Do you think there is a finite amount of wealth?

[Conaeolos]

Or how "medicine is better now than in 1980"... <<<---- ( @Conaeolos )
Really? So if I break my leg in a car accident, it's going to be magically knitted together in five minutes?

Just to be clear I meant it was hard to quantify. The methodology of contrasted averages isn’t reflected in different realities. I 100% agree with the principle, medical costs out pace inflation and why I don’t oppose universal public opinions. My only conflicts there come with public option verses single-payer, but that’s probably a distraction to what’s being discussed here.

my daughter is paying off 48 thousand bucks in student loan debt that did not exist in my time.

I agree that’s a crime on your daughters generation. You say (?) for the lack of opportunity to repay that education or lack of government spending more on education at the costs of other areas. I’d say for ever allowing a loan knowing it wouldn’t work for a plurality of those who took it. Loans increase demand for higher education and allowed more people to make educational investments which because supply was limited pushes higher prices pushing higher loans and reducing ROI for those whom it helps and penalties for those who can’t apply it.

So, say in bipartisanship we wipe out student loans. That’s not fixing the problem. We need to sort if the problem is over-education or if indeed the capitalist free market has a way to be improved such that your daughter can have both higher education(which may have been good for her soul) and not be broke. Universal post-secondary education isn’t a solution from my point because it’s a very expensive program that actually lowers tax-revenues overtime. Should I explain?

She just moved into her first place of her own...at AGE 26. I had my own apartment at age nineteen, and I was paying rent and living on the salary of a dishwasher WHILE going to college.

Walk me through me how this isn’t a choice...

It's crystal clear to everyone except "economists" that cost of living is way higher, wages are depressed, and costs of essentials such as healthcare and higher education (latter drives upward mobility) are unattainable by a growing number of Americans, and of course today one in six of us are facing FOOD INSECURITY.

I am happy to leave economists in ivory towers. I also have eyes, our poor even have massive problems with obesity. 1/6 food insecurity doesn’t pass a smell test. Seems gimmicky. If you mean due to covid-19 isn’t that a side effect of lockdowns? (I support monthly payments like in Canada, but the Republican solution of not locking down makes more sense)

How do you move an average job up in income other than by removing taxes and providing limited subsidized goods and services (education, healthcare, etc). Like I get the basic idea is you tax high income and increase services for everyone. Higher tax though shrinks total wealth so it’s diminishing returns and it reduces income mobility to the top which for me at least is the real deal breaker.

 

[Simpletruther]

Secular Talk

Find the latest breaking news and information on the top stories, weather, business, entertainment, politics, and more. For in-depth coverage

seculartalk.net

Claim specifically: 3:28-3:59.



One point I do agree is the covid-19 crisis has seen by legally mandated redistribution from average Americans to the corporate-class. I do not however think either the story of which he's basing his anger (e.g. DoorDash, AirBnB) are
examples of this issue in which we agree.

Other, sub-conflicts:

Meritocracy
One's 'working hard' is meaningless if the demand for their skills is so low they make minimum wage or below. Low-skilled labor should be done by entry-level or alt-level people(young/old people, high-earner who needs base money) who do not rely on wages to make a living. For people who find themselves in dire-straits in a capitalist free market, maybe due to addictions or a health complication, yes I think there should be a safety-nets maybe even sans work. This should be minimal. Poverty isn't going to disappear.

CEO Compensation
A good CEO verse a bad CEO can mean the difference between shifts in wealth in the billions, practically infinite new revenues & losses. The idea their compensation should be in line with an always in demand employees, such as say a secretary or trades person is insane to me. A secretary doesn't create value in the millions, paying them so is destroying the effective distribution of resources not is worsen our already bad selection processes.

Productivity / wages
Most productivity gains today are due to increases of technology which requires high capital-investment. People who create that technology are extremely well compensated. Diverting funds from high capital-investment technology to increase standard employee wages beyond market will only destroy wealth as it's inefficient-management. The gains for employees is in increased buying power as higher-productivity lowers prices.

Redistributive Policies
Redistribution is bad when it takes from high-effective use to low-effective use. It good only as a safety-net for those who can not compete within the market. So far example, if I produce by the market millions in value and buy a yacht creating a whole niche industry that would otherwise not exist that is infinitely better than my employees spending the same on more food, cars & entertainment (which in case you miss puts all the power into big-industry players hands).

but, but, but what about education? well, a teacher can only produce what the market will allow. So although, they are often very valuable to those who by their instruction gain knowledge that increases one ability to produce value(hence well paid). If say, instead they were teaching Joe Average to be a middle-manager (a good job) but joe lacks the underlying personality, network and opportunity to be a middle-manger. The education is actually a debt not an asset for Joe. Overing educating is a huge problem in our society, unless we change what we teach.

Progressive income tax
If you have $1,000,000 and make $100,000 verses you have $100,000 and make $1,000,000. Shouldn't both be equal?
High income tax is a great way to generate a lot of tax revenue but it comes at the cost of income mobility & creating a classed society.

Wealth tax
This would destroy an economy by destroying a lot of its wealth.
When someone is worth $1,000,000,000 it's because they own shares.
If they had to liquidate all those shares, they'd would not actually have $1,000,000,000 because no one would buy that amount of shares at that share price.
This is literally a plan to burn wealth for no gain.
Income tax produces far more tax-revenue than you could ever extract from the wealthy. We're talking fractions of a fraction.

45% of Wealth Inherited
I am motived most by what I can get for my children. My max net-worth will likely be on my death-bed. I'm not doing it for me, assuming many more are like me, death taxes would kill more economic libido more not less.

I generally agree with your thoughts.

However I would argue that wealth is indeed finite, and based upon what an economy can produce at near full employment at a given time. Yes this amount generally increases over time as productivity increases. But it is limited to what we can produce.

 

[Rudy]

Well, there certainly isn't a finite amount of MONEY in the US since we don't base the value of our money on the gold standard anymore. The fed just prints money when they want it.

 

[Simpletruther]

Just to be clear I meant it was hard to quantify. The methodology of contrasted averages isn’t reflected in different realities. I 100% agree with the principle, medical costs out pace inflation and why I don’t oppose universal public opinions. My only conflicts there come with public option verses single-payer, but that’s probably a distraction to what’s being discussed here.


I agree that’s a crime on your daughters generation. You say (?) for the lack of opportunity to repay that education or lack of government spending more on education at the costs of other areas. I’d say for ever allowing a loan knowing it wouldn’t work for a plurality of those who took it. Loans increase demand for higher education and allowed more people to make educational investments which because supply was limited pushes higher prices pushing higher loans and reducing ROI for those whom it helps and penalties for those who can’t apply it.

So, say in bipartisanship we wipe out student loans. That’s not fixing the problem. We need to sort if the problem is over-education or if indeed the capitalist free market has a way to be improved such that your daughter can have both higher education(which may have been good for her soul) and not be broke. Universal post-secondary education isn’t a solution from my point because it’s a very expensive program that actually lowers tax-revenues overtime. Should I explain?


Walk me through me how this isn’t a choice...



I am happy to leave economists in ivory towers. I also have eyes, our poor even have massive problems with obesity. 1/6 food insecurity doesn’t pass a smell test. Seems gimmicky. If you mean due to covid-19 isn’t that a side effect of lockdowns? (I support monthly payments like in Canada, but the Republican solution of not locking down makes more sense)

How do you move an average job up in income other than by removing taxes and providing limited subsidized goods and services (education, healthcare, etc). Like I get the basic idea is you tax high income and increase services for everyone. Higher tax though shrinks total wealth so it’s diminishing returns and it reduces income mobility to the top which for me at least is the real deal breaker.

Medical costs cannot outpace inflation for long in a robust free market health care environment. It is all the government involvement that’s allows that.

 

[Irwin Corey]

Like what for example? Do you mean foreign ownership (e.g. Toyota vs Ford) or actual roles?

I had to cut your reply #25 because the sum of both was bigger than this site allows.

I think it's obvious by your generalizations and grammar that you're young, naive and not particularly well educated. If you were older you would know that there was a time that These United States were the manufacturing capitol of the world. Because we had strong unions those jobs and all the supporting jobs that went with them were, for the most part, good paying with benefits. Reagans voodoo economics allowed those jobs to be shipped overseas with no idea or thought to what would replace them.

I do not agree that we are over educating our youth. I think, because we've quit investing in education - mostly because the Student Loan cartel has lobbied Congress to quit grant programs and work study - our educational system has become predatory encouraging young people to enroll in programs they are not suited for and may not be adapt at; which is part of the problem. But the even greater problem is the jobs we lost, those manufacturing jobs paid well enough to support families and retirement and were usually on the job learning.

I'm suggesting that factories back then were more diverse and plentiful and yes, collectively, their production rivaled the mega-corporations of today.

We do not agree what unskilled means. I don't believe, as I said in my first reply, that there is such a thing as "unskilled" labor. I think the rest of your comment is equally naive.

Before the FED and income tax we funded the Government very adequately and the value of OUR dollar had, overall, remained stable going back way before the revolution. I'm not suggesting, I'm AbsaByGodLutely saying having a strong middle class is what is best for OUR Country, as the 50's and 60' prove. The 1% are by definition few, the can only buy some many cars, homes ... whatever and no matter how oppulent the value of their purchases can never compete with the demand of a robust and strong middle class.

Inequality by definition is the antithesis of "a growing amount of total wealth for everyone". The growing inequality we've experience since, well Nixon, definitely since Reagan has made us a weaker less diverse and, as a result, less resilient Nation.

I've said nothing about forcing anyone to sell anything, I'm suggesting that we need to legislate for the best interests of ALL AmeriCANs not just the privileged few.

 

[Conaeolos]

I think the concern is that too much of extremes of wealth and poverty (too high a GINI index, as economists might say) may be socially and politically destabilizing, among many other potentially very dangerous dysfunctions and pathologies.

And I’d certainly agree inequality is indeed destabilizing but increased real poverty worse for everyone. From a pragmatic prospective than it must seriously asked why so many aspire for a poorer whole, just so we can have a larger middle class. On last calculation I estimated our flush system is so wealthy a UBI for 50% of the country comes to ~$45,000 / household at current taxation (minus changes for the lower 70th). That unheard of, yet we want to go the way of Europe who couldn’t do close to that, despite being subsidized by our military domination?

I can understand somewhat corporate democrat, a traditional Republican but despite many sympathies with the populist left. I can’t understand how they view this emmence wealth of rich people as coming at the cost of poorer people. I just see created wealth which we might be able to help distribute more evenly throughout the system if we’re careful.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

So, say in bipartisanship we wipe out student loans. That’s not fixing the problem. We need to sort if the problem is over-education or if indeed the capitalist free market has a way to be improved such that your daughter can have both higher education(which may have been good for her soul) and not be broke. Universal post-secondary education isn’t a solution from my point because it’s a very expensive program that actually lowers tax-revenues overtime. Should I explain?

I never advocated for "universal post secondary education".
The prospective end user must (A) be able to demonstrate "ability to benefit", (B) they must be means tested and (C) they must be able to demonstrate the ability to use their education to land a rewarding and upwardly mobile career path.
Richie Rich living in a 3.9 million dollar suburban home in Castaic doesn't need universal college, but Ricky Smith living in a rented 300 SF apartment in the San Fernando Valley with two other roommates probably does, if he has the good grades and the ambition.
And COLLEGE may not even BE the answer, because a trade may be the better option for a "Ricky Smith" instead.
We can help our young charges by helping them determine their realistic goals.

Every young prospect with ANY kind of electronic or mechanical aptitude might want to take advantage of a widely available and well subsidized curriculum in both AI and advanced robotics.

Bottom line: I grew up in the tail end of the New Deal era and I can see with my own two eyes that we are not investing in the coming generations, who WILL be holding the reins of power very soon. This is to our detriment, more than most folks have even considered.
We obsess over frit-foppery like "unfunded liabilities" and think that tossing trillions into lockboxes and enacting forced austerity is the solution when the only REAL unfunded liability is the capital development of our nation's essentials and our infrastructure.
Money today will be spent by people living today, and money of tomorrow will be spent by people living tomorrow.
A multi trillion dollar lockbox and the attendant austerity means we will not have the doctors, engineers, scientists, or even the vast swath of skilled tradesmen that will need even more desperately in the future than now. It means we will not have the kind of infrastructure needed for society itself to even function smoothly.

Bottom line is: People are not getting a "new deal" OR a square deal today, and a growing number of people know it.
And we know how to fix it because we fixed it before.
Pretending life is grand because we have 4K TV is absurd.

I am not an economist.
I am a creative professional and a parent, and I am running out of time to prepare and protect my kids.
And NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, done in the last forty years has EVER come even remotely close to a fraction of the quality of life most working class people enjoyed prior to 1980. And the last forty years is, overall, a paean to the von Mises, Ayn Rands, Chicago Boys and Alan Greenspans of the world.
The Mnuchins and their ilk are just the carrion birds snarfing up the last scraps of the carcass.

Run along now after you get your de rigeur comment in about how "people are too emotional in their political and economic approach" because as we all know, that's the snarky way of devaluing anything not uttered by the libertarians.

 

[Conaeolos]

I think it's obvious by your generalizations and grammar that you're young, naive and not particularly well educated.

The grammar is a biproduct of dyslexia. I am in fact quite educated, but also despise the educational system(so go ahead and think that). And yes, I am young(mid 30s).

If you were older you would know that there was a time that These United States were the manufacturing capitol of the world. Because we had strong unions those jobs and all the supporting jobs that went with them were, for the most part, good paying with benefits.

What if I had seen them? I acknowledge all of that.
Fact - Americans on the whole were poorer in the 1980s than today in 2020, because there was less wealth period. On the whole means if you took a random sample.

Reagans voodoo economics allowed those jobs to be shipped overseas with no idea or thought to what would replace them.

Okay. And someone born in Africa doesn’t have the option of making a pretty good living working a easy to find service job. We could bring those jobs back? Explain.

I understand from the rightwing view with infinite potential wealth finite realized. We’d need to again embrace dirty industries. I doubt that’s what you mean so expand. Make an example.

I do not agree that we are over educating our youth. I think, because we've quit investing in education..., those manufacturing jobs paid well enough to support families and retirement and were usually on the job learning.

Okay. manufacturing jobs don’t require formal education so you must agree to some extent? Okay, so we need to reform schooling to remove choice? How practically does one accomplished that?

We do not agree what unskilled means. I don't believe, as I said in my first reply, that there is such a thing as "unskilled" labor. I think the rest of your comment is equally naive.

In that I view a fair wage from supply and demand? To use my previous Secratary example. I want to hire someone, I look at market signals and offer $40,000 / yr limited benefits. Looking at my overhead, I could pay upto $150,000 / yr maximum benefits. So there’s plenty of room to up that wage.
why should I pay this Secratary more and why?

if that’s still a naive way to approach — reframe accordingly including those conditions.

Before the FED... The 1% are by definition few, they can only buy so many cars, homes ... whatever and no matter how oppulent the value of their purchases can never compete with the demand of a robust and strong middle class.

Exactly, the 1% can only overspread so much on typical purchases. Now it’s time for yachts & helicopters. Yachts & helicopters are brand new wealth. Creating new industries requiring new providers and skillsets(new opportunity to be exploit). Those who primarily buy the basics on the other hand, the profits of the cars, homes, food...goes to the 1% since they’ve show the can produce the most given the old market conditions.

The wealthy being wealthy doesn’t hurt the poor; it creates more money for everyone which indirectly benefits adjacent people given freedoms.

Inequality by definition is the antithesis of "a growing amount of total wealth for everyone".

Expand.

I've said nothing about forcing anyone to sell anything,

A wealth tax is contrasted to an income tax. Unlike income, wealth for the 1% is mostly tied up in stock value. So if they needed to pay a percent of their wealth, it would be by selling those stocks for whatever the market will pay. (Less than they are valued without a mass selloff)

 

[Conaeolos]

Bottom line is: People are not getting a "new deal" OR a square deal today, and a growing number of people know it.And we know how to fix it because we fixed it before.Pretending life is grand because we have 4K TV is absurd.

Oh I think there’s very little choice in the fact there will be changes soon. What that new new deal will look like however is not entirely clear, I don’t think it’s fair to assume the old model still applies as the government was a much smaller player back then allowing for there to be generation of new tax-revenue just not possible today. Income taxes were again a game changer, but not magic. The total wealth is much higher today so hopefully such a game-changer can be what a 4k tv is to old radio.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Fact - Americans on the whole were poorer in the 1980s than today in 2020, because there was less wealth period. On the whole means if you took a random sample.

OMG...this is incredible.
In 1983 I was a Z-1 On Call Picture Editor with the Editor's Guild IATSE Local 776 (now Local 700)
Pay was $2495.00 per week.


I also charged (AND GOT!) about $750 for a ten hour day with me, my basic BetaCam camera package, basic lighting kit and audio.
So I was both editing AND shooting, when I wasn't prowling around at night doing freelance stringer news coverage for LA News Service.

By the time the 1980's drew to a close, Z-1 Picture Editors were being replaced by the truckload, and camera day rates were roughly halved.
Today you're lucky to get $250-300 a day (non union) for a basic HD camera package, and by the way, all that HD camera gear is still as costly as the old BetaCams unless you resort to using a DSLR instead, which has limitations. But I won't get into disruptive technology because that's the coin of a different realm, with its own problems and factors, which are not germaine to this thread.
And reality TV has eaten up much of the on-call edit business and most reality TV gets away with a lot of non-union crew...especially the show runners and what passes for "writers." (reality TV claims it is 'unscripted'...of course the claim is bullshit - there is no reality in reality TV)

This is more of the same Indian blanket trick, more illusion peddling.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The total wealth is much higher today so hopefully such a game-changer can be what a 4k tv is to old radio.

Which segment of society holds most of that wealth?

 

[ataraxia]

And I’d certainly agree inequality is indeed destabilizing but increased real poverty worse for everyone. From a pragmatic prospective than it must seriously asked why so many aspire for a poorer whole, just so we can have a larger middle class. On last calculation I estimated our flush system is so wealthy a UBI for 50% of the country comes to ~$45,000 / household at current taxation (minus changes for the lower 70th). That unheard of, yet we want to go the way of Europe who couldn’t do close to that, despite being subsidized by our military domination?

I can understand somewhat corporate democrat, a traditional Republican but despite many sympathies with the populist left. I can’t understand how they view this emmence wealth of rich people as coming at the cost of poorer people. I just see created wealth which we might be able to help distribute more evenly throughout the system if we’re careful.

There are certain "public goods" which, if provided for all, can add to the total wealth of a society: things like public education, making sure children have enough to eat so they can have properly developed brains during their critical growth periods, protecting basic human rights like the rights to food, clean water, shelter, and access to healthcare, etc....

These do no make the whole poorer. A very dramatic recent example is Thailand. It is not a communist country. But it recently instituted a system of universal healthcare. Not only did their public health improve dramatically, but there was an unexpected side effect: their economy started growing faster and they eliminated the whole category of "extreme poverty" in their country. How did that happen? After a lot of investigation by public health officials as well as economists, they realized that that bottom "extreme poverty" category in their country was being created by uninsured people who were faced with sudden, unexpected, catastrophic health problems. Not only did they themselves go into extreme poverty, but their whole family would too. Family members would stop working to take care of those folks at home. Kids would drop out of school to help support the medical bills. People were losing homes and retirement savings. Once that burden was lifted off the shoulders of individuals and families, these people would still be able to get an education and keep working. The result was not just a healthier and stronger society, but a faster growing economy as well.

What Thailand can teach the world about universal healthcare

The Asian nation proves that a well researched system with dedicated leadership can improve health, affordably. In 10 years, its plan reduced infant mortality, decreased worker sick days and lightened families’ financial burdens

www.theguardian.com

It turns out catastrophic illness in uninsured people is the #1 cause of declarations of personal bankruptcy in this country as well.

It seems the world and its economy is a little more complex than just the virtues of capitalism vs. the evils of socialism. That's why ALL modern developed and developing economies in the world are mixed, hybrid economies. It's not because they are too stupid to realize the bounties of unbridled capitalism.

 

[Conaeolos]

It seems the world and its economy is a little more complex than just the virtues of capitalism vs. the evils of socialism. That's why ALL modern developed and developing economies in the world are mixed, hybrid economies. It's not because they are too stupid to realize the bounties of unbridled capitalism.

I think you misunderstood my pushback due to some who are more evangelical about a private over public model. Your first reply made very clear you support a lot more capitalism than some. I think even kyle does from the original post even if much less than you or I. Those with disposable incomes do not take issue with 20% or even 70% being taken as a cost of maintaining social-political order. Obviously Nigeria is an extreme and what true for them isn’t true when we have a 7 trillion a year public purse with plenty of people with more income than they know what to do with.

What I am trying to determine is the systems by which wealth is finite and redistribution thus beneficial. So far the people who want higher average wages - have yet to shown in my take a system better then cutting lower-incomes taxes. In terms of your suggestion which touch on two noble improvements - mainly better housing security & more assessable/affordable healthcare. I am simply not seeing how such expensive propositions can be paid sustainably. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure we can make improvements and I am sure some form of more universal public option is in our future. I just not seeing the guideline-strategy here and this tax the rich non-sense doesn’t raise tax-revenue it reduces it. Yes, I am sure we might be able to get some more but these are not small ambitions and very much have been shown to interfere with economic growth.

Yes, I sympathize with libertarians and do hypothetically think if we had lower taxes and smaller more localized governments we’d be even richer today with even more generous social safety-net in the longterm. We don’t. This thread is looking to explore alternative ideas for the here and now by pushing back against my own. I expect no-one here to change their minds except with any luck me.

 

[Deuce]

Brazil & Nigeria are both large countries flush with natural resources. Both have similarly sized populations. Our typical quick measure of wealth(GDP) makes Brazil work with $1.8 trillion & Nigeria $448 billion. Brazil than is said to have 4.5x as much wealth. Are you saying this is due to the natural resources differences?

I can agree if you have 100 acres and 100 people. If one person has 2 acres the other 99 must have less. But if you have 100 acres and 1 person produces from it 1000x more food units per acre as the other 99. Even if that single person owns the 99 acres and the others share just one plot. Everyone is wealthier and better off than if had we split it evenly.

I am hence confused how some like kyle in the original post view wealth as finite even if the ‘means’ by which we can produce wealth is finite.

Why would that confuse you? Finite is finite.

1000x is finite. 1000000x is finite. You can make up whatever numbers you want for absurd hypotheticals. There’s no scenario where any resource in this entire solar system is infinite. Literally by definition.

 

[Conaeolos]

Which segment of society holds most of that wealth?

I get what your having me look at there, but here my internal pushback: they own a lot of that wealth in name only.


I mean this in two ways:

1. Say 90% is tied up in corporations and although technically that belongs to shareholders, which when you remove the faceless funds, is just a .01%. In reality it’s operated and controlled almost entirely by the corporate-political managerial class which is a lot bigger. A class who I greatly dislike just to be clear.
2. Bezos can own a rocket ship worth more than say the entirety of 10,000 households wealth. If that 10,000 though owned that rocket ship instead of the assets they do. And could not sell to a bezos or government. It wouldn’t be worth very much at all let alone the equivalent of all their current wealth.

In 1983 I was a Z-1 On Call Picture Editor with the Editor's Guild IATSE Local 776 (now Local 700)... a DSLR instead, which has limitations.

The story helps. And I agree more are more career paths like your story have diminishing returns. Young people get in what appears to be a solid gig and than bam it’s a few years later and they’re priced out making far below livable. That’s an unstable market. And when making investments in the 100,000s that’s crippling.

So...you lived a form of it. What would have helped? Obviously we want the benefits of cheap camera production etc but without the labor having peek earning years in their 30s not their 50s.

 

[Conaeolos]

Why would that confuse you? Finite is finite.

1000x is finite. 1000000x is finite. You can make up whatever numbers you want for absurd hypotheticals. There’s no scenario where any resource in this entire solar system is infinite. Literally by definition.

Because, it’s not passing the smell test when it comes to wealth.

Again I understand there are fixed variables here but why does person A getting more mean person B get less? When the ‘more’ in question is being created by person A alone and person B has exactly what they started with.

 

[Deuce]

Because, it’s not passing the smell test when it comes to wealth.

Again I understand there are fixed variables here but why does person A getting more mean person B get less? When the ‘more’ in question is being created by person A alone and person B has exactly what they started with.

I’m pretty sure at this point you don’t actually know what the word infinite means.

Do infinite resources exist? Yes or no?

 

[Bullseye]

Wealth is neither finite or infinite; it’s created almost continually. Say I go to Office Depot and buy a box of pencils and a notebook. I take those home and over a few months I right the Great American Novel. I sell it to a punisher for ten million - my wealth has obvious increased. The punishment prints a gazillion copies and sells them - their wealth has increased as has the bookstores that sell it. And OD - the make a profit on the pencils and note books they sold me. All across the board wealth has been created.

 

[Bullseye]

Which segment of society holds most of that wealth?

The ones that earned it.

 

[ataraxia]

I think you misunderstood my pushback due to some who are more evangelical about a private over public model. Your first reply made very clear you support a lot more capitalism than some. I think even kyle does from the original post even if much less than you or I. Those with disposable incomes do not take issue with 20% or even 70% being taken as a cost of maintaining social-political order. Obviously Nigeria is an extreme and what true for them isn’t true when we have a 7 trillion a year public purse with plenty of people with more income than they know what to do with.

What I am trying to determine is the systems by which wealth is finite and redistribution thus beneficial. So far the people who want higher average wages - have yet to shown in my take a system better then cutting lower-incomes taxes. In terms of your suggestion which touch on two noble improvements - mainly better housing security & more assessable/affordable healthcare. I am simply not seeing how such expensive propositions can be paid sustainably. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure we can make improvements and I am sure some form of more universal public option is in our future. I just not seeing the guideline-strategy here and this tax the rich non-sense doesn’t raise tax-revenue it reduces it. Yes, I am sure we might be able to get some more but these are not small ambitions and very much have been shown to interfere with economic growth.

Yes, I sympathize with libertarians and do hypothetically think if we had lower taxes and smaller more localized governments we’d be even richer today with even more generous social safety-net in the longterm. We don’t. This thread is looking to explore alternative ideas for the here and now by pushing back against my own. I expect no-one here to change their minds except with any luck me.

Maybe you are looking for a perfect answer that doesn’t exist. It’s like asking someone how much time they should spend at work versus how much time they should be spending with their family. The more you do of one, the less you have of the other. How any one particular person decides to balance that resource of time between these two competing, yet equally legitimate, priorities, is very individual and subjective to a large degree- but not infinitely so. At some point you can usually tell if someone is going too far one way or the other- becoming either a workaholic or a lazy bum. The consequences start becoming dysfunctional and hurtful to the individual and those around them.

Maybe the answer to your dilemma has to be approached in a similar way. Hey, life is complicated. Sometimes the answers have to be, too.

 

[Conaeolos]

Maybe the answer to your dilemma has to be approached in a similar way. Hey, life is complicated. Sometimes the answers have to be, too.

Perhaps, and I certainly could accept that but I remain skeptical. Again not trying to convince you just expanding on my logic to see if others can challenge it.

All three level's of government bring in ~$7.03 trillion in tax revenue. There's ~128,000,000 households. That's $54,922 per household, quite a bit to meet society's moral needs.

People roughly want from a generous government safety-net:

• Education
• Help for poor/unemployment
• Retirement
• Healthcare
• Security: legal system, Police, Fire, Emergency
• Roads & other infrastructure
• Basic government services
• Protection from foreign threats

Education
We currently spend $12,517 per every American 24 & under.

Help for the Poor/Unemployed
We currently spend $28,224 per household with an income < $50,000

Retirement
We currently spend $26,935 per every American over 65.
(38% of 65+ households are <$50,000 needing possible poverty help listed above)

Healthcare
$15,872 per American household.
or
$418,907,216 per American hospital (excluding For-Profit Hospitals making up ~21%)

Security
We currently spend $2,436 per household

Roads & Other Infrastructure
We currently spend $3,134 per household.

Basic government services
We currently spend $2,816.40 per household.

Military
We currently spend $7,291 per American household.

I can accept Socialism is a necessary evil to balance inequality. I can accept government isn't as efficient as private markets, so maybe $12,517 per <24 person isn't enough to offer public-education till one turns 25, but I am constantly hearing proposals of a need for 'tax the rich' and talk that wealthy people are ignoring the poor compared to Europe etc(who actual spend less gross per capita in many cases). There's got to be some kind rough formula to the method. There is to capital markets which are also extremely complex.

 

[Conaeolos]

Do infinite resources exist? Yes or no?

I would argue quite possibly although I am willing to hear out the counters if it's so obviously wrong. So for example there might be x amount of oil on earth, but people don't want oil they want 'energy' from oil. Energy is practically infinite. Wealth is the measure of concepts like energy not concepts like oil, no?

Or for another example, yes there is a finite amount of land, but wealth would look at 'land value' which again is practically infinite not the finite land distribution.

 

[Irwin Corey]

Cutting your post #33 to comply with site requirements.

The “80’s” were a great time to be rich and not so good for everyone else. Comparing incomes from then to now isn’t an accurate measure of an AmeriCAN’s well-being. Measured well-being “on the whole” is much worse now than it was before the 80’s, and more so when compared to the 50’s and 60’s, the time I was referring to.

I don’t know why you bring up job’s in Africa, generally Africa has the lowest standard of living on the planet; of course, America is better off.
Then you have a sentence fragment, I don’t think the jobs we exported are coming back. Jobs and manufacturing techniques evolve over time. Once our plants and jobs were exported, we stopped evolving. The jobs we lost are not the same today as they were, we probably don’t want them back they might not even exist. As a Nation we have fallen behind because we haven’t evolved.

I don’t agree to any extent that we are over educating our youth. The educational system is preying on them to put them in debt without regard for whether they are being guided into wise career choices. The impetus is on getting them into a program so that they are creating and taking on debt not if it will be useful to anyone but the bankers.

WTF, you go off on tangents that really to advance your argument or this discussion. It’s not only naïve it’s a red herring. My point was that all labor/jobs require skill, and had nothing to do with how much a secretary, or any profession, is paid.
Yachts and helicopters are not “new industries”, and though they are quite expensive toys of the rich, “on the whole” they don’t create “new wealth” like the consumption a strong middle class can. And no not all the profits go to the 1% and if they do, we need to rethink how our laws are structured.

Wealth is not in and of itself bad, it’s when wealth is concentrated at the top that it’s oppressive. When America was most equitable the wealthy had 6 times the wealth of the middle-class, now they have 12 times more. But while the poor then had near zero wealth, today they are $1000.00 in debt. Wealth inequality hurts those that can least afford it the most.

Wealth is not only related to stocks, there is art and the toys you mention, multiple mansions. I don’t believe a wealth tax would result in a wholesale sell off of stocks.

 

[Deuce]

I would argue quite possibly although I am willing to hear out the counters if it's so obviously wrong. So for example there might be x amount of oil on earth, but people don't want oil they want 'energy' from oil. Energy is practically infinite. Wealth is the measure of concepts like energy not concepts like oil, no?

Or for another example, yes there is a finite amount of land, but wealth would look at 'land value' which again is practically infinite not the finite land distribution.

That’s your problem, you’re conflating a higher dollar value due to scarcity with an increase in wealth. But the higher value is, again, higher due to scarcity which is basically the opposite of infinite. The value goes up because there isn’t enough of it!

There is not infinite energy. There is not infinite anything. You’re thinking in Econ 101 terms, so I’ll oversimplify for you. If supply were infinite, the cost would approach zero. Agree?

When you invent a hypothetical, highly simplified example, I suggest you ask yourself a couple questions:

1) does this actually reflect the complexity of the real world
2) did I invent his scenario specifically to support my argument, and is there a more reasonable scenario that actually disproves my claim?

You made a number of assertions in the OP that are straight up contradicted by reality. You made these assertions based on principles you believe to be true, not actual data.

 

[Conaeolos]

Measured well-being “on the whole” is much worse now than it was before the 80’s, and more so when compared to the 50’s and 60’s, the time I was referring to.

What’s the best comparable metric of well-being “on the whole” that shows that big change in the 1980’s? I know the divergent event you refer so I not looking why that’s a good time reference. I am looking at the metric of well being where the average American went down? I’m looking at wealth & income and both are up.

Yachts and helicopters are not “new industries”, and though they are quite expensive toys of the rich, “on the whole” they don’t create “new wealth” like the consumption a strong middle class can.

But you understand the principle I am citing here? A niche industry is full of potential for new entries whereas established mature ones are dominated by the established already wealthy operations which will always be the domain of the establishment.

You can acknowledge consumption by the middle-class of mainstream goods by nature is the mechanism by which establishment 1% receive their disproportionate incomes? And if say, you closed non-essential work you’d will always see the wealth accumulate at the top as there’s no opportunity to use newly created wealth to overtake long established players as you as you would in a free-market.

And no not all the profits go to the 1% and if they do, we need to rethink how our laws are structured.

All is extreme, but capitalism gives ownership to the biggest producers. So yes profits will always go disproportionately to the 1% owners in a fixed(mature) money cycle. Can one out produce establishment players to change that? Of course but the chances are extremely small compared to niche industries because innovation is well explored and highly innovative people in that area bought off with high employment incomes not ownership.
These mature money cycles are where capitalism most struggles but by nature is also a the disproportionate producer of niche industries which offsets given time. I am guessing this is where you’ll focus so expand away. In my mind it goes back to the question in the title of this thread, which we sem to conceptualize differently.

When America was most equitable the wealthy had 6 times the wealth of the middle-class, now they have 12 times more. But while the poor then had near zero wealth, today they are $1000.00 in debt.

Those are all relative comparisons which do not hold when you compare what you could buy to what you can buy. So I agree inequality has increased, inequality is destabilizing, but if the poor is 10x richer and the wealthy 1000x more. I am not actually seeing the issue, unless the reason with the higher rate was ill gotten and can be modified without making everyone start going in the opposite direction. (I do think there are ways, but they’re on for the most part on the right not left of the idea spectrum)

Debt is also not usually a sign of poverty. You can’t pay if you have nothing. So the fact you have it is a sign someone someone thinks it’s more likely you paid out than not.

I don’t believe a wealth tax would result in a wholesale sell off of stocks.

How? It’s where all their wealth is stored and far more liquid than say selling off a mansion or a expensive toys.