Comment by forrestthewoods | Hacker News Reader

Comment by forrestthewoods | Hacker News Reader

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forrestthewoods

Every response post I've read is terrible. Frustratingly so.

Inequality is bad. People want to reduce inequality. Startups strive to strictly increase inequality. Now what? An extreme progressive tax plus startups will STILL increase inequality. Not decrease.

To be honest I want to increase inequality even more. Because I want to allow more immigrants and refugees. You can't let in hundreds of thousands of refugees without increasing inequality. It's not possible.

What some of these posts say, without actually saying it, is that oh some types of inequality are bad and some are good. A small local business that earns it's owner a 6 figure salary? Well that's obviously good. When people say inequality is bad they meant those filthy point-oh-one percenters on Wall Street. Not the plumber who has 10 employees and made $350,000 last year. Obviously.

Inequality is at most a 2nd order derivative. It doesn't actually matter much. Things can be good with high inequality or they can be bad with low inequality. It gets far more attention than it should, imo.

The current consensus among economists is that increasing inequality will lead to disaster for the entire economy, while decreasing inequality actually increases growth.

Sure, you're right that nothing is set in stone, and you could have a country that has low inequality but it's still a terrible place to live by other metrics, but this is useless hypothesizing and speculation. What evidence do you have to support the statement that "An extreme progressive tax plus startups will STILL increase inequality. Not decrease." Seems to me, in the years when the top marginal tax rates were higher, those were some of the years with the least income inequality in American history.

Why not look at what people who study our current economies are saying instead of speculating?

From the IMF:

"We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down."

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986....

It's not that simple. Bringing in more refugees increases inequality. Bringing in more refugees is also good for the economy. Therefore an increase in inequality does mean economic disaster.

Not all increases in inequality are equal. They can not be treated as such.

logical arguments are often inspired by individual motivations despite efforts of everyone to remain rational. I ask you: Are you poor or are you rich? When inequality increases, do you benefite? or do you become worse off? This answer would indeed be very interesting if you were a poor person.

If you are a rich person, then you're answer is expected. Normal. People concoct very articulate and valid logic to fit their own biases and situation. The logic is so sound that it's often hard to find bias. What can always be observed however is... does the logic benefit the individual who introduced said logic.

I feel people need to introduce their background before they introduce their arguments. Like PG did, one should always announce whether or not they are a manufacturer of wealth inequality or not before they spill their arguments.

I like your line of thinking. Particularly your sound logic line.

To answer, that depends entirely on how you depend poor or rich. And to who you are comparing.

Within the United States the median household income is $50,000. Average household income is $69,000. If someone makes more than mean/median and they receive a raise than is an increase in inequality.

There's hardly a US based programmer on HN that doesn't qualify as rich and strive to increase inequality by seeking career growth and raises. I don't think that's a bad thing. I would be such a programmer.

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