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On average, kids from affluent families have a 20 point IQ advantage over kids from poor families. That's more than one standard deviation which is 15 points.

On average, kids from affluent families have a 20 point IQ advantage over kids from poor families. That's more than one standard deviation which is 15 points. Affluent families spend significantly more money in education than poor families. The elite families send their kids to $40k/year prep school since they are 2-3 years old. The more knowledge/information required to be successful in the society, the more important this difference in education spending and IQ is. The inequality is inherent. Instead of focusing on reducing the inequality, we need to convince the rich people that paying more tax to educate the majority of the population is a good thing for themselves in the long run. Why not just convince the poor people to vote that way? You may ask. Well, from my understanding, rich people knows the best on how to influence poor people.

Delmania 12y ago
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” - John Steinbeck
- kailuowang 12y ago
  My opinion is that the poor see themselves the way the rich want them to.
- zo1 12y ago
  And if they keep spending what little money they do have pretending to be millionaires, instead of spending it on their children's education... Then I'm afraid voting with their majority power to get what they want without necessarily earning it is the only way to go if you believe the state is the only way to fix the problem. Ironically, it's all the individuals that mean well that are constantly planting and reinforcing negative self-fulfilling prophecies into the minds of the poor. We need to stop telling them that they can't do it without help, and that instead they must simply do what they would if they didn't think they're helpless leeches. Because they naturally are not that, at all.
cpursley 12y ago
The top 10% of the wealthiest Americans already pay 68% of the total income tax. What's needed is better management and allocation of the existing money, not throwing more money at the problem to be mismanaged. Other countries manage to education their children well at all sorts of tax levels.
- gerbal 12y ago
  That's not an especially compelling argument. The Top 10% hold more than 77% of the wealth in the United States [1, 2]. And are much more efficient at converting short-term income into long term wealth than the lower 90% [2]. [1] http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf [2] http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf
  - thatswrong0 12y ago
    I don't see how that's a rebuttal to his actual point: > What's needed is better management and allocation of the existing money, not throwing more money at the problem to be mismanaged. His point: the top 10% earn 45% of the income and pay 68% of federal income taxes. That's a lot of money that could be used to improve the lives of the 90%, but it's being mismanaged by the government. He's saying, instead of increasing the amount of money that is going to be mismanaged by the government at the expense of the 10%, why not do more with what we already have?
    - cpursley 12y ago
      Exactly. I don't understand why we apply different rules to government. They are just a large human institution. If the Red Cross was struggling and asking for additional money when they already took in more than competing institutions, would we not look at their books and operations first before sending them more money?
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  68% of the income tax is not nearly enough, considering that the rich own the vast majority of the wealth, and benefit disproportionately from it. >Other countries manage to education their children well at all sorts of tax levels. I think you'll find that - coincidentally - those countries have much higher tax rates, and the disparity between high and low incomes is smaller than it is in the US. Education is always a good thing, and not just for the obvious reasons. But poor education is as much a symptom of damaged political belief systems as it is a cause. Fixing education will only fix the political pathologies up to a point.
bokonist 12y ago
Instead of focusing on reducing the inequality, we need to convince the rich people that paying more tax to educate the majority of the population is a good thing for themselves in the long run. Education spending has steadily risen over the last fifty years. Years of schooling has steadily increased. In my experience, the impact of spending money on education is greatly exaggerated. I was a smart kid, probably 2.5+ STD above the norm in IQ, who went to public school for a while, then to private school. In public school, I learned math mostly by going through problems in the text book. At expensive private school, I learned math mostly by going through problems in the text book. Kids who were at the bottom of the bell curve at this private school still struggled, there was nothing money could buy to make them struggle less. The primary benefit of an expensive private school is that I was surrounded with other smart people, who I could have nerdy conversations with, rather than being a weirdo nerd. The second benefit is that you get to start building a network earlier. This benefit was very limited though, as we all scattered after graduation into different locations and careers. Most of that $40k is being spent on luxuries, not on stuff needed to educate, because education is inherently quite cheap. Mostly you just need to read stuff and practice, with just a bit of guidance from a mentor to check your work and keep you on the right path. Anyone who wants to spend more money on education needs to state exactly what the money should be spent on, why they believe spending that money will have a positive ROI, and also needs an explanation of why the money we are already spending has not equalized things. Imagine you had the freedom to design an education for your child and a group of his or her peers. Any money that you save could be spent on helping them get started with a mortgage or investing in their startup or spent on interesting travel or vacations. How much would you need to spend to max-out their learning? How would you spend it?
- kailuowang 12y ago
  > How would you spend it? The first thing I would come up with is to spend it on the teachers, who are paid like shit now. I am not asserting that the current teachers deserve a much better pay. I am asserting that teacher as a profession deserve a much higher pay so that it gets the people it deserves.
  - bokonist 12y ago

Delmania 12y ago

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” - John Steinbeck

kailuowang 12y ago
My opinion is that the poor see themselves the way the rich want them to.
zo1 12y ago
And if they keep spending what little money they do have pretending to be millionaires, instead of spending it on their children's education... Then I'm afraid voting with their majority power to get what they want without necessarily earning it is the only way to go if you believe the state is the only way to fix the problem. Ironically, it's all the individuals that mean well that are constantly planting and reinforcing negative self-fulfilling prophecies into the minds of the poor. We need to stop telling them that they can't do it without help, and that instead they must simply do what they would if they didn't think they're helpless leeches. Because they naturally are not that, at all.

cpursley 12y ago

The top 10% of the wealthiest Americans already pay 68% of the total income tax. What's needed is better management and allocation of the existing money, not throwing more money at the problem to be mismanaged. Other countries manage to education their children well at all sorts of tax levels.

gerbal 12y ago
That's not an especially compelling argument. The Top 10% hold more than 77% of the wealth in the United States [1, 2]. And are much more efficient at converting short-term income into long term wealth than the lower 90% [2]. [1] http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf [2] http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf
- thatswrong0 12y ago
  I don't see how that's a rebuttal to his actual point: > What's needed is better management and allocation of the existing money, not throwing more money at the problem to be mismanaged. His point: the top 10% earn 45% of the income and pay 68% of federal income taxes. That's a lot of money that could be used to improve the lives of the 90%, but it's being mismanaged by the government. He's saying, instead of increasing the amount of money that is going to be mismanaged by the government at the expense of the 10%, why not do more with what we already have?
  - cpursley 12y ago
    Exactly. I don't understand why we apply different rules to government. They are just a large human institution. If the Red Cross was struggling and asking for additional money when they already took in more than competing institutions, would we not look at their books and operations first before sending them more money?
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
68% of the income tax is not nearly enough, considering that the rich own the vast majority of the wealth, and benefit disproportionately from it. >Other countries manage to education their children well at all sorts of tax levels. I think you'll find that - coincidentally - those countries have much higher tax rates, and the disparity between high and low incomes is smaller than it is in the US. Education is always a good thing, and not just for the obvious reasons. But poor education is as much a symptom of damaged political belief systems as it is a cause. Fixing education will only fix the political pathologies up to a point.

bokonist 12y ago

Instead of focusing on reducing the inequality, we need to convince the rich people that paying more tax to educate the majority of the population is a good thing for themselves in the long run. Education spending has steadily risen over the last fifty years. Years of schooling has steadily increased. In my experience, the impact of spending money on education is greatly exaggerated. I was a smart kid, probably 2.5+ STD above the norm in IQ, who went to public school for a while, then to private school. In public school, I learned math mostly by going through problems in the text book. At expensive private school, I learned math mostly by going through problems in the text book. Kids who were at the bottom of the bell curve at this private school still struggled, there was nothing money could buy to make them struggle less. The primary benefit of an expensive private school is that I was surrounded with other smart people, who I could have nerdy conversations with, rather than being a weirdo nerd. The second benefit is that you get to start building a network earlier. This benefit was very limited though, as we all scattered after graduation into different locations and careers. Most of that $40k is being spent on luxuries, not on stuff needed to educate, because education is inherently quite cheap. Mostly you just need to read stuff and practice, with just a bit of guidance from a mentor to check your work and keep you on the right path. Anyone who wants to spend more money on education needs to state exactly what the money should be spent on, why they believe spending that money will have a positive ROI, and also needs an explanation of why the money we are already spending has not equalized things. Imagine you had the freedom to design an education for your child and a group of his or her peers. Any money that you save could be spent on helping them get started with a mortgage or investing in their startup or spent on interesting travel or vacations. How much would you need to spend to max-out their learning? How would you spend it?

kailuowang 12y ago
> How would you spend it? The first thing I would come up with is to spend it on the teachers, who are paid like shit now. I am not asserting that the current teachers deserve a much better pay. I am asserting that teacher as a profession deserve a much higher pay so that it gets the people it deserves.
- bokonist 12y ago