Capitalism Rules, Socialism and Communism Suck Thread

[BananaStand]

It absolutely does.

No, it shows income disparity and the likelihood of a change in relative income. that's it. The information that I provided demonstrates the likelihood of a change in relative income AND how much, AND in which direction. So comparing my numbers, to this chart, and then saying X country is "better" than USA is a leap not supported by the data.

For one person to go up a step, another person has to come down

Garbage. Where did you get this "zero sum game" theory??? It's absolutly a myth that the rich get rich at the expense of the poor. It's a popular liberal myth, but it's not true.

The first thing you say about the rungs being further apart would be a reasonable argument if you didn't have countries like Brazil and Chile near the top of the line with the USA. It's difficult to argue you have further to go in those relatively poor countries than you do in Denmark or Sweden.

What???? No! That's EXACTLY what the chart says. Brazil and Chile have the biggest gaps of income inequality....their rungs are the furthest apart. It's not 'difficult to argue' that you are further to go in those countries at all. That's exactly what the analysis is telling you.

Moreover, in most countries upward mobility comes through access to education and other opportunities. Where there's more of that, there's more income mobility; where's there's less, there's less

Ok, so there's this....
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/27/...ed-country-is/
And this
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...ries/15460733/
and this..
http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/54

What in the world has led you to believe that the USA doesn't rank extremely high in access to education??

As the rest of the above is based on your initial misinterpretation of what income mobility means, it's similarly wrong to what you said earlier.

Uhhh, no it isn't. And it's pretty dubious for you to come in here and talk about the definition of "income mobility" since neither you, nor anyone in this thread had even used the term until I did. Until this....it was just "waaah inequality". Finally, if you're arguments are just gonna be data-less, fact-less, information-less moans of "you don't know what X means", you should rightly go fuck yourself.

Also based on a misinterpretation of the graph and therefore also irrelevant.

If you're going to make this claim....and not be a total vacuous douche bag....then explain yourself. Where on Gatsby chart does it show you the $ amount, and direction of the income mobility?

I don't see the question of HOW the rich maintain their position being relevant

Cause it torpedo's your argument. Again, it's very sad that you're an educator.

Nor does having a strong or weak overall economy or stock market change the relationship (or Brazil would not be close to the US).

Of course it changes the relationship!! If you're measuring income inequality in a way that INCLUDES investment income....then you're fucking things up royally! The fact that Brazil is close to the US proves that the chart is fucked.

Nor does it change the overall conclusion about the clear relationship between income mobility and income disparity.

Ok, but the overall conclusion is incredibly vague. Again....for the zillionth time....the chart only shows that income mobility is more likely to occur in countries with higher rates of income inequality. That's it. The size and direction of the change are massively relevant, yet wholly ignored by this analysis. You seem to believe they are irrelevant because of your hopeless delusion that economics is a zero-sum game and that the rich only get rich at the expense of the poor. And that is a retarded liberal myth that you need to let go of if you want to continue this conversation.

Otherwise, just accept that fact that America fucking rules, and scandanavia sucks herpes-ridden rhinoceros dick.

[Poopadoop]

No, it shows income disparity and the likelihood of a change in relative income. that's it. The information that I provided demonstrates the likelihood of a change in relative income AND how much, AND in which direction. So comparing my numbers, to this chart, and then saying X country is "better" than USA is a leap not supported by the data.

It's hard to evaluate the figures you provided without a source. Do you have one?

Garbage. Where did you get this "zero sum game" theory??? It's absolutly a myth that the rich get rich at the expense of the poor. It's a popular liberal myth, but it's not true.

I didn't say that.

It's a non-intuitive way of thinking about things, so I'll try to be patient. You have a society where different people earn different amounts. If you divide that society up into quintiles, the top 20% make the most, the next 20% the second most, and so on, until you get to the bottom quintile which is the 20% who make the least. Each quintile has an equal number of people in it.

The next generation, there are still five quintiles, each with an equal number of people in it. The graph shows the likelihood that a person who's parent(s) are in any given quintile will end up in that same quintile. It has nothing to do with how much the average earning in that quintile is (presumably it's gone up in 25 years). If your parents are in quintile 3 you can either go up or down, or stay in quintile 3. But, since the same number of people occupy each quintile (20%), if you change quintiles up, someone else has to change quintiles down.

Here's an example

Q1: 10 people
Q2: 10 people
Q3: 10 people
Q4: 10 people
Q5: 10 people

Now, someone in Q3 has a baby who grows up to be a bigly success and gets into Q1. That's income mobility. But now there is an extra person in Q1 that wasn't there before, and that has to be balanced with someone moving down. You can't have 11 people in Q1 and 9 in Q3. That's not how quintiles work.

What???? No! That's EXACTLY what the chart says. Brazil and Chile have the biggest gaps of income inequality....their rungs are the furthest apart. It's not 'difficult to argue' that you are further to go in those countries at all. That's exactly what the analysis is telling you.

Their rungs are relatively further apart, not absolutely. Let's say the median income in Q1 for Brazil is $50k a year, whereas for Q5 it's $5k a year. meanwhile for Denmark the Q1 and Q5 median incomes are $100k an $20k a year, respectively. The person making 20k a year in Denmark has further to go (80k) than the person in Brazil (45k) to get from Q5 to Q1.

Ok, so there's this....
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/27/...ed-country-is/
And this
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...ries/15460733/
and this..
http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/54

What in the world has led you to believe that the USA doesn't rank extremely high in access to education??

It generally does, as do all Western countries. The issue is not HOW much education there is, but WHO has access to that education. Moreover, it's only one of a broader category of things that you can call 'opportunity'. If Joe Blow lives on a dirt farm and his Q5 parents can't afford to send him to college, it doesn't help him that most of the people in Q1-Q4 can send their kid to college. OTOH, if college were subsidized such that his parents could afford to send him, he would have a better chance of experiencing income mobility.

Uhhh, no it isn't. And it's pretty dubious for you to come in here and talk about the definition of "income mobility" since neither you, nor anyone in this thread had even used the term until I did. Until this....it was just "waaah inequality". Finally, if you're arguments are just gonna be data-less, fact-less, information-less moans of "you don't know what X means", you should rightly go fuck yourself.

Ok, bye.

[BananaStand]

It's hard to evaluate the figures you provided without a source. Do you have one?

Economists at Harvard and Berkely evaluated 40 million tax returns between 1971 and 2012

That's not how quintiles work.

Nice backpedal. But don't pretend like your argument up until this point has been that the rich get rich at the expense of the poor.

Their rungs are relatively further apart, not absolutely. Let's say the median income in Q1 for Brazil is $50k a year, whereas for Q5 it's $5k a year. meanwhile for Denmark the Q1 and Q5 median incomes are $100k an $20k a year, respectively. The person making 20k a year in Denmark has further to go (80k) than the person in Brazil (45k) to get from Q5 to Q1.

That's not what the chart shows. Try again.

Furthermore, I could say that in Brazil the gap between Q1 and Q5 is 10x, or 1000%. Meanwhile the gap in Denmark is only 5x, or 500%. Therefore you could say that the Brazillians, not the Danish, have farther to go.

In investing, it's ALOT harder to turn $5K into $50K than it is to turn $20K into $100K. In economics it really depends on the skills, education, and opportunities available. If you're a dirt farmer in Brazil making $5k, then ALOT of shit has to happen for you to move up to $50K. You need opportunities available to you, and finding those opportunities are probably alot harder than they are in denmark, or the US. Meanwhile, in Denmark, if you're a clerk making $20K, then all you need is some training, education, and work ethic to advance yourself. So in that regard, I would say that the advantage goes to the country with the most educational opportunities. And the USA crushes everyone else when it comes to access. We have more universities, and more top universities per capita than pretty much anywhere.

It generally does, as do all Western countries. The issue is not HOW much education there is, but WHO has access to that education.

Another libtard myth. it was decided during the Clinton administration that education was a right. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what your parents do, or anything. If you want to go to college, you fill out a form, and the government will loan you the money.

There are countless vocational schools, community colleges, cheap in-state tuition, and the like around the country. It's possible to get a college education for less than $150/credit. The whining on this issue from the left stems from a materialistic sense of entitlement for the residential college experience.

Maybe if you're in a shithole in Brazil, it's touger to get into a classroom. But in the USA, anyone, literally anyone can go to school. That's another reason why the Gatsby chart is fucked.

Ok, bye.

So you're just gonna stand by your fact-less, information-less, data-less moans?

[Poopadoop]

Economists at Harvard and Berkely evaluated 40 million tax returns between 1971 and 2012

Where is the data? You can say anything you want and not back it up, but that's meaningless.

[BananaStand]

Where is the data? You can say anything you want and not back it up, but that's meaningless.

Go look it up. I'm not playing the "nyah nyah you can't believe Fox" game with you anymore. That's so fucking old.

There was a study. By economists, at major universities. I've given you the number of tax returns evaluated, the years, and the results.

If you doubt any of that......go find your own evidence.

[Poopadoop]

Go look it up. I'm not playing the "nyah nyah you can't believe Fox" game with you anymore. That's so fucking old.

There was a study. By economists, at major universities. I've given you the number of tax returns evaluated, the years, and the results.

If you doubt any of that......go find your own evidence.

Well if you want to make an argument based on such-and-such data, and you can't actually provide such-and-such data, then you may as well be citing Fox News. Can you at least tell us where you heard these solid facts you reported?

[BananaStand]

Can you at least tell us where you heard these solid facts you reported?

From economists at Harvard and Berkely

[Poopadoop]

So you're just gonna stand by your fact-less, information-less, data-less moans?

No, that's what YOUR doing.

First, you haven't provided any data yourself that disputes the GG chart.

Second, you haven't actually demonstrated an understanding of what the chart says, which basically means your position can be summed up as 'I don't agree with what it shows therefore somehow it's wrong, and here's some nonsense arguments based on my misunderstanding of the chart.'

[BananaStand]

No, that's what YOUR doing.

False

First, you haven't provided any data yourself that disputes the GG chart.

So? I'm not trying to dispute the GG chart. I'm disputing the gigantic logical leaps you're taking to explain what it means.

Second, you haven't actually demonstrated an understanding of what the chart says

No, I haven't inferred anything more than what the chart says. Not the same thing.

which basically means your position can be summed up as 'I don't agree with what it shows therefore somehow it's wrong, and here's some nonsense arguments based on my misunderstanding of the chart.'

I've posed some very clear questions challenging the conclusions that YOU are drawing from the chart. Rather than answer them, your only response has been "Well...uhhh....you must not know what the chart means". Which means that your position can be summed up as "This chart is flimsy but it's the only evidence I have to support my argument, so I'll just treat it like scripture and ridicule anyone who challenges it"

[Poopadoop]

No, I haven't inferred anything more than what the chart says. Not the same thing.
"

Well since you asked the question of why the chart doesn't show how many people go up and how many go down, the only logical conclusion is that you don't understand it.

[BananaStand]

Well since you asked the question of why the chart doesn't show how many people go up and how many go down, the only logical conclusion is that you don't understand it.

that is NOT what I asked.

You yourself said that "one person can go up 3 quintiles, and 3 people can go down 1 quintile". right??

So my totally valid, cogent, and compelling question here is.....how likely are people to move up or down? In your hypothetical example, you say that people are 3x more likely to move down. It would be really interesting to know the real numbers on that, and the Gatsby chart doesn't show that information.

[Poopadoop]

I've posed some very clear questions

They might be clear to you, but they're not clear to anyone who actually understands the chart. You obviously don't understand it, which is what makes your questions a reflection of a misinterpretation of the data and therefore nonsensical.

[BananaStand]

They might be clear to you, but they're not clear to anyone who actually understands the chart. You obviously don't understand it, which is what makes your questions a reflection of a misinterpretation of the data and therefore nonsensical.

The questions are clear to me because the chart obviously does not reflect known facts.

For example, a known fact is that income mobility in the united states hasn't changed over the decades, even though the rungs got farther apart (income inequality increased). See the Harvard/Berkely study

That suggests a NON-correlation between income inequality and income mobility.

[wufwugy]

Economists are editing out basic economics in their textbooks based on their precious fee fees.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/...l_krugman.html

The real losers in the rejection of economics aren't us; the real losers are the poor kids who are made destitute by those who reject economics.