4 ms·

While it sounds great to add some zero-sum game to it, it is not entirely precise. > For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in th

While it sounds great to add some zero-sum game to it, it is not entirely precise. > For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7. Had the job market been a zero-sum game like you propose, then the income inequality would not have been so dire in the US.

nickpp 2y ago
But said income would've been much lower - like in Europe. Europe "solved" inequality by effectively limiting the upper range. Meanwhile the lower tier is just as low (or lower) than in the US. People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania.
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  > People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania. Reducing this to employment mobility displays a lack of knowledge of history.
WalterBright 2y ago
Why is it "dire"? Who is harmed by someone else having more money? BTW, all attempts at income equality have ended in miserable failure, some of them with millions of dead people.
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  Please dive into the literature on inequality. You will discover that inequality in itself is problematic.
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    Having read literature on it, I still struggle to understand how most of the problems attributed to income inequality aren't really problems of poverty.
    - tossandthrow 2y ago
      An example is that inequality usually materializes in higher asset prices: people with proportionately more money tends to buy assets, driving up the price. Now, the less well of people cannot afford housing anymore and are priced out. Ingerently this not because housing is expensive, but solely because of income inequality. You can insist it is because of poverty. But making both groups 10 times as well off would make no difference. The less we'll off people would still struggle to access housing. You can also say that poverty is a total consequence of income inequality. Now come and tell me again how inequality makes the world a better place. Edit: I take, as you have read the literature, that you perfectly know that the same is the case of capital and produce from that capital in general. And so you are perfectly enlightened now to understand that poverty is inequality.
      - Aloisius 2y ago
        People with substantial multiples of wealth largely do not buy the same class of assets that those with a fraction of theirs do. Someone who earns $1000/month and someone who earns $10 million/month are not competing for the same housing. Their effect on each other is minimal compared to those with very similar incomes who are competing for the same housing. The only exception to this would be if there isn't enough housing for everyone, but the outcome would be identical (someone not getting housing) regardless of the level of inequality. The idea that poverty is inequality makes little sense. Poverty is lacking a basic standard of living. If everyone has everyone they could want and their neighbor discovers an antimatter reserve under them catapulting them to unheard of levels of wealth, nothing materially changes for everyone else. Similarly if everyone has perfectly equal income and wealth and still doesn't have enough to eat, they're all in poverty, regardless of the lack of inequality.
        tossandthrow 2y ago
        Seems like you didn't read that literature after all. You definitely would Understand that ownership also comes in the form of owning rentals, mortgages, and not just owner occupied housing. That ownership is stock and shares with increasing valuations where you require increasing yields - requirements that makes the produce of the companies more expensive to support these valuations - inflation without a basis for salary inflation (as that would make the incomes more equal, which you explicitly forbade). If half the population (your naighbor in you analogy) amassed significant wealth, it most certainly would materially change your wealth and make you poor - their money would gravitate to equity, yours and your kids equity. Literally making your poor.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    I've read about societies where everyone is equal. They're all hellscapes.
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  Presumably this means 'attempts to eradicate income inequality' because otherwise the paragraph sounds like nonsense from some libertarian think tank. Every nation on earth makes some attempt to lessen inequality. But pick any ill that exists in society - crime, prejudice, traffic accidents, noise pollution - and try to completely eradicate it, and chances are it will cause misery.

nickpp 2y ago

But said income would've been much lower - like in Europe. Europe "solved" inequality by effectively limiting the upper range. Meanwhile the lower tier is just as low (or lower) than in the US. People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania.

tossandthrow 2y ago
> People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania. Reducing this to employment mobility displays a lack of knowledge of history.

WalterBright 2y ago

Why is it "dire"? Who is harmed by someone else having more money? BTW, all attempts at income equality have ended in miserable failure, some of them with millions of dead people.

tossandthrow 2y ago
Please dive into the literature on inequality. You will discover that inequality in itself is problematic.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  Having read literature on it, I still struggle to understand how most of the problems attributed to income inequality aren't really problems of poverty.
  - tossandthrow 2y ago
    An example is that inequality usually materializes in higher asset prices: people with proportionately more money tends to buy assets, driving up the price. Now, the less well of people cannot afford housing anymore and are priced out. Ingerently this not because housing is expensive, but solely because of income inequality. You can insist it is because of poverty. But making both groups 10 times as well off would make no difference. The less we'll off people would still struggle to access housing. You can also say that poverty is a total consequence of income inequality. Now come and tell me again how inequality makes the world a better place. Edit: I take, as you have read the literature, that you perfectly know that the same is the case of capital and produce from that capital in general. And so you are perfectly enlightened now to understand that poverty is inequality.
    - Aloisius 2y ago
      People with substantial multiples of wealth largely do not buy the same class of assets that those with a fraction of theirs do. Someone who earns $1000/month and someone who earns $10 million/month are not competing for the same housing. Their effect on each other is minimal compared to those with very similar incomes who are competing for the same housing. The only exception to this would be if there isn't enough housing for everyone, but the outcome would be identical (someone not getting housing) regardless of the level of inequality. The idea that poverty is inequality makes little sense. Poverty is lacking a basic standard of living. If everyone has everyone they could want and their neighbor discovers an antimatter reserve under them catapulting them to unheard of levels of wealth, nothing materially changes for everyone else. Similarly if everyone has perfectly equal income and wealth and still doesn't have enough to eat, they're all in poverty, regardless of the lack of inequality.
      - tossandthrow 2y ago
        Seems like you didn't read that literature after all. You definitely would Understand that ownership also comes in the form of owning rentals, mortgages, and not just owner occupied housing. That ownership is stock and shares with increasing valuations where you require increasing yields - requirements that makes the produce of the companies more expensive to support these valuations - inflation without a basis for salary inflation (as that would make the incomes more equal, which you explicitly forbade). If half the population (your naighbor in you analogy) amassed significant wealth, it most certainly would materially change your wealth and make you poor - their money would gravitate to equity, yours and your kids equity. Literally making your poor.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I've read about societies where everyone is equal. They're all hellscapes.
thomassmith65 2y ago
Presumably this means 'attempts to eradicate income inequality' because otherwise the paragraph sounds like nonsense from some libertarian think tank. Every nation on earth makes some attempt to lessen inequality. But pick any ill that exists in society - crime, prejudice, traffic accidents, noise pollution - and try to completely eradicate it, and chances are it will cause misery.