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Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. Additionally, based on the comment from dwallin, it's likely a bad thing for

Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. Additionally, based on the comment from dwallin, it's likely a bad thing for 99.9% of American households. This is an odd state of being for a democracy, you'd think that we'd support laws that benefit the majority, since the idea of democracy is that the majority sets policy.

BeetleB 3y ago
> Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. It sounds like you believe that if the ownership share of the top 10% went up, then the average wealth of the bottom 90% went down. The latter does not follow from the former. Both can have seen increases in wealth.
- bmitc 3y ago
  Nearly every measure you can think of for standards of living, health, education, etc. is negatively affected by the increase of wealth inequality.
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    This is a generalism in response to a precise statement. It's a simple question: Has the wealth of the lowest 90% gone up or down? (And 90% is too coarse. Would be good to see it for every decile.)
    - wyre 3y ago
      Wealth for the lower 90% has gone up but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases.
      - BeetleB 3y ago
        OK - new claim: > but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases. Can we show that for each decile?
    - bmitc 3y ago
      Your "precise statement" was a manipulative statement, for which both the question and answer are meaningless. Just because you state a question does not mean you get to dictate the discussion. Growth of income is one thing, but the far more important thing is wealth inequality, and the U.S. has one of the worse in the world, especially for a developed nation. As wealth inequality goes up, more people die, more people suffer, etc. Here's the equivalent of your statement: If I throw a penny into a fountain at the mall, has the wealth of the fountain gone up or down? Here's more realistic and relevant discussions on the relative gross of the lower classes: * https://www.cbpp.org/research/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality https://www.cbpp.org/research/a-guide-to-statistics-on-histo... * https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a... * https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/income-inequality-increased.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/income-inequa...
- exabrial 3y ago
  This is precisely correct, ironically downvoted. The 90%/10% is a distraction, the pool of wealth is nearly unlimited as long as we have natural resources (energy, materials). This trend will continue until resources are no longer exploitable, or people trying to enrich themselves created artificial scarcity or restrict their trade.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    > The 90%/10% is a distraction This is false. The concentration of wealth directly correlates with increases of death, starvation, suffering, etc. Inequality is by far the most important measure. "Growth" of income is effectively meaningless on its own without relative comparisons to the other classes in your own country and the significantly higher increases in the cost of living. If you look for the narrative you'd like, you can certainly find a number in isolation supporting it. But that narrative falls down when you look at the whole picture.

BeetleB 3y ago

> Well, it's a bad thing for 90% of American households no matter how you look at it. It sounds like you believe that if the ownership share of the top 10% went up, then the average wealth of the bottom 90% went down. The latter does not follow from the former. Both can have seen increases in wealth.

bmitc 3y ago
Nearly every measure you can think of for standards of living, health, education, etc. is negatively affected by the increase of wealth inequality.
- BeetleB 3y ago
  This is a generalism in response to a precise statement. It's a simple question: Has the wealth of the lowest 90% gone up or down? (And 90% is too coarse. Would be good to see it for every decile.)
  - wyre 3y ago
    Wealth for the lower 90% has gone up but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases.
    - BeetleB 3y ago
      OK - new claim: > but that is nearly meaningless when the cost of living has increased much greater than any of those wealth increases. Can we show that for each decile?
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Your "precise statement" was a manipulative statement, for which both the question and answer are meaningless. Just because you state a question does not mean you get to dictate the discussion. Growth of income is one thing, but the far more important thing is wealth inequality, and the U.S. has one of the worse in the world, especially for a developed nation. As wealth inequality goes up, more people die, more people suffer, etc. Here's the equivalent of your statement: If I throw a penny into a fountain at the mall, has the wealth of the fountain gone up or down? Here's more realistic and relevant discussions on the relative gross of the lower classes: * https://www.cbpp.org/research/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality https://www.cbpp.org/research/a-guide-to-statistics-on-histo... * https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a... * https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/income-inequality-increased.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/income-inequa...
exabrial 3y ago
This is precisely correct, ironically downvoted. The 90%/10% is a distraction, the pool of wealth is nearly unlimited as long as we have natural resources (energy, materials). This trend will continue until resources are no longer exploitable, or people trying to enrich themselves created artificial scarcity or restrict their trade.
- bmitc 3y ago
  > The 90%/10% is a distraction This is false. The concentration of wealth directly correlates with increases of death, starvation, suffering, etc. Inequality is by far the most important measure. "Growth" of income is effectively meaningless on its own without relative comparisons to the other classes in your own country and the significantly higher increases in the cost of living. If you look for the narrative you'd like, you can certainly find a number in isolation supporting it. But that narrative falls down when you look at the whole picture.