
Why inequality persists in America - giorgiofontana
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/16/richer-and-poorer
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b6
Sorry, I know I have some remedial reading to do on this subject -- I'm trying
to fill in the gaps. One thing I never see in these articles is why the
movement people are seeing in this indicator necessarily means that something
bad is happening.

Suppose I rake leaves for a living and only barely make enough to feed myself.
Suppose technology allows someone else to succeed in ways that have not
previously been possible, and they become billionaires. Didn't the range
between poorest (me) and richest (them) become wider? Suppose they succeed
even more and become trillionaires. Didn't the range just get wider again? Why
is this bad?

~~~
onion2k
Having exceptionally wealthy people in a market puts an upward pricing
pressure on goods that have a limited supply. For example, if two very rich
people want the same house they can bid for it and one will win. That person
who sold the house now has more to spend on their next house, so they pay more
in turn, and so on down through the market. In theory that means everyone wins
- with the notable exception of a person who is buying their first house. They
face higher prices with no external wage stimulus to give them the additional
purchasing power to buy. Consequently they're shut out of the market.

Now extrapolate that to _all goods_. Poor people just can't buy things if
there are people at the top end of the market with vastly more wealth than
them. If that happens then people start to starve, get sick, or resort to
crime more. Society is worse for it. There's little point in being hugely
wealthy if you can't leave your lovely secure house without feeling the city
you live in is a horrible place.

The concept is called 'private wealth versus common wealth'.

~~~
mycroft-holmes
But most people are not exceptionally wealthy.

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stevesearer
"The less representative the upper body of a national legislature, the greater
the gap between the rich and the poor."

Interestingly enough, one of the failed amendments to the Constitution was
have each member of the House of Representatives represent a max of 50,000
citizens. [1] I've wondered whether this would be a good change to our modern
system where some representatives have 1m+ constituents.

I mean, how can one person accurately represent the views of so many people?

What a larger house would mean is an increase in the number of political
parties as small groups of people could work to have their minority groups
represented outside of a major political party.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Am...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment)

EDIT: Here's a site with some information about the idea of increasing the
size of the house: [http://www.thirty-thousand.org/](http://www.thirty-
thousand.org/)

~~~
twblalock
If gerrymandering persists, the dysfunction of Congress will also persist, no
matter how many members there are. Representatives have no incentives to
behave responsibly under the current districting situation.

~~~
stevesearer
One of the intended consequences of increasing the number of members is that
each one is more easily replaced if they do not accurately represent the views
of the constituents.

My back of the envelope math gives the US 6400 member of the house at the
current population which also has the effect of reducing each single member's
importance.

~~~
twblalock
By drawing district lines around politically homogenous populations,
gerrymandering guarantees that representatives accurately represent the views
of their constituents and enables hyper-partisan behavior without
consequences. Adding representatives does nothing to change that. 6400
gerrymandered districts will give us the same results as 435.

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twblalock
Increasing inequality, and a decline of the wages of the middle class, are
worldwide phenomena that are occurring in most first-world countries. The
effects of trends are currently the most extreme in the United States, but I'd
be willing to bet that the US just got here first, and others will follow.

I won't pretend that anyone really knows why this is happening (although a few
causes seem fairly obvious), but it is clearly a worldwide phenomenon, and
looking for causes only in the United States is a bit myopic.

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niche
As Gini approaches .5 ---> Instability rises As Gini exceeds .5---> chance of
'revolution' increases exponentially

Gini of .333 is 'ideal'

~~~
icebraining
How was that assessed?

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shortoncash
I searched the article for "Federal Reserve" and saw no reference to it so I
didn't read the rest. It just seems obvious to me that if you give easy credit
to one segment of the population, the money will chase up the prices of assets
and make those without access to credit more impoverished, relatively
speaking.

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sosuke
The article mentions the book talking about how we don't care about other
peoples kids as being one of the problems. I think that is a symptom of
realizing that the world at large doesn't care for us, and if we only have so
much time and energy to give we give it to our own.

Also it seems like inequality is multifaceted. Everyone has more now then they
have ever had, more stuff, more tech, more access to everything you need to
survive. At the same time I see folks having a hard time making it, buying a
house, saving for retirement, they are constantly drained.

Unless you have both spouses working, which is another conversation all
together. I only see discretionary spending happening from dual income houses,
or single youth not yet concerned with retirement.

~~~
collyw
>Everyone has more now then they have ever had, more stuff, more tech, more
access to everything you need to survive.

more debt, more inequality, less security about the future.

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marcosdumay
Yet another article about income inequality that does not talk about
government corruption.

~~~
leonroy
You actually read to the end?

The article concludes with the lack of representation in Congress which is
certainly linked.

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meira
I thought this was about the continent. What a pretentious title.

