Debunking Narratives on "Wealth Inequality"

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Sanskrit, Dec 11, 2019.

  1. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sanskrit, sorry that we derailed your thread. :juggle:
     
  2. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    Bingo. Even worse would be an authoritarian using the plight of the drug user to enrich themselves... while -requiring- and encouraging the drug user to continue making the bad decisions that ensure permanent dependence on the authoritarian.

    It's really not about "the poor" and "the very rich" at all. It's about "my" grant, gov-contract, cousin's gov-job, gov-pension, redistribution for advertisers, junk entertainment, junk celebrity culture... and your tax dollars that support the whole scam.

    If they'd only be honest, I'd respect them more. I respect Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot far more than today's mealy-mouthed U.S. Complex. At least with the former, you knew what the madhouse score was. No subterfuge. It's "the JOOZ!" "the counter-revolutionaries!" "the bourgeoisie effete intellectuals!" Today in the U.S. they won't even honestly describe their motives, but I guess they are getting a bit more honest.

    Just ****ing say you want more money from the taxpayer. Say you deserve it. Say you worked for it. It doesn't even need to be true, just not divisive dishonest propaganda.

    Admittedly, with vilification of "toxic masculinity," "white privilege" they are getting more honest, more to their roots. I wonder what kind of "white male star" or such I'll have to sew on my clothes in the camp when I get older?
     
  3. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    Hell I'm doing it too now, damn Sierra Nevada Torpedoes.
     
  4. Surfer Joe

    Surfer Joe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Lol...Gotta love it. Whatever doesn't jibe with your notions is a sinister plot.
    Unfortunately, the reality is plain for all to see, however you try to dance around truth of the topic.
     
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  5. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Because the number can't be zero. This isn't utopia. Children are malnourished for myriad reasons that have nothing to do with the US having the largest military in the world. Unless of course you figure it's best to send in the marines to force negligent parents to quit shooting drugs into their arms instead of making sandwiches for their kids. No amount of stealing money from the rich can force an autistic kid with food sensitivities to eat a varied diet instead of the bag of goldfish which is the only thing he'll currently eat. These systems that central planners think they can manage are way too complex to even measure, let alone control to zero. You can't manage things you can't measure. VALUE IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE DIRECTLY MEASURED.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  6. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And your argument is that your strategy isn't working? Maybe..just maybe...it's because those programs aren't really helping.

    Have you ever conducted an analysis of exactly how the rates of poor female head of households keep getting worse and worse despite ever increasing funding for cash transfer programs specifically targeting them for the past 50 years? It's clearly not working. It's almost as if it's making in the problem worse...

    You want to be poor in America? Make sure you're a single mother. The chances of poverty skyrocket.

    also:

    Again, it's not the cash that makes someone wealthy. The cash is just a symbol of value. You don't need to transfer the cash. You need to transfer the knowledge of what to do with the cash. That's not so easy.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
  7. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Look there's two sides to this issue. One side hears "Poverty is voluntary" from the other side, and the other side hears "poverty is involuntary" from the other.

    It's not that simple. Poverty is not just the result of individual choice, though it plays an important role. Poverty is also not just the result of circumstance, though it also plays an important role. You can't just focus on one of the problems to "fix" poverty. If you hand a poor person Jeff Bezo's money that doesn't make them Jeff Bezos. It's what you DO with the money that's important. Conversely if Jeff Bezos was born in Africa the chances are much higher that he would have been dead from diarrhea before the age of 7.

    The issue is not the gap in wealth between two classes of fixed individuals. The %1 is not a fixed group of individuals. There's lots of mobility into and out of the statistical group. The issue is the gap in knowledge, discipline and infrastructure necessary to produce value between the poor and everyone else.
     
  8. StillBlue

    StillBlue Well-Known Member

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    So as I understand the conservative position here the wealthy are wealthy because they have value that makes them wealthy. OK. One of the positions kicked around by the founding fathers was a 100% estate tax with the estate being split between eligible 18 years old males in the area. The idea was to prevent a defacto aristocracy based on inherited wealth.
    By the conservative views expressed above then it would be reasonable to enact a tax such as that since those that deserve to be wealthy should be able to make do with the head start they got by going to the best schools and training with mummy and father.
     
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  9. fencer

    fencer Well-Known Member

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    Not so much that the wealthy are wealthy because they have value but that they're wealthy because they provide value. Every dollar Michael Dell makes is in voluntary exchange for a greater value he provided to someone else.
     
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  10. StillBlue

    StillBlue Well-Known Member

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    Fine. So when he dies Mike Jr shouldn't get any of it and build his own empire. Works for me.
     
  11. fencer

    fencer Well-Known Member

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    That doesn't follow. Michael Dell owns what he has accumulated by his efforts and should be allowed to allocate it as he sees fit, when he sees fit. Stealing it from him and giving it to a bunch of bureaucrats to mismanage or redistribute isn't ethical or a good idea.
     
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  12. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the bump, hot air person!
     
  13. StillBlue

    StillBlue Well-Known Member

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    In my scenario he's dead. You really can't take it with you. His children had every advantage and should be able to stand on their own merits. If they can't then they don't deserve daddy's wealth either, best to free it up for someone who can make a go of it
     
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  14. jcarlilesiu

    jcarlilesiu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nobody is poor because another is wealthy. False narrative. A super wealthy person doesn't keep anybody else from earning wealth.

    End of story.
     
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  15. fencer

    fencer Well-Known Member

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    Sure, when he's dead his will is executed and his property is thereafter owned by whomever he designated when he wasn't dead. Abrogating property rights is unethical and a really bad idea. Further, there is nothing to "free up". All the money that isn't under a mattress is in the economy, and it wouldn't be better used by anyone else than the people who have earned it or received it as a gift or bequest.
     
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  16. StillBlue

    StillBlue Well-Known Member

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    It is wealth that has not been earned by the heirs. The whole premise here is that the wealthy are so because of their merits. There is no merit in inheritance. I'm going along with the concept of it's ok for rich people to earn a lot and be rich. Why should the idle, lazy and incompetent be rich? That smacks if welfare to me.
     
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  17. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    The principles at play here have nothing to do with whether heirs "earned" anything or not, but with real property law's abhorrence of waste that has grown up over hundreds (thousands) of years in our common law. "Waste" is a specific legal case against a lesser form of estate than fee simple with various remedies, but also a very broad principle in property law. For the greater good and equity in society, real and other property should descend such that it will be least likely to devalue due to waste. In olden societies with greatly reduced average lifespans and the very real necessity to defend one's land from whomever or whatever, the least likely "wasteful" prospect was the eldest son, presumed to be the most likely person a preexisting military structure would obey and risk their lives for. Today, in conjunction with our notion of owner property rights, this principle has evolved into rights of a testator to devise as they see fit. The law grants a presumption that that person and their heirs will best preserve against waste. This is of course not some universal truth, has mountains of exceptions, but is generally true and preferable to other options.

    A simple example, a family farm is valued at $5 million dollars. A forced liquidation and tax sale of the farm brings only $1.5 million. That this is a farm and a tax sale are unimportant. It could be a house and a tenant for life or any of many other scenarios involving waste. Society loses in several ways when property is not at its highest use, the local government loses tax base, employees may lose jobs, investors may lose investments, nearby property owners property is devalued, etc.

    The doctrine of waste also weaves throughout eminent domain jurisprudence, where government appeals to waste in order to take property via condemnation for its own use.

    You could of course argue that the state is a wiser arbiter of property disposal and the maximization of value, greater than the actual owner, but you'd have a long row to hoe there.

    https://www.npr.org/2014/03/12/287349831/governments-empty-buildings-are-costing-taxpayers-billions
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  18. fencer

    fencer Well-Known Member

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    That may be your premise but it isn't mine. Looking at your premise for a moment however, and deciding that Michael Dells children haven't earned their inheritance. You take the inheritance and give it to other people who haven't earned it? You give it to the government to be wasted? If its true that Dell's children haven't earned the money, who has a better claim to it? The people who would steal it from them?

    My premise is that first; property rights. People who have earned their wealth shouldn't have it stolen by people who didn't earn it. Second, property rights give the people who earned the wealth the right to allocate it as they see fit. That means they can give it all to their kids or give it all to charity and none of it to their kids, or they can bury it in a hole in the back yard. No other person or group should be able to tell them what to do with their wealth, or abscond with their wealth.

    To revisit your premise for a moment; If a rich person's children aren't "worthy" of their inherited wealth they will demonstrate that by spending it and reducing how much they have. Who has the right to decide arbitrarily that a person doesn't deserve a bequest or a gift, and subsequent to stealing if from the intended recipient, determine who should receive it in their stead?
     
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  19. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Sure. But every individual who's interested in trying a little investment usually does their homework. I know teenagers who've done it. It's not out of the reach of any of us. It's the 21stC.
     
  20. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    How are you not understanding the difference between CAN and DO?

    Just because 46% choose not to, has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that they can.
     
  21. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    And there it is. The old "I don't like the discomfort of giving up my pleasures to get ahead financially, so I'm not gonna" "I'm gonna have my cake and eat it. I'm gonna have my pleasures AND demand that the world feels bad for me"

    The reality of getting ahead on a low income is living frugally. It's the only way.
     
  22. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What makes you think you get to decide who earns it?
     
  23. Socratica

    Socratica Well-Known Member

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    Teenagers who get into more sophisticated topics are generally very special; they're outside the norm. That's very different from doing it as an adult because of the opportunity cost involved. Most adults don't have the time or resources to learn about this stuff as quickly or efficiently as someone who has attended school. It's the reason why, despite all the advances in technology, the asset and wealth management is still lucrative.
     
  24. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    No, sorry. That's not the reason at all. The stuff is simple and easy to research, and anyone can do it. Teenagers, 40 year olds, heck even 80 year olds.

    The reason people don't do it is that they don't care for the self-discipline involved in investing. They KNOW it will cost them time and fun (thus putting the lie to the idea that it's ignorance).
     
  25. Socratica

    Socratica Well-Known Member

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    How exactly are you saying anything different from what I am saying? Perhaps you should re-read both of our statements.

    But good to know that we are in agreement.
     

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