Income inequality happens by design. We can't fix it by tweaking capitalism

[marmar]

by Steven W Thrasher


(Guardian UK) The economic hoarding by those at the top has been termed “income inequality”, but that’s neither a strong nor accurate enough phrasing. I have never heard poor people complain about “income inequality”; poor people complain about being screwed out of housing , or about working more hours for less pay or about having to choose between medicine and food.

“Inequality” sounds like something that happens by accident and can be remedied by fiddling around the edges. It is not as if the rich are a little more equal and the poor a little less equal, and if we shift a bit we’ll all come out in the middle. What we’ve been calling “income inequality” might be better understood as a war waged by US political and economic policy on the poor.

A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies issued this week analyzed the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans and found that “the wealthiest 100 households now own about as much wealth as the entire African American population in the United States”. That means that 100 families – most of whom are white – have as much wealth as the 41,000,000 black folks walking around the country (and the million or so locked up) combined.

Similarly, the report also stated that “the wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 own as much wealth as the entire Latino population” of the nation. Here again, the breakdown in actual humans is broke down: 186 overwhelmingly white folks have more money than that an astounding 55,000,000 Latino people. ......................(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/05/income-inequality-policy-capitalism

[BlueJazz]

1. The short of it is: When we allow, as a society, to mix monies and politicians/laws we're bound. .

...to produce a scenario that favors the rich and the sociopaths. I was fortunate as a child to see for myself that the wealthy think of the poor as mere tools for making the wealthy more comfortable. It's NOT a mere accident of reality.
You take money out of politics (and media) and the pendulum might swing the other way.

[raouldukelives]

2. Adam Smith Capitalism would be a good start.

I'm not sure what this current system is. Fascism is the only word that seems to fit best for me.

Some sort of bizarre hybrid of crony capitalism combined with decade upon decade of the brightest minds this world can produce selling themselves out to corporate influence above the needs of "We the People" and lobbying and drafting small pieces of legislation that benefit themselves just a little bit, one time, but benefit Wall St. for all time.

These small little sell-outs have occurred over and over, time after time, for meager amounts in the scope of things, but disastrous effects in the long term, up to and quite possibly concluding in the mass displacement, starvation, barbarism and miserable demises of billions of people.

We are seeing the horrible effects already in our worlds stock market, the commons, the oceans and fields and jet streams and temperatures and wildlife that are rapidly and rapaciously being consumed for the benefit of so few. Only at the expense of what our entire idea of existence was allowed to evolve and flourish under for thousands of years.

The more Wall St excels, the the more the worlds stocks plummet. That is the only truth I know.

If Adam Smith were transported to today and shown his creation he wouldn't take credit for it. How could he? It isn't the same game anymore.
He would no more recognize it than the inventor of Rugby would call the modern NFL his game. The rules have changed.

What started out as the ideal of a level playing field has morphed into superstar contracts, mass media propaganda, wife beaters, low blows, late hits and deflated balls.

[Javaman]

3. those who say we "can't" are usuall the same people who believe they have the most to lose. nt

[marmar]

5. In this case, he's saying it can't be tweaked, it needs to be replaced.

[Javaman]

10. replacing is also considered fixing. nt

[RoccoR5955]

4. We can also fix it by eliminating capitalism. n/t

[Major Nikon]

6. Doubtful

Countries that have eliminated capitalism typically have higher income inequality rates compared to the US, while countries that have the lowest income inequality rates are mixed economies that retain capitalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

[nolabels]

8. Necessity breeds invention

Currently the large thumb holding it down is watching it getting ready to burst and all the other ideas and money in the world cannot stop that next idea coming into the fold. What's even funnier is that we may be living in it and not even know it.

Our collective is much stronger than our singular minds can imagine.

[Nye Bevan]

7. Haven't countries like Denmark successfully "tweaked capitalism"?

Denmark is a capitalist country with plenty of private industry, a stockmarket, and free trade, but inequality is much less than in the US.

[pampango]

12. There has been a whole lot of 'tweaking' in Europe and in other progressive countries.

"Tweaking" is a misnomer since the changes in those countries are very substantial compared to the capitalism practiced in the US.

[Nye Bevan]

15. Higher taxes, universal health care, and better social benefits

could be enacted next week in the US if the Congress and president wanted to. Still a capitalist system.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Civilization is a resource concentration mechanism

That a small amount of people out of many would hoard money, after one species out of many hoards more and more of the planet, is pretty much how you should expect things to go.

That corporations write the rules which govern them should come as no surprise, since human beings do the same thing in relation to the natural world. If we get a broken leg, we get around that pesky regulation of what would otherwise be probable death.

[ronnie624]

17. People need to start looking at economics

In terms of energy conversions instead of capital. Money plays no role in the conversion of resources and human labor into usable energy. Capitalist ideology misleads people into believing we can create 'wealth', when in fact, the Laws of Thermodynamics forbid that. What the wealthy are really hoarding, are the resources that rightfully belong to everyone, and that are needed to make an equitable society and mitigate the coming hardships that will result from climate change.

[LittleBlue]

11. How useful are those statistics?

I keep hearing that xxx number of rich people have more money than xx,xxx,xxx Americans.

So do I. Because anyone who pays rent, has student loans, or credit card debt, probably has negative wealth. So when you add those totals to people who have slightly positive wealth, you can zero out at tens of millions of people. So you, I and anyone else in this forum, if you have a dollar in your account and no debt, then you're also wealthier than tens of millions of people.

Which shows we don't only have a wealth inequality problem, we have a debt problem. An 18-year-old can saddle themselves with credit card debt without providing any proof to the bank that they can pay a penny of it. Tha bank doesn't care, they just want the teen saddled with fees and interest for eternity. Little debt turns into mountain of debt, and suddenly the teen is part of the statistic in the OP.

[smirkymonkey]

16. That's true, I wonder how those numbers look when you figure insolvency into

the picture. Just the massive student loan debts alone would suggest that the picture is much bleaker than stated. It would be an interesting study.

[leftstreet]

13. DURec

[demmiblue]

14. K&R