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Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by toomuchtodo on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:20AM (#23674296)
Those who experience wealth inequality or are otherwise economically disadvantaged in their own country may view national economic activity in the same way they view the stock market: with apathy. Having a job at all is the priority for many.
Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by arcticbull on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:21AM (#23674301)
GDP is not a proxy for wealth inequality. For instance, Canada has much lower inequality than the US [1] (0.32 vs 0.47) and saw a much greater percentage of its country materialize through immigration, but still saw a greater increase in GDP over the same time period.

Wealth inequality is a symptom of government policy, nothing more.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by toochini on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:25AM (#23674324)
You think a government can make inequality go away? Please give us one example
Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by cycomanic on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:07AM (#23674530)
That's a straw man, nobody asked that inequality should go completely away.

The question is rather what is a healthy level of inequality and should the government work on increasing inequality.

Most people under estimate the amount of inequality in the US, this [1] is an awesome video illustrating it. Also there is some interesting research on modelling inequality as a phase change process and that there exist some point of no return after which inequality only increases towards a oligarchy/plutogarchy without a revolution type event [2]

[1] https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...

Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by arcticbull on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:32AM (#23674367)
Sure, the Soviet Union. A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen. Ideal, of course not. Recommended? Definitely not. However, it's clear and self-evident that the US government allows wealthy people to keep their wealth. A wealth tax would solve that problem, for instance. Again, without advocating, I'm just saying that wealth and wealth inequality exist at the whim of the ruling class. I'm not sure I could come up with a counter-example that didn't involve a contrived crypto-ancap utopia.

The fact that income and wealth inequality are different in different countries is proof in and of itself.

Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by jen20 on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:12AM (#23674553)
> A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen.

This is an _incredibly_ rose-tinted view of the Soviet Union. I would suggest researching Waldsiedlung as a starting point.

Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by arcticbull on Monday June 29, 2020 @11:14AM (#23678333)
Why would that be rose-tinted? I believe in the value of inequality, to a point. Where I disagree with the status quo is I don't think the top end should be effectively unlimited, and I think the bottom end should be a lot higher.

However to say that government policy can't substantially reduce inequality is patently absurd. The government has the power to take things from people, every year, in taxes.

Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by kofejnik on Monday June 29, 2020 @02:10AM (#23674850)
> Sure, the Soviet Union. A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen.

You have no idea what you're talking about, just stop. Source: born in USSR

Re:Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer by newen on Monday June 29, 2020 @02:01AM (#23674802)
Easily? The US government has the capability to do massive wealth redistribution very easily in a couple of weeks if they wanted to.