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Your reasoning is rather specious, all the more so because your main example, Justin Bieber, is Canadian. In Canada, they don't have nearly the same problem with polarization of wealth we do here in the US.
Justin Bieber lives in the U.S. He pays U.S. taxes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pie_row
Upping the minimum wage a lot can cut the inequity big time.
Clueless. This will just lead to prices jumping to cover the price increases caused by minimum wage increases, or just cut out these jobs. Technology will take over these jobs more and more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stoutboy
It is absolutely accurate and this massive polarization and disparity of wealth is the biggest threat facing this country's future well-being. The scary thing to me is that so many people are totally ok with this state of affairs.
It's a ship that has sailed. Two things:
1) The U.S. is no longer the sold "go-to" economy in the world. This is the big problem that we have, and other countries are now coming into equal footing with us.
2) Technology is going to displaced more and more jobs. Nothing you can do here.
Is and should the issue be the earned income gap/distribution or the wealth gap/distribution. Is the issue more how very different people are with their money once they earn it? How they handle it intergenerationally? Their consumption/savings ratios? Perhaps most importantly their education and intellectual levels and ability to understand how things work and use it to their advantage?
This post is spot on.. Wealth is appreciating long-term net worth, separate from current high income. Many fail to see the difference between net worth vs. income, long-term gain vs. short-term profit, income tax rates vs income tax shelters, long-term investment vs. short-term gratification, hard-work vs. luck.... I believe these are things that often separate the wealthy from everyone else.
High-income earners are not always wealthy. And the wealthy often shelter much of their income in businesses, real estate, trusts, commercial buildings/equipment, profit sharing, etc.. Most people are not educated on all the shelters out there which is good for the growing wealthy and their tax accountants and their elected officials... but bad for others..
And these shelters do provide major incentives to pour your life savings and hard-work into business and real estate, and if successful, improve certain economies while fostering extreme inequalities. This is often the golden ticket, the most workable path from poor/middle-class to wealthy streets (not everyone can play ML baseball or sing like Beyonce). And the odds are better than buying a lottery ticket.
I doubt much will change at the top though, as the power structure contains money-hungry chameleons who will just shuffle things around, when one tax loophole closes - another will open up, perhaps in another country as the power players are international... Maybe they'll hide income internationally, so it just looks as though the disparity is lessening and the masses will be more accepting. I think the Forbes list is missing a few billionaires. Maybe they're still in Switzerland. The club will always be there though - it is human nature.
You are talking about intelligence and the ability to adapt or be wealth enough to hire someone to help you adapt. That is going to change and historically it is hard to get around Financial Darwinism and still maintain a growing productive society. Yes Financial Darwinism is perhaps the crux of the issue.
You are talking about intelligence and the ability to adapt or be wealth enough to hire someone to help you adapt. That is going to change and historically it is hard to get around Financial Darwinism and still maintain a growing productive society. Yes Financial Darwinism is perhaps the crux of the issue.
Yet it is not always the most intelligent who are the wealthiest or most productive to society, it is those who can adapt and best play the game... One may be unethical, maybe even of average intelligence, yet ultimately profitable to growing a productive society because they employ the correct solution concepts, so they are rational.
E.g. The city that works can get business done successfully, despite how many governors are in jail. One may argue it is unethical, but it is rational in context. Those who play the game well can produce for others. Rational self-interest can produce positive results for society. Not everyone will employ a perfect strategy/best response in a game, a Nash equilibrium, so their utility will be less as is their final payout. I do not think that is going to change as it is the nature of human decision making.
It appears more and more lower scale workers will brag about their low wage as if it is an " honor" to work very hard for very little wage and benefits.
Most bosses will gladly keep giving them reason to brag.
Clueless. This will just lead to prices jumping to cover the price increases caused by minimum wage increases, or just cut out these jobs. Technology will take over these jobs more and more.
Respectfully I may actually have a clue. Upping the minimum wage as far as I want to will be like what Henry Ford did with his $5 a day wage back in the day. A $30 an hr minimum wage will restore our ability to buy the excess production capacity of the world. It would put the whole world back to work. And if the EU did the same thing it would bail them out as well.
Yet it is not always the most intelligent who are the wealthiest or most productive to society, it is those who can adapt and best play the game... One may be unethical, maybe even of average intelligence, yet ultimately profitable to growing a productive society because they employ the correct solution concepts, so they are rational.
E.g. The city that works can get business done successfully, despite how many governors are in jail. One may argue it is unethical, but it is rational in context. Those who play the game well can produce for others. Rational self-interest can produce positive results for society. Not everyone will employ a perfect strategy/best response in a game, a Nash equilibrium, so their utility will be less as is their final payout. I do not think that is going to change as it is the nature of human decision making.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
- Stephen Hawking
The world is changing. How we make money is changing and the ability to adapt will help dictate who survives which is in part why I said Financial Darwinism.
Intellectual capital and the ability to create value for others who in turn are creating value for others will often make you affluent and able to create and build your own personal value.
The world is changing. How we make money is changing and the ability to adapt will help dictate who survives which is in part why I said Financial Darwinism.
Intelligence has multiple facets and can be measured on many fronts, adaptability being one of them. The ability to adapt has always been a defining feature of who survives. The game players with the right moves will win. However the number of players who can get a game token may be diminishing.
Maybe if more people accepted and practiced trickle down economics they would be better off. Stock ownership is a great way to have wealth trickle down to you as you get to share in corporate profits and the results of others innovation. Someone may have 100 times more shares than you and you earn 1/100 of their wealth in holding the same company but do you really care about how well someone else did if you are doing well? I don't!
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