
Dispelling misconceptions about what’s driving income inequality in the U.S. - SREinSF
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/upshot/income-inequality-united-states.html?ribbon-ad-idx=1&rref=business&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Business%20Day&pgtype=article
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aaronbrethorst
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15724797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15724797)

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NiklasMort
"When I arrived in the office one day I saw my boss coming in with a new big
Porsche. I said to him 'nice car' and he replied 'well, if you continue to
work hard and give everything to this company, I might be able to get myself
another one for Christmas'"

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jacknews
We keep hearing the argument that government subsidy or protectionist legal
barriers are responsible for inequality, but I think it's an inherent feature
of capitalism.

Owning the means of production, whether it's a company or factory, land,
patents, natural resources, or simply a brand name, give you a share of
"monopoloy power" to some extent, and puts you on a different plane to
workers. Your wealth automatically rises with the hard work, creativity and
success of those workers, and allows to you to buy ever more "productive
assets". The value of which constantly increases to remain beyond average
workers' grasp.

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gkanai
See also: "The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still [in 2016] the
richest families in Florence"

[https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-
in-14...](https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-
still-the-richest-families-in-florence/)

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vixen99
This is a universal phenomenon. Gregory Clark has tracked family names in the
UK over eight centuries and shown that 'mobility rates are lower than
conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to
social policies'. The names of the Norman colonizers of England in 1066 still
strongly feature in the higher social classes.

[http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/The%20Son%20A...](http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/The%20Son%20Also%20Rises/EEH%202014.pdf).

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ronnier
The article doesn’t say... How is “the richest 1%” defined? Is it by networth?
Yearly total compensation? And at what values must one be to meet the
definition?

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pitaj
Here's what I'm wondering:

\- How do you measure inequality?

\- What amount of inequality is acceptable?

\- What amount of inequality should be targeted?

Inequality is part of any system. It's inevitable due to the inherent
randomness of our universe.

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BerislavLopac
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient)

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grizzlylabs
The article contradicts itself.

First it says that it's not managers that are increasing inequality then they
say a bunch of businesses that are behind it.

Quote: Almost all of the growth in top American earners has come from just
three economic sectors: professional services, finance and insurance, and
health care, groups that tend to benefit from regulatory barriers that shelter
them from competition.

I've never met an individual that offers insurance... it's a corporation.
So... if it's not managers the only other thing is the owners of these
corporations.

But the New York Times didn't want to say that!

More fake news bullshit.

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nasredin
TLDR:

Financial and medical fields have a lot of rich people because of regulatory
capture (i.e. no or little competition because they make the rules).

