Even if Warren does run and win, I don't see how she or anyone else ever accomplishes anything on economic inequality in the next decade or two. Seems like there's just too many stigmas and obstacles to overcome for it to ever happen in the near future.

Many people still think that trickle down economics works.
Raising taxes seems almost impossible anymore even if it affects very small percentage of the population.
The Senate will probably never have enough liberals in it to push through true progressive economic legislation.
The House will be impossible to win, let alone get enough of a majority to push through progressive economic legislation. This is most definitely not because of gerrymandering.
Every business in this country will lobby against all of this.

TomatoPie wrote:

dajafi wrote:Here's the first thing I've read that suggests Elizabeth Warren might really have a shot: Inequality, Unbelievably, Gets Worse

I (somehow) hadn't previously heard that our taxing and spending policies are the true driver of inequality. If you're going to make an argument about the system failing the majority of the population, that's a pretty killer talking point.

You've misread the charts (or simply misspoken) to think that "our taxing and spending policies are the true driver of inequality." You can argue that our taxing and spending do less to reduce income inequality than does the policy in other nations. But our taxing and spending policies do not exacerbate income inequality.

I like Rattner. Genuine good guy and deep thinker.

Having said that, he bemoans the income gap as though, in and of itself, it's a bad thing. A better question would be how well the folks in the bottom quintile live. And how well the folks in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quintiles live. Compared to folks in them more equallish nations.

I don't offhand know the answer to that.

*bangs head against wall for 5 minutes*

CalvinBall wrote:warren or webb probably couldnt win a general

They have just as good of a chance as Obama did at this time 8 years ago.

TomatoPie wrote:
I like Rattner. Genuine good guy and deep thinker.

globalist lapdog/banker apologist willing to say anything for his next "fixer" gig. Think Jon Gruber on steroids

Having said that, he bemoans the income gap as though, in and of itself, it's a bad thing.

imagine yourself as a 0.01% er explaining how relative inequality is unimportant to a bottom 20%er torching your favorite mansion

SK790 wrote:*bangs head against wall for 5 minutes*

Maybe now you can write an intelligent thought.

thought provoking, as always.

The winking smile face denotes I'm kidding. Although you are free to take offense if it gives you pleasure!

TomatoPie wrote:He spends none of the article comparing our bottom 4 quints to those of the advanced nations of Europe.

Yeah, these European countries are mostly growing slowly. The difference between a 2% growth rate and a 3.5% growth is huge; if two countries were equal, and one grew at 2% and the other at 3.5%, the fast grower would be double the size in under 50 years. That would do a lot to change the comparative outcome of folks at the bottom of each income distribution.

TomatoPie wrote:Having said that, he bemoans the income gap as though, in and of itself, it's a bad thing. A better question would be how well the folks in the bottom quintile live. And how well the folks in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quintiles live. Compared to folks in them more equallish nations.

I don't offhand know the answer to that.

It's been a decade since my minor in Economics, but at that time, the "bottom" earners in the United States (I believe it was the 10th percentile) had effectively the same income as other advanced economies when adjusting for taxes, PPP, etc. The US did have the wealthiest wealthy and upper income earners, so it had a higher income inequality. But, the poor were just as poor in Scandinavia and so forth.

Since all the returns to our growth are accruing to the top 10 percent, doesn't the stronger overall growth in the US (thanks Obama) just mean that almost everyone is somehow getting a smaller slice of a growing pie?

dajafi wrote:Since all the returns to our growth are accruing to the top 10 percent, doesn't the stronger overall growth in the US (thanks Obama) just mean that almost everyone is somehow getting a smaller slice of a growing pie?

More likely, it means the pie is now global - and the dirt poor in Asia are now not quite so poor. Total wealth is up globally; the share going to the US is down.

Going forward, how do you sustain the wealth gap between low-skilled Americans and low-skilled Indonesians? I don't think you can, nor should you want to. Being American is great and all, but that alone doesn't merit a better standard of living by luck of the geography of your birth.

TomatoPie wrote: Being American is great and all, but that alone doesn't merit a better standard of living by luck of the geography of your birth.

Speaking of luck, the solons of the great state of Oklahoma were once giants of Solomonic wisdom - if we're to judge by the curious positions that that state's laws require the combatants in the Harry Hamm divorce case to assume in order to optimize their economic outcomes.

It's somehow plus karma that, to cut his losses, a multi-billionaire must assert in open court that basically he is one inconceivably lucky sonovabitch

TomatoPie wrote:
Going forward, how do you sustain the wealth gap between low-skilled Americans and low-skilled Indonesians? I don't think you can, nor should you want to. Being American is great and all, but that alone doesn't merit a better standard of living by luck of the geography of your birth.

Nobody is saying that, but maybe it should be the obscenely wealthy who should make the sacrifice and not those struggling to get by.

Of course you should want our people to have a higher standard. It's our country.

TomatoPie wrote:

dajafi wrote:Since all the returns to our growth are accruing to the top 10 percent, doesn't the stronger overall growth in the US (thanks Obama) just mean that almost everyone is somehow getting a smaller slice of a growing pie?

More likely, it means the pie is now global - and the dirt poor in Asia are now not quite so poor. Total wealth is up globally; the share going to the US is down.

Going forward, how do you sustain the wealth gap between low-skilled Americans and low-skilled Indonesians? I don't think you can, nor should you want to. Being American is great and all, but that alone doesn't merit a better standard of living by luck of the geography of your birth.

Somehow this strain of thought doesn't seem to take hold on a domestic level, that your parents' wealth should mean nothing to your success in society.

pacino wrote:Of course you should want our people to have a higher standard. It's our country.

Not if you want your yard work done cheaply.

I do my own yard work.

SK790 wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:
Going forward, how do you sustain the wealth gap between low-skilled Americans and low-skilled Indonesians? I don't think you can, nor should you want to. Being American is great and all, but that alone doesn't merit a better standard of living by luck of the geography of your birth.

Nobody is saying that, but maybe it should be the obscenely wealthy who should make the sacrifice and not those struggling to get by.

You could confiscate every penny from the obscenely successful, and it wouldn't make a dent in the bottom quintile's well being

you could confiscate every penny from the koch bros and more than double the amount of food stamps each current recipient receives for an entire year

The usefulness of the confiscation straw man aside, nobody's actually calling for that. The idea is to smartly invest a little more in advancement platforms, so at least being born in the bottom quintile doesn't mean you're stuck there for life. If our income inequality compared to the Euros isn't troubling, maybe the fact that we have less socioeconomic mobility is.

Something that occurred to me last week--and maybe this is obvious to people less immersed in this stuff every day--is that education, which was once a (if not "the") big vehicle of socioeconomic advancement, has become just another barrier. It's now almost impossible to get a good job without advanced educational attainment, and your odds of college enrollment, persistence and completion have a ton to do with the quality of your K-12 schooling, which in turn is mostly determined by where you live. So if you have the bad luck of being born in a lousy school district, you're most likely screwed whatever else you might have going for you personally.