Global Wealth Disparity is going to cause a lot of issues soon

[Cnut237]

what I disagree with is the poor being poor.  I am in no way going to attempt to compare a socialist hell hole to a first world nation. [...]

When in the history of humanity have the poor been Fat? You are comparing the poor to the rich how is this a good comparison?

Certainly standards of living are in general rising around the globe as a historical trend. I'm not arguing against this point, rather I'm saying that I don't think this should be used to suggest that inequality doesn't matter.

During 2020, Elon Musk increased his personal wealth by $140 billion. Meanwhile 400,000 people die of malaria each year, who could be saved by a $2 insectidal net. We can't conclude from this that the poor are in general getting richer, therefore wealth distribution is irrelevant.

But sticking to developed nations, and your point around weight, there is certainly an argument that poorer people can only afford cheaper foodstuffs, which tends to be calorie-heavy junk food. Yes, most people can afford basic sustenance, but even then there is the issue of increased foodbank use.


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And there are other indicators that poverty is worsening, the ratio of house price to income being an obvious example (chart below for the UK since the 1960s). Even anecdotally, a generation ago many family households had a single wage-earner, and an 'average' job provided sufficient remuneration, whereas nowadays the trend is towards households having both parents working as a single income stream is no longer sufficient to keep above the poverty line. The key driver of this trend being increasing inequality. "Trickle-down" is a myth perpetuated by the elite.

[Nhazwrath]

I'd like to point out that the 2 income necessary part is due to several factors. One of them being women demanding jobs equal pay.   With the close to doubling the available workforce you had a huge purchase power increase and the results are (what the market will bear), prices. 

Houses.  The idea that people always got a brand new house is a new one and pushed by good marketing.   Go back to history again and you will find that the norm is multi generation families in the same house.  A lot of time in the same room. 

The number of Malaria deaths has been dropping for years and there are vaccines on the horizon for it Mostly pushed by that guy everyone loves to hate Bill Gates I may not like him either but if he gets the vaccine done without getting paid for it....that's a so called 1%er for you doing bad things....

And Elon I don't think is even pursuing wealth, wealth is happening to him due to what he is doing.  He is a great example of why you need to leave people like him alone. hes dragging  4 industries 30 years forward, yes 4 of them.  Rockets, Cars, Satellites (and everything that goes with that) and possibly a human machine interface.   

The real question here isn't that there is income in equality.   

The real question Should be Why Are there extremely successful people?

Real income equality is a argument that says somehow despite all evidence that there needs to be equality in income(or outcome).   When reality has proven multiple times that this leads to rather bad things.  The universe clearly isn't built for equality if this was so there would only be hydrogen. maybe not even that.  It functions at all due to things being Unequal.

Lets move on to brain biology for a sec.   The human brain attempts to be efficient in energy usage. Its large and uses a lot of calories,  So it tends to edit itself to save power.  This is called neuro plasticity  So if the brain finds a short cut in its thinking, it Really wants to keep it.  Its 100% unconscious. This leads to all Kinds of long term problems.  So you've learned something that works short term but isn't very long term good.   Its hard to unlearn it, it gets worse as you get older.  Ever tried teaching a older person something new?  The usual response is "I don't need to learn that what I have got works".   Now, you CAN get people to learn new things if they are fairly intelligent to begin with.   What if they aren't?  Then its a fight.  A fight you'll lose.  Lets use a recent meme quote (they can remain retarded longer then you can remain solvent)  That right there is why they tend to get ignored.  No one has time. No on wants to be dragged in to the chaos of attempting to teach an adult child.

So this leaves a problem with people appearing to be stupid. How do you fix that problem?  That's a serious one and is Probably part of the real one.   

Again, not why are there poor people,  we know why.    Why are there rich people at all?

[Cnut237]

~

I don't think we'll ever agree, but I want to point out that I do enjoy the discussion.

Real income equality is a argument that says somehow despite all evidence that there needs to be equality in income(or outcome).   When reality has proven multiple times that this leads to rather bad things.

I'll also mention that I agree with this point. Absolute equality of income/outcome is a terrible idea, is grossly unfair, hampers innovation, ennervates drive, subdues talent and, as you point out, history demonstrates this quite clearly. I favour instead (the impossible dream of) equality of opportunity, where people aren't held back because they happen to be born in a poor country or a poor area of a rich country, and where people born rich aren't propelled into positions of authority simply because of their name. I do think that inequality is a problem that needs to be addressed, wealth inequality more than income inequality because elite income is derived largely from existing wealth. Talented people, hard workers, visionary entrepreneurs deserve to be wealthier, I'm not disputing that, even in some cases much wealthier... I just think that the excesses should be reined in a bit through more effective progressive taxation, and specifically a wealth tax. You mentioned in a previous post Bill Gates turning his attention, wealth and considerable talents towards the common good - this is laudable, and I'm a big fan. But he's an outlier amongst the ultra rich. In general, deciding whose lives get to be saved shouldn't be the preserve of individual billionaires, but rather of democratically elected governments and international not-for-profit bodies. Let someone have millions of dollars if he's earned it, fine, but maybe when it gets to a hundred billion we should be thinking it's a little obscene.

[Nhazwrath]

I am enjoying the discussion.  I am also aware that there is lots of things that appear unfair.  and there are absolutely things that Are actually unfair. 

Research golden rice.   that right there will help a lot more

My entire point isn't even really about income. its about wealth which isn't the same thing at all.   Humanity all of it despite the point about income disparity, is getting wealthier at a rate that's Stunning in comparison to the entire human history  Right Now.   The focus about income disparity is a distraction designed to make you upset and engage with bad actors.(who may or may not even be aware they are bad actors)

And Despite all of humanity's flaws and evil self destructive tendencies  We are still improving.  Some of those paths will be wrong some will be right. 

[Gozie51]

And Despite all of humanity's flaws and evil self destructive tendencies  We are still improving.  Some of those paths will be wrong some will be right.  

I look those human flaws from the area of government. IMO the government is the greater factor of wealth disparity. Every government have a set of people that they favour either directly by award of contracts or employment of the families of those at the corridor of power. They also indirectly favour some by throwing out some policies which will crumple some businesses and small growing businesses to show a light to another kind of business because of the policy, of course the saying that: when one door closes, another opens. That is exactly how wealth disparity is created as government continues to change hands. However, it is mainly for those who can easily metamorphose and change their course of direction as government changes policy but those who are weak or does not have the political and financial capacity, crumbles by the road side (is a survival race or fittest race).

In Nigeria as an example, the banning of crypto related accounts will definitely affect operators and bank owners may have more money at the main time that monies may be kept in banks (as interest) growing from it pending when the crypto operators decide what to do. So at the point, some other business may start growing because of the ban like P2P which gives other people business opportunity.

[wxa7115]

That is the thing, for all the criticism that capitalism receives the truth is that we have made great progress during the last decades and there are less poor all around the world, but it seems people want to live in an Utopia and that is not possible, there is always going to be those that have more and those that have less.

And then in order to correct this problem people decide to enact communism, or similar economic systems, that makes most people equal but not by rising their living standards but by decreasing them to the point many of those same people lament the fact capitalism is no longer in place but by the time they realize this it is too late.

The problem is that there are a lot of lazy and greedy people who decide that if there are richer people, then for some reason they should share with people like them. This has always been and is being used by dirty politicians, such as Lenin, Stalin if we talk about (the USSR), whose goal is to create an army of slaves from lazy and greedy people. They were not promised "you will work and make yourself a fortune", they were promised - "we will destroy the rich, and then everything will be free, and everyone can take whatever he needs." By the way, this correlates well with history - such regimes were actively created in the 19th and 20th centuries, when there were many poor countries, and significantly decreased by the end of the 20th century, when the average living standard in many countries increased significantly.
I'll finish - I'm against feeding embittered lazy people. Want to live well - earn it!

You're preaching to the choir, wealth disparity is always going to exist, it's nothing new and I do not see it ever disappearing, however we have made great progress during this century but people instead of looking at their improved living standards compared to what was available 100 years ago they see that someone else can buy a luxury car and they think it is unfair that they have to drive their car that is not as expensive but that can do 99% of what that luxury car can do.

This is why I have always believed that movements like communism and other similar ideologies are always based on envy, some people cannot just take that someone else has more money, is better good-looking, more talented or that can do whatever other thing better than them and they prefer to destroy those people rather than to accept that fact.