7 ms·

Poverty is always relative to how other humans live, it has no inherent meaning. And inequality is rising at accelerating speeds, that's just a fact. You can dr

Poverty is always relative to how other humans live, it has no inherent meaning. And inequality is rising at accelerating speeds, that's just a fact. You can dress it up however you want, changes nothing. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ > It's much better to be in "poverty" today than 50 years ago. And if there was something justice and fair treatment, it would be EVEN better. So that argument is worth exactly nothing.

eru 4y ago
> And inequality is rising at accelerating speeds, [...] Huh? Global income inequality has been falling for quite a few decades now.
- function_seven 4y ago
  This article discusses American poverty though. In the US, isn’t inequality wider now than it was 40 years ago? Every real wage chart I’ve seen suggests as much.
  - eru 4y ago
    You'd need a chart that shows the different percentiles of wages. A single line of average real wages wouldn't do much, and also doesn't actually show any decline. There's an infamous chart that seems to show that real wages lag behind productivity. Alas, that chart uses different measures of inflation for the two lines in that chart. Thus it's completely useless. You can have a look at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG for the 'Share of Labour Compensation in GDP': if you are only interested in inequality, you don't need to worry about inflation, you can just divide total nominal labour income by total nominal gdp to cancel out the price level. The labour share of GDP in the US has been remarkably stable. FRED has data since 1950, and the labour share has stayed between 58% to 65% in that time. (If you want to dig deeper: the capital share of GDP has been mostly constant. It's the share that goes to land that has increased.) In any case, as I said above, the average income from labour has done just fine. It's the difference between workers that might be interesting to look at: eg CEO vs burger flipper.
    - function_seven 4y ago
      That’s a great chart. I’ve always assumed that the major drive behind the diverging percentile lines was capital capturing most of our productivity gains. But 64% to 59% is really not all that large. CEO vs burger flipper seems to be the lion’s share of the difference.
      - eru 4y ago
        And the 64% to 59% isn't even capital getting more. It's all land. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2015/07/22/piketty-vs-rognlie-land-use-restrictions-inflate-housing-values-drive-wealth-concentration/?sh=689dbd7e4698 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2015/07/22/piketty-... To avoid paywalls: https://archive.is/5FpzQ https://archive.is/5FpzQ https://archive.is/d5sMM https://archive.is/d5sMM https://archive.is/wip/tXlT9 https://archive.is/wip/tXlT9
pas 4y ago
Wow. That's a lot of graphs. Is there an argument other than fishing for a signal in the noise? the first one, the productivity and compensation is very misleading. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/wage-stagnation-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/wage-stagnation-much-m...

eru 4y ago

> And inequality is rising at accelerating speeds, [...] Huh? Global income inequality has been falling for quite a few decades now.

function_seven 4y ago
This article discusses American poverty though. In the US, isn’t inequality wider now than it was 40 years ago? Every real wage chart I’ve seen suggests as much.
- eru 4y ago
  You'd need a chart that shows the different percentiles of wages. A single line of average real wages wouldn't do much, and also doesn't actually show any decline. There's an infamous chart that seems to show that real wages lag behind productivity. Alas, that chart uses different measures of inflation for the two lines in that chart. Thus it's completely useless. You can have a look at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG for the 'Share of Labour Compensation in GDP': if you are only interested in inequality, you don't need to worry about inflation, you can just divide total nominal labour income by total nominal gdp to cancel out the price level. The labour share of GDP in the US has been remarkably stable. FRED has data since 1950, and the labour share has stayed between 58% to 65% in that time. (If you want to dig deeper: the capital share of GDP has been mostly constant. It's the share that goes to land that has increased.) In any case, as I said above, the average income from labour has done just fine. It's the difference between workers that might be interesting to look at: eg CEO vs burger flipper.
  - function_seven 4y ago
    That’s a great chart. I’ve always assumed that the major drive behind the diverging percentile lines was capital capturing most of our productivity gains. But 64% to 59% is really not all that large. CEO vs burger flipper seems to be the lion’s share of the difference.
    - eru 4y ago
      And the 64% to 59% isn't even capital getting more. It's all land. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2015/07/22/piketty-vs-rognlie-land-use-restrictions-inflate-housing-values-drive-wealth-concentration/?sh=689dbd7e4698 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2015/07/22/piketty-... To avoid paywalls: https://archive.is/5FpzQ https://archive.is/5FpzQ https://archive.is/d5sMM https://archive.is/d5sMM https://archive.is/wip/tXlT9 https://archive.is/wip/tXlT9

pas 4y ago

Wow. That's a lot of graphs. Is there an argument other than fishing for a signal in the noise? the first one, the productivity and compensation is very misleading. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/wage-stagnation-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/wage-stagnation-much-m...