Dispelling Myths About Income Inequality

JohnfrmClevelan said:

It's not a matter of taking money from people "because [we] think they have too much." It is a matter of redistributing the national income more evenly so that the economy functions more efficiently.

Try this analogy: a society produces plenty of food for everybody, but it is distributed unevenly. If the uneven distribution isn't terribly egregious, everybody still gets enough to eat, so they can work a full day and continue to produce a surplus of food. But if the uneven distribution is so bad that a lot of workers don't get enough food to sustain themselves, then overall production is going to suffer.

This is the problem with income in today's economy - too much of it goes to too few, and demand suffers greatly for it.

Click to expand...

You don't really give a crap about the poor. All you ever talk about is the economy and, according to your own admission, the better the economy does, the richer the one percent get.

Moderate Right said:

You don't really give a crap about the poor. All you ever talk about is the economy and, according to your own admission, the better the economy does, the richer the one percent get.

Click to expand...

Was your mother infected with the Zika virus before you were born?

joG said:

All but the last sentence is quite true. The problem with inheritance is that the allocation of productive assets is not by where the highest efficiency is, as it is during the accumulation process. That is why I suspect that inheritance is probably economically inefficient under today's circumstances. Also probably our technology is not yet capable of handling the transfer of property rights in a way that does not do more harm to the economy than we would like.

Click to expand...

Interesting theory, but I'm inclined to agree only partially.

Some of those accumulated assets (particularly the funds) are likely being put to use in some productive manner. High net-worth individuals will likely have the largest portions of their assets producing income, since they need to generate income to sustain their lifestyles and cover the expenses of their high-maintenance and depreciating assets.

They may have a high 7 figure house, but they'll also have an 8 figure investment portfolio.

Now their investment portfolio may not be as efficient as the start-up funds used by Steven Jobs and Bill Gates, but it may be reasonably efficient. Of course we really don't know, and it is likely to be extremely conservative unless the bulk of the family's assets are in a hard run family business.

JohnfrmClevelan said:

Was your mother infected with the Zika virus before you were born?

Click to expand...

There you go with the insults again when you can't make a counter point. Whenever you are hit with something you can't respond to, out comes the insults because that is all you got.

Moderate Right said:

You don't really give a crap about the poor.

Click to expand...

Moderate Right said:

There you go with the insults again

Click to expand...

Chomsky said:

Interesting theory, but I'm inclined to agree only partially.

Some of those accumulated assets (particularly the funds) are likely being put to use in some productive manner. High net-worth individuals will likely have the largest portions of their assets producing income, since they need to generate income to sustain their lifestyles and cover the expenses of their high-maintenance and depreciating assets.

They may have a high 7 figure house, but they'll also have an 8 figure investment portfolio.

Now their investment portfolio may not be as efficient as the start-up funds used by Steven Jobs and Bill Gates, but it may be reasonably efficient. Of course we really don't know, and it is likely to be extremely conservative unless the bulk of the family's assets are in a hard run family business.

Click to expand...

Oh, the question is not of a totally inefficient system needing a savior. After all, the wealth is in the hands of professional managers that have shown success in their specialties. Much of it would be in the same hands after introducing a different transfer mechanism. The main difference would be that the wealth would belong to persons that had made their money themselves and been successful at that. The assumption is that they would be more prone to investing in areas they understood and were themselves active. It would also have the effect of giving these persons deeper pockets with the capability of making larger investments.

The truth is, however, that the transfer mechanism is unclear and the risks of redistributing wealth have been and remain large. At this point in time I would suspect that we do not have social and economic instruments up to the job without major danger.

Moderate Right said:

You don't really give a crap about the poor

Click to expand...

Says the guy who wants to raise their taxes