My gap is wider than your gap.Follow

Sure. But we don't call everything "poison".



"Any" adverse effects? That's also an unfair requirement (too broad by far). Overall effect on the economy and on economic outcomes for the population as a whole? I will absolutely state that not only is there no point at which the income gap alone can be said to produce those negative effects, but will also argue that statistically the correlation is reversed and that the economic outcomes for the population as a whole tend to be directly proportional to the income gap itself. In other words, a larger income gap tends to reflect a more healthy economy, greater economic opportunity for a larger percentage of the population, higher standard of living overall, faster technological growth, and a host of things that I would not only not label as "poison", but would argue are incredibly positive things we should be striving for.


As I have argued many times on this forum, what we're really measuring with that gap is the slope of our economic line. Graph earnings by percentile in order from lowest to highest, and the slope of the line is steepest where the "gap" is greatest. But that slope also represents upward mobility. It literally measures how much you gain when you move forward within the economy. And since the slope is scaled based on percentiles of the population it accounts for difficulty to make that move. Put another way, the amount of positive economic gain for every single individual within an economy is increased if the slope of that line is steeper.

That's a good thing, all the way around. There are other things we can argue are "good" or "bad", but saying that the gap makes an economy "bad" is not just wrong, it's completely backwards. The larger the gap the better off the people in the economy are. I know that sounds wrong because you've been taught to view that gap negatively your entire life, but if you actually step back and think about what that gap really measures and how it affects you and everyone else in the economy, you'll realize that what you've assumed about it is wrong. The gap measures ease of economic advancement within a given economy. That's it. Everything else remaining the same, a larger gap is good, not bad.

Edited, Nov 1st 2013 2:48pm by gbaji

So, in that case, how does one keep someone with a large amount of money from misusing it?

You didn't ask a question in the post you quoted.

You did ask a question in the other one, to which I provided a several paragraph long answer.

I agree, it's stupid to punish people merely because they're successful, and what is "bad" is really important to have defined. The danger is with my previous post, that a minority can have undue sway on the political process. If a minority gets too much influence in defining what it means to misuse your power it's difficult if not impossible to enforce the will of the majority.

I don't think breaking down inequality by counties is a particularly useful analysis. County governments don't have the political power to really affect income or capital gains taxes. There's no barrier to crossing them for employment. It's not like each county is its own congressional district or school district.

In fact, even though inequality its bad on its face, it's good to have it in a given geographical area because that means that people of different incomes are living in proximity, rather than being segregated. That's good for a tax base (especially if the rich and poor live in the same city and share school funding) as well as being generally good for community & social health.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. Chicago area has the same problem. Just proposing a sort of theoretical ideal.

I was more trying to point out that county divisions don't matter that much. And that the opposite situation of having all millionaires in one county and all impoverished in another would result in perfect income equality, yet would be an even worse situation (or at least no better).


Edited, Nov 3rd 2013 4:37pm by trickybeck

If they didn't white people would have no culture from which to steal.

What we have instead is like a form of indentured servitude, in which the minimum wage earners make up a subclass to support the richbies that live in the same town.

I kind of felt that way this weekend when I paid someone else $60 to wax my car. How many nice cars has that guy at the car wash waxed? Versus how many crummy cars? Okay my 1997 Honda Accord isn't exactly a nice car, it's just been fairly well kept up.

It had a new coat of paint on it. It had to be waxed.

Someone had a gorgeous lemon yellow Corvette getting done just after me.

If it makes it to year 30, it might have earned it at that point.

Ya and one day that Honda, could be a Lexus!.

If you don't gold plate it You could afford a new lexus!

Edited, Nov 4th 2013 5:25pm by rdmcandie

Ok. But what does this have to do with income gaps?