Income inequality. What is it? How does it happen? Why is it bad?

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by middle-aged mom

Thank you for the link. From the link :

"The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined [b]the right of corporations to buy [/B]government, by removing limitations on campaign spending. The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift—through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price—it should not come as cause for wonder. "

Which means that whoever wrote this is a propagandist, and nothing else.

[texdav]

Originally Posted by nononsenseguy

Nope. Not taking any economics, and I wouldn't consider "Income inequality" as a valid topic for an economics class, because "income inequality" is stricktly an invention of the Left.

There you go Op ;at least for yourself you answered your own question.For most not so much.

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by jerbear30

Hi, I'm going to try to answer these questions, as an actual, out of the closet Socialist. First, I have to start by suggesting that most Socialists, such as myself, do not want to simply do away with free market economies. Rather, we want to balance them more carefully with the needs and desires of the workers who make the goods that support that economy. We don't buy the premise that once you enforce some restrictions on Capitalism, capitalism becomes mortally wounded. In turn, I will accept that you are not an evil corporate scumbag who just wants to kill off the poor even though I may secretly suspect it.

If you would acknowledge that "intentions" to not produce the results desired, then we can have a discussion. Until then, any authority to alter 'capitalism' results in it's total demise - since people WILL NOT behave as the overlords wish them to and will continue to tighten the rules until nobody can move.

Question 1. I would suggest that one improves one's standard of living by working hard, being in the right place at the right time, getting a good education and so on. These are things that most Socialists are not opposed to. The problem in the United States with this logic is that it has served as a particularly nefarious ideological apparatus in the interest of hording profits amongst a very few Americans. In short, this logic has served to limit rather than to promote opportunity, since it is used as a justification not just for reasonable betterment of one's material standing but rather for wholesale exploitation of nations and peoples. If you don't believe me, you should note that the United States has for several decades seen a decline in class mobility, relative even to European Socialist nations. One is less likely in America to move up from poverty to middle or upper class than one is in many Socialist nations. (See the conservative Business Week's "Waking up From the American Dream" for the necessary statistics).

This demonstrates that you have precisely 0% understanding of anything related to economics or the behavior of free people.

Question 4. This is where it gets tricky because the basic unit of an economy is for a Socialist the material goods that circulate within it. These are produced by workers. Thus, the company owes its very existence to its workers. Therefore, I'd say the biggest obligation a company has to its workers is a "say" in all of the levels of its operations. This means that workers should have representatives that help to determine things like salary, benefits and so on. A CEO assumes no more risk than a stock boy, since when either man loses his job, he is simply without pay. Actually, a CEO assumes less risk because he'll still get compensated handsomely.

This demonstrates the fundamental flaw of socialism, which is to say that socialists do NOT believe in ownership as a matter of fact, but of simple assignment, where certain voices simply grant and revoke ownership on the basis of emotional whim. This, of course, is when capitalism vanishes, and we turn into a mob society attempting to steal the last remaining morsels of wealth from anyone who came to have them, while NOBODY produces any, since doing so results in you being deprived of everything you work for.

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by freemkt

Got a cite for that? The rising tide of the '80s left me worse off; I faced five rent increases in five years, had to move three times because I could not afford the higher new rent, and ended up homeless (sleeping in my employer's offsite storage area) for four months because I couldn't find a plce I could afford.

Then MOVE.

You keep doing the same thing over and over again, which apparently is abject failure, and your response is to question why someone shouldn't force everyone else to change, to make it work for you.