My gap is wider than your gap.Follow

If I'm reading that right, and I might not be, dark blue is bad?

Then, bad.

#18: Clarke County, Georgia (53.95)

Part of this is because of the university students, but it's also the employees of the university and the music scene. We have a combination of very highly paid professors and university administrators, and a giant medical community with two major hospitals and a hundred smaller clinics (and lots of specialists.) Then we have all the people who staff those places, most making minimum wage or barely above.

As for the music scene, we have a lot of starving artist types here. A lot. All hoping to be the next REM or Widespread Panic. In the meantime, they have minimum wage day jobs and get paid a couple hundred bucks to play at venues on the weekends for "exposure."

Oddly enough, although we both work in the next county over, my husband and I are now adding to the inequality in the county with our combined six figure income. We're part of the problem because we chose to live in Clarke, even though we work in Oconee. (We pay higher taxes in Clarke, but our house was dirt cheap.)

Edited, Oct 31st 2013 3:33pm by Catwho

It's hard to tell for sure cuz my head was sideways looking at the map, but I think my county is average in inequality, which is also fairly representative of the inequality of the state.

Will County, IL is "white" which surprises me a little. There's a fair amount of lower class minorities in the country as well as a fair amount of well-off folks who bought property in the exurbs to build big homes on. Maybe the number of folks in the middle make that a wash.

Our county in Florida is about as dark blue as you can get. No real surprise there, I suppose. It is Florida.

Our home county in Tennessee is just as dark blue.

Our county in Hawaii is a lighter shade of blue.

We're doing it wrong. :(

That's a very Somalian way to think. Or Belgian, or - wait **** it's everyone.
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The solution to economic inequality is pretty simple, just kill the richest people in society, starting from the top. Eventually, the wealth will trickle down - now, while it's true that inheritance often concentrates wealth, any time this happens the new rich guy shoots straight to the top of the list; I take it on faith that this will, eventually, work. I'm not saying we should do it, but we should. I'm just not going to say that we should, even though I already did.

Costs more in bullets.

Hey, maybe. We could find the exact line where the bullets meet the trickle-down effect.

"Mrs. Tabbit, I'm afraid you're under the distribution lin---"
"WAIT! Mrs Tabbit just received her $25 bonus check from the cafe she works in next to Acme Bullets Ltd!"
"Looks like you're safe... this time."

Wouldn't it work just as well to kill off all the poor people?

No, because their labor is what makes wealth for the rich. Killing off the rich would mean their labor would make wealth for themselves.

That is exactly right. And should be a hint that we're placing value on the wrong thing (income inequality is not actually bad).



Oh you socialist you!

Edited, Oct 31st 2013 2:39pm by gbaji

Of course it's not inherently bad, it's inevitable. The dose makes the poison eh.

Value is placed on income because income represents wealth. When 5% of the people have over 70% of the wealth, it's too much inequality. The economy is unhealthy.

That part is pretty easy to understand.

I disagree that we're talking about poison though. That suggests something which is always "bad" if present in sufficient quantity.



Is it though? Is that too much inequality? How are you measuring it? You say the "economy is unhealthy", but is there some objective, non circular (meaning something other than just the income inequality) method you're using to decide that the economy is both unhealthy *and* the cause is too much income inequality?

This is the part I disagree with? People constantly say "we've got too much income inequality", and assume that this is "bad", but their arguments tend to fall apart when they're asked to give specifics about how this is bad for "the economy". Obviously, it may be relatively bad for the person who at the moment has less income than someone else, but is this actually bad for the economy? Is it bad for "the people" within the economy, as a whole, over time?

If you think it is, what evidence do you have to support that assumption?



I think it's terrifically easy to say. It's a hell of a lot harder to prove though. Which is why it's so frustrating to just hear people say it over and over, despite fumbling over a supportive argument when asked to provide one.

Yes. Everything can always have negative effects if it's quantity is out of balance - too much or too little.

Are you willing to say that there is no point at which the gap between wealth, independently of the income scale will be 'ok' or not produce any adverse effects?

You can measure it in abundant ways. Production, health, even simple population data. But clearly when the accumulation of money becomes a tool for power rather than simply a means of currency it needs to be checked.





Edited, Nov 1st 2013 11:35pm by Elinda