Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There is no collective wealth. Wealth is created and owned by individuals. If you want some, it is up to you to generate it through personal competence and personal excellence and individual achievement. Your success and income are up to you.
So, there is no income inequality. Or opportunity inequality. There is you, your problems, and the solutions you implement to address them.
Yes!
Indeed, government is besieged by special interests (e.g. corporations, unions, environmentalists, tort lawyers, the bureaucracy itself, the politicians, etc) because its scope is rather wide (and increasing) and there is significant advantage in leveraging its power for their own purposes.
Still, as of 2014, that has not (and is not) preventing people from earning a living and improving their lot in life in this country. Nor is it helping.
Too many of us get bamboozled by our so called "leaders" and (would be) elected "representatives" into believing their message of group identity and victim-hood. Too often then our focus becomes blaming someone else and seeking some form of "redress" (usually via the government) at "their" expense, instead of doing what we can to help ourselves.
People need to travel the world to see true oppression. There is no comparison to the opportunity we have here (just check the links I provided on an earlier post that compares the US to many other countries).
Or, to put another way, no other country has seemed to crack the code on how to reduce income inequality via the government and significantly boost the poor beyond what they can already do in America.
Running a large corporation takes more talent than you will ever conceive of. CEOs deserve the pay they are negotiating. Companies are willing to pay because talented CEOs bring extreme value to their organizations.
They don't bring value, though. CEO pay is inversely related to performance. I posted links from conservative sources above.
And please do not insult my intelligence. I have worked in an executive position and if not been responsible for billions, then yes millions. I think I can conceive of the difference in effort. Like many people on city data, I'm an adult with significant work experience under my belt.
No, I haven't run Starbucks, but I have worked on public (and private) programs serving hundreds of thousands of people. It takes talent but not to the point where one person would deserve tens of millions, and another, a mere $20k.
I would like to see some reasonable study / evidence to back that claim up. It also begs the question, what to do about it?
There is a reason why people are flocking to the United States from around the world, or sending their children on lonely, dangerous, desperate ventures to sneak across our borders. And it is not just the poor who want in. As imperfect as the US is, the basic tenants you speak of is still far from being "lost".
There are actually a ton of studies on this and the reason people keep doing them is that for a long time, they were trying to figure out what else mattered as much as wealth. They didn't believe it could be so predictive and edge out so many other things, particularly talent and drive at a young age.
As for what to do about it, many people suggest equal opportunities for all children starting with universal pre-k, access to good maternal and infant health care for every family, and programs to ensure that children in poor home environments get the same support (tutoring, psychological counseling, access to sport and mentors) that rich children do.
This is what they do in many parts of the world, parts of the world with higher standards of living than we have.
But it all costs money and if you have $14 million, I can see how giving $7 million in taxes to ensure that every child has the same opportunities your own children have, could be distasteful.
As far as why people come to the United States, it's not as simple as you think. First of all, the world is made up of the colonizers and the colonized. The colonized flock to the US in spite of dangerous conditions, because their home countries are worse off. Yes. But the colonizers (the French, German, Italian, even Russian) mainly come for marriage or for the tax haven.
There are actually a ton of studies on this and the reason people keep doing them is that for a long time, they were trying to figure out what else mattered as much as wealth. They didn't believe it could be so predictive and edge out so many other things, particularly talent and drive at a young age.
The problem is that that study does not provide the data that the article you linked talks about as evidence that "Wealth Begets Wealth" (another way to say "the rich get richer"), and is topically about something altogether different...it is about the causal effect of education on income, with a conclusion that says nothing about rich getting richer.
On the article in your link, it is also rather thin in content and argument. Without any real supportive study or data (just the chart provided), it is impossible to see any relationship between the table provided to validate their conclusion and implications for inequality. In fact, what jumps out at me is that it seems to support the notion that those who are earning more tend to make better decisions about how to invest their savings, or that there are some (diminishing) economies of scale for returns (it tapers off significantly at $100K - I might speculate that it is due to their ability to have the types of investments that incur the more favorable capital gains tax rate, but more of the same type of investment does not gain much more in return).
The problem is that that study does not provide the data that the article you linked talks about as evidence that "Wealth Begets Wealth" (another way to say "the rich get richer"), and is topically about something altogether different...it is about the causal effect of education on income, with a conclusion that says nothing about rich getting richer.
On the article in your link, it is also rather thin in content and argument. Without any real supportive study or data (just the chart provided), it is impossible to see any relationship between the table provided to validate their conclusion and implications for inequality. In fact, what jumps out at me is that it seems to support the notion that those who are earning more tend to make better decisions about how to invest their savings, or that there are some (diminishing) economies of scale for returns (it tapers off significantly at $100K - I might speculate that it is due to their ability to have the types of investments that incur the more favorable capital gains tax rate, but more of the same type of investment does not gain much more in return).
My rule of thumb is if the first link checks out I will check the other. I won't bother going any further.
Well, I don't disagree that education is a big driver of economic success. But here in America, college is so expensive these days, and if you don't go to college you likely will not get a great job. Student debt will hound many people for the rest of their lives. Rich people get to send their kids to private college prep schools or to wealthy suburban public schools, and that advantage early will just keep those kids ahead of the less well-off kids. By the time college comes around, the rich kids have had a much better education. And then, not only will they not have nearly as much debt, but they might have a trust fund or something from their parents and get to devote more time to studying in college (or partying, of course) instead of working.
I'm in favor of making education our #1 national priority. We should devote much more resources to our K-12 public schools, and make state or community colleges free. It wouldn't enable lazy people, because they'd flunk out. If we implemented a better education system from all levels, we'd see a lot less inequality.
I would like to see some reasonable study / evidence to back that claim up. It also begs the question, what to do about it?
I am sure you saw the post below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MmeZeeZee
There are actually a ton of studies on this and the reason people keep doing them is that for a long time, they were trying to figure out what else mattered as much as wealth. They didn't believe it could be so predictive and edge out so many other things, particularly talent and drive at a young age.
As for what to do about it, many people suggest equal opportunities for all children starting with universal pre-k, access to good maternal and infant health care for every family, and programs to ensure that children in poor home environments get the same support (tutoring, psychological counseling, access to sport and mentors) that rich children do.
This is what they do in many parts of the world, parts of the world with higher standards of living than we have.
But it all costs money and if you have $14 million, I can see how giving $7 million in taxes to ensure that every child has the same opportunities your own children have, could be distasteful.
As far as why people come to the United States, it's not as simple as you think. First of all, the world is made up of the colonizers and the colonized. The colonized flock to the US in spite of dangerous conditions, because their home countries are worse off. Yes. But the colonizers (the French, German, Italian, even Russian) mainly come for marriage or for the tax haven.
Thank you for chiming in! Addiitonally, we need to talk about the wealth gap between black americans and white americans. This article, although mistitled, talks a lot about how our housing policies also had a huge impact on today's wealth gap.
Read the whole article, because it really goes into detail on how one family did everything "right" but did not have the same opportunities as their peers.
I'll share a story from my own family. My granddad was born in 1917. He graduated high school, college and had a masters in theology. He was also a WW2 vet. When he came back from the war, he could not get a job in the local factory in his town. Keep in mind, at the time no one even graduated high school in his town. That was like a 10% graduation rate in this small agricultural town. You would think the factory would be jumping allover themselves to find get an educated hometown guy to be a manager at the factory. But no, my granddad's town was racist, and they didn't want to hire black people. My grandad had to find a different path to success. He was a minister and owned a few stores in town. He did OK in life, and his 3 kids all went to college and got masters degrees.
Not just thinking about the US, in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Having a college education was pretty much a guarantee of elite status. But not if you were black, you still couldn't move into the "elite" areas and have access to those benefits that should have arrived with educational status. Now let's compare my peers, I have some that had college educated grandparents, and some who's parents were the first generation to go to college. And of course others who were the first in their families to go. All of my white friends with college educated grandparents grew up in upper middle class locales, as did their parents. They have access to some intergeneration wealth, while not a trust fund, but their parents had "access" to funds to help them with house down payments, 1st cars after college graduation and so on. As for my black friends, most have college educated parents in professional jobs as well, didn't have the same backgrounds. We all grew up in regular middle class neighborhoods, and most of our parents are still working in their 60s still trying to save up for retirement. Some of us may have some family land, but it isn't worth enough money to help our "future kids" with down payments.
We don't have equal opportunity in this country, and we are many generations away from that, and it keeps getting worse. We have created policies over decades that has preselected the winners and losers.
Quote:
There is a reason why people are flocking to the United States from around the world, or sending their children on lonely, dangerous, desperate ventures to sneak across our borders. And it is not just the poor who want in. As imperfect as the US is, the basic tenants you speak of is still far from being "lost".
This is a silly argument for a lot of reasons, but I am going to start with one basic tenant about the immigrants. These are the absolute most motivated people in their countries. They are highly invested in succeeding in the US, because they have given up everything they know to come here. These people are different than regular Joes. They are super -motivated and will succeed anywhere. This is true in the US as well. If you are super motivated (and have the appropriate lucky breaks) you'll succeed. But only a small portion of the population is that motivated. We can't expect everyone to be high achievers with high motivation.
I'm in favor of making education our #1 national priority. We should devote much more resources to our K-12 public schools, and make state or community colleges free. It wouldn't enable lazy people, because they'd flunk out. If we implemented a better education system from all levels, we'd see a lot less inequality.
Thomas Sowell seems to have a good handle on today's reality and the consequences of a proposal like that. Here are a few links for starters, and he has a very good book on the topic...
We don't have equal opportunity in this country, and we are many generations away from that, and it keeps getting worse. We have created policies over decades that has preselected the winners and losers.
I guess it depends on how one defines equal and opportunity. Using an article which has a title about "Reparations", I would suggest is more about outcome than opportunity. Plus it feeds into a narrative of victim-hood, focused more on anecdotes and summary level stats vs looking at the numbers behind them to find what is driving those stats.
Here is a man who has lived through the conditions cited in the article, yet has reached a level of success folks here seem to argue is next to impossible...
This is a silly argument for a lot of reasons, but I am going to start with one basic tenant about the immigrants. These are the absolute most motivated people in their countries. They are highly invested in succeeding in the US, because they have given up everything they know to come here. These people are different than regular Joes. They are super -motivated and will succeed anywhere. This is true in the US as well. If you are super motivated (and have the appropriate lucky breaks) you'll succeed. But only a small portion of the population is that motivated. We can't expect everyone to be high achievers with high motivation.
Sorry. What is silly is that you are making my point but declaring the conclusion silly. These folks ARE highly motivated and the CHOOSE the USA of all places because opportunity exists here that just does not exist to the same degree elsewhere.
Show me other countries that do it better, if the USA is so rampant at squashing opportunity for the majority.
I guess it depends on how one defines equal and opportunity. Using an article which has a title about "Reparations", I would suggest is more about outcome than opportunity. Plus it feeds into a narrative of victim-hood, focused more on anecdotes and summary level stats vs looking at the numbers behind them to find what is driving those stats.
Here is a man who has lived through the conditions cited in the article, yet has reached a level of success folks here seem to argue is next to impossible...
You didn't read the article. In fact most people who commented didn't. The article isn't about reparations at all. It is about how our housing policies actually decreased economic opportunity for some people, and all of the ways programs we created to be equalizers actually failed by design.
I get to float around with the privilege that comes from being exception. I got all the lucky breaks. My parents were college grads. I grew up in middle class suburbia. My parents were educated enough to call out any of the crappy teachers I had along the way who set low expectations for me, and most of my teachers did have high expectations for me and treated me accordingly. As a result I went to a good college and found my way to well paying jobs. Not everyone gets all the breaks like I did. People like Thomas Sowell also approach these issues from a position of privilege, not average.*
*For his generation, people who looked like me were too dark to even be invited to the black elite stuff!
**The talk about all the black immigrants going to college is pretty silly as well. Have you ever asked those kids about life at "home?" Most are from elite upper class backgrounds. Of course they go to college in the US. Their parents went to college too. The biggest predictor of success in the US comes from looking at the parents!
Quote:
Sorry. What is silly is that you are making my point but declaring the conclusion silly. These folks ARE highly motivated and the CHOOSE the USA of all places because opportunity exists here that just does not exist to the same degree elsewhere.
Show me other countries that do it better, if the USA is so rampant at squashing opportunity for the majority.
If your premise is based on exceptions, you'll never see the true reality. We can't judge success by how the tallest trees grow, we need to base it on what happens to the average trees in the forest.
Obviously there is income inequality in the USA. Some may claim the gab is getting bigger.
The main point I am considering is whether the government should take steps to address the income equality or NOT?
You want Big Brother to oppress citizens more than they are at present?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
