Wealth is coercive.

wealth is the abundance of valuable possessions. these do not constitute a threat, as if necessary with "coercion." rather in most transactions, both parties are consensual and rational agents, and there are massive bounds of empirical proof as to the existence of such markets in even the most basic economic literature. this has been known for literally centuries. try to catch up.


Property is theft.

Only if you took it from someone else. and if you're implying that because of scarcity, we live in a zero-sum world, then i suggest you go back to the 1600s with all the other mercantilists. from renewables to technological innovation, scarcity is a problem that looks closer to being solved than not.


Money's function is to launder away blood.

I think you're confusing money with detergent. Money is both a medium of exchange, and a store of wealth, gained in accordance with your greatest utility for working as it is demanded at a certain period in time. money can also be used as an asset for speculation in our modern system.

PRETTY sure you're talking about detergent

James moves logically down the court, .....pauses, .... assembles a coherent arguement .... aims the detergent ball.... And he shoots! ......HE SCORES!

Nothing but net, folks!

Property does not exist if society does not recognize your rights and enforce them through violence, right?

"in most transactions, both parties are consensual and rational agents"

lol. A nice little fairly tale for the kids, but that isn't remotely true in the real world

@Ogion

not necessarily. if i am on my own in the wild, i can still create a hatchet or bow and arrow out of the resources around me. these can be my possessions, and they are not inherently bound to society granting me the privilege of being allowed to own things. we have examples of this in nature with certain primates, from all sorts of societal structures: polygamous behavior, multi-male multi-female, monogamous, isolated males... and a constant in the most developed primates is there ability to shape and mold tools. this is not true for all primates of course, but there is zero evidence in the anthropological record that possession of an item is necessarily tied to society.

furthermore, i have your problem with your sentence "if society does not recognize your rights and enforce them through violence"

since it's obvious property CAN exist without society, what mechanism DOES society play?

You seem to believe that society threatens violence to ensure rights (in this case, property rights). I think this is a great mischaracterization of aggression and defense.


wifi live as an individual and am carrying a bag on my back, and i meet with another individual (of different societies), my counterpart attempting to take the bag off of my back would be an aggression, in which i would be forced to respond.

society promises us a few things:
1. if someone acts in unwarranted physical aggression towards you, you have the right to protect yourself
2. if someone acts in unwarranted physical aggression toward you and you CANNOT defend yourself, there will be a structure in place to correct the wrongdoing.

the second implies a sort of police structure, however the police do not threaten violence, they threaten those who would enact violence.

now, not all societies or moral structures would necessarily agree with the two above rules, but every western democracy does, and they fit in with my personal moral framework, and well as the basic tenants and rights bestowed upon us by our forefathers at the inception of our nation.


if you have a differing of opinion, on why society should not protect those who have had violence engaged upon them i'd like to here it, but that sounds rather morally depleted.

@Ogion

"lol. A nice little fairly tale for the kids, but that isn't remotely true in the real world"

except if people DIDN'T consensually engage in transactions that gave them something they wanted: the entire field of economics would be entirely different, and the basic laws of supply and demand would be null and void.

empirical data from scientific studies shows this NOT to be the case

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1350178X.2015.1070527

a great study on how human rationality actually is can overpower government interference.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02691728.2016.1172358?src=recsys&journalCode=tsep20

i actually have some arguments that bely this, but it's also a good read, and explains away most of what you'd perceive to be "irrational choice"

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20421338.2014.940166?src=recsys&journalCode=rajs20

more data

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1010028119149

even more data

http://amr.aom.org/content/20/2/404.short

a synthesis of 9 peer reviewed research propositions that all agree with the basic ethics and rationality in human aggregate choice.



don't be a science denier Ogion geez

Funny how the poster who claims to have gone to an Ivy League school, wants to shove it down everyone's throats turns around and whines and cries the most about privilege despite living probably the most privileged life of anyone here.

The hypocrisy never ends with this clown.

Property as you describe it cannot exist without society. If you leave your bow and arrow unattended, someone can pick it up and begin using it without your permission. Hell, someone could take your bow and arrow right in front of you and and if they are strong or intimidating enough, you can't do anything to stop it. It is impossible for you personally protect all of your belongings, or any of your belongings to someone more powerful.

Thats why society lends the monopoly on violence to a single, supposed benevolent actor, the government.

But getting on track, you seem to completely contradict yourself Yanik. You say that you're familiar with the idea that scarcity implies the a zero-sum aspect of property but you imply that the technological advancements of today make the world any less finite than it was in 1600. There is more "wealth", but that doesn't mean that there isn't scarcity.

The rest is philosophically subjective. One could argue that the wealth of today was generated using the labor of the working class in conjunction with the capital and land of the upper class. If you trace back the wealth to its origins, you'd find that land was either stolen or misappropriated. Also the idea the land and capital can be transferred to ones children is an inherently dynastic system that serves no other purpose but to keep wealthy families wealthy, in fact making them wealthier, and keeping poor families poor.

"lol. A nice little fairly tale for the kids, but that isn't remotely true in the real world"

except if people DIDN'T consensually engage in transactions that gave them something they wanted: the entire field of economics would be entirely different, and the basic laws of supply and demand would be null and void.


@YanikJames - Tell that to any Jew or member of a group that the Nazis seized property from or forced sales at extremely low prices. Nothing consensual about those transactions and it took decades for some owners to reclaim their property or get compensated. There are still lawsuits right now over some things that haven't been resolved 70 years later.

So is the IRS a bunch of vampires?

@Yoyoyozo

"Property as you describe it cannot exist without society. If you leave your bow and arrow unattended, someone can pick it up and begin using it without your permission."

just because i own something, does not mean that it's IMPOSSIBLE for me to be dispossessed. That was never what i was claiming. And if i leave my bow unattended and someone else takes it (assuming they don't know whose it was, or how to return it), then it's not an act of aggression.


"Hell, someone could take your bow and arrow right in front of you and and if they are strong or intimidating enough, you can't do anything to stop it. It is impossible for you personally protect all of your belongings, or any of your belongings to someone more powerful."

yes... but that still doesn't mean there's no moral framework in place. i'm not sure where we're disagreeing...


"Thats why society lends the monopoly on violence to a single, supposed benevolent actor, the government."

or in cases of self defense. one of government's few mandates is to protect property rights. that violence however is a VERY limited kind of violence: it is only in reaction to an overstep on rights (in an ideal government). it is not the government deciding to be violent on any whim.



"But getting on track, you seem to completely contradict yourself Yanik. You say that you're familiar with the idea that scarcity implies the a zero-sum aspect of property but you imply that the technological advancements of today make the world any less finite than it was in 1600. There is more "wealth", but that doesn't mean that there isn't scarcity."

no but you're actively reducing scarcity, the scourge of mankind. this is why we have some of the well fed poor in the history of mankind, and what you DON'T mention is the modern pursuit of a minimum basic income that we can actively implement on a perpetual basis.

in one hundred years, if we don't have another destructive world war, we could legitimately have a renewable energy framework combined with automation so that minimum basic food, water, shelter and clothing can be near-perpetually created.

what you don't understand is that personal possession of resources necessary to survive is different from personal possession as an entire concept. if someone creates a monopoly on all the fresh water and desalination plants in the world, then says "fuck you all, you can die," there is a strong moral argument to depose this person because of scarcity of a necessity.

the modern profit driven necessity framework has ben looks down on, but it actually has produced some of the most innovative farming techniques in the world, and only once we achieve some minimum bound of technological framework, would the government even need to step in and implement a MBI for food.



"The rest is philosophically subjective. One could argue that the wealth of today was generated using the labor of the working class in conjunction with the capital and land of the upper class."

and you'll also find that every "upper class" group that did not use violence or corruption to achieve its ends, came to be so successful through hard work. i'll stand with you against corruption and violence, but not against hard workers.


"If you trace back the wealth to its origins, you'd find that land was either stolen or misappropriated."

and if you trace back poverty to its origins, often the story is not so different. that is the history of man, it's the causation of all things, and to draw a singular line of thought from it is to deny a million other threads. i'm not here to vouch for world history, i'm here to propose a way of moving forward.


"Also the idea the land and capital can be transferred to ones children is an inherently dynastic system that serves no other purpose but to keep wealthy families wealthy, in fact making them wealthier, and keeping poor families poor."

so the problem you're identifying is that inheritance keeps wealthy families wealthy, and poor families poor. so let's identify the veracity of that claim, and also whether or not there are sufficient moral grounds for that claim.

CLAIM: inheritance keeps the rich wealthy, and the poor destitute.


https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/Report-Income-Mobility-2008.pdf

2008 IRS report, page 10 shows change from 1996 to 2005 of income mobility relative to the income quintiles.

81.7% of the bottom 20% saw an increase in income. 49.4% of the bottom saw an increase in income of 100% or more

51.3% of top 20% decreased in income, 14% by more than 50%

the top 1% saw 64.8% of them decrease in income, 38.9% decrease by more than 50%

in a period of 9 years, we see over half of all poor and half of all rich see a statistically significant change in fortunes.


so why the narrative of the rich stay rich? the poor stay poor? because you're not looking at INDIVIDUALS, you're looking at population groups. many people start poor, move into a different income bracket, and then change several more times. this is not CONSTANT, as YOUR claim implies.

furthermore, the extension of the lower quintiles in recent times are largely connected to the lower labor force participation of American youth. while there is increasing economic inequality in other forms, most of this is most drastically seen in large cities.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/city-and-metropolitan-inequality-on-the-rise-driven-by-declining-incomes/

80% of the biggest 25 cities in America are democrat controlled, with 4 Republicans and 1 Independent. i can only guess what sort of policy is leading to this problem...


SOLUTION?:

well, if we destroy all inheritance, than what? i see 4 possibilities:

1. all wealth is anarchically seized from the dead
2. all wealth handed down to those chose in will or by closest living kin
3. all wealth goes to the state
4. all wealth is distributed equally among the massed.

proposition 1:

i don't think anyone wants this. i think we can move on.


proposition 2:

the current system. allows for voluntary exchange of property. if i give away all my things before death (beyond the government gift tax), nobody bats an eye. once i die the idea that it naturally goes to my children is part of the idea of it is my wealth, and i shall use it as i please.

proposition 3:

series problems with assets. does the estate get taken from the children? the house they grew up in? what about businesses? we can't allow crowding out of markets, that's economically irresponsible. and what of stocks? you could destroy companies with this plan. also, the government would need a MASSIVE expansion to implement this. we have 46 million americans over the age of 65, so we'd have to manage all of them, as statistics say they have little over a decade and a half of life left. this would require millions and millions of government jobs, field by taxpayer money, to dismantle entire sections of our economy after demographic blocks die. sorry if i don't sound excited.

proposition 4:

same essential problems as prop. 3. there has to be a central network to control this, but all the problems above are combined with the fact that destroying large bases of capital means less more money in the hands of demand-curve consumers, and less money in supply-curve employers. higher wages and higher prices are the natural economic progression from this... real wealth won't have increased (W/P, wealth/real prices) in fact a move off of equilibrium might decrease real wealth.


i don't see why giving my possessions to those i love is inherently immoral, inefficient, or should be a great topic of debate. we already have a 40% tax on all inheritances 5.49 million+ which is quite substantial.





@Randomizer

"@YanikJames - Tell that to any Jew or member of a group that the Nazis seized property from or forced sales at extremely low prices. Nothing consensual about those transactions and it took decades for some owners to reclaim their property or get compensated. There are still lawsuits right now over some things that haven't been resolved 70 years later."

yeah, that's why i don't like giving government authoritarian levels of power. and even after WWII, the international governments are so incompetent it took forever to repay the Jews who suffered.

People who don't like the idea of inheritance, generally don't like the idea of property rights in the first place. inheritance is what i give to whom i choose, in the case of my death.

so why is it that i can enjoy full control over my property in life, but in death we must have a mass redistribution scheme for my wealth? and if I try to give away my possessions before death, that is super-regulated as well.


it's a smart tactic for the modern socialist. they've learned from the Soviet Union: the dead cannot resist.

@Zach0805

unfortunately, no. sunlight can't destroy them, although a wooden stake or silver blade to the heart is still effective.

@Yanik
I have no idea why you decided to respond to my point about property and society as if that point was was specifically to you. I was simply making a point.

As for the part I *did* direct to you, I'm not sure you understand the concept of the means and factors of production. The idea that wealth is zero-sum holds true no matter how much it grows. A person who is poor cannot simply create wealth. It takes land, labor, and capital to do that, things that the upper class control the majority of, either directly as for land and capital, or indirectly, which involves literally deciding the price of labor in most instances. In fact, if minimum wage laws weren't a thing, the wages of most jobs would be decided nearly entirely by the business owners.

You make references to the future about how everyone's needs could be met, but my point is that it isn't the case now. You can't respond to a criticism about a system with the "well it could work in the near future maybe possibly"

You argue that it is morally depraved to have the upper class monopolize a key resource of human survival like water, and that the upper class achieves its wealth through hard work with entrepreneurialism, but I'd like to press your ideas a little further.

Because of the idea of the inheritance of land and capital, it is also morally depraved to have the upper class monopolize land and capital. Sure they use their own grit to generate wealth through entrepreneurialism instead of labor, but they were literally given 2 of factors of production as a birthright.

Just as everyone has the right to water and essentials, everyone should have the opportunity to greater wealth than just the basics. this idea has already been explored with the education system. Some people can become better laborers through education and can sellt their labor to higher paying markets, like becoming a doctor. But to start a business and create wealth is still astronomically harder than to continue a business and keep the wheel cranking.

Also you completely and utterly cherry picked the data from your IRS report.

A quick look at the chart reveals a lot of income mobility, yes, but only amongst the bottom 60% that's because that's where jobs and whatnot break off. Some people in the bottom 10% get better jobs and get paid more. I mean the bottom there no where to go but up obviously. But the number of people in the bottom quintile that stay there is still very high. There's a high number that moves up to second quintile but that number is comparable to the number of people in the second and third quintile that move down to the first quintile.

If you take a look at the top 5% you see that there is very little mobility

Also I wasn't talking about inheritance in general, just inheritance of land and capital

@Yoyoyozo

for your first point, I couldn't tell if it was direct towards me so i responded to it anyways ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


"As for the part I *did* direct to you, I'm not sure you understand the concept of the means and factors of production. The idea that wealth is zero-sum holds true no matter how much it grows. A person who is poor cannot simply create wealth. It takes land, labor, and capital to do that, things that the upper class control the majority of, either directly as for land and capital, or indirectly, which involves literally deciding the price of labor in most instances. In fact, if minimum wage laws weren't a thing, the wages of most jobs would be decided nearly entirely by the business owners."

the minimum wage is a band aid. the disease is an uncompetitive job market. because of monopolistic behavior: much of which is either directly subsidized by government, or unintentionally supported by regulation thats kills small businesses, it is true that business owners have an unfair advantage on what determines the wage.

there's been an increasing constituency of people who wish to see a much larger minimum wage but this has long term failures

there are labor:capitol intensive jobs. for labor intensive jobs, either a country is not industrialized and does not posses much capital (machinery that creates something) or it is a product that necessitates human elements (massage therapists are much more labor intensive than capital intensive)

for capital intensive jobs, automation makes humans obsolete, but because of both maintenance for machines and the still non-mechanizable products that are in high demand, this can create high wage jobs.

for the labor intensive industry, the higher the minimum wage, the more pressure for automation (and thus lay offs), but once that upper bound of maximum current automation is reached, then only profit margins will be affected by minimum wage.

take building cars: as the minimum wage has risen, automation has skyrocketed, creating only a few highly specialized maintenance jobs. this of course happened over a century, and is still happening today (a perpetual adjustment period)

the problem with forcing a 15$ minimum wage in our current environment is primarily outsourcing, but let's assume we're the only country ever, and nobody else can affect us. let's also assume there is NO possible extra room for automation.

if these two conditions can be met, then an increase in the minimum wage will have the desired affect of cutting profit margins, and increasing employee earnings.

however, this causes other adverse problems.
1. investors pull out when profits are low
2. if you're getting an 8% profit margin from an activity, but min. wage cuts that margin to 5%, you're going to look for a more profitable activity.
3. hiring freezes and lay offs become a LOT more frequent, when employers don't have a profit buffer. if there's a drop in market shares, they could react rashly to what is actually a short term problem. low profits means more volatility in decision making.


there are more problems, but this is WITH the first two conditions of no outsourcing and no more possible automation being met. those two alone occur quite frequently.

this is not to say a minimum isn't necessary, but giant spikes in the minimum wage almost always hurt industries, that employ the most people. this is why we see the highest income inequality and unemployment rates in cities with the highest minimum wages.


stopping immigration altogether is a little troubling because there's a lot of demand for high-skilled laborers... but perhaps our universities will step up.

because industries are so different from one another, this is why i can never get on board with the Bernie "minimum 15$ wage) line, because it's so hilarious overreaching.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/industry.htm

the minimum wage itself is not a solution that can be maintained.

in a society in which employers compete for laborers, as well as laborers competing for employers, we'd have a much higher market wage. this would also increase income mobility, and increase wealth creation.

that solves your "scarcity" problem. beyond that, all i would say is that people should still have the right to basic sustenance farming. if they want to enter into contracts and work less strenuously for more wealth, that's their prerogative, but i don't want to hear complains about abuse if freedom is actually achieved.




"You make references to the future about how everyone's needs could be met, but my point is that it isn't the case now. You can't respond to a criticism about a system with the "well it could work in the near future maybe possibly" "

um... no that's actually a 100% valid response, but not in the way you put it. yes we have intense inadequacies with property rights and scarcity now, but that's due to people obtaining monopolies over vast amounts of resources.

i also spoke on how our current progression in terms of innovation is leading us TO such a state as we speak. if you want to start redistributing things prematurely, then i need only to looked at Orthodox Marxists:

Those followers of Karl Marx who interpret his writings as indicating that historical events are determined by economic conditions. They insist that revolutions against capitalism can only occur when economic conditions are "ripe"-when countries are highly industrialized but experience severe economic depressions resulting in widespread economic unemployment and deprivation, prompting workers to revolt.

even Marx knew that redistribution destroyed creation mechanisms. if you want MBI, you need to wait until we have the correct industrial framework. what's the best way of achieving this industrial framework? wealth creation and innovation. i.e. NOT redistribution mechanisms.


and here's a challenge for you: find me ONE monopoly, that didn't somehow receive government assistance through subsidization or regulation of competition, and manage to cheat its way to power.

i've issued this challenge dozens of times, and i still haven't ever gotten an answer. naturally occurring monopolies are a phenomena that no living economics has ever observed, except on micro-geographic scales.




"You argue that it is morally depraved to have the upper class monopolize a key resource of human survival like water, and that the upper class achieves its wealth through hard work with entrepreneurialism, but I'd like to press your ideas a little further."

NOOOOOOOT quite. i'm saying that i don't want to attack the hard workers, but i already recognized that many companies exhibit monopolistic behavior. of course these companies are universally propped up by government laws, regulations and subsidies, so my argument still stands.




"Because of the idea of the inheritance of land and capital, it is also morally depraved to have the upper class monopolize land and capital. Sure they use their own grit to generate wealth through entrepreneurialism instead of labor, but they were literally given 2 of factors of production as a birthright."

1. capital cannot be monopolized, except by patent. there are plenty of institutions ready to make loans (at amazingly low rates) for new capital, at high risk margins nowadays. saying capital is monopolized is supremely misinformed.

2. an actually good point on land monopolization. this is why i've actually proposed a geography-based tax, for those who obtain massive amounts of land but do not use it. i think we have common ground here.

3. it's not a birthright. many children don't inherit their parent's companies or business, where most wealth is tied up for the top income percentiles.

4. what they DO generally inherit are assets, not factors of production.




"Just as everyone has the right to water and essentials, everyone should have the opportunity to greater wealth than just the basics. this idea has already been explored with the education system. Some people can become better laborers through education and can sellt their labor to higher paying markets, like becoming a doctor."

you're using positive rights, not negative rights.

you DO NOT have a right to water being handed to you for free. clean water is a process that requires labor, and you have no right to demand labor from someone else free of charge, that is slavery.

you DO have the right to prevent monopolies over scarce water. that is an action that you as an individual must partake in.


you DO NOT have a right to greater wealth beyond sustenance, in fact you do not have any intrinsic right to sustenance goods.

you DO have a right to create wealth beyond sustenance, as well as sustenance goods.


every time you use a positive right, you're stripping another human being of their rights. every time you promise something for free, you are actually promising someone else's labor for free.

you are allowed to go out into the world and pursue something greater than the basics. that does not mean it will simply be handed to you.



"But to start a business and create wealth is still astronomically harder than to continue a business and keep the wheel cranking."

that doesn't make one more or less moral than the other. if i work hard and create something, i am allowed to bestow that creation onto those whom i love. simply because someone else is incapable of producing the same level of wealth as me, does not mean i MUST subsidize the difference in-between our two levels of capability.

and on a second note: YES OH MY FUCKING GOD STARTING BUSINESSES IS HARD NOWADAYS.


is that due to excessive overregulation, where thousands if not tens of thousands (depending on your craft) of documents of legal code must be sorted through simply to start a business, and that is before you are met with the complicated nuances of federal vs state vs county codes, and also before you have to deal with local government corruption, and EVERYTHING ELSE that an excess of bureaucracy breeds?

economic freedom, the ability to create a job and create wealth is ESSENTIAL for the poor in this country. i'm dealing with dozens of labor problems everyday in economics classes, and how anyone can celebrate our current job market... it's causing the problems you've alluded to

@Yo
"Also you completely and utterly cherry picked the data from your IRS report."

oh sure

"A quick look at the chart reveals a lot of income mobility, yes, but only amongst the bottom 60% that's because that's where jobs and whatnot break off. Some people in the bottom 10% get better jobs and get paid more. I mean the bottom there no where to go but up obviously. But the number of people in the bottom quintile that stay there is still very high. There's a high number that moves up to second quintile but that number is comparable to the number of people in the second and third quintile that move down to the first quintile."

this is demonstrably false. page 7.

from the middle 20%-60% range (2nd and 3rd lowest quintiles), only 45% move down into the bottom quintile, whereas 55.7% of the lowest quintile move into a higher quintile.

that's an entire 10% of the population in difference.

I'm not saying that the rich aren't more likely to stay rich, and the poor more likely to stay poor, i'm saying that the actual mechanism is MUCH less unequal than it first appears, and it's more demographic blocks that stay the same, not individual people. this ALSO doesn't take into account increase in GDP Per Capita PPP

in 1996 we were are 40,500, and in 2006 we had increased by nearly 25%, to 49,762.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-per-capita-ppp


and the slightly larger income mobility in european countries? offset by much lower per capita GDP PPP

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=IDD

these results have led to pretty spectacular headlines such as:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/08/25/britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-yes-even-mississippi/

https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

all backed up by the OECD statistics i linked first. look through them yourself, they even factor in the single payer system advantages and whatnot.

and if you're not going to trust the OECD, i suppose we can just ignore it, and also call PEW and all the other clearly partisan hacks out.





"If you take a look at the top 5% you see that there is very little mobility"

57% of the top 5% will have a decrease in income, and 25% of the top 5% will see a drop of income by 50% or higher.

that is "very little"??????



"Also I wasn't talking about inheritance in general, just inheritance of land and capital"

capital i entirely disagree with you on, but inheritance of land is no more or less important than the actual possession of land in the first place. a topography-based tax i'm actually 100% for, to stop wasteful possession of land.

JY, when someone far smarter than you is talking to you and correcting you, you should try and listen, and adopt their view, rather than argue with them. aka: JY "thanks yoyo"

James do you know what cherry picking is? I'm sure you've take a stats class. Because you just did it again.

About 42 percent of those in the 20-60% moved to a lower quintile while almost exactly 42 percent of those in the bottom quintile moved to the second or third. You don't open the analogy up to above the 3rd quintile because it's not statistically analogous

If you want to make it statistically analogous, then you have to compare the percent of people that moved out the bottom quintile to people that move into bottom quintile, while you will find is also completely flush, because as one moves out one moves in.

@Yoyoyozo

in terms of policy, i'd like to see:

1. less but smarter regulation, target anti-competition regulation, although keep banking regulation
2. more oversight designed for government policy, and for policymakers.
3. a preliminary system of MBI (we can have food MBI no problem, but water, shelter and clothing are in development) for food (beyond food stamps)
4. an extra tax for larger landmasses owned, that does not apply at a certain defined level (for most basic residences)
5. destroy the fixed rate estate tax of the federal government as well as all state estate taxes, and replace it with a single federal estate tax that varies depending on costs of living per locale. have the tax be specifically designed for the inactive income (income not being invested into jobs being top priority, i don't want to attack the job creation mechanism, just the waste)


are these things we can agree on, or what parts of this would you want to add on to?

Seriously just take a look at the top 5% compared to the rest of the chart. The further up you move the less mobile it becomes as it relates to income

Also James, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but in economics, the word land so not mean the physical geography of land :) might help you with your economics class

@Yoyoyozo

I'm looking at all middle/middle lower class people who decreased in wealth, to all lower class people who increased in wealth

i can see what you mean though, just looking at 2nd and 3rd moving to 1st, and 1st moving to 2nd and 3rd. still, it's a move away from the original question as to what happens to the rich, and what happens to the poor.

and for the 4-5 going to 1, and 1 going to 4-5, the poor actually move up on aggregate, it's 15.2% poor to top vs 17.2% top to poor. i'm right on that account, but it's not massive.

my main point is that we still DO see turnover, every 10 years 12% of the top 1% changes. even the measley statistic of 5% of the top 1% moving to the bottom 40%, is interesting when compared to the fact that for the bottom 20%, over 15% of them will be in the top 40% after ten years.

hell, these aren't even generational numbers.

your claim was that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. on ONLY A TEN YEAR BASIS: that is false.


but even if we can assume some basic constants in groups sizes and relatively benign fluctuation, you still haven't disproven my points about overall wealth rising according to the OECD.

Also income and wealth, while related, are not synonymous. The top 5% might see a decrease in income, but the sack of money under the bed isn't going anywhere.

While their income has decreased, Their income is still positive and most likely still on pace with the bottom 95%. So they are getting richer, it's just not as accelerated.

@Yoyoyozo

i know land doesn't actually mean geographical land, but funnily enough, the main resources: mineral deposits, forests, fish, etc. occur on vast expansions of land mass, much of which are owned by individuals who have no wish to utilize them.

that's why i think a basic structure to cut down on waste would be a tax based on land owned.

You realize that some billionaires report 0 income right? 5% of people that make 10 bucks an hour flipping burgers do not go on to make ten of millions of dollars a year. The 5% here or there is just statistical noise. The larger shifts and trends are what to be looked at, and that picture is very clear.

I don't believe that you knew what land was before I told you :)

@Yoyoyozo

you're still trying to back up the claim

"Also the idea the land and capital can be transferred to ones children is an inherently dynastic system that serves no other purpose but to keep wealthy families wealthy, in fact making them wealthier, and keeping poor families poor."

this is a vastly overreaching generalization, and you've had yet to admit that.

also, i find it interesting that you assume MOTIVE to inheritance. the reason for inheritance isn't some conspiracy to keep the destitute down, but it stems from trying to look after your kin.

the fact that you twisted human motives so much to fit your own motive is rather telling. i don't think i've met a human who ever has thought "i'm going to pass down my stuff to my children, so the poor stay poor"

that's not the PURPOSE.

if you want to argue that as an effect, yes it would be one of many factors deciding someone's economic status, but at the same time it's hardly the conclusive reason for why someone is poor.

the brookings institute came out with a report a few years back, a simple guide to avoid poverty:

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

Complete high school (at a minimum), work full time and marry before you have children. if you do this, your chances of being in poverty (objectively, not as a comparison to the median of the nation, but as below basic thresholds to provide food and sustenance for your family) is 2%

inheritance is neither built so that the poor can stay poor, nor is it the deciding reason why the poor stay poor in this country.

on both grounds, your argument has failed

of course i know what land is

https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2016/03/pacific-size.jpg.662x0_q70_crop-scale.jpg

@Yoyoyozo

um... yes i do know that many rich people don't work. that's why my inheritance tax is focused on the wealthiest who do not have money in jobs as a priority. i actually have a spreadsheet i've been working on, trying to analyze the most important uses of wealth taxes. job creation is a big one to exempt, CB savings is surprisingly high too, it's higher than bonds, and there's also subcategory for assets in capital vs luxury assets in quite a few different categories.

i'm not quite done yet

It's a hyperbole. Obviously the ownership of land and capital means nothing directly to anyone but the one owning it, but the fact that it is transferable logically means that a certain percentage of the land and capital will always be dynastic.

This means that there is less land and capital available to other (I use the term poor broadly to mean the people not in control of land and capital)

So directly, the purpose of inheritance of land and capital is to keep the rich families rich, and if has the indirect consequence of making it exuberantly hard for other people to gain riches.

So on the first ground, my statement stands should you excuse my specific choice of words, I did not mean literal people in poverty, and I did not mean literal rich people. Athletes and Music Artists rarely see their wealth reach a 3rd generation

The the second grounds, you're mistaking middle class for rich. Anyone in America can become middle class. But it's nearly impossible to achieve great wealth, whereas it's basically trained into you should you be born into land and capital.

If you know that many rich people don't work, then why would cite the top 1% hitting bottom quintile as if it were some grand epiphany? There's a few other answers to this, but the fact that you tried to use it as evidence of wealth mobility is just wrong.

You should take a course on labor and productivity. I took one at the university of Chicago, which is a very conservative school (in fact it was the hub for neoclassical school of though) and even there it's taught with the auspice that those in control on land and capital pretty much win. Every once in a while new mediums arrives to garner land and capital but those are like epochal paradigm shift

You can argue over whether or not it's an ethical system, but what I said (minus the subjective stuff) is true.

@Yoyoyozo

"It's a hyperbole. Obviously the ownership of land and capital means nothing directly to anyone but the one owning it, but the fact that it is transferable logically means that a certain percentage of the land and capital will always be dynastic.

This means that there is less land and capital available to other (I use the term poor broadly to mean the people not in control of land and capital)

So directly, the purpose of inheritance of land and capital is to keep the rich families rich, and if has the indirect consequence of making it exuberantly hard for other people to gain riches."

well i agree it's a hyperbole, and the mechanism is not the motive. and as for it being "exuberantly hard" for the other people to gain riches... but they must first gain capital and land, yes? now land is the most heavily affected by scarcity, but capital is much more dependent on two things: net investment, and demand.

we've had fairly high demand, but much lower investment in recent times. beyond the obvious market forces driving down investment, there's also a problem with recirculation of profits. the employee price index has been on a stead rise, there's little benefit in expanding businesses nowadays.

if you want the poor to be able to create wealth, we need to target monopolies and destroy them. this also means destroying government subsidies and regulations that prop them up.



"So on the first ground, my statement stands should you excuse my specific choice of words, I did not mean literal people in poverty, and I did not mean literal rich people. Athletes and Music Artists rarely see their wealth reach a 3rd generation

The the second grounds, you're mistaking middle class for rich. Anyone in America can become middle class. But it's nearly impossible to achieve great wealth, whereas it's basically trained into you should you be born into land and capital."

i care much less about being in the top 1% of the billionaires, i'm worried about having wealth spread out across all classes on a basic minimum standard. our GDP per capita PPP is rising, which is a good sign, although i must admit i'm so damn nervous with Trump in charge i'm not certain about anything quite yet.

the income mobility among the poor and very wealth off (not even super rich) is what's going to really determine our future.

also... you ENTIRELY ignored my points about extreme IE and low income mobility in major cities, 80% of which are democrat controlled.



"f you know that many rich people don't work, then why would cite the top 1% hitting bottom quintile as if it were some grand epiphany? There's a few other answers to this, but the fact that you tried to use it as evidence of wealth mobility is just wrong."

I'm using the depletion of income as a GUIDE not an epiphany. the lowering in income is usually complemented by a lower score in overall economic activity. rarely do job creators not reap any profits. this wealth:income disparity (although the wealth:economic activity ratio is what we are indirectly targeting) is what my proposed tax system would hurt the most.

this is probably me at my least libertarian-ish. implementations of MBI and targeted tax models.

and as for what i said earlier, which of the 5 thing si listed as vague-policy targets do you even disagree with?

I ignored your point about the American Youth and cities because if wasn't worth mentioning, considering the study is done on those 25 and older, and it's completely irrelevant to what I'm saying.

Also, capital in labor economics means something slightly different than what you're used to. It's basically business infrastructure.

I'm not going to address any of the side-off points you have, such as your tax proposal because it's irrelevant to what I'm saying and the common misdirection will us arguing all night.

Actually to avoid that from happening I'm gonna pick this up tomorrow

I'm happy continuing this thread but um...

https://puu.sh/xAYnT/7d49b7181a.png

so i'm going to check in tomorrow haha. and the IRS statistics are for anyone 25 and older but that's not confined on the actual U1-6 labor force measurements which have been where most citations for income mobility and inequality come from. i just pulled up the IRS stats because they happened to be saved on a close tab.

and i still want to know how you'd implement a MBI system in America. what do you do about agricultural overproduction? we'll have to first have our energy be mostly renewable or nuclear... and the consequences of overpopulation to follow this would also be hard to control