Income inequality..... a good thing?

[DJL 235]

8 hours ago, 20kN said:

Yes, that would be a union. The problem is unions dont work very well when you're the only one in them. People who accept low paying jobs do so because they are usually not in a position to bargain. If you tell a company that their offer is crap and you wont accept, they will say fine and find someone who will accept it. In the end that mostly just leaves you with no job.

Pair that with the identity politics aspect of unions in which the exact people who need them have been led to believe they're "unAmerican"...  And to be fair, Unions also don't work when it's so easy to ship the jobs to a 3rd world country.

[billvon 3,116]

On 3/27/2019 at 3:17 PM, brenthutch said:

Fair points Bill.  I was using "income inequality" as a proxy for wealth.  And the "full stop" was just a bit of hyperbole to get the conversation going.  I was just pushing back on the evil millionaires and billionaires meme.

OK.  I agree that wealth (i.e. people having disposable income) is a good driver for a consumer economy, and that drives a lot of technological development (smartphones, CGI, big screen TV's)  But if the poor got much wealthier - and the income gap was greatly reduced - I think that would help, not hurt, such development.

[airdvr 210]

In a market driven economy people need something to aspire to.  Most if not all of the people in the lower third of the income spectrum now look to the lottery as the only way to improve their lot in life.

[billvon 3,116]

5 minutes ago, airdvr said:

In a market driven economy people need something to aspire to.  Most if not all of the people in the lower third of the income spectrum now look to the lottery as the only way to improve their lot in life.

Sure.  They aspire to have good jobs, decent salaries, a nice house etc.  You don't need a big income gap to accomplish that.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

Sure.  They aspire to have good jobs, decent salaries, a nice house etc.  You don't need a big income gap to accomplish that.

It also helps if those goals are realistic. 
That's not the case for a lot of people today.

[kallend 2,148]

8 hours ago, billvon said:

OK.  I agree that wealth (i.e. people having disposable income) is a good driver for a consumer economy, and that drives a lot of technological development (smartphones, CGI, big screen TV's)  But if the poor got much wealthier - and the income gap was greatly reduced - I think that would help, not hurt, such development.

Why do you hate the makers of luxury yachts and private jets?