Human irrationality - an incorrectable cause of income disparity?

[imagep]

...Wealth take effort to build,...

Or luck, or inheritance, or cronyism, or corruption or theft or rare God given talent (that an individual may have developed, but without that rare degree of talent would otherwise not have benefited financially from that particular activity regardless of the amount of effort put forth).

 

[imagep]

Do you dispute that 43% pay no federal income taxes?

I don't think the issue is federal income tax, as much as it is overall taxation. You guys like to pretend that federal income tax is the only form of tax, or that it is the source of a majority of our tax revenue (it is not).

 

[American]

Or luck, or inheritance, or cronyism, or corruption or theft or rare God given talent (that an individual may have developed, but without that rare degree of talent would otherwise not have benefited financially from that particular activity regardless of the amount of effort put forth).

Rare.

 

[imagep]

Rare.

Maybe not as rare as you think.

About one third of the folks on the Forbes 400 list had parents who were on the list (Walton family, Koch, etc). About one third had parents who were rich, but just not rich enough to make the list (like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet). Right there, in just those two factors (inheritence and likely some cronyism), accounts for two thirds of the Forbes 400.

Tell me, you aren't one of those people who think that Bernie Madeoff actually "earned" the billions that he stole are you?

 

[bluesmoke]

“But what if these market anomalies weren’t just anomalies, but were actually caused by human irrationality and nothing more?”

What do you mean “if”? The market is moved by humans making emotion affected decisions by whatever happens that affects their emotion.

With this knowledge, marketers product place aisles to sell more than you would buy otherwise. Guaranteed.

Human irrationality does not go unchecked. It is used to the utmost in every way. Especially politically, where the visceral grabs that emotion of the irrational and runs for the Whitehouse.

 

[Lafayette]

1PERCENTER HOUSEHOLDS

Are you going to come to a salient point, or continue to bloviate and pontificate a bunch of philosophical nonsense?

Philosophical, me arse. We are talking fact not fiction when we site the numbers!

If you have a cogent argument in return, put it. JUST STOP THE SARCASM.

The Rabid Right (of your ilk) in this forum has no cogent argument to remedy Income Disparity in America. Because the sole solution is to increase drastically upper-income taxation, which Rightwingers will not tolerate whilst they control the HofR.

It is a pity that the American public - during mid-term elections - does not understand how our tripartite system of governance works. Or how the Replicants need control only one chamber of Congress to prevent any progressive legislation from changing the game-rules of taxation. (Which is why the plutocrats pile in the money to make sure mid-term elections do not change their hammerlock on Congress.)

Your kind think they have a God-given right to a flat-tax at 30% on humongous income. The Tax Game-Rules are "fixed" for two select group of households.The 1% and the 10% of households who garner about half of all the Income generated economically. The richest being the 1% of the nation's 134 million American households. That's only 1.34 million households - who obtain mean household incomes that are mind-boggling:


The rest of us in the lower quintiles (the 90Percenter households) have to scramble after the 50% of Income that remains; whilst he other half goes to the 10% of taxpayer households. (The root problem of Income Disparity in the nation is that far too little income goes to the lowest classes and far too much to the 10% of households that constitute the Upper Class.)

Those are the hard-facts for most Americans, but not the elitists like you - self-contented with the lion's share of Income that inexorably moves up into Wealth shared wildly unfairly, as also shown in the infographic above.)

What you cannot abide is that the truth comes out in Public Forum for all to see. Because the National Press would never dare to print it ...

(Let's remember that this is an "Economics Forum" where we should deal with "factual evidence"? Surely you can blather contemptuously elsewhere.)
___________________________

 

[Moderate Right]

Can you provide any examples of how "liberals destroy the little guy business owner"?

Doubling the minimum wage

 

[Moderate Right]

The OP actually mentioned that he is against any and all taxation on businesses. I'm really not sure what type of "punishment" you can possibly be referring to, other than business taxation. Can you enlighten me?

Doubling the minimum wage

 

[Moderate Right]

I don't think the issue is federal income tax, as much as it is overall taxation. You guys like to pretend that federal income tax is the only form of tax, or that it is the source of a majority of our tax revenue (it is not).

You guys like to pretend that a one percenter doesn't pay millions in taxes when he does.

 

[Lafayette]

IN PURSUIT OF ECONOMIC JUSTICE



For Economic Students: The basic study paper behind the infographic given above can be found here:
TRENDS IN AMERICAN LIVING STANDARDS AND INEQUALITY, 1959–2007 by Edward N. Wolff.

Levy Economics Institute and NYU
Ajit Zacharias and Thomas Masterson
Levy Economics Institute

Abstract:

We analyze the trends from 1959 to 2007 using an expanded measure of income called the Levy Institute
Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW). LIMEW is different in scope from the official U.S.
Census Bureau measure of gross money income (MI) in that our measure includes non-cash transfers,
public consumption, imputed income from wealth, and household production and nets out personal
taxes. While the annual growth rates of median LIMEW and MI are very close over the whole period
(0.67 and 0.63 percent), median LIMEW grew much faster than median MI after 1982 and much slower
before. The Gini coefficient of MI is uniformly higher than that of LIMEW but both show about the
same change from 1959 to 2007. Decomposition analysis shows that changes in inequality are driven to
a large extent by non-home wealth in LIMEW and earnings in MI. While the racial gap in MI declined
somewhat over the 1990s and 2000s, the racial gap in LIMEW actually widened a bit. Over the same
years, while there was little change in the gap in MI between the elderly and non-elderly, the LIMEW
of the elderly actually overtook that of the non-elderly.

It would be nice if some graduate students would pursue this work and update it regularly to prompt the sort of Economic Justice in the land that is necessary to correct our fundamental Income Disparity.
______________________________________

 

[Lafayette]

STARK REALITY

Can you provide any examples of how "liberals destroy the little guy business owner"?

Can't wait for a pertinent response to that one!

This forum is replete with warped-minds who think that Making a Megabuck (in Wealth, by means of Uncle Sam's illicit upper-income tax-rate Net Income Pump) is all well and good (for them). Despite the fact that the country has no effective Minimum Wage and, thus, nearly 15% of its population live permanently below the Poverty Threshold (since 1965).



America's stark reality is this: According to the above Census Bureau infographic 45 million American men, women and children are (and have been) living below the Poverty Threshold for more than half a century!

Shame on Uncle Sam! Shame! Shame! Shame!
______________________

 

[Lafayette]

BUSINESS BOTTOM-LINE

Doubling the minimum wage

Horse-feathers. Yet another wholly unjustified inane remark stated as if it were the 11th Commandment.

Doubling the minimum wage will indeed pull a good many people out of the Poverty Threshold Trap. Which is an economic concept devised and followed by the Census Bureau - and an infographic of which I have posted in this forum multiple times.

So, what does such a rise in the Minimum Wage mean to business-and-commerce operational costs or profits?

Not much, because the impact in higher costs (in products/services) is driven straight through to the customer. It won't harm your bottom-line much. Besides, it depends.

Here are the consequences:
*As for the American consumer, we might all pay 20 cents more for a BigMac.
*Corporate profits could suffer somewhat in markets where competition is fierce and passing through higher costs is difficult. Demand could diminish, but for the most part increases in costs would be so low as to be unnoticeable by the consumer.

And so what if all businesses are required to adopt higher pricing to cover the higher costs? The additional cost need not affect your bottom-line. Yes, it could affect consumer costs.

But, so what? The lowest damn China Price has already gouged out low-cost employment in America.

No pain, no gain ...
_________________________

 

[joG]

STARK REALITY



Can't wait for a pertinent response to that one!

This forum is replete with warped-minds who think that Making a Megabuck (in Wealth, by means of Uncle Sam's illicit upper-income tax-rate Net Income Pump) is all well and good (for them). Despite the fact that the country has no effective Minimum Wage and, thus, nearly 15% of its population live permanently below the Poverty Threshold (since 1965).

View attachment 67203495

America's stark reality is this: According to the above Census Bureau infographic 45 million American men, women and children are (and have been) living below the Poverty Threshold for more than half a century!

Shame on Uncle Sam! Shame! Shame! Shame!
______________________

It would be nice, if you could supply the link. The graph cannot or just barely be read on most of the machines I use.

 

[joG]

STARK REALITY



Can't wait for a pertinent response to that one!

This forum is replete with warped-minds who think that Making a Megabuck (in Wealth, by means of Uncle Sam's illicit upper-income tax-rate Net Income Pump) is all well and good (for them). Despite the fact that the country has no effective Minimum Wage and, thus, nearly 15% of its population live permanently below the Poverty Threshold (since 1965).

View attachment 67203495

America's stark reality is this: According to the above Census Bureau infographic 45 million American men, women and children are (and have been) living below the Poverty Threshold for more than half a century!

Shame on Uncle Sam! Shame! Shame! Shame!
______________________

As to the "Shame! Shame!" chant you so like, you know very well, how thin and threadbare your argument is. Just alone the definition of poverty is very debatable and says extremely little about reality but a lot about the political agenda of those that base their argument on it.

I studied the US and German data a few years ago and found that the lowest deciles in Germany and the US*) had practically the same buying power after transfers nominally and in PPP. This was true in a country that has been a strong propagator of social democracy over decades. And in spite of that, they did no better. Now, I would not be ashamed of that, but I would question the system.

*)I did not look at the French numbers, but I assume they were no better than the German ones and are now probably worse than then.

 

[Lafayette]

Just alone the definition of poverty is very debatable and says extremely little about reality but a lot about the political agenda of those that base their argument on it. .

Yeah, well, go dispute that silly notion with the Census Bureau who assesses and reprints the analysis annually.

Stop denying claims that you disagree with, or go confront the Census Bureau who tallies and publicizes the data that they collect in the field. I claim that the Census Bureau poverty-data reflects the facts-at-hand regarding the amplitude of poverty-in-America.

Now you disprove it. Good luck with that one ... !

I studied the US and German data a few years ago and found that the lowest deciles in Germany and the US*) had practically the same buying power after transfers nominally and in PPP. This was true in a country that has been a strong propagator of social democracy over decades.

I cannot possibly see what this has to do with the price of beer in China.

If you take the BigMac Index from the Economist, you will note that the index is undervalued in the EU with respect to the US nowadays. The reason the BigMacs were selected as the reference price is because:
*They are a meal-product available over-the-counter nearly world-wide, and,
*Their fabrication is local employing local ingredients-and-labor costs.

(Not that such is a permanent outcome, but it is nowadays.)
___________________

 

[Lafayette]

It would be nice, if you could supply the link. The graph cannot or just barely be read on most of the machines I use.

Don't blame me, blame the software employed by this forum. I have already complained regarding the un-readability of both graphics and texts linked by employing internal software*.

It is far easier to simply mount the external link, which is an alternative. But, often, when you do that, the forum-software will not recognize the link! (Go figure.)

If you want the original infographic, find it here. (Betcha thought I fabricated it!)

The illisibility of infographics aint my fault and its bothers me as much as you. I have already complained to no avail ...

*Or, it is entirely possible that the sites SysOp has expressly set a limit on the size of embedded photos so as not to over-employ available disk-space. Which is silly in such a forum, but if all the forum is supposed to do is exchange text-messages, then large-size photo-files are considerably heavier in disk-space necessary. Most of the infographics are reduced to ridiculously low binary-sizes before being posted.
______________________________

 

[joG]

Yeah, well, go dispute that silly notion with the Census Bureau who assesses and reprints the analysis annually.

Stop denying claims that you disagree with, or go confront the Census Bureau who tallies and publicizes the data that they collect in the field. I claim that the Census Bureau poverty-data reflects the facts-at-hand regarding the amplitude of poverty-in-America.

Now you disprove it. Good luck with that one ... !



I cannot possibly see what this has to do with the price of beer in China.

If you take the BigMac Index from the Economist, you will note that the index is undervalued in the EU with respect to the US nowadays. The reason the BigMacs were selected as the reference price is because:
*They are a meal-product available over-the-counter nearly world-wide, and,
*Their fabrication is local employing local ingredients-and-labor costs.

(Not that such is a permanent outcome, but it is nowadays.)
___________________

Okay. So you want to debate poverty in support of an agenda and deflect from the relativity of the data you need to support your attack. Fine.

And thank you for the BigMac Index and your rather fleeting explanation. I have followed it for a long time and I do know how it works down to the nitty gritty. But again, using it as you do demonstrates more populist talent than statistical knowledge.

 

[American]

1PERCENTER HOUSEHOLDS



Philosophical, me arse. We are talking fact not fiction when we site the numbers!

If you have a cogent argument in return, put it. JUST STOP THE SARCASM.

The Rabid Right (of your ilk) in this forum has no cogent argument to remedy Income Disparity in America. Because the sole solution is to increase drastically upper-income taxation, which Rightwingers will not tolerate whilst they control the HofR.

It is a pity that the American public - during mid-term elections - does not understand how our tripartite system of governance works. Or how the Replicants need control only one chamber of Congress to prevent any progressive legislation from changing the game-rules of taxation. (Which is why the plutocrats pile in the money to make sure mid-term elections do not change their hammerlock on Congress.)

Your kind think they have a God-given right to a flat-tax at 30% on humongous income. The Tax Game-Rules are "fixed" for two select group of households.The 1% and the 10% of households who garner about half of all the Income generated economically. The richest being the 1% of the nation's 134 million American households. That's only 1.34 million households - who obtain mean household incomes that are mind-boggling:
View attachment 67203487

The rest of us in the lower quintiles (the 90Percenter households) have to scramble after the 50% of Income that remains; whilst he other half goes to the 10% of taxpayer households. (The root problem of Income Disparity in the nation is that far too little income goes to the lowest classes and far too much to the 10% of households that constitute the Upper Class.)

Those are the hard-facts for most Americans, but not the elitists like you - self-contented with the lion's share of Income that inexorably moves up into Wealth shared wildly unfairly, as also shown in the infographic above.)

What you cannot abide is that the truth comes out in Public Forum for all to see. Because the National Press would never dare to print it ...

(Let's remember that this is an "Economics Forum" where we should deal with "factual evidence"? Surely you can blather contemptuously elsewhere.)
___________________________

That's because you think wealth is a zero sum game.

 

[American]

Maybe not as rare as you think.

About one third of the folks on the Forbes 400 list had parents who were on the list (Walton family, Koch, etc). About one third had parents who were rich, but just not rich enough to make the list (like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet). Right there, in just those two factors (inheritence and likely some cronyism), accounts for two thirds of the Forbes 400.

Tell me, you aren't one of those people who think that Bernie Madeoff actually "earned" the billions that he stole are you?

No, maybe one third inherited wealth. And you act like it's a constant and no new wealth is created. Explain Zuckerberg.....didn't make his own billions or not?

 

[Lafayette]

That's because you think wealth is a zero sum game.

No, and I happen to think also that the rich deserve their Wealth (conditionally).

Just not in the proportions at present that a self-serving Upper Income Taxation allows them to have.

It's a legalized "rip-off" mounted by Saint Ronald - and the reason that so many statues have been erected in his honor. (See here. ;^)

And therein lies the debate. Your turn ...
___________________________

 

[American]

No, and I happen to think also that the rich deserve their Wealth (conditionally).

Just not in the proportions at present that a self-serving Upper Income Taxation allows them to have.

It's a legalized "rip-off" mounted by Saint Ronald - and the reason that so many statues have been erected in his honor. (See here. ;^)

And therein lies the debate. Your turn ...
___________________________

Well then stop bitching about the wealthy. They didn't pass the a laws. Contact your govt.

 

[Lafayette]

I have followed it for a long time and I do know how it works down to the nitty gritty. But again, using it as you do demonstrates more populist talent than statistical knowledge.

You're the one who prompted me to cite the site.

You made the comment about comparable national pricing.
_____________________________

 

[joG]

You're the one who prompted me to cite the site.

You made the comment about comparable national pricing.
_____________________________

That is true. I mentioned the use of PPP in an aside. Though, it too is fraught with caveat, you did not pick that up nor discuss the main issue, to which it had been the aside, but popped up a quasi irrelevance that happened to appear useful. That is a nice conjuring act, in deed. But let's leave it at that.

 

[Lafayette]

But let's leave it at that.

Yep, let's. You're knit-picking ...
_______________

 

[joG]

Yep, let's. You're knit-picking ...
_______________

IT might appear so to someone that did not realize the magnitude of difference it makes to know the precise meaning of the concepts one uses compared with slightly other. But hey! That is, what populism lives on.