What Is Economic Fairness?

Getting a logical comment from you on this is going to be difficult. However, I'm not going to give up. You can't blubber about the welfare state as the US's welfare system is pitiful compared to the countries with higher social mobility.

 

yes pitiful doing more harm than good like all liberal programs!

It turns out that the most widely available measure of “relative mobility” actually reflects changes in inequality, and other analyses using purer relative mobility measures to compare countries suffered from data problems. The most recent research suggests that in fact, the U.S. has relative mobility rates very close to those in Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

 

Let's try and get through to you: the US system is not generous. It is, in your simplistic talk, 'right wing'. Welfare systems that are significantly more generous are also associated with higher social mobility rates. That isn't consistent with any welfare blubbering. You need another argument.

 

Well, free education housing medical care food military infrastructure for $80k/year is too generous and crippling.



It turns out that the most widely available measure of “relative mobility” actually reflects changes in inequality, and other analyses using purer relative mobility measures to compare countries suffered from data problems. The most recent research suggests that in fact, the U.S. has relative mobility rates very close to those in Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

 

This amused me. First, it is a fact that the US system is not generous (e.g. it is the least effective at reducing poverty). Second, I referred to social mobility not 'relative mobility' (which is a "movement of a type of polypeptide through a gel relative to other protein bands in the gel")

 

Actually it is so generous it is ineffective and crippling. For example in the 1950's before the deadly liberal programs black teens had lower unemployment rates than whites. Now its opposite with 30% unemployment. Do you grasp this? When Clinton added a work requirement to welfare half decided they were no longer poor.

 

This is made up nonsense. The US system is not generous at all. This has been illustrated, for example, by Smeeding and the international analysis offered by the Luxembourg Income Study.

I appreciate Americans often know very little about the world. But it doesn't give an excuse to make stuff up!

 

$80K a year is not generous? do you think if we gave $120k a year that would encourage them to get off welfare and become socially mobile?? See why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance??

 

I'm not interested in your habit of making stuff up. It is understood by everyone with an ounce of intelligence that the US welfare system is not generous

 

$80K is not generous

 

Again, I'm not interested in your made up figures. No one, absolutely no one, thinks the US system is generous relative to European counterparts. As I said, this has been neatly analysed through LIS research (comparing pre and post-welfare poverty rates)

 

so then tell us how much a very poor person in America gets??

 

I've already referred you to Smeeding's research. That fixes poverty according to the US definition. He finds "United States makes the least antipoverty effort of any nation, reducing relative poverty created by market incomes by 28 percent compared to the average reduction of 61 percent"

 

$80K is least effort?? Someone is pulling your libcommie leg

 

Notice how I refer to the evidence and you play tabloid games. Economic analysis isn't your friend

 

Inequality is good for the economy is a natural part of the free mareket that, in the end, makes everyone happier. If entrepreneur x launches a product that is successful, he will become rich (inequality), but with time other entrepreneurs will enter the market and compete which will evolve into some sort of equilibrium that gives the consumers what they want at the price they are willing to pay - in the end, everyone gets a higher living standard (equality).

"Economic unfairness" breeds "economic fairness".

 

Apple guy getting fabulously rich has been great for the economy.
Loads of people have bought Apple products.

Loads of other people have aspired to imitate his success.

Great for the economy.
Great for the customers, great for the retailers. Great for the producers, great for the designers.
Even the taxman has done well out of it.


Being rich makes you a target for theives. But Apple has been great for theives too.

 

So you can show inequality reflects entrepeneurial activity and there is no intergenerational link (i.e. class link)? Be serious!

 

Of course, the first thing one has to do to realise this, is to accept that "(un)fairness" is an ambigious term, not to mention a biased one mostly used by those with a certain agenda. Instead we should talk about "economic well-being" on the individual level and when this is done it becomes clear that "economic unfairness" creates a higher level of well-being for everyone.

Countries and communities that have "economic fairness" have it in that everyone is equal in their misery and poverty.

 

Yes, people often forget to look at what is unseen and only settle for what they see. The chain of people benefiting from, in this case, Apple products is literally endless and you could even argue that competitors such as Samsung and Huawei have benefited from them. Of course, the biggest player on the market is always the consumer. Put in the words of von Mises: "a wealthy man can preserve his wealth only by continuing toserve the consumers in the most efficient way."

"Economic unfairness" is a lie.

 

Poverty is largely attitudinal. Other foreign States don't have cultural groups like American Blacks and their peculiar culture.

The US Census Bureau typically does not include the cash-value of benefits like SNAP/WIC, HUD Section 8 housing, Medicaid, CHIPS, and many other Welfare programs, which can amount to greater than $2,000/month.

Other foreign States also don't have more than 1,500 separately functioning economies like the US does, where the cost-of-living varies dramatically. In some of those 1,500 separate economies, a single person earning $56,200 annually qualifies for HUD Section 8 housing benefits, while some single people living elsewhere in the 1,500 economies cannot get HUD Section 8 benefits if their income exceeds $16,000 annually.

While the federal government has one uniform measure of poverty which is currently $12,400 for a single person, the true poverty level varies among the 1,500 separate economies, being about half of that figure for some people, and significantly more for others.

The federal government's one-size-fits-all approach is not effective. It would be in everyone's best interest for the federal government to abandon its interference and allow the States to run their own programs, tailored to the needs of the State's people, which varies greatly from State-to-Sate.

 

Wrong again. Economic analysis naturally considers both efficiency and equity criteria. Adam Smith himself produced most of his analysis on the latter.

 

I'm not interested in your racism.

 

Especially if those poor don't stick to the narrative. Then they'll really hate ya.

 

That environment still exists, throughout the democratic west. The freedom to change circumstances. We all have it.