[morby]

What’s arbitrary is your choice of argument. You completely reject my point with a hand wave and make this a comparison between developed and under developed/developing nations Your point of saying the question is between if someone makes too much is obtuse and, honestly, naiive because the concern is does someone make too much in light of the environment they exist in. If the money they make in their market outpaces and outstrips those of others involved in the same market to an unreasonable extent then that is a problem. It means the market is not being fairly compensatory to those who contribute. This is seen in stagnant wage growth across sectors. This is seen in younger generations inability to purchase homes But let’s make this about how people on America make more than people in Africa as though such a reductive and myopic straw man addresses the real issue at hand here. No one here. No one. Is saying people in Africa should be poor or not earning a wage that is compensatory to wha they contribute to the world economy. Blood diamonds, cocoa, fishing, etc etc. but your pretending this isn’t a well discussed issue is neglectful of reality

[jrflowers]

The poster you’re responding to is pretty laser focused on inserting a statement about the overwhelming might of their intellect into the comments on this article. This isn’t so much a discussion about compensation but more a deft display of nth dimensional chess that can only be engaged in by neigh and other titanic geniuses that agree with them.

[endisneigh]

Believe it or not, but no.

There’s simply no problem with people having more money, and once people realize this we can move on.

Housing issues are supply issues exacerbated by zoning and local nimby governments. It can be resolved without income ceilings.

Health care issues can be solved with single payer healthcare or other schemes. Again no income neutering required.

And sure you can fund these things and more with taxes, but no realistic taxation scheme will result in there not being extreme disparities.

Funny enough young Americans waste time complaining about rich people instead of just voting, which would solve most of their issues.

[morby]

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/1...

https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/

Even with more conservative approaches, wage growth of lower earners is far outpaced by top earners.

https://www.aei.org/articles/have-wages-stagnated-for-decade....

[endisneigh]

There is absolutely no reason to expect equal wage growth to begin with.

[ColoursofOSINT]

That's not the argument. Morby said, and I quote;

> to an unreasonable extent then that is a problem....fairly compensatory to those who contribute

There is a reason to expect reasonably equal growth, as all wage classes are contributing.

Also if you are going to say something like;

> There is absolutely no reason to expect equal wage growth to begin with.

Then what's your argument?

[jrflowers]

I stand corrected. Your musings about how to solve housing in the health care CEO compensation thread have convinced me that you are not just posting online to sound smart

[jkestner]

I wonder who's spending the PR and lobbying money to prevent all these wonderful solutions from being enacted, and when people "just vote" for these solutions anyway, buying politicians who stop good bills, make voting harder or just ignore the voters.

Taxing the rich is less about the money, and more about the power it buys.

[klyrs]

> Funny enough young Americans waste time complaining about rich people instead of just voting, which would solve most of their issues.

This is hopelessly naive. Whoever you vote for, your vote only matters one day a year. The other 364.25 days are for the lobbyists.

[endisneigh]

This sort of defeatist thinking is a plague in America. Consider local city councils who decide on approving special permits for housing. You might opt out from voting and some nimby joins and whoops there is another huge development that doesn’t happen, meanwhile rent continues to increase.

[ColoursofOSINT]

Or you can vote, and the people who win are corrupt [1]. I have been voting every year since I got the right to. Things have only gotten worse [2-3].

[1]: https://effectivegov.uchicago.edu/news/power-begets-corrupti... [2]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-health-care-system... [3]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crea-housing-data-1.6843592

[klyrs]

I vote. I participate in local politics. And yet, decade after decade, my voice is overridden by the desires of the ultra-wealthy. Where I live, developers run the city, with many council members literally working for development firms for their day jobs, and yet rent continues to increase. The developers are making a killing out there, they aren't struggling to afford their tenth condo building like the individuals and families struggling to find a rental within their price range.

[endisneigh]

I’m confused by this comment - are you suggesting rent wouldn’t increase if there were fewer developer associated people around?

[wredue]

There are hosts of measurable problems with massive wealth inequality. You paint is as one person “just having more”, but that’s a ridiculous reduction.

It’s actually one person having more than literally a billion other people combined, and THATS a problem

[michaelmrose]

You think we can solve problems otherwise but you never explain what is wrong with income ceilings. Why can't we build more houses and our a ceiling on income.

Here's a dirty secret in case you say all the billionaires will run away with their wealth. They aren't worth much.

Bezos isn't Amazon and if he was never born those people would work somewhere and the online store market would be divided somehow.

Billionaires harness labor and capture demand they create little of it then most of the benefits accrue to people who buy things not build things.

The version of it's a wonderful life starring Bezos has him stumbling around Bedford falls marveling that virtually nothing has changed and terminates with him begging Clarence to put him back because he misses his yacht.

[andsoitis]

> the online store market would be divided somehow.

There is online shopping other than Amazon.

[michaelmrose]

Literally the point

[endisneigh]

Your distinction is again meaningless. You say it’s a different market, I could say you should compare the class of worker.

Are health care CEOs unusually paid compared to CEOs? (They are not). As I said ultimately your selection in criteria is arbitrary.

The matter at hand here is some believe the income inequality is a problem. What ratio is acceptable to you?

[morby]

Regards your edit. I don’t have magical numbers to give you. I’m curious if you think that makes me wrong. But what I would like to see is a ratio where workers can buy a home, have a family, have some level of leisure, and be able to afford healthy food. That is not a reality today for people directly participating in the worlds largest market.

And also one that confers some sense of fairness. Tell me how this is at all fair to workers?

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

[andsoitis]

> workers can buy a home

Home ownership in the US is higher than in:

- New Zealand

- Sweden

- France

- Japan

- Austria

- Germany

- Switzerland

Home ownership in the US is lower than in:

- Kosovo

- Russia

- Norway

- Spain

- Italy

https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/home-ownership-rat...

[morby]

I’m not entirely sure your point here maybe you can explain

[andsoitis]

Happy to.

My point is that home ownership isn't something that workers in even some of the most enlightened countries have. In contrast, there's incredibly high home ownership in some places that have dubious quality of life.

And so it begs the question why home ownership is voiced as such an important need of workers? I would argue that the incentive structures should be more aligned around good shelter.

Home ownership has been advertised and indoctrinated in the psyche as The American Dream, but I would question that dream...

[morby]

The vast majority of those countries have large inequality gaps. The only ones that don’t are listed under countries that have higher rates of home ownership

I’m not even about to begin to touch the notion that home ownership, which has been a staple of human history since time immemorial, is not important. That strikes me as a comment waayyy to deep in the kool aid

[morby]

So now we’ve moved to comparing CEOs in different industries? Your own post compares executives to workers and workers to African workers. The post here talks about CEOs making vast additional sums while workers are getting pinched. Why are we suddenly comparing CEOs in healthcare to CEOs in other markets?

[morby]

In fact it’s incredibly ironic considering the same people being addressed here, I.e. executives are major contributors to the exploitation of workers in the developing world. It’s the general population that has to learn about then address these issues and nothing would change if executives were left to their devices.