Re:MIT economist aims to move the inequality discussion beyo...
by AnthonyMouse on Sunday June 01, 2014 @12:18AM
(#7828164)
> The point is that the wealthy have taken a vastly disproportionate share of income growth.
Of course they have. If you make $5 and you just ate, you invest the money. If you make $5 and you have no food, you buy food. Tomorrow the person who invested money still has the investment and is reinvesting the interest but the person who bought food is hungry again. And the top 1% reinvest nearly 100% of their income.
But that's capitalism. Unless you're suggesting to confiscate their assets so they can't keep reinvesting the interest, the solution has to be to bring the middle class up rather than bringing the 1% down. Which we certainly aren't doing as effectively as we could if we committed to the idea, but it's not like engineers and middle managers are out starving in the streets.
I don't even know if we're arguing about anything. Whether median incomes being up 3% over some period of time is equivalent to them being flat is not a very interesting question. What pretty much everybody wants is for the average American to have more of the good life. Is there a policy proposal on the table to do that? "Kill the rich" sure sounds good but it might not be as effective as it would be satisfying.
Of course they have. If you make $5 and you just ate, you invest the money. If you make $5 and you have no food, you buy food. Tomorrow the person who invested money still has the investment and is reinvesting the interest but the person who bought food is hungry again. And the top 1% reinvest nearly 100% of their income.
But that's capitalism. Unless you're suggesting to confiscate their assets so they can't keep reinvesting the interest, the solution has to be to bring the middle class up rather than bringing the 1% down. Which we certainly aren't doing as effectively as we could if we committed to the idea, but it's not like engineers and middle managers are out starving in the streets.
I don't even know if we're arguing about anything. Whether median incomes being up 3% over some period of time is equivalent to them being flat is not a very interesting question. What pretty much everybody wants is for the average American to have more of the good life. Is there a policy proposal on the table to do that? "Kill the rich" sure sounds good but it might not be as effective as it would be satisfying.