anything now, yet there was no civil unrest in America. French revolution Wealth inequality was just a single factor, all. France was in financial crisis due to debt from various wars, causing high taxes and food shortages, again, which are problems America does not have.
    - realusername 8y ago
      > that is due to concerns over immigration , not wealth inequality I don't think that's true, at least not in France, the regions voting massively far right are the old industrial regions abandoned by the globalisation, not the ones where the immigration is actually going.
      - mikk14 8y ago
        In fact, there is a _negative_ correlation between Leave vote in Brexit and the proportion of immigrants living in the area: http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-areas-with-low-immigration-voted-mainly-for-brexit-62138 http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-areas-with-low-...
    - kermittd 8y ago
      Regarding France. The issue of anti-immigration may very well be caused by a poor economy and lack of opportunity. Did Hitler come to power because the innate hatred of jews the Germans had or because of a garbage economy?
    - devonkim 8y ago
      Literally repeating past failures (and successes!) is rare throughout history so direct comparisons are not necessarily going to be useful for determining likelihoods of future events. In modern America, we don’t have food shortages but we do have housing shortages resulting in high living costs, different health problems than the early 20th century folks, lack of jobs for the lesser / inappropriately educated, high consumer debt, student loans, etc. that contribute to the misery index. The misery, however, gets offset by the sheer glut of passive entertainment leisure options the world has never seen before in history. After all, who cares if we’re living longer if we’re feeling worse throughout it? Not saying things are worse than the Depression at all, just saying we’re always going to be comparing apples to oranges as we go from different historical periods so looking at primarily economic factors may have limited utility even in looking at sociopolitical problems.
ChrisLomont 8y ago
>The majority are a lot poorer Source with data? This doesn't match any place I've seen such as BLS data or Census data or FRED data.
- andy_ppp 8y ago
  I've added some references - look at the diagrams in the first article - most of the increases in wealth since the 70s have gone to rich people.
  - IkmoIkmo 8y ago
    > most of the increases in wealth since the 70s have gone to rich people. That itself isn't enough to state poor people became poorer, only in comparison to an ever increasing moving goalpost of what poor means is that statement enough to say poor get poorer. Median personal real income has grown by about 35% or so in the past few decades. The average is quite a bit higher, I'm just talking about the median. Household income usually isn't as good an indicator because household size has shrunk.
    - quakenul 8y ago
      That is not what has been stated though. They said the majority have become poorer, not the poor. Whether that's true or not, to me, seems to depend on your definition of individual wealth, it either being relative to total wealth or rather quality of life -- but it's certainly not the same thing.
      - ChrisLomont 8y ago
        Bezos becoming richer through stock gains costs me nothing, because his wealth increase is purely speculative. He didn't take that billions out of the economy, or from the poor, or from anyone. So I think this is not a good measurement of whether or not the majority have become richer or poorer. A much better measurement is do they have more stuff, or better stuff, or a higher quality of life than before. This is the level I think most people care about. Not whether some rich people got richer (mostly from stock growth) faster than I did.
mettamage 8y ago
Read Factfulness by this person [1]. I wonder if you'd reconsider your argument. At the very least, I'd say that you wouldn't all-caps "LOT". Disclaimer: I am not rich and dev salaries here are about 30K to 60K (rent is 1.5K per month). Tax is 40%+ (i.e. thrifty SV-people make a lot more) [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...
- mistermann 8y ago
  Could you give us a hint why this book might be worth buying, and what about this argument we might reconsider, and why, because of the book?
  - wilsonnb2 8y ago
    I'm not the person you're asking, but I did coincidentally read this book last night. It's main message is that: 1) The averages person's knowledge of the world is extremely outdated and in most cases blatantly incorrect. It's not that people don't know the answers to questions like "what percentage of the world's population live in extreme poverty", it's that they think they know and their answer is incorrect. 2) Human's have a lot of instincts that work against them when trying to evaluate data. For example, implicitly assuming that straight line graphs will continue in a straight line, focusing far more on negative things than positive things, categorizing things incorrectly, and misunderstanding large numbers. 3) Positive change tends to happen very slowly and therefore isn't consider newsworthy, so we don't hear about it even though it's happening every day. The book really made me question my view of the world and I would highly recommend it to everyone. It's short, easy to read, enjoyable, and very insightful. That said, the author focused more in the differences between what he calls the four levels of poverty, and to be on level 4 (the level almost everyone on this site is on) you only need to make $64 or more a day. He doesn't talk much about the inequality between the people at the bottom of level 4 and those at the top. I would attempt to apply the authors thoughts to this specific situation, but I only finished the book a few hours ago and haven't really finished processing the information yet so I will leave that task to someone else for now. Hope this information helps, and I really think the book is a good read for everyone. Bill Gates is giving a free .epub copy away to all college grads in the US this year, and I don't think his website actually verifies that you are graduating, so I think anyone that signs up can download it here. [1] [1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/My-gift-to-college-graduates?WT.mc_id=06_05_2018_08_FactfulnessGift_BG-media_&WT.tsrc=BGmedia https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/My-gift-to-colle...
dustingetz 8y ago
This is a controversial comment because, despite dropping some cute wikipedia links, this is poorly sourced (and btw I have read some of the income inequality books and sympathetic to the underlying idea) "in real terms the majority of people are poorer than ever"
- jhall1468 8y ago
  Wealth inequality is related/similar to income inequality but they are not the same thing, which the "cute" Wikipedia article would have informed you if you had read it.
paulpauper 8y ago
you have to take into account that the total economy is growing and total wealth is growing. It's not like the rich a consuming an increasingly large percentage of a fixed pie. https://greyenlightenment.com/the-99-vs-1-who-is-exploiting-whom/ https://greyenlightenment.com/the-99-vs-1-who-is-exploiting-... The pie is growing, so it's possible for the rich to have a larger percentage but everyone still see gains. This is manifested by rising standards of living, more purchasing power, and so on. The US dollar has also gained a lot relative to foreign currencies since 2008, which makes imports cheaper and further boosts American standards of living and purchasing relative to the rest of the world. The emphasis should be on boosting living standards than trying to enforce equality.
- 131012 8y ago
  What about the amount of time you own for yourself? Purchasing power is cool, but necessary goods (food, housing) prices* are raising much faster than wages. Yes, you can buy a new fablet and yet another pair of jeans for cheaper than ever, but what for exactly? * Please do your own research as these facts are highly location-dependent.
  - paulpauper 8y ago
    Regarding necessities such as healthcare and education, yes, sticker costs are rising faster than inflation and wages, but one must also take into account that: Individuals seldom pay the stick price. A $10k/month drug does not mean one pays $10k/month out of his or her own pocket. Same for a $1,000 emergency room visit. Or college tuition, due to generous financial aid and payment deferment programs (some universities have huge discounts for low and middle-class students). So one must adjust prices for what one actually pays, not the MSRP. Second, although people are spending a lot on healthcare, they are getting more healthcare and better healthcare, which is the key distinction. This means cutting-edge treatments for diseases that decades ago would have been fatal (a notable example is CML, which used to be fatal within 3-6 years of diagnosis but can now be managed as a chronic condition like diabetes). Healthcare would be very cheap if drugs were limited to Advil and Aspirin, but also very bad. People would be irate if those were their only options. Not saying the system is perfect or that drugs are not overpriced, but one must take into account quality and quantity than just the price. Rent, however, is an example of a cost that has exceeded inflation, but where there is no notable improvement in quality, and there are no payment deferment programs. People are paying more and more for the same 2-bedroom apartment. I suspect part of the problem is due to the difficulty of evincing deadbeat renters and due to regulation, so landlords pass the costs to renters both in the form of high rents and huge, upfront, multi-month down-payments. But also, the housing bust in 2008 created a construction shortage, so people who lost their homes in 2005-2010 found themselves with no option but to rent, and this created more demand, but also due to less housing constitution. Housing starts plunged in 2008 and never really recovered: https://www.census.gov/construction/img/c20_curr.gif https://www.census.gov/construction/img/c20_curr.gif
3pt14159 8y ago
This is exactly what we should expect to happen while computers make former tasks obsolete and while China and other formerly third world countries enter the global workforce. In countries like Canada and the EU, where opportunity is more equality distributed, we still have the problem of increasing gains going to the rich. I sold a company at 27 for fucks sakes, the vicious and virtuous circles that the internet enables are stratifying wealth. We need more regulation to stop the vicious circles from forming and we need more redistributive taxes with global coordination to stop region shopping. Also, we need to delink mortgage interest rates from general interest rates to stop bubbles from forming in housing. If housing wasn't 5x as expensive in real terms much fewer people would care about the rich getting richer. The problem is that, in some respects, housing is an arms race so even though society is getting richer the poor and middle class can't ever stop struggling.
- ManFromUranus 8y ago
  What happened is that all the manufacturing jobs that used to supply middle class lifestyles for the unskilled got shipped to China (or otherwise overseas). Mass immigration has expanded the labor poor diluting earnings for all, and massively increasing competition at the lower ends of the wage scale. "The rich got richer" because there is less competition than ever. Housing will only ever get MORE expensive as more and more people take up more and more space making single family homes pricing more resemble the luxury that they actually are. You could reverse all these trends and fix inequality but I can all but guarantee that you wouldn't employ any of the policy tools necessary to make it happen. Such as restricting immigration for the unskilled and enforcing border controls, thus reducing competition at the lower end of the wage scale and directly improving the lot of poor people in the US. The reduced competition might even incentivize employers to raise wages.
  - 3pt14159 8y ago
    At the end of the day this devolves into tariffs, because the worlds workforce truly is competitive. If you want fat, state protected corporations then fine, but I'd rather have specialization. Though I do think we need to be harsher on some actors that steal IP, like some Chinese corporations.
jonbarker 8y ago
Populism itself is not necessarily a bad thing if it is in the great American tradition of distrusting elitism and authority. However what we have instead is manufactured populism funded by very wealthy people.
- throwaway13337 8y ago
  Most populist leaders in history have been members of the elite. Julius Caesar, after all, was far from poor.
- beat 8y ago
  The urge to populism is natural, a result of a sense of getting screwed over (which is actually happening). The focusing of that populist urge, on the other hand, is subject to exploitation by certain powerful elements. Don't confuse the two.
  - ForRealsies 8y ago
    The perception of "getting screwed over" is largely just that, perception. Subjective and easily persuaded. You can have a US population with record low unemployment, record high stock market, and even if their personal income has increased, can still feel like they're "getting screwed over" due to Persuasion.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  The problem is the sort of "elitism" they oppose. It isn't "the works of one who grew up poor's ideas should be considered on their own merit just like one who was born wealthy". It is "What do biologists know about vaccines? Numbers are soulless lets go with what feels right." Plus even if the populism is 100% natural it may still be exploited by any willing to use it as a ladder. Being "for the people" has made no difference vs "for religion" or "for our geopolitical grouping". Not helping matters is anti-elitism as a crab bucket mentality where they complain about the geographically near comfortable instead of the actual powers. Blaming the miller for their problems instead of their lord. Even when not hijacked populism often fails to actually fix anything, it may be its refusal to acknowledge reality in its groupthink and search for easy solutions, dislike of nuance and not wanting to hear that the things they had just aren't sustainable or what they would need to do to make it so.
credit_guy 8y ago
On a global level, the rich have gotten richer, but the poor have gotten a LOT richer. Three decades ago, as a kid in Eastern Europe, I could taste oranges once a year, at Christmas time, with some skipped years here and there. Now everybody can eat as much as they can, and obesity is a growing problem. Maybe you don’t care that much about the world outside the US or Western Europe, but literally billions of people have seen their living standards rise from the subsistence level to a decent level.
- ejstronge 8y ago
  I think there are a couple of intertwined ideas in your comment. I wonder if your observations could be explained by decreases in the cost of food / increased food distribution. Secondly, it's not clear whether wealth has improved for poor people (something I should take a look at...).
  - achompas 8y ago
    It's well known that folks in the lower 70% of global income have seen significant growth. There's even a name for the plot - "the elephant chart." https://avc.com/2016/08/elephant-chart/ https://avc.com/2016/08/elephant-chart/ The chart, as I understand it (in limited reading), tracks three phenomenon: 1. Increasing wealth formation by more disadvantaged groups in non-first world countries (the "body" of the elephant). 2. Wealth stagnation for middle classes in first-world countries (the "dip" in the elephant's trunk). 3. Increasing returns to capital held by upper classes in first-world countries (the "trunk" of the elephant).
    - mikk14 8y ago
      I think that the elephant chart can be misleading. A 100% growth of very little is still very little. I found this version [1] showing that, in absolute terms, the gaps are actually increasing. [1] https://patternsofmeaning.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/elephant-graph-from-skitch.jpg?w=863 https://patternsofmeaning.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/elepha...
benmw333 8y ago
It's not a zero sum game...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  That's true; given the observed fact that: (1) relative deprivation is a substantial source of disutility, and (2) additional wealth/income has declining marginal utility. It's quite easy for a situation where the rich/poor gap grows and everyone gets richer in absolute terms to actually have negative net utility.
rayiner 8y ago
I'm pretty sure that, even in the west, it is incorrect to say that the "majority are a lot poorer." The article itself points out that real wages have grown, albeit slowly.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Cost of living has risen higher. So even if wages grow, if they don't keep up with costs, then yes, you can say they are poorer.
  - cheald 8y ago
    Incorrect. "Real wages" are "wages adjusted for inflation", or "wages relative to the cost of living" in economics parlance. If real wages are growing, then wage growth is outpacing the growth of the cost of living.
modzu 8y ago
its great to see comments that dont contribute anything useful get downvoted -- it keeps the signal:noise raio high. but lately im seeing comments downvoted seemingly because users just dont agree with the author or their point of view. thats not helpful. meaningful discussion and debate must embrace alternative points of view. please dont downvote to censor.
- Clubber 8y ago
  Ya it's been happing here for a while now. I just stay away from politicized discussion on issues where people have already made up their mind and are repulsed by contrary opinions. Unfortunately that's a lot of topics. If it's an important issue to me, I'll still state my opinion, downvotes be damned.
  - cbHXBY1D 8y ago
    I think we should just go back to the old rules of no flagrant political submissions. I think it's been proven time-and-time again that HN can't handle politics. It just turns in to low-effort garbage.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
shams93 8y ago
Its going to eventually impact the rich severely. Once no working person can afford to live in California at all they will have no 911 services, no doctors or hospitals, not even any trash pickup services because even if these are privatized they will never find employees because a salary is not enough to live here. When a rich person falls and gets a compound fracture they will have to do their best to fix it with duct tape because in another 5-10 years at this rate if you make less than 1 million a year in income you won't be able to reside in this state.
- adjkant 8y ago
  Can we stop with the hyperbole? Even at current rates with a bit of rise, the lowest livable salary is doubtful to go over 100K - heck I can budget right now to live in California (with no savings) at 50K. The rich aren't that dumb. The most important things (like medical, fire, etc) will rise accordingly with demand. Restaurants may shift more towards the high end, but that will mean matching tips (for the few that can get a job there). I dislike the unregulated free market a good deal but even I can admit it will adjust before any critical situation affects the rich. Again, those most affected by these dynamics the most will be at the bottom of the pecking order. Should we fix this? Of course. Are we all on the verge of not being able to live in California? No way.
kadenshep 8y ago
>Seriously the down voting! Anything even slight center-left on this site will immediately get inundated with broken, inordinary American right+ talking points. We're not hackers here, just American middle class programmers. This thread is full of justifications completely ignoring the fact that we almost had a full blown financial meltdown just 8-9 years ago, at the expense of the middle class, and the only thing that stopped it was extreme government intervention and then lowering the absolutely hell out of interest rates. How did the middle class survive and maintain its perceived wealth? It's not because they had the purchasing power to do so, quite the opposite. It turns out that lowering interest rates across the board implicitly creates a credit bubble (because low interest money isn't used for assets, it's used for loans). A lot of middle class Americans have maintained their standard of living (or just survived in general) off credit and they're propping up other middle class workers with that debt (notably the service industry). Here's a quick little stat to satiate anyone who wants to go "citation pls": http://www.businessinsider.com/american-credit-card-debt-nearing-all-time-highs-2016-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/american-credit-card-debt-nea... >Why would Americans be struggling when unemployment is so low? Well, having a job and having a well-paying job are two different things. And wages have largely remained stagnant in the 21st century. We're letting a time bomb tick and tock if wages do not significantly rise over the next decade.
- ataturk 8y ago
  The government intervention was akin to privatizing gains and socializing the losses, though. It was welfare for billionaires. Had we allowed the banks to fail, the middle class would be better off today. Instead, it all got swept under the rug, making everything worse except for the few who had the connections to receive the bailouts. If the risk takers who blew those bubbles had only suffered for their actions. Americans are struggling even though unemployment is low because most jobs pay like $10-15/hr.
pnathan 8y ago
> I suggest the rise of populism is caused by increases in wealth going to the very richest while in real terms the majority of people are poorer than ever. That's my working thesis as well. the increased in real poverty rate in the USA is causing the previously hidden tensions to be exposed and flexed. When the pie was large, it was easy to be easy. When the pie is small, ya gotta watch out for the neighbors taking your slice. Note, I've lived in the poor(er) white areas of rural America, and I've lived & worked in the rich(er) urban America. It's very hard to have genuine communication. The difference verges on the incommensurable.... from both sides.
newshorts 8y ago
Inequality is part of it, but it’s also our system of economics. A good explanation of neo liberalism here: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/progressive-neoliberalism-trump-beyond/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/progressive-neoli...
brightball 8y ago
IMO low unemployment gives every worker more bargaining power, just from a supply and demand perspective.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Not if employers aren't perfectly rational, and would rather hold out for that unicorn amazing employee who works for peanuts, as appears that many are doing.

tzahola 8y ago

>We've seen Where? When?

matlock 8y ago
Russia 1918, France in the revolution for example. Also what happens all over Europe with right wing parties tearing apart the EU based on fear created in part by inequality
- paulpauper 8y ago
  over Europe with right wing parties tearing apart the EU based on fear created in part by inequality that is due to concerns over immigration , not wealth inequality Russia 1918 this had to do with famine and massive unemployment as a consequence of ww1, not merely wealth inequality. America is a long way from being as bad as Russia was in 1918. The Great Depression is far worse than anything now, yet there was no civil unrest in America. French revolution Wealth inequality was just a single factor, all. France was in financial crisis due to debt from various wars, causing high taxes and food shortages, again, which are problems America does not have.
  - realusername 8y ago
    > that is due to concerns over immigration , not wealth inequality I don't think that's true, at least not in France, the regions voting massively far right are the old industrial regions abandoned by the globalisation, not the ones where the immigration is actually going.
    - mikk14 8y ago
      In fact, there is a _negative_ correlation between Leave vote in Brexit and the proportion of immigrants living in the area: http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-areas-with-low-immigration-voted-mainly-for-brexit-62138 http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-areas-with-low-...
  - kermittd 8y ago
    Regarding France. The issue of anti-immigration may very well be caused by a poor economy and lack of opportunity. Did Hitler come to power because the innate hatred of jews the Germans had or because of a garbage economy?
  - devonkim 8y ago
    Literally repeating past failures (and successes!) is rare throughout history so direct comparisons are not necessarily going to be useful for determining likelihoods of future events. In modern America, we don’t have food shortages but we do have housing shortages resulting in high living costs, different health problems than the early 20th century folks, lack of jobs for the lesser / inappropriately educated, high consumer debt, student loans, etc. that contribute to the misery index. The misery, however, gets offset by the sheer glut of passive entertainment leisure options the world has never seen before in history. After all, who cares if we’re living longer if we’re feeling worse throughout it? Not saying things are worse than the Depression at all, just saying we’re always going to be comparing apples to oranges as we go from different historical periods so looking at primarily economic factors may have limited utility even in looking at sociopolitical problems.

ChrisLomont 8y ago

>The majority are a lot poorer Source with data? This doesn't match any place I've seen such as BLS data or Census data or FRED data.

andy_ppp 8y ago
I've added some references - look at the diagrams in the first article - most of the increases in wealth since the 70s have gone to rich people.
- IkmoIkmo 8y ago
  > most of the increases in wealth since the 70s have gone to rich people. That itself isn't enough to state poor people became poorer, only in comparison to an ever increasing moving goalpost of what poor means is that statement enough to say poor get poorer. Median personal real income has grown by about 35% or so in the past few decades. The average is quite a bit higher, I'm just talking about the median. Household income usually isn't as good an indicator because household size has shrunk.
  - quakenul 8y ago
    That is not what has been stated though. They said the majority have become poorer, not the poor. Whether that's true or not, to me, seems to depend on your definition of individual wealth, it either being relative to total wealth or rather quality of life -- but it's certainly not the same thing.
    - ChrisLomont 8y ago
      Bezos becoming richer through stock gains costs me nothing, because his wealth increase is purely speculative. He didn't take that billions out of the economy, or from the poor, or from anyone. So I think this is not a good measurement of whether or not the majority have become richer or poorer. A much better measurement is do they have more stuff, or better stuff, or a higher quality of life than before. This is the level I think most people care about. Not whether some rich people got richer (mostly from stock growth) faster than I did.

mettamage 8y ago

Read Factfulness by this person [1]. I wonder if you'd reconsider your argument. At the very least, I'd say that you wouldn't all-caps "LOT". Disclaimer: I am not rich and dev salaries here are about 30K to 60K (rent is 1.5K per month). Tax is 40%+ (i.e. thrifty SV-people make a lot more) [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

mistermann 8y ago
Could you give us a hint why this book might be worth buying, and what about this argument we might reconsider, and why, because of the book?
- wilsonnb2 8y ago
  I'm not the person you're asking, but I did coincidentally read this book last night. It's main message is that: 1) The averages person's knowledge of the world is extremely outdated and in most cases blatantly incorrect. It's not that people don't know the answers to questions like "what percentage of the world's population live in extreme poverty", it's that they think they know and their answer is incorrect. 2) Human's have a lot of instincts that work against them when trying to evaluate data. For example, implicitly assuming that straight line graphs will continue in a straight line, focusing far more on negative things than positive things, categorizing things incorrectly, and misunderstanding large numbers. 3) Positive change tends to happen very slowly and therefore isn't consider newsworthy, so we don't hear about it even though it's happening every day. The book really made me question my view of the world and I would highly recommend it to everyone. It's short, easy to read, enjoyable, and very insightful. That said, the author focused more in the differences between what he calls the four levels of poverty, and to be on level 4 (the level almost everyone on this site is on) you only need to make $64 or more a day. He doesn't talk much about the inequality between the people at the bottom of level 4 and those at the top. I would attempt to apply the authors thoughts to this specific situation, but I only finished the book a few hours ago and haven't really finished processing the information yet so I will leave that task to someone else for now. Hope this information helps, and I really think the book is a good read for everyone. Bill Gates is giving a free .epub copy away to all college grads in the US this year, and I don't think his website actually verifies that you are graduating, so I think anyone that signs up can download it here. [1] [1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/My-gift-to-college-graduates?WT.mc_id=06_05_2018_08_FactfulnessGift_BG-media_&WT.tsrc=BGmedia https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/My-gift-to-colle...

dustingetz 8y ago

This is a controversial comment because, despite dropping some cute wikipedia links, this is poorly sourced (and btw I have read some of the income inequality books and sympathetic to the underlying idea) "in real terms the majority of people are poorer than ever"

jhall1468 8y ago
Wealth inequality is related/similar to income inequality but they are not the same thing, which the "cute" Wikipedia article would have informed you if you had read it.

paulpauper 8y ago

you have to take into account that the total economy is growing and total wealth is growing. It's not like the rich a consuming an increasingly large percentage of a fixed pie. https://greyenlightenment.com/the-99-vs-1-who-is-exploiting-whom/ https://greyenlightenment.com/the-99-vs-1-who-is-exploiting-... The pie is growing, so it's possible for the rich to have a larger percentage but everyone still see gains. This is manifested by rising standards of living, more purchasing power, and so on. The US dollar has also gained a lot relative to foreign currencies since 2008, which makes imports cheaper and further boosts American standards of living and purchasing relative to the rest of the world. The emphasis should be on boosting living standards than trying to enforce equality.

131012 8y ago
What about the amount of time you own for yourself? Purchasing power is cool, but necessary goods (food, housing) prices* are raising much faster than wages. Yes, you can buy a new fablet and yet another pair of jeans for cheaper than ever, but what for exactly? * Please do your own research as these facts are highly location-dependent.
- paulpauper 8y ago
  Regarding necessities such as healthcare and education, yes, sticker costs are rising faster than inflation and wages, but one must also take into account that: Individuals seldom pay the stick price. A $10k/month drug does not mean one pays $10k/month out of his or her own pocket. Same for a $1,000 emergency room visit. Or college tuition, due to generous financial aid and payment deferment programs (some universities have huge discounts for low and middle-class students). So one must adjust prices for what one actually pays, not the MSRP. Second, although people are spending a lot on healthcare, they are getting more healthcare and better healthcare, which is the key distinction. This means cutting-edge treatments for diseases that decades ago would have been fatal (a notable example is CML, which used to be fatal within 3-6 years of diagnosis but can now be managed as a chronic condition like diabetes). Healthcare would be very cheap if drugs were limited to Advil and Aspirin, but also very bad. People would be irate if those were their only options. Not saying the system is perfect or that drugs are not overpriced, but one must take into account quality and quantity than just the price. Rent, however, is an example of a cost that has exceeded inflation, but where there is no notable improvement in quality, and there are no payment deferment programs. People are paying more and more for the same 2-bedroom apartment. I suspect part of the problem is due to the difficulty of evincing deadbeat renters and due to regulation, so landlords pass the costs to renters both in the form of high rents and huge, upfront, multi-month down-payments. But also, the housing bust in 2008 created a construction shortage, so people who lost their homes in 2005-2010 found themselves with no option but to rent, and this created more demand, but also due to less housing constitution. Housing starts plunged in 2008 and never really recovered: https://www.census.gov/construction/img/c20_curr.gif https://www.census.gov/construction/img/c20_curr.gif

3pt14159 8y ago

This is exactly what we should expect to happen while computers make former tasks obsolete and while China and other formerly third world countries enter the global workforce. In countries like Canada and the EU, where opportunity is more equality distributed, we still have the problem of increasing gains going to the rich. I sold a company at 27 for fucks sakes, the vicious and virtuous circles that the internet enables are stratifying wealth. We need more regulation to stop the vicious circles from forming and we need more redistributive taxes with global coordination to stop region shopping. Also, we need to delink mortgage interest rates from general interest rates to stop bubbles from forming in housing. If housing wasn't 5x as expensive in real terms much fewer people would care about the rich getting richer. The problem is that, in some respects, housing is an arms race so even though society is getting richer the poor and middle class can't ever stop struggling.

ManFromUranus 8y ago
What happened is that all the manufacturing jobs that used to supply middle class lifestyles for the unskilled got shipped to China (or otherwise overseas). Mass immigration has expanded the labor poor diluting earnings for all, and massively increasing competition at the lower ends of the wage scale. "The rich got richer" because there is less competition than ever. Housing will only ever get MORE expensive as more and more people take up more and more space making single family homes pricing more resemble the luxury that they actually are. You could reverse all these trends and fix inequality but I can all but guarantee that you wouldn't employ any of the policy tools necessary to make it happen. Such as restricting immigration for the unskilled and enforcing border controls, thus reducing competition at the lower end of the wage scale and directly improving the lot of poor people in the US. The reduced competition might even incentivize employers to raise wages.
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  At the end of the day this devolves into tariffs, because the worlds workforce truly is competitive. If you want fat, state protected corporations then fine, but I'd rather have specialization. Though I do think we need to be harsher on some actors that steal IP, like some Chinese corporations.

jonbarker 8y ago

Populism itself is not necessarily a bad thing if it is in the great American tradition of distrusting elitism and authority. However what we have instead is manufactured populism funded by very wealthy people.

throwaway13337 8y ago
Most populist leaders in history have been members of the elite. Julius Caesar, after all, was far from poor.
beat 8y ago
The urge to populism is natural, a result of a sense of getting screwed over (which is actually happening). The focusing of that populist urge, on the other hand, is subject to exploitation by certain powerful elements. Don't confuse the two.
- ForRealsies 8y ago
  The perception of "getting screwed over" is largely just that, perception. Subjective and easily persuaded. You can have a US population with record low unemployment, record high stock market, and even if their personal income has increased, can still feel like they're "getting screwed over" due to Persuasion.
Nasrudith 8y ago
The problem is the sort of "elitism" they oppose. It isn't "the works of one who grew up poor's ideas should be considered on their own merit just like one who was born wealthy". It is "What do biologists know about vaccines? Numbers are soulless lets go with what feels right." Plus even if the populism is 100% natural it may still be exploited by any willing to use it as a ladder. Being "for the people" has made no difference vs "for religion" or "for our geopolitical grouping". Not helping matters is anti-elitism as a crab bucket mentality where they complain about the geographically near comfortable instead of the actual powers. Blaming the miller for their problems instead of their lord. Even when not hijacked populism often fails to actually fix anything, it may be its refusal to acknowledge reality in its groupthink and search for easy solutions, dislike of nuance and not wanting to hear that the things they had just aren't sustainable or what they would need to do to make it so.

credit_guy 8y ago

On a global level, the rich have gotten richer, but the poor have gotten a LOT richer. Three decades ago, as a kid in Eastern Europe, I could taste oranges once a year, at Christmas time, with some skipped years here and there. Now everybody can eat as much as they can, and obesity is a growing problem. Maybe you don’t care that much about the world outside the US or Western Europe, but literally billions of people have seen their living standards rise from the subsistence level to a decent level.

ejstronge 8y ago
I think there are a couple of intertwined ideas in your comment. I wonder if your observations could be explained by decreases in the cost of food / increased food distribution. Secondly, it's not clear whether wealth has improved for poor people (something I should take a look at...).
- achompas 8y ago
  It's well known that folks in the lower 70% of global income have seen significant growth. There's even a name for the plot - "the elephant chart." https://avc.com/2016/08/elephant-chart/ https://avc.com/2016/08/elephant-chart/ The chart, as I understand it (in limited reading), tracks three phenomenon: 1. Increasing wealth formation by more disadvantaged groups in non-first world countries (the "body" of the elephant). 2. Wealth stagnation for middle classes in first-world countries (the "dip" in the elephant's trunk). 3. Increasing returns to capital held by upper classes in first-world countries (the "trunk" of the elephant).
  - mikk14 8y ago
    I think that the elephant chart can be misleading. A 100% growth of very little is still very little. I found this version [1] showing that, in absolute terms, the gaps are actually increasing. [1] https://patternsofmeaning.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/elephant-graph-from-skitch.jpg?w=863 https://patternsofmeaning.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/elepha...

benmw333 8y ago

It's not a zero sum game...

dragonwriter 8y ago
That's true; given the observed fact that: (1) relative deprivation is a substantial source of disutility, and (2) additional wealth/income has declining marginal utility. It's quite easy for a situation where the rich/poor gap grows and everyone gets richer in absolute terms to actually have negative net utility.

rayiner 8y ago

I'm pretty sure that, even in the west, it is incorrect to say that the "majority are a lot poorer." The article itself points out that real wages have grown, albeit slowly.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Cost of living has risen higher. So even if wages grow, if they don't keep up with costs, then yes, you can say they are poorer.
- cheald 8y ago
  Incorrect. "Real wages" are "wages adjusted for inflation", or "wages relative to the cost of living" in economics parlance. If real wages are growing, then wage growth is outpacing the growth of the cost of living.

modzu 8y ago

its great to see comments that dont contribute anything useful get downvoted -- it keeps the signal:noise raio high. but lately im seeing comments downvoted seemingly because users just dont agree with the author or their point of view. thats not helpful. meaningful discussion and debate must embrace alternative points of view. please dont downvote to censor.

Clubber 8y ago
Ya it's been happing here for a while now. I just stay away from politicized discussion on issues where people have already made up their mind and are repulsed by contrary opinions. Unfortunately that's a lot of topics. If it's an important issue to me, I'll still state my opinion, downvotes be damned.
- cbHXBY1D 8y ago
  I think we should just go back to the old rules of no flagrant political submissions. I think it's been proven time-and-time again that HN can't handle politics. It just turns in to low-effort garbage.

deleted 8y ago

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shams93 8y ago

Its going to eventually impact the rich severely. Once no working person can afford to live in California at all they will have no 911 services, no doctors or hospitals, not even any trash pickup services because even if these are privatized they will never find employees because a salary is not enough to live here. When a rich person falls and gets a compound fracture they will have to do their best to fix it with duct tape because in another 5-10 years at this rate if you make less than 1 million a year in income you won't be able to reside in this state.

adjkant 8y ago
Can we stop with the hyperbole? Even at current rates with a bit of rise, the lowest livable salary is doubtful to go over 100K - heck I can budget right now to live in California (with no savings) at 50K. The rich aren't that dumb. The most important things (like medical, fire, etc) will rise accordingly with demand. Restaurants may shift more towards the high end, but that will mean matching tips (for the few that can get a job there). I dislike the unregulated free market a good deal but even I can admit it will adjust before any critical situation affects the rich. Again, those most affected by these dynamics the most will be at the bottom of the pecking order. Should we fix this? Of course. Are we all on the verge of not being able to live in California? No way.

kadenshep 8y ago

>Seriously the down voting! Anything even slight center-left on this site will immediately get inundated with broken, inordinary American right+ talking points. We're not hackers here, just American middle class programmers. This thread is full of justifications completely ignoring the fact that we almost had a full blown financial meltdown just 8-9 years ago, at the expense of the middle class, and the only thing that stopped it was extreme government intervention and then lowering the absolutely hell out of interest rates. How did the middle class survive and maintain its perceived wealth? It's not because they had the purchasing power to do so, quite the opposite. It turns out that lowering interest rates across the board implicitly creates a credit bubble (because low interest money isn't used for assets, it's used for loans). A lot of middle class Americans have maintained their standard of living (or just survived in general) off credit and they're propping up other middle class workers with that debt (notably the service industry). Here's a quick little stat to satiate anyone who wants to go "citation pls": http://www.businessinsider.com/american-credit-card-debt-nearing-all-time-highs-2016-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/american-credit-card-debt-nea... >Why would Americans be struggling when unemployment is so low? Well, having a job and having a well-paying job are two different things. And wages have largely remained stagnant in the 21st century. We're letting a time bomb tick and tock if wages do not significantly rise over the next decade.

ataturk 8y ago
The government intervention was akin to privatizing gains and socializing the losses, though. It was welfare for billionaires. Had we allowed the banks to fail, the middle class would be better off today. Instead, it all got swept under the rug, making everything worse except for the few who had the connections to receive the bailouts. If the risk takers who blew those bubbles had only suffered for their actions. Americans are struggling even though unemployment is low because most jobs pay like $10-15/hr.

pnathan 8y ago

> I suggest the rise of populism is caused by increases in wealth going to the very richest while in real terms the majority of people are poorer than ever. That's my working thesis as well. the increased in real poverty rate in the USA is causing the previously hidden tensions to be exposed and flexed. When the pie was large, it was easy to be easy. When the pie is small, ya gotta watch out for the neighbors taking your slice. Note, I've lived in the poor(er) white areas of rural America, and I've lived & worked in the rich(er) urban America. It's very hard to have genuine communication. The difference verges on the incommensurable.... from both sides.

newshorts 8y ago

Inequality is part of it, but it’s also our system of economics. A good explanation of neo liberalism here: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/progressive-neoliberalism-trump-beyond/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/progressive-neoli...

brightball 8y ago

IMO low unemployment gives every worker more bargaining power, just from a supply and demand perspective.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Not if employers aren't perfectly rational, and would rather hold out for that unicorn amazing employee who works for peanuts, as appears that many are doing.