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I think it's also worth noting that the US already gets 70% of all its taxes from the top 10% Why is that worth noting? That only further demonstrates the inc

I think it's also worth noting that the US already gets 70% of all its taxes from the top 10% Why is that worth noting? That only further demonstrates the income inequality in the United States. Furthermore, wealth is far more important to take into account than income in any discussion of taxation or inequality. Also, I have yet to hear anyone make an argument that sounds anything like "simply being rich is wrong."

waterlesscloud 14y ago
"That only further demonstrates the income inequality in the United States. " So is this the basic issue, then? That there's income inequality? Because that's always going to be the case. Even in the most socialist nations, or even communist nations. There is always a strong disparity of income and power. Always. And there always will be.
- toyg 14y ago
  The problem is not the disparity, but how wide it is. Inequality in the US is currently so wide, it's absurd. It's widening in Europe as well, but not as fast and not as radically as in the US in the last 30 years. This is not healthy, it's polarizing society and eroding the social contract. The only way to effectively balance this trend is through higher taxation.
  - crusso 14y ago
    First of all, doesn't anyone see the correlation between increased government power (revenue/spending) and an increase in the income inequality gap? Look at a graph showing govt spending as a percentage of gdp vs the inequality gap. Secondly, assuming that the "inequality gap" is necessarily a bad thing, which I don't think anyone has shown... Why do you assume that higher taxation will decrease the income inequality gap? If anything, higher taxation means more money (ie power) in the hands of the government. More power in the hands of the government just leads to more crony capitalism that concentrates even more money and power into fewer hands. Worse, those companies that then have access to all that money and power are the worst sorts of companies that don't even need to provide good products and services to consumers. Instead they get more bang for the buck by sucking tax dollars out of the system.
    - Ygg2 14y ago
      - Secondly, assuming that the "inequality gap" is necessarily a bad thing, which I don't think anyone has shown Actually they have. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/osu-iil050812.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/osu-iil050812... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw In face increasing Gini coefficient for 0.01 increases mortality in state for 122% after 12 years. Yes, it is a bad thing in almost all recorded metrics. - First of all, doesn't anyone see the correlation between increased government power (revenue/spending) Nope. I think revenue spending isn't really good metric of government power and so far no one has proved that. You are free to test your hypothesis though. I'd wager that there is quite a bit of income inequality if your gov. revenue is low but they spend a lot of money.
      - crusso 14y ago
        > Actually they have. I found the youtube to be more compelling than the OSU study. The OSU study contradicted lots of other studies that found nothing conclusive for nearly the same hypothesis. The author of the study managed to fit a curve that he was apparently looking for by allowing for enormous flexibility on the time axis. That's like finding pictures in clouds. You can see what you want to see if you look at something from enough angles. To be meaningful, you would need to apply those findings to lots of other data sets to see if you're just seeing what you want to see or if there's a real likelihood of a pattern. Science isn't finding one occurrence of something that you were looking for. Science is predicting where and how you'll find something and then having others find you're right over and over. On the Youtube lecture: The statistics seem to show correlation, but causation? Is the inequality the cause of a lack of trust? Or is it the other way around? Furthermore, I saw lots of other correlations in the data they showed. Graph homogeneity of the population's ethnical background vs trust. Look at the states and countries that scored high trust. At a glance, they seemed to be the highly ethnically/religiously/culturally unified ones. > Nope. I think revenue spending isn't really good metric of government power Okay, what would you suggest... Watts? > I'd wager that there is quite a bit of income inequality if your gov. revenue is low but they spend a lot of money. Wait, your conjecture agrees with me. Spending is high and inequality is high. The gov. revenue is almost a non-factor in terms of government power. For the part of the curve where the currency hasn't been completely devalued because of over-borrowing and printing money, the amount the government spends is all that your really need to describe government power. Lack of revenue to back it up is just a ginormous credit card bill that no one seems to remember is out there.
- splinterofchaos 14y ago
  That is not to say that the level of inequality is not greater than it was before or is elsewhere. The extent of inequality has grown in the states (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequalit...) and compares unfavorably with other countries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equ...).
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    With a first look at that chart, what it seems to truly reflect is the size of the middle class in each nation. Wouldn't a better solution be to increase the size of the middle class rather than decrease the size of the upper class? Also, among the western european nations and the US, I suspect a strong correlation between immigration rates and the data on the chart.
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      Problem is, a strong middle class usually rests on the strong provision and spread of certain goods. Some of these are private goods, like owning one's own house, but many of them are public goods: liveable environment, public transit, public schools, public universities, public health and health-care, etc.
- georgieporgie 14y ago
  So is this the basic issue, then? That there's income inequality? No, not at all. Who have you ever heard make such a claim? The issue is the size of the inequality, its growth, and the fact that historical periods with less inequality and a stronger middle class seem to correlate with strong overall growth and prosperity.
  - ry0ohki 14y ago
    I don't understand why the size of inequality matters. If I make $20,000 and Rich guy makes $2,000,000, how does me making $20,000 and him making $200,000,000 million make any difference?
    - driax 14y ago
      Because the money he spends raises the price of goods etc. Therefore your 20,000 becomes less money. This is easy too see in expensive cities. The same middle-class person would have to demand more money to live at the same standards as he/she would have elsewhere, simply because richness have driven up the prices.
      - sukuriant 14y ago
        How?
      - ry0ohki 14y ago
        So inflation is the primary concern?
    - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
      It makes no difference to you. It makes a great difference to the politician trying to get control of $198,000,000. The blather about a strong middle class is misdirection. If the U.S. governing.g elite cared about the middle class, they would abolish the armies of bunny rabbit inspectors, No Child Left Behind functionaries, and so forth. The American middle class is being choked to death by regulators, not billionaires.
    - 14y ago
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Let me put it this way. It sounds like you don't want the entire government budget to rest on taxing one class and one class alone, the upper-class. That's a pretty virtuous and equitable thought to have, very fair to people who probably have much more than you. Problem is, if income/wealth inequality is too severe, those guys are the only ones with money to contribute. So on some level, you need a certain level of income/wealth equality just to have multiple classes/brackets with enough excess income to contribute to the national welfare.
  - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
    When the poor people are fat, it is safe to assume the middle class has money to contribute to running the country.
    - anthonyb 14y ago
      They're fat because they can't afford decent food and have to eat crap. Assumptions don't get you anywhere.
      - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
        They get fat by not having enough money for food?! Seriously?! Do you think they spend so much on lottery tickets because the rich so unfairly keep them out of derivative trading?
        anthonyb 14y ago
        Decent food. There are two main effects at work: If all you can afford is ramen/bread/fast food, your body makes you overeat to get enough other nutrients (eg. vitamin C, B). The second is that your insulin goes crazy with all those simple carbs and sugars (carbs are cheap, unlike protein, fish and vegetables, and get metabolised to glucose) so you get massive blood sugar swings. The low side of those makes you eat more and get fatter. Lottery tickets are a strawman. Or, to quote a science fiction novel that I can't quite remember: "a tax on hope."
aeturnum 14y ago
It's worth noting when talking about how the wealthy should pay their "fair share." That discussion should at least consider what percent of all taxes they pay. Also, I have some friends who grew up very poor and who believe pretty strongly that it's wrong to own an excessive amount of money while others go hungry. Though I think they make good points, that's not my view.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

"That only further demonstrates the income inequality in the United States. " So is this the basic issue, then? That there's income inequality? Because that's always going to be the case. Even in the most socialist nations, or even communist nations. There is always a strong disparity of income and power. Always. And there always will be.

toyg 14y ago
The problem is not the disparity, but how wide it is. Inequality in the US is currently so wide, it's absurd. It's widening in Europe as well, but not as fast and not as radically as in the US in the last 30 years. This is not healthy, it's polarizing society and eroding the social contract. The only way to effectively balance this trend is through higher taxation.
- crusso 14y ago
  First of all, doesn't anyone see the correlation between increased government power (revenue/spending) and an increase in the income inequality gap? Look at a graph showing govt spending as a percentage of gdp vs the inequality gap. Secondly, assuming that the "inequality gap" is necessarily a bad thing, which I don't think anyone has shown... Why do you assume that higher taxation will decrease the income inequality gap? If anything, higher taxation means more money (ie power) in the hands of the government. More power in the hands of the government just leads to more crony capitalism that concentrates even more money and power into fewer hands. Worse, those companies that then have access to all that money and power are the worst sorts of companies that don't even need to provide good products and services to consumers. Instead they get more bang for the buck by sucking tax dollars out of the system.
  - Ygg2 14y ago
    - Secondly, assuming that the "inequality gap" is necessarily a bad thing, which I don't think anyone has shown Actually they have. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/osu-iil050812.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/osu-iil050812... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw In face increasing Gini coefficient for 0.01 increases mortality in state for 122% after 12 years. Yes, it is a bad thing in almost all recorded metrics. - First of all, doesn't anyone see the correlation between increased government power (revenue/spending) Nope. I think revenue spending isn't really good metric of government power and so far no one has proved that. You are free to test your hypothesis though. I'd wager that there is quite a bit of income inequality if your gov. revenue is low but they spend a lot of money.
    - crusso 14y ago
      > Actually they have. I found the youtube to be more compelling than the OSU study. The OSU study contradicted lots of other studies that found nothing conclusive for nearly the same hypothesis. The author of the study managed to fit a curve that he was apparently looking for by allowing for enormous flexibility on the time axis. That's like finding pictures in clouds. You can see what you want to see if you look at something from enough angles. To be meaningful, you would need to apply those findings to lots of other data sets to see if you're just seeing what you want to see or if there's a real likelihood of a pattern. Science isn't finding one occurrence of something that you were looking for. Science is predicting where and how you'll find something and then having others find you're right over and over. On the Youtube lecture: The statistics seem to show correlation, but causation? Is the inequality the cause of a lack of trust? Or is it the other way around? Furthermore, I saw lots of other correlations in the data they showed. Graph homogeneity of the population's ethnical background vs trust. Look at the states and countries that scored high trust. At a glance, they seemed to be the highly ethnically/religiously/culturally unified ones. > Nope. I think revenue spending isn't really good metric of government power Okay, what would you suggest... Watts? > I'd wager that there is quite a bit of income inequality if your gov. revenue is low but they spend a lot of money. Wait, your conjecture agrees with me. Spending is high and inequality is high. The gov. revenue is almost a non-factor in terms of government power. For the part of the curve where the currency hasn't been completely devalued because of over-borrowing and printing money, the amount the government spends is all that your really need to describe government power. Lack of revenue to back it up is just a ginormous credit card bill that no one seems to remember is out there.
splinterofchaos 14y ago
That is not to say that the level of inequality is not greater than it was before or is elsewhere. The extent of inequality has grown in the states (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequalit...) and compares unfavorably with other countries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equ...).
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  With a first look at that chart, what it seems to truly reflect is the size of the middle class in each nation. Wouldn't a better solution be to increase the size of the middle class rather than decrease the size of the upper class? Also, among the western european nations and the US, I suspect a strong correlation between immigration rates and the data on the chart.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Problem is, a strong middle class usually rests on the strong provision and spread of certain goods. Some of these are private goods, like owning one's own house, but many of them are public goods: liveable environment, public transit, public schools, public universities, public health and health-care, etc.
georgieporgie 14y ago
So is this the basic issue, then? That there's income inequality? No, not at all. Who have you ever heard make such a claim? The issue is the size of the inequality, its growth, and the fact that historical periods with less inequality and a stronger middle class seem to correlate with strong overall growth and prosperity.
- ry0ohki 14y ago
  I don't understand why the size of inequality matters. If I make $20,000 and Rich guy makes $2,000,000, how does me making $20,000 and him making $200,000,000 million make any difference?
  - driax 14y ago
    Because the money he spends raises the price of goods etc. Therefore your 20,000 becomes less money. This is easy too see in expensive cities. The same middle-class person would have to demand more money to live at the same standards as he/she would have elsewhere, simply because richness have driven up the prices.
    - sukuriant 14y ago
      How?
    - ry0ohki 14y ago
      So inflation is the primary concern?
  - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
    It makes no difference to you. It makes a great difference to the politician trying to get control of $198,000,000. The blather about a strong middle class is misdirection. If the U.S. governing.g elite cared about the middle class, they would abolish the armies of bunny rabbit inspectors, No Child Left Behind functionaries, and so forth. The American middle class is being choked to death by regulators, not billionaires.
  - 14y ago
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
Let me put it this way. It sounds like you don't want the entire government budget to rest on taxing one class and one class alone, the upper-class. That's a pretty virtuous and equitable thought to have, very fair to people who probably have much more than you. Problem is, if income/wealth inequality is too severe, those guys are the only ones with money to contribute. So on some level, you need a certain level of income/wealth equality just to have multiple classes/brackets with enough excess income to contribute to the national welfare.
- Daniel_Newby 14y ago
  When the poor people are fat, it is safe to assume the middle class has money to contribute to running the country.
  - anthonyb 14y ago
    They're fat because they can't afford decent food and have to eat crap. Assumptions don't get you anywhere.
    - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
      They get fat by not having enough money for food?! Seriously?! Do you think they spend so much on lottery tickets because the rich so unfairly keep them out of derivative trading?
      - anthonyb 14y ago
        Decent food. There are two main effects at work: If all you can afford is ramen/bread/fast food, your body makes you overeat to get enough other nutrients (eg. vitamin C, B). The second is that your insulin goes crazy with all those simple carbs and sugars (carbs are cheap, unlike protein, fish and vegetables, and get metabolised to glucose) so you get massive blood sugar swings. The low side of those makes you eat more and get fatter. Lottery tickets are a strawman. Or, to quote a science fiction novel that I can't quite remember: "a tax on hope."

aeturnum 14y ago

It's worth noting when talking about how the wealthy should pay their "fair share." That discussion should at least consider what percent of all taxes they pay. Also, I have some friends who grew up very poor and who believe pretty strongly that it's wrong to own an excessive amount of money while others go hungry. Though I think they make good points, that's not my view.