So lemme get this straight. You cannot even grasp a simple plain-language basic fundamental white-paper from the CBO, but you want me to spend the time and effort to dig up a complex OECD white-paper or a complex Federal Reserve white-paper for you to pooh-pooh ?
No thanks.
That’s an flat-out oxymoron.
Income equality would be difficult as well as problematic. Not-extreme income inequality would be the goal.
Not-extreme income inequality would be economically beneficial in numerous ways, as our own history has elucidated.
Because he doesn’t, and plays juvenile games.
But this is your opportunity to show us that. Redmed is giving you a lob at the net and you’re volleying it to the baseline.
Why is less extreme income inequality better than extreme income inequality (I’m assuming you’re not for income equality per se, but if you are, feel free to replace my terms)? I’ve read all the posts in this thread and still not convinced either way.
If you don’t read the term “income inequality” and automatically think “bad,” then it’s not an oxymoron to say that having some of the highest income inequality in the developed world doesn’t necessarily need to be combated. I understand you do read “income inequality” as “bad,” but when discussing policy implications, you have to acknowledge that someone you disagree with does not have the same starting premise as you. Simply calling my statement an “oxymoron” does absolutely nothing to further your argument.
It’s not that clear to me. Elaborate.
Some people’s glass is half empty, others half full. Some people say “income inequality”. I say “opportunity to succeed”.
Since you sound like you’re more willing to listen than @JoeFriday, I’ll lay out my side.
If you go to wikipedia’s ranking of income inequality by country and sort it by the Gini %, you will see that South Africa, Nambia, Haiti, Botswana, Suriname, Zambia, and Central African Republic are all over 55%. That’s extreme income inequality. The USA is at 41%. Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden are all below 28% which is very low income inequality. The USA is worse than pretty much all of western Europe. Western Europe is a great place to live, and I don’t fault anyone for wanting to live like people do in Scandinavia if that’s your thing. But striving for low income inequality doesn’t get you a society like Finland, Norway, or Sweden.
Take a look at the rest of the rankings. There are quite a few countries on that list at the low end of the income inequality scale that you wouldn’t choose to live in over the USA. Kazakhstan, Algeria, Kyrgyzstan, Albania, and Iraq all have income inequality percentages below 30! The majority of countries with lower percentages than the USA are poor compared to the USA. That is the first and largest indicator to me that income inequality, by itself, is a pretty meaningless indicator of anything resembling prosperity, poverty, GDP, growth, etc.
All else the same, I think any rational person would prefer to be born into a society where the richest make 25% more and everyone else makes the same. However, I also think most rational people would prefer to be born into a society where the richest make 25% less and the poorest make 25% more.
Extreme income inequality is a symptom of the problem, not the ailment itself. The problem is failing to better support the poorest members of society.
But why have we been getting increased income inequality?
Is it that the poor are getting poorer or that the rich are getting richer?
Everyone is getting richer, but a few of the very rich are getting super rich (largely due to technology allowing small numbers of very capable people to create huge amounts of value, ala Google, etc) and that skews the stats.
We’ve seen increases in the last few years but its just recovering from the plunge during the recession.
For the bottom half, real incomes have barely just recovered to what we had in the late 90’s
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/256/table4.xls
As is the case with many other issues, the debate about income inequality has become so politicized that most people have lost sight of what it is actually about.
Just to illustrate some of the issues, suppose that you’ve always been hard working and driven. You’ve been competing against other very smart and driven people for many years, got into a highly competitive undergraduate program, then worked your ass off to get into a good medical school. There, you had to compete against even more hard working and driven peers, to get into your preferred residency. In residency, you frequently averaged 80-120 hours a week while being paid a slave hourly wage and handled literally life and death situations, then you got into a fellowship, then possibly another fellowship, etc… At the end of it all, you become a cardio thoracic surgeon and start making some real money.
Suppose that I have taken a different path in life. Noone would call me dumb or lazy, but I was not willing to take on the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it took you to get where you are, accept the risk that, when competing against other very hardworking folks, I would be the one who’d be left standing at the end, and did not want to wait for 15 or so years to start making money. So, I also worked very hard and became a carpenter, and a good one at that.
Now, some 15 or so years later we meet again. I can certainly argue that I’ve worked just as hard as you have, but in a different way, am really good at what I do, and am in high demand. Sure, you now make way, way, way more money than I could hope to make, which has created tremendous income inequality between us. Do we actually need to do anything about it? I chose my career path independently from you, and it’s not like I would’ve become a cardio thoracic surgeon if you did not. Sure, taxing you more would reduce our income inequality, but doing so isn’t going to create more opportunities for me. Taxing you more and giving me the money instead would certainly make me feel good, but it’s not like it’s going to cause me to become a cardio thoracic surgeon as well.
Income inequality has been rising since the '70’s, so it’s not a recent phenomenon, nor is it one that is affected by the party that happens to control the executive branch. This shouldn’t be surprising either, as, for instance, the job of a carpenter essentially hasn’t changed since the '70’s. They haven’t become significantly more productive, nor has the job required significantly greater skills or training. On the other hand, cardio thoracic surgeons can now do things that weren’t even imaginable in the '70’s, and can save many more lives than they could back then. They do, however, have to train much longer, take on significantly more student loans, and, if they make a mistake or are even alleged to have made a mistake, they face multi-million dollar liability. So, their compensation has gone up as well at a much higher rate than that of carpenters, but this isn’t a problem that needs to be fixed, nor does taxing the former more in the name of “reducing income inequality” accomplish anything.
So, instead of making ideological arguments about the evils of rising income inequality, people need to look at its causes. To me, regardless of whether we have rising income inequality or not, what we need to strive for are improved educational opportunities for people, so that they can then decide on their own what career path they want to take. Simply taxing higher income earners more to reduce income inequality makes for a nice campaign slogan and causes people to focus on the wrong goals and priorities.
In the context of this tax bill (that this thread is supposedly about), it is the rich getting richer at the cost of everyone else (footing the bill for the resulting deficits).
Based on the 2014 data (Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2016 Update), the top 25% of taxpayers earn 69% of all income, but pay 87% of all federal income taxes; the top 10% earn 47% of all income, but pay 71% of all federal income taxes; the top 1% earn 21% of all income, but pay 40% of all federal income taxes.
On the other hand, the bottom 50% earn 11% of all income, but pay less than 3% of all federal income taxes.
So, who is footing the bill for the deficits? As of 2018, the total federal, state and local government spending is about $24,500 per person (that’s every man, woman and child). Most people are not even close to paying enough to cover the amount of money the government pays for them (US Total Government Spendingin $2009 per capita, Breakdown for 2024 - Charts), so the higher income taxpayers are the ones covering the difference, including the deficit spending.
It’s relative to before the tax bill; it’s a fact that less is being paid for now. I guess you can argue that the resulting deficits will be paid for by tax revenue eventually (which may or may not be covered in the same proportion by higher incomes). But it’s also likely that spending will eventually be cut to compensate. To that degree, at least, income inequality is being made worse.
Well said. Income inequality is merely a can opener being used by the left in an effort to derail America’s capitalist society, which they dislike.
It is not income inequality that matters. Instead, it is equality of opportunity which is important. Sadly, in America’s past because of discrimination, there has been far too much inequality of opportunity. We need to do everything possible to ensure all American citizens have an equal shot at success.
Sorry thats a bad example / analogy.
Income inequality trends over the past decades isn’t due to career choices or doctors working extra harder today vs decades ago. In fact, doctors work less now.
Peoples individual choices and circumstances cause them to end up in low or high paid occupations. But the increase in income inequality aren’t driven by the average Joe deciding to be a Dr. vs laborer.
Income inequality trends over the past decades are due to many factors, including those that are illustrated by my example. Generally, income inequality is caused by all the technological and scientific developments out there, which have meant that at the top of the income strata, many of the high income earners have a significantly more specialized and fine tuned skill set, are responsible for things that reach significantly more people than in years past, etc… At the opposite end of the spectrum are those folks whose contributions may still be quite valuable, but whose training and job requirements just haven’t changed all that much over the years, so their compensation reflects that.
Again, in and of itself, income inequality isn’t necessarily a problem. You want to have income inequality, as that is the financial incentive to obtain higher education, to start businesses, to expand existing businesses, etc… It’s just like at the Olympics, where you have to ensure that all athletes start at the same time and actually encourage and celebrate those who break records and finish ahead of the pack, in the overall economy we have to focus on creating equal opportunities for people.
To the extent that the opportunities are not equal, simply taxing the highest achievers more reduces income inequality, but does not equalize opportunities for people, so it is a completely counterproductive way of handing the issue.
Where did you get this information? A number of years ago, doctors routinely practiced without being board certified. To the extent that they obtained board certifications, those were granted for their entire lifetimes. Now, it is becoming more and more difficult to practice medicine without being board certified, and as of a few years ago all board certifications expire (except for the older physicians who are grandfathered in) every 10 years, thus forcing physicians to spend thousands of dollars studying, re-certifying, etc… Likewise, more and more medical specialties now require fellowships, etc…
If you are referring to the ACGME restrictions on duty hours that apply to medical residents, those are rather routinely violated, not to mention the fact that the ACGME restrictions do not apply to the overall workloads.