[GeorgeEckland]

So if someone in Africa is making twice what he was last year, he's worse off just because a CEO in New York is making 2 and a half times more this year then last?

Why is economics a zero sum game?

[fudelholf]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Gee, so you'd be richer if the prices of stuff went up?



Consumer goods include things like beds, lightbulbs, you know the stuff you forget about but still need.

All I know if the less money I have to spend on those things, the more money I have to spend on eating better food and having a good house.

That's how the principle works. The only way beds get cheaper is if you sleep on a crapier bed, as many poor people do. Bed's cost as much as $2000.

[Nundduedola]

Originally posted by DanS


You may not know this, so I'll clue you in. An editorial is the opinion of the paper's editorial board. This article is not an editorial. It was clearly marked by me and the NY Times as an opinion piece. Even worse.

[Necedofer]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So if someone in Africa is making twice what he was last year, he's worse off just because a CEO in New York is making 2 and a half times more this year then last?

Why is economics a zero sum game? Good lord.

[TheBest-Host]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
It's a thought experiment. Wages are increasing, but wage disparities are also increasing. (lol@ "thought experiment")

You've completely missed the point. Wages are not necessarily increasing for a particular job. In some cases wages for a particular job have decreased dramatically by being moved from one labor market to another.

30 years ago, the person who works at the textile factory which makes your shirt you wear may have owned a house and a car and sent their kids to college. Today the person doing the same job may be working insane hours for pennies a day, no health care of any sort, and live in a shack with no plumbing...

You want to say it's all good because (likely) the person who used to work at the textile factory is now in a better career, while the person who currently works in the textile factory (likely) had no livelyhood at all before. That's fine, and true to some extent. What isn't fine is pretending like the income gap (or consuming gap) has magically decreased when really all that's being done is the poor are being ignored now because they don't live between the same lines on a map as the rich.

Given my example, is it a bad thing for the other worker to have his pay double even though other people get a higher proportionate increase? Increasing standard of living is good. How you do it for a specific person is not necessarily good overall though. (And there of course can be better ways than others.)

Having compensation drastically reduced for jobs to the point that workers live in abject poverty is not a good thing in my opinion. It signifies that necessary work is not being amply rewarded, especially damning in cases where before that same work was better rewarded (and economically feasible to do so). It's a regression in standard of living for workers as a whole in that industry/job.

No. I don't see that as a good thing.

Globalization and free trade are good. Exploitation of workers not so much, sorry.

Standard of living of who? I was quite specific. Standard of living of the person filling a specific job.

Unlike you I don't believe class warfare is a good thing. No class warfare. Crystal ball much?

Why should CEOs which find a way to make a business more profitable be rewarded for doing so? It's good business to make things for less. Undeniable. That's not the point.

You want to take a job, move it someplace else, pay the worker less than what you were paying the worker you've displace to do it, and pretend you've lowered the income gap. It's a ludicrous evaluation regardless of the economic impact of the change.

Why is it a bad thing if the standard of living of his workers goes up as a result? Who said anything about it being a bad thing if someone gets a pay increase? Get a grip on reality BK.

You see it as 'farming out slave labour', but that's just because you don't believe that blacks and brownies deserve to have decent jobs too. You're mentally handicapped or something, aren't you?

I think everyone deserves to be paid as well as what the same job would pay in the US or other wealthy nation. I understand this won't happen, but still hold it as an ideal. Globalization is a good thing, but we're only half-assed globalizing. We're sending the jobs out, but not the compensation. While this may be better than not sending the jobs out at all, it still isn't as well as we could do.

You are the one advocating the discrepancy in compensation that people are paid for the same job based on where they happen to live (if not nationality/ethnicity). Remember: Ignore that "mote and beam" thing Jesus talked about. Just keep making up accusations and stay away from any introspective thought. That's what good Christians do, right?

[WUlcN1Rz]

I don't see the poor getting richer by going into debt. Sure, temperory consumption spikes but the debt is likely unsecured debt like credit cards and we all know the Republican controlled Congress has practically striped Americans of the ability to discharge credit card debt in bankruptcy.

What we're creating isn't more wealth but a class of heavily indebted serfs who are unable to get out of their servitude.

[FoetAgerhot46]

Wrong thread.

[Kingerix]

How has the difference in incomes between rich and poor gone up?

JM

[seervezex]

Then average doesn't mean a lot, does it? Wouldn't median, or median of the lower 25% mean a lot more?

JM

[itepearce]

If someone want to look over statcan, and found the data. I can download it and I'll made a graph of it. I can have access for free from my university VPN network.

http://www.statcan.ca/menu-en.htm

[Phassetus]

You can eliminate poverty without touching income distribution

Chile until 2 decades ago was a quite poor country, nowadays, after 2 decades of economic growth, only 17% of Chileans are poor.

Income distribution has not improved, what happened is that instead of giving the poor of bigger piece of the cake, they have made the cake bigger.


edit: BTW, poverty is relative.

I imagine many poor americans own their own house, have cable tv, internet and a car. Thats not poor in my book, maybe working class.

[chinesemedicine]

Originally posted by Barnabas
You can eliminate poverty without touching income distribution

Chile until 2 decades ago was a quite poor country, nowadays, after 2 decades of economic growth, only 17% of Chileans are poor.

Income distribution has not improved, what happened is that instead of giving the poor of bigger piece of the cake, they have made the cake bigger.


edit: BTW, poverty is relative.

I imagine many poor americans own their own house, have cable tv, internet and a car. Thats not poor in my book, maybe working class. There is a big difference between Chile and the US. In the US many efforts have been made to enlarge the pie by giving advantages to the most well off. The result has largely been only to benefit those who are wealthy and not the poor. Except as has been mentioned that some lower income groups can afford some cheap model electronics now. Still there are plenty very poor who don't have any of those.

[tinetttstation]

And I Ben resumed my thought very well about the subject.

[TaliaJack]

How has the population increased?

JM

[pymnConyelell]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
How has the population increased?

JM ?????