Every American that isn't already pissed off should glance at these.

[Essence]

Graphic Inequality (http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph)

[BluePriest]

My favorite part of that is that 7/10 of the richest members of congress are democrats.
They claim the 2nd 4th 5th 6th 7th 9th and 10th place

[OldTrees]

Now here is something I am always confused by.
Why does inequality of wealth matter after the bare minimum?
To explain more in depth:
Inequality of wealth comes both from prior inequality and from choices made by individuals.
As long as choices are available inequality will grow. Some of the rich individuals will get richer, some poorer. Same with the poor and middle class individuals. I do not see the logic behind enforcing Equality of Results over Equality of Rules.

[Essence]

Define "bare minimum". 

And it's absolutely not true that ever-increasing inequality is the natural result of the availability of choice.  A *stable* inequality is the natural result of the availability of choice, as each successive generation produces roughly the same number of geniuses, failures, and mediocre workers.  It's only when the people who have succeeded in the past use their resources to manipulate the system in their own favor that an ever-increasing inequality of wealth results.


Oh, and BP, I know -- here's (http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-labor-union-decline) a really great article about how Democrats have left their liberal base behind.   They suck balls just as bad as the Republicans these days.

[OldTrees]

Define "bare minimum". 

And it's absolutely not true that ever-increasing inequality is the natural result of the availability of choice.  A *stable* inequality is the natural result of the availability of choice, as each successive generation produces roughly the same number of geniuses, failures, and mediocre workers.  It's only when the people who have succeeded in the past use their resources to manipulate the system in their own favor that an ever-increasing inequality of wealth results.

I would define bare minimum as the cost of living in that region. (high cost in america than india for example)

As for the increasing inequality,
Imagine everyone flips a coin(representing risk) every N minutes. The gap between the highest (head-tails) and the lowest will increase with time. Given a large enough sample size and the gap will increase by 2 units every flip. (Note in a capitalist society each person also adds a constant to their total each flip due to the rising wealth)

Now the above is a drastic oversimplification of risk but the principle remains the same. Choices are risks. Inequality is the natural gap. People ought to help those that fall too low when  compared with the costs of living but I see no reason to penalize those that climb high just due to their altitude. (coercion and fraud are reasons to penalize some of the rich but it would be the coercion and fraud that are the reason not the wealth.)

[Essence]

I would define bare minimum as the cost of living in that region. (high cost in america than india for example)

Define living.

As for the increasing inequality,
Imagine everyone flips a coin(representing risk) every N minutes. The gap between the highest (head-tails) and the lowest will increase with time. Given a large enough sample size and the gap will increase by 2 units every flip. (Note in a capitalist society each person also adds a constant to their total each flip due to the rising wealth)

Now the above is a drastic oversimplification of risk but the principle remains the same. Choices are risks. Inequality is the natural gap. People ought to help those that fall too low when  compared with the costs of living but I see no reason to penalize those that climb high just due to their altitude. (coercion and fraud are reasons to penalize some of the rich but it would be the coercion and fraud that are the reason not the wealth.)

This is the problem with having an academic grasp on a subject and either not having or not applying street-level experience and reasoning to the same subject.  Yes, your statement is correct, but it assumes an infinite timeframe.  Life is not infinite -- at some point, the gap between 2 people who 'get lucky' and 'get unlucky' consistently will naturally stop spreading, because they die.

More importantly, the law of large numbers states pretty much outright that the vast bulk of people in your oversimplified coinflipping example are going to end up at 50/50, and the outliers will be exceedingly rare.  It's not the outliers that have the problem in real life -- it's the people in the middle.  When 72% of the wealth is concentrated in the top 5% (and that's from 2007, it's only gotten dramatically worse in the last 4 years), that's not an example of risk increasing the gap between the highest and lowest over time -- because it completely defies the law of large numbers. 

What you see in modern America cannot be explained by chance.  You can explain it by the Just World Fallacy, or you can explain it by saying that the people with wealth get to write the rules and thus they create an abusive system.  Seeing as the Just World Fallacy is a fallacy for a damn good reason, the only conclusion that is left is that the system is abusive. 

The system is abusive because people have both power and greed, and no one is currently working to stop them from creating an abusive system.  Libertarianism wants to continue allowing them to manipulate the system, therefore libertarianism doesn't solve the problem America has today.  QED.

[ztromtrooper]

Define living.

the 'living'(used wrongly) of an area is the cost for essentials like food and water not sure if thats all but its part of it

[OldTrees]

I would define bare minimum as the cost of living in that region. (high cost in america than india for example)

Define living.

I think that establishing a metric for the bare minimum would take too long in this thread because the opinions about what the definition of the cost of living change from person to person. I am more endorsing the idea of a bare minimum rather than trying to promote a specific metric or definition of it. If you are adamant about receiving a number from me I would define the cost of living per year as 3x the cost (tied to inflation) of food, water, healthcare based upon the environment and shelter. However I will emphasize that it is the idea of a bare minimum rather than my guess at it that is important.

As for the increasing inequality,
Imagine everyone flips a coin(representing risk) every N minutes. The gap between the highest (head-tails) and the lowest will increase with time. Given a large enough sample size and the gap will increase by 2 units every flip. (Note in a capitalist society each person also adds a constant to their total each flip due to the rising wealth)

Now the above is a drastic oversimplification of risk but the principle remains the same. Choices are risks. Inequality is the natural gap. People ought to help those that fall too low when  compared with the costs of living but I see no reason to penalize those that climb high just due to their altitude. (coercion and fraud are reasons to penalize some of the rich but it would be the coercion and fraud that are the reason not the wealth.)

This is the problem with having an academic grasp on a subject and either not having or not applying street-level experience and reasoning to the same subject.  Yes, your statement is correct, but it assumes an infinite timeframe.  Life is not infinite -- at some point, the gap between 2 people who 'get lucky' and 'get unlucky' consistently will naturally stop spreading, because they die.

More importantly, the law of large numbers states pretty much outright that the vast bulk of people in your oversimplified coinflipping example are going to end up at 50/50, and the outliers will be exceedingly rare.  It's not the outliers that have the problem in real life -- it's the people in the middle.  When 72% of the wealth is concentrated in the top 5% (and that's from 2007, it's only gotten dramatically worse in the last 4 years), that's not an example of risk increasing the gap between the highest and lowest over time -- because it completely defies the law of large numbers. 

First the coins get passed down from generation to generation. Hence while not infinite it is still a large enough effect over time. Yes outliers would be very rarer than in real life so it is not the best bell curve to use as a model. However it does show that even with it favoring equality due to the massive middle class, it still exhibits a spontaneous inequality.

To look at an example run of this model
Turn 41:
Wealth distribution 1-42
Total Population for even distribution: 2.19902E+12
Total Wealth: 4.7279E+13
Top 25%: 32%
2nd 25%: 24%
3rd 25%: 22%
Low 25%: 22%

Now so far we only examined two of the factors of the real world inequality. (Risk and Corruption) Neither of which is sufficient to describe the situation alone.
There are other factors that would be needed to fill out the model such as: birth rate trends (poor>rich) and the power of capital (money knows how to reproduce hence a linear progression is not as accurate as a exponential)

If we change the wealth distribution to reflect the exponential growth [(1.5)^n n:0-41]
Wealth distribution 1-16585998.48
Total Population for even distribution: 2.19902E+12
Total Wealth: 2.06795E+16
Top 25%: 75%
2nd 25%: 15%
3rd 25%: 7%
Low 25%: 3%

Another tangent:
Why does relative wealth matter after the bare minimum. Is not the objective wealth more important? After all relative wealth does not determine if I am above or below the bare minimum. Relative wealth does not tell us if everyone is starving or feasting or a mixture of both. I know it is human nature to be envious or feel pride due to gaps in relative wealth but do such gaps truly matter? or is it the objective wealth totals that matter?

[Essence]

First the coins get passed down from generation to generation.

So much for the libertarian notion of equality of opportunity, then. 

Why does relative wealth matter after the bare minimum. Is not the objective wealth more important? After all relative wealth does not determine if I am above or below the bare minimum. Relative wealth does not tell us if everyone is starving or feasting or a mixture of both. I know it is human nature to be envious or feel pride due to gaps in relative wealth but do such gaps truly matter? or is it the objective wealth totals that matter?

Those gaps don't matter from a perspective of each individual's wellbeing.  As an individual who is living on the decidedly low end of the wealth ladder, I can tell you that I am very well in physical terms even though my wealth is minimal.  However, if you have as a goal the success of your country's economy as a whole, it's easily provable (and already proven) that a large and relatively wealthy middle class is the best route for long-term economic power.

If you want to discard both individual and collective wealth as useful standards of measure, then I'm afraid you're not fit to continue discussing the merits of fiscal policy in the first place.

[LAN]

i dont get it. what do they mean?

[Essence]

They mean that in America, since roughly 1970, the rich have gotten trillions of dollars wealthier and the middle and lower classes have gotten trillions of dollars poorer.   

[Glitch]

My favorite part of that is that 7/10 of the richest members of congress are democrats.
They claim the 2nd 4th 5th 6th 7th 9th and 10th place

Hoorayyyy for partisan politics!

EVERYTHING IS EVERYONE ELSES FAULT!