Axulus
Veteran Member
2013 data just added. Doesn't look like much of a trend since 2000. Why weren't we hearing so many complaints about the issue back then?
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The ever widening gap between the rich and poor
- Thread starter stmichael
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2013 data just added. Doesn't look like much of a trend since 2000. Why weren't we hearing so many complaints about the issue back then?
laughing dog
Contributor
Looks like the trend started in the mid to late 1970s. And people were noticing the trend by the 2000s. It takes awhile to get people's dander up.
2013 data just added. Doesn't look like much of a trend since 2000. Why weren't we hearing so many complaints about the issue back then?
Trodon
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The gap is not only between rich and poor. It is between rich and nearly everyone else.
Medicine Man
Member
I'm sure they're more-than-happy to assume....complainers will complain, and....that's pretty-much it.
NobleSavage
Veteran Member
Yeah, Heritage is full of shit. Cato is full of less shit, but it's worth checking out. They usually have an interesting take on the situation.
Medicine Man
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NobleSavage
Veteran Member
I might join this income inequality fight, but I want nothing to do with the class warfare mindset. I don't buy the idea that the "economic elite" are like a hive mind. If you think they sit around all day plotting how to screw over the common man for the sake of moving up the Forbes list, you probably need to be on medication.
bilby
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Income inequality is a natural consequence of the system. If it is left uncorrected, then a wealth will end up concentrated in a small number of hands; but that doesn't require anything nefarious on the part of the few who end up wealthy.
There isn't anything particularly special about those who wind up holding all the cash, they just happened to be luckier than the rest. In the long term, if the system is left unchecked, almost every wealthy person is wealthy by pure accident of birth.
This isn't yet completely established in the US, because yours is a young nation and the 'shaking out' is still occurring. But if you look at a society that has had several centuries for the system to operate largely unchecked - for example 19th Century England - you find that the people with all the money are the great-times-15-grandsons of people who were Henry VIIIs drinking buddies. They are rich because they are rich - and it is almost impossible (in the absence of deliberate wealth redistribution) to get rich starting from poverty; and nearly as difficult to get poor starting from great wealth.
Only the introduction of income taxes in the 19th century, and then inheritance taxes after WWI, and the welfare state after WWII, allowed the English system to re-balance to the point where the poor can usually afford shoes, and the rich have to make do with only one or two grand mansions, and often less than two dozen staff.
Of course, if you think that being the distant descendent of someone who got lucky entitles you to hold all the cards, then you might oppose these taxes and the welfare spending they fund; but if so, a look at late 19th and early 20th century Russia; or 18th century France, shows where that path leads.
There isn't anything particularly special about those who wind up holding all the cash, they just happened to be luckier than the rest. In the long term, if the system is left unchecked, almost every wealthy person is wealthy by pure accident of birth.
This isn't yet completely established in the US, because yours is a young nation and the 'shaking out' is still occurring. But if you look at a society that has had several centuries for the system to operate largely unchecked - for example 19th Century England - you find that the people with all the money are the great-times-15-grandsons of people who were Henry VIIIs drinking buddies. They are rich because they are rich - and it is almost impossible (in the absence of deliberate wealth redistribution) to get rich starting from poverty; and nearly as difficult to get poor starting from great wealth.
Only the introduction of income taxes in the 19th century, and then inheritance taxes after WWI, and the welfare state after WWII, allowed the English system to re-balance to the point where the poor can usually afford shoes, and the rich have to make do with only one or two grand mansions, and often less than two dozen staff.
Of course, if you think that being the distant descendent of someone who got lucky entitles you to hold all the cards, then you might oppose these taxes and the welfare spending they fund; but if so, a look at late 19th and early 20th century Russia; or 18th century France, shows where that path leads.
DBT
Contributor
I don't see it as class warfare, just the inequity - to put it mildly - between the filthy rich and the rest of us. So shouldn't we, as a society, be working towards more reasonable pay ratios and fairer wealth distribution?
arkirk
Veteran Member
Looks like the trend started in the mid to late 1970s. And people were noticing the trend by the 2000s. It takes awhile to get people's dander up.
2013 data just added. Doesn't look like much of a trend since 2000. Why weren't we hearing so many complaints about the issue back then?
Dear friend, I hate to disagree with you, but this trend started long before 1943. The chart show a fairly consistent advantage for these 1%er bloodsuckers throughout our history as a nation. I wish to thank Axulus for showing us that historically the 1% in question have ALWAYS ENJOYED BETWEEN A FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR FOLD ADVANTAGE IN INCOME...at least for the entire 20th century. The problem is that this advantage cannot be sustained forever without increased suffering on the bottom end of the scale.
Several of our earliest presidents owned in excess of 100 slaves...but their suffering occurred off the books behind closed doors. Now it all goes on the books...if we can only find the books. Many of the more creative "financial instruments" are purposely designed to hide the advantages and I feel confident that the chart presented actually only represented the portion of the 1%'s robbery that could be found. Today the top 0.1% enjoy more than a thousand fold advantage in income and I am sure they feel relieved to "averaged" in with the rest of the top 1%. Any cover is better than the naked truth. People who enjoy this disparity do everything in their power to hide the details.
We have a couple of brothers who intend to buy our next election with about 900million bucks. There is no reason for anybody anywhere near the middle of the scale or the bottom for that matter to be comforted by the structural unfairness of our economy, so it looks like these guys have done a pretty good job of keeping us off balance and away from democracy.
arkirk
Veteran Member
You may have a sane position on this matter, but for some to hear you talk like that makes them feel their ox is being fatally gored. They imagine all kinds of horror occurring to them if there were to be some redistribution...maybe even having to ride the subway with the peons.
The peons are only collateral damage in the wars these rich wage against each other, but being collateral does not make it hurt any less.
DBT
Contributor
You may have a sane position on this matter, but for some to hear you talk like that makes them feel their ox is being fatally gored. They imagine all kinds of horror occurring to them if there were to be some redistribution...maybe even having to ride the subway with the peons.
The peons are only collateral damage in the wars these rich wage against each other, but being collateral does not make it hurt any less.
Oh, yes, the rich are willing fight with tooth and nail to retain every dollar of their 'hard earned' wealth, propaganda (how the world economy would collapse without their entrepreneurial skills at the helm, reducing everyone to a state of abject poverty (including themselves), yada, yada, yada....
lpetrich
Contributor
Except that's not what we see.
Wealth does tend to concentrate--some people more value current spending, some people more value investing for the future/for a rainy day. If everyone were immortal you would eventually end up with all the wealth in the hands of the savers.
However, we are not immortal. While fortunes are made they get passed on to those who aren't such savers--in practice they are dissipated in a few generations at most.
Back then, yes. There was a very big difference back then--those people did not have piles of money in the bank. Rather, their wealth was generally in the form of a single asset that produced income. This made it much harder for it to be dissipated over time--not to mention laws specifically designed to keep it from being dissipated.
The world no longer has such factors keeping it from being dissipated. The heirs will tend to spend it and it will be split amongst multiple heirs. That erodes it pretty fast.
2013 data just added. Doesn't look like much of a trend since 2000. Why weren't we hearing so many complaints about the issue back then?
BTW, this graph is pretty much bogus.
That time where the number was around 10% is also the time where there were vast loopholes in the tax code. We can't make a reasonable evaluation of income or true tax rates in this time period because there were so many ways to keep money from being income in the first place.
NobleSavage
Veteran Member
You may have a sane position on this matter, but for some to hear you talk like that makes them feel their ox is being fatally gored. They imagine all kinds of horror occurring to them if there were to be some redistribution...maybe even having to ride the subway with the peons.
The peons are only collateral damage in the wars these rich wage against each other, but being collateral does not make it hurt any less.
Oh, yes, the rich are willing fight with tooth and nail to retain every dollar of their 'hard earned' wealth, propaganda (how the world economy would collapse without their entrepreneurial skills at the helm, reducing everyone to a state of abject poverty (including themselves), yada, yada, yada....
Maybe you guys are right. The rich are all the same. When I think about it, most likely it has never occurred to any of them that, "hey this money stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be."
If they gave all their money to charity you would be pissed because it's not government. If they cut a check to the government you would say it's a publicity stunt and they are using their influence to control the government.
DBT
Contributor
Maybe you guys are right. The rich are all the same. When I think about it, most likely it has never occurred to any of them that, "hey this money stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be."
If they gave all their money to charity you would be pissed because it's not government. If they cut a check to the government you would say it's a publicity stunt and they are using their influence to control the government.
Yet we are in the position where most of the World's wealth is in the hands of a small percentage of mega rich individuals......
Axulus
Veteran Member
Maybe you guys are right. The rich are all the same. When I think about it, most likely it has never occurred to any of them that, "hey this money stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be."
If they gave all their money to charity you would be pissed because it's not government. If they cut a check to the government you would say it's a publicity stunt and they are using their influence to control the government.
Yet we are in the position where most of the World's wealth is in the hands of a small percentage of mega rich individuals......
You mean the same position we've been in the last 10,000 years? Except this time the poorest among us typically live until at least 78 years old, don't go hungry, can get a free education through high school, have more leisure time than the poor have ever had in the history of the human species, etc.
DBT
Contributor
That a large gap between a small percentage of super wealthy and the rest of society has existed for long, long time makes it ethically acceptable? We should just be thankful for whatever 'trickles' down?
Axulus
Veteran Member
The gap isn't very large.
Both groups don't go hungry.
The life expectancy difference between the two is maybe 4-6 years.
The years of education difference is 4-6 years.
The amount of leisure time difference is maybe 100-200 hours per year difference, if that.
Both groups consume similar entertainment most of the time: music, movies, television, video games.
Rarely can you tell the difference between the two based on clothing alone. The difference in quality of clothing is small.
The warmth in the home during winter is the same. The cooling during the summer is the same.
The most menial of tasks haunting the human species throughout history are eliminated for both (though means of other than working an 8 hour per day job 5 days a week to pay for it): gathering water, gathering food, finding shelter and adequate warmth, cleaning clothes.
Both typically live a life free of war and violent victimization.
The happiness difference and the life satisfaction difference is not very large.
No, the gap that exists today has never before existed. It is smaller than it has ever been in the history of the human species.