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> (The baby boomers generation) really did a large portion of the work involved with building out the physical infrastructure that allows our economy to operate as it does today: buildings, roads, power lines, mining, machinery, warehouses, etc

> How can we forget there was an entire generation of people who turned the 1940's USA into the one of the 1970s?

The baby boomers were just entering the work force in the 1970s. You are conflating two generations.

Everywhere in the US that I am well familiar with (Portland Oregon, Minneapolis, Southwest VA, San Jose CA, greater Los Angeles) built most of their infrastructure between 1945 and 1970(schools, roads, highways, bridges).

Anecdotally speaking, the infrastructure that came after 1970 consists of strip malls, suburban housing and airports. some highways were built in LA and San Jose. The 85 is the only one i can think of off the top of my head though. Lots of road projects to widen, adjust and fix earlier mistakes though.

What did the baby boomers accomplish besides fighting in Vietnam and presiding over the general decline of the US in the 1970s-1990s? They still have their final act of bankrupting the stae left, true, but I'd argue they've done more than their share already.

Decline of the U.S. in the 1970's-1990's?

What a bizarre claim. By every measurable standard, the U.S. was a far, far better, richer place in 2000 than in 1970, and occupied a more significant and more secure position in the world.

I sometimes worry that the demographic of places like HN is shifting young enough that statements like yours can actually seem authoritative. Even someone merely old enough to have been paying attention from 1990 to 2000 would realize that "general decline" is an absurd description.

Technology has undoubtedly improved, but most other elements of society have gotten worse. I'm 34, and first hand there was a decline (other than technology) from 1990 to today, and from statistics (inequality coefficients, relative competitiveness, political system, etc) those trends accelerated rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s.

Let's put aside the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history for a second. What about living in the U.S. in 2000 was worse than in 1990? Health care was better. Houses were bigger. Cars were both more luxurious and safer. Incomes were higher. Unemployment was absurdly low. The Federal budget was, through bipartisan efforts and a terrific economy, balanced for the first time in decades. The Cold War was over. Europe was uniting and Asia was exploding. More kids (and more significantly, more women) were going to college. Cities like New York that had been nearly given up to crime and decay had become vibrant and thriving again.

And frankly, 1990 had a lot going for it over 1980, too.

There are lots of overlapping trends, some positive and some negative.

The War on (some) Drugs (aka war on blacks/mexicans/chinese) really stepped up in the 1960-1990 period, so crime stats and general urban hell was at a peak during that period, and improved 1990-2010. It's unclear how much blame for that is on baby boomers. The continuation of the War on Drugs is undeniably a boomer thing, though. That alone is more than enough reason to be angry.

"White Flight" to the suburbs was mostly the parents of Boomers, so they were only indirectly involved, although they did also continue it through the 70s/80s/90s. Gen X and Gen Y are the dominant forces behind re-urbanization.

There are lots of awesome new technologies (I mean, even a 2013 car vs. a 2006 car is an improvement), but that's technological progress and relatively global, vs. US-specific. Yes, points for not actually causing global thermonuclear war or a collapse of the global economy. Microcomputers, cellphones, the Internet, medical advances, etc., all amazing.

The (re) emergence of China from ~1990, the end of the Cold War, and the rescue of India from socialism in the 1990s+ were undeniably great, but had little or nothing to do with US domestic policy. Reagan probably did accelerate things by up to a decade, but the 1990s were a case of mismanagement of the "peace dividend" and a bunch of emerging threats.

(1990 itself and 2000 are probably unfair years to pick, due to the bubble of 2000 -- 1991 vs. 2000 is a lot different from 1989 vs. 2001. I don't remember the exact details of the early-1990s recession or the early 1980s and which time periods were bad, but I do remember 1998-2001 and 2001-2003)

Women and racial/ethnic minorities did probably do better in the US fairly steadily year on year for the past 100 years. That's one big point.

On college -- look at the costs of MIT or UC-Berkeley in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, especially vs. a feasible income for an 18-22 year old.

The big thing is the rise of inequality -- essentially everyone in hn is one of the winners or is credibly likely to become one, but for the bottom...50%? of the US, the odds of having a better life are lower now than they were in the past.

Incomes have risen, but inflation-adjusted income for the bottom half of earners has essentially been flat for 40 years.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-household-incomes-a-42-yea...

What does that prove? You really think a 60th percentile-level household in 1970 was better off than a 40th percentile-level household today? I'd spot you a whole quintile.

And even without accounting for the difficulty in comparing like-to-like over 40 years of CPI indexing, or the change in the demographics of U.S. households, that median line still looks pretty good when you realize you're looking at a linear scale.

That's because, largely, they benefited from the work done prior to their gaining power (nation-wide new infrastructure, etc) and failed to reinvest in the same. Instead, we've seen an epidemic of deferred maintenance and a lack of capital projects. Of course everything is falling apart now!

This is not unlike managers who come in, strip R&D budgets, point to big profits and split before the inevitable crash. All they did was milk the cash-cow. It really is a well established phenomenon.

Right. "Management" people who adhere to that philosophy are glorified by the media, press, etc because they lack vision beyond quarterly results. The worship of short-sighted idiots like Jack Welch, Mark Hurd, Carly Fiorina and MBA-style methodology is destroying American competitiveness. Even Harvard Business School, of all places, says so: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/03/10/the-surp...

Ending the Cold War and the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction? Expanding and increasing civil rights for minorities and women? There are plenty of positive things that the boomers have done, but Gen Y seems to have it in for them without ever bothering to open a history book.

I'm an Xer, so I get ignored in this mudflinging, but once I listed these things along with some others in an argument with a Y, talking about who had it harder growing up. Her response? Yeah, but we had peanut-butter bans in schools. It's hard not to succumb to the stereotype that Ys are self-centred when you never hear one giving boomers props for the good things they did.

(also X, myself (1979, so kind of borderline, but enh)

Ending MAD was actually done by GI or Silent generation people (essentially, the last push in the 1980s), and the general implosion of the Soviet model. It's fair to give some credit for everyone who survived and didn't cause a war during MAD, but that's largely top political leaders (who remained older longer than the general population or most politicians, even) and top military leaders (who were probably 45-55 in the 1970s and 1980s, so kind of borderline as baby boomers). But a lot of the soldiers, engineers, etc. from 1970-1990 were undeniably baby boomers so they get credit for that.

There were plenty of good things done by the baby boomers (I'd say some environmental regulations, like clean air/clean water/ozone, have been incredibly good, and were largely a result of lobbying and organization by baby boomers in the 1970s). They didn't do as many good things per capita as would be expected, and they have done far more bad per capita than previous or subsequent generations.

Subsequent generations? Isn't it a bit early to be calling the report on their contributions?

"presiding over the general decline of the US in the 1970s-1990s"

Over half of the current Congress are baby boomers.

They were a pretty potent political/economic bloc even before that (from 1968 on), but yes, they now have the government officially too. The worst generation to walk the earth, IMO.

I've actually spoken to a number of baby boomers who have referred to themselves as The Worst Generation. Couldn't agree more.

Instead of asking what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!

Actually, not a lot of major US airports were built after 1970. Denver International Airport is the only big one I can think of. NIMBY makes it really hard to build airports except in the absolute middle of nowhere, where there's no need.

they werent built, but they sure as hell were expanded upon.

>Anecdotally speaking, the infrastructure that came after 1970 consists of strip malls, suburban housing and airports. some highways were built in LA and San Jose.

That's not an anecdote at all, you're just apologizing for arguing from your experience and then doing it anyway.

Nitpick maybe, but I'm tired of this "anecdotes don't matter" when clearly they're important enough that we keep relying on them.

  they're just "prematurely" tired and worn out.

Forgive me if I tread on a difficult subject, but your father passed away at an age somewhere between average and old for every generation before his. 40+ years of physical labour has and will always take its toll and there would have been nothing premature or unusual had he been an Elizabethen shipwright.

Were this still the norm, then the focus would still be on working life health checkups and realising we cannot lift into our 70s. I think perhaps we are missing something there.

I suspect it might be worth linking retirement payouts to total calories burnt over a working life. Sitting at a desk might not be such a good career move :-)

Please again - I saw your point about your father as noteworthy and I wanted to recognise that - no offense or other comment meant

I have to object this comment.

Previous life expectancy levels were based on poor public health levels and tended to be solved by improvements in public health. It is entirely reasonable to claim someone dying at fifty today is dying prematurely due being overworked.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy...

    "Life expectancy increases with age as the individual
    survives the higher mortality rates associated with
    childhood. For instance, the table above listed life
    expectancy at birth in Medieval Britain at 30. A male
    member of the English aristocracy at the same period
    could expect to live, having survived until the age of
    21

    1200-1300 C.E.: 43 years (to age 64)
    1300-1400 C.E.: 34 years (to age 55)
       (due to the impact of the Black Death)
    1400-1500 C.E.: 48 years (to age 69)
    1500-1550 C.E.: 50 years (to age 71)."

There is a vast difference in comparing live expectancy at 21 and 0. In that none of the 21+ population is going to die at 0.

That was not the intent of the comment

Interesting table though thank you

Guess farm life doesn't count as taking a heavy toll. Anecdotal to be sure, but I never recalled any farmers dieing young except to accidents. The other early deaths were from undetected abnormalities that just get you one day.

Its more than the type of work you do, that simply adds risk - some you see and some you don't. If anything it can be all the idle time shift workers have off work that kills them faster. Inactivity doesn't help the body age. I am quite sure a good number of people I work with will not live to a ripe old age and all they do is sit at a desk... and then go home and sit on a sofa or desk again

I have to chime in here. Physical labor itself is not necessarily wearing. When I was growing up, our next door neighbor in his 80s was constantly gardening and doing projects around his house. He was in incredible shape for his age. He used to shovel coal for steamships as a young man. He died in his 90s.

Physical labor can become debilitating when there is injury that is not allowed to heal completely or when there are excessive hours compounded by stress. Aside from that, it's probably very good for you.

"As the baby boom generation (the one born ~1946 –> ~1959) ... people who turned the 1940's USA into the one of the 1970s"

I think your math is a little off. The one born in 1946 would have been 24 years old by 1970... And the one born in 1959 would have been 11 years old. Those kids definitely did NOT build all of the infrastructure.. that was their parents.

But the sheer idiocy of the system which has rewarded and continues to reward neat-suit Realtors and loan officers and salesmen (those "educated" ones who tend to work the sedentary jobs) -- instead of the workers meant that he was left with no options for healthcare, retirement, or even being able to leave his children a dime.

I can understand the frustration you have and you make some thoughtful points, but I wonder how could you change "the system" to be any different? It's not as if these are government jobs. The prices are pretty much set by market forces so what can you do if the market doesn't deem the price high enough?

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one example of how to do this. It effectively increases the earnings of low wage workers without distorting market prices.

The EITC does not _directly_ address the retirement/disability problem, though.

Giving someone a windfall each year of several thousand dollars is not the same as increasing their wages. It gets spent on very different things.

People like your dad get screwed on every level.

In New York, the total value of benefits received by a disabled single mother with 2 kids is in excess of $55k. (One of the reasons why states like South Carolina encourage poor folk to migrate north) The old welfare system was replaced with "Temporary Assistance", but you still get disability, SSI, food stamps, basic cell phone, housing assistance and healthcare. Some counties will buy furniture and provide other goodies as well.

That's pretty close to what a drywall guy makes, except a drywall guy who isn't in a union has to save for retirement, operate a car, pay for healthcare, and pay market rents.

When a guy like your dad suffers a workplace injury or is worn out, he has to live with uncertainty for months or years while his case gets appealed, because the law judges are backed up handling the cases of people whose disability is being ignorant and lazy.

I appreciate your post and your pain. However, one thing that I will point out is that one data point is not something one can draw conclusions from. A friend of mine's father (Ph.D. and desk job) died in his early 50s too.

Looking at data, it seems that the sedentary-jobbed have a life expectancy of 79.3 while the manual workers have a life expectancy of 75 years. So, there is a difference of 4.3 years (males, UK 2002-2005). It should also be noted that life expectancy for the manual group has gone up about 7 years since 1972-1976 (the sedentary saw a similar 7 year increase).

Governments aren't looking to increase the retirement age to dangle some carrot in front of people they consider too stupid to know better. If life expectancy is going up by 7 years, that means that a pension needs to provide income for more years. That means higher taxes, raising the retirement age, or putting more onus on the individual to save for retirement. There's a genuine question: where would the money come from to give someone a retirement at 50? To provide the average 50 year old male a $50,000 salary for the rest of their life costs over $1M - and that isn't $50,000 adjusted for inflation. What does that come out to per year? Assuming the kind of conservative planning that the government does, over $20,000 pear year. Essentially, we would need a tax of 40% for people to be able to retire at 50 and replace their income for life. Now, maybe 75% income replacement is ok and a 33% tax would do it. But then you have to think about providing inflation adjustments and healthcare for that period and it's just not good. Health costs are rising substantially faster than inflation. Should we lock people into the standard of care at the year of their retirement with newer, more expensive treatments unavailable to them?

There's just a big money issue when it comes to retirement age that's hard to ignore. Ideally, none of us would ever have to work. Unfortunately, that isn't our reality. Not to become too weird, but it's really tragic when you think about it. We're these biological beings trying to strive against what would happen to us if we stopped working to survive. And we've created some awesomeness to make our existence a lot better (medicine, for instance), but it's a thin veil over the harshness of what happens to us in the absence of working to survive. To come back down to earth, it's really crappy that we can't have the same retirement age that we used to have. However, I'm not sure how to go about talking about retirement ages without talking about the money we need to support it. Maybe it's time we raised social security taxes realizing that we don't care as much about iPhones as we do about our retirement. Ultimately, it isn't about governments trying to hurt people, but governments not having the money to offer it.

It should also be noted that a lot of these jobs pay better than similarly skilled jobs that are more sedentary. Construction salaries average $44,630. Office and administrative work averages $34,120. Sales $37,520. Personal Care $24,620. Part of the higher salary might be because of the nature of the work you speak of. The additional money per year could go toward providing an earlier retirement via individual means. I know that most people won't save and that's why I like social security. Maybe we should have a lower retirement age for certain professions along with higher social security and medicare taxes on jobs in those professions.

--

I can't imagine how hard it is to lose a parent so young. I'm sorry.

> Where would the money come from to give someone a retirement at 50?

Well, it looks completely different if we take out the money from this situation.

Consider this: we have big unemployment, a lot of part-time workers, a lot of people not working because of disabilities, there are also millions of college and university students who are obviously not working full time. But the economy keeps going, it has no shortage of workforce, number of workplaces is limited and less than total number of people.

Then you propose to increase retirement age.

The number of workers will increase, but the number of workplaces is the same. Wages are decreasing, tax revenue is decreasing and we again have no money to pay welfare, pensions etc. So we don't need more workforce.

Redundant workers rely on disability pensions, unemployment payments, food stamps etc. All these welfare programs have obvious deficiencies, but we need to feed the people anyway. If these people were working it would be much better. But there is simple way to increase number of working people without extra resources.

We just need to limit working hours. And it is possible, because it was possible to introduce 40 hour work week. Now cut it to 35, and you get 12% increase of number of working people and unemployment completely disappears.

That train of thought is known as the lump of labour fallacy.

What you propose would reduce output; if it was optimal for firms to hire the unemployed, in place of those already employed, then they would do so - unless they are prevented from doing so by labour legislation, which doesn't seem to be the case the U.S.

That the unemployed are not hired might make sense when there are costs to hiring and training a new worker, which don't exist for a worker already in place. On an aggregate level, this policy would increase the cost of labour, and consequently reduce its demand, so less overall would be employed (though the rate of employment would probably stay about constant because you reduced the denominator by reducing the labour force).

Probably a better explanation here: http://www.economist.com/economics-a-to-z/l#node-21529454

That's a great point, but it's only a definition. Being a definition in an economics text (in this case, just a website) doesn't make it automatically correct. It needs to be proven by research.

"In theory, theory and practice are identical. In practice, they're not."

A fair portion of the Western world's underemployment and unemployment problem derives directly from the overemployment of those who have the jobs. As people keep putting it, "Whatever happened to the 40-hour workweek?"

For example, among those sedentary professionals who can keep working for decades upon decades, most in the United States are classified as Fair Labor Standards Act exempt, and are therefore often made to work overtime. Health insurance is a fixed cost that needs to be driven down both through socializing medicine and, preferably, through requiring per-hour National Insurance taxes, but only the latter action would actually change the fact that firms find it cheaper to hire two professionals working 60 hours/week each than to hire three professionals for normal 40-hour workweeks.

And, here's the trick, neither of those two professionals actually receives overtime pay. The company is literally getting a 1/3 boost to their productivity-per-employee solely by using a legal loophole to not pay for all hours worked. This is not the lump-of-labor fallacy, it's straightforward exploitation.

To paraphrase many Hacker News-targeted blogposts, "Fuck companies, pay workers."

Thanks, I like the quote re: theory and practice and will swipe it for my own re-use...

Attribution?

> What you propose would reduce output; if it was optimal for firms to hire the unemployed, in place of those already employed, then they would do so - unless they are prevented from doing so by labour legislation, which doesn't seem to be the case the U.S.

Payroll taxes definitely do work in that way (not as an outright barrier, but by acting as a market distortion which encourages investing in expanding production through expanding capital rather than doing so by expanding employment rolls when, before considering payroll tax costs, it would be equally or more efficient to expand production by expanding employment.)

Doesn't the Obama care insurance penalty basically do this? Companies are forced to either spend $10000 per employee like they do do now to give them coverage or pay a $2000 fine to the government. The beauty of this is that part time workers are exempt from the fine so most companies will just hire 25% more people and make everyone only work 30 hours.

Unemployment is basically solved in 2014. Under employment on the other hand...

They tried that in France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek

Exactly. They tried that in France at a moment where everybody was euphoric: the two germanies had recently been re-unified and GDPs of nearly everybody were growing like crazy.

Instead of France trying to reimburse its own public state debt they decided to move to 35 hours / week.

We can see the results now: Germany's economy is one of the best in the eurozone, they managed to stay at "only" 80% of public debt and are enjoying a modest GDP growth. Meanwhile France reached 100% public debt and is dangerously close to a disaster (youth unemployment is rising, the private sector isn't motivated anymore, austerity will need to kick in or France won't be able to re-finance itself on the markets).

The loss of competitivity of France is directly attributed to moving to 35 hours / week and is going to be the main reason why France is going to lose its status as the world's fifth biggest power. By 2017 Brazil's going to be in front of France. Heck, if Holland and the socialist gets re-elected there's a far from zero probability that France won't be part of the G8 anymore by 2022!

That is very concerning but, sadly, there's nothing else to hope from socialists who are spreading hatred of the entrepreneurial spirit and hatred of those who succeeded, in the name of the nanny state spraying loyal socialist voters with money inflating their sense of entitlement.

And yet, having a 35 hour work week for 30 years is a huge achievement in itself. That's a billion hours not worked.

International economics is too complex to pin France's woes on one single factor, especially when they have a lower debt to GDP than the US which is famous for it's long working hours.

There is a lot wrong in the French economy. There is a lot uniquely wrong with every economy. I'd argue that as the huge populations of BRIC countries use modern productivity tools like automation to increase per capita GDP, it would be bizarre for France to hope to stay in the G8. And that's a win for everyone.

You're thinking of "money" as a resource that can be depleted like a forest or an iron mine. But that's not true, the amount of money is constant -- it just changes hands a lot. First graph shows that everyone could retire comfortably at age 50:

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=231

GNP (red line) tripled since 1970. That means, on average, every worker got three times more efficient. So why on earth do we have to talk about a lack of money when society's wealth has increased so fast?

http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/blog/what-you-need-to-...

Money is about power and is a zero sum game. If someone increases their share of the pie, then someone else necessarily loses out.

> But that's not true, the amount of money is constant -- it just changes hands a lot.

No it's not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply#United_States

> GNP (red line) tripled since 1970 [...] So why on earth do we have to talk about a lack of money when society's wealth has increased so fast? [... Link to income gap ... ]

It's less of a problem of income distribution than one of wealth distribution. The key issue is that people with lower incomes accumulate assets that cost them money (house, car, TV...) while those with higher income collect stocks, bonds, rentable real estate property, all of which generate more wealth.

>> But that's not true, the amount of money is constant -- it just changes hands a lot. > No it's not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply#United_States

Right. Governments print money all the time, but the total value of all the money remains constant, thanks to inflation. It's just a measure of how much power someone has in a society compared to everyone else.

> It's less of a problem of income distribution than one of wealth distribution. The key issue is that people with lower incomes accumulate assets that cost them money (house, car, TV...) while those with higher income collect stocks, bonds, rentable real estate property, all of which generate more wealth.

That's not given by God. Stocks didn't use to be money making machines and there is nothing that says they have to be. Stocks have been doing amazingly well since about 1980's because during the same time period wages have gotten a smaller and smaller share of the gnp. The ugly truth of the stock market is that for every winner there is also a loser.

>> Right. Governments print money all the time, but the total value of all the money remains constant, thanks to inflation. It's just a measure of how much power someone has in a society compared to everyone else.

Inflation, by it's definition, is caused because more money is chasing the same goods & services...which drives the prices up. That's why loose monetary policy (i.e. the Fed printing money) often comes with lots of "concerns about inflation".

Also...if money was indeed constant as you suggest, and it's just a power tool, then why have we seen 2 phenemona in the last 100 years.

1. The greatest number of people are moving out of absolute poverty, than at any other time in recorded history (hundreds of millions if not 1 Billion+ by now) - meaning, more people (as a % of the global population) are earning enough income to move themselves out of an abject poverty state, at a faster rate than at any other time in recent recorded history.

2. The greatest income gaps between the top 1% of the top 1% and the rest.

If the money supply were constant, both of those would be mutually exclusive. But they are not.

Anybody can create wealth, likewise anyone can destroy wealth. Money is just the physical/tradable manifestation of wealth. It's just a proxy. That's all. No conspiracy to see here.

I think you misunderstood his argument. Assuming I understand correctly he was saying that if you have $100 in your society and 100 goods available for purchase, evenly each good is $1, if you have $200 and 100 goods each good is $2. Despite doubling your money it is still worth the same. Obviously it is more complex than that but I think that's the basic idea he was getting at. You can only increase the wealth of a country if you increase the amount of goods rather than the amount of money as money will more or less scale to goods. From what I understood he was referring to goods as wealth.

> The ugly truth of the stock market is that for every winner there is also a loser.

That's hardly the case. The only loser is someone who sell a stock for a loss (and even then considering dividends and the tax advantages it doesn't necessarily mean a net loss).

If our economy has $100 we both receive a paycheck for half the remaining money and you buy a stock that gives you $1/year and I do not, assuming we spend the same you will automatically become richer each year until we are both paid a pittance while you sit on most of the money. I think that was the general idea.

Except, the reason the stock is giving $1/year, is because the economy is actually growing by $1/year.

Assuming that is true inflation will still decrease the real value of the goods I purchase providing you with a greater share of the economy year after year. The general idea is that goods will increase at a higher rate than $1/year providing me with more wealth regardless of how rich you become. Unfortunately while a good idea in theory it hasn't really seemed to work in the US. The gap between the rich and the poor increased dramatically and minimum wage workers having trouble surviving.

So wealthy people do not bother with housing, transportation or entertainment, and instead put all their money into investments? I think it's more likely wealthy people had income sources that allowed them to invest, while still enjoying some level of comfort.

I think it is reasonably clear from the GP that relative levels of investment was the gist; of course rich people live somewhere, moves about and try to keep themselves happy.

Then I don't see why it's important to state that those with lower incomes paying for housing, transportation or entertainment is the reason for their inability to become wealthy. Merely stating a difference in income causes the disparity is enough. Housing, transportation, communications, food and even entertainment are necessities.

No, it's just that wealthy people do not put the majority of their income into cost centers and instead put them into investments.

That's because they have more money. You have to pay for the necessities, and then you can save. If you're making near minimum wage, you won't be able to save much.

Also, those investments, like stocks and rental properties, transfer wealth from the poor to the rich, generally.

Sure, no one is disputing the fact that rich people have more money than poor people. For many reasons the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, the OP was noting one of the reasons.

Another is that the tax code incentivizes making your income through investments, something unattainable for people who aren't rich.

I would suggest it is not so much related to level of income, but rather knowledge of money management. The choice of buying more assets than liabilities is a basic, reliable (although frequently dull) way of acquiring wealth.

I am reminded of frequent stories of individuals with large incomes still being relatively poor - Doctors, Lawyers, etc. purchasing ever larger houses, ever more luxurious automobiles, etc. (all liabilities).

Or, as one individual who like to get peoples' attention puts it: "It's not how much money you make, but how much you keep."

> Money is about power and is a zero sum game. > If someone increases their share of the pie, > then someone else necessarily loses out.

Except this is plain wrong. I know a Wikipedia link may offend some people, but then again, calling economics a zero-sum game can, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero%E2%80%93sum_game#Economics

> Ideally, none of us would ever have to work. Unfortunately, that isn't our reality.

Yet! Seriously, lets just focus on building robots to do things like build roads and buildings, tend farms, drive vehicles, etc. etc. We could almost definitely pass human efficiency in the next 50 years, and nobody would ever have to do manual work again (although if that's something somebody likes doing they should totally have the option if that's what they want).

Also, I'm not convinced a job in construction is "similarly skilled" to office and admin work. But that's kind of beside the point, it's possible to earn a good living from either manual or sedentary work. Sure, the extremely high earners are exclusively sedentary workers (if they work in the traditional sense at all), but that speaks to the wider problem of wealth distribution, where the fabled top 1% have 20% of the countries total wealth.

In the US, the top 1% own 35% of the country's total wealth.

But I wonder - if they spent it, would it still have the same value?

Imagine one year, everyone spent all their income on stuff - earned and unearned. How much would an ipad cost? There is a limited capacity to raise ipad production - building new factories takes time. So the cost of an ipad would increase.

Right now, all that wealth is locked up in various markets, increasing the value of property and various past what is rational. If it suddenly came out to play, surely we'd see things people need to live increase more than the poorest can afford.

Is wealth that is never going to be spent really wealth?

This argument is reduced to absurdity because it suggests that everyone will get things cheapest if one Scrooge McDuck accumulates all the wealth and simply sits on it.

There's nothing absurd about deflation.

If you took 50% of all the money out of the world, the money that was left would be worth twice as much.

That's exactly the argument that was had in the Western world starting with the '70s inflation "crisis", and this was indeed the conclusion people came to: radical inequality is an acceptable price to pay for low inflation. And now we're suffering the consequences of having an overly deflationary labor market.

>However, one thing that I will point out is that one data point is not something one can draw conclusions from.

Well, you missed the point entirely. He argued from a historical standpoint--in particular the involvement of the whole demographic in making the transformation of 1950s America to 1970s America--that you touch on with only one (largely irrelevant) statistical 'anecdote.'