Is Income Inequality Immoral?

[dairygirl4u2c]

the picture is more a matter of interpretation than something that should be taken too literally.

 

it has to do with income, as a bottomline, because people who are trying to get ahead should be able to eat, or not be in stark povery.

 

it could have to do with more, depending on how you view other stuff, shelter, health care, education etc. literally a baseball game isn't much of a right, but then it's not much to expect they all be able to watch the game.

 

then there's the other approach, dividing it all up and no one gets nothing, the sitation fails etc. blatant socialism etc.

[Winchester]

Everyone dances around the means.

[dairygirl4u2c]

this link shows percent of total wealth spread over various percentile of the population.

 

http://www.currydemocrats.org/american_pie.html

 

it might not be problematic, if the top one percent is making more for example, if everyone else is making more too. but the share disproportio ately has been going up. instead of  X percent befiore it went as high as 17% of total wealth a few years ago, for the top one percent.

[add]

Count your blessings instead of your crosses; Count your gains instead of your losses. Count your joys instead of your woes; Count your friends instead of your foes. Count your smiles instead of your tears; Count your courage instead of your fears. Count your full years instead of your lean; Count your kind deeds instead of your mean. Count your health instead of your wealth; Count on God instead of yourself.

[dairygirl4u2c]

 

money in circulation. not sure what exactly the M's and such stand for, but this is an overall idea of how much money has been inserted and circulated in the population. we see it's increased many times over. this is probably a big factor for why the rich have gotten so much richer. it would tend to aggregate at the top cause they are the suppliers, everyone else just spends, and then it's sorted out via capitalism to the top.

it actually might mean that though they are that much richer comparatively, not as much on inflation. when rich people have more, they just have more. and spend a little extra, yes. not so bad that the common joe is being competed with. kind of like how they put money into banks or corporations, but it doesn't cause actual inflation too much more than if they gave everyone money.

[Winchester]

 

money in circulation. not sure what exactly the M's and such stand for, but this is an overall idea of how much money has been inserted and circulated in the population. we see it's increased many times over. this is probably a big factor for why the rich have gotten so much richer. it would tend to aggregate at the top cause they are the suppliers, everyone else just spends, and then it's sorted out via capitalism to the top.

it actually might mean that though they are that much richer comparatively, not as much on inflation. when rich people have more, they just have more. and spend a little extra, yes. not so bad that the common joe is being competed with. kind of like how they put money into banks or corporations, but it doesn't cause actual inflation too much more than if they gave everyone money.

 

http://mises.org/books/inflation.pdf

[dairygirl4u2c]

Incredibly, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans -- over 150 million people.

...............

Income for the top 20 percent has increased since the 1970s while income for the bottom 80 percent declined. In the 1970s the top 1 percent received 8 percent of total income while today they receive 18 percent. During the same period income for the bottom 20 percent had decreased 30 percent.

................

Over the past 30 years the rich in America have become a lot richer, while many millions of Americans have seen their income stagnate or decline. As Warren Buffett, the second richest man in America, famously said, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

[dairygirl4u2c]

[Winchester]

Public/private partnership has made this reality. It would be nice if all monopoly privileges granted to banks were stripped.

[add]

Just thank God for your blessings, Jealousy and envy of your neighbor is a sin

Just thank God for your blessings, Jealousy and envy of your neighbor is sinful/ Immoral Edited August 12, 2013 by add

[CrossCuT]

Wealth Inequality in America 

6.5 min vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

Edited August 12, 2013 by CrossCuT

[add]

Wealth Inequality in America
6.5 min vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

[Socrates]

What does this have to do with income?

 

If we are talking about income, what this picture is saying is the person who works 40 hours a week, the person who works 20 hours a week, and the person who doesn't work, should all get equal pay? That seems like it wouldn't work--we'd all be voluntarily unemployed.

 

Sort of  like the old Soviet Union, where "people pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay them."

 

 

Look no further than the old Communist regimes, for a real world example of a policy of enforced equality of income.

True equality of conditions is impossible to achieve (and after all, even in the "classless society" of Communism, some animals are more equal than others), and policies to forcibly redistribute wealth always end up impoverishing most.

[Era Might]

Sort of  like the old Soviet Union, where "people pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay them."

 

 

Look no further than the old Communist regimes, for a real world example of a policy of enforced equality of income.

True equality of conditions is impossible to achieve (and after all, even in the "classless society" of Communism, some animals are more equal than others), and policies to forcibly redistribute wealth always end up impoverishing most.

 

Depends how it's distributed. Andrew Carnegie, the iconic American "self-made man," believed the wealthy should not have anything left of their wealth by the time they die, but should give it all through philanthropy, and if not, the government should take it:

 

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes--subject to some exceptions--one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death-duties ; and,most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.

 

--Andrew Carnegie, "The Gospel of Wealth"

 

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html

Though his philanthropy was of the American Protestant "God helps those who help themselves" sort rather than the traditional Catholic sort. He says in the same article, "These who,would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown in to the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy." He was no Franciscan.

[Socrates]

Depends how it's distributed. Andrew Carnegie, the iconic American "self-made man," believed the wealthy should not have anything left of their wealth by the time they die, but should give it all through philanthropy, and if not, the government should take it:

 

 

 

Though his philanthropy was of the American Protestant "God helps those who help themselves" sort rather than the traditional Catholic sort. He says in the same article, "These who,would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown in to the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy." He was no Franciscan.

 

In short, I disagree with Andrew Carnegie regarding forced government redistribution of wealth.

 

I have nothing against redistribution of wealth itself - it's specifically forced redistribution that I have a problem with.

Philanthropy by definition is voluntary giving.  I also think the government is often far from wise in how it spends other's money.

 

Ironically, super-rich philanthropists like Carnegie must first gain vastly greater amounts of wealth than the majority of the population (and hence, there be income inequality) before they can can charitably give it to others.  Attempts to equalize all income and prevent the rich from getting rich, would prevent the vast creation of wealth and enrichment of society by men such as Carnegie.