Income economic inequality in the United States - What can be done to close the gap? (property tax, properties)
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OTOH- how does one person's wealth hurt your, or anybody else's chances of gaining wealth themselves?
It isn't that mysterious. National prosperity is the aggregate goods and services produced. Anyone who "makes" more money than they contribute to that production, is taking from the ones who make less than they produce.
Ideally you'd want the ones best compensated to be the people who provide the greatest enhancement to productivity (primarily tech advancement) and other measures of living standard (like developing good efficient institutions). But not more than necessary to reward them, because consumer capitalism works most efficiently when disparity is low. Production follows demand.
Seems to me that an awful lot of people are getting rich off gaming the system, while providing little that is positive to the economy or society.
isn't the divide mostly between renters who have a financial plan and those who don't?
if someone rented for their entire live, they should be able to know in advance that they will likely be renting in retirement as well, and make plans for it. vs the ones who spend their money "now" instead of saving it for later
homeowners when they sign on the mortgage, at least makes a financial plan that spans the years of the mortgage. a 30 year mortgage has them paying for 30 years for a goal. what did the renter do for 30 years as a goal?
if the renter was too poor to buy a house, in what way did you expect them to ever have a good retirement? renter or not, poor people retire poorly
But lifetime renters with low incomes cannot sufficiently save for retirement because they have little or no discretionary income left after paying rent.
The rent is too high --> can't save/invest --> nothing saved at retirement age + rent now astronomical (because it just growed and growed and never ends)--> never retire
Most developed countries have higher out of wedlock births and a much lower gini coefficient. So apparently your cause/effect assumptions are incorrect.
Yeah, it's not a good trend and it's not an accident, IMO. As OhioPeasant has already pointed out. Out of wedlock births in the U.S. are associated with unstable family lives. In Europe, that is somewhat less common, at least in some countries. So the cultural context is different. Of course, they also have more developed welfare states, which I'm not in favor of, for both philosophical reasons (the true aim of the welfare state is about centralizing power and control) and practical ones (if you don't see that America is a lot more corrupt than Scandinavia, then you're willfully blind).
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Originally Posted by rruff
You don't have to look at other countries to see the obvious either. What is it about marriage that would fundamentally make a person less poor? Or is it the "having children" part that is the problem? Obviously you have to look at the whole population and posit how the subset who are now poor, would make themselves un-poor if policies were different. You cannot simply look at characteristics of completely different people with different histories, talents, and opportunities, and proclaim that the poor should "become like them".
I don't disagree with any of that per se. Of course, you can't just push people from messed up families into marriage and expect everything to magically work out. I though that was understood without my having to explain it. Certainly I am a big proponent of birth control as I think it's pretty well established that kids born to young, especially teen, parents typically don't do so well in life.
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Originally Posted by rruff
Also, you'd have to believe that our income disparity is due to an increasing number of poor, compared to a middle class that is doing well. But this isn't remotely the case.
Actually the poverty rate has dipped over the last few years, but, granted, not by a lot.
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Originally Posted by rruff
Only the 99.9+%ile are doing well relative to per capita GDP gains.
Actually that's just factually untrue. Even liberal media outlets are admitting that prosperity, while not helping the middle class and poor very much, has helped those in the top 20% by quite a bit over the last 40 years.
But if we're really concerned about the .0000001%, as we should be, then what really needs to happen is to get rid of the debt based money system. Of course, it will take the shedding of blood for that to happen, so we confine ourselves to arguing with each other about things of less import since it's safer and easier.
Out of wedlock births can be to poor teenagers or single women or they can be to single women who make good money. There's really no way of characterizing all of them. In general though, I would agree that an unplanned birth outside of marriage is an additional financial burden that puts the woman at a serious disadvantage in terms of earnings. Nothing against women who choose to go the single mom route but personally I would never do it.
There will always be a few exceptions, but for the most part, out of wedlock births are happening to women without college degrees. So most already have less income potential in the first place. Having a kid without a husband acts as a double whammy. Because, in most cases, the dad isn't living in the home and is less involved than he would be if the parents were married and living under the same roof. 2 households to support is also more expensive than one. And single parents are also more strained for time.
Seems to me that an awful lot of people are getting rich off gaming the system, while providing little that is positive to the economy or society.
I certainly agree with that. I just think we're mischaracterizing the rich as the only villains in this game. There is a very tiny elite, the .00000000001%, where I'd agree. But those are people who don't even get their names in the news. When I bring up such subjects, I'm written off as a conspiracy nut. So to confine my argument to the more visible segments of society I would say there are parasites on every level of the economic spectrum.
But lifetime renters with low incomes cannot sufficiently save for retirement because they have little or no discretionary income left after paying rent.
The rent is too high --> can't save/invest --> nothing saved at retirement age + rent now astronomical (because it just growed and growed and never ends)--> never retire
Thar renter needs a Tiny House (TM).
those are not lifetime renters, those are lifetime poor people...
they are forever destined to be poor, regardless of their housing situation because they refuse to admit that it isn't the rent that makes them poor but their choice of lifestyle
do you honestly believe if they had a house, they would no longer be poor? they wouldn't even be able to pay off the mortgage if they weren't already successful
those are not lifetime renters, those are lifetime poor people...
they are forever destined to be poor, regardless of their housing situation because they refuse to admit that it isn't the rent that makes them poor but their choice of lifestyle
do you honestly believe if they had a house, they would no longer be poor? they wouldn't even be able to pay off the mortgage if they weren't already successful
what choice of lifestyle? My co-workers don't do drugs or crime or culture of poverty stuff but they will never own a home and they don't spend wildly.
what choice of lifestyle? My co-workers don't do drugs or crime or culture of poverty stuff but they will never own a home and they don't spend wildly.
Their life choices make it tough to make more money. It's the lack of 21st century job skills. That's largely due to poor education and poor values. The root cause tends to be lousy parenting.
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