• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Video showing the wealth difference in US

The video has been floating around for a while and shows wealth inequality not income inequality. Please fix the title. IMO wealth inequality is a poor measure because many poor and middle class people will spend every cent they earn so they'll never build any net worth.
 
It's actually not that poor of an indicator if you look at it historically, compare to the Rockefeller years, and look at the trends of wealth creation and destruction in the US.
 
What we see is that the notion that people, Republican and Democrat alike have of how things should be and how they imagine it to actually be is so far from the reality as to be, what, unbelievable? Can there be any doubt at all that all of humanity is asleep? Where is the power of outrage that should naturally rectify this. Can anybody offer any other explanation for this massive injustice other than an unconscious belief that we deserve it. What other motivation for the paralysis of mind can there be. We are looking right at the evidence but we do not see. It's all hopeless, you see. This is the natural order of things, no, a few vampires and the great masses sucked dry. So always be thankful for that little bit of blood allowed you because tomorrow that could be sucked up too. Remember, for the worthless any change from the status quo is naturally going to be down.
 
AViking said:
It's actually not that poor of an indicator if you look at it historically, compare to the Rockefeller years, and look at the trends of wealth creation and destruction in the US.
Click to expand...

The problem is that wealth measures reflect people's decisions on spending and savings in addition to differences in income. For example, you might expect the net worth of the poor to actually decrease as social safety nets improve because they are more likely to spend their income to try and keep up with everyone else once they know they will always have their essential needs covered by others.

In general you expect wealth inequality to be greater than income inequality due since people tend to save more as their income rises. I'd be willing to bet that the people who picked their "idea" distribution were not taking this into account. I dug up the original paper and the authors themselves showed people a graph of income distribution for Sweden and claimed it to be a hypothetical wealth distribution in the beginning of the survey. That may have effected the results for later questions when they asked them to design the ideal distribution.

http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton ariely in press.pdf

This experimental design is particularly disappointing to me because I'm a fan of one of the author's books. (Dan Ariely)
 
Any information on wealth distribution in America before railroad land grants? Since the railroad grants coincided with the end of slavery, it would help to perhaps adjust or highlight wealth via slavery.

Railroad grants were really a boon for railroad companies, bankers, and stockholders. The next big boon for the wealthy would probably be the creation of the federal reserve.

When so much is done to protect large wealth at the expense of those just getting by, the wealth distribution gets horrendously skewed.
 
Moonbeam said:
What we see is that the notion that people, Republican and Democrat alike have of how things should be and how they imagine it to actually be is so far from the reality as to be, what, unbelievable? Can there be any doubt at all that all of humanity is asleep? Where is the power of outrage that should naturally rectify this. Can anybody offer any other explanation for this massive injustice other than an unconscious belief that we deserve it. What other motivation for the paralysis of mind can there be. We are looking right at the evidence but we do not see. It's all hopeless, you see. This is the natural order of things, no, a few vampires and the great masses sucked dry. So always be thankful for that little bit of blood allowed you because tomorrow that could be sucked up too. Remember, for the worthless any change from the status quo is naturally going to be down.
Click to expand...

So what is the way to rectify this?

Mandatory finance classes for people that drown themselves in debt? Everyone alike does it - from football players to lottery winners to people that never give themselves a chance to get out. I never understand your logic (or lack of). What do you do about the people that deem Nike Jordan $150 shoes, $250 rims for their shit car, and $200 jeans more valuable than saving up to get themselves up and out of the ghetto and into the middle class? Please oh wise one.
 
s0me0nesmind1 said:
So what is the way to rectify this?

Mandatory finance classes for people that drown themselves in debt? Everyone alike does it - from football players to lottery winners to people that never give themselves a chance to get out. I never understand your logic (or lack of). What do you do about the people that deem Nike Jordan $150 shoes, $250 rims for their shit car, and $200 jeans more valuable than saving up to get themselves up and out of the ghetto and into the middle class? Please oh wise one.
Click to expand...

I hear in your post contempt for what you consider my lack-logic and some pretension to wisdom. But this is a discussion forum where the intention is more along the idea that we can discuss things rather than ridicule people. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, they say. I note also that the criticism you apply seem to fit the ghetto and black people, so I also hear you as a racists. For these reasons any wisdom I might have to offer would, I think, fall on deaf ears. I think you came to express your anger rather than learn anything. I don't mind at all, understand, but until you get that out of the way I would consider you not ready to really listen. And since I know exactly what's it's like to be like you since we are all the same, something which I know and you may not, you can take my lack of intention not to respond to your challenge as an incapacity to answer. Think of me as somebody you have challenged and flushed out as a fraud and pretender to wisdom. I lack the capacity to respond to your questions.
 
moonbogg said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYZpWTvre9c

I love this guy.
Click to expand...

You have to be asleep to think that because you're an insider, participating in all these deep insights about the red white and blue dick up your ass that that knowing laugh about your fate will actually do anything to pull that dick out? Nothing is going to change because we laugh about the stupidity of our own fate. We need information, yes, but beyond that a lot of people are going to have to do something.
 
These numbers are disturbing mostly because I was always taught, even as a Republican, that the Rockefeller years were a major problem. I was taught that before the great depression our system was a mess and it led to the worst period in our history economically. To get us out of the great depression we fought a war and built up our economy quite a bit in a short amount of time. We came out of that war with lots of reforms to the banking system, a healthy economy, and a dominant position on the world stage.

Somehow we felt that we should go back to the pre-great depression times. We deregulated and funneled all the wealth to the top. We have been doing it for decades. We destroyed wealth in record numbers for the middle class. We have basically completely abandoned the bottom segments of our society and continue to let that segment grow at the expense of the middle class. The middle class today makes less money than they did in 1989.

Today we have an entire generation that can't get a job. Although the media and government tries to spin the news by showing that the unemployment rate is dropping what Americans need to know is that today we have the least amount of employed adults in 30 years. 1983! Young adults 18-24 are at 60 year lows. 1953! 46% don't have a job. The unemployment rate is a crock of shit and is politically motivated. The reality is that the USA is in deep shit.

93% of Americans are worse off today than before.

75% of Americans who are about to retire have less than $30,000 in retirement savings.

What we lead in is the amount of hours we work and having the least amount of benefits of any 1st world nation.

Where are we going to be in 50 years? I'm not optimistic. There are simply no economic indicators showing that we are going in a positive direction.
 
It might be accurate, or not. But either way it sends the wrong message. My personal view is that people should stop whining about wealth "equality" or what is or is not "fair" when is comes to compensation in a free market (ok, pseudo freemarket society). People need to stop looking to others to make things "fair" and put the onus on themselves to make their work more monetarily valuable.

Case in point - the video narrator states that a CEO might make 380X more than what a low level worker in his company might make, and argues that this is unfiar because the CEO doesn't work 380X as that worker. This is a fundamentally inaccurate measure, because in capitalist societies, compensation is based on the value of work, not how hard it is. If it were the other way around, housewives and janitors would be the best compensated, because their job is in many ways harder than a CEO's. But the monetary value created by the work of a housewife and janitor is far less than that created by a CEO . . . hence the large difference in compensation.
 
AViking said:
These numbers are disturbing mostly because I was always taught, even as a Republican, that the Rockefeller years were a major problem. I was taught that before the great depression our system was a mess and it led to the worst period in our history economically. To get us out of the great depression we fought a war and built up our economy quite a bit in a short amount of time. We came out of that war with lots of reforms to the banking system, a healthy economy, and a dominant position on the world stage.

Somehow we felt that we should go back to the pre-great depression times. We deregulated and funneled all the wealth to the top. We have been doing it for decades. We destroyed wealth in record numbers for the middle class. We have basically completely abandoned the bottom segments of our society and continue to let that segment grow at the expense of the middle class. The middle class today makes less money than they did in 1989.

Today we have an entire generation that can't get a job. Although the media and government tries to spin the news by showing that the unemployment rate is dropping what Americans need to know is that today we have the least amount of employed adults in 30 years. 1983! Young adults 18-24 are at 60 year lows. 1953! 46% don't have a job. The unemployment rate is a crock of shit and is politically motivated. The reality is that the USA is in deep shit.

93% of Americans are worse off today than before.

75% of Americans who are about to retire have less than $30,000 in retirement savings.

What we lead in is the amount of hours we work and having the least amount of benefits of any 1st world nation.

Where are we going to be in 50 years? I'm not optimistic. There are simply no economic indicators showing that we are going in a positive direction.
Click to expand...

I think your view is skewed toward the pessimistic because of the severe recession that we are essentially still recovering from. Prior to the recession, there was some evidence of widening of the wealth gap and the middle class being static (not growing or slightly declining). But it's much worse now five years later. The key here is whether this is just a slow recovery, or is this as much recovery as we get. Being pessimistic is popular right now, but it may or may not be accurate. We were' fully recovered from the Great Depression for 10 years.

You're of course correct about the policies which have led us here.
 
I'm actually pessimistic because I'm in the top percentiles. For my age I am very wealthy and I got there through the corporate world. I saw the way it works. It's disturbing.

Anyone can work their ass off and get a little lucky and have a pretty penny in the bank. I think that holds true. Where things start to really differ though is the top percentiles. The people at the top of our society are getting it through theft, manipulation of the court system, and exploitation. They manipulated or didn't honor contracts, they stole massive amounts of money and then threatened to bankrupt whoever tried to sue them for it or kept them tied up in the courts for decades, or just sold shit.

In the construction business? Sorry you had to go 500% over budget. It's going to cost more money. Import and export business? Ship 100 empty containers or garbage in those containers. Don't like it? Sue me. In lumber? Screw the law, cut down the forest. In petroleum? Overcharge, overcharge, overcharge. In banking and finance? Sell a bunch of garbage to average American consumers since there are zero consequences. After all, the "stock market is risky". Then hire those people into politics. In law? Charge to answer the phone or to staple a piece of paper. Keep your clients tied up in the court system forever. Better yet just find a crook and work full time defending him frivolously as he steals from everyone. Make it your job to bankrupt honest people. In Medicine? Overcharge, over prescribe, over evaluate. In the insurance business? Overcharge! In manufacturing? Lower the quality since then they will buy more of your product. What used to last 30 years is ok lasting 5 years today.

We try to justify these things by redefining what theft is. We call it a market economy. It's Ok to go overbudget since the market will bear it. It's ok to ship empty containers to China since we don't like them anyways. It's ok to overcharge since they worked hard and are a business owner and carry a lot of risk. Record profits at the expense of 93% of America. Skimming a bit off the top is ok. Taking money under the table is ok. It's very important to manipulate your books and have satellite companies to rotate your tax schedule so that you never have to pay taxes. It's ok to get business through bribery since that's what your competition is doing. Pay off that guy in the back warehouse or get no business.

No thank you. The system is flawed. We have way too much corruption and dishonesty.

The rich have stood on the shoulders of everyone else. Our standard of living is low and dropping even further. We trail in just about every indicator. All so that a tiny percentage of Americans can live like kings.
 
Sho'Nuff said:
Case in point - the video narrator states that a CEO might make 380X more than what a low level worker in his company might make, and argues that this is unfiar because the CEO doesn't work 380X as that worker.
Click to expand...

It's 380x his average employee. Not a low level worker. He's not comparing to a guy making $7 per hour.

That number is from the average of S&P 500 CEO's making $12,900,000 per year. The average worker makes 0.3% of that.

What is more important is understanding how that number has changed. in 1980 a CEO made 42x what the average worker made.

Did the average CEO deserve a 14% increase in 2011 despite the S&P not moving?

The reality is that the average American is seeing less money in their pockets, their standard of living is dropping, and fewer are working. All while the top percentiles are exploiting them to fill their pockets.

That salary they are making? It's coming out of the pockets of normal Americans. They are basically making a conscious decision to pay their CEO an extra $10,000,000 instead of paying their employees an extra $10,000 a year. Then there's the CFO and the rest of the board making money hand over fist too. They can do it all while having at will workers, giving no benefits, and firing anyone who makes a ripple.
 
woolfe9998 said:
I think your view is skewed toward the pessimistic because of the severe recession that we are essentially still recovering from. Prior to the recession, there was some evidence of widening of the wealth gap and the middle class being static (not growing or slightly declining). But it's much worse now five years later. The key here is whether this is just a slow recovery, or is this as much recovery as we get. Being pessimistic is popular right now, but it may or may not be accurate. We were' fully recovered from the Great Depression for 10 years.

You're of course correct about the policies which have led us here.
Click to expand...

Wealth inequality precedes depressions. The fact that the inequality is still growing during the recovery just means we are going to double dip in my mind.

Its really not that different than the crash in 1920, the boom 1920-1929 and then finally the actual depression.

1920 = 2008

not 1929 = 2008 and we are super clever for papering over the problems.

Because papering over the problems is what they did in 1920 and it led to 1929.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920–21

Economist Paul Krugman, who is critical of the Austrian interpretation, notes that the monetary base expanded significantly from 1922-1925, and that this expansion was accompanied by a reduction in commercial paper rates.
Click to expand...

Sounds alot like 2013 to me.

In 1920–1921, there was an acute recession, followed by the sustained recovery throughout the 1920s. The Federal Reserve expanded credit, by setting below market interest rates and low reserve requirements that favored big banks, and the money supply actually increased by about 60% during the time following the recession. By the latter part of the decade "buying on margin" entered the American vocabulary as more and more Americans over-extended themselves to speculate on the soaring stock market and expanding credit. Very few expected the crash that began in 1929, and none suspected it would be so drastic or so prolonged.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_twenties#Economic_policies

History doesn't repeat but in rhymes eh.
 
Last edited:
Sho'Nuff said:
Case in point - the video narrator states that a CEO might make 380X more than what a low level worker in his company might make, and argues that this is unfiar because the CEO doesn't work 380X as that worker. This is a fundamentally inaccurate measure, because in capitalist societies, compensation is based on the value of work, not how hard it is. If it were the other way around, housewives and janitors would be the best compensated, because their job is in many ways harder than a CEO's. But the monetary value created by the work of a housewife and janitor is far less than that created by a CEO . . . hence the large difference in compensation.
Click to expand...

This is a rather naive version of how CEO pay is actually determined. More realistically, CEO pay is set by other CEOs, who have incentive to keep increasing each others' pay to justify their own.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top