Random thoughts and plans for the coming inflation.

[Simpleton]

What processes do you recommend setting up so that everyone has roughly equalish opportunity to learn to fish?

With the caveat that perfect equality of opportunity is not possible, I would say that greater emphasis on education would be the biggest driver of opportunity.

I also think the forms of education kids are getting need to be revamped, and kids need to be given much more information about career paths.

Healthcare does appear to be an issue in the USA - Im not advocating full Canadian style healthcare which has big limits too, but I think I could get behind an argument for greater access in America.

Can you expand what you mean by this?

I think the quality of education is woefully lacking for kids today. The fact that a highschool education essentially qualifies you for nothing, is demonstration enough of how little value the education system is producing currently.

I am not going to pretend that I have an answer on the specifics, only that I don't think the system is working as well as it should.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

That's another great phrase, "Better access for health care."

You don't catch it right away.  It sounds sooo good.

Well - I have access to a  Lamborghini.  It don't mean I and pay for it.

Likewise, there is access to many hospitals, clinics, etc.  The trick is being able to afford said services.  And, that's where the trouble lies.

I can see how you would interpret it that way, but my intent was actually to say that greater subsidies.

We are singing from the same song book here.

I'm not sure why others are wilfully being obtuse as to our points.

Opportunity does not mean 'equal talent' or 'equal chance of success'. All things being equal, a 6'6" male is more likely to become an NBA player than a 5'1" male. As long as both can afford shoes, a ball and court time, they still have equal opportunity, even in the absence of equal career prospects.

I feel like some here are confusing 'equal opportunity' with 'equal chance of success'. Obviously, a world where everyone has the same chance of success (however defined) is not achievable.

[ender]

I think the quality of education is woefully lacking for kids today. The fact that a highschool education essentially qualifies you for nothing, is demonstration enough of how little value the education system is producing currently.

I am not going to pretend that I have an answer on the specifics, only that I don't think the system is working as well as it should.

Well, realistically, all the solutions run contrary to desiring the free market.

Education in the USA is pretty capitalistic, at all levels, K-12 as well as post high school. It's pretty much a direct reflection of overall affluence.

Based on what you've been saying throughout I find it a bit strange you'd lament that educational systems are lacking. Or are you saying you support a significantly more progressive model as applies to funding K-12 education required to open opportunities to students regardless of their parental socioeconomic status (which for the record goes beyond "just" K-12, but we can focus on K-12 here)?

[JLee]

That's another great phrase, "Better access for health care."

You don't catch it right away.  It sounds sooo good.

Well - I have access to a  Lamborghini.  It don't mean I and pay for it.

Likewise, there is access to many hospitals, clinics, etc.  The trick is being able to afford said services.  And, that's where the trouble lies.

I can see how you would interpret it that way, but my intent was actually to say that greater subsidies.

We are singing from the same song book here.

I'm not sure why others are wilfully being obtuse as to our points.

Opportunity does not mean 'equal talent' or 'equal chance of success'. All things being equal, a 6'6" male is more likely to become an NBA player than a 5'1" male. As long as both can afford shoes, a ball and court time, they still have equal opportunity, even in the absence of equal career prospects.

I feel like some here are confusing 'equal opportunity' with 'equal chance of success'. Obviously, a world where everyone has the same chance of success (however defined) is not achievable.

I suspect it's because you're both coming into the discussion from perspectives you have after living in countries that do provide health care and where education is more attainable. Education is abhorrently expensive in the US, as is health care.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

We have both stipulated that there are definite areas of improvement particularly in healthcare.

Also, I don't know if I made it clear previously, but I was mainly educated in the US (before coming to Australia).

The education I got in the US was free, and absolutely peerless. I was learning stuff in 8th/9th grade in the US that was more advanced than anything I learned in Year 11 and Year 12 in Australia. For example we got to do Trig/PreCal in 9th grade in the US. No such opportunity in Australia.

I remember taking the SAT every year from 7th grade onwards, once a year. It was great prep doing the SATs in 7th and 8th grades and learning the stuff ahead of schedule. The education was free too, as was all the testing (I think perhaps the SAT had a nominal charge? I can't remember, but it wasn't that expensive).

The US actually does a lot right in its good school districts - we just need to tax estates more to make sure that every school district allows the same opportunity for free for all students.

[JLee]

We have both stipulated that there are definite areas of improvement particularly in healthcare.

Also, I don't know if I made it clear previously, but I was mainly educated in the US (before coming to Australia).

The education I got in the US was free, and absolutely peerless. I was learning stuff in 8th/9th grade in the US that was more advanced than anything I learned in Year 11 and Year 12 in Australia. For example we got to do Trig/PreCal in 9th grade in the US. No such opportunity in Australia.

I remember taking the SAT every year from 7th grade onwards, once a year. It was great prep doing the SATs in 7th and 8th grades and learning the stuff ahead of schedule. The education was free too, as was all the testing (I think perhaps the SAT had a nominal charge? I can't remember, but it wasn't that expensive).

The US actually does a lot right in its good school districts - we just need to tax estates more to make sure that every school district allows the same opportunity for free for all students.

I could've sworn you were talking about how you got a law degree at no cost - maybe I misremembered. Regardless, nobody is saying that good school districts are bad. What we are saying is that equal opportunity does not exist.

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

[ender]

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

It's important to note that by the college decision time, this decision is more or less cemented based on your socioeconomic status anyways.

This is a post of mine with a lot of research on the topic, all of which points to pre-college education being where the real opportunity loss happens for people born into lower socioeconomic status.

Focusing on the college aspect is important, but realistically a lagging indicator of divergence in opportunity based on family economic status that starts earlier than kindergarten.

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/schooled2lose/ has some fascinating research on this type of thing. For folks interested, the actual study is fascinating.

The tldr of that study is, by the time the "college yes or no?" decision is happening, socioeconomic status (SES) has already dramatically impacted the ability of folks to even attend let alone graduate college.

Effectively, this college vs trades impact on socioeconomic mobility conversation is a red herring consequence of a much larger and systemic issue, namely that the most effective way to end up successful is to be born into a successful family.

Their recommendations (pdf page 46 in the linked study) are pretty obvious on this front. The first three all focus on pre-K-12 education to help provide similar opportunities to those in low SES as those in higher SES receive. The fourth is still focused on high school education but more from a career exploration/prep approach, which at least relates to this topic.

They recommend these because even when people start out in kindergarten with similar academic performance, those in low SES tend to drop relative to high SES throughout K-12. By the time the "college vs trades" conversation comes up, that person in a low SES is already disadvantaged

Going to college isn't going to save someone who grew up in a low SES. The study talks about how much lower odds it is someone from low SES to complete a degree even with the same academic performance as someone from high SES to complete.

There's a lot of research out there on topics like this. The topic of "how to be successful" unfortunately is largely "be born into a successful family" and as long as society continues to focus on the downstream results such as trades vs college, rather than the upstream effects such as opportunities throughout K-12 and even before, it's going to stay that way.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

I got my law degree in Australia.

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

Agreed with the first bit. We really do need to better fund education so that all school districts are viable. As I've said before, an easy shortcut to this would just be to standardise entrance scores based on intra-school rank rather than any other metric. That would mean that even in the meantime, shit schools' students still get a relative advantage since they're only having to be assessed against their socio-economic peers. I know this will never pass, but it's my best idea on how to help education become truly meritocratic.

Believe me, having gone to some "elite" (read: expensive) schools here in Australia, I don't like any system where the rich can pay their way in, and I had enough dumb, but rich fellow students to make me very much miss the US system that was more talent-focussed and more meritocratic.

As for the second bit - accessible affordable college - it depends what you mean by 'accessible'. It should be accessible in the sense that if your SAT scores and grades are good enough, money should never be an obstacle. But I wouldn't say it should be accessible in the sense of everyone wanting a degree getting one. That would just devalue degrees.

[JLee]

I got my law degree in Australia.

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

Agreed with the first bit. We really do need to better fund education so that all school districts are viable. As I've said before, an easy shortcut to this would just be to standardise entrance scores based on intra-school rank rather than any other metric. That would mean that even in the meantime, shit schools' students still get a relative advantage since they're only having to be assessed against their socio-economic peers. I know this will never pass, but it's my best idea on how to help education become truly meritocratic.

Believe me, having gone to some "elite" (read: expensive) schools here in Australia, I don't like any system where the rich can pay their way in, and I had enough dumb, but rich fellow students to make me very much miss the US system that was more talent-focussed and more meritocratic.

As for the second bit - accessible affordable college - it depends what you mean by 'accessible'. It should be accessible in the sense that if your SAT scores and grades are good enough, money should never be an obstacle. But I wouldn't say it should be accessible in the sense of everyone wanting a degree getting one. That would just devalue degrees.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but an educated population is something we should strive for, not something we should artificially limit for some misconstrued sense of capitalistic "value."

The US system is not as talent focused as you claim. How many wealthy children in the US don't end up with a college degree? Money can buy many things, including education and access to it.

It’s certainly more illegal to bribe and swindle your child’s way into USC or Yale by cheating on college-entrance exams or faking athletic prowess. But is it less moral to cheat brazenly like that than it is to donate millions to a target university, or to pay tens of thousands of dollars for preparatory private school each year, or to spend thousands of dollars on test-prep tutors, or to ferry your kids from soccer practice to orchestra lessons to bulk up their profiles as college-worthy? These are but a few common methods for the wealthy to help their children “earn” a place in elite universities. As Shamus Khan, the author of a book on the subject of elite scholastic privilege, put it after the scandal broke, “Rich parents spend millions on their children to make them ‘better’ than others.”

SATs are also mired in racism and assist in maintaining the status quo.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mired-in-racism-and-elitism

Ostensibly, the students who work hardest will earn higher scores, and those scores will give them an upper hand in the college admissions process. This particular narrative neatly aligns with the illusion of America’s meritocratic tradition: Those who work the hardest will reap the greatest benefits, never mind structural inequality. But studies have proven, time and again, that standardized tests are much better at revealing things like household income, race, and level of parental education than they are at predicting the success of students in college classrooms.

https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing

Etc etc etc.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

I do agree that the whole test-prep thing / bribery thing is bullshit. This is why I advocate just assessing students based on their intra-school cohorts. That way all the rich, spoon-fed kids get tested against each other and the poor ghetto kids get tested against each other. Eminently fair. But no one seems to want to vote for such a policy (I assume all the rich parents want to be able to guarantee their kids a fee-paying place at their alma mater).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but an educated population is something we should strive for, not something we should artificially limit for some misconstrued sense of capitalistic "value."

Put crudely, if everyone has a degree from Harvard it no longer has any value. If everyone has a Medicine degree it no longer has any value. Part of the appeal of a college degree is that it should signify "I was in the top 0.1 percentile, good enough to get into Harvard" (or whatever). I don't have ani issue with that exclusivity - I just want to make sure it's the right (read: most talented, NOT richest) students getting in.

If you want to make community college accessible, then sure. But I don't believe private institutions should be required to open their doors to any student who wants an education.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

As to your tangential point about the SATs:

Ostensibly, the students who work hardest will earn higher scores, and those scores will give them an upper hand in the college admissions process. This particular narrative neatly aligns with the illusion of America’s meritocratic tradition: Those who work the hardest will reap the greatest benefits, never mind structural inequality. But studies have proven, time and again, that standardized tests are much better at revealing things like household income, race, and level of parental education than they are at predicting the success of students in college classrooms.

The fact that standardised testing scores correlate with 'structural' factors like parents' education does not mean that they are not meritocratic (it also does not prove they are meritocratic; it goes neither way). For example, if education level correlates with overall academic ability, and if academic ability is heritable, then that would explain the correlation. To again use a crude analogy, the fact that NBA players' children do better at basketball than average children does not mean the NBA is not meritocratic. Parental basketball achievement level correlates with child achievement level but that doesn't mean the system is 'unfair'.

Having said that, I do think there are deep structural inequalities that need to be ironed out. There are structural unfairnesses. The best way to iron out those unfairnesses is through extra funding and intra-school assessment. Don't blame me that rich parents lobby against any of these meritocratic processes. I'm all for them. I wouldn't want my stash putting my child through school!!

P.S. I note that there are many tests of aptitude that are not so culturally biased as the SATs. If required, we could always revert to something like Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices as a supplemental test.

[ender]

Just read the study I linked.

Equal academic ability at early ages results in unequal ability at college age, based on socioeconomic status.

Your NBA example is completely pointless in this conversation.

[jeromedawg]

We have both stipulated that there are definite areas of improvement particularly in healthcare.

Also, I don't know if I made it clear previously, but I was mainly educated in the US (before coming to Australia).

The education I got in the US was free, and absolutely peerless. I was learning stuff in 8th/9th grade in the US that was more advanced than anything I learned in Year 11 and Year 12 in Australia. For example we got to do Trig/PreCal in 9th grade in the US. No such opportunity in Australia.

I remember taking the SAT every year from 7th grade onwards, once a year. It was great prep doing the SATs in 7th and 8th grades and learning the stuff ahead of schedule. The education was free too, as was all the testing (I think perhaps the SAT had a nominal charge? I can't remember, but it wasn't that expensive).

The US actually does a lot right in its good school districts - we just need to tax estates more to make sure that every school district allows the same opportunity for free for all students.

I could've sworn you were talking about how you got a law degree at no cost - maybe I misremembered. Regardless, nobody is saying that good school districts are bad. What we are saying is that equal opportunity does not exist.

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

Speaking of college, isn't that in a pretty similar vein? To take it one step further: obviously, going to Cal/UCLA isn't the same as going to CSU Los Angeles or a local community college. And with this educational background on the resume, aren't most recruiters going to be more inclined to lean towards the candidate from Cal/UCLA? I mean,  sure, the CSULA/local community college person maybe could have the upper hand IF they were to seek out additional experience and education *outside* of their existing classes/coursework. We all know the types who work at FAANG without college degrees. But *what else* did it take to get there, right?

[JLee]

I do agree that the whole test-prep thing / bribery thing is bullshit. This is why I advocate just assessing students based on their intra-school cohorts. That way all the rich, spoon-fed kids get tested against each other and the poor ghetto kids get tested against each other. Eminently fair. But no one seems to want to vote for such a policy (I assume all the rich parents want to be able to guarantee their kids a fee-paying place at their alma mater).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but an educated population is something we should strive for, not something we should artificially limit for some misconstrued sense of capitalistic "value."

Put crudely, if everyone has a degree from Harvard it no longer has any value. If everyone has a Medicine degree it no longer has any value. Part of the appeal of a college degree is that it should signify "I was in the top 0.1 percentile, good enough to get into Harvard" (or whatever). I don't have ani issue with that exclusivity - I just want to make sure it's the right (read: most talented, NOT richest) students getting in.

If you want to make community college accessible, then sure. But I don't believe private institutions should be required to open their doors to any student who wants an education.

The issue here is you’re making an argument using a “should” that does not exist in society.

[Simpleton]

I think the quality of education is woefully lacking for kids today. The fact that a highschool education essentially qualifies you for nothing, is demonstration enough of how little value the education system is producing currently.

I am not going to pretend that I have an answer on the specifics, only that I don't think the system is working as well as it should.

Well, realistically, all the solutions run contrary to desiring the free market.

Education in the USA is pretty capitalistic, at all levels, K-12 as well as post high school. It's pretty much a direct reflection of overall affluence.

Based on what you've been saying throughout I find it a bit strange you'd lament that educational systems are lacking. Or are you saying you support a significantly more progressive model as applies to funding K-12 education required to open opportunities to students regardless of their parental socioeconomic status (which for the record goes beyond "just" K-12, but we can focus on K-12 here)?

I do not think funding is always the only answer; BUT if you could point to me and convince me that more money would make a meaningful difference I think I would be supportive of it. I think beyond money though, the courses which are emphasized could be tweaked substantially.

I do read articles about parents shopping around for schools which leads to some performing very well and others very poorly. I am not sure this is a great way to run institutions that have public funding but to be honest I don't know all of the details of this. This doesn't really exist in Canada.

Regarding post-secondary, I think what is being taught in school is not necessarily reflective of what is demanded by the job market. This is the biggest issue IMO. I think kids need much more guidance when choosing post-secondary options. The fact that so many choose fields with limited career prospects is troubling.

For a whole generation the wisdom we have passed along is for kids to "find something that interests you and make a career out of it!" I think that's a really lazy way of allowing your teenager to make devastating life choices.

[Simpleton]

We have both stipulated that there are definite areas of improvement particularly in healthcare.

Also, I don't know if I made it clear previously, but I was mainly educated in the US (before coming to Australia).

The education I got in the US was free, and absolutely peerless. I was learning stuff in 8th/9th grade in the US that was more advanced than anything I learned in Year 11 and Year 12 in Australia. For example we got to do Trig/PreCal in 9th grade in the US. No such opportunity in Australia.

I remember taking the SAT every year from 7th grade onwards, once a year. It was great prep doing the SATs in 7th and 8th grades and learning the stuff ahead of schedule. The education was free too, as was all the testing (I think perhaps the SAT had a nominal charge? I can't remember, but it wasn't that expensive).

The US actually does a lot right in its good school districts - we just need to tax estates more to make sure that every school district allows the same opportunity for free for all students.

I could've sworn you were talking about how you got a law degree at no cost - maybe I misremembered. Regardless, nobody is saying that good school districts are bad. What we are saying is that equal opportunity does not exist.

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

I agree education and college needs to be accessible. I think how "affordable" it is can be tricky.

Free college is a great way to create incentive for people to waste 4 years of their lives. I have family members who have done this - one of them multiple times. Not free, but heavily subsidized in Canada.

I think it would be difficult to implement because of the politics involved, but if we are going to subsidize college, it would be beneficial to only subsidize in demand fields, or subsidize them to a greater degree (for example engineering, biotech, trades etc right now). Instead I notice a trend where these fields like medicine or law have significantly higher costs associated with them.

[BicycleB]

I got my law degree in Australia.

...

Believe me, having gone to some "elite" (read: expensive) schools here in Australia, I don't like any system where the rich can pay their way in, and I had enough dumb, but rich fellow students to make me very much miss the US system that was more talent-focussed and more meritocratic.

^Interesting info - thanks for sharing.

[Simpleton]

That's another great phrase, "Better access for health care."

You don't catch it right away.  It sounds sooo good.

Well - I have access to a  Lamborghini.  It don't mean I and pay for it.

Likewise, there is access to many hospitals, clinics, etc.  The trick is being able to afford said services.  And, that's where the trouble lies.

I can see how you would interpret it that way, but my intent was actually to say that greater subsidies.

We are singing from the same song book here.

I'm not sure why others are wilfully being obtuse as to our points.

Opportunity does not mean 'equal talent' or 'equal chance of success'. All things being equal, a 6'6" male is more likely to become an NBA player than a 5'1" male. As long as both can afford shoes, a ball and court time, they still have equal opportunity, even in the absence of equal career prospects.

I feel like some here are confusing 'equal opportunity' with 'equal chance of success'. Obviously, a world where everyone has the same chance of success (however defined) is not achievable.

Yes I agree with most of your points as well.

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

You can always find something that wasn't equal and you will always be able to correlate it to the uneven outcome. If you go too far down this road we will be soon be legislating 50% short people in the NBA as per your example.

[JLee]

That's another great phrase, "Better access for health care."

You don't catch it right away.  It sounds sooo good.

Well - I have access to a  Lamborghini.  It don't mean I and pay for it.

Likewise, there is access to many hospitals, clinics, etc.  The trick is being able to afford said services.  And, that's where the trouble lies.

I can see how you would interpret it that way, but my intent was actually to say that greater subsidies.

We are singing from the same song book here.

I'm not sure why others are wilfully being obtuse as to our points.

Opportunity does not mean 'equal talent' or 'equal chance of success'. All things being equal, a 6'6" male is more likely to become an NBA player than a 5'1" male. As long as both can afford shoes, a ball and court time, they still have equal opportunity, even in the absence of equal career prospects.

I feel like some here are confusing 'equal opportunity' with 'equal chance of success'. Obviously, a world where everyone has the same chance of success (however defined) is not achievable.

Yes I agree with most of your points as well.

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

You can always find something that wasn't equal and you will always be able to correlate it to the uneven outcome. If you go too far down this road we will be soon be legislating 50% short people in the NBA as per your example.

How did you come to that conclusion when nobody here has been arguing for equality of outcome as being the goal?

[Michael in ABQ]

We have both stipulated that there are definite areas of improvement particularly in healthcare.

Also, I don't know if I made it clear previously, but I was mainly educated in the US (before coming to Australia).

The education I got in the US was free, and absolutely peerless. I was learning stuff in 8th/9th grade in the US that was more advanced than anything I learned in Year 11 and Year 12 in Australia. For example we got to do Trig/PreCal in 9th grade in the US. No such opportunity in Australia.

I remember taking the SAT every year from 7th grade onwards, once a year. It was great prep doing the SATs in 7th and 8th grades and learning the stuff ahead of schedule. The education was free too, as was all the testing (I think perhaps the SAT had a nominal charge? I can't remember, but it wasn't that expensive).

The US actually does a lot right in its good school districts - we just need to tax estates more to make sure that every school district allows the same opportunity for free for all students.

I could've sworn you were talking about how you got a law degree at no cost - maybe I misremembered. Regardless, nobody is saying that good school districts are bad. What we are saying is that equal opportunity does not exist.

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

You could enforce a nationwide curriculum and mandate the same standards for every teacher, but you'd never have truly equal education opportunity nationwide. One class may have a great teacher and another may have one who is burned out and ready to retire. You might have a class made up of mostly children from stable two-parent households where both have advanced degrees and another class made up of mostly children from single-parent households where that parent has a high school education or less. One school was built a few years ago and another was built 40 years ago.

[JLee]

We have both stipulated that there are definite areas of improvement particularly in healthcare.

Also, I don't know if I made it clear previously, but I was mainly educated in the US (before coming to Australia).

The education I got in the US was free, and absolutely peerless. I was learning stuff in 8th/9th grade in the US that was more advanced than anything I learned in Year 11 and Year 12 in Australia. For example we got to do Trig/PreCal in 9th grade in the US. No such opportunity in Australia.

I remember taking the SAT every year from 7th grade onwards, once a year. It was great prep doing the SATs in 7th and 8th grades and learning the stuff ahead of schedule. The education was free too, as was all the testing (I think perhaps the SAT had a nominal charge? I can't remember, but it wasn't that expensive).

The US actually does a lot right in its good school districts - we just need to tax estates more to make sure that every school district allows the same opportunity for free for all students.

I could've sworn you were talking about how you got a law degree at no cost - maybe I misremembered. Regardless, nobody is saying that good school districts are bad. What we are saying is that equal opportunity does not exist.

If a child in New Mexico can't go to a public school and get the same education as they would get in Massachusetts, we do not have equal education opportunity.  Until we have accessible affordable college, we do not have equal education opportunity.

You could enforce a nationwide curriculum and mandate the same standards for every teacher, but you'd never have truly equal education opportunity nationwide. One class may have a great teacher and another may have one who is burned out and ready to retire. You might have a class made up of mostly children from stable two-parent households where both have advanced degrees and another class made up of mostly children from single-parent households where that parent has a high school education or less. One school was built a few years ago and another was built 40 years ago.

Well yes, that much is obvious - I'm quite sure you still see the point, unless you would like to explain how inner city schools in Detroit provide an equivalent education to those in Massachusetts or New Jersey.

[ysette9]

The challenge is the unequal funding of schools. I suspect few or no other countries have such hyper local and diverging funding for schools. The few countries I am aware of also have national standards and curriculum guidelines so you don’t end up with, for example students in one area getting comprehensive sex education and students in another area being denied information and fed religious-based lies.

[pecunia]

I guess this education thing ties in with the Capitalism.  Kids have a free choice of what major they are to take.  Freedom is a good thing in general, but I'm not so sure those kids are making an enlightened choice.

When I went to engineering school we used to joke about English majors, "Would you like fries with that?"

My father told me to take what I liked.  He told me to take whatever interested me.  My mother grew up on a dirt farm without running water.  She told me to take what you can get a job with.  With the engineering major, I guess I listened to my mom.

For a while I pondered being a history major.  That was a lot of years ago. About a year back I took a tour of an old iron ore boat in Toledo.  It wasn't busy so I talked to the ticket seller.  He was a history major.  He told me work was hard to find for history majors.  He was happy to have his ticket sales job.

A few months previous I checked into a hotel and had a discussion with the clerk behind the desk.  He was a Philosophy major in college.  He didn't finish.  He told me that he had racked up a debt of about $100,000.  He said he would never be able to pay it off.

I bought some health insurance this past week.  The fellow selling it was a biochemistry major.  He graduated, but told me that there are no jobs unless one gets a Masters in his choice of study. So, he is selling insurance.  Another health insurance salesman I talked to (I shop around) had a Physics degree.

I don't know how they guide these kids, but somebody should give them some basic economics before they get too entrenched in something that they will not be able to use. 

So pushing everyone to go to college will be good for one group, colleges.  It will be a money making opportunity for colleges.

Is it the best way to allocate resources?  I'm not just talking about the college professors, administrators and the facilities.  How about the students.  They are a human resource.  It's a resource that I kind of think our capitalist society is wasting.  Many could be paired with better training.  This better training would benefit both our society and these kids, the human resource.

Sorry about my extremely poor grammar in the previous post.  I was trying for an effect and didn't quite make it.

[Michael in ABQ]

The challenge is the unequal funding of schools. I suspect few or no other countries have such hyper local and diverging funding for schools. The few countries I am aware of also have national standards and curriculum guidelines so you don’t end up with, for example students in one area getting comprehensive sex education and students in another area being denied information and fed religious-based lies.

School funding != school performance.

Albuquerque Public Schools range from good to bad and they're all in the same district receiving the same funding per student for all ~80,000 students. Coincidentally, even with substantially higher funding than some other school districts in the state they have worse outcomes.

I know that some areas of the country fund schools different where crossing a street can mean the difference between $10,000 per student and $15,000 per student - but that's not the case everywhere. Districts getting $8,000 per student can outperform districts getting $20,000 per student.

Funding is a factor, but it's not the factor. Is it 20% or 80%? I don't know. I do know that the home life and socioeconomic background is definitely a factor, and probably a greater factor than funding. Kids from stable two-parent households that don't have to worry about their next meal or if mom or dad are going to lose their job (and the house) outperform kids that don't have that situation. It doesn't mean a poor kid from a broken home in a poorly funded school can't succeed, but the odds are certainly worse.

[Simpleton]

I guess this education thing ties in with the Capitalism.  Kids have a free choice of what major they are to take.  Freedom is a good thing in general, but I'm not so sure those kids are making an enlightened choice.

When I went to engineering school we used to joke about English majors, "Would you like fries with that?"

My father told me to take what I liked.  He told me to take whatever interested me.  My mother grew up on a dirt farm without running water.  She told me to take what you can get a job with.  With the engineering major, I guess I listened to my mom.

For a while I pondered being a history major.  That was a lot of years ago. About a year back I took a tour of an old iron ore boat in Toledo.  It wasn't busy so I talked to the ticket seller.  He was a history major.  He told me work was hard to find for history majors.  He was happy to have his ticket sales job.

A few months previous I checked into a hotel and had a discussion with the clerk behind the desk.  He was a Philosophy major in college.  He didn't finish.  He told me that he had racked up a debt of about $100,000.  He said he would never be able to pay it off.

I bought some health insurance this past week.  The fellow selling it was a biochemistry major.  He graduated, but told me that there are no jobs unless one gets a Masters in his choice of study. So, he is selling insurance.  Another health insurance salesman I talked to (I shop around) had a Physics degree.

I don't know how they guide these kids, but somebody should give them some basic economics before they get too entrenched in something that they will not be able to use. 

So pushing everyone to go to college will be good for one group, colleges.  It will be a money making opportunity for colleges.

Is it the best way to allocate resources?  I'm not just talking about the college professors, administrators and the facilities.  How about the students.  They are a human resource.  It's a resource that I kind of think our capitalist society is wasting.  Many could be paired with better training.  This better training would benefit both our society and these kids, the human resource.

Sorry about my extremely poor grammar in the previous post.  I was trying for an effect and didn't quite make it.

Agree 100% with all of this. I had a similar experience where I ended up choosing a field I thought would land me a job, not necessarily the one that interested me the most. I actually switched out of biochemistry when I had the realization I didn't want to end up being your insurance salesman!

The great thing about having a job/income as a priority, is that if you have enough money, you can buy enough free time to pursue what interests you as a hobby.

Don't worry about the grammar, only the English majors care - and we both feel the same way about the choices they make! Lol jk

[Simpleton]

The challenge is the unequal funding of schools. I suspect few or no other countries have such hyper local and diverging funding for schools. The few countries I am aware of also have national standards and curriculum guidelines so you don’t end up with, for example students in one area getting comprehensive sex education and students in another area being denied information and fed religious-based lies.

I am not aware of the specifics of the disparity in funding of public schools in the US, but to the extent it exists, it is a problem in my view.

Schools will never end up being truly equal due to confounding factors such as parents, family situations which are outside the scope of the government. At a minimum, the government should be investing the same number of dollars per child.

[Simpleton]

How did you come to that conclusion when nobody here has been arguing for equality of outcome as being the goal?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

[ender]

How did you come to that conclusion when nobody here has been arguing for equality of outcome as being the goal?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

This is yet another disappointing reduction on your part of an intricate and complex conversation into... a strawman.

[Simpleton]

How did you come to that conclusion when nobody here has been arguing for equality of outcome as being the goal?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

This is yet another disappointing reduction on your part of an intricate and complex conversation into... a strawman.

I disagree with that entirely.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

That IS arguing from the perspective that outcome needs to be similar.

[JLee]

How did you come to that conclusion when nobody here has been arguing for equality of outcome as being the goal?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

This is yet another disappointing reduction on your part of an intricate and complex conversation into... a strawman.

I disagree with that entirely.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

That IS arguing from the perspective that outcome needs to be similar.

You accuse us of saying we are arguing for equal outcomes, and when called out on that, you accuse us of arguing for similar outcomes. Did you seriously just move the goalposts on your strawman?

[ender]

How did you come to that conclusion when nobody here has been arguing for equality of outcome as being the goal?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

This is yet another disappointing reduction on your part of an intricate and complex conversation into... a strawman.

I disagree with that entirely.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

That IS arguing from the perspective that outcome needs to be similar.

To be clear, you see anything that resembles "CEOs are over compensated relative to the average worker" or "CEO wages rising at such a massive % increase relative to low incomes seems problematic" to be an argument that is "CEOs should make equal wages to the average worker?"

I want to make sure I understand this perspective.

This is what you were saying:

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

You can always find something that wasn't equal and you will always be able to correlate it to the uneven outcome. If you go too far down this road we will be soon be legislating 50% short people in the NBA as per your example.

I reread through this whole thread seeing none of this "many posts" you refer to. If you see "equality of outcomes" being the explicit goal it's intentional misreading at best. At this point you are just constructing strawman arguments on top of strawman arguments that boil down to "anyone who thinks that unbridled capitalism results in a system that isn't the best is clearly a socialist who wants CEOs to make what the average minimum wage worker makes."

The fact that you (and Bloop) are so obsessed with this NBA example is just asinine and imo an example you aren't attempting to have this conversation in good faith. The NBA example is a blatant strawman the two of you constructed.

At no point has that even mattered to me (or, presumably anyone here). But your intentionally misrepresentation of the entire thread leads you to this conclusion. Which again, suggests you aren't attempting a conversation in good faith.

You've "won" in your mind because you created an argument no one is making. Congrats.

[Simpleton]

Do you think the trajectories of those two income categories over the last decades is good to project out another 30 years?

Ender, the implication of this post YOU made is that widening income gap is inherently a bad thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I took that to be your position. I do think that is a fair assumption to make given how this is worded and the context it was in.

From that perspective you have already started from the assumption that we want the end result of a smaller gap.

My contention through that line of discussion was that income gap does not matter, only opportunity. As long as the pie is growing and everyone is progressing, the fact that a gap grows does not matter.

[ender]

Ender, the implication of this post YOU made is that widening income gap is inherently a bad thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I took that to be your position. I do think that is a fair assumption to make given how this is worded and the context it was in.

From that perspective you have already started from the assumption that we want the end result of a smaller gap.

My contention through that line of discussion was that income gap does not matter, only opportunity. As long as the pie is growing and everyone is progressing, the fact that a gap grows does not matter.

How does what you just said lead to any of these extreme interpretations:

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

[djadziadax]

I also think people underestimate how much you pay in the USA on incomes that high.

An income of 267k euros translates to about $322k USD. In Germany, almost all taxation is either income/VAT. But in the USA, we have a "lot of misc income taxes other than federal income taxes.

In my state, for a single person making $322k you will pay:

    2.35% medicare (1.45% + 0.9% supplemental)
    35% federal marginal
    9.85% state


This results in... 47.2% marginal tax rate, which is almost exactly what someone in Germany would pay on their income from a marginal perspective."

Gee and they don't get the same value for their money either, I'll bet.  European countries have health care and long vacations and such.  Some don't even have the 40 hour week.

Yeh - the guy making $322,000 should lodge a complaint.

I think you should not translate the salaries from one currency to another. It is expressed in terms of multiple of median salary. We are discussing income taxes, not other taxes so a better comparison can be made.

Also, the German income tax is on all income streams, including investment (cap gains, div., royalties, etc).

Their pension (equivalent to SS contributions) tax (separate from income tax) is 9.3% with an income limit of 82K.
Unemployment insurance 1.2% with an income limit of 82K.
Health insurance 7.3% with income limit of 58K
Long term insurance 1.525%
Real estate transfer tax 3.5 to 6.5%  (when you sale property)

VAT (sales tax) of 20%.

So these extra taxes (apart form the health tax) are somewhat similar but still higher.

My point is that even with the higher tax base, collecting more revenue and paying less for defense, 1 in 5 kids are considered living in poverty.

Seems we still need to figure out how to turn higher and higher taxes into eliminating poverty.

[djadziadax]

Of course those higher German taxes get you free healthcare, and good SS payments but there are still people living barely over the poverty line.

20% of children in Germany live in poverty....

https://www.dw.com/en/1-in-5-children-in-germany-grow-up-in-poverty/a-54260165

I do not know what policy is best, but it is clear even countries with high tax regimes have not succeeded in the quest of eliminating poverty and the issue of the working poor.

Perhaps UBI is the only way to guarantee that income of the poor is closer to the median age than to the poverty line. We have a live experiment now where stimulus money are keeping some people from going back to minimum- and low-paid jobs. UBI will be the ultimate social net, it will be immensely expensive since even in Germany high taxes are not enough to eliminate poverty.

Regarding the article about Kids in Poverty in Germany - I think it's important to point that the authors use a definition of "relative poverty", meaning relative to the rest of the population.
One major definition of relative poverty is a family earning less than 60 % of the average of all households - no matter how much you can buy for those 60% and how well you are otherwise cared for in terms of education, healthcare etc:

The study considered several factors in its analysis of childhood poverty. In addition to looking at families that receive Germany's Hartz IV welfare benefits, researchers also considered children from families whose income is less than 60% of the average of all households, considered to be at-risk of poverty.

By this definition there will ALWAYS be (relative) poverty in any country - unless everyone earns exactly the same e.g. in a communist country. To use two extreme examples, if 100 CEOs lived in a country together, a couple of them would be living in poverty and also if 100 people earning between one and three dollars a day lived in a county together, a lot of them would not be living in poverty.

Now this is not to say that there aren't kids in bad situations in Germany but rather that by the used definition of poverty you cannot really tell how well or bad off people are that are called "poor".

(And as a side that the percentage of kids living in relative poverty cannot decrease unless the income distribution shifted _a lot_ towards a very equal distribution so that per definition there weren't any poor people, or unless people within the definition of relative poverty had less kids than people who are better off.)

It is irrelevant - we always compare how much below the median income in a country is defined as poor. And a lot of rhetoric from all political sides is centered on the definition used in your own country.

[Simpleton]

Ender, the implication of this post YOU made is that widening income gap is inherently a bad thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I took that to be your position. I do think that is a fair assumption to make given how this is worded and the context it was in.

From that perspective you have already started from the assumption that we want the end result of a smaller gap.

My contention through that line of discussion was that income gap does not matter, only opportunity. As long as the pie is growing and everyone is progressing, the fact that a gap grows does not matter.

How does what you just said lead to any of these extreme interpretations:

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

Bolded for emphasis. That is where I think it applies.

Obviously I don't think many are advocating hardcore-completely-equal-communism - but that is the the end of the spectrum and many are arguing to push policy in the direction toward that end.

Perhaps I could have better worded my comment by changing "with the end goal" to "in the direction of"

[JLee]

Ender, the implication of this post YOU made is that widening income gap is inherently a bad thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I took that to be your position. I do think that is a fair assumption to make given how this is worded and the context it was in.

From that perspective you have already started from the assumption that we want the end result of a smaller gap.

My contention through that line of discussion was that income gap does not matter, only opportunity. As long as the pie is growing and everyone is progressing, the fact that a gap grows does not matter.

How does what you just said lead to any of these extreme interpretations:

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

Bolded for emphasis. That is where I think it applies.

Obviously I don't think many are advocating hardcore-completely-equal-communism - but that is the the end of the spectrum and many are arguing to push policy in the direction toward that end.

Perhaps I could have better worded my comment by changing "with the end goal" to "in the direction of"

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes.

...

[GuitarStv]

I may regret entering the discussion on this note, but I have seen @GuitarStv say several times over the years that slavery was a free market. I am astounded by the claim, and that nobody has repudiated this BS. If a transaction has three participants, and one of them (notably the one doing all the work) isn't free, by definition it is not a free market. 2/3≠1.

Agreed with your logic as derived from assumptions.

The problem though, is with your initial conditions.  Specifically that there are three participants in the slave trade.  There are only two participants - slave owner and slave vendor.  The slave him/herself is the commodity, not a participant.  This is consistent with other commodities.  Horses might be sold from one person to another, but the horse isn't considered a participant in the trade.

It is like saying that if two people burglarize my home, and freely agree in advance that one would get the TV and the other get any computers, that it was a free market because they freely agreed to the theft and the government didn't have a law against it. No, it was not a free market, because I did all the labor. It was theft. The government failure wasn't the lack of regulation of the free market, it was lack of illegalization of burglary. The government failure regarding slavery was not the lack of regulation of the free market, it was lack of illegalization of kidnapping, theft, assault, and a hundred other things that could be summed up in the single word "slavery." It was a failure that government didn't force everyone into a free market.

You appear to be using an unusual and non-standard definition of 'free-market'.  The one that I'm using is:
"Free market, an unregulated system of economic exchange, in which taxes, quality controls, quotas, tariffs, and other forms of centralized economic interventions by government either do not exist or are minimal"

There's no mention about perfectly equal and equitable human rights there.  It's purely a statement about government intervention in trade.

Kidnapping, theft, assault . . . these were all on the books as illegal actions against people while the slave trade was going on.  The problem was that the unregulated market saw slaves as commodities.  The United States required the 13th amendment to explicitly prevent this free trade.

The distinction is meaningful. Two salient reasons the South lost the war were first that Gen. Lee had the military mind of a child, and second that the Union had a much stronger industrial base. One of the reasons the south had a weak industrial base is that they did not have a free market. The slave owners and traders had little incentive to innovate or industrialize because they did not work. The slaves had no incentive to innovate because they did not profit and obviously industrialization was out of the question. Even had the South not lost the war, their lack of free market labor made it inevitable that they would have become weak and impoverished by comparison to the North. Within a few more decades the northern states would have become so strongly industrialized that the south would have gone from near equality to the modern equivalent of the "third world," and the economic system of slavery would have been the cause.

It's an interesting theory that the slave trade weakens a place economically through lack of innovation, and one that I suspect has some truth to it.  It's entirely that the south's love of slavery would have led to their downfall at some point.  There exists significant slave trade in many modern states today . . . including the UAE, India, and China.  While I wouldn't call any of them meccas of innovation, they're also not economic weaklings because of the slavery they enjoy.

To summarize, by definition the slave trade was not a free market, because the slaves were not free. (I mean.. obviously... I really can't comprehend why this is not obvious.) Further, this is not just a semantic distinction.

Could you fully define what you believe a 'free market' is?  It doesn't seem to be the commonly used definition - as human rights are not generally mentioned as part of a free market.  This type of definition raises some interesting questions.  For example, does oppression of gay and trans people prevent a market from being free in your eyes?

[Simpleton]

Ender, the implication of this post YOU made is that widening income gap is inherently a bad thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I took that to be your position. I do think that is a fair assumption to make given how this is worded and the context it was in.

From that perspective you have already started from the assumption that we want the end result of a smaller gap.

My contention through that line of discussion was that income gap does not matter, only opportunity. As long as the pie is growing and everyone is progressing, the fact that a gap grows does not matter.

How does what you just said lead to any of these extreme interpretations:

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

Bolded for emphasis. That is where I think it applies.

Obviously I don't think many are advocating hardcore-completely-equal-communism - but that is the the end of the spectrum and many are arguing to push policy in the direction toward that end.

Perhaps I could have better worded my comment by changing "with the end goal" to "in the direction of"

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes.

...

I literally just stepped that comment back in the quote you quoted.

It is pushing toward that extreme... the goal is in that direction.

I think that is the wrong goal altogether.

[JLee]

Ender, the implication of this post YOU made is that widening income gap is inherently a bad thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I took that to be your position. I do think that is a fair assumption to make given how this is worded and the context it was in.

From that perspective you have already started from the assumption that we want the end result of a smaller gap.

My contention through that line of discussion was that income gap does not matter, only opportunity. As long as the pie is growing and everyone is progressing, the fact that a gap grows does not matter.

How does what you just said lead to any of these extreme interpretations:

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

Bolded for emphasis. That is where I think it applies.

Obviously I don't think many are advocating hardcore-completely-equal-communism - but that is the the end of the spectrum and many are arguing to push policy in the direction toward that end.

Perhaps I could have better worded my comment by changing "with the end goal" to "in the direction of"

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes.

...

I literally just stepped that comment back in the quote you quoted.

It is pushing toward that extreme... the goal is in that direction.

I think that is the wrong goal altogether.

"I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope in the direction of always of producing equality of outcomes" still has the same fundamental problem, i.e. nobody is talking about producing equality of outcomes.

You are arguing against a point nobody is making.

[Green_Tea]

Of course those higher German taxes get you free healthcare, and good SS payments but there are still people living barely over the poverty line.

20% of children in Germany live in poverty....

https://www.dw.com/en/1-in-5-children-in-germany-grow-up-in-poverty/a-54260165

I do not know what policy is best, but it is clear even countries with high tax regimes have not succeeded in the quest of eliminating poverty and the issue of the working poor.

Perhaps UBI is the only way to guarantee that income of the poor is closer to the median age than to the poverty line. We have a live experiment now where stimulus money are keeping some people from going back to minimum- and low-paid jobs. UBI will be the ultimate social net, it will be immensely expensive since even in Germany high taxes are not enough to eliminate poverty.

Regarding the article about Kids in Poverty in Germany - I think it's important to point that the authors use a definition of "relative poverty", meaning relative to the rest of the population.
One major definition of relative poverty is a family earning less than 60 % of the average of all households - no matter how much you can buy for those 60% and how well you are otherwise cared for in terms of education, healthcare etc:

The study considered several factors in its analysis of childhood poverty. In addition to looking at families that receive Germany's Hartz IV welfare benefits, researchers also considered children from families whose income is less than 60% of the average of all households, considered to be at-risk of poverty.

By this definition there will ALWAYS be (relative) poverty in any country - unless everyone earns exactly the same e.g. in a communist country. To use two extreme examples, if 100 CEOs lived in a country together, a couple of them would be living in poverty and also if 100 people earning between one and three dollars a day lived in a county together, a lot of them would not be living in poverty.

Now this is not to say that there aren't kids in bad situations in Germany but rather that by the used definition of poverty you cannot really tell how well or bad off people are that are called "poor".

(And as a side that the percentage of kids living in relative poverty cannot decrease unless the income distribution shifted _a lot_ towards a very equal distribution so that per definition there weren't any poor people, or unless people within the definition of relative poverty had less kids than people who are better off.)

It is irrelevant - we always compare how much below the median income in a country is defined as poor. And a lot of rhetoric from all political sides is centered on the definition used in your own country.

Oh but is very relevant to your argumentation pointing out that even though there are a lot of taxes, there are still 20% of kids living in poverty.
The catch is: if you define poverty in relative terms (aka a household making less than 60% the average income), then obviously a lot of kids will always be living in poverty in non-communist countries (see the CEO-example), no matter how well the social system might be eliminating poverty in real terms. The relative definition makes kids living in poverty inevitable as well as making the situation incomparable across different countries (imagine the situation of the relatively poor in Germany vs. in central Africa by the above definition).
 
Now, IDK if you live in Germany, but about your point of taxes not eliminating poverty, keep in mind that all of the kids living in "relative poverty":
- can access the normal healthcare system just like everyone else AND it is absolutely free for the whole family (in numbers: 0 costs)
- childcare is as far as I know free or maybe almost free for low income people
- school, beginning age 6 is for sure absolutely free
- even university is nearly free and kids from low income families qualify for government loans (not for the negligible university costs but for living costs) that are or can be partially forgiven and are at a rate of 0 %.
- food (healthy food too) is amongst the cheapest in Europe.

Also I tried to find out for myself how low this poverty threshold seems to be, if you can provide actual numbers, I'd be happy to know: The average take home pay of a german household (that's after taxes, healthcare, retirement contributions etc.) was after a quick&dirty google 3661 Euros in 2018. 60 % of that is about 2200 Euros which is around the average take home income of a person working full time in Germany in 2020. For reference: a single person on the lowest kind of unemployment has to live on 466 Euros plus cost of housing, which obviously isn't much, but you can see how cheaply you CAN somehow get by in Germany.

Also, the German income tax is on all income streams, including investment (cap gains, div., royalties, etc).

Minor clarification here: investments are not taxed at the income tax level but rather investment gains are free up to 801 Euros per year, everything above is taxed at ca. 25%.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

I don't believe in any amelioration of inequality beyond that needed to:

1. Provide universal basic services and healthcare;

2. Ensure each child has free education and basic stuff to try to surmount shitty parenting, where possible.

Besides that, if a CEO earns a trillion dollars and the workers earn min wage, I'm not bothered.

[Simpleton]

Ender, the implication of this post YOU made is that widening income gap is inherently a bad thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I took that to be your position. I do think that is a fair assumption to make given how this is worded and the context it was in.

From that perspective you have already started from the assumption that we want the end result of a smaller gap.

My contention through that line of discussion was that income gap does not matter, only opportunity. As long as the pie is growing and everyone is progressing, the fact that a gap grows does not matter.

How does what you just said lead to any of these extreme interpretations:

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes. The narrative always seems to start from "well the outcome wasn't equal - so how was someone disadvantaged"?

I think anyone arguing that a CEO makes too much, is arguing a shade of gray of this point.

There were many posts by people discussing wage gap and how wage gap itself was the problem . Numerous posts by numerous people.

Bolded for emphasis. That is where I think it applies.

Obviously I don't think many are advocating hardcore-completely-equal-communism - but that is the the end of the spectrum and many are arguing to push policy in the direction toward that end.

Perhaps I could have better worded my comment by changing "with the end goal" to "in the direction of"

I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope with the end goal always of producing equality of outcomes.

...

I literally just stepped that comment back in the quote you quoted.

It is pushing toward that extreme... the goal is in that direction.

I think that is the wrong goal altogether.

"I think the narrative of the opposing view consistently pushes the envelope in the direction of always of producing equality of outcomes" still has the same fundamental problem, i.e. nobody is talking about producing equality of outcomes.

You are arguing against a point nobody is making.

I disagree with you. Many people are arguing "shades of gray" (the term I used above) of this.

Specifically if you go through the thread you will see many people advocating for:
(a) regulating ceo pay
(b) increasing minimum income
(c) increased unemployment benefits
(d) higher tax rates on the rich

Anyone pushing for more of this stuff is pushing toward a goal of making the outcomes more equal. We do need some of this. I think everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum of how much redistribution we need. Personally I also think we need some taxes and a reasonable safety net, healthcare, good education for kids etc.

My whole point in all of this is that I would much rather the political discussion focus on improving opportunity rather than ameliorating disparity (which I do not think is inherently a bad thing). Less "give me your pizza" and more "lets make more pizzas" to bring back a prior reference.

I fully agree with Bloop Bloop above.

[JLee]

I disagree with you. Many people are arguing "shades of gray" (the term I used above) of this.

Specifically if you go through the thread you will see many people advocating for:
(a) regulating ceo pay
(b) increasing minimum income
(c) increased unemployment benefits
(d) higher tax rates on the rich

Anyone pushing for more of this stuff is pushing toward a goal of making the outcomes more equal.

I think everyone falls somewhere on this spectrum; I think we need taxes and a safety net, healthcare, good education for kids etc.

My whole point in all of this is that I would much rather the political discussion focus on improving opportunity rather than ameliorating disparity (which I do not think is inherently a bad thing). Less "give me your pizza" and more "lets make more pizzas" to bring back a prior reference.

I fully agree with Bloop Bloop above.

Where does this funding come from?

[GuitarStv]

My whole point in all of this is that I would much rather the political discussion focus on improving opportunity rather than ameliorating disparity (which I do not think is inherently a bad thing). Less "give me your pizza" and more "lets make more pizzas" to bring back a prior reference.

I think that both are necessary components to the discussion and that focusing on one or the other to exclusion is a poor path forwards.

Without some of the "we should share pizzas" what happens when more pizzas are made is that a few people get more pizzas then they can eat the the rest don't appreciably change.

Without some of the "let's make more pizzas" what happens is that the people at the top are fine, but those at the bottom are scrabbling over not enough food.

Both kinda suck.

[pecunia]

After reading these comments, I think the inflation won't slam us like it did in the late seventies and early eighties.  Much discussion about slave labor and the pay of CEOs.  There is a large pool of people out there that will take a job and not agitate too much about higher pay as there is an extremely large pool of other folks ready to step in their shoes.  The last inflation was aggravated by the cost of energy being given to large price spikes.  Unions were still about negotiating higher wages for people.  I don't see much to cause the wages to go up except for those with special skill sets.

I wonder how all that extra supply of money will find it's way to the price of corn or soybeans going higher.  I figure the money is not in the hands of the working man.  It's with corporations, banks and the elite. History shows us these folks are pretty stingy with their money.  A war is one possibility of loosening this money and letting it fall down to the rest of us.

[Simpleton]

After reading these comments, I think the inflation won't slam us like it did in the late seventies and early eighties.  Much discussion about slave labor and the pay of CEOs.  There is a large pool of people out there that will take a job and not agitate too much about higher pay as there is an extremely large pool of other folks ready to step in their shoes.  The last inflation was aggravated by the cost of energy being given to large price spikes.  Unions were still about negotiating higher wages for people.  I don't see much to cause the wages to go up except for those with special skill sets.

I wonder how all that extra supply of money will find it's way to the price of corn or soybeans going higher.  I figure the money is not in the hands of the working man.  It's with corporations, banks and the elite. History shows us these folks are pretty stingy with their money.  A war is one possibility of loosening this money and letting it fall down to the rest of us.

Bringing the subject back to the intent of the thread. Thank you!

I do agree it will not be like the 70's. In the 70's OPEC basically suddenly and unexpectedly put a giant siphon on the economy. It hurt everyone.

I think this time around there is just a ton of money floating around now (huge savings rate for the last year, tons of stimulus, business support). Values need to be re-established.

No matter how it shakes out I don't think the overall effect will be as bad as the 1970's in terms of the effect on standard of living.

[ChpBstrd]

There’s also an interesting confluence of events.

1) Texas ice storm shuts down a bunch of chip production, and affects other products like oil too.
2) Suez Canal blockage.
3) Most travel and dining spending is still held back, so people are buying stuff instead of experiences (guess which is more heavily weighted in the inflation numbers)
4) Ongoing port congestion is affecting just in time supply chains
5) Interstate 40 was shut down because a bridge at Memphis broke, driving up transportation costs.
6) Tens of thousands of businesses that laid off people in 2020 are suddenly reversing course and trying to find employees again. Until they get back the levels of trained staffing they had in early 2020, production is less than 100%. This is especially acute at sawmills. But their old employees moved on; unemployment is only 6%.
7) Because of issues #1 and #6, a lot of businesses that could operate at 100% are facing supply chain issues, like automakers.

We all know these specific backlogs will be resolved within a year. Unemployment bonuses will end by Sept.

[Metalcat]

There’s also an interesting confluence of events.

1) Texas ice storm shuts down a bunch of chip production, and affects other products like oil too.
2) Suez Canal blockage.
3) Most travel and dining spending is still held back, so people are buying stuff instead of experiences (guess which is more heavily weighted in the inflation numbers)
4) Ongoing port congestion is affecting just in time supply chains
5) Interstate 40 was shut down because a bridge at Memphis broke, driving up transportation costs.
6) Tens of thousands of businesses that laid off people in 2020 are suddenly reversing course and trying to find employees again. Until they get back the levels of trained staffing they had in early 2020, production is less than 100%. This is especially acute at sawmills. But their old employees moved on; unemployment is only 6%.
7) Because of issues #1 and #6, a lot of businesses that could operate at 100% are facing supply chain issues, like automakers.

We all know these specific backlogs will be resolved within a year. Unemployment bonuses will end by Sept.

But! But! Fear! Chaos!! Everyone's plans are doomed!!!

[ChpBstrd]

There’s also an interesting confluence of events.

1) Texas ice storm shuts down a bunch of chip production, and affects other products like oil too.
2) Suez Canal blockage.
3) Most travel and dining spending is still held back, so people are buying stuff instead of experiences (guess which is more heavily weighted in the inflation numbers)
4) Ongoing port congestion is affecting just in time supply chains
5) Interstate 40 was shut down because a bridge at Memphis broke, driving up transportation costs.
6) Tens of thousands of businesses that laid off people in 2020 are suddenly reversing course and trying to find employees again. Until they get back the levels of trained staffing they had in early 2020, production is less than 100%. This is especially acute at sawmills. But their old employees moved on; unemployment is only 6%.
7) Because of issues #1 and #6, a lot of businesses that could operate at 100% are facing supply chain issues, like automakers.

We all know these specific backlogs will be resolved within a year. Unemployment bonuses will end by Sept.

But! But! Fear! Chaos!! Everyone's plans are doomed!!!

That's true too. Wait until the masses realize they're all going to die someday and have a limited number of SUV-loads to haul back home from the strip malls.