The United States of Inequality

[MillTownCath]

We do

Tell that to your fellow Americans who will die without health care.

 

[estesbob]

Tell that to your fellow Americans who will die without health care.

I dont know of any.

 

[Oruwaith]

Income, wealth, standard of living. And these days, I guess I shouldn’t omit the obvious: employment!

When it comes to income, studies have already shown that the majority of people found in the low income bracket are no longer there years later. It is most likely harder now since we are in a recession. Heck, a study also showed that the rich experience the income declines.

Standard of living has sky rocketed over the last 50 years. Do you agree with that?

Wealth, kinda hard to say. I have never actually seen any studies about that. It seems rather irrelevant, but I am not sure.

Yes, employment is really bad right now. The market simply doesn’t have confidence in Washington and the politicians. It is up to our elected leaders to restore that confidence. You agree?

 

[FaithBuild18]

To my knowledge, there is no U.S. document proclaiming that all people will earn equal incomes.

This sounds pretty fair to me. What would be unfair is to steal money from hard working people and give it to those who did nothing to earn it.

Fairness =/= Equality

Fairness = Justice

 

[FaithBuild18]

Tell that to your fellow Americans who will die without health care.

Patients are treated even if they lack health insurance.

 

[Tsuwano]

In the United States, money doesn’t “go” to one group or another.

It is earned.

The more productive you are, the more you earn.

I’m a little confused.
Are you saying that all people who receive money in the United States have earned it?
Are you saying that those make less money than others are necessarily less productive?
How do you define productive? On the face of it, your statement seems to imply that those who are wealthy are more productive than those who are poor and that there is no injustice involved in the equation. Your statement seems to lack nuance, and without nuance it is nonsense.

 

[Tsuwano]

It is a “bad” thing only if the Govt tries to “fix” it.

Not true. For those on the bottom who are suffering, it is a bad thing even if the government doesn’t try to fix it. It is just as bad, perhaps even worse, when the situation is ignored and people are allowed to continue suffering.

 

[exnihilo]

Are you saying that all people who receive money in the United States have earned it?

If I may answer the questions myself, obviously that is not true. Many people get money from the government, both rich and poor, which is not by earning it but by what is essentially legalized theft since the property transferred to them is not taken voluntarily.

How do you define productive? /QUOTE]

That is a good question. Off hand I would suggest that productive might be shorthand for produce things which are valuable to others in society.

We all have basic needs which are really few: food, water, shelter, clothing. Everyone in America can have their most basic needs met without having to do anything at all to acquire those things themselves. Beyond those basic needs people have tremendous wants. Some of those wants are fulfilled by producing something useful to society in order to get money to exchange for that want. Some wants are fulfilled by our own work without exchange in the economy.
Tsuwano;8273436:

Are you saying that those make less money than others are necessarily less productive?

People who earn less money are working at something that is less valuable to society or which can be done by anyone, that is it does not require a special skillset. The value of labor is determined not by the laborer but by the market. Measuring work in terms of hours spent doing something is not very useful. Some people are simply more efficient or harder workers and thus produce more in the same amount of time.

Many people who earn less have not invested time in acquiring a skill that is in demand and therefore can not demand a high wage. In order to encourage learning skills (which are a type of investment and investments are forgoing current consumption to increase future consumption) we pay those who do acquire skills more money.

In general I would say work that earns less is clearly less productive work.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The government employs people who buy things. The government builds things. The government creates an atmosphere where businesses can exist (roads, schools, police, health).

Want to see an economy without any real government regulation? Go to Mexico.

Austerity measures + higher revenues = lower debt (right now we are going through austerity measures, and that is why our economy is starting to hurt again)

Lower taxes + government spending = helps the economy. (Basic economics 101)
This is exactly what the stimulis package was. (No it didn’t solve the economic crisis, but it did turn it around so we started gaining jobs and losing less)

“The government builds things” … excellent summary of a complete misconception.

Not everything that the government builds is useful and efficient.

In fact, many of the things are anti-productive.

Government decisions tend to be driven by “photo-ops” … which is why, for example, government-owned bridges are not maintained and collapse regularly. Maintenance is not something that is valued highly by the public sector.

Government decisions tend to be driven by “one-size-fits-all” policy and procedures manuals … which is why government technology tends to be about two generations behind the current state of the art. The government prefers to use … although not “required to” … low bids based on some standard specification … but the specs take months or years to write, generally by people who, though good natured, are not experts in the field of what they are writing about. So by the time they actually issue an IFB or RFP, the item is already obsolete.

Government decisions are generally based on pressure tactics by various and sundry outside groups. So, we get stuck with bridges to nowhere … meaning that there may be some private ferry providing adequate service, but the government will come in and overbuild some gorgeous ginormous bridge which is grossly “under-trafficed” and also put the ferry operator out of business. Happens over and over, in this country and elsewhere.

Yes, yes, yes, we need “roads, schools, police, health” … but the government sector is usually the worst possible venue to provide them. When roads are really needed, what usually happens is that a private corporation is established … a toll road company … which sells bonds and uses the proceeds to build the thing in a tiny fraction of the time the government would take … and pay off the bonds with tolls. And then continuously improve the facility based on actual experience and actual operational needs.

Health issues are best served by individuals, working voluntarily … not by the government.

The same can be said for schools … the government run schools are run for the benefit of the employees, NOT for the benefit of the children … which is why things like charter schools and home schooling are so much in demand. And why parents are constantly doing things on their own to help their children get a better education.

I love our police and fire people … and many fine men and women have died in the line of duty … , but as they say, “When seconds count, we are only minutes away.” Meaning that you are basically on your own, and the police are there to write it up afterwards. The real first responders are the folks who live and work at the scene.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

For your reading pleasure:

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

And this: “How NOT to Grow an Economy”

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903327904576522382504681992.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

 

[Monte_RCMS]

And then you’ve got the Government-produced and Government-directed Chevy Volt … the “electric car” that nobody wants, that nobody can afford, and that (almost) nobody is buying.

lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=634373

forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2011/08/19/chevy-volt-flagship-model-of-the-government-industrial-complex/

Only being made because a high government official abrogated the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and then decided HE wanted this car to be manufactured, so it was done by his decree. Even though he has no knowledge about cars.

A complete colossal waste of the taxpayers’ money!

 

[estesbob]

Not true. For those on the bottom who are suffering, it is a bad thing even if the government doesn’t try to fix it. It is just as bad, perhaps even worse, when the situation is ignored and people are allowed to continue suffering.

Nobody is ignoring it. Income disparity does not cause poverty.

 

[ProVobis]

but President Bush II got the deficit down to $1 Billion per day.

You probably won’t find this in the WSJ, but if you can get them to stop selling Treasury bonds altogether, we’d have that deficit down faster than that. Unfortunately, Bernanke’s printing so much money to buy them and thus sticking it to the taxpayer without a penny of it actually being “spent” into the economy. And he’s contemplating sticking the taxpayer with another $500 billion (that’s how many per day?) and all this done without Congressional approval. Both Bush and Obama are to blame for Bernanke’s ability to do this.

 

[Rascalking]

Margaret Thatcher said it best. When people start talking about a wealth gap, they would rather have the poor poorer, as long as the rich were less rich. She was, as per usual, 100 percent correct.

 

[Tsuwano]

Nobody is ignoring it. Income disparity does not cause poverty.

You say that nobody is ignoring poverty or suffering and I assume you think this is a good thing. But when the government doesn’t ignore poverty and suffering and tries to help alleviate it, that seems to be a bad thing in your book. No doubt, the government can’t do everything to solve poverty and many things it attempts to do is done poorly, but that doesn’t mean there is absolutely no role for the government to play at all. Still, the sad truth is that many people, both in government and in the private sector, do ignore poverty and its causes. To say that nobody is ignoring it is simply not correct.
I agree with your statement that income disparity does not cause poverty, but great disparity in income can reveal that a political or economic system is unjust and heavily balanced against the poor. When we see signs that a system is unjust, then we should attempt to correct that system or at least aid the poor in having the same opportunities that the wealthy have to improve their lives.

 

[Tsuwano]

Margaret Thatcher said it best. When people start talking about a wealth gap, they would rather have the poor poorer, as long as the rich were less rich. She was, as per usual, 100 percent correct.

If we could have the poor less poor and the rich less rich, I would settle for that. What I don’t want to see is the rich becoming richer while the poor become poorer. Something is screwy when this is a valid economic outcome.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The people in charge of calculating income more-equalness have also come up with this:

The person who calculated this bit of information is a professor at The University
Of West Virginia.

"A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A new vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons of gas a year.

So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

The government claims 700,000 clunkers have been replaced so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.

We spent $8.57 for every $1.00 we saved.

I’m pretty sure they will do a much better job with our health care though.

 

[estesbob]

You say that nobody is ignoring poverty or suffering and I assume you think this is a good thing. But when the government doesn’t ignore poverty and suffering and tries to help alleviate it, that seems to be a bad thing in your book. No doubt, the government can’t do everything to solve poverty and many things it attempts to do is done poorly, but that doesn’t mean there is absolutely no role for the government to play at all. Still, the sad truth is that many people, both in government and in the private sector, do ignore poverty and its causes. To say that nobody is ignoring it is simply not correct.
I agree with your statement that income disparity does not cause poverty, but great disparity in income can reveal that a political or economic system is unjust and heavily balanced against the poor. When we see signs that a system is unjust, then we should attempt to correct that system or at least aid the poor in having the same opportunities that the wealthy have to improve their lives.

Nobody said ignore poverty. What was said is that tryng to “fix” income disparity does nothing to alleviate poverty.

 

[estesbob]

The people in charge of calculating income more-equalness have also come up with this:

The person who calculated this bit of information is a professor at The University
Of West Virginia.

"A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A new vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons of gas a year.

So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

The government claims 700,000 clunkers have been replaced so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.

We spent $8.57 for every $1.00 we saved.

I’m pretty sure they will do a much better job with our health care though.

The greatest benefit of the cash for clunkers program is that it got millions of Obama for President bumper stickers off the road

 

[Rascalking]

If we could have the poor less poor and the rich less rich, I would settle for that. What I don’t want to see is the rich becoming richer while the poor become poorer. Something is screwy when this is a valid economic outcome.

Than be morally consistent. Sell what you have, give it to the poor, and live with them. I mean real poor-not “AC/Color TV/Car poor” I mean, “I need food poor”.

I’m well off. I give to many charities. When I wasn’t as well off a few years ago, I couldn’t afford to help the poor.

Because I’ve worked hard, I can aquire a life that allows me to help others. Should I be punished because of that?

I live in a free state-thank God, which is getting freerer as we speak-Woo hoo-the idea of “the poor are better morally and the rich don’t deserve their wealth” which, if it isn’t said, is strongly implied by people-has never been super strong in my state. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be catching on.