In the US, the gap between rich, middle-class and poor has been widening for 50 years straight. This is absolutely, entirely, 100% caused by insane economic policies, going back all the way from the Reagan era. There is no denying this.
This maybe true, but it's irrelevant in my estimation. The gap between the rich and the poor should not matter as long as the quality of life for both rich and poor has been improving over time, which appears to be the case.
Citing the wealth gap is purely manipulative and shields the lie that the rich are rich because they take from the poor and the poor are poor because Uber rich people exist.
> My new hobby is taking graphs of economic data over time and indicating the year that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, in case people find that helpful or informative.
From "Major Causes of Injury Death and the Life Expectancy Gap Between the United States and Other High-Income Countries" - https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.15564
> This study estimated the contribution of 3 causes of injury death to the gap in life expectancy at birth between the United States and 12 comparable countries in 2012. We focused on motor vehicle traffic (MVT) crashes, firearm-related injuries, and drug poisonings, the 3 largest causes of US injury death responsible for more than 100 000 deaths per year.
> Men in the comparison countries had a life expectancy advantage of 2.2 years over US men (78.6 years vs 76.4 years), as did women (83.4 years vs 81.2 years). The injury causes of death accounted for 48% (1.02 years) of the life expectancy gap among men. Firearm-related injuries accounted for 21% of the gap, drug poisonings 14%, and MVT crashes 13%.
There was also an explanation of velocity of money on tumblr that went viral:
> Let’s say you get paid $10, you use that $10 to buy lunch from a street vendor, then the street vendor uses that $10 to take a taxi home, then the taxi driver used that $10 to pay his babysitter, next the babysitter uses that $10 to buy groceries, etc. That one $10 bill produced $50 of economic value. This is really good for the economy and why it’s bad to give rich people more and more money because all rich people do is horde it. They don’t stimulate the economy multiple times over with it.
Unless they are Scrooge McDuck and storing their money in a pool to swim in it, the rich do stimulate the economy. How did the first person get paid? Perhaps because they work in a company the rich person invested in...
Most do behave like Scrooge McDuck they park the money in real estate, bonds, stock and gold. If the billions of dollars tax breaks the very rich get were spend on the poor it would stimulate the economy and would create jobs a lot more. The way the economies of most countries work these days is 90%-10% is the take of rich and poor. But as poor have to spend all they have and rich don't. The wealth keeps shifting towards the rich if it is 90%-10% today it will be 95%-5% 5-10 years from now.
> Most do behave like Scrooge McDuck they park the money in real estate,
Which, besides providing places for people to live, also generates property taxes every single year. Forever.
> bonds,
Which fund our roads, schools, public utilities, libraries, hospitals...
> stock(s)
Which fund the companies that produce all the essential (and luxury) goods and services we need for a modern lifestyle, and provide the vast majority of jobs.
> and gold.
Very few large investors put their assets in precious metals. The prices are quite volatile, and precious metals don't generate interest, dividends, or rents (like the aforementioned bonds, stocks, and real estate).
But the rich use that $10 to invest in a taxi-as-a-service company who then use that money to invest in a restaurant-as-a-service company who then use that money to invest in a groceries-as-a-service company who then use that money to invest in a babysitter-as-a-service company who then use that money to invest in a street-vendor-as-a-service company and they generate $500 worth of economic value from it while everyone else becomes a gig economy worker.
So there goes one more Economics Nobel for telling us that it is good to snatch from the rich and give it all to the poor.
Ok, the poor will spend it surely. On beer, bread and weed probably. Thus the money ends up back to the producers of those items, namely the rich. While our poor wait again for the next dole, they steadfastly refuse to earn by a honest day's work for themselves because they no longer need to.
Poverty is not really solved by the doles. It needs real productivity increases among all sections of the society, rich and poor. It can be brought about by investing in education, health care and insurance, not by doling out money to the poor.
Inequality exists in societies for a reason - there are sections of the society which are genuinely more productive in this modern, industrial world. Why not try to provide equal opportunities to all sections of the society to be richer instead of temporary fixes like these ?
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 44.6 ms ] threadhttps://twitter.com/WardQNormal/status/1206280031552454656/p...
This is somewhat reminiscent of https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
From "Major Causes of Injury Death and the Life Expectancy Gap Between the United States and Other High-Income Countries" - https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.15564
> This study estimated the contribution of 3 causes of injury death to the gap in life expectancy at birth between the United States and 12 comparable countries in 2012. We focused on motor vehicle traffic (MVT) crashes, firearm-related injuries, and drug poisonings, the 3 largest causes of US injury death responsible for more than 100 000 deaths per year.
> Men in the comparison countries had a life expectancy advantage of 2.2 years over US men (78.6 years vs 76.4 years), as did women (83.4 years vs 81.2 years). The injury causes of death accounted for 48% (1.02 years) of the life expectancy gap among men. Firearm-related injuries accounted for 21% of the gap, drug poisonings 14%, and MVT crashes 13%.
> Let’s say you get paid $10, you use that $10 to buy lunch from a street vendor, then the street vendor uses that $10 to take a taxi home, then the taxi driver used that $10 to pay his babysitter, next the babysitter uses that $10 to buy groceries, etc. That one $10 bill produced $50 of economic value. This is really good for the economy and why it’s bad to give rich people more and more money because all rich people do is horde it. They don’t stimulate the economy multiple times over with it.
https://www.truthorfiction.com/velocity-of-money-tumblr-post...
This is an error. The $10 bill mediated $50 worth of transactions.
Which, besides providing places for people to live, also generates property taxes every single year. Forever.
> bonds,
Which fund our roads, schools, public utilities, libraries, hospitals...
> stock(s)
Which fund the companies that produce all the essential (and luxury) goods and services we need for a modern lifestyle, and provide the vast majority of jobs.
> and gold.
Very few large investors put their assets in precious metals. The prices are quite volatile, and precious metals don't generate interest, dividends, or rents (like the aforementioned bonds, stocks, and real estate).
Poverty is not really solved by the doles. It needs real productivity increases among all sections of the society, rich and poor. It can be brought about by investing in education, health care and insurance, not by doling out money to the poor. Inequality exists in societies for a reason - there are sections of the society which are genuinely more productive in this modern, industrial world. Why not try to provide equal opportunities to all sections of the society to be richer instead of temporary fixes like these ?