The income inequality farce

Dr.Who

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Yes we all know that there are some people who are vastly wealthy and there are some who are vastly poor- the gap between is called the income inequality (as if it were some civil right rather than a state of economic difference).

The things that need to be brought to the forefront in this conversation are the way we measure the so called income inequality and the moral judgement we make about it.

Firstly, it is being measured in ways that are grossly misleading. As one example we compare households in which one household has three earners and another has one earner then act all outraged when the three earners earn more than the one. We must always call out any statistic which is based on households and not individuals. Then we must delve deeper into other deceptive measurements, define right measurements, and start a discussion with the right facts.

Secondly, we must talk about just why it is fair, right, moral, or whatever that one person earns more or less than another. We must never concede to wrong thinking on this nor go on with a discussion in which this fundamental point has not been explored fully.

This is going to be a topic in the year to come and now is the time to prepare.
 
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For BO and the Ds to speak out against income inequality, is the height of hypocrisy. Their policies of promoting crony capitalism (fascism) and government dependency leads to greater income inequality. To say nothing of their failed economic policies that result in greater unemployment and underemployment.

I suspect that as government gets bigger, income inequality does too.
 
Income inequality has increased over 30% under the Obama regime due to their policies.

We also have fewer people in the work force than we did in 1976, most of whom are on the public dole.
 
I was wondering, do the income inequality police look at the government handouts and welfare payments as income for the poor? Do they only look at earned income (such as Warren Buffett's earned income of $100K from salary) or do they include capital gains and interest (such as Warren Buffett's total income of several billions/year from all his assets)? A poor person earning $1,000/year due to not having a job for the past 12 months still receives government payments (welfare, earned income credit, food stamps, Medicaid, and so on).

The single biggest reason why income inequality (the income gap) will ALWAYS continue to grow is simple MATH. A person earning $250,000/year who receives a meager 2% raise will still widen the gap from a person making $30,000/year who is given a 15% raise. The 2% raise guy earns $5,000 more the next year while the poor guy earning $30,000/year, despite his massive 15% raise, earns $4,500 more the next year - thus INCREASING the income gap. Imagine if they both received the same percentage raise. Bad right? Of course not, the $30,000/year guy is significantly better off than he was last year - WHO CARES HOW MUCH MONEY THE OTHER GUY MAKES!!!

Again, Guess how much Bill Gates increases his wealth on his $12 billion dollar investment if he only earns 1% for the year? Just a pathetic 1%? $120 million dollars. Guess how much I would increase my wealth if my entire retirement savings ($100,000) were to earn a blistering 80% next year? $80,000!!! Awesome for me right? Too bad Bill Gates increased his wealth gap over me by $119,920,000. Increased wealth gap is bad right? What a moronic arguement! I'm $80,000 richer - what do I care if Gates is richer or poorer?
 
Income inequality has increased over 30% under the Obama regime due to their policies.

We also have fewer people in the work force than we did in 1976, most of whom are on the public dole.

Did the rich get richer and the poor poorer or are there just more single moms inflating the stats - maybe some combination?
 
I was wondering, do the income inequality police look at the government handouts and welfare payments as income for the poor? Do they only look at earned income (such as Warren Buffett's earned income of $100K from salary) or do they include capital gains and interest (such as Warren Buffett's total income of several billions/year from all his assets)? A poor person earning $1,000/year due to not having a job for the past 12 months still receives government payments (welfare, earned income credit, food stamps, Medicaid, and so on).

The single biggest reason why income inequality (the income gap) will ALWAYS continue to grow is simple MATH. A person earning $250,000/year who receives a meager 2% raise will still widen the gap from a person making $30,000/year who is given a 15% raise. The 2% raise guy earns $5,000 more the next year while the poor guy earning $30,000/year, despite his massive 15% raise, earns $4,500 more the next year - thus INCREASING the income gap. Imagine if they both received the same percentage raise. Bad right? Of course not, the $30,000/year guy is significantly better off than he was last year - WHO CARES HOW MUCH MONEY THE OTHER GUY MAKES!!!

Again, Guess how much Bill Gates increases his wealth on his $12 billion dollar investment if he only earns 1% for the year? Just a pathetic 1%? $120 million dollars. Guess how much I would increase my wealth if my entire retirement savings ($100,000) were to earn a blistering 80% next year? $80,000!!! Awesome for me right? Too bad Bill Gates increased his wealth gap over me by $119,920,000. Increased wealth gap is bad right? What a moronic arguement! I'm $80,000 richer - what do I care if Gates is richer or poorer?

No payments made from the gov to poor people are not counted as income so yes it will seem like the gap is wider than it actually is. Some people end up with more money to spend working less and getting gov handouts than they would if they worked more.

Yes, 2% of a million bucks is a great increase compared to 2% of 18k. This should be an incentive to poor people to earn ever more money so that they too can take advantage of raises on an ever larger base. Too bad we have disincentivized work - and marriage.

Is it wrong that a high earner gets a big raise and a earner who does not make much gets a smaller raise? What would happen if we gave the worker making 18k a year a 20% raise but gave the worker making a million a year a negative raise?

Hey here's a novel idea: lets simply remove the impediments to anyone at all making more money so that poor people were able to make more with less obstacles. Less remove the corruption and rewards for making money through criminal activities so rich people at the very least are not stealing money from others (some of the anyway). And then lets stop complaining about the gap.
 
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I'm not really sure where they get their numbers. I can see where people who have invested wisely in the stock market have been doing pretty well there.

But having fewer people (11 million) in the workforce is bound to have an affect also. I'm sure a lot of people could better themselves, but many have learned to like "not working" and have been able to maintain on long term unemployment.
 
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