Oligarchy, American Style | Hacker News Reader

Oligarchy, American Style

nytimes.com

22 pointsecounysis5 comments

Who’s in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they’re corporate executives. Recent research shows that around 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent either are executives in nonfinancial companies or make their money in finance, i.e., Wall Street broadly defined. Add in lawyers and people in real estate, and we’re talking about more than 70 percent of the lucky one-thousandth.

Zuckerberg, Jobs, Bezos, Gates--virtually every startup founder is/was a corporate executive. And "people in real estate" are absolutely entrepreneurs. Without investment and good management, development doesn't happen.

I too am worried about the moral hazard posed by growing income inequality. But Krugman is being either disingenuous or outright deceptive (as usual, sadly).

It really bothers me when stuff like this gets posted on HN

I'm not attacking the point of view. There are two opinions on this issue that are backed by large numbers of people. One saying inequality increases with our current system and the other confirming that but saying our system "lifts all boats" making the poor richer while it makes the rich even more so.

I have no problem with debating that point.

But this article cites no actual facts. Not even from his opponents. He cites "reports from think tanks" but rather than presenting facts from those reports and refuting them he attacks the people making the points (calling them "obfuscators")

More importantly he doesn't spell out a thought process. Plenty of people write interesting opinion pieces without hard facts by spelling out their thought process and asking people to consider it when they see hard facts in the future. But that's not what this is and I'd offer his last paragraph as proof of that...

"The larger answer, however, is that extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy. Can anyone seriously deny that our political system is being warped by the influence of big money, and that the warping is getting worse as the wealth of a few grows ever larger?"

By saying "can anyone seriously deny" he's not laying out his thought process he's simply trying to bully people with an opposing thought process by saying they're fools if they don't agree with him (they may very well be fools but it's unproductive and of no value to tell them that without an explanation of why they're fools)

So I go back to my original point. How does this "gratify anyone's intellectual curiosity" as the guidelines say?

As much as I agree with the article, you're right that there is a scarcity of facts here. I suspect that this was posted in response to David Brooks' similarly fact-free article (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3180684). Nonetheless, the articles have spurred interesting and worthwhile discussion.

What should be done about it?

Tax the rich? Computer says no. Revolt?

Tax the rich?

Why not? While tax cuts don't have any discernible impact on economic growth, they do seem to exacerbate income inequality. Reinstate a more progressive tax structure. History tells us there will be no impact on overall growth, but it could certainly help bring income disparity back into line.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com