Setting aside psychological explanations for why people care about income inequality. I would argue the the most important reason that income inequality should decrease is that when incomes are more equal society tends to experience more growth, and longer lasting growth. With that said there is also an optimal level of inequality that should exist to provide an incentive to work hard. While I don't think the government should legislate anything to decrease inequality. I do hope businesses begin to realize that paying higher wages tends to result in higher profits because of an increased size of the consumer base. A larger consumer base tends also the encourage business innovations and entrepreneurs because there is a large market to pursue .

abge speaks my point of view pretty spot on. income inequality isn't the root of the problem, it's a direct symptom of the problem. a first world country should be able to construct a system that keeps the bottom socioeconomic class comfortable without chucking them to the curb.

sooo um krellin not to derail, but.. your wife... eh... does she... eh?

You know...

You can pm me the answer if you don't want to tell everybody.

67 people control as much wealth as 3,500,000,000 people in 2014 and if that sits right with you, you don't sit right with me.

That's down from 85 people by the way; it's gotten worse in the last few years.

^^ this.

@ YJ if you don't get a PM from Krelly, you could just ask taos, Krellin was pimping his wife to him earlier...

YJ has an open invite...<wink>...he knows that.

"a first world country should be able to construct a system that keeps the bottom socioeconomic class comfortable"

BAMMM!!! adn your argument just blew the fuck up. Please refer to earlier comments about life in 1970 versus today. Please refer to comments regarding the "poor" in the US versus rest of the world. BAMM You lose. Our so-called "poor" and coddled like babies...

Fuck, our prisoners have a better life than some people around the world

The fucking poor should be kept UNCOMFORTABLE...then maybe they would be more inspired to take self-control of their lives and do more to become un-poor...

They should be kept comfortable....fuck....libtard democrat speak there...."Just keep 'em comfortable in their ghettos and they'll keep votin. Not toooo much...not tooo little...just enough to keep 'em pullin' the lever..."

To your last sentence krellin, I'm curious;

Would you propose degrading the lives of our prisoners to match the living standards of the global poor, or rather would you propose enriching the global poor to a level at least as comfortable as that of our prisoners?

Somewhere in between? Or are both too impoverished? Are neither impoverished enough? Curious of your view on the matter.

I don't think they should be comfortable. I think insitituions should be in place that give them a real chance at bettering themselves.

"The fucking poor should be kept UNCOMFORTABLE...then maybe they would be more inspired to take self-control of their lives and do more to become un-poor..."

Yeah, that way they will be inspired to risk life and limb crossing deserts and oceans to get into developed countries which erect palisades and deploy warships to keep them out.

How's that working out for us?

"BAMMM!!!"

http://i.imgur.com/BLe1mBl.jpg

Did you know that people in Haiti, when interviewed, described their situation in the following way:

The way they see it, if they do not get out of the country, they will die. And so, they are willing to risk death at sea to have a chance at life. Meanwhile the multi-billion dollar US Coast Guard whose funding is greater than Haiti'a GDP "protects" us from these huddled masses.

For those of you who support free trade and free movement of capital - the free market enthusiasts among us - why do you not also support the free movement of labor?

I won't use the x-word... Yet

Xylophone.

Thucy....the open-border niave moron....never fails to deliver. His gross and disgusting lack of understanding of the world once again places him as Dufus of the Day.

But...if you want to talk about Haiti....LET'S. By comparison, and the whining, bitching so-called "poor" people in the US are fucking UBER_rich by comparison.

Totally unrelated:
Krilling i assume you live in the USA, is that right?
In that case, what did you vote? Just curious since i want to see some of your post in context.

So the US socioeconomic situation is fine as long as our poor people are better than those of Haiti? Fuck striving for better?

Haiti wasn't as poor a place (still poor, but not as poor) until they were taught modern (at the time) agriculture practices from places like the USA...apparently laying crops in fallow in mountainous regions causes the soil to wash away. Go figure.

Their problems, quite honestly, began at contact and have not significantly lessened since. In my opinion a huge driver of their modern plight was international sanction on them after their successful slave revolt, much of which lasted a really long time.

But anyway.

Krellin, if open borders are naive, can you explain how and why? Can you explain how the free movement of labor is not economically preferable to a free market proponent, which I assume you are?

Or am I wrong? Are you not a proponent of free markets?

And call me naive, but I am not impressed when I hear that, in one go, hundreds of "migrants" have drowned in the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean off Australia, or the Caribbean, or the Southwestern desert, or the Sahara desert.

Those thousands of skeletons could have been living, productive people in our country, indeed our fellow countrymen, if it weren't for the oppression of our xenophobic and selfish border control policies - and that goes for almost every developed country.

When the Italian navy "rescues" migrants headed for Lampedusa, they are not rescuing anyone they didn't endanger in the first place by forcing them to take that dangerous route, and certainly aren't rescuing anyone when they simply dump them back where they started.

This is what this oppression looks like in practice (taken at Melilla just weeks ago):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BjBpvoaCcAEIEdu.jpg:large