[mattmanser]

Is it really fair?

That rich people benefit from the laws and protections of the U.S., without having to deal with the corruption and laws of India. But they can then import cheap workers to displace the very people who paid for those protections to even exist in the first place?

It seems a breakdown of the social contract to me.

I think there's definitely two ways to look at this one.

[witty_username]

> That rich people benefit from the laws and protections of the U.S., without having to deal with the corruption and laws of India. But they can then import cheap workers to displace the very people who paid for those protections to even exist in the first place?

If the tax system is so broken that the poorer are paying for the richer's protection, then fix the tax system so that the rich person pays the "correct/fair" amount. For example, remove most of the deductions and other rules and replace it with a simple flat tax.

Anyways, why are you saying "rich people"? Ordinary people own these companies and purchase from these companies. They benefit.

[mattmanser]

You entirely missed my point and reduced it down to simple, naive, economics again. How depressing.

This isn't about tax rates, it's about a social contract, a small few are allowed to capture a significant % of the economic output of a country, to reap the benefits of the legal and military power of that country. As part of that, they need to share, and they're sharing increasingly less. They think it their "skill" rather than their lucky upbringing, their fortunate birthplace.

There's far more to life, and to a country, than GDP.

As for ordinary people "owning" companies, that's either a naive or disingenuous argument. They're a tiny percentage. It is widely acknowledged the benefits of economic recovery has almost entirely been captured by rich people and ordinary people haven't seen an effective wage increase in a decade.

The stats don't back your stance.

[witty_username]

> You entirely missed my point and reduced it down to simple, naive, economics again. How depressing.

Of course it's about economics as it deals with policy and impacts on people. Simple arguments are better.

Not using economics is a cop-out from using rigorous quantitative analysis. It's interesting that on say climate change HN will be all like we should follow the science, yet economics is the science relevant to our discussion.

> There's far more to life, and to a country, than GDP.

True, so what? More money is still better. GDP per capita is a good measure of peoples' living standards.

An interesting read about "The Economics of Happiness" is https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke201... by Ben S. Bernanke, former chair of the Federal Reserve (the part starting from "As you might guess, when thinking about the sources of psychological well-being" is most relevant).

https://www.gapminder.org/news/hdi-surprisingly-similar-to-g...

> As for ordinary people "owning" companies, that's either a naive or disingenuous argument.

The stats don't back your stance. "Compare that to the middle class, which has a median value of a mere $14,000 a household."

Also, bond yields (and bank interest) go up when stock yields go up and (I don't know if CNN counted this or not) people invest in retirement funds which invest in stock. And insurance companies also invest their customers' money.

(http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/18/investing/stock-market-inves... )

http://www.valuewalk.com/2013/03/retail-investors-hold-38-of...

"A surprising fact revealed in the report is that retail investors have invested $9.8 trillion in the U.S. equities, or 38 percent of the total $25.8 trillion corporate equity holdings. Additionally, $812 billion hedge fund assets belong to US retail investors. To put in context hedge funds have total assets under management of approximately $2 trillion. This would mean that approximately 40% of hedge fund assets come from retail investors in the US, the remainder comes from foreign investors and institutions."

> They're a tiny percentage. It is widely acknowledged the benefits of economic recovery has almost entirely been captured by rich people and ordinary people haven't seen an effective wage increase in a decade.

The stats don't back your stance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Income_Share_of_Top_... here, rejoice that the top 1%'s share is mostly static

Meanwhile,

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N it's increased by 7.3% from 2012-2015

Interestingly, you said "The stats don't back your stance." while not using any stats yourself and only using weasel words like "It is widely acknowledged the benefits of economic recovery".

[mattmanser]

Oh, stop. It's widely reported in the news, you can't have missed it, e.g:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-i...

Graph looks severely different to the one you just posted.

I'm not going to try and debate anything with someone who thinks economics is the only measure of life, you're too narrow minded.

[witty_username]

The graph is different as it shows the wealth share, not the income share.

> I'm not going to try and debate anything with someone who thinks economics is the only measure of life, you're too narrow minded.

I don't think money is the only measure of life. Then what do you want to use to measure it?