"You all are appalled at this inequality. I'm very curious -- why?"

I have no problem when great wealth is accumulated through just means by offering goods or services that people willingly purchase. But I believe much of this massive concentration of wealth is occurring through unjust means, either through fraud (Wall Street Banksters and the like) or government interference (massively lucrative government contracts secured by nefarious means, competitors regulated and taxed out of existence, using NSA surveillance data to outmaneuver foreign competitors, laws forcing people to buy your product, etc.). It also bothers me that the tax code punishes people who make money by leveraging their capital less than people who make money through selling their labor - why should Barry Soetero and Willard Romney be paying less in taxes as a percentage of income than someone who has a median-wage job? I think this is an easily-overlooked factor (and in fact a major one) in the concentration of wealth at the upper limit of the spectrum. These are the two main things that get my goat, although a few other things bother me as well.

All the sensible people have to agree upon is that wealth should be distributed in a more equitable manner, if you don't think you're getting ripped off where do you think all the money is going you pay in mortgage every month, and who has the right to charge you one third of your salary just for a roof over your head and then kick you out of the house if you fall on hard times due to no fault of your own i.e. being made unemployed or becoming long-term sick or disabled.
Stop blaming the guy in the house next door to you or the unemployed family living on state hand-outs down the road, you can drag them out of social and economic poverty if they had an extra US$60 a week. Take from the Super-Rich and give to the have-nots, crime will fall, general health will improve, people will be happier, growth will increase and the Super-Rich will eventually get their money back, it is a virtuous circle, a win-win-win-win-win situation.

"This pretty much speaks for itself. At 1:05, I get a rude awakening. At 1:41, he starts talking about you. At 2:24, he says a bad word. At 3:50, he kind of breaks my brain. At 4:50, he lets you know how broke you really are. At 5:20, he rubs it in. And at 5:50, he points out that reality isn't close to what we think!"

upworty pls

I'm perplexed at Krellin, Semck & ILN here. Are they really arguing that a middle class is not necessary in the USA because poor Americans are richer than the median Beninese? Talk about red herrings. That's the mother of red herrings.

Santa captured one aspect of 'why' - democratic government has been demonstrated to be inoperable in conditions of extreme wealth disparity. We're seeing the repercussions of that very obviously with the unregulated money in campaigning, and the fact that nobody can get elected to the highest offices in the land without being superrich. Semck, ILN, & Krellin see nothing wrong with a small superrich minority lording over the rest of us.

This is on par with what Pretorian South Africa argued in the 1980s - don't complain about the political and economic inequality of the Bantus, after all, they're better off in South Africa than in Kenya. An absurd argument that is really beneath the intellectual capabilities of Semck & co.

"you can drag them out of social and economic poverty if they had an extra US$60 a week."

You know what happens when you give poor folk an extra $60 a week? The landlord raises the rent about $200 per month. If throwing money at poverty was a real solution, there would be no poverty in the developed world.

There isn't much poverty in most of the developed world. America is a wonderful exception.

"It also bothers me that the tax code punishes people who make money by leveraging their capital less than people who make money through selling their labor - why should Barry Soetero and Willard Romney be paying less in taxes as a percentage of income than someone who has a median-wage job?"
This should be criminal but it isn't ..... but you have the misguided poor who actually defend the rights of these guys to pay less tax as a percentage of income than your struggling 'middle-class'. The term 'Middle-Class' is also divisive because it gives people a false economic status, another way of getting the poor to squabble amongst themselves, the reason why Obama defends these low-rate tax payers is because he is one himself, these guys are all looking out for each other.

"The landlord raises the rent about $200 per month. If throwing money at poverty was a real solution, there would be no poverty in the developed world."

But if we had rent control everywhere we'd get inundated with screams about how we're violating the sanctity of the free contract, laissez-faire laissez-faire laissez-faire!

no, just shortages of available apartments

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...leading to development of new properties, creating jobs while giving landlords an economy of scale?

How horrible!

^^ tongue in cheek, just so you know. I don't have strong opinions about rent control. I think it's more of a band-aid for the real issues.

"It also bothers me that the tax code punishes people who make money by leveraging their capital less than people who make money through selling their labor - why should Barry Soetero and Willard Romney be paying less in taxes as a percentage of income than someone who has a median-wage job?"

When you go to your job, what do you risk (assuming relative workplace safety)? You risk time. Nothing more.

When an investor puts money into investments, what does he risk? He risks *losing* the money with nothing to show. If you take away the incentive to make profit in investing by taxing investments *more* then you reduce investing. Reducing investing is bad for the economy and for business in general. When the investor no longer invests, then companies no longer have capital to grow with and jobs no longer get created form that growth. Like it or not, investing *does* create jobs and *does* improve the life we all live. Take away the motivation and watch us crumble.

Anybody who opposes rent control has never been dicked over by a landlord who jacked up the rent after a lease was up and had to move in a lurch.

The lengths people go to defend privileged bloodsuckers is breathtaking, really.

"When you go to your job, what do you risk (assuming relative workplace safety)? You risk time. Nothing more."

1 - You risk having your kid harmed by a stranger, because they're in childcare instead of under your care.
2 - You risk getting in a car accident on the way to work.
3 - You risk getting sick at work from contact with other people.
4 - You risk your physical health via stress & fatigue
5 - You risk your marriage and social relationships, because you're spending time at work instead of with the people you care about.

The investor risks nothing but money, and does no labor. Labor is important. Without labor all this 'investment' doesn't amount for jack. You need to produce in order to sell goods & services.

"...leading to development of new properties, creating jobs while giving landlords an economy of scale"

ik you said it was tongue-in-cheek but that's the opposite of what happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

broader point is that throwing money at the problem isn't the solution

on the poor end of the spectrum i think education reform is key

not really sure about the rich end

"Anybody who opposes rent control has never been dicked over by a landlord who jacked up the rent after a lease was up and had to move in a lurch."

sure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@PE

"¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

So is this your new schtick?

"2 - You risk getting in a car accident on the way to work.
3 - You risk getting sick at work from contact with other people.
4 - You risk your physical health via stress & fatigue"

We shall call you Howard Hughes for your insane fear of leaving your domicile.

2 & 3 are the same risk for anyone who goes to the mall to shop or has kids In school. 4 is a shared risk with investors stressing over their investments.

That said, I never said labor wasn't important. I said investing is *also* important and we should discourage it by taxing the hell out of the investor. You are a learned individual. Surely you can see that the importance of one has no influence on the importance of the other. It is important we drink water. That doesn't ,mean it isn't important for us to breath air. These are not mutually exclusive antecedents of each other. They can coexist and both have significant value to our economy and our society.

#¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The whole point Tolstoy raised was that people who work for a living shouldn't be taxed more, and in this case quite a bit more, than people who do not work at all and make their money off of dividends. You defended this disparity by saying that people who work do not risk much compared to the investor, as if risk mattered so much more than they (investors) should be taxed so much more than people who work.

So you haven't exactly made it obvious that you think both are equally important.

"4 is a shared risk with investors stressing over their investments."

You've got to be kidding me. Working all day has the same stress load as thinking about investments? You can't believe what you say.

*so much less than people who work

"So is this your new schtick?"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Japanese owner gave me 30 days to
Move out of my apartment because I left a Paul of jeans on the floor when he was showing the place (he showed it nearly 50 times while I lived there). The landlord then told me they planned on showing it 5 times in that span. The first time I emptied the contents of my drawers, closet, and hamper into the the floors of every room.

There was only one showing.

*pair of jeans

"...leading to development of new properties, creating jobs while giving landlords an economy of scale?"

Actually, when you have rent control, you seriously reduce the profitability (and thus, the incentive) to develop new rental properties. The result is that they just don't get built, until the government housing bureaucrats get around to realizing there's a shortage, at which point they start offering "incentives" to developers to develop what they would be developing anyway if there were no rent controls in the first place. The end result is that instead of spending $5M in private capital to build an apartment complex, the same complex gets built with $3M in private capital, $2M of government money, and some backslapping about "public-private partnerships". The end result is that the cost of production is partially socialized and whatever rent-controlled profits are permitted are privatized. I'm sure putin will disagree, but this is not a very efficient way to get things done.

"When you go to your job, what do you risk (assuming relative workplace safety)? You risk time. Nothing more."

"workplace safety" is a pretty huge assumption. Do you really think that your fellow Marines getting shot at/blown up in Afghanistan right now should be paying taxes at a higher rate (and are risking less) than people living off the dividends of their Lockheed, General Dynamics, or Raytheon stocks?

"Actually, when you have rent control, you seriously reduce the profitability (and thus, the incentive) to develop new rental properties."

Somehow I doubt landlords in San Francisco charging $1600 for a 350 sq.ft. apartment are so starving for cash that they need public assistance to establish new rental properties. Anyway your complaint of landlords jacking up rent $200 goes out the window if you're so allergic to regulations of any kind.

@Tolstoy - I enlisted as did they. There is no draft. I knew what I was signing up for. If they didn't then the Marines really have lowered their standards.

So you think Lockheed investors risk more and thus deserve to get paid more than marines who see battle? Semper Fi, indeed.

Guys guys, settle down!

This was supposed to be an agreement thread, dammit!

Like, we all agree (cept Putin, probly) that risk takers and job creaters and such should be rewarded.

I just thought there would be more consistent agreement to my claim that maybe rewarding them 500x as much as the meanest laborer was a bit TOO much skew. I mean, at some point the argument that "they create wealth" becomes irrelevant since they seem to be creating 99% of it for themselves. Doesn't it?

Yikes.

You really think there's ever going to be an agreeable political thread?