My first thought is no. It doesn't take food out of anyone's mouth if Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos double or even quadruple their wealth tomorrow. They give away tons anyway, and are probably better at allocating capital to helpful projects than is the government. So from an economic and political standpoint, the answer for me is no, inequality is not a problem. From the social standpoint, I have my doubts. I am humbled, maybe intimidated, by the ultra wealthy. And I am not poor. A poor person must feel like an insect compared to the super wealthy. In many cases, they deserve poverty. But not all. The answer is for all zillionaires to give their money away. To me. All of it. I will spend it well and for the good of mankind.
I don’t think inequality is a problem. Everyone operates at the level they can handle. I’m definitely not intimidated by a person’s wealth. They put their pants on one leg at a time in the morning just like everybody else. Everyone is on this planet to learn certain lessons in life. Some can be learned only from the perspective of the poor and homeless. Some can only be learned from the perspective of being super wealthy. At the end of the day, we are all just souls at different stages of development, doing our own thing and learning what we are in this life to learn. In the next life the roles may be reversed. In the end, wealth or lack thereof is completely meaningless.
If you're talking about the economic strata, then no there is no problem, that is just how it is and always has been. That is something quite like the survival of the fittest. One could argue that some wealth is ill gotten but there's also plenty of just plain hard working people that amass wealth honestly. When it comes to institutionalized inequality that arises from discrimination, then it is a problem. One's race, gender, faith or ethnicity should never be part of the equation. I think the problem with those with massive wealth is that their philanthropy is more a financial decision rather than a humanitarian one. I think the average person is more inclined to altruism than those that are insulated from the world with their wealth. I do think that as a matter of economic equality we should simplify the tax system by instituting a flat tax with no exemptions and no loopholes, that would even address some of those institutionalized inequities.
I felt that inequality was a problem until I bought a house. Now, I'm King of my domain every bit as much as Bill Gates is king of his (thats how I feel, anyway). I would like to see effort put into making home ownership more attainable to us common folk. This means residencial property values would have to go down...
I could care less what someone else makes in comparison to myself. What I do care about is the inequality that can come with that wealth. The fact that a wealthy individual can, basically, buy a doctor and the very best healthcare while others die because they can't afford health insurance. I do care about the influence that the wealthy can garner from governments, using their wealth to influence policy.
Except for the satire, which I do understand, that is insightful. No question, the wealthy do more good per dollar than government does. I think that when you consider the generosity of our people, the question of helping those in genuine need is addressed, or can be, fairly well. The difficulty is in identifying and separating genuine need from those just wanting the free ride. This is the difference between giving someone a hand-up and a hand-out, and this is where government botches the job. The hand-up is a win/win, and we feel good about doing it- and those we help want to pay it forward. The hand-out only subsidizes the idea that society owes people a living, and becomes a lose/lose situation. We feel taken advantage of by giving with good intent and find we are supporting sloth, and those we give it to are convinced that their welfare is our responsibility instead of theirs- because we are willing to. The government seems unable to make this distinction, and that erodes the belief in society that "helping" actually helps; and it's plain to see that when government does it, the result is usually enabling.
That is always what happens when government's get involved in economic decisions. Those that can will start trying to buy a better outcome. The only cure is to limit government interference in things economic to the greatest extent possible. I don't care if Joe blow can afford to buy his own private medical facility. I do mind when government interference in health care drives the cost through the roof via taxation and regulation and goes out of it way to prevent from finding out what the cost of a given elective surgery at a given hospital is and how likely it is that they'll screw it up.
The idea that wealth is infinite is outright false as monetary supply is tightly controlled but seeing that there is a very very large amount it is an overblown concern. The larger issue is the political influence that the very wealthy command where they can dictate policy they impact everyone else and shape laws to benefit them — this is an issue with lobbying and money in politics though and not necessarily wealth per say, but they are definitely correlated. As long as the “rich” live by the same rules as everyone else very few would have an issue (outside of envy). Unfortunately this isn’t the case.
1) Nobody deserves to be poor. 2) Wealth inequality is not a problem IF wealth were infinite. Unfortunately, in a finite world, wealth cannot be infinite. 3) it is instructive to view the issue with a comparison, what if wealth was land: One can easily see that squeezing more and more people into less and less land (money) is not going to work, unless the end goal is to have a revolt.
I weighed my Trump check. The weight bore the same proportion to 1 ton that Elizabeth Warren's Indian DNA bore to the total of her DNA, and I extrapolated from there.
I wonder how much of the cost of health care is due to government and how much is due to medical fees. In the 50s, everybody got treated and the doctors lived in middle to upper middle class houses. Of course, malpractice insurance and the cost of technology and fancy machines dictates high fees now. I don't know the answer to that dilemma. I suppose socialize medicine would level everything for everybody except for guys rich enough to have their own private medical staff, but damnation we're supposed to be a free country, meaning liberated, not costless.
The best way I can think of would be to discourage the practice of 'hoarding' residencial property as a means to store/generate wealth. This is the primary cause of property valuation. It seems to me a very slowly increasing tax on non-primary non-rental residencial properties with the goal of taxing them to the extent that non-primary non-rental residencial property investment becomes unprofitable after 20 years or so would do the trick. Other considerations would likely be necessary such as a grace period where you could own two homes while one was for sale or while one was being renovated, etc. 20 years might even be too fast, given that so much of our economy is tied to residencial property value (care would have to be taken to avoid a 2008 situation). Additionally, new land would need to be opened up, like some of the vast tracks of BLM and FS land that's situated nearer to places where jobs can grow, as supply should be increased if the price is to be dropped. As part of this program, I would also like to see property taxes on primary residences abolished entirely so people can actually own their house instead of just renting from the local government. This would require that schools, emergency services and utilities be paid for via other means, like sales or income tax, which would also take time to implement/change. The key to all of this would be slow and gradual, but steady implimentation. But I think in the end it would drastically reduce the burden of the common folk getting into home ownership, and would reduce the cost of housing in general nearly across the board. Eventually. I don't think there is a quick fix for it that wouldn't likely destabilize everything. It would have to be slow.
Yes. Inequity is a problem and the product of a poor economic and political structure. Case in point. It appears we’re entering round 2 of banks inflating values of mortgage backed securities. This time it’s commercial mortgages (CMBS). This type of systemic rot is a direct consequence of what we “value” and it’s not the free market. The goal is to be free of government intervention and what? Right! Other authorities (privilege, monopolies, et al). We’ve spent the past four plus decades crafting public policy to empower other authorities. Our current inequity is by design. It’s past time we restructure our public policy to eliminate other authorities and minimize government intervention. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to hit all notes in the public policy realm to exercise the demons we’ve created. This has got absolutely nothing to do with envy. And by the way it’s the powerful that created this mess not the powerless and it’s also way past time we backed off of the latter. It’s offensive.
No, because you will always have the lowest laziest persons who will do nothing and be at the beginning point which is zero. On the opposite side, there will always be people producing a product that majority of people with willingly and freely turn over their money to that person for the product. Lastly, you want the "gap" to stop growing, stop making new money out of thin air. The more money in circulation, the more those who know how to create wealth by innovations will keep gaining more.
Man, you've thought a lot about this. It's funny that people who have the motto gain from reforms and redistribution. -- minorities, the poor, renters. -- don't vote as much as white, middle and upper class homeowners. They aren't motivated to vote for egalitarianism.
As long as people compare themselves to others...they will create reasons to be left wanting. Every person is created differently. Every person experiences challenges. Every person has different potential. Every person has different luck. Every person operates on a different time-line. It is absolutely guaranteed that people will experience so-called 'inequalities'. The key in all situations is what action does a person take to deal with their perceived inequalities? The only roll society has is to make sure that government programs are equitably distributed...
Medical fees like everything are impacted by regulatory cost. The real problem is that much of this regulation is enforced by and in civil courts which adds enormously to costs even when no lawsuit is made.
I've seen statistics that show a small but definite increase of voting frequency, local political participation and even party shift when people transition from renting to owning. It does seem to tend to modify priorities a bit.
Is inequality a problem? It is a natural condition of humanity. Not all people are equal. We just need government to treat them equally.
Why not? In a barter and trade system, the most natural economic system at it's core, if you do nothing to trade you will starve. Why would it be unfair that somebody is poor? Wealth is absolutely infinite. People invent things are create ideas all the time that create wealth. Is there some kind of limit on ideas? That doesn't really work, because land is finite. That isn't how it works. Wealth is not a game of monopoly. It is not finite. Zero sum economics is the downfall of the argument.