I mean, yes? That’s kind of the idea of paying higher taxes to enable a social safety net.
But you’re still not really responding to the point that Adam_B is making. E.g. it is possible to want to rein in the worst excesses of capitalism in America, without going all the way to complete global leveling. I would also point out that some of the worst poverty that you are pointing to is in vastly unequal societies. If you would like to fix that terrible poverty, a good step would be the exact sort of measures that Adam_B and others want.
Timex
4513
Sure, I’m in no way arguing against the notion of progressive taxation, that’s fine.
But the thing is, if the idea is “Bezos can’t have that much money, because it’s so much more than me”, then that same rationale applies to the rest of us on the global stage… which we don’t generally think about.
Because, aside from Craig’s suggestion that folks in India are making much less but live just as well, the reality is that like half the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. And that INCLUDES the difference in purchasing power in different regions. That’s less than $2.50 a day in purchasing power.
Compared to them, virtually everyone in America is insanely rich. We have so much more of everything than they do. Very few people in America can even imagine what that kind of poverty is like, because they’ve never even seen it in America, much less experienced it themselves.
Does the same line of thought that says Bezos needs to give up his money, mean that the rest of us need to give up our money too to the developing world?
Yet our life expectancy rates are lower than they are in Europe. Why?
A plausible hypothesis is that disparities in mortality in the United States are larger than in other high-income countries, particularly in Western Europe. This implies that U.S. excess mortality might be attributable to higher excess mortality in those with low levels of education, while mortality levels for those with secondary or higher education might be comparable in Europe and the United States.
In other words, the education gap is greater and the less educated (poorer people) here die younger.
Much of the entire world lives a better life than their ancestors did, but that doesn’t make wealth disparity, which essentially means power disparity, any more palatable. If anything the wealth disparity is shifting more towards the wealthy elite, which probably explains the slide we are seeing towards autocracy. The more wealth they control, which means the less wealth available for others, means the more they need autocratic control and democratic control needs to be diminished.
Timex
4515
To be clear, pretty much all of Europe is also rich.
So why is their life expectancy greater than in the U.S.? They are richer than we are?
CraigM
4517
You’re smart enough to understand what I am communicating.
And yes, I have seen real crushing poverty. I lived in India for several months for work. I saw the shacks made of corrugated siding and discarded canvas signs in makeshift villages adjoining the train tracks by Delhi and Agra. The bus ride to the downtown mall with the theater passed by a shanty town with literal shit on the streets.
You know what else I’ve seen? The tent sites for homeless people under every underpass in downtown Portland. The empty lots with permanent homeless camps. And I don’t think these people would give a single fuck, or take kindly, to being called rich.
I also know that the people living paycheck to paycheck are not doing better than 70% of the global population simply because the raw numbers are better higher. Because the raw numbers don’t mean shit, when after they pay for rent, and health insurance if they are lucky enough to hve any, Look at that $30k median salary and have to make choices about paying the phone bill or buying enough food. And that they make $30k to my Indian colleagues $8k may mean they make more money, but they are a damn sight worse off in every way.
Can you find people living in sub saharan Africa that have little parallel to the US? Sure.
My point is using income doesn’t mean shit. The only place where it makes any real sense is in consumer goods like electronics and such, where the price is pretty stable across currency. But food, housing, healthcare, etc? The cost basis on these things is so vastly variable that the comparison is not only meaningless, but actively undermines your point.
I’ve seen this shit first hand. I know exactly what I am talking about. The median American may be better off than the median Malaysian or Indian, but the differences are not as pronounced as income levels would indicate.
CraigM
4518
So at my position they get paid $22 per day in India. And you know what that does for them? They can live a lifestyle, in one of the major cities that would be the equivalent to Seattle or New York for relative cost, comparable to someone making around $100k in most ways. The big exception being consumer electronics, not many iPhones there. But otherwise? They are doing pretty good. They have a disposable income and solid professional lifestyle there.
Yes, $2.50 a day is not much. But $2.50 a day could still buy you housing in Chennai or Hyderabad. Doesn’t leave much left if you live on your own, but it isn’t literally starving on the streets the same way it would be in the US.
Timex
4519
No man, the $2.50 a day is in PPP, or purchasing power parity. It’s not actually $2.50, but rather it’s the equivalent money to have the ability to purchase $2.50 worth of goods in the US.
Half the world lives on the equivalent of if you only had $2.50 a day in the US. So imagine what your life would be like if you suddenly had only $2.50 a day to live on. Not $2.50 in India or whereever… But $2.50, here in the US. Because that’s what we’re talking about.
One thing, which is kind of beside the point, but may be interesting to note… those camps in places like Portland, are generally populated by people who, in some way, choose to live there. We have government programs that can easily service all of those people. I know folks who actually work the outreach programs that try to get them into the appropriate programs. But a lot of the folks that are in those permanent camps are folks with serious drug addiction or mental illness, that prevents them from accepting the assistance that’s available.
It’s a bit different from the shanty towns you see in other parts of the world, in that you don’t generally have generation after generation living in that poverty. The camps in Portland are populated generally by folks who weren’t always homeless.
Why are you comparing your India counterpart to the average American? The whole point is your Indian counterpart is representative of a much, much smaller percentage of the population over there. He/she is on a much higher economic echelon of his society than you are in yours/ours.
I’m still completely lost as to where you’re coming from. The reality is still this: taking some of your wealth and redistributing it would benefit a large, large number of the poor in this world. I very, very much dispute your position that the average American isn’t that different than the average Indian.
Are there homeless in America? Absolutely. But they’re a much smaller percentage of the population than those living in poverty in large swaths of the world.
Is wealth the only factor for life expectancy though? I would imagine US being one of the most obese countries in the 1st world being a significant contributing factor to life expectancy.
ZeTh1
4522
The idea of global income redistribution is not relevant at the moment. One would need an international political union(or some other extraordinary event) long before anything like it could take place. The closest thing to it is the EU, in which richer countries are net contributors compared to the poorer ones. In this case, the Romanian citizens have not become richer at the expense of the Germans despite the fact that Romania receives more than it contributes while Germany receives less than it contributes. What happened was Romania got a bump in its yearly economic growth, which meant more jobs/higher wages for its citizens while Germany sold more cars and machinery, France got more tourists etc. The rich countries also got more workers due to the freedom of movement. A win-win scenario which has some similarities to what the US did through the Marshall Plan.
If you have to hold your breath when you dive in the pool, won’t you die from holding it forever?
No, he is not.
Idk, I was really looking forward to being insulted in support of a profoundly stupid reductio ad absurdiam that might have been interesting if a pretty girl with fishnets on her arms and too much eyeliner was making it to me 20 years ago over clove cigarettes and espresso, but nah, still probably not.
How do you have such a precise vision of my dream date circa high school, bro
I mean, interesting debate and all, but how is any of this about Harvey Weinstein and other related misogynistic assholes?
It started as an offshoot about how to prevent people like the CEO of McDonalds from abusing his position in this way.
Timex
4528
Seems like sending dick pics at work is somewhat independent of salary, and problematic on its own.
Yup. I mean, you never hear of women sending out dick pics at work.
Timex
4530
Which is odd, on some level.
I feel like if I was a woman, and I got sent a pic of some dude’s dick unsolicited, I’d just send it out to everyone and say, “LOL @ this guy’s dick!”
Like, if the CEO of your company sends you a pic of his dick, my natural response would be to forward it to the entire company’s distro list.
