Looking at income disparity/inequality...

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by purojogo, Apr 3, 2011.

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  1. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Yeah, I don't know who would believe that. Some Americans would say that wealth is less evenly distributed today than 30 or 50 years ago, thinking only about the U.S., but I can't imagine anybody saying that about 200 years ago.
     
  2. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    And thinking only of white people...
     
  3. dapip

    dapip Member+

    Sep 5, 2003
    South Florida
    Club:
    Millonarios Bogota
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    I think that the point that most people seems to miss is that we could redistribute a relatively small percentage of the wealth held by the top 1% and we would eliminate world poverty.

    BTW, total world wealth is 280 trillion, the top 1% owns half of it or $140 trillion. It is estimated that 170 billion are needed to eliminate extreme poverty. That's .12%.

    I'm ready to pay my part if by any chance I end up in to top 1% wealth wise.
     
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  4. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not a full strawman, maybe an exaggeration.

    It also depends what its measuring.

    https://www.google.com/url?q=https:...1AagQFggaMAY&usg=AOvVaw1Cu4UeWP5a0xC1mLOImDcF

    https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...y-its-worse-today-than-it-was-in-1774/262537/

    http://www.oecd.org/social/soc/41494435.pdf

    Yes I know it is the guardian.

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-...al-inequality-may-be-much-worse-than-we-think
     
  5. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For how long?

    If we took all the wealth from the 1% and gave it to the bottom 50% what is the average?

    If we took all the wealth in the world and divided it equally how much would you get?

    Is your house worth more or less than that?

    And you are the top 1% in terms of global income and perhaps wealth (depending on your debt).
     
  6. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    You’re missing the point. This could be an annual wealth transfer per year, a one time deal or something in between. It would affect roughly 38% of adults in this country, who by global standards are in the 1%.

    The point is that the portion of wealth that would need to be distributed is incredibly small. We’re talking 1200 bucks per every million of net worth.
     
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  7. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Hey I have always (well since a few years back) supported a 5% Tax on every dollar above 34K of income, use that money to give universal income of 14 dollars per week to everyone in the world.

    I doubt that many people in the rich world would vote for that, forget the 1%, the top 10% would say hell no.

    That is only about 5.5 Trillion Dollars per year.

    If you mean test and only give universal income to the bottom 50%, we cut that in half to 2.75 trillion dollars per year.
     
  8. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    The difference is that you're talking about income and dapip is getting at wealth. Wealth disparities dwarf income disparities. To redistribute along income lines, we'd need to set a much lower bar (as you show) at far greater rates.
     
  9. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    1. You can not eliminate poverty, the USA poor are wealthy compared to the world poor, but they are still poor by USA living standards, so you can only change the line on what poverty is measured (and that would be a good thing for sure).

    I assume Dapip got his numbers from this

    https://www.visionofearth.org/econo...-it-cost-to-end-extreme-poverty-in-the-world/

    They also mix wealth and income (0.7% of 30 rich countries GDP).

    This is a yearly commitment, that is why they use % of GDP. They also use 70 Billion per year for a few decades.


    Perhaps Dpip has a different article, Obviously micro credit, small grants (shit giving poor farmers in Africa a cow) would do great things to help them alleviate poverty.

    This fact check has the number in 2013 to 187 Billion per year, this money would allow for people that make less than 2 dollars per year to make the equivalent of 2 dollars per year.

    http://www.politifact.com/global-ne...ing/135-billion-enough-end-global-poverty-no/

    BTW, we spend 700B per year in military, so we could use some of that.

    Also we spend over 500B per year to fight poverty in the USA, imagine what that money would do (add half the military budget) that would be over a trillion USD per year we can use to fight world poverty, that is about 5 times what fact checker says it would be needed.

    We can probably get every one in the world to an income of 4 bucks per day or so.


    Here is another article where it talks about the cost of both topping off income to the 2 dollars per day level. and how that would cost the 175B per year that Dapip talks about.


    Also how much would it take to help everyone make a living wage, which is closer to what I was talking about on the post you quoted.

    We could have a 80% tax on coffee to pay for this. (much lower if we add the EU, Japan, other rich countries).

    Or more expensive.

    http://www.anielski.com/real-cost-eliminating-poverty/
     
  10. dapip

    dapip Member+

    Sep 5, 2003
    South Florida
    Club:
    Millonarios Bogota
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    kind of busy right now, but the last link is a bunch of crap.

    From wikipedia:

    Population 1.3 billion (15%; 2017)[1]
    GDP Nominal: US$3.3 trillion, €1.80 trillion (2017)
    PPP: US$ 6.757 trillion(2017)
    GDP per capita
    Nominal: US$3,320, €1,692 (2013)
    PPP: US$6,136, €5,113 (2017)

    On average, Africa already produces $9 per day per person, so it is indeed a matter of redistribution if so many people there does not get $9 per day.
     
  11. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    BTW as it was pointed out to me, I ignored inflation pressures on the post above, obviously as the world poor have more disposable income with their guaranteed 2 dollars per day (or 14 per day) then the commitment needed to help them keep up to the cost of living increases would get larger every year.

    Also is everyone having issues with Big Soccer or is it a persona problem?
     
  12. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    It's working fine for me.
     
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  13. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yeah his number is probably high, but remember we are trying to give a living wage to the world not just Africa.

    The link below is 2011, so a bit old, but about 70% of the world population lives on 10 dollars per day, so some will already make over 9, the question is how much will it take on a yearly basis (ignoring inflation for now) to get everyone else to 9 bucks, some will need only a dollar or 2, but a few billion people will need more than 5 bucks per day.

    http://www.pewglobal.org/interactives/global-population-by-income/
     
  14. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    Minor ones, yes. It has locked up on me a couple of times, and the highlight-and-italicize function in composing posts has been intermittent.
     
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  15. dapip

    dapip Member+

    Sep 5, 2003
    South Florida
    Club:
    Millonarios Bogota
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    You seem bent on conflating income and wealth. Yes, we need to address poverty but daily/yearly income is only a part of it. Some of the ways to solve poverty means actually transferring some wealth to poor people/regions/countries, and most of the time is not even about money.

    Prefabricated homes, solar panels, water purifiers, farming tools, vaccines, birth control, access to schools, internet, etc., some of them only need to be installed once and the beneficiary communities will become instantly wealthier and also will have more disposable income, since they won't have to use their resources purchasing batteries, or bottled water, or diapers, etc.

    And those kind of programs are the ones that the UN and other international organizations value at about 170 billion over the course of 10 or 20 years IIRC. Even if it was 10 times that, like 2 trillion, that is only 1.42% of the wealth held by the top 1%. IMHO a very reasonable tax.
     
  16. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I am pretty sure you are again confusing 1 time contributions with continuous contributions.

    All that I have seen close to the 170B number you keep posting is the yearly transfer to the people that make under 2 dollars per year.

    So please provide me a link that claims a one time trasfer of 170 billion can end poverty, my Google skills have failed me.
     
  17. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Can I just point out that, atm, we're actually transferring wealth in the OPPOSITE direction... TOWARDS the rich. We have to overcome that first.
     
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  18. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Is Housing Inequality the Main Driver of Economic Inequality?
    1. Richard Florida
    Apr 13, 2018
    A growing body of research suggests that inequality in the value of Americans’ homes is a major factor—perhaps the key factor—in the country’s economic divides.

    https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018...he-main-driver-of-economic-inequality/557984/


    From the same website.

    https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/the-global-housing-crisis/557639/
     
  19. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    I don't understand the housing inequality argument. If somebody who is in the 90th percentile for wealth buys a housing that is 90th percentile in price, housing inequality means that he must pay more for that house, relatively speaking, than he did in the past. So the rich pay more, and the poor pay less.

    Now it's true that the rich have made more money from their housing investments than the poor. But they don't benefit going forward from inequality unless the inequality curve steepens further. If it doesn't steepen, or flattens, then the rich are worse off than the poor (again, relatively speaking).

    At least, that is how I read that article.
     
  20. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    upload_2018-7-24_10-10-37.png

    https://www.economist.com/graphic-d...ely-slowly-among-black-and-hispanic-americans
     

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  21. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Why would the poor pay less, usually supply of housing in good locations is limited, so the poor get pushed out of those locations that have faster property value increase into locations with loser property value increase.

    I don't think I get this part.
     
  22. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  23. nicephoras

    nicephoras A very stable genius

    Fucklechester Rangers
    Jul 22, 2001
    Eastern Seaboard of Yo! Semite
    Which of those was the New Deal?
     
  24. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Revolution, because we tossed out the Republicans (temporarily). Well OK, that's a stretch.
     
  25. nicephoras

    nicephoras A very stable genius

    Fucklechester Rangers
    Jul 22, 2001
    Eastern Seaboard of Yo! Semite
    It’s a tempting hypothesis, but it’s not true. Inequality in England decreased between the Napoleonic wars and WWI despite none of those things.

    I will agree that it takes a crisis, but until a crisis occurs people don’t complain about this sort of thing, do they.
     

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