In Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcast, (#297 (http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-297-the-show-that-should-not-be/)) he was talking about Bernie Sanders...
Carlin admitted that while he likes Sanders, and prefers him to Clinton, he's not 100% behind framing the issue in the US as "wealth inequality". Carlin (who is left leaning but not squarely in either camp) thinks that wealth inequality isn't itself a problem, the issue is merely that political power can be bought. If it were 1 person = 1 vote rather than $1 = 1 vote, a lot of the issues we're facing would dissolve.
I've been thinking about that a lot recently, as I've always thought wealth inequality to be the big blinking neon Satan. But I wanted to bounce that off you guys - what do you think? Is wealth inequality an issue if rich people don't have disproportionate access to the political engine?
In a perfect world where citizens united were overturned and campaign finance was reformed, would wealth inequality still be an issue?
In a society where the amount of one's wealth can be correlated to social status, education, mobility, and health, wealth inequality is extremely important in more than just politics.
Not at all. It's plainly obvious that the rich have only one method by which to strong arm the poor, which is to say politics. No other avenues are opened via stacks of lucre.
This is why the Victorian era was a worker's paradise.
(http://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.M6084a8ea90d4970c07589e3876e1a05eo1&pid=15.1)
Lets turn this question on its head: how would you prevent high net worth individuals from converting their wealth into political capital and gaining disproportionate control over the political system?
Quote from: LMNO on November 10, 2015, 07:14:21 PM
(http://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.M6084a8ea90d4970c07589e3876e1a05eo1&pid=15.1)
Here's my deal: I'm a lefty. As I watch the "edgy" FB discordians turn into pre-rich libertarian turdburgers, I feel no compunctions at all with turning on them. If someone is eating the scabs off of the Koch Brother's arses, they're no friend of mine.
I don't say that they're not "real" discordians, for obvious reasons. But they are discordians I no longer care about.
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:19:50 PM
Lets turn this question on its head: how would you prevent high net worth individuals from converting their wealth into political capital and gaining disproportionate control over the political system?
Or, let's put it another way: can you envisage a system which gives equal consideration to the opinions, wants and desires of people who own large parts of the media, manufacturing base, banks etc and people who own half a piece of string and eat boiled boots? What would such a system look like? Does that system compare with our current system?
I had to go find the segment of the podcast where he's talking about this... Carlin's points: (this is all around 0h:44m in the podcast)
> The idea that you increase prosperity for the lower class by taxing the successful seems a bit punitive
> When we talk about wealth inequality, we don't
really want to eliminate the wealthy, what we really want is for people at the bottom end of the scale to be doing better
> The cost of living for lower and middle class people is the real issue - and it's a systemic problem that won't be solved through taxation. Carlin thinks that wealth redistribution only addresses the problem on the surface. It's a way of telling people that you're doing something about it, without doing anything meaningful in the long term.
> If you're going to address stuff like generational poverty, you gotta focus on access to education and the ability to start a business.
> He thinks that taxing the wealthy to create prosperity needs to be proven - he is as skeptical of it as he is 'trickle down' economics.
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:30:19 PM
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:19:50 PM
Lets turn this question on its head: how would you prevent high net worth individuals from converting their wealth into political capital and gaining disproportionate control over the political system?
Or, let's put it another way: can you envisage a system which gives equal consideration to the opinions, wants and desires of people who own large parts of the media, manufacturing base, banks etc and people who own half a piece of string and eat boiled boots? What would such a system look like? Does that system compare with our current system?
I think repealing Citizens United would be a big step, but it clearly doesn't caulk the wagon and cross the river all by itself.
I am out of my element here, but doesnt' denmark socialize their news media? How does that work out?
What about strong unions? In the US we don't have unions for a lot of middle class careers.
just chewing on these thoughts, no conclusions here yet
Quote from: Edward Longpork on November 10, 2015, 07:43:02 PM
> The idea that you increase prosperity for the lower class by taxing the successful seems a bit punitive
Who still has more money at the end of the day?
What would a flat tax that generated enough money to pay the bills do to the working class?
This is fucking Rand Paul bullshit, here.
Christ, I'm going to go torment libertarians on FB until I stop feeling the need to sick up.
It sounds like he's not so much, "wealth inequality doesn't matter," so much as he's all, "stop taxing me".
Which are two very different things.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 10, 2015, 08:08:40 PM
Who still has more money at the end of the day?
So is the goal to completely eliminate wealth inequality? ie To make sure everybody has the same amount of money?
My liberal heart says that we want to decrease wealth inequality, as it's worse now than it's ever been in US history. But by how much? Where should it be, really? What are we aiming at?
QuoteWhat would a flat tax that generated enough money to pay the bills do to the working class?
Don't think anybody's suggesting a flat tax?
I think Carlin's point is -- let's talk about why minimum wage is so low, or the falling median income, lack of health care, cost of education, all these issues that directly cramp lower and middle class workers. (and to be fair, these are all part of Sanders' platform) Clearly if somebody's gonna pay for this, it should come from those who aren't really paying fair taxes now. You get no disagreement from me there! But here we're talking about raising the floor, rather than lowering the ceiling. Is one possible without the other?
Quote
This is fucking Rand Paul bullshit, here.
I hold a lot of liberal beliefs and assumptions, and feel its necessary to examine them under a critical lens now and then, I'm sorry if that irritates you. I am a liberal who is skeptical and critical of liberals. I think that's healthy because politics is an irrational battlefield.
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:30:19 PM
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:19:50 PM
Lets turn this question on its head: how would you prevent high net worth individuals from converting their wealth into political capital and gaining disproportionate control over the political system?
Or, let's put it another way: can you envisage a system which gives equal consideration to the opinions, wants and desires of people who own large parts of the media, manufacturing base, banks etc and people who own half a piece of string and eat boiled boots? What would such a system look like? Does that system compare with our current system?
I'm still working on the fine-tuning, so the model is only a simulation, however I can't deny the allure of trying to solve the problem with artificial intelligence. Ideally this would not be necessary because reason autonomously would give rise to a system operating in accordance to the categorical imperative. The problem is how systemic corruption prevents this from occasioning. To circumvent the problem, we design a neural network trained to re-distribute wealth and opportunity across individual members and classes of an economy. The database is optimized both for quick indexing of high-volume categories and also for "needle in the haystack" or wild-card patterns that account for high variance at low frequencies of occurrence. Elements and classes would be initialized with random weights, high-learning rate and average momentum against the value of their throughput and predicted loss. Cross-entropy products are then calculated and adjusted for gamma of weights and learning rates of each iteration, executed in the real-world by wealth distribution and taxation, until system is fully optimized. The only problem is that it would take a long time, so we may have to start with mini-batches and operate with the working assumption that the manifold of probability is convex. Problem solved :lulz:
Quote from: Edward Longpork on November 10, 2015, 09:03:52 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 10, 2015, 08:08:40 PM
Who still has more money at the end of the day?
So is the goal to completely eliminate wealth inequality? ie To make sure everybody has the same amount of money?
Now
there's a red herring for you. Nobody said that.
Quote
My liberal heart says that we want to decrease wealth inequality, as it's worse now than it's ever been in US history. But by how much? Where should it be, really? What are we aiming at?
There are multiple ways to look at it. I think that many people agree that a fundamental goal is to create a system in which people's basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and medical care are accessible for everyone.
Quote
QuoteWhat would a flat tax that generated enough money to pay the bills do to the working class?
Don't think anybody's suggesting a flat tax?
Well, NOT taxing the wealthy at a higher rate than the less wealthy would be either a flat tax or a regressive tax, regardless of what you feel like calling it.
Quote
I think Carlin's point is -- let's talk about why minimum wage is so low, or the falling median income, lack of health care, cost of education, all these issues that directly cramp lower and middle class workers. (and to be fair, these are all part of Sanders' platform) Clearly if somebody's gonna pay for this, it should come from those who aren't really paying fair taxes now. You get no disagreement from me there! But here we're talking about raising the floor, rather than lowering the ceiling. Is one possible without the other?
Like I said, there are multiple ways of approaching the problem. You can impose proportional income caps to increase low-end incomes, raise upper-income taxes, increase minimum wages, institute socialized medicine or a guaranteed minimum income... and no matter how you do it, the rich are going to see it as their slice of the pie being decreased, and are going to scream about it being unfair.
Quote
Quote
This is fucking Rand Paul bullshit, here.
I hold a lot of liberal beliefs and assumptions, and feel its necessary to examine them under a critical lens now and then, I'm sorry if that irritates you. I am a liberal who is skeptical and critical of liberals. I think that's healthy because politics is an irrational battlefield.
Many conservatives like to think in terms of running America as a business. Looking at it this way, Americans are both shareholders and customers of this business. Businesses use "price optimization" to determine what to charge for their product. If America is a business, then citizenship is its product. If you look at the increase in wealth/income of the wealthiest Americans over the last few decades it seems clear to me that they would be willing to pay more for this product.
*puts on political science hat*
http://www.nber.org/papers/w4486
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8599128
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118070?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf
*takes off political science hat*
tl;dr version. Wealth inequality is correlated with political instability. Political instability is correlated with a worsening economy. Wealth inequality harms economic growth and in extreme cases threatens the foundation of a stable political order.
Quote from: Edward Longpork on November 10, 2015, 07:43:02 PM
I had to go find the segment of the podcast where he's talking about this... Carlin's points: (this is all around 0h:44m in the podcast)
> The idea that you increase prosperity for the lower class by taxing the successful seems a bit punitive
> When we talk about wealth inequality, we don't really want to eliminate the wealthy, what we really want is for people at the bottom end of the scale to be doing better
> The cost of living for lower and middle class people is the real issue - and it's a systemic problem that won't be solved through taxation. Carlin thinks that wealth redistribution only addresses the problem on the surface. It's a way of telling people that you're doing something about it, without doing anything meaningful in the long term.
> If you're going to address stuff like generational poverty, you gotta focus on access to education and the ability to start a business.
> He thinks that taxing the wealthy to create prosperity needs to be proven - he is as skeptical of it as he is 'trickle down' economics.
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:30:19 PM
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:19:50 PM
Lets turn this question on its head: how would you prevent high net worth individuals from converting their wealth into political capital and gaining disproportionate control over the political system?
Or, let's put it another way: can you envisage a system which gives equal consideration to the opinions, wants and desires of people who own large parts of the media, manufacturing base, banks etc and people who own half a piece of string and eat boiled boots? What would such a system look like? Does that system compare with our current system?
I think repealing Citizens United would be a big step, but it clearly doesn't caulk the wagon and cross the river all by itself.
I am out of my element here, but doesnt' denmark socialize their news media? How does that work out?
What about strong unions? In the US we don't have unions for a lot of middle class careers.
just chewing on these thoughts, no conclusions here yet
Well, maybe some people don't really want the wealthy to be less wealthy. I certainly do and I am not alone. There is only so much pie to go around, a certain amount of inequality may lead to a bigger pie, due to incentives, but some of that is an illusion because of ecosystem degredation at unsustainable rates to support growth. I want more for the poor, and I also want less for the wealthy.
Quote from: Pergamos on November 12, 2015, 07:15:22 AM
Quote from: Edward Longpork on November 10, 2015, 07:43:02 PM
I had to go find the segment of the podcast where he's talking about this... Carlin's points: (this is all around 0h:44m in the podcast)
> The idea that you increase prosperity for the lower class by taxing the successful seems a bit punitive
> When we talk about wealth inequality, we don't really want to eliminate the wealthy, what we really want is for people at the bottom end of the scale to be doing better
> The cost of living for lower and middle class people is the real issue - and it's a systemic problem that won't be solved through taxation. Carlin thinks that wealth redistribution only addresses the problem on the surface. It's a way of telling people that you're doing something about it, without doing anything meaningful in the long term.
> If you're going to address stuff like generational poverty, you gotta focus on access to education and the ability to start a business.
> He thinks that taxing the wealthy to create prosperity needs to be proven - he is as skeptical of it as he is 'trickle down' economics.
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:30:19 PM
Quote from: Cain on November 10, 2015, 07:19:50 PM
Lets turn this question on its head: how would you prevent high net worth individuals from converting their wealth into political capital and gaining disproportionate control over the political system?
Or, let's put it another way: can you envisage a system which gives equal consideration to the opinions, wants and desires of people who own large parts of the media, manufacturing base, banks etc and people who own half a piece of string and eat boiled boots? What would such a system look like? Does that system compare with our current system?
I think repealing Citizens United would be a big step, but it clearly doesn't caulk the wagon and cross the river all by itself.
I am out of my element here, but doesnt' denmark socialize their news media? How does that work out?
What about strong unions? In the US we don't have unions for a lot of middle class careers.
just chewing on these thoughts, no conclusions here yet
Well, maybe some people don't really want the wealthy to be less wealthy. I certainly do and I am not alone. There is only so much pie to go around, a certain amount of inequality may lead to a bigger pie, due to incentives, but some of that is an illusion because of ecosystem degredation at unsustainable rates to support growth. I want more for the poor, and I also want less for the wealthy.
The funny thing, of course, is that the wealthiest people in the US are well past the threshold where reducing their wealth will be noticeable from a standards-of-living perspective. At this point, they're essentially just sequestering wealth away from the poor and middle class. They have become cystic.
Quote from: Cain on November 11, 2015, 06:19:43 PM
*puts on political science hat*
http://www.nber.org/papers/w4486
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8599128
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118070?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf
*takes off political science hat*
tl;dr version. Wealth inequality is correlated with political instability. Political instability is correlated with a worsening economy. Wealth inequality harms economic growth and in extreme cases threatens the foundation of a stable political order.
Cain smackdown; thread over.
Wealth inequality with a minimum standard of living mitigates many of the problems.
Free healthcare, dentistry and education go a hell of a long way towards making the situation less urgent if not less unfair.
Quote from: Cain on November 11, 2015, 06:19:43 PM
*puts on political science hat*
http://www.nber.org/papers/w4486
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8599128
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118070?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf
*takes off political science hat*
tl;dr version. Wealth inequality is correlated with political instability. Political instability is correlated with a worsening economy. Wealth inequality harms economic growth and in extreme cases threatens the foundation of a stable political order.
:mittens:
A few of those succinctly counter the narrative that growth is driven purely by the ultra-rich. Certainly it is, to a degree, but for sustainable growth you need everybody pushing.
Thanks :)
It's also the case that you wont invest in a country which is politically unstable. Given the correlation between political instability and wealth inequality....well, there is a reason that Portugal gets more FDI than all of Yemen.
The only counterexamples are countries which have invested strongly in political stability by other means, such as China or Saudi Arabia. And I would argue, given the "mass incidents" and "terrorism" that occur in each, despite the spending of and powers of the security services, that any long-term investment in those countries is potentially at risk.
Wealth inequality seems to be a symptom of 2 things:
1. differences in the production of wealth, driven by a myriad of things like education, intelligence, ownership of capital, even culture and geography to a degree, etc.
2. seizing what others have produced, via the political process, theft, etc.
I'll acknowledge that, depending on what you consider theft, one could conceivably class things differently. A Marxian would class profits derived from a factory as #2, whilst I would (in most cases) class it as #1.
To understand inequality, one needs to address why the poorest generally seem to produce so little. And they do produce less as valued in the market (and if you take umbrage at that being our measure of value, well, that's a different debate. I don't claim that it's objectively just, but that's how we operate.) in comparison to people who have a lot of wealth (I'm talking general trends here, with inheritances being an exception). So, I think the most pertinent question is, how does one create a situation where those who produce much less of economic value currently are able to produce more? And that's where things like education, culture, geography, political rules, and etc come into play.
And I think this has somewhat been touched on here before, but too little wealth inequality may be a bad thing as much as too much wealth inequality is. Like the Laffer curve stating that the optimal tax rate (for max revenue) is somewhere between 0% and 100%, the optimal amount of wealth inequality for economic growth is somewhere between a Gini coefficient of 0 and 1.
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 05:25:01 PM
To understand inequality, one needs to address why the poorest generally seem to produce so little. And they do produce less as valued in the market (and if you take umbrage at that being our measure of value, well, that's a different debate. I don't claim that it's objectively just, but that's how we operate.) in comparison to people who have a lot of wealth (I'm talking general trends here, with inheritances being an exception).
:lulz:
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 05:46:56 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 05:25:01 PM
To understand inequality, one needs to address why the poorest generally seem to produce so little. And they do produce less as valued in the market (and if you take umbrage at that being our measure of value, well, that's a different debate. I don't claim that it's objectively just, but that's how we operate.) in comparison to people who have a lot of wealth (I'm talking general trends here, with inheritances being an exception).
:lulz:
That has to be one of the more amusing things I've ever read.
And by amusing, I mean :enough:
They do produce very little on the margin. The addition of one more low-skilled laborer doesn't add as much in terms of production as the addition of one more highly-skilled laborer. People don't tend to get paid more than their marginal revenue product (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginal-revenue-product-mrp.asp).
I'm not making a morally judgemental statement whatsoever, or calling them lazy. Quite a lot of the working poor work very, very hard. To give an extreme example, subsistence farmers work very hard, but they produce very little.
You really don't stop talking, do you?
Quote from: LMNO on November 13, 2015, 07:39:30 PM
You really don't stop talking, do you?
There's an ignore function on this board. If I'm bothering you, use it.
Nah, it's fun watching you flail.
Keep digging.
:tyra:
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 07:21:53 PM
They do produce very little on the margin. The addition of one more low-skilled laborer doesn't add as much in terms of production as the addition of one more highly-skilled laborer. People don't tend to get paid more than their marginal revenue product (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginal-revenue-product-mrp.asp).
I'm not making a morally judgemental statement whatsoever, or calling them lazy. Quite a lot of the working poor work very, very hard. To give an extreme example, subsistence farmers work very hard, but they produce very little.
Who personally produces more? The Koch brothers, or two minimum wage people pulling plastic parts out of injection molding machines?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 10:27:01 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 07:21:53 PM
They do produce very little on the margin. The addition of one more low-skilled laborer doesn't add as much in terms of production as the addition of one more highly-skilled laborer. People don't tend to get paid more than their marginal revenue product (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginal-revenue-product-mrp.asp).
I'm not making a morally judgemental statement whatsoever, or calling them lazy. Quite a lot of the working poor work very, very hard. To give an extreme example, subsistence farmers work very hard, but they produce very little.
Who personally produces more? The Koch brothers, or two minimum wage people pulling plastic parts out of injection molding machines?
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
The Koch brothers in particular? I wouldn't know for certain. ;)
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:28:09 PM
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of a the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
The Koch brothers in particular? I wouldn't know for certain. ;)
Have you ever worked for a large company?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 11:32:01 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:28:09 PM
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of a the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
The Koch brothers in particular? I wouldn't know for certain. ;)
Have you ever worked for a large company?
No.
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:33:24 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 11:32:01 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:28:09 PM
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of a the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
The Koch brothers in particular? I wouldn't know for certain. ;)
Have you ever worked for a large company?
No.
The CEO does not make decisions. That's what the board does. What the CEO does is stand there with good teeth, looking like a leader until shit goes in the pooper and someone needs to be sacrificed to the Gods of the media.
The only proof of which I need offer is Tony Hayward.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 11:35:25 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:33:24 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 11:32:01 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:28:09 PM
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of a the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
The Koch brothers in particular? I wouldn't know for certain. ;)
Have you ever worked for a large company?
No.
The CEO does not make decisions. That's what the board does. What the CEO does is stand there with good teeth, looking like a leader until shit goes in the pooper and someone needs to be sacrificed to the Gods of the media.
The only proof of which I need offer is Tony Hayward.
I mean, I for one can admire a good set of chompers.
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:42:08 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 11:35:25 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:33:24 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on November 13, 2015, 11:32:01 PM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:28:09 PM
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of a the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
The Koch brothers in particular? I wouldn't know for certain. ;)
Have you ever worked for a large company?
No.
The CEO does not make decisions. That's what the board does. What the CEO does is stand there with good teeth, looking like a leader until shit goes in the pooper and someone needs to be sacrificed to the Gods of the media.
The only proof of which I need offer is Tony Hayward.
I mean, I for one can admire a good set of chompers.
Who doesn't? But my point is, you are operating on bad signal. You are accepting the world view of economics gurus, who are by definition
people who couldn't make it in actual business. It's no different than Scientology, except in the scale of the damage it does.
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 05:25:01 PM
To understand inequality, one needs to address why the poorest generally seem to produce so little. And they do produce less as valued in the market (and if you take umbrage at that being our measure of value, well, that's a different debate. I don't claim that it's objectively just, but that's how we operate.) in comparison to people who have a lot of wealth (I'm talking general trends here, with inheritances being an exception).
Oh dear
you are
actually stupid, aren't you? How unfortunate. :horrormirth:
I don't know how to tell you this, but the "productivity" of the richest relies entirely on the actual productivity of the poorest. In most cases, if the poorest were paid, say, 50% of the wealth they generate for the companies they work for, they would not be poor.
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:28:09 PM
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
What a remarkable load of bullshit you're hauling, there.
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on November 14, 2015, 12:51:46 AM
Quote from: thewake on November 13, 2015, 11:28:09 PM
As far as value to the company goes, a CEO adds more value than any one individual worker. The decisions and leadership of the people running a company have a lot more to do with how well a company does than any individual plastics worker.
What a remarkable load of bullshit you're hauling, there.
Doesn't matter. When you tell him something that contradicts his economics prof, he just shitposts and leaves.
Compensation has closely tracked productivity:
https://www.nber.org/feldstein/WAGESandPRODUCTIVITY.meetings2008.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/productivity-and-compensation-growing-together
Workers do not tend to be paid (in total compensation, aka wages+benefits) less than 50% of their productivity.
To quote the NBER paper: "In 1970 compensation was 74 percent of the value added of the nonfinancial corporate sector. In the year 2006, it was 73 percent."
I don't know, it's possible CEOs are an exception, being paid way more than they "should" be? But compensation of workers in the entire economy has tracked productivity. It's certainly true that workers in a company, taken as a whole, contribute more to a company than a CEO. But each individual worker, compared to the CEO, is a different story. Although the main point I was making wasn't necessarily about CEOs in particular, but about productivity in general. The value added to hiring a worker with more skills tends to be more than a worker with less skills.
I'm entirely open to being shown that CEOs are paid way above the value they bring to a company. This would be quite an interesting exception to the rule.
Quote from: thewake on November 14, 2015, 04:59:13 AM
Compensation has closely tracked productivity:
https://www.nber.org/feldstein/WAGESandPRODUCTIVITY.meetings2008.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/productivity-and-compensation-growing-together
Workers do not tend to be paid (in total compensation, aka wages+benefits) less than 50% of their productivity.
To quote the NBER paper: "In 1970 compensation was 74 percent of the value added of the nonfinancial corporate sector. In the year 2006, it was 73 percent."
I don't know, it's possible CEOs are an exception, being paid way more than they "should" be? But compensation of workers in the entire economy has tracked productivity. It's certainly true that workers in a company, taken as a whole, contribute more to a company than a CEO. But each individual worker, compared to the CEO, is a different story. Although the main point I was making wasn't necessarily about CEOs in particular, but about productivity in general. The value added to hiring a worker with more skills tends to be more than a worker with less skills.
I'm entirely open to being shown that CEOs are paid way above the value they bring to a company. This would be quite an interesting exception to the rule.
Their value isn't to the company, it's to the board of directors. A good scapegoat's worth a lot of money, apparently.
Quote from: thewake on November 14, 2015, 04:59:13 AM
Compensation has closely tracked productivity:
https://www.nber.org/feldstein/WAGESandPRODUCTIVITY.meetings2008.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/productivity-and-compensation-growing-together
Workers do not tend to be paid (in total compensation, aka wages+benefits) less than 50% of their productivity.
To quote the NBER paper: "In 1970 compensation was 74 percent of the value added of the nonfinancial corporate sector. In the year 2006, it was 73 percent."
I don't know, it's possible CEOs are an exception, being paid way more than they "should" be? But compensation of workers in the entire economy has tracked productivity. It's certainly true that workers in a company, taken as a whole, contribute more to a company than a CEO. But each individual worker, compared to the CEO, is a different story. Although the main point I was making wasn't necessarily about CEOs in particular, but about productivity in general. The value added to hiring a worker with more skills tends to be more than a worker with less skills.
I'm entirely open to being shown that CEOs are paid way above the value they bring to a company. This would be quite an interesting exception to the rule.
I gotta ask you: Who the fuck do you think it is that does the actual work? Who produces things?
And if I wanted to hear Heritage's view on this, I'd just go for broke and head for the CATO website.
He cited the Heritage Foundation as evidence that workers are compensated fairly. :lulz: There is zero further reason to attempt to engage in serious conversation with him.
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on November 14, 2015, 05:01:01 PM
He cited the Heritage Foundation as evidence that workers are compensated fairly. :lulz: There is zero further reason to attempt to engage in serious conversation with him.
Pretty much. I'll just leave him to his edginess. It's hardly fair to expect me to compete with only a half century's experience when he is taking an econ course.
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on November 14, 2015, 05:01:01 PM
He cited the Heritage Foundation as evidence that workers are compensated fairly. :lulz: There is zero further reason to attempt to engage in serious conversation with him.
I cited two sources, one of which wasn't Heritage. The other is NBER (which was also cited as source by Cain). Both say the same thing, practically. Anyway, attacking where something comes from fails to address it.
I also never claimed workers are compensated fairly. I just claimed workers are compensated in a way commensurable to their productivity.
I dare you to say that to the next waiter who brings your food during the dinner rush.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/16/the-shocking-decline-of-americas-real-minimum-wage.aspx
http://www.epi.org/publication/stagnant-wages-in-2014/
http://www.epi.org/publication/even-the-most-educated-workers-have-declining-wages/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/lowest-paid-saw-5-7-decline-in-real-wages-since-2009-u-s-study-says-1.3214647
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-american-wages/
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Projects/BPEA/1994-1/1994a_bpea_bosworth_perry_shapiro.PDF
http://www.epi.org/publication/declining-federal-minimum-wage-inequality/
http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/Occupational-Wage-Declines-Since-the-Great-Recession.pdf
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-08-27/for-every-education-level-real-wages-have-gone-down-this-year-so-far
http://economics.mit.edu/files/3279
http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/03/NELP.DecliningWageGrowth.pdf
http://www.epi.org/publication/declining-federal-minimum-wage-inequality/
Please keep talking, though, you're adorable.
In order to get an accurate picture you have to look at compensation and not just wages. Compensation is wages+benefits, and benefits are becoming an increasing portion of compensation. The ACA has mandated healthcare benefits be provided for many workers, so the trend isn't likely to go the other way anytime soon I imagine. It's a losing proposition for an employer to spend more (in terms of wages, benefits, and other costs) on a worker than the workers adds in value. I don't deny wages haven't increased as much as productivity, but wages are only part of what people get for working.
The NBER article I cited earlier states the issues:
QuoteTwo principal measurement mistakes have led some analysts to conclude that the rise in labor income has not kept up with the growth in productivity. The first of these is a focus on wages rather than total compensation. Because of the rise in fringe benefits and other noncash payments, wages have not risen as rapidly as total compensation. It is important therefore to compare the productivity rise with the increase of total compensation rather than with the increase of the narrower measure of just wages and salaries.
The second measurement problem is the way in which nominal output and nominal compensation are converted to real values before making the comparison. Although any consistent deflation of the two series of nominal values will show similar movements of productivity and compensation, it is misleading in this context to use different deflators for measuring productivity and real compensation.
So, wages are not rising with productivity. Compensation is what is rising with it. This is an important distinction many of the above articles do not seem to get.
Before we move on let me drop a very informative article on the subject: http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottwinship/2014/10/20/has-inequality-driven-a-wedge-between-productivity-and-compensation-growth/
As an aside, it's relatively inherent in the nature of inflation that the value of the minimum wage will decline in real value if inflation rises and it stays constant. But the minimum wage isn't exactly the discussion I thought we were having.
Anyway, let's look at low skilled workers. It doesn't necessarily follow that, while productivity in the economy as a whole has increased, productivity has increased as much, or at all, for every sector, industry, firm, and worker. It's certainly possible for productivity to decline in some cases. I imagine it's hard to get data for firms, and we currently can't measure productivity for individual workers, but different sectors/industries are a different story.
If we take a look at the stats, one can see that different industries in the US have experienced very different growth in their productivity:
http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2013/productivity/
This paper, while looking at the UK instead of the US, seems to support this conclusion about productivity being unequal in an economy: https://www.nber.org/papers/w13351
This article also seems to support the idea that productivity is different across sectors: http://esoltas.blogspot.pt/2015/09/inequality-and-productivity.html
To quote Soltas:
Quote35 percent of the variance in the change between 1987 and 2013 in sector-level log hourly labor compensation is explained by changes in log labor productivity over the same period. A one-percentage point increase in productivity generated a 0.41-percentage-point increase in compensation.
As an aside, the data on the research on this seems to be a bit sparse, and I don't necessarily think it's very helpful for me to go digging in articles on JSTOR most of the people here can't access.
So one comes to the conclusion that productivity is unequal across the economy, which could (and seems to, at least from my perspective) explain, to an extent, differences in compensation across the economy. I wouldn't venture to claim it's the only factor. Also, the fact we (and economists, policy experts, etc) are still having a debate on this shows it is an open question that has not been settled yet. It's also obscured by the imperfection and incompleteness of our data and measures, differences in controlling for inflation, the political biases of the people having the debate, etc.
I must state again, I have made no claims here on the fairness of the situation. I'm only discussing what I believe the situation to be.
You didn't read any of the articles, did you? Several of them address other compensation. You are completely ignoring the fact that wage compensation is the best indication of wealth distribution.
Have you considered taking any sociology classes, so that you can form some kind of comprehension of how society works outside of economic "theory"?
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on November 15, 2015, 08:09:36 PM
You didn't read any of the articles, did you? Several of them address other compensation. You are completely ignoring the fact that wage compensation is the best indication of wealth distribution.
Have you considered taking any sociology classes, so that you can form some kind of comprehension of how society works outside of economic "theory"?
If I didn't already know TheWake was a Trump voter, I'd know by now.
Your second link is a bunch of inaccurate data, your first is an attempt to claim that the data in the second link is accurate. I can see why you would have to assume that CEO's are far more productive than laborers if you accept the assertions made in those links as true, since CEO pay has risen far more than labor pay if pay and productivity are correlated then CEO's must be more productive.
I have to assume, as Roger has, that you have yet to have a real job. Management, by and large, impedes productivity, and the higher up the management is the more likely they are to do so and the more impeding they are going to do.
Quote from: thewake on November 14, 2015, 04:59:13 AM
Compensation has closely tracked productivity:
https://www.nber.org/feldstein/WAGESandPRODUCTIVITY.meetings2008.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/productivity-and-compensation-growing-together
Workers do not tend to be paid (in total compensation, aka wages+benefits) less than 50% of their productivity.
To quote the NBER paper: "In 1970 compensation was 74 percent of the value added of the nonfinancial corporate sector. In the year 2006, it was 73 percent."
I don't know, it's possible CEOs are an exception, being paid way more than they "should" be? But compensation of workers in the entire economy has tracked productivity. It's certainly true that workers in a company, taken as a whole, contribute more to a company than a CEO. But each individual worker, compared to the CEO, is a different story. Although the main point I was making wasn't necessarily about CEOs in particular, but about productivity in general. The value added to hiring a worker with more skills tends to be more than a worker with less skills.
I'm entirely open to being shown that CEOs are paid way above the value they bring to a company. This would be quite an interesting exception to the rule.