Inequality much worse than most think

[Woodsman]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

You have not successfully defended your statement that "equality under the law" is a convincing principle with a well established premise. Its a slogan with no real meaning.

Is 431 BC "well established" enough for you, gwyn?

"If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition."

Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War.

Honestly, we're actually arguing the merits of isonomy?

[vt]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Dcarrigg said "Let me ask another question: Are you in favor of changing laws to take teacher's pensions away?"

Pensions have been taken away from private industry employees for decades. Private industry employees have lost jobs for decades.

State and local governments have increased budgets much faster than the rate of inflation and population growth for many years.

Why are public workers to be favored over private ones when the people who run these government sectors have mismanaged the revenues and spending they are responsible for?

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

It appears to me you have a distorted outlook on reality and have difficulty understanding characteristics and personalities that result in success. While it's true that relationships as well as physical appearance can facilitate success to imply that this is the sole reason for most peoples success is preposterous. And to say that most people can easily be interchanged among jobs is hopelessly myopic.

It seems that your outlook on success ignores the fact that intelligence, experience, aggressiveness and varying personalities suited for different types of roles play major roles in success rather than opportunity. The reasons and mechanisms for success vary from industry to industry but I would say in most industries aggressiveness and intelligence play a major factor. In fact I argue aggressiveness / perseverance is far more important than intelligence in most industries and really opportunity has almost no bearing. Furthermore your belief that most people are of roughly equal intelligence that outlook is quite off base and seems to indicate you simply haven't worked with a large cross section of the workforce.

Aggressiveness and intelligence create success. Luck an opportunity play a small role, but nowhere near what you claim.

First I never said that everyone is of equal intelligence. Obviously this is not true at all.

What I said was the average employee can be made into a high level director/manager and do no worse than the star employee. I put in the caveat of technical positions, doctors, nuclear engineers etc.

Obviously not everyone would succeed at the position.

I know the exact characteristics and personalities that result in success and I can tell you that the last 30+ years "success" in finance has been at least 50% luck, 40% opportunity. What I mean by luck is 30 years of falling interest rates. Opportunity came from entering the workforce in 1980 at age 22 and enjoying the fruits of process's out of their control.

The same cannot be said of someone entering the workforce today.

Almost anyone can be an oil field service worker earning good pay if they are taught how to do it. The problem is in the workforce people are no longer mentored or taught.

The same is true of an equity research analyst. I bet any economic, finance, business, accounting major can be an equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs if they were put through their 6 week training course and "given the opportunity" to do it. But guess what, if you went to University of North Texas the probablity that you could work at GS is less than 5%.

Genius is falling interest rates or a rising stock market.

“Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan (1651) that “Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and instrumental: for these are all the causes they perceive.”

The problem here is you do not know me. Almost everyone would describe me as Aggressive-Aggressive on any scale and when I have been tested for personality tests in college and work I score in the category where only 6% of the population scores (in other words the dominant aggressive types).

Obviously you have to do some work to get ahead but I know many just placed into positions. My direct boss for example. His mother is the VP of my firm and he came here 8 years ago as an analyst. After 1 year he was suddenly promoted to "director of research."

Did he earn the position? No he did not.

We just take two different outlooks on life and reality. I believe your outcome on reality is skewed as you do mine.

As Bill Gross at PIMCO said:

"Having benefited enormously via the leveraging of capital since the beginning of my career and having shared a decreasing percentage of my income thanks to Presidents Reagan and Bush 43 via lower government taxes, I now find my intellectual leanings shifting to the plight of labor. I often tell my wife Sue it’s probably a Kennedy-esque type of phenomenon. Having gotten rich at the expense of labor, the guilt sets in and I begin to feel sorry for the less well-off, writing very public Investment Outlooks that “dis” the success that provided me the soapbox in the first place. If your immediate reaction is to nod up and down, then give yourself some points in this intellectual tête-à-tête. Still, I would ask the Scrooge McDucks of the world who so vehemently criticize what they consider to be counterproductive, even crippling taxation of the wealthy in the midst of historically high corporate profits and personal income, to consider this: Instead of approaching the tax reform argument from the standpoint of what an enormous percentage of the overall income taxes the top 1% pay, consider how much of the national income you’ve been privileged to make. In the United States, the share of total pre-tax income accruing to the top 1% has more than doubled from 10% in the 1970s to 20% today. Admit that you, and I and others in the magnificent “1%” grew up in a gilded age of credit, where those who borrowed money or charged fees on expanding financial assets had a much better chance of making it to the big tent than those who used their hands for a living. Yes I know many of you money people worked hard as did I, and you survived and prospered where others did not. A fair economic system should always allow for an opportunity to succeed. Congratulations. Smoke that cigar, enjoy that Chateau Lafite 1989. But (mostly you guys) acknowledge your good fortune at having been born in the ‘40s, ‘50s or ‘60s, entering the male-dominated workforce 25 years later, and having had the privilege of riding a credit wave and a credit boom for the past three decades. You did not, as President Obama averred, “build that,” you did not create that wave. You rode it. And now it’s time to kick out and share some of your good fortune by paying higher taxes or reforming them to favor economic growth and labor, as opposed to corporate profits and individual gazillions. You’ll still be able to attend those charity galas and demonstrate your benevolence and philanthropic character to your admiring public. You’ll just have to write a little bit smaller check. Scrooge McDuck would complain but then he’s swimming in it, and can afford to duck paddle to a shallower end for a while. If you’re in the privileged 1%, you should be paddling right alongside and willing to support higher taxes on carried interest, and certainly capital gains readjusted to existing marginal income tax rates. Stanley Druckenmiller and Warren Buffett have recently advocated similar proposals. The era of taxing “capital” at lower rates than “labor” should now end. "

http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pag...e-McDucks.aspx

AND as Mark Twain said:

“It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.” – Mark Twain

Most people did not "get there" and make all this money based off of skill and intellect. If that were true the world would be run by the genius's which it never has been. Tesla would have died as one of the richest men on earth instead of penniless talking to pigeons in his hotel room.

Yes some people got ahead due to hardwork or aggressiveness (whatever that means) but a large part of their success can be attributed to being in the right place at the right time.

If Steve Jobs was born in 1988 well he wouldnt be Jobs because the luck and opportunity to get into the computer/software industry occurred in the 1970s early 80s.

I think you are not looking at the entire picture, the whole picture is missing from your viewpoint.

Perhaps you should watch the movie Searching for Sugarman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Sugar_Man

[dcarrigg]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Is 431 BC "well established" enough for you, gwyn?


Honestly, we're actually arguing the merits of isonomy?

Shouldn't be too surprising. The equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment is the classic American legal sentence separating Rawlsians from Nozickians. It has been hotly debated since reconstruction. And it was an issue before then too.

nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[vinoveri]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

+1 for you too. I too see this connection. For some the abstract concept of a marketplace has replaced God entirely. The cult of Mammon looms large. The Social Gospel is all but dead as an idea and a movement. In its place are a bunch of atheistic novellas about childless worlds with lead characters that are heroic insofar as they practice a perverse form of satanism. Social Darwinism is neither a Christian, nor an American ideal. And it pains me to see otherwise patriotic folk walking down that dark path and publicly preaching it.

Man, that is one weird website. I can't tell if it's for real or some sort of parody - like advance dungeons and dragons or something - creepy

[jr429]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

First I never said that everyone is of equal intelligence. Obviously this is not true at all.

What I said was the average employee can be made into a high level director/manager and do no worse than the star employee. I put in the caveat of technical positions, doctors, nuclear engineers etc.

Obviously not everyone would succeed at the position.

I know the exact characteristics and personalities that result in success and I can tell you that the last 30+ years "success" in finance has been at least 50% luck, 40% opportunity. What I mean by luck is 30 years of falling interest rates. Opportunity came from entering the workforce in 1980 at age 22 and enjoying the fruits of process's out of their control.

The same cannot be said of someone entering the workforce today.

Almost anyone can be an oil field service worker earning good pay if they are taught how to do it. The problem is in the workforce people are no longer mentored or taught.

The same is true of an equity research analyst. I bet any economic, finance, business, accounting major can be an equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs if they were put through their 6 week training course and "given the opportunity" to do it. But guess what, if you went to University of North Texas the probablity that you could work at GS is less than 5%.

Genius is falling interest rates or a rising stock market.

“Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan (1651) that “Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and instrumental: for these are all the causes they perceive.”

The problem here is you do not know me. Almost everyone would describe me as Aggressive-Aggressive on any scale and when I have been tested for personality tests in college and work I score in the category where only 6% of the population scores (in other words the dominant aggressive types).

Obviously you have to do some work to get ahead but I know many just placed into positions. My direct boss for example. His mother is the VP of my firm and he came here 8 years ago as an analyst. After 1 year he was suddenly promoted to "director of research."

Did he earn the position? No he did not.

We just take two different outlooks on life and reality. I believe your outcome on reality is skewed as you do mine.

As Bill Gross at PIMCO said:

"Having benefited enormously via the leveraging of capital since the beginning of my career and having shared a decreasing percentage of my income thanks to Presidents Reagan and Bush 43 via lower government taxes, I now find my intellectual leanings shifting to the plight of labor. I often tell my wife Sue it’s probably a Kennedy-esque type of phenomenon. Having gotten rich at the expense of labor, the guilt sets in and I begin to feel sorry for the less well-off, writing very public Investment Outlooks that “dis” the success that provided me the soapbox in the first place. If your immediate reaction is to nod up and down, then give yourself some points in this intellectual tête-à-tête. Still, I would ask the Scrooge McDucks of the world who so vehemently criticize what they consider to be counterproductive, even crippling taxation of the wealthy in the midst of historically high corporate profits and personal income, to consider this: Instead of approaching the tax reform argument from the standpoint of what an enormous percentage of the overall income taxes the top 1% pay, consider how much of the national income you’ve been privileged to make. In the United States, the share of total pre-tax income accruing to the top 1% has more than doubled from 10% in the 1970s to 20% today. Admit that you, and I and others in the magnificent “1%” grew up in a gilded age of credit, where those who borrowed money or charged fees on expanding financial assets had a much better chance of making it to the big tent than those who used their hands for a living. Yes I know many of you money people worked hard as did I, and you survived and prospered where others did not. A fair economic system should always allow for an opportunity to succeed. Congratulations. Smoke that cigar, enjoy that Chateau Lafite 1989. But (mostly you guys) acknowledge your good fortune at having been born in the ‘40s, ‘50s or ‘60s, entering the male-dominated workforce 25 years later, and having had the privilege of riding a credit wave and a credit boom for the past three decades. You did not, as President Obama averred, “build that,” you did not create that wave. You rode it. And now it’s time to kick out and share some of your good fortune by paying higher taxes or reforming them to favor economic growth and labor, as opposed to corporate profits and individual gazillions. You’ll still be able to attend those charity galas and demonstrate your benevolence and philanthropic character to your admiring public. You’ll just have to write a little bit smaller check. Scrooge McDuck would complain but then he’s swimming in it, and can afford to duck paddle to a shallower end for a while. If you’re in the privileged 1%, you should be paddling right alongside and willing to support higher taxes on carried interest, and certainly capital gains readjusted to existing marginal income tax rates. Stanley Druckenmiller and Warren Buffett have recently advocated similar proposals. The era of taxing “capital” at lower rates than “labor” should now end. "

http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pag...e-McDucks.aspx

AND as Mark Twain said:

“It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.” – Mark Twain

Most people did not "get there" and make all this money based off of skill and intellect. If that were true the world would be run by the genius's which it never has been. Tesla would have died as one of the richest men on earth instead of penniless talking to pigeons in his hotel room.

Yes some people got ahead due to hardwork or aggressiveness (whatever that means) but a large part of their success can be attributed to being in the right place at the right time.

If Steve Jobs was born in 1988 well he wouldnt be Jobs because the luck and opportunity to get into the computer/software industry occurred in the 1970s early 80s.

I think you are not looking at the entire picture, the whole picture is missing from your viewpoint.

Perhaps you should watch the movie Searching for Sugarman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Sugar_Man

To answer your previous question all the bankers I know range from late 20's to early 40's, mostly in their 30's.

What is an "average" employee to you? Me personally I don't know what an average employee is even though I have lots of them. Everyone brings different skillsets to the table. For example at my organization my lowest level guys are shippers and my requirements for them are that they are honest, move very quickly on their feet, and have good attention to detail. Someone that does not move quickly and has no attention to detail cannot succeed in that role. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have someone like my bro-in-law. He's a genius, aced EECS at Berkeley scored 99% on the gmat without studying 96% on lsat without studying, can hard code a complex scripted webpage in notepad in hours but you try to put him in an operations role and I guarantee you something bad will happen at your organization in the not too distant future. Operations and organization is not his strength. But he's an "ace" employee somewhere. Now if you, an obviously intelligent person, were placed in his role would you be able to perform as well? Even without knowing you I can almost guarantee that you cannot.

In my opinion there's no "average" employee, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and at an organization when employees are tasked to operate at a very high level these strengths and weaknesses become apparent. Can strengths and weaknesses be tuned over time? Certainly - but it takes a long time.

For every example you bring up of being in the right place at the right time I can bring up a counter example of those who have created their own opportunities through goal-oriented perseverance. There's always opportunity in a landscape that is constantly changing.

BTW if you haven't figured it out Bill Gross is talking his book. The Newport beach environment is changing a little and Gross is smart enough to play both sides.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Man, that is one weird website. I can't tell if it's for real or some sort of parody - like advance dungeons and dragons or something - creepy

Oh no, it's a real thing. And from what I hear it's doing pretty well recruiting members in certain prisons. In fact, I remember when the started recognizing it.

[jr429]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

You will describe them below. What is the difference between hard work and a hard working parasite? Parasites are part of the barrier.



Good bank robbers have a similar skill set. Carl Gugasian, The Friday Night bank robber was likely more than a match. He had intelligence and agression.
My question is what good does it do me to let him rob banks?





But not necessarily any thing that could be considered progress.

So your belief is that the banking system is a parasitic drag on society? Not sure where you're going with this.

[Rajiv]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

I think you really should read - How to commit fraud and get away with it: A Guide for CEOs

Shorter Version

A strategy to maximise bonuses and avoid personal culpability:

Don’t commit the fraud yourself.
Minimise information received about the actions of your employees.
Control employees through automated, algorithmic systems based on plausible metrics like Value at Risk.
Pay high bonuses to employees linked to “stretch” revenue/profit targets.
Fire employees when targets are not met.
…..Wait.

This goes all the up and down the food chain. The winners - the people you are praising and toasting. The losers - the society at large.

Being smart does not mean being ethical and being praiseworthy.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Is 431 BC "well established" enough for you, gwyn?

Nope, because that is not "equality under the law". That is a premable that defines its meaning which is exactly what I was asking from from DSpencer. I more or less offered that this country held to that of Locke and Smith. If the law is the same ,and the preamble changes, the law changes.

And here is an equally ancient, Ionian rebuttal.


"Now I am disposed to give preludes to laws, dividing them into two parts—one containing the despotic command, which I described under the image of the slave doctor—the other the persuasive part, which I term the preamble. The legislator should give preludes or preambles to his laws. 'That shall be the way in my colony.' "

Laws by Plato.

Then we know an equal what from an unequal what and what should or should not be "equal"

Honestly, we're actually arguing the merits of isonomy?

I am merely defending the idea that what is considered "equal" in no way even resembles our own historical precedent, unless that is one is a British Royalist loyal to King George.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

So your belief is that the banking system is a parasitic drag on society? Not sure where you're going with this.

Um isnt that one of the key understandings behind the FIRE economy and iTulip? That the current form of finance whose number 1 export is debt drags down society and enriches the 1% who own the means to capital?

Our entire economy is set up for rent seeking interests instead of for Production and consumption.

JR read this from Michael Hudson: http://www.worldeconomicsassociation...1-No1-full.pdf

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Shouldn't be too surprising. The equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment is the classic American legal sentence separating Rawlsians from Nozickians. It has been hotly debated since reconstruction. And it was an issue before then too.

And back sliding into idealism and ontological arguments. As a self identified pragmatist, I tend to point out inconsistencies rather than declare my loyalty to one or the other. For example if someone says the goal is to get a man to the moon or increase safety measured by some metric like quarts of blood spilled or fatalities , then I can begin to define real truths and decide whether I would become a member of the tribe. On the other hand I could become a slave of a utilitarian justified because slavery "advances civilization" , or just as easily with another with the opposite ideals because I serve the best end in itself to a self aware "glorified individualist".

[jr429]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Um isnt that one of the key understandings behind the FIRE economy and iTulip? That the current form of finance whose number 1 export is debt drags down society and enriches the 1% who own the means to capital?

Our entire economy is set up for rent seeking interests instead of for Production and consumption.

JR read this from Michael Hudson: http://www.worldeconomicsassociation...1-No1-full.pdf

To lump the entire banking system with the FIRE institutions is flawed thinking.

[Woodsman]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

POZ has nearly 2500 posts where his thinking - sometimes flawed, often flawless - has been put to the test and subject to scrutiny. Respectfully, you have less than 30 and are an unknown entity as yet. And there is so much to learn.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

To answer your previous question all the bankers I know range from late 20's to early 40's, mostly in their 30's.

What is an "average" employee to you? Me personally I don't know what an average employee is even though I have lots of them. Everyone brings different skillsets to the table. For example at my organization my lowest level guys are shippers and my requirements for them are that they are honest, move very quickly on their feet, and have good attention to detail. Someone that does not move quickly and has no attention to detail cannot succeed in that role. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have someone like my bro-in-law. He's a genius, aced EECS at Berkeley scored 99% on the gmat without studying 96% on lsat without studying, can hard code a complex scripted webpage in notepad in hours but you try to put him in an operations role and I guarantee you something bad will happen at your organization in the not too distant future. Operations and organization is not his strength. But he's an "ace" employee somewhere. Now if you, an obviously intelligent person, were placed in his role would you be able to perform as well? Even without knowing you I can almost guarantee that you cannot.

In my opinion there's no "average" employee, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and at an organization when employees are tasked to operate at a very high level these strengths and weaknesses become apparent. Can strengths and weaknesses be tuned over time? Certainly - but it takes a long time.

For every example you bring up of being in the right place at the right time I can bring up a counter example of those who have created their own opportunities through goal-oriented perseverance. There's always opportunity in a landscape that is constantly changing.

BTW if you haven't figured it out Bill Gross is talking his book. The Newport beach environment is changing a little and Gross is smart enough to play both sides.

Ah I see, you own a business. That is where your world life view is coming from.

I have no doubt you worked hard to start and run your business.

My father too owns a business, a small time property developer.

He started in 1983, the year of my birth and also the best year to start in any business related to credit or construction.

My father works extremely hard and has all his life. Over the years he never grew his company that big. He always had 1 reliable carpenter and 2 more than would come and go etc throughout the year.

He would build 2 to 4 houses a year and that was enough for him. He never wanted to grow his small business into a large company like Pulte homes. Just build enough each year to sustain his living standards. He rarely took any vacations and has very little hobbies outside of work.

When I mean work he actually did all the work the carpenters did (not this business of only providing the capital and hiring other people to do the actual work).

From framing the house to buying his own equipment that he used to eventually do all the excavating and foundation work himself which included building the roads for his development community, laying the cables down etc.

He never had anything more than his work truck (which he would change out every 4 years and never bought on credit, cash or lease) and a car for his wife, usually a cadilac until recently when GM took away their lease program due to 2008 where he changed to a E class mercedes, a decent car.

His house he lives in he built in 1992 himself.

He barely graduated high school yet draws up all the plans for the houses (the drafting work) with no formal education in engineering and is not particularly good at mathematics. He designs all his own houses for custom build.

I suspect most people can do this if given the opportunity at a job but again no one is willing to teach anymore.

Now through no fault of his own (even being prudent for the better part of 25 years and never over building once in a his life) my father was left after 2008 with not being able to sell his houses and not being able to build anymore because no one was buying.

He waited from the end of 2008 to 2012 before even doing anymore work and selling a house. Now imagine if you had to forego your income for 4 years in your mid-50s.

What do you say to him? A man who has done everything the "hardwork" way the "right" way "the prudent way" never going into debt, never over building and virtually living the all american life from his fathers generation?

A man who can no longer change his stripes and do something different, an expert in constructing a house but in nothing else. What is he supposed to do?

My experiences adn thought process are rooted in realism and reality not in this make believe world that you seem to live in.

The actions of the power brokers, obtuse economists and politicians (by enriching themselves at the expense of the economy and pushing everyone into debt serfdom) almost destroyed my fathers life through no act of his own even after doing what you and the others are saying on this forum:

Hardwork!, Bootstrap! you can work your way up! Aggressiveness and intelligent gets you ahead!

My father too believes in those principles and look where it has gotten him.

As I sit here today I know for a fact the words coming from those principles are hollow rooted in an idealogy promoted by the powers that be to "control" the process and usurp most of the gains and productivity in the economy for the past 30+ years.

A cruel trick that was foisted on the people.

It will not happen to me.