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If the top 1% get their income doubled, and the median doesn't change (even after accounting for inflation / purchasing power), then it's debatable if we even h

by bhupy 6y ago

If the top 1% get their income doubled, and the median doesn't change (even after accounting for inflation / purchasing power), then it's debatable if we even have a problem. If the bottom 30% income halved, you're correct that we have a problem, but that hasn't actually happened. You can view the inflation-adjusted income data split up by quintile here -> https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... (Table H-1, All Races, it's an Excel spreadsheet). Even among the bottom quintile, inflation-adjusted income has increased.

kergonath 6y ago
> If the top 1% get their income doubled, and the median doesn't change (even after accounting for inflation / purchasing power), then it's debatable if we even have a problem. I think we do, as these people have disproportionate economical and political power, which results in unbalanced economic policies that favour one specific socio-economic class and breeds discontent. I don’t have links handy, as I am on the phone, but there are works showing a correlation between political instability and economic inequality.
- bhupy 6y ago
  By definition, the top 1% are a minority of voters, so their influence is only as strong as the votes that they themselves are able to cast, or that they are able to convince others to cast. Their impact on elections is overstated -> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c...
  - kergonath 6y ago
    I don’t mean any disrespect, but history ancient and recent has shown that this is not true. On several occasions an upper class minority has been able to convince parts of lower classes to behave against their best interests. A very relevant example is the capture of the GOP and the enduring support they get from poor, rural whites even though their policies systematically favour wealthy elites. Witness how republican senators turned a minority of the votes from this limited support base into a weapon to completely remake the judiciary. What is spent during campaigns is just the tip of the iceberg, and is a tiny drop in the daily deluge of propaganda. Look at the media landscape in the US. Private interests such as the Murdochs, Robert Herring, and whoever controls the Sinclair Broadcast group drive the narrative and the constant brain washing. I mean, they keep convincing a significant part of the population that accessible health care is bad. You seem to assume that people are rational and not easily influenced. They are not, and they are.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      > On several occasions an upper class minority has been able to convince parts of lower classes to behave against their best interests. No, on several occasions, an upper class minority has been able to convince parts of lower classes to behave against what you think their best interests should be. > I mean, they keep convincing a significant part of the population that accessible health care is bad. Look, I understand that a lot of people on this forum think that there's one and only one way to achieve accessible healthcare, but the reality is that there are SO many different ways to get affordable / high quality care. Singapore, Switzerland, the UK, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands all have wildly different healthcare systems, but all produce fairly good outcomes (especially Singapore). I'm happy to talk more about all of them: I write software for claims processing systems for a living and can tell you all about how healthcare pricing works. What you're witnessing is that there's broad agreement around what the problem is, but violent disagreement on what the solution ought to be.

by bhupy 6y ago

kergonath 6y ago

> If the top 1% get their income doubled, and the median doesn't change (even after accounting for inflation / purchasing power), then it's debatable if we even have a problem. I think we do, as these people have disproportionate economical and political power, which results in unbalanced economic policies that favour one specific socio-economic class and breeds discontent. I don’t have links handy, as I am on the phone, but there are works showing a correlation between political instability and economic inequality.

bhupy 6y ago
By definition, the top 1% are a minority of voters, so their influence is only as strong as the votes that they themselves are able to cast, or that they are able to convince others to cast. Their impact on elections is overstated -> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c...
- kergonath 6y ago
  I don’t mean any disrespect, but history ancient and recent has shown that this is not true. On several occasions an upper class minority has been able to convince parts of lower classes to behave against their best interests. A very relevant example is the capture of the GOP and the enduring support they get from poor, rural whites even though their policies systematically favour wealthy elites. Witness how republican senators turned a minority of the votes from this limited support base into a weapon to completely remake the judiciary. What is spent during campaigns is just the tip of the iceberg, and is a tiny drop in the daily deluge of propaganda. Look at the media landscape in the US. Private interests such as the Murdochs, Robert Herring, and whoever controls the Sinclair Broadcast group drive the narrative and the constant brain washing. I mean, they keep convincing a significant part of the population that accessible health care is bad. You seem to assume that people are rational and not easily influenced. They are not, and they are.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    > On several occasions an upper class minority has been able to convince parts of lower classes to behave against their best interests. No, on several occasions, an upper class minority has been able to convince parts of lower classes to behave against what you think their best interests should be. > I mean, they keep convincing a significant part of the population that accessible health care is bad. Look, I understand that a lot of people on this forum think that there's one and only one way to achieve accessible healthcare, but the reality is that there are SO many different ways to get affordable / high quality care. Singapore, Switzerland, the UK, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands all have wildly different healthcare systems, but all produce fairly good outcomes (especially Singapore). I'm happy to talk more about all of them: I write software for claims processing systems for a living and can tell you all about how healthcare pricing works. What you're witnessing is that there's broad agreement around what the problem is, but violent disagreement on what the solution ought to be.