Income inequality impairs the American Dream of upward mobility

a reply to: onequestion

The 'Merican Dream isn't dead, You just have to go to either South or Central America to obtain it.. "They" changed the rules and because "They" (and their progeny) got lazier and lazier but their tastes/habits got more expensive they passed the buck to the "$u¢ker$" the taxpayer/citizen. It used to be 'Go to College, get a good job, buy a house, and retire...' Now if/when You get out of College You're $200k in debt, then have to sign Your Life away with credit cards, now each 'entity' gets a turn at "The Trough" (Money Tree or wherever Uncle Suga prints the $$$) In 2008 it was the Auto Industry, and then the Banksters got a turn and now Insurance/Big PHarma™ are sucking it up along with the 'erection machine'...

Uruguay is 22-1 exchange rate

a reply to: JimNasium

TIMED OUT AGAIN...

I see You are also in Flori-Duh... Remember the Bank of America™ settlement when it was determined that a majority of those homes were foreclosed/seized illegally? The State received $330M while the Fl. citizen that lost their house their settlement averaged $1400.00.

You can only take risks if you have money. If you look at East Europe and Scandinavia, all those countries guarantee their citizens a home and enough money to food and heating regardless if they work or not. Then they can work part-time, earn enough to buy a desktop PC or laptop. Then that is another step forward, where can then work freelance from home.

Countries like Sweden even offer their citizens free university education. That allows residents to keep up to date and learn the latest technology. Combine that with high-speed internet, then then have the resources to download Linux distributions, free trial versions of applications and other data. Then they can earn more money from freelancing or working remotely. High speed internet allows the use of VPN's.

Compare that to the UK, where if you have a council house, the minute you start working, you are immediately disqualified from your home.

originally posted by: stormcell
You can only take risks if you have money. If you look at East Europe and Scandinavia, all those countries guarantee their citizens a home and enough money to food and heating regardless if they work or not. Then they can work part-time, earn enough to buy a desktop PC or laptop. Then that is another step forward, where can then work freelance from home.

Countries like Sweden even offer their citizens free university education. That allows residents to keep up to date and learn the latest technology. Combine that with high-speed internet, then then have the resources to download Linux distributions, free trial versions of applications and other data. Then they can earn more money from freelancing or working remotely. High speed internet allows the use of VPN's.

Compare that to the UK, where if you have a council house, the minute you start working, you are immediately disqualified from your home.

How dare you speak of such sorcery! Get back into your cage little monkey.... NOW MAKE ME MONEY!!

originally posted by: smithjustinb
If no one knew poverty, why would anyone want to do anything to become better? Income equality would be technological and educational stagnation. I want to quit my job and slack off and find an easier job. I really do. But, I know what is waiting for me if I chose to do that. Poverty. Poverty motivates me to keep going. To keep trying. To keep benefiting the country through my work.

If I knew that it didn't matter, that I would make the same as everyone else regardless of what I do, I would take the path of least resistance. But, since it does matter. The path of least resistance, for me, is trying to do good. It should be logical to understand that income equality is a bad idea.

Income equality is a different and idealistic premise and there is far too much emphasis on material gain against what actually makes us tick. However there are many above and beyond a status of Income equality no matter how you define it, and logic being the fastest faller, which is the given here. I commend you for wanting to do something good though, how that should be applied is solely in your court.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: smithjustinb

Look your taking it to far we don't want to impose a perfect system we want to close the gap so no one is living in poverty it's really simple.

Well. Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour isn't the way to go about it.

a reply to: smithjustinb

Hmm.. Who's trying to push that agenda through?

a reply to: smithjustinb

Minimum wage here in Australia is $15US-society hasn't collapsed

originally posted by: khnum
a reply to: smithjustinb

Minimum wage here in Australia is $15US-society hasn't collapsed

You also have a higher inflation rate than the U.S. and a much lower economic ranking.

a reply to: smithjustinb

Yes we actually pay some interest on savings here and whilst we may have a lower economic rating there is a security net for the poor and disadvantaged here and the income wealth disparity is nowhere near as marked as your near feudal system.Id rather live here thanks.

a reply to: khnum

God your perspective gives me hope.

originally posted by: khnum
a reply to: WhiteAlice

Ethics at business school isn't that the same as a bible in a whorehouse.(and yes I have an business administration degree)

LOL! Yeah, it'd seem that way but, as I said earlier, we had multiple courses that emphasized similar points with the kind of precision that you'd expect from an Army Ranger sniper. How well it worked out for my graduating class, I don't know. I do know that, by graduation, a good number of my peers would cluster outside to express dismay and dislike towards their chosen degree and wishing they had opt to become art students. I think the whorehouse might have been converted a little too well.

LOL

originally posted by: khnum
a reply to: smithjustinb

Yes we actually pay some interest on savings here and whilst we may have a lower economic rating there is a security net for the poor and disadvantaged here and the income wealth disparity is nowhere near as marked as your near feudal system.Id rather live here thanks.

There is a security net for the poor and disadvantaged here as well. The poor can get a place to live and food even if their income is too low to afford it. And, having the highest economic ranking in the world is also a pretty good security net for the future.

a reply to: khnum

income wealth disparity is nowhere near as marked as your near feudal system

But you seem to be working on that.

Median net worth has increased in real terms from $369,000 in 2003–04 to $434,000 in 2011–12. The average net worth of high wealth households has increased by more than the net worth of low wealth households e.g. the net worth of households at the top of the fourth quintile (P80) increased by 25% (to $1m) while the net worth of households at the top of the lowest quintile (P20) increased by 12% (to $88,000) in the eight year period to 2011–12. (Graph 7)

www.ausstats.abs.gov.au...$File/fact%20sheet%205.%20changes%20over%20time.pdf

While income distribution is unequal, the distribution of wealth is even more so. The top 20 per cent of people have five times more income than the bottom 20 per cent, and hold 71 times more wealth. Perhaps the gap between those with the most and those with the least is most starkly highlighted by the fact that the richest seven individuals in Australia hold more wealth than 1.73 million households in the bottom 20 per cent.

www.tai.org.au...


Good on 'ya.

originally posted by: smithjustinb

originally posted by: khnum
a reply to: smithjustinb

Yes we actually pay some interest on savings here and whilst we may have a lower economic rating there is a security net for the poor and disadvantaged here and the income wealth disparity is nowhere near as marked as your near feudal system.Id rather live here thanks.

There is a security net for the poor and disadvantaged here as well. The poor can get a place to live and food even if their income is too low to afford it. And, having the highest economic ranking in the world is also a pretty good security net for the future.

Highest according to the UN maybe. The IMF, World Bank and CIA (lol!) disagree though and rank the EU higher than the US based on GDP. In terms of economic freedom ranking, Heritage ranks the US as 12th. I don't know if you're aware of this or not so it may come as a surprise to you but we're not #1 in everything anymore.

Also, have you ever been to a shelter? Many of them are contagion factories and not the most ideal places to live if that's what you're referring to as "getting a place to live". They also tend to be overcrowded these days to boot and well, that means that sometimes people, including families, might be camping out in tent villages outside of larger cities. Some small groups are trying to help correct those issues by building super small "homes" for people to live in so they no longer have to sleep on the streets (if you mean living on the street as a "place to live").

originally posted by: WhiteAlice

Highest according to the UN maybe. The IMF, World Bank and CIA (lol!) disagree though and rank the EU higher than the US based on GDP.

The EU isn't a country. They are a group of countries. That's not a fair comparison.

Also, have you ever been to a shelter? Many of them are contagion factories and not the most ideal places to live if that's what you're referring to as "getting a place to live".

I was talking about government housing.

Homelessness in Australia isn't that much different than the U.S. with only a .7% difference with Australia having less homeless.

But, homelessness and poverty aren't the same thing. Poor people's security net that we were talking about is different than homeless people's security net.

originally posted by: smithjustinb

originally posted by: WhiteAlice

Highest according to the UN maybe. The IMF, World Bank and CIA (lol!) disagree though and rank the EU higher than the US based on GDP.

The EU isn't a country. They are a group of countries. That's not a fair comparison.

Also, have you ever been to a shelter? Many of them are contagion factories and not the most ideal places to live if that's what you're referring to as "getting a place to live".

I was talking about government housing.

Homelessness in Australia isn't that much different than the U.S. with only a .7% difference with Australia having less homeless.

But, homelessness and poverty aren't the same thing. Poor people's security net that we were talking about is different than homeless people's security net.

And the US is a collection of states, each with its own set of laws that are merely unified by a federal government and some federalized codifications...wait a second, kind of sounds like the EU but with just different terms and a few additional federal entities. EU is very much like the US--especially in terms of economic factors which is the primary unifying point within the EU. Btw, did you know that a country is also called a "state"? This is why Delaware can have different laws for corporations from say California or Texas.

Homelessness is the most rock bottom of poverty that one can possibly get. You cannot remove "homelessness" from poverty as if it is somehow some unique financial state that needs its own definition. It is the most visible of extreme poverty. Likewise, most families within the poverty level that still happen to have their homes are frequently one paycheck away from total disaster--homelessness.

I would love to be able to crawl into your brain and see how you define a variety of things in this world. I think it would be absolutely fascinating.

a reply to: WhiteAlice

I agree with all but the last paragraph. You might wanna rethink that one

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: onequestion

The gap has been smaller, quite a bit smaller. Guess what? There were still poor people.
Income inequality does not create poverty.

I think that would depend on how you define "creating poverty". I don't think it's impossible to live where there is no poverty. Even in stormcell's example, those who all they had was that very base supplement of food, heating, shelter, and presumably electricity too, would be that level of poverty in those countries that supply it. The difference would be that the quality of life for those who would represent that lowest tier of income would be substantially better than in the US. So you're correct in that income inequality does not create poverty. However, what it does do is worsen it and increase the number of individuals that are more likely to be impoverished.

The GDP of nation is used as an economic indicator of the health of that nation and that economic health has generally been reflected throughout society via incomes. Yes, there were still people that were impoverished but we also had a strong middle class with the capability of saving money for their retirements as the gap was smaller. However, over the last 30 years, that gap has been widening and what that means is that if total income is a percentage of that GDP of a nation, then there is more money being funneled into a very small portion of that society and less to the larger whole. In the US, that is 1/6th of all income is going to just 1% of the US population and that is also taking it from somewhere else--everybody else.

Income in the US as a percentage of all income

Since 1978, the average worker pay has only increased by 5.7% while, comparably, CEO pay has increased by 726.7%. Source: Washington Post What that basically says is that any gains that have been made in the economy have been largely funneled upward into executive salaries. It was not always that way. The following link is actually the exact graph that my tax professor used to discuss this very subject:

upload.wikimedia.org...

As you can see, the amounts that an executive was paid in the 70's were much closer to how much their workers were getting paid and it's changed dramatically. That has the effect of displacing income that would've previously gone to those "average workers" and into the hands that few. That also means that those workers do not have as much income to spend and it also has to be pointed out that 5.7% increase in their pay does not match inflation rates in many costs of goods. How do people get by? Two words--credit cards and credit card use is pretty astronomical in the US as a way of getting by. Here's another graph that my tax prof showed us:

static5.businessinsider.com...

The really interesting thing about this relationship is that actually ties into that increasing GDP of the nation as the largest sector within that GDP is, in fact, the financial sector. What a surprise, eh? The sad thing is that those workers trying to get buy on their incomes and credit cards are actually ending up paying more for what they purchase via credit cards through fees and interest rates. However, the use of those credit cards are creating a cushion for people to have a better quality of life in terms of necessities and goods that they would otherwise have if they didn't use them. Tough call there. When you're contemplating your paycheck and thinking of utility bills, rents (or mortgages), food and well, Sammy needs a new pair of shoes, then you bet that Sammy's new pair of shoes are probably going to go on a credit card.

Income inequality does not create poverty as poverty is going to likely exist. However, income inequality and the displacement of income into a small portion does increase the number of impoverished, decreases the quality of life overall, increases the usage of debt so that it decreases the amount of savings, which is going to increase the dependency on the state in terms of retirement later on down the road. Income inequality does so many things that it's pretty ridiculous and really, the way the nation's GDP is, it's unlikely to get as dramatically affected by that unequal gains to the lower classes (aka everybody else) because of that reliance on credit cards feeding the financial sector. We're going to look oh so shiny when the reality is that our house is remarkably similar to a house of cards.

Why it became this way was a frequent subject in my classes. Some professors argued that the rationale behind the ever increasing CEO pay was a direct result of globalization and greater risk taking. Whereas a CEO back in the 70's wasn't a jet setting captain of industry needing to travel around the world with a home in every port, today's CEO could very well be that. There is some reality to that. As far as the risk taking goes, that's a little more sketchy as a rationale as a bad call should not equate to a golden parachute. Rewarding for taking on increased risk is kind of a bad idea as it is precisely the type of thing that motivates such events like the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. My cost account professor argued that the reason why there was such a growing gap was because there are less manufacturing jobs in the US now and more service related jobs and that manufacturing jobs have always paid better than service jobs. Industrial (manufacturing) jobs represent 19% of our GDP v. 79.7% of our jobs being within the service industry (and again, largely financial sector). It wasn't always that way either.

en.wikipedia.org...

Income inequality doesn't create poverty. It institutionalizes it.

This equality thing always pisses me off. So lets change the words.

"I know a guy who is more handsome than me. His whole family is beautiful and their friends are beautiful also. It sucks being so much less-handsome than them and it isn't fair. I take care of myself and I probably work at looking nice much more than them. They were just born into being pretty...but not me. So I want equality!! Either they should have to pay for my plastic surgery or I should be able to slash their faces in the name of equality."

Obviously a stupid idea. So why is doing the EXACT SAME THING to someone that has more money than me fair??? Maybe beauty doesn't hit the nerve for you. How about being taller, thinner, having a nicer car or house, how about being insert-race-here, clothes, number of children, etc. Lets make everyone equal on everything...right? But then...of course...those who get pissed about equality forget that there is always good and bad. If we are all going to be made equal, I guess that would include cancer, AIDS, losing a limb, dying young and everything else.

So if you are so upset that someone has more money than you...try this. Lets calculate the "ideal middle range human" and force everyone into that person. Give them some money but slash their face. Buy them a house but make them work 60 hour weeks.

We are all different. We will NEVER be equal. An idiot can't be equal to a genius. They don't have the same value and therefore don't make the same money. Hell...a genius is probably rich and an idiot is more than likely poor. Please get over equality. We will NEVER be equal...but we all have equal RIGHTS. And people have the RIGHT to become rich, as much as the next person has the RIGHT to be poor. If you look around...there are usually reasons for this.