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See figure 2. The issue is that income/wealth compounds over time. If people in the bottom 40% have very little to invest, they have nothing that compounds. Th

See figure 2. The issue is that income/wealth compounds over time. If people in the bottom 40% have very little to invest, they have nothing that compounds. They dont even have an opportunity to risk anything, or make a better decision. The prices of the essentials are largely out of any individual's control. So any lack of ability to save / invest beyond spending on those is also out of their control. It's a vicious cycle, where excess wealth compounds, and income needed to exist dries up. Also the rich often see a larger return to their investments than poor people, so having wealth seems to aide in your ability to make more money. Exactly the sort of thing that you implied was unjust. And your other points about mobility I agree with and are addressed in notes on the site.

maerF0x0 16d ago
What is the issue with wealth compounding? The bottom 40% have a very high value asset -- their agency and actions in the real world. (Working, starting a business (however small), self sufficiency et al.). The prices of true essentials are exceedingly small. Essential is something like sharing a room with someone, eating rice beans frozen veg mix (ie very inexpensively), wearing clothes from thrift stores, exercising outside and using a library card, medicaid. Everything beyond that is, technically, optional. Having wealth aiding the overall return doesn't negate my point. Using wealth to get an unjust return does. An example of a better return would be hiring a financial advisor that (somehow) creates better returns using smarter allocations. An example of an unjust return would be creating a monopoly, buying a politician, or extracting profits from unpriced externalities (pollution and bailouts to name a couple). (These do happen in the USA, and I'm all for ending them!) There's nothing unjust about someone getting more returns on more invested, this will naturally lead to a widening wealth gap over time. It's an inherent property of existence that more invested yields more return yields yet more invested (accelerating). I do, however, like Scott Galloway's point that we need to find new ways to get the rich to spend their money, we need the poor to start 10000 businesses that gratify the rich and extract their money. Right now they're mostly accumulating it and bidding up investible assets (eg look athe P/E multiple of the S&P 500) .
- pwmglenn 16d ago
  You can configure what you believe to be the correct price of essentials on the site. The defaults are BLS group average spending data. "There's nothing unjust about someone getting more returns on more invested, this will naturally lead to a widening wealth gap over time. It's an inherent property of existence that more invested yields more return yields yet more invested (accelerating)." Do you see how there is nothing stopping insane accumulation of wealth/power? (assuming returns continue to accelerate in this manner?)
  - maerF0x0 16d ago
    There's nothing wrong with the accumulation of wealth. I fully agree that Citizens united (not capitalism) has created a distortion and corrupting force in the market place. It's not the wealth that is evil/wrong/unjust/immoral. It's the use of it to corrupt power.
    - danaris 16d ago
      But there's evidence that just having that inequality (not an absolute amount of wealth, but vastly more wealth than normal people) does, indeed, distort human perception and mindset in a way that leads to...well, where we are today.
      - Gibbon1 14d ago
        The problem is with wealth comes the power to change the rules to your advantage. This is already happening for instance the large difference between capital gains tax rates and earned income ones.
    - piva00 15d ago
      Wealth is power, you're too narrowly focusing on specific applications of this power (like your mention of Citizens United) but if that wasn't a thing there'd be innumerous other ways for wealth to be leveraged as power. Power accumulation is inherently unjust and immoral, it corrupts, the utopic benevolent benefactor is extremely rare in real life because power accumulation begets power, those who have it do not want to lose it. Also wealth accumulation is inherently unjust even in your framework of meritocracy, its accumulation and compounding nature is not meritocratic.

maerF0x0 16d ago

What is the issue with wealth compounding? The bottom 40% have a very high value asset -- their agency and actions in the real world. (Working, starting a business (however small), self sufficiency et al.). The prices of true essentials are exceedingly small. Essential is something like sharing a room with someone, eating rice beans frozen veg mix (ie very inexpensively), wearing clothes from thrift stores, exercising outside and using a library card, medicaid. Everything beyond that is, technically, optional. Having wealth aiding the overall return doesn't negate my point. Using wealth to get an unjust return does. An example of a better return would be hiring a financial advisor that (somehow) creates better returns using smarter allocations. An example of an unjust return would be creating a monopoly, buying a politician, or extracting profits from unpriced externalities (pollution and bailouts to name a couple). (These do happen in the USA, and I'm all for ending them!) There's nothing unjust about someone getting more returns on more invested, this will naturally lead to a widening wealth gap over time. It's an inherent property of existence that more invested yields more return yields yet more invested (accelerating). I do, however, like Scott Galloway's point that we need to find new ways to get the rich to spend their money, we need the poor to start 10000 businesses that gratify the rich and extract their money. Right now they're mostly accumulating it and bidding up investible assets (eg look athe P/E multiple of the S&P 500) .

pwmglenn 16d ago
You can configure what you believe to be the correct price of essentials on the site. The defaults are BLS group average spending data. "There's nothing unjust about someone getting more returns on more invested, this will naturally lead to a widening wealth gap over time. It's an inherent property of existence that more invested yields more return yields yet more invested (accelerating)." Do you see how there is nothing stopping insane accumulation of wealth/power? (assuming returns continue to accelerate in this manner?)
- maerF0x0 16d ago
  There's nothing wrong with the accumulation of wealth. I fully agree that Citizens united (not capitalism) has created a distortion and corrupting force in the market place. It's not the wealth that is evil/wrong/unjust/immoral. It's the use of it to corrupt power.
  - danaris 16d ago
    But there's evidence that just having that inequality (not an absolute amount of wealth, but vastly more wealth than normal people) does, indeed, distort human perception and mindset in a way that leads to...well, where we are today.
    - Gibbon1 14d ago
      The problem is with wealth comes the power to change the rules to your advantage. This is already happening for instance the large difference between capital gains tax rates and earned income ones.
  - piva00 15d ago
    Wealth is power, you're too narrowly focusing on specific applications of this power (like your mention of Citizens United) but if that wasn't a thing there'd be innumerous other ways for wealth to be leveraged as power. Power accumulation is inherently unjust and immoral, it corrupts, the utopic benevolent benefactor is extremely rare in real life because power accumulation begets power, those who have it do not want to lose it. Also wealth accumulation is inherently unjust even in your framework of meritocracy, its accumulation and compounding nature is not meritocratic.