b

RickyP has yet to provide data as to his hypothesis

Theres a great deal on this, B, I'll just be lazy and point to section 4 of the wikipedia link below.
In brief, countries that have great income and welath disparity have more crime, poorer housing, poorer general population and public health (more infectious disease), lagging development in industry and a less competitive commercial and industrial sector, and etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_i ... l_cohesion

B

Let's look at those. College/University costs have skyrocketed. That is because of the government subsidies of higher education

Then why are costs for education so comparatively low in countries that entirely subsidize education? Those same countries hae greater participation rates as well.....(In answer to the demand element.)

b

Health Care has increased due to the insurance companies paying for the costs, and people do not have to.

In Canada the provincial health systems pay most costs just as in the US where private insurers pay the costs... The cost of an appendectomy is half what it is in the US. ALl in the Canafian health system takes up 11 to 12% of GDP. The US 17%. And yet, just as in the US, the insurance company pays most of the costs...
So that ain't it.

Entrepreneurship is down due to greater regulation

Myth. (Although I do understand that beauracracy can be difficult... surprisingly regulation often contributes to innovation. ) To prove this you'll have to show that things like new patent applications, new business start ups and etc. move lock step with regulation. I doubt there is any real measure of "regulatory effect" available. That is I doubt there's some careful metric to compare regulation in different jurisdictions or more importantly in different periods in the same jurisdiction...
Indeed in entrepreneurship is down in the US, its probably down to the economic collapse after the financial melt down. And tha was was largely caused by deregulation.... So. no.

I don't buy the diatribe about social mobility

.
Diatribe?
the source is an OECD study that is linked off a web site
http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/ ... _mobility/
Don't want to bother reading it, its summarized in two paragraphs.

The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has released a report that should deflate this nation’s inflated sense of self and fundamentalist devotion to “free-markets.” According to their findings, social mobility measured according to earnings, wages and education across generations is relatively low in relation to other developed nations such as Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Spain.
For instance, in terms of earnings levels, nine developed countries, including France, offer greater mobility than the United States. The U.S. only tops Italy and Great Britain. And the U.S. ranks the highest in terms of the influence of parental background on student achievement in secondary education

Compare standard of living in the 50s compared to today.
Blacks have a better life.
Women have a better life.
Children have a better life

.

I presume you mean in the US? Don't you think things have improved as much or more for minorities in other nations too?
However I'd make the point from the following that class mobility in the US regressed from 1970 to 1990.... and due to the median income and wealth declining since 1999 I think we can surmise that the decline continued.. I haven't found data on class mobility in the 50s.
source: page 2 of :
dhttp://www.bos.frb.org/economic/nerr/r ... issues.pdf

You're looking for awfully simple answers to really complex questions and you aren't looking past the pat answers found on right wing blogs. If you don't look past the borders of the US for information or example, you don't challenge the assumptions you've made.

b

Great disparity causes divorce and unwed pregnancies? It causes drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and poor life choices?

Did I say "cause"?
I said it creates effects .
There's a specific relationship between income disparity and the increased prevelance of health issues, and crime issues and I guess when we get to specifics some of the things you've listed.
In the same way that there is an increased prevalence of cancer amongst smokers, even though we can't point to the actual mechanism that has tobacco causing cancer... we can point to times and countries where there is increased income and wealth disparity and see a greater occurence of many negative factors. But we can't say about any particualr individual that "poverty made him make those choices ..."
Difficult Circumstances can always be over come by individuals. But the more individuals who have to over come diffficult circumstances the more failure you have...
The effects being created are the net of all those individuals facing greater odds of success than their parents or perhaps grand parents faced...

Ricky:

B

Let's look at those. College/University costs have skyrocketed. That is because of the government subsidies of higher education


Then why are costs for education so comparatively low in countries that entirely subsidize education? Those same countries hae greater participation rates as well.....(In answer to the demand element.)

b

Health Care has increased due to the insurance companies paying for the costs, and people do not have to.


In Canada the provincial health systems pay most costs just as in the US where private insurers pay the costs... The cost of an appendectomy is half what it is in the US. ALl in the Canafian health system takes up 11 to 12% of GDP. The US 17%. And yet, just as in the US, the insurance company pays most of the costs...
So that ain't it.

The difference is that in Canada you directly control price and/or amount of service for health care and education. However, in the US we subsidize cost but we don't have a mandated cost control mechanism. So we subsidize the cost, but we don't control price. It creates an expensive dynamic.

So I guess you would be for a single-payor system where cost is controlled, RJ?

freeman2 wrote:So I guess you would be for a single-payor system where cost is controlled, RJ?

I don't know. We have to do something to control costs and neither party has it figured out.

We have a huge legacy system that financially influences so many people that it is very hard to change it in a rational way.

Danivon responding to me:

I think that luck happens; so does nepotism, and so do cosy deals with politicians (often by lefties who exploit these issues such as trial lawyers or Solyndra owners, and often by righties who explot other issues). There are reasons for resentment. However, some of the disparity is a function of our modern times and not the result of unfair explotive behavior. Individuals who can exploit technology (computer or bio) or organizations or consumer behavior or trade patters can make huge money in our society. A lot of times that is deserved. I have no problems with the wealth accumulated by either the Google boys or Buffett or Zuckenberg to name a few top of mind examples where the wealth appears to be gotten by hard work, intelligence, and probably a bit of luck as well.

I don't have much of a problem with the same people either, and I'm puzzled that you may think I do. While Bill Gates gets a bad rap for the way his company operates (not as proprietorial as the hipster's friend Apple is by a long shot), and while he didn't start out with nothing, I don't begrudge him his billions. It's also great that he's using it to do a lot of good.

However, these notable new billionaires are quite often the exception, rather than the norm. Indeed, their exceptionalism makes them notable. What we tend to not notice so much is the general trend of the upper-middle and upper classes to retain their wealth even though they don't actually put much effort in and without a great deal of intelligence. For every Zuckerberg there's at least one Kardashian, indeed several.

How do you segregate those millionaires and billionaires who you don't begrudge with those that you do? Can you segregate the two from the statistics on income inequality so we can get a truer picture of how much of the result is fair and what is not fair? How do you know that the inequality is mostly from the Kardashians (who frankly I don't know anything about, but i'm going with your example) and not from the Buffetts of the world. Perhaps people who truly earn their wealth is the rule, and people who don't is the exception?

Ray Jay, perhaps, but frankly from observation, I doubt it a lot. Not that a lot of wealthy people have done nothing, but few have earned the massive wealth that they have.

It is hard to seperate the sheep from the goats whether in terms of who is 'deserving' or 'undeserving' among the poor. However, you cut my words off before I suggested a third, larger category that the Kardashians.

Maybe we can get to something a bit more concrete...

(1) Why should CEO and upper-level management today make so much more money today then they did 30 years ago?
(2) Why should workers in Wall Street and in the banking industry make so much more money than they did 30 years ago?

I think that is a pretty tough argument to make that CEOS and Wall Street financial investment bankers deserve much more money than their predecessors. Yeah, when you talk about entrepreneurs and innovation it sounds bitter to say why do those folks make so much money (and I don't have a problem when I see people of great skill getting rewarded) . But when you point out to occupations where so much more money is made than before, where there is a pipeline from the Ivy League to those jobs, and you can hardly say they have been such a great job since they almost caused the whole system to crash with their poor judgment, then the unfairness is clearly seen.

What laws are the CEOs violating? I am all for CEOs giving a great deal to charity.

Of course they aren't breaking laws, bbauska. They help get them written.

Right. When they break laws, act upon it. Until then let the people give via charity as they see fit.

Or...change the laws.

Besides, there's more to right and wrong than what is legal.

When it comes to the level of executive salaries, there are a number of things that can happen to change things. For example, shareholders could be more questioning of hwo management operate. Or corporate law could change to make shareholder votes on remuneration binding (being proposed here in the UK).

On the wider point, the 'law' was changed about a decade ago when taxes were cut for the richest. That could be reversed.

Exactly, Danivon. There is more to right and wrong than what is legal. Shall we compare Mitt's charitable giving to Barack's? I don't think that is anyone business. The taxes should be the minimum, and the charitable, be the PERSONAL CHOICE. (Dang, there is that word again...)

People should have the choice to pay to help others. That is what makes it so much more special. Give the government 10% of what you make, regardless of the amount of income. Let the people decide beyond that.

If the government took 100% where would the room be for being "more to right and wrong than what is legal".

I do not believe ANYONE should be exempt from taxes. It is a responsibility ALL society must endure.

Brad, you are taking this off topic, and perhaps I've been lax in following your lead. It's not about 'charitable giving' and how neat and 'special' it is. It's not about your little fixation with flat taxes and making the poor pay their way. It's not about straw men of 100% tax rates.

It's about the causes and implications of the deepest recession for generations. It coincides with (as in the 20s and 30s) a growing division between rich and poor, and it was preceded by a period when for some reason median income fell.

Noted. Nice to see that we need to stay on track of the forum. I am surprised that we must stay on track though. I see plenty of ramblings in other forums... Yet no comment from you before. Do you find that curious?

Oh, sorry again. Didn't mean to ask anything other than median incomes dropping for years coinciding with falling home values.