Inequality
 

I'm going to try to start what I hope will be a non-polemical thread here. Let's see if that can work.

The NY Times had an op-ed this week from a couple of economists that argued it's highly misleading to focus on income inequality. Here is a blurb from the op-ed that summarizes the argument:I can think of a couple of qualifying observations that would hold true even if the data here are totally reliable (from what I have read, the general gist is reliable, though some of the precise figures can be disputed). Here are the qualifiers:

1. Consumption comparisons are valid only in the short-term. Higher earners will presumably not spend many many times what lower earners will because, at a certain point, there's a limit to what you can spend on yourself. But the excess of the high-earner's earned income over the amount the high earner spends on consumption has to go somewhere, and where it goes is savings and investment. That means over the long term, even if there is not a large disparity in the people's short-run contentment, there is a disparity in wealth accumulation. Wealth provides (so far as I can tell) two things that income doesn't - first, it provides some degree of security that if something happens to adversely affect your earning capacity, you won't starve or lose your home. The other thing is it gives you the ability to direct its disposition - to your kids or to charity or wherever. To that extent, there is a value people get from wealth as a result of higher income that just can't be measured by looking at consumption. So, while I don't necessarily contest the thesis that consumption inequality is more relevant than income inequality, consumption inequality itself has problems as a measure of well-being because there are things it doesn't pick up.

2. Income inequality itself is misleading, primarily because the ways of calculating income are distorted by the tax system. Taxable income tends to be driven by what is reportable, but what is reportable does not align that well with what actually is paid to or for the benefit of the filer. The result is that reported taxable income tends to be much more unequal than actual compensation. So, for instance - just to take a very common item of compensation that isn't reported - a person who makes $30,000 but has $15,000 worth of health insurance paid by her employer does NOT make half what a person who is paid $60,000 and has the same coverage makes. The lower-paid person makes 60%, if there are no other non-wage items involved. But there of course are other non-wage items: for example, employer's social security contribution (which is capped), 401(k) income accumulation and/or matching (also capped), etc etc etc. These items will, on a percentage (not raw dollar) basis, boost low-earners' income much more than high earners'. Once you factor in all the compensation people get that isn't reportable -- which includes, for low earners, things like food stamps or heating subsidies -- the degree of real income inequality correspondingly gets reduced. (I can't remember where I saw the graphs on this, but they're out there.)

Should this matter? It depends how you feel about economic inequality. If you think inequality is in and of itself a bad thing you'll think it's a problem that needs somehow to be fixed. If you think inequality is not necessarily a bad thing so long as it's linked to productive endeavors, you'll take a different view. But whichever school of thought you belong to, certainly it is in everyone's interest to have a handle on what the true scope of the issue is. That's where I think this NY Times article does a service - it gets us to thinking about what really makes people well-off or not.

Comments?

i dont see the logic behind any argument that would replace data on income with data on consumption rates/levels--but i would have no problem with datasets that juxtaposed the two--the difference between the lines you might draw would be a nice image of credit and it's role--and that seems to me one level of what this question turns on, really: what to do and how to think about the pervasive role played by consumer credit in driving expenditures.

there's a second problem:
the relation of these expenditure levels to the problems of structural inequality in the distribution of wealth is different, it seems to me: IF one were to replace data about income with data about consumption levels, it would have the effect of minimizing the appearance of economic inequality. but everyone would know--at least for a while--until they forgot about it--that nothing particular has actually changed about the distribution of wealth except what is now being used to index it.
on this, the question seems to me not to be whether you imagine inequalities in the distribution of wealth to be a problem or not, but rather what statistics are to do, what they measure and why they measure it--and whether it is a good idea to be cavalier about switching indices in order to generate or reinforce ideological biais or for political advantage (think about the reagan redefinition of inflation rates by excluding from them what causes inflation rates to rise...what good has it done, beyond enabling reagan to say he "did something" about inflation)---if you think statistics are an extension of politics, then you'll land in one place on this--if you think that it's a good idea for policy-makers to have something approaching an accurate picture of the socio-economic realities they are supposed to administer/interact with, even if that picture poses problems--then you'd land in another.

==========

as a counter to the edito quoted in the op, here's an editorial from this morning's ny times by robert reich.
make of it what you will in general, but it sure raises problems for the op edito:


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html

Its an interesting way to look at it, though I can see it being more of a way for a 'progressive' to justify more government confiscation of someones property. After all if you only consume two times as much you don't need to make 5 times as much, at least in some of their logic.

The real issue as I see it is 'so what?'.

Outside of the handful of mega rich, the lifestyle of the wealthy is not a whole lot different than the middle class which isn't that much different from 'the poor'.

There are people, actors, elite athletes, CEO's who will make more in a year than I will my entire life. So what? Does their wealth hurt me, or anyone else?

As long as people are not unfairly being kept 'down' then it doesn't really matter what someone makes.

When I see people starving in the streets, dying of curable diseases because they are refused treatment due to poverty, when hopelessness is due to the system not allowing hard work to succeed, then let me know.

Well, those two posts just now point to two different views of whether we should care about inequality. My additional question was which kinds of inequality we should care about, and why.

Inequality in potential, not inequality in wealth.

When you are unable to become successful due to the system, then you have created a permanent underclass which is obviously not a desirable outcome.

Interestingly while progressives want the fascist take over of the health care system by the government, I'd much rather see money spent on allowing intellectually qualified individuals be granted tuition for public colleges/universities. This is somewhat needed as so many highschools currently do not give you the skills you need to succeed.

Maybe a better way to do this would be to set up different systems of comparison and label them. Some systems clearly do have inequalities in represented data and as such should be recognized as such, but that hardly means that all systems have the same equalities or that even all systems are unequal.

Yes, my solution does require that one learn new things *gasp*, but quite frankly, I believe that if one is to stay adequately informed it takes work.

Edit: I'll add a rudimentary example of what I'm talking about. Once upon a time when Maths were in their infancy, people wanted to understand averages. The problem? There are different ways to calculate averages.

Man 1 firmly believed that the best way was to present the usual average (4 + 4 + 6) ÷ 3 ~ 4.6

Man 2 firmly believed that the middle number was the average. ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Man 3 absolutely believed the number that is repeated more often than any other is the average (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8), and he was also sleeping with man 1's wife, but that's moot.

What was done? Each was given a name—mean, median, and mode—and maths smiled.

One economics blogger whom I read frequently had the following question: why do we care about economic inequality but we don't care about inequality of things like sports ability, physical attractiveness, or height. Each of those can seriously affect a person's sense of self and well-being. For instance, I was always the kid picked last when teams got chosen up. It wasn't fun at all. Jocks tend to attract the most attention. Why isn't that something people get incensed about? Basic athletic ability isn't earned, it's something you're born with. Isn't this an unfair inequality? Why do we tolerate it? Or physical appearance - that one really is unearned.

uh...because economic inequality has fuck all to do with arbitrary physical attributes like height.

it is a political question that follows from the way in which capitalism works.

this is not rocket science.
it is not a surprise.
it is not news.

and you can't collapse inequality in the capitalist context into some endless history of inequality if you want to say anything meaningful because the basis for it is fundamentally different--you know, generalized wage relations as over against ownership of the means of production concentrated in the hands of a particular social class (complicated by the stock and again by the transformations in stock ownership of the past 30 years in the states--but the point still basically holds)

it's a bad analogy.

O'rly?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/Careers/0...ple/index.html

the reason I'm raising these, roachboy, is because I want to try to get people to isolate what it is about inequality that bothers them (IF it bothers them). I thought that pointing to different kinds of unequal endowments would get people to articulate what is similar or different among the various kinds. Your post just restated a conclusion without analyzing.

Questions for loquitur and Ustwo:
The unsuccessful 1936 Republican party presidential candidate, Alf Landon, and the next successful Republican candidate, President Dwight Eisehower. made remarkably similar statements, 15 years apart, related to progressive measures taken by government in the mid 1930's in response to the collapse of US economic activity:

<h3>It isn't well known, anymore, but in the mid 1930's, in response to the inequity in wealth and power distribution in the US, over the strenuous objection of business and wealthy interests, a temporary committee was formed to investigate power and wealth distribution in the US, with an emphasis on the effects of patents and monopolies. The committee, "TNEC" was only allowed to investigate for less than three years, and it issuded a number of reports, BUT, EVEN AFTER MORE THAN 66 YEARS TIME, MOST OF IT'S INVESTIGATIVE RECORDS ARE STILL SEALED...</h3>

<h3>My questions so far, are, what has changed, besides the reaction to wealth inequity of the 1930's? Can you make a case that it is distributed more equitably in the US today, than it was 70 years ago?</h3> When did the republican POV change? Where did the impetus come from to propose privatization of social security, for example? Isn't SS, with it's $186 billion per year, <a href="http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/ProgData/fyOps.html">current surplus</a>, not "the problem"? Isn't "the problem" actually the tax cuts, and increased defense, intelligence operations, and DHS spending since 2001?

Isn't it fair, since "the people" demanded and paid for the TNEC investigations and reports on the distribution of power and wealth in the US, and the effect of monopolies, that, after nearly 67 years, all of the records gathered by the TNEC committee that do no involve personal, non-financial details, be unsealed and made available for public examination, especially considering that 1940 census data will be released to the public , two years from now?

If inequity in wealth and power in the US is "not a problem", why would anyone argue for continuing to keep sealed, the records of the only in depth, congressional committee investigation, of the "non problem"?

I can think of no better example than the following, to answer Ustwo's question:
I think, Ustwo, that the impact is about "opportunity cost" to the rest of, and the flow of power and wealth away from most of us, because opportunity is "preempted" by the "juice" of the connections that the concentration of wealth, attracts. Officials and their power and influence, is bought, siphoned off, and upcoming politicians, are "bred" similar to race horses.

In the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, a group of friends kept a close association, and conducted related business activities. The elder man in the group, ten to fifteen years senior to the others, managed to obtain the franchise, granted by the state government regulators, after the end of prohibition in 1933, to distribute liquor in Arizona, and eventually grew his business to a level that excluded all competition. If you operated a retail or an entertainment establishment in Arizona that sold liquor to the public, you had to buy from United Liquor.

This same elder gentleman of this group, came to deal with the investors and principles who conceived of and built the initial modern casino hotels in Las Vegas. It is documented in a New Mexico state police investigation that the owner of Arizona's United Liquor distributors came to own the Transamerica race-wire, the sports betting, bookmaker's information service that originated with Al Capone's Chicago crime organization, and he was a principle in an <a href="http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:7T3uAEHe4yIJ:www.nevadaobserver.com/Reading%2520Room%2520Documents/Kefauver%2520Committee%2520-%2520Testimony%2520of%2520Louis%2520Wiener%2520(1950).htm+%22valley+national+bank%22+flamingo+siegel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us">Arizona bank that loaned $2 million to the Mafia</a> principles who built the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 1947....
Read the rest of the nps.gov history article to see how another mob connected figure and builder of the Flamingo Hotel, Del Webb, benefited from the growth in Phoenix brought in large, part, by the government construction of the US interstate highwy network.

In 1946, two of the younger members of the group of friends described above, a pair of brothers, were employed as managers at United Liquor by Kemper Marley, and were arrested on federal liquor bootlegging violations, accused in testimony by another United Liquor manager, of altering nearly 1400 invoices of case sales of liquor, sold in cash transactions to unknown parties. Owner Marley was not charged, and James Hensley was found guilty and sentenced to 6 months in prison, suspended, while his older brother Eugene was convicted and served a one year prison sentence. Both brothers, along with 50 other United Liquor employees and the firm itslef, were tried on similar charges again in 1953, but were not convicted. Owner Marley was never charged.

The two Hensley brothers, also in 1953, purchased the Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico horse racing track, lying to the racing commission about the participation of a 1/3 owner's stake partner in the purchase, a gambler not approved by the NM racing commission, named Clarence "Teak" Baldwin. James Hensley sold his stake in the track to brother Eugene in 1955, and became the owner of record of the Budweiser beer distributorship in Phoenix, allegedly thorough the aid of United Liquor owner Marley. In 1948, a man named Greenbaum who was a partner in the race-wire with Marley, was murdered in a gangland style "hit". Eugene Hensley entered into a long term food and beverage concession lease at Ruidoso downs with an Emprise Company of Buffalo, NY subsidiary. Eugene served a one year income tax evasion prison sentence in the 195os and was banned from his track by the NM Racing Commission, after he was convicted a second time of tax evasion, but before he served a five year prison sentence for the second offense. Eugene, in the late 1960s and still as principle stock holder of the race track, sold the track to a group financed by the still long term track concession leasee, the Jacob's company, Emprise subsidiary:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...gewanted=print

Well, you get the idea....or not. My last and most important question for you guys is why does your concern seem to be for the exact opposite of what you truly should be concerned about?:
Why is it that you are so concerned, especially you, Ustwo, about the "unwashed masses", lazy louts who want to use "government", to take "your money"? Why do you think that they are the motherfuckers, when the REAL motherfuckers are the men who use whatever it takes to gain a monopoly on the power and wealth in the country? The fruits of the organized crime enterprise originated by Kemper Marley has financed and influenced the placement of John McCain, literally at the front door of the white house, but you have little reaction, and no concern, at all.

For both of you, have you ever considered, what if I am right? What if roachboy is right? What if, all of your lives, you have been concerned about the exact oppostite political activities and principles than those that are actually "the problem"?

host, please read the OP and stick with what the topic of discussion is here. You can start your own thread if you want to lecture people on topics you want to discuss.

The question was, what kinds of inequality matter and why. If you have something to say about it, do. Otherwise, please don't clutter up the thread.

I think, in order to really assess the impact of 'comsumption,' there needs to be an allowance for the amount of 'consumption' that is done by the wealthy for them in the form of employment 'perks' and 'benefits' that the poor do not have privy to. This is not an unsubstantial number.

No reaction to any of the material that I posted, ehhhh loquitur? You have the gall to post an obscenity as the crux of your OP, bullshit by Cox and Alm, passed off as an "article", and then descrube my response as clutter?

70 percent ownership of the entire wealth of the US by just ten percent of the population, is obscene, loquitur, and being the messenger of the incessant, well financed effort to dress it up, put lipstick on it in attempts to make it REASONABLE, is beneath you loquitur, beneath your intellect and your education, but here you are!

Cox and Alm are stooges, they are long exposed as such:

Actually read what is contained in my last post, and you'll have the opportunity to observe that nothing changes, even in the fullness of time. The same few (in numbers) elite, still control at least as much as they did in 1938, and they flood the media with bogus "studies" to persuade you to think otherwise. You want to believe. I want to react reasonably to the fact that the top ten percent own 70 percent of everything....that is the gulf between us, and it is damn hard to be cordial in the face of such a divide.

The "certainty" of authors Cox and Alm in your OP article, strikes me as ridiculous, knowing what I know, and here is some of it, for you to consider:

Host, can't YOU just read what you're deriving your info from, quote bits and link the rest? My old eyes can't handle all that and if they could, my old brain wouldn't absorb it....

I can see where the numbers mentioned in the OP could come into play.
Mr. H earns 1.5 million a year and buys 3 Mercedes.
Mr. J earns 150,000 a year and buys 3 Toyotas
Mr. X earns 50,000 a year and buys a used Volvo and 2 bicycles.
It's all relative....the problem as I see it (as a usually struggling so-called middle classer), is that those that earn less don't get a break just because of that factor. If I want a Mercedes, I can't go to the dealer and say I'm paying X per cent because I only earn X dollars. That would balance things out a bit, but it ain't gonna happen.

The op-ed makes sense. F'rinstance: Our weekly insurance payout is $105. The company owner's weekly payout is $105. But, he earns more, so the chunk isn't as huge for him, essentially making his disposable income larger. Same with things like cable, cell phone bills, etc. They might vary, but not in keeping with income, so that those of us on the lower end of the pay scale see less play money than those on the higher end, so of course, our ratios are much less.

A friend of mine had a good analogy. He was told by his superiors that instead of overtime, he'd be given comp time for the extra hours. His response, "Yea, I'll just go into Home Depot and instead of cash, tell them I'm gonna pay them in comp time."

Did everyone miss #6?

Nope, but anything with more than 3 numbers in it makes my eyes glaze over....then host posted....

ngdawg, I believe that wealth= power= political control. I believe that voting numbers in a democratic republic, should result in a triumph of the will of the sheer numbers, over the vested interests of the wealthiest few. IMO, that isn't happening in the US, and it hasn't since at least 1948.

I believe that the very wealthy beisiege the rest of us with a strategy of funding lobbies, think tanks, a media blitz to convince enough of us to vote against our own best interests, which is to tax the shit out of the wealthiest one percent, as we did do well, into the early 1960's. Outside of the legalization and enforcement of collective bargaining rights of workers, nothing else has significantly helped to "level" the playing field between the wealthiest, and the rest of us.

If you think that I am wrong, why do you think the records of the TNEC 1938to 1941 hearings and investigations into wealth and power in America, are still sealed?
http://www.archives.gov/research/gui...roups/144.html

no, will, I didn't miss #6. I even chuckled a bit. I know your tongue was in your cheek, but it did touch on an aspect of what I'm trying to get at here. The question it raises is, "what are we measuring?"

Are we measuring people's happiness and well-being? Do we care about people having different amounts of physical things (of which money is the main one) because we think that money/things make them happy? And if that's the case, is there some other way of measuring happiness that is more reliable than the number of things people have? If that's NOT the case, why do we care about people having different numbers of physical things?

Again: I'm trying to get at WHY economic inequality matters. Not that it should be ASSUMED it matters, but that the reasons should be articulated. I agree does matters at some level, but I suspect my level and reason differs from others'.

Host, I'm ignoring your post now because you refuse to stick with the topic. You simply assume things and then berate me for not signing on to your assumption. That's not what this thread is about.

The top 1% pays 39% of the total federal taxes, and that number is up 2% from when Bush took office.

I don't think you really have an idea of what you are talking about. The wealthy pay pretty much all of the federal taxes as it is. You just want to punish them for being wealthy and steal it from them in the name of the people.

Edit: Sorry loquitur I couldn't let it pass and I should have.... *zip*

re #13 - mixedmedia, you're right, but that's a measurement problem. I suspect that if you factored that in, the overall numbers would change somewhat, but the overall thesis that consumption disparities are less than income disparities would persist. As I said in the OP, I'm not sure that consumption is the relevant measure of economic well-being as distinct from income, and I'm not sure that income is either. It all depends on what we're really trying to evaluate: what kinds of disparities should we care about, and why. We can't sensibly answer the question of what (if anything) to do about disparities until we figure out why they are important.

Ah, you did get it.

To get more to the point from my last post, maybe we should specify what we're specifically trying to show via the data. Because people are subjective regarding stats like this, it would be better to simply provide as much raw data as possible and then let people answer the questions you're asking on a person by person basis. I suspect that my measurement of financial happiness may be different than someone else's, and as such it'd be good for me to read data instead of conclusions made by people who have their own subjective conclusions.

In my opinion economic inequality has to do with numerous factors, but starts at income per household, depending on location. Right now I'm in the 83k after taxes area, which would be great in many places, but is rather mid-range here in San Jose, even with the housing market in shambles. So when I want to get an updated informed opinion regarding economic inequality, I'd want access to localized incomes per household.

Unfortunately, one of the best federal websites that lists all the best economic indicators in one place, EconomicIndicators.gov, is being shut down by the Bush administration next week due to "budgetary constraints".

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...econindbig.gif

Damn...how much does it cost to maintain a website...or why does Bush want to make it that much more difficult to find economic data?

Will, I extracted two words from your post - financial happiness - because I think they are very telling. The money isn't what makes you happy; you can't eat money or live in money or drive it. What the money does is let you get things that you think will make you happy. It's a tool or a proxy, it's not an end in itself.

I absolutely agree. That's really why raw data is so important. In order to draw comparisons between income and happiness, you'd need the income data and psych studies about contentment. That would take a ton of work and create a lot of data. Short of that, we're really in the dark.

Does that mean that you think happiness is the relevant thing we should be looking at rather than income (even if you could adjust the income by region to make it comparable)?

Wealth=power=political control only goes so far. Yea, you likely won't see a welfare mother hold public office because she doesn't have the funds to run, but it's more than likely she also doesn't have the education.
However, that welfare mom can vote, so that wealth/political power is dependent on that.

It's only fair that the wealthiest pay more taxes. People have continuously for decades have touted that flat tax idea, where everyone just shells out, say, 25% of their income regardless. I hate this idea, think it's stupid. I like my tax deductions. My kids are tax deductions, my house is a tax deduction and I get a refund that goes back into the economy because I then buy shit I couldn't afford the preceding 11 months.

Level the playing field? Last I knew, this wasn't a financially socialist country. The majority of the wealthy in the country worked for what they have, are frugal in many ways, are savvy investors and do their part to keep the economy going because that affects their lives, perhaps more than ours down here in the lower quarter. If you mean that, while I pay $105 for health coverage, they should pay $1050, that comes into play in other areas, primarily taxes. But, as I mentioned earlier, if that were to be the case, then I should be able to buy a new Mercedes for 10 grand. Some things are just unrealistic, no matter how you try to spin it.

The thread did start with top halves and bottom halves and then moved more into happiness... so it'd make sense to see if data could support the idea that there's an association between income brackets and happiness. Shoot, it'd be even more helpful to compare perceived happiness with the type of happiness that can be documented by behavioral patterns by a psychologist... and then compare that to incomes.

I personally believe that happiness is more important than income because I've found that while material pursuits are fun they're ultimately unfulfilling compared to finding a place in life to he happy. That hardly means that my answer is the only answer, which gets back to my comment regarding subjectivity. Not everyone finds materialism unfulfilling as a core of existence. Some may actually find true happiness in it. That's why I believe in factual data for everyone so they can draw their own subjective conclusions.

Will, I'm with you. Even if you stipulate that economic well-being is a relevant measure, neither income nor consumption by itself will capture that concept adequately.

But if well-being is what we think is the relevant determinant, then income inequality or perhaps even wealth inequality, is not a particularly important factor. Some people are miserable even with all the doodads in the world, others are happy even in a hut. Different people are different - they have different abilities, different needs, different desires. My own feeling on this is that we should care if people have a roof over their heads, clothes on their bodies and basic nutrition, but not whether they have a home that isn't as nice as someone else's, clothes that aren't as fancy or food that isn't as sumptuous.

but if you want to talk about well-being, then (again) the problem arises of what that means.

one could consider well-being as relational, in the sense that a measure of well-being can refer to system criteria. this would imply that the overall socio-economic context matters when you try to think about how particular social positions define themselves.

this seems axiomatic. i am bewildered by claims to the contrary. they don't make any fucking sense. it doesn't matter that they are consistent with conservative political views--except in that it functions as a little demonstration--as if any were needed--that those economic views make no sense either.

another--which is being argued for in the op, and which continues to be argued for--to the extent that refusing to consider basic questions can be confused with argument---would treat well-being as entirely subjective.
this would be the "how do you feel today" index.
"are you feeling ok?"
"how many of you feel ok?"

these are fundamentally different.

without stipulating "relative to what" any measure is meaningless.

and this before you get to the rat's nest:
(a) how you'd go about *measuring* "well-being"--which is self-evidently linked to how you define the term...

and even worse (b) how you'd go about distinguishing "well-being" from a reflection of ideological factors.

by the last point, i basically mean is--for example---if we live in a consumer culture in which every commodity is pitched at potential buyers as a gateway to happiness at one level or another, then an overall effect of the range of such pitches is to imply--continually--that you, the consumer--are happy--but in such a way that this happiness can be perfected and that perfectedness is always one commodity away--that this opens onto an infinite series is irrelevant. but you see the problem: well-being can be a function of what an old french communist party intello-type called interpellation: that is of the way in which you, spectator, are positioned by the way in which data that passes through a particular instituted space (advertising and its relay systems). so the sense of well-being can measure nothing more than the subjective sense of adjustedness to norms which are derived from the cumulative effect of advertising--in which case an index can measure nothing meaningful beyond the efficacy of advertising.

this loops back around onto the question of what you think economic data is supposed to do. if you expect it to provide an accurate image of the system, then "well-being"--particularly a subjective notion of it--is close to worthless. but if you think economic data is an extension of political ideology, then it can fit right into the affective circle-jerk at the center of conservative economic theory--and this because data about the actual world is secondary for most of us--the folk who exercise power may or may not need it--but you and i definitely dont need it.

Liq - I do see what you're saying and I agree, which is why it'd be important to actually see how "happiness" stacks up against income. Once one could get a decent comparo going, then we could say "money doesn't mean happiness" or "30% of people above x income are happy".
This is absolutely true, but it's really the only method by which someone can put fourth "factual" evidence about happiness right now. In reality, happiness is WAY too subjective and the esoteric studies that include good data really can't help anyone.

If the relationship of money and well-being or happiness is tenuous, why should we care as much as we do about inequalities of money? Above a certain floor of physical need, everyone's needs and desires - and satisfactions - are different.

Nicely done...wealth inequity is simply a state of mind...nothing to see here, folks, move along, move along....

I posted challenges to the NY Times article in your OP, and of it's authors, and of every endorsement you made about that article in your OP. Your response indicated that you were not interested in discussing the validity of the OP article, because, somewhere after the OP was posted, a new restriction mandated the discussion to be solely about feelings.

What the hell does one's happiness have to do with their ability to pay the rent, the power bill, the car payment, etc.? The crux of income equality is not, 'oh, poor Mr. Jones' car isn't nearly as nice as rich Mr. Potter's. Poor Mr. Jones.' It's 'poor Mr. Jones is having to make the choice this month between paying his car payment and feeding his kids while rich Mr. Potter doesn't even have to pay for his car (or his gas or his car washes or his car repair, for that matter) because it's part of his 'income.'

If people can't even conceive that the problem is not not being able to buy the nicest things, but in fact not being able to afford to even subsist within the societal framework that has been provided for us without making hard choices every month then you don't have any business having this discussion.

No material things do not buy happiness. And not being able to pay your bills every month does not necessarily rob you of happiness. Therefore 'happiness' as a factor in determining the fairness of the ever-widening income disparity in this country is a moot point. And a frigging weird one, too...in my opinion.

I saw a study a few years back regarding happiness and wealth. I really just skimmed it so things like baselines etc... I really can't speak about. But the bottom line of the study was it found the happiest people, least in the US, were people whose household income for a family of , I think, four was between 75K-100K. It was several years back so this would have been upper middle class, but certainly not rich by any means.

After reading through it a couple things stuck in my head. One, it's really hard to be happy if you're worried you might end up living in your car in the near future, even harder if you think you might not even have a car for shelter. Basically there's a level of income needed simply to survive on a day to day basis, without it happiness is not really an option. And two, having a shit load of money does not make you happy. Having more and more material things will not bring you happiness. In fact the study basically said really wealthy people tend to be less happy then the middle class.

Actually, MM, if you look at what I was saying, I was positing that there is a level of income below which we should be concerned about the person. In a rich society like ours everyone should have access to basic nutrition, clothing and shelter. But if a person's basic needs are taken care of, then no, I don't think income inequality in and of itself is a problem.

At some point, railing against the "rich" is just plain and simple envy, which is a poisonous emotion, more for the person who has it than that person's target. And then there is the question of how you define "rich" - I have yet to get a coherent definition from the redistributionists that amounts to anything other than "someone who has more than I do." And bear in mind that that works both ways: there are people who have less than you who would want some of what YOU have, too. To them, YOU'RE rich. Whatever principle you might articulate to justify taking stuff away from people who have more than you merely because they have it can also be used to justify taking stuff away from you.

Where I'm going with this is here: at least in this country, simple inequality of income in and of itself is not a bad thing, unless the inequality came about because of theft or some other kind of bad conduct. If you're talking about ancien regime France, or Tsarist Russia, with a hereditary and useless aristocracy, that's one thing. But that's not this country. Most wealth in this country is earned. Yes, there is a luck element - there always is - but it doesn't explain all the disparities even remotely.

I have yet to hear an explanation of why simple inequality of income, in and of itself, is something we have to somehow "fix", when there are so many other unequal endowments people have that no one seems to be interested in fixing. Some people happen to be very good at making money. Other people, like me, are good at other things. So?

Could you clarify what you mean by 'access'.

Do you mean the ability to work for them, or the ability to have them regardless?

I don't feel it is something that has to be "fixed". Why? Income, by and large, is earned and it's earned based on several factors, not the least of which is education. So, you may argue that the poor can not afford an education that would get them out of their poverty....but our higher education institutions reward hard work in high school with scholarships. Armed services pay for education as well. If someone in poverty does well in high school, they could even go to West Point and that costs nothing-they get paid while going because it's Army. There are ways around everything. But there has to be that desire to get there first.
A few years back, the news magazine, 20/20 did a report on poverty in the US. They visited what was, at the time, the poorest area in the country-a neighborhood in the Bronx. In visiting apartments, they found VCR's, microwave ovens, color tvs among sparsely furnished dilapidated apartments.
When the article quoted in the OP speaks about the spending disparity lessening among the income groups, this is what they mean.
To bring it further into perspective, a personal anecdote: I just completed our tax report. After deductions, our income came to just over $21k( $15k alone was the mortgage interest deduction). We are a family of four. Our monthly bills are over $3,000. 12x3 is more than 21k, obviously. Yet, I am typing this on a brand new Dell, taking photos with two DSLR's, we have two more computers, a total of 7 digital cameras, 3 cell phones, a house and two cars less than 10 years old. By any standard, we would be considered, at best, lower middle class. The net income puts us at poverty level, but we probably have more than some people that have much more income.
Are we hurting monetarily? We were. Our credit card debt is about $15K and isn't going down very quickly. Are we happy with our lot? Yep. Does one have to do with the other? To an extent. It's no fun being in deep debt. It weighs heavily on everything, controls everything you do or attempt to do. Are we happier than those who are wealthy? Don't know, don't care.
Perhaps the editorial felt that those on the lower scale of income were on the higher scale of consumption in some mistaken belief that things bring contentment? That's where that data is useless to an observer. Without reasoning behind the disparities, no one can say what makes a group happier as a rule than not.
Hope that made sense.

That's a big "if". There may be a correlation or even causation in the relationship. Until further research is done, there's really no way to know with any measure of certainty.
Well first of all booyah. It's good to know I'm in the happy bracket. I'd love to see this study.

I googled, yahoo'd and looked under the bed. No luck. But it's out there somewhere.

Who knows maybe they used some f'd up method to reach their conclusions?

IMO, you're in the happy bracket if you look for family and friends to bring you happiness. Wanting a fancy car, a house larger then the local library won't do it. Getting them won't do it either.

I don't have a lot of time to write this morning, but I do have a link.

Take a look at this information:

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/executive2.html

This not liberal misinformation. It is factual numbers and it is getting worse. I don't know of anyone who isn't experiencing the truth day-by-day of the widening income disparities in this country and the effect it is having on what used to be called, the middle class. This isn't about people who are 'better at making money than others.' It is about greed, plain and simple.

This whole pay the CEO nearly 500 times what the average worker makes is crap, pure crap. Company loses billions? Pay the CEO more, but lay off a few people and outsource to India. Company loses billions and billions? Send the CEO packing but give him a few hundred million on his way out the door. And lay off lots of folks.

Crap, pure crap.

..

I believe the thinking is that overseeing the downsizing of a company and having to lay off people is very stressful for CEOs and therefore justifies higher pay and bonuses.:)

Yeah, it's hard, stressful work. But nothing a new Gulfstream 550 wouldn't cure.

I'm a CEO.

I make about 4* what my average worker makes. I am aiming for 10*.

Thats going to be going down a lot (1* very shortly) as I have a huge new investment and being the CEO/Owner means I take the loss. Right now I need to be making about 2500 a day to break even. Thats not paying me, thats just breaking even keeping the lights on. I'm not making that, I'm not breaking even, I have the gigantic risk out there, you bet your ass I'm going to be making more than the person who does a single job, is replaceable, and has no risk.

But I know you weren't talking about a CEO such as myself. I'd just like to point out that America has millions of CEO's out there, working their asses off, and sometimes losing everything doing so, while creating jobs for many many millions more people. This is what makes America an economic powerhouse.

But lets talk about those you were really talking about. The CEO's of giant companies who personally get paid millions of dollars.

They make a lot of money, for the same reason a professional athlete makes a lot of money. Not that many people have the skills to be the CEO of a giant mega corporation. Honestly, its impressive what some of these people do, but like a super star athlete sometimes it doesn't work out and the guy got paid a lot of money for doing a poor job. Its a risk.

But corporations don't hire these people to piss away money, they get paid that because its required to get people to do the job. Do you think someone is going to work at that level and take on that kind of responsibility without great compensation? Its been tried and its not worked out well. Some people are worth more to your business than others, sometimes 500* more.

If corporations could get way with paying the CEO what they pay the janitor, they would in a heart beat.

MM, I accept that there are widening disparities in income. Empirically I don't think it's an open issue: it definitely is happening. Historically, when there has been massive technological-innovation-driven dislocation in the economy, there has been widening income disparity, because those who are able to harness the power of the new technology gain more from its benefits, and it takes some time for the benefits to disperse generally through the economy. That's why we had robber barons at the end of 19th and beginning of the 20th century, as the country was installing electricity, roads, cars, railroads, mass production factories, etc etc etc. And it's why Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and their ilk are billionaires today.

What I want to know is why you think the mere fact of unequal incomes at any particular point in time is a problem. Unless you begrudge other people their success - and I can't imagine you're that kind of person - why does it hurt anyone if someone else does well? I could understand it if this was ancien regime France, or Tsarist Russia, where you had miserable serfs in barely subsistence-level lives, with small pockets of hereditary idle nobles who lived lavishly and contributed nothing. But that's not the US by a long shot.

I want everybody in this country to be rich. I want everyone to have the opportunity to chase their dreams and realize them. And for those who manage to succeed, I don't want to punish them for their success.

Ever driven a Porsche? Heh.

Maybe but I doubt it. CEO's often sit on the very boards that decide their pay and benefit packages. They pay themselves as much as they think the shareholders will swallow. I see it kind of like congress deciding in a middle of the night session they need a pay raise.

As for the pro-athlete analogy- If the team loses every game the athlete is toss out with the coach. Granted sometimes with some pay but nothing like the CEO's going rate. When a company loses money quarter after quarter the CEO is shown the door. All too often behind that door is a big fat pile of cash.

Paying someone for failing to preform doesn't seem very American to me. Hey ya failed miserably, but hey you tried real hard. Here's 75 million to make you feel better. Have a nice life. Crap ontop of crap.

BTW- I owned and operated a profitable small business for nearly 15 years. Never lost money, not even the first year. My brother currently owns a restaurant. Not sure about him but my pay was, on average, about 12 times what I paid people. I understand taking all the risk, having all the investment.
What I don't get is 500X pay. Sorry unless you're making every shareholder a ton of cash it's bullshit. It's even more bullshit if you're actions actually lose money. It's bullshit on top of bullshit if you're losing the shareholder's money and laying people off right and left.

[#49] Nope. I drive a five-year-old Chevy. A fancy car just doesn't do it for me. On the other hand, a huge library of books and the time to read them would be just lovely...........

Yeah and a Ferrari too. Enjoyable, for the moment. Don't think it made me any happier overall.

And then the company fails. Poor management.

Lets say everything I said was wrong about high end CEO's, completely. It still doesn't get into the why it matters. What does it matter if some guy made 100 million dollars doing a shit job?

When I was making 8000 a year 7 years ago, and that plus my wifes secretarial salary is what we lived on, those guys didn't have an effect on me, what we could do, what we needed, or how happy I was. Their money didn't affect my health care, my car, our entertainment. Hell as happy goes we were just as happy then as now, maybe more happy now but thats kid related not money.

Why should I care what some overpaid CEO makes, its not my money to decide how its spent, and if they spent it wiser I'd still have been lower middle class economically. It might matter if my wifes company went belly up, and it wasn't a small company, but the CEO was the owner, its his money to spend, poorly or wisely. If she lost her job she could have found a new one, unemployment wasn't an issue then or now.

What I get from a lot of people on this is two things. One is their sense of fairness is violated and they want things to be 'fair' in their own eyes. Its not fair that someone makes millions while someone else is laid off, therefore that shouldn't be allowed. The other is just old fashioned jealousy. Its not fair that 'I' don't have millions, so no one else should either.

Perhaps the hardest lesson for me to learn in my 20's was not being concerned about others success, not being jealous of those who had more or got it easier, and being happy for people who succeed. I don't think most actors, athletes, or some CEO's deserve what they make in relation to what they do, but but good for them, I'm not going to legislate that they shouldn't.

Its actually a very nice place to be. It means I'm happy when I'm making very little money, I'm happy when I'm making a lot, and I'll be happy for the next several months when I'll have to cut back to school spending levels. I won't be happy if this new venture fails, but I'll still be happy over all.

OK, everything you said was wrong.

Because somebody's paying a price for his 100 million dollar salary. Often that price is paid by people who can afford it the least. When a person who's doing his job right loses his job because someone making a 100 million is doing a shit job I think it's complete crap. I also think it's crap when people who bought stock in the company lose money while the company hands out cash like it grows on trees to the guy causing the stock loses.


I agree with that. I was as happy when I first got out of the Navy and was making not much more then min. wage as I was when I made many times that amount.


Unemployment and under employment most certainly are issues. Many area's of the US are in damn near depression territory because of large lay offs, out sourcing and downsizing.


For me it's a fairness issue. I'm not at all jealous. Personally I think the more money you have the less happy you are at some point. But I do not think it's fair to take from the shareholders and the employees to pay huge amount to the CEO, CFO, or anyone else at the top. I have less of a problem with this if it's a totally private company. What an owner wants to do with his company is his business and is none of my business. If he decides it's worth a couple more million to him to lay off a bunch of people, I'll think he's an asshole. But that's completely his decision. The worlds full of assholes rich and poor.


I'm not interested in legislating it either. I just don't do business with company that do this if I can help. If you're laying people off and out sourcing job to other countries I think that's unfair to the employees and to this nation as a whole. So I take my business elsewhere. I also closely watch my portfolio and try to stay out of funds that include such companies.



Good for you.

Tully, what I got from your posts is that you object to those who don't EARN what they make, and I think most people would agree with you (me included). But if the general run of things is that people do earn what they make, why is it objectionable that some people are better at earning money than others? Based on everything you wrote, why do you care if someone else makes more than you, if your life happiness isn't tied to how much money you make?

Well if you aren't interested in legislating this sort of thing, and we both can agree that sometimes it sucks, then really do you have a problem with income disparity?

Thats the question in the thread, and I've yet to see why its BAD someone makes a lot more than someone else as long as basic needs are not infringed on.

First of all I think all too often it is not the general run of things. Or at least when it isn't the general run of things- the people that end up in the economic crapper are the least responsible. I don't have any problem when people earn more money. When actor gets paid 25 million to make a movie and that movie makes 500 million I'd said that actor earned that money. More power to him. But when a CEO loses other people their jobs and gets paid a huge sum in the process I call bullshit.

And second, What did I say that made you think I care when other's earn more money then I? I think I repeatedly said having more money wouldn't make me more happy. Personally I think you'd have to be pretty damn shallow to base your happiness on what someone else does or does not earn. Or what car or house someone else owns. In fact above basic needs I think basing your happiness on making more money is pretty shallow. Looking for happiness in monetary or material things is a fools game you'll never win.

In general I don't have a problem with income disparity unless it's based on paying someone else a salve wage or worse shit canning them and sending US jobs overseas. Warren Buffett makes a shit load of money, Probably makes more an hour then I make in a month, hell maybe a year? But from everything I've read and heard he treats his employees with loyalty and respect. He also, it would seem, pays them decently.


I do see a problematic trend in the US where the top few get paid more and more and the working class get squeezed harder and harder. Most of that squeeze, IMO, comes from the greed of a few and at the expense of many.

Tully, I think what you might be missing is that CEOs' duties run to their shareholders and not to their employees. I'm talking legal duties here. I would argue that treating employees well is good business and that a boss does shareholders no favors by shitting on employees, but there are occasionally times when it's necessary to cut back on workforce, and that can be for any number of reasons. If the end result is stemming losses or increasin profitability, then the CEO has done the company a service - including particularly the employees who remain with the company. I'd rather have a healthy company with fewer employees than a company that refuses to lay people off and then finds itself going under.

As far as shareholders are concerned, who do you think shareholders are? The biggest ones are not fat cats. The biggest ones are pension funds. In fact, I believe the single biggest shareholder in the country is CalPERS (see here: http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/about/home.xml). It invests the benefit and retirement money of the employees of the California State government. In other words, the workers of the country are also the owners of the businesses. That's what a 401(k) is. That's what pension funds are kept in. If you have a whole life insurance policy, the savings piece of it comes from investments.

This is all interlinked. We have a wonderfully interdependent economy, and each of our success is linked to everyone else's success.

If we were speaking face to face I'd ask you something to the effect of "when I say ________, what do you hear? But since we're writing back and forth I'll ask you- When I write things like this:

But I do not think it's fair to take from the shareholders and the employees to pay huge amount to the CEO, CFO, or anyone else at the top.


Or-

CEO's often sit on the very boards that decide their pay and benefit packages. They pay themselves as much as they think the shareholders will swallow.

What do you read?

No kidding. Which would be why I wrote this:

I also closely watch my portfolio and try to stay out of funds that include such companies.

Do you get the idea that I think I'm some fat cat?

I get the serious feeling that I'm writing one thing and reading something completely different.

Well I agree it's all interlinked. Exactly how wonderful that is or how one's success leads to another's is highly debatable. All too often, through pure greed, one's success comes at the expense of others, IMO.

question (sadly, that's all i have time for at the moment--i am caught between things in 3-d):

i wonder if what you're proposing in a backhanded kind of way is an abolition of the distinction between wage labor and capital when you say "i want everybody to be wealthy"--if you did that, then there'd be no structural explanation for unequal distribution of wealth and maybe your position would make sense, in my view.
but unless you do in fact abolish structural factors like that, it is hard to me to fathom how you can remove inequalities in wealth from the political arena--which seems to be what you'd like to do.

and if you are, in fact, arguing for the abolition of divisions like between wage labor and capital (which i use for shorthand's sake--i am fully aware that the contemporary situation is more complicated than this in some ways--e.g. in the fact that for example a pension fund can own stock and so and so--and i am also fully aware that this division in the economic arena repeats over and over throughout other zones of the mode of production expressed in it) maybe we might agree--->the only way to remove this from politics is a radical transformation of capitalism itself.

It is not the mere fact of unequal incomes. I really don't care that there are rich people and I am not. Hell, I have rich people in my family. My own parents are pretty well off. I certainly don't begrudge my parents because I know exactly how hard they worked to get it. But even they will tell you that there's something wrong going on today. My stepfather has been a well-paid executive for more than 40 years, and he will tell you that the executive branch of business today is out of control. The middle class is disappearing. Median incomes will not support the nuclear family anymore, yet a select few are drowning in money that they didn't earn in any quantifiable way. That they couldn't possibly have earned. And I'm not talking about people like Bill Gates. Obviously Bill Gates changed the world as we know it. I'm talking about CEOs and other top corporate executives who are earning millions - tens of millions, hundreds of millions - in undeserved perks and bonuses when the people who work for them are faced with dealing with the consequences of the increasingly funneled nature of our economy.

It is not whining or sour grapes. It is simply bewilderment and the disbelief that so many people are willing to ignore it...and even try to justify it. But it's only a matter of time...as more and more people who are used to getting by fall into the net of poverty, it will become more and more an urgent issue. For it's not a static phenomenon. Eventually, like all the insanity based on greed before it, the bubble will burst.

Just to get on this a bit, its false.

This has been talked about before, and when adjusted for inflation, the average family has the same buying power as in 1970. The problem is people are spending more on luxuries and viewing them as necessities. The income isn't the problem, its some peoples life style that is.

Isn't "median income" a false measurement, though? That, of course there has to be a median, but how does median fare against "average"? If half the population makes over(for example) $100k grand a year and half under, where does the real drop in income start to show? How many of those half-unders make what is considered middle-class? As you can see, I failed math...
As for the comment that the median income will not support the nuclear family anymore, that would greatly depend on where that family is. If the median income is, say again, $100K, that family would do really well in several of the southern states and a couple of the midwestern ones. They'd struggle, perhaps, in California, New Jersey and Manhattan. That same $100k might be earned differently in those states, ie; blue collar on the MidAtlantic Coast, high end executive in Alabama.

Where was this discussed before? Because this is a bit false too.

1970s
Average salary: $7,564
Milk: $0.33/quart
Bread: $0.24/loaf
Round steak: $1.30/lb.
New home: $26,600
Regular gas: $0.36/gal.

2005
Average salary: $43,362 (573% change)
Milk: $2.00/quart (606%)
Bread: $2.79/loaf (1,163%)
Round steak: $6.39/lb. (492%)
New home: $264,000 (992%)
Regular gas: $2.96/gal. (822%)

http://www.frbsf.org/education/activ...2002/0202a.gif

http://www.sinletter.com/archives/savings.gif

There is something wrong here, and it isn't just luxury goods. Many things are more expensive to us than they were in the '70s, and the scary bit is that China won't be able to keep their inflation at bay for much longer. The party is likely over....

There are many Americans (North Americans?) who view luxury goods as necessities, and they've been doing it for decades. Since the invention of the television, we've seen an unprecedented amount of junk come into our lives. But it's the American way to get what you want, right?

Like I said, the party will likely be over soon. This is unsustainable. You're partly right, Ustwo. Luxuries (i.e. a television/computer for nearly every member of the household) will make the problem worse. We are no longer saving money; we are spending money that isn't ours.

Many of us are going to learn our lesson the hard way. You can't always get what you want, especially when it's technically harder to get things that are necessities, such as food, shelter, and a college education. (You don't want to see the difference between the cost of college in 1970 vs. 2005, and neither do I.)

No, that is not the problem. I am not talking about people overextending their credit and buying 42" flat-screen tvs when they can barely make rent. I am talking about people who live modestly and still have to make hard choices about which bills to pay in a certain month.

Baraka's numbers up there are pretty illustrative. Do you deny them? Do you think if a company's executives are taking home multi-million dollar bonuses every year, regardless of the productivity of their efforts, it has no effect on the income and well-being of it's workers and shareholders? You say it has no effect on you but it does. And importantly to you, it has an effect on the people who come to you to spend their money so you can make a living. Have you noticed that company paid insurance plans are disappearing? That more and more, employees are being asked to either pay larger percentages of their own health insurance or participate in plans with high deductibles? Do you suppose this will not have an effect on your business somewhere down the line?

Where did you get these figures?


These numbers make more sense.

Let's say 45 to 50K-

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...th/002484.html

As far as median v. average. I think, could be wrong, that median works better here. Median is the middle regarding population. Half the people make more and half the people make less, again I think. Whereas average means all the income divided by the population. So if you had a population of 1000 people and every one made one dollar a year except one who made a trillion dollars your average would be a lot closer to the trillion number then the dollar.

I don't think that economic inequality matters in the context laid forth. Their potential inequality I agree with, since we cannot squash someone and keep them down.

But as far as those with incomes and wealth, there are many people I know who live paycheck to paycheck, they are rich, middleclass and poor. I believe it is a matter of values to money more than anything. There are many people who accumulate wealth by following the fundamental axiom:
Spend less than you earn.

seems to me that there is a distinction between the structures that shape the economic and social systems as a whole and how individuals live inside that system--you can read off structural questions in how folk live, but you can't just go from how folk live to structural features.

maybe this is at the origin of the tendency of positions to talk by each other: we have no agreement about starting point.

Savings rate has nothing to do with it. As for the numbers, there was a post in the general board, and then one here where host was using a source that didn't support him, claiming it supported him, which flat out stated that while there are different costs the amount of disposable income was the same.

I'm to lazy to dredge them up right now.

Savings rates have nothing to to do with it? That's like saying unemployment and under employment are not an issue. The number of people with little or no savings is a major issue, IMO. People living with a safety gap of one or two paychecks are increasing. I'd venture to guess the number of people without any financial safety net is pretty high. The cause of this can be debated. Over spending, living above your means via easily obtainable credit, raising cost of basic living, wages not keeping pace with inflation, any or all of these could be factors. I'm sure others could come up with factors I've haven't mentioned. But when people have an issue, say health reasons or job loss, and their personal safety net is wiped out it's a major problem. What do people do when the saving they do have are gone and the amount coming in does not equal the amount going out?

I'd say saving rates are an issue.

what does disposable income mean? I bought a $14,000 car when I could have easily bought a $30,000 car.

The monthly payments are $250 vs. $550. Is $300 disposable income? or is it part and parcel of the standard of living?

I think you're speaking of discretionary income. Generally speaking, in economic terms, disposable income is gross income minus taxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discretionary_income

But your point makes a lot of sense to me. Exactly what is necessary or what basic needs are can vary greatly. I can get by on very little per month. I remember saving for my first house and cutting everything but hot dogs and Ramen noodles out. It was the mid 80's and I was making just over 1600.00 a month and I managed to put 1k a month in the bank. Would have been able to squeeze more out if it weren't for diapers and baby food.

Lots of good stuff here. I had the bad judgment to read this at work, and I don't have the time to put my thoughts together. I hope I remember to do it when I get home, hours from now...........

Sheesh. I really dropped the ball here. Let's resume. Here is an interesting discussion about an article that analyzes the causes of inequality at the bottom of scale (i.e. the question being why the bottom quintile makes as little as it does rather than why the top earners earn so much). Here is a link and a sample quote:So inequality seems to stem from a whole bunch of factors at all levels. That means, if you want to reduce inequality, you can do it much more profitably and with more effectiveness by improving the skills and abilities of people at the bottom than by hobbling people at the top.

Bullshit !

It's a white man's "club"....it's been that way, it got a little more diverse, but not now. Only Jewish males have made any headway....and still, they are mostly white males, and not in the petroleum business, not as long as the bulk of world oil reserves are concentrated in the middle east.

Why don't you stop, loquitur.....the glaring reality of where the power in politics and business is concentrated, no matter how much "training", and "education" folks who aren't white male, pursue and achieve, they are not making it into those slots in any greater numbers.

1195 total fortune 100 companies boards of directors seats, white males hold 851 of those seats....

No, host, why don't YOU stop. I posted an academic economic article and you come back with incoherent irrelevancies. This last post of yours boils down your entire political worldview to one word: ENVY. It's not attractive.

I want everyone to be well-off. You don't care if everyone is miserable so long as no one is doing better than you are. Very nice.

so wait, are you saying that Condi Rice, Colin Powell are just Uncle Toms? or whatever that derogatory infliction is that means they aren't there due to their ability or opportunity?

as far as those statistics are concerned, I recall in the 70s when those numbers were 0 minorities and 0 women.

are you expecting it to be radically different overnight?

I am offended by your attitude and opinion, but most of all, by your sheer denial of a systemic problem that is all encompassing and has NOTHING to do with training and education.

Consider that I am offended, and I am a white male. Can you even imagine how your opinions are perceived by some educated non-white males?

It is a white man's club !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is 145 fucking years and three months since the emancipation proclamation was signed. There were more black elected officials holding higher office in Mississippi, for example, 140 years ago, than there are now.

<h3>If you could somehow dig up and animate Dr. King, and asked him to recite your post to a public audience, do you think he would do it, Cynthetiq?</h3>

Cynthetiq and loquitur, why are you both advocates for a status quo that neither of you would accept for yourselves or those who you care about, but you plead to the clearly disenfranchised? Where do you get the motivation to defend the backwardsness, the stagnation, versus looking at it as it actually is, and either remaining silent, or posting in objection to it?

Host, your problem is that you really think there is a conspiracy out there to keep people down. You keep insisting it's a "fact," and it's just not. There might be some structural issues in the economy that are worth discussing, but insisting, as you did, that economic research is invalid and not worth considering unless it addresses your white boys' club is just not a useful way to proceed. And it's pretty rich for you to claim offense after you tell me I should "stop it" because I don't sign on to your conspiracy theory.

Good luck with your options positions, host. Do you really think that if your trades pay off big-time the big bad white boys club will come and steal it from you? Or could it be that the only person wanting a cut of your winnings will be the government?

hold the fucking phone a second here.

I don't see the words for accepting and advocating status quo.

I also don't know WTF you are talking about in respect to Dr. King. I'd say you have more of your own guilt to assuage than try and tape that to my back.

I'm stating that almost 40 years ago, those Forbes 100 were clearly as you stated 100% white male. In those 40 years of changs, we've had spurts and sputters, but now those numbers have increased, and increase on a daily basis. They have increased because they are qualified and have achieved their way to their position.

Again, are you stating that because they are black they should just be invited to sit there? so thus Colin Powell and Condi Rice have done nothing but been invited to join the ranks because they are black?

consider as well that most of us don't have racial hangups and have better things to do with our time than try to figure out how to stick it to people who are different.

I also find it distressing, as well as intellectually dishonest, that many left-leaners will try to make every discussion about race even if it has nothing to do with race. We were discussing economics, host, not race. My argument has zero to do with anyone's skin color. And I resent it deeply that you are trying to make this into a racial thing. I would venture to say I probably have more people of different races, ethnicities and sexual orientations in my life than most people, and I don't appreciate the insinuation that if I don't agree with your view of things it makes me a racist.

Don't wish me "luck", loquitur....this isn't about me....it's about the "ignorance is bliss", broad mentality in the US that you happen to exhibit "poster boy" tendencies for, that's all.....

The "blackest" state in the union is Mississippi, 37 percent of it's residents are black....the next "blackest" state has only a 31 percent black population.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comp...=2&sort=16&o=d

....and, the way you tell it, it's just a happy coincidence that Mississippi is blessed with this partisan piece of shit parasite, as it's governor, isn't it?
As you might have noticed, you astound me..... it's as if some of the most important sensitivities you could have, are switched OFF. That isn't the truly significant thing...the real problem is that you consider yourself to be a "moderate", and you are probably correct....and that is why a person so counter to the best interests of black Mississippians, i.e., to all Mississippians, could openly "operate" as that state's governor...."under the radar".

That could not happen if my POV was "middle of the road", could it, loquitur?
It is no more random a condition, that Barbour is governor of Mississippi, than that white caucasian males maintain a stranglehold on power and wealth, despite your opinion that training and education are the solution.

How many "rounds" do you want to limit this to? Can you post that there has been any measurable progress in disbursing the concentration of white power in Mississippi, a state that sent a black man to the US senate, 138 years ago, and has had to endure former GOP chairman, the corrupt republican caucasian male, Haley Barbour, as it's governor since 2004, despite (to spite) Mississippi's 37 percent black population?

A black US senator for Mississippi served in 1870, yet you posted this:
It would have been wrong if you posted that sentence, in 1908......but it's 100 years later that you posted it....and you believe it, I am sure.

Could you ever imagine Dr. King, now, or at anytime, saying such a thing? It is offensive, to me, and to a lot of other people who know some history, I hope.

so wait a minute... again are you stating that the US Senator was not there because of ability or opportunity but installed as a puppet. Your posts insinuate that Condi Rice and Colin Powell were not there due to ability but because it shifted overnight.

Huh???

host, the issue is that you are noting a correspondence and then declaring it causal. Maybe Mississippi is a backwater, so there are limited opportunities there? Maybe it's a calcified social structure because it's not economically dynamic as opposed to vice versa? Also, I suspect that in areas where there is economic dynamism in Mississippi you'll also see much less racial disparity in economic well-being.

But Mississippi isn't the whole country. In the US as a whole, race-based economic disparities are decreasing, and have been for years. I would expect they will continue to decrease for a while until they level off.

The facts show that the most powerful positions in the fortune 500 corps.,
and in the US senate and house are still ending up in the hands of white males to no lesser a degree than ten years ago, or 20 years ago.

There has been a concerted, official, open effort by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caging_list">national republican party organization to "cage"</a>...work to minimize, via legal and illegal means, the number of racial minority voters, documented at least since 1980. In this decade that effort proved successful enough to <a href="http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/2007/20070505_resurrecting_jim_crow.html">reverse the enforcement</a> of the Voting Rights Act by the voting rights enforcement section of Civil Rights enforcement division, of the US DOJ. I have posted more than a little documentation, in other threads, to support all of thes points.

So, it a problem in the whole country. The political manipulation part of it is intentional and well organized.

nvm. host, i'm trying to understand your position but you've made it so obtuse that you're speaking in a foreign language.

you're welcome to try again, but I'll probably just gloss over your response since I cannot understand what your point is in suddenly bringing up race since it wasn't your position of discussion from page 1.

This was your post before this one:

If you refer to the US senator sent to DC by the 1870 Mississippi legislature, I had no intention of using his example as an example of a "puppet". In his day, there was no popular election of US Senators. They were elected by the voting of each state legislature. In 1870, black representation, due to resistance by former confederates to participate in "Yankee" directed politics, and because of laws enacted to penalize former confederates, was the highest it has been, before or since.

The point is that blacks in Mississippi have experienced a backwards slide in their quest to achieve representative political power, compared to their numbers, in Mississippi, since 1870.

I am not black, but I have an idea that Rice and Powell are not largely considered role models by other blacks. I do not perceive that either was appreciably successful in their Bush admin. roles. Can you describe the most impressive accomplishment of either of them at the State Dept., or in Rice's role as director of the NSA or as National Security advisor to the president?

Powell's noteworthy achievement was rising in rank to Chair the Joint Chiefs of the US military, but he also either was the man "on the ground" who carried out the assignment to cover up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, or performed and incompetent inquiry, or both.

I think Rice and Powell are appreciated much more by the conservative community than by the black American community, a situation which can be applied to nearly every black person held in high regard by the conservative community.

I cannot answer that any more than I can say what achievements Tom Delay or Henry Kissenger had. Getting to the role and having the responsibility in and of itself is an achievement. Something it seems like your not giving credit where credit is due.

So MS hasn't had another black senator, are there statistics that show that tens of hundreds have run and not been elected? What of the idea that the voter choice makes it what it is? There is nothing BARRING a black person from trying to attain that position.

What do you do to assuage your own guilt of making all this money off the white man in the market game? Do you tithe to the NAACP or the UNCF?

Or do you do just bully pulpit speaking out in internet forums?

as far as role models are concerned, as I walk about NYC it seems like Fifty Cent, PDiddy, and his kind are the role models that the black community seems to want and reward.

Those that are the stand ups, which you say are only good for the conservatives like Larry Elder and Bill Cosby don't seem to make much headway within their own community.

Taken from the quarterly literary magazine "N+1"

Moral of the story is, in my mind, without a state of inequality there could be no ideal state of equality. Humans are NOT born equal to one another. We all have gifts and weaknesses, some of us more than others. So long as the capable and motivated exist, they will rise above the incapable and or unmotivated.

What we're seeing with inequality isn't some clandestine corporate plan to pad the pockets of top management, its a natural market reaction to the commoditization of what was formerly considered "skilled" labor simply because of the prerequisite of a university degree, something which used to be rare but nowadays is worth little more than a high school diploma.

Well guess what, the blue-collar workers of yester-year may wear white collars now, but instead of working on a physical product in the factory line they function as a tiny, interchangeable cog in a monolithic corporate machine.

The fact is that the American industrial monopoly of the post-WWII era, the rents of which allowed blue collar workers to be paid what they were for so many years, has disappeared. Nowadays you need a far more robust personal and professional skill set in order to command a top wage, because frankly someone just as smart as you in Inidia will do it for less.

The question that needs to be reconciled here is not whether capitalism is working--because it is, in its usual ruthless efficiency--but whether:

a) we want to transition to a hybrid capitalist-socialist state in which the strong subsidize the weak (see: obama, clinton)
AND
b) do we dare risk such a transition given that the rising stars of China and India will ruthlessly push efficiency as their highest priority and that we may well be hamstringing ourselves in the globalization race by doing A?

I think the reality and/or perception that the system is rigged is something that has to be fixed especially if it is believed by many to be a major reason for inequality of income. People are not happy when they think they are getting screwed regardless of income.

One example I can think of is a local farmer who owned some acreage outright since his parents squated it in the 1800s. The land was just sitting there unused and a group from the capital city came along and offered him $100,000 for it and he was happy to accept it. In a few months construction began on a freeway adjacent to the property and the value went up into the millions. The landowner died within a year, his son said he never got over being taken advantage of by the politically connected buyers who had inside information.

Politically connected and company officers and friends steal millions from our pension funds (via inside information stock trading, etc..) and get a slap on the wrist or sometimes a few months in a country club facility while many small time crooks do hard time.

Our polititians have no problem bailing out banks and mortgage companies whose officers make millions and then hem and haw about bailing out homeowners who can't make payments because it will send the wrong message. Not that I think they should do either but the perception of corruption is there.

Also the way our tax system is currently set up the poor and middle class pay a much higher percentage of their income to support the government than the wealthy. Now Washington is talking about raising taxes on the oil companies. Isn't it obvious that gasoline buyers will ultimately pay this?

I think if people really thought that there was equal opportunity without political corruption and manipulation by the wealthy then inequality of income would not be such a big deal. Unless it gets to the point where a small percentage acquire most of the wealth then eventually the majority will revolt.

Well, my answer is to get the govt out of a lot of stuff it is in now. If you do that, political connections will matter a lot less. Less for government to do, less chance for corruption. Less government, less need for "access," so fewer campaign contributions. Slimming down government will have all sorts of salutary effects.

true and not true

as a member of the board of directors for the cooperative that I live within, there is inherent distrust and conspiracy theory that it's amazing. So long as there are people involved there will always be some sort of nepotism, favoritism, politics.

"less" and "zero" are not synonyms, cynth. Like fleas, corruption and nepotism will always be with us to some degree. I just think we shouldn't set up structures to incubate them.

aww can't we just use a flea bomb to get rid of the fleas? and the politicos...

When the revolution comes my friend, when the revolution comes.....

Will Wilkinson takes just two paragraphs to summarize my point that I took much longer to make:

What do you do when the corruption is this entrenched....institutionalized into the system. How can it be seperated...isolated from the results....huge wealth inquity...when you, loquitur, and Cato's "libetarian thinker", Will Wilkinson, build your world view on denial that it this is the fucking US "system"....and it has been that way since too far back to pin a date on it:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch...earch+Archives


Conflict of interest?
<b>Halliburton Stock Chart....the Invasion of Iraq Began in March, 2003:</b>
<center><img src="http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/5y/h/hal"></center>


Daddy Bush claimed in 2003 that he had severed his ties with Carlyle, but here is, still shilling for them, just last year:


Less than four months after 9/11....9/11....on 9/11....I...blah...blah....blah :

but host, this thread isn't to discuss corruption, it's to discuss inequality. My point is that inequality in and of itself isn't objectionable. Other people feel differently and I wanted to know why. I think we all agree there is some degree of corruption everywhere, but that exists in every society. IIRC you started a thread about corruption and other stuff precisely because it was OT for this thread.

sigh.....you just posted this:
....as I said, you and will wilkinson try to separate the systemic corruption that dramatic wealth inequity is a result of, a product of, an offspring of.

I object vehemently every time you attempt to separate the two.