Social mobility higher in Europe??

[DrZoidberg]

Correct, it's arguably negative sum. Productivity growth and capacity utilisation (the ultimate size of the pie) are negatively correlated with inequality.

Please, stop using words you don't understand. When people trade at a loss, ie negative sum game, they stop trading. Since they're still trading it's obviously profiting both parties. What we're discussing is that fact that is benefits one party more than the other.

Inequality is also negatively correlated with a host of well-being and health indicators, i.e. it's harmful in and of itself.

I can think of a billion ways to swing those numbers around to prove anything I want. I think I agree with you. But I'm not sure.

If you take from the rich, the poor don't get more money.

Yeah they do.

Ok. I'll humor you. Give me an example where it's worked.

I can give you some famous examples where it hasn't worked. The Nazis confiscated Jewish properties. They've been accused ever since of profiteering from this. Turns out that the wealth added to the system by the Jews just went up in smoke when they vanished. Wealth isn't in the money. Wealth is in what you can buy with that money. Taking the Jews money also meant removing the very same players in the market who helped giving the German money it's value. The German government and German people hasn't made a penny from confiscating Jewish properties. They lost money. Well.... they gained money, but lost wealth. Obviously the Jews lost more. They died. But just because one party in a (let's call it transaction) loses more than you, doesn't make you a winner necessarily.

Idi Amin did exactly the same thing i Uganda. Ugandan Indians had most of the wealth. Amin kicked them out and confiscated all their property. But he got nothing for it. It was an instant economic disaster. Sure, the Indians lost more than the ethnic Ugandans who took over their properties. But they didn't win anything. They weren't even slightly better off than before. They were all worse off.

Taking money from group A and giving it to group B has to be done intelligently. Or it's just added stress to the system for no gains. Do you agree that there's a point, in the pursuit for equality, when it isn't worth it.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Correct, it's arguably negative sum. Productivity growth and capacity utilisation (the ultimate size of the pie) are negatively correlated with inequality.

Please, stop using words you don't understand. When people trade at a loss, ie negative sum game, they stop trading. Since they're still trading it's obviously profiting both parties. What we're discussing is that fact that is benefits one party more than the other.

Indeed we are, so what I said stands and what you said is irrelevant

Inequality is also negatively correlated with a host of well-being and health indicators, i.e. it's harmful in and of itself.

I can think of a billion ways to swing those numbers around to prove anything I want. I think I agree with you. But I'm not sure.

If you take from the rich, the poor don't get more money.

Yeah they do.

Ok. I'll humor you. Give me an example where it's worked.

Progressive taxation in first world economies.

I can give you some famous examples where it hasn't worked. The Nazis confiscated Jewish properties. They've been accused ever since of profiteering from this. Turns out that the wealth added to the system by the Jews just went up in smoke when they vanished. Wealth isn't in the money. Wealth is in what you can buy with that money. Taking the Jews money also meant removing the very same players in the market who helped giving the German money it's value. The German government and German people hasn't made a penny from confiscating Jewish properties. They lost money. Well.... they gained money, but lost wealth. Obviously the Jews lost more. They died. But just because one party in a (let's call it transaction) loses more than you, doesn't make you a winner necessarily.

Idi Amin did exactly the same thing i Uganda. Ugandan Indians had most of the wealth. Amin kicked them out and confiscated all their property. But he got nothing for it. It was an instant economic disaster. Sure, the Indians lost more than the ethnic Ugandans who took over their properties. But they didn't win anything. They weren't even slightly better off than before. They were all worse off.

Taking money from group A and giving it to group B has to be done intelligently. Or it's just added stress to the system for no gains.

Of course, in which case what you said isn't true.

Do you agree that there's a point, in the pursuit for equality, when it isn't worth it.

The question is too vague and your examples weren't about pursuit of equality.