> Is our goal to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, or to improve the lives of the poor? Because the gap itself is actually irrelevant to poor people's lives.
The resources to improve the lives of the poor (and not just the very poor but the struggling middle classes), have to come from somewhere. They are not infinite. So unless you're creating a bunch of wealth from nothing, then it naturally requires a more equal distribution of existing wealth.
> China which has been consistently overbuilding housing for decades now. They still have housing issues.
This is in fact a problem of unequal distribution of resources: one of the main reasons there are housing issues is because houses have been seen as an investment and gobbled up by those who can afford to do so (all my friends in Beijing own multiple apartments), so prices rise and the poor can't get them anyway.
But financial wealth is not equal to material wealth. Financial wealth literally is created from nothing, and its mapping to material wealth is arbitrary. The last 4 years are a great example of massive paper gains while everyone was losing.
There are real diminishing returns to money. Some issues are surely caused by lack of funding, but that's not most real issues. Most real issues will remain even despite maximal funding. So before you start advocating for taking people's wealth you have to make a convincing argument that it can solve something.
The resources to improve the lives of the poor (and not just the very poor but the struggling middle classes), have to come from somewhere. They are not infinite. So unless you're creating a bunch of wealth from nothing, then it naturally requires a more equal distribution of existing wealth.
> China which has been consistently overbuilding housing for decades now. They still have housing issues.
This is in fact a problem of unequal distribution of resources: one of the main reasons there are housing issues is because houses have been seen as an investment and gobbled up by those who can afford to do so (all my friends in Beijing own multiple apartments), so prices rise and the poor can't get them anyway.