>> Not exactly the huge disparity you describe.
>
> 3*15 = 45
>
> 3*60 = 180
>
> The gap is the important thing, not the factor.

That doesn't make any sense, to keep the gap the same the poorest 20% 
would need a far higher rate of income growth than the richest 20%. 
Eventually, in a few decades, if the gap is kept at say $45k, the 
richest will need to be earning $1m or whatever and the poorest $0.95m.

> The initial gap is what
> makes the disparity that much larger,

Go back far enough the presumably the gap gets almost to zero dollars?

> and as I said, when you compare the
> numbers to the rate of inflation, the story gets much worse for those in
> the lower 20th percentile of income.

Those figures already take into account inflation, as they are all based 
on the value of USD in 2007.

Post a reply to this message

> Between 1967 and 2003 here in the US, according to the US Census Bureau,
> people in the bottom 20% of incomes have seen their incomes raise an
> average of 28.4%. ($14,002 at the start and $17,984 in 2003)
>
> At the same time, people in the 95th percentile have seen their average
> incomes go up by about 78%. ($88,678 in '67, $154,120 in '03).

I was looking at figures globally, not just for one country. There must 
be reasons why the USA increases for the bottom 20% have not kept up 
with the global trend.

> I'm talking in the US, and those values don't appear to take inflation
> into account, it seems.

They all take inflation into account.

 > But those graphs also don't provide sources for
> their data, so they don't seem to be particularly useful.  I can create a
> graph that tells whatever story I want if I don't tell you the source of
> the data.

You can try googling "global income distribution", the answers are all 
the same.

Try pages 34 and 35 (pages 35 and 36 in the PDF) of this report.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/globalincometrends.pdf

The table "Income growth by decile" holds the key data. Essentially the 
low-mid earners have seen the largest growth, with the very lowest and 
high earners seeing lower growth (but still significantly positive). The 
only real negative growth (in real terms) was for those in the 75-85 
percentile from 1990-2000. In the same period the bottom 10% saw 12% growth.

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 16:50:37 +0100, scott wrote:

>>> Not exactly the huge disparity you describe.
>>
>> 3*15 = 45
>>
>> 3*60 = 180
>>
>> The gap is the important thing, not the factor.
> 
> That doesn't make any sense, to keep the gap the same the poorest 20%
> would need a far higher rate of income growth than the richest 20%.
> Eventually, in a few decades, if the gap is kept at say $45k, the
> richest will need to be earning $1m or whatever and the poorest $0.95m.

Sure it does:

45 - 15 = 30

180 - 60 = 120

120 > 30

The factor isn't the important thing, the disparity is the important 
thing.

Both groups are subject to the same 600% inflation.  Those who now make 
$120K more than they did at the start of the period are far better off 
than those who only make $30K more, especially when both groups have 
similar fixed costs (the cost of a gallon of milk is not dependent on the 
purchaser's income - if I make $6K/year, I pay $4.50 for that gallon of 
milk, the same as someone who makes $100,000/year).

The base fixed costs are the same.

>> The initial gap is what makes the disparity that much larger,
> 
> Go back far enough the presumably the gap gets almost to zero dollars?

I never claimed that.

>> and as I said, when you compare the numbers to the rate of inflation,
>> the story gets much worse for those in the lower 20th percentile of
>> income.
> 
> Those figures already take into account inflation, as they are all based
> on the value of USD in 2007.

Citation?

Jim

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On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 17:16:45 +0100, scott wrote:

>> Between 1967 and 2003 here in the US, according to the US Census
>> Bureau, people in the bottom 20% of incomes have seen their incomes
>> raise an average of 28.4%. ($14,002 at the start and $17,984 in 2003)
>>
>> At the same time, people in the 95th percentile have seen their average
>> incomes go up by about 78%. ($88,678 in '67, $154,120 in '03).
> 
> I was looking at figures globally, not just for one country. There must
> be reasons why the USA increases for the bottom 20% have not kept up
> with the global trend.

If I'm not mistaken, Patrick was talking about US numbers, so the 
comparison started out with an apples/oranges basis to start with.

>> I'm talking in the US, and those values don't appear to take inflation
>> into account, it seems.
> 
> They all take inflation into account.

All I saw were graphs in your citations, no notes on the data behind 
those, so I'll have to ask for links to those data sources.

>  > But those graphs also don't provide sources for
>> their data, so they don't seem to be particularly useful.  I can create
>> a graph that tells whatever story I want if I don't tell you the source
>> of the data.
> 
> You can try googling "global income distribution", the answers are all
> the same.

I want to know specifically what you're citing. :)

> Try pages 34 and 35 (pages 35 and 36 in the PDF) of this report.
> 
> http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/globalincometrends.pdf

Thank you.  I'll look at it when I have a few minutes.

> The table "Income growth by decile" holds the key data. Essentially the
> low-mid earners have seen the largest growth, with the very lowest and
> high earners seeing lower growth (but still significantly positive). The
> only real negative growth (in real terms) was for those in the 75-85
> percentile from 1990-2000. In the same period the bottom 10% saw 12%
> growth.

Again, though, growth factors are not the same as widening gaps in income 
disparity.  Someone who made $250K back in 1990 who makes $500K now has 
not had to deal with being part of the lower income class.  They've not 
had to make decisions between health care, food, housing, and clothes.

Someone who made $6,000 back then and makes even $20,000 now does have to 
evaluate those kinds of decisions, because they're below the poverty line.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 06/08/2013 8:32 AM, scott wrote:
>
> Any evidence for that comment? Even in the last 40 years the poor have
> not been getting poorer:

You have to remember that poverty is relative. Coming up for 200 years 
ago during the Irish famine. If you were one of the poor, having a metal 
spoon was a luxury. Now if you have not got Sky or cable you are 
deprived. I did not have a colour TV until the 1980's and no one thought 
that was poverty. Although we have had colour transmission since the 
late 70's.
As someone who has live through 40 years in the UK and then some. I 
think that you are misguided, if not just plain wrong. No matter what 
figures people come up with.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 8/6/2013 11:01 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 17:16:45 +0100, scott wrote:
>
>>> Between 1967 and 2003 here in the US, according to the US Census
>>> Bureau, people in the bottom 20% of incomes have seen their incomes
>>> raise an average of 28.4%. ($14,002 at the start and $17,984 in 2003)
>>>
>>> At the same time, people in the 95th percentile have seen their average
>>> incomes go up by about 78%. ($88,678 in '67, $154,120 in '03).
>>
>> I was looking at figures globally, not just for one country. There must
>> be reasons why the USA increases for the bottom 20% have not kept up
>> with the global trend.
>
> If I'm not mistaken, Patrick was talking about US numbers, so the
> comparison started out with an apples/oranges basis to start with.
>
Yes, in fact, I was, given the rather simple fact that, for me, its kind 
of irrelevant if someone in African can buy two sandwiches, when people 
in the US might not, by the same token, be able, without government 
help, to buy just the bread itself, never mind anything else in the 
sandwich, while working 50+ hours a week, and at two jobs.

And, there are several reasons, but one "big" one is the current 
"economic theory" supported buy US lunitarian movement.

US "libertarians" are not like those every place else. The best 
descriptions for their philosophy I have seen are -

On government help: The government is too big, and doesn't help

On worker wages: They can always find a job with more pay, even though 
90% of all jobs are not "service" in the US, and they all pay minimum 
wage (this isn't even necessary, since they ran the numbers, and fast 
food places could pass on 100% of the difference to the customer, at a 
mere 50 cent increase in the cost of the food, while **doubling** the 
salaries of everyone that worked for them, including the CEOs).

On price gouging: You can always buy something else, somewhere else, 
which is cheaper.

On crappy products: Well.. you can always buy the more costly item, 
which won't be a piece of total crap.

On regulation: Regulations are bad, if they stifle my business, but 
good, if they stifle worker's rights.

On personal responsibility: Everyone should be responsible for their own 
mistakes, but.. uh, I didn't actually mean "me" when I said that!

and so on...

On their general logic: "I have mine, so fuck you!"

You can add to this decades, since Reagan, and his voodoo economics 
(people with more money than god will open thousands of new businesses, 
and pay people more money, without someone making them, instead of 
sitting on it, or funneling it to offshore accounts, so it will all 
"trickle back down"), as well as undermining education, especially 
cheap, accessible education, as a result in major changes in regulations 
he imposed on colleges, attacks on social programs, an unwillingness to 
spend money of say.. roads, instead of military campaigns, and the fact 
that, for the same number of decades supposed "experts" teaching MBAs 
have been "teaching" that "free markets" are better than well regulated 
ones, socialism is always bad, no matter what the social program is, and 
that Reagan's model of economics is "sane", instead of totally 
delusional, and.. pretty much the vast majority of CEOs think that the 
whole entire problem is everyone else's fault, and these things will fix it:

1. More, less precise patents, to "protect" their nebulous ideas.

2. Less environmental, worker related, safety, or any other kind of 
"stifling" regulations.

3. Eliminating social programs, so all those damn whiners will go out of 
find jobs (because, already working, in some cases, at 5 jobs, 70 hours 
a week, all of them minimum wage, just to feed you family and then 
"also" having to have government aid, to fill in the gaps, mean you are 
"lazy, and not trying hard enough."

No, seriously, this is **exactly** what these idiots and their political 
lap dogs, keep claiming.

4. Getting rid of minimum wages (which they insist are actually "too 
high". o.O

5. Getting rid of all unions, because maybe 2% of them are actually bad, 
but **all of them**, even in states that make them almost illegal (or at 
least ineffective), like the "right to work" ones, where any concessions 
they do manage to force apply to "everyone", not just the union workers, 
thereby removing the incentive to join on in the first place. Well, 
other than the fact that, even in those states, if you didn't have some 
of them, you are screwed anyway), all because they "force unreasonable 
demands on the company."

You want to know what "unreasonable" is? A grocery chain called Krogers 
thought it would be unfair to reduce some of its staff to a minimum 
wage, when it wasn't before, and several other things which I don't know 
all the details of. The union disintegrated, and now Krogers pays 
**everyone** no matter what job they have, which department they work 
in, or how long they have been there, "minimum wage".

It went from an objection about them taking money, and thus food, out of 
the pockets of people with kids, who worked for them, because they 
claimed they "had to" to save money, during a year when they made 
billions in profits, despite the "slow economy", to screwing **all** of 
their workers, including the ones that where already working there, for 
decades.

This is the stuff happening in the US, and what all those people, who 
the media lambasted, the president ignored, and all the politicians, and 
anyone else with an agenda to make it seem like there was no legitimate 
cause being promoted by them, sometimes called the "Occupy Movement", 
but mostly just called, "dirty, lazy, unwilling to find work, etc., 
etc." Because.. its not like there where, and still are, millions of 
people out of work here, and no one willing to hire them, or tens of 
millions more, being paid crap wages who, for the most part, didn't show 
up at the rallies **purely** because, literally, couldn't afford to lose 
one single days pay, never mind their, possibly conservative, boss, 
firing them for attending one, then claiming it was, for legal reasons, 
for something else. Though.. most of them could, probably, have gotten 
by with firing them using the catch all for "things we don't want our 
workers to do, even in their free time, off the job, or in the privacy 
of their own homes, should we somehow find out they are doing them", 
which is called, "Negatively impacting the image of the business."


>> The table "Income growth by decile" holds the key data. Essentially the
>> low-mid earners have seen the largest growth, with the very lowest and
>> high earners seeing lower growth (but still significantly positive). The
>> only real negative growth (in real terms) was for those in the 75-85
>> percentile from 1990-2000. In the same period the bottom 10% saw 12%
>> growth.
>
> Again, though, growth factors are not the same as widening gaps in income
> disparity.  Someone who made $250K back in 1990 who makes $500K now has
> not had to deal with being part of the lower income class.  They've not
> had to make decisions between health care, food, housing, and clothes.
>

And, in fact, in the US, this isn't even accurate either. The low-mid 
are "falling" into the lowest category, while the rich are gaining (at, 
as has been pointed out, a much slower rate than, stupidly, they did 
when they a) actually had to pay taxes, and higher taxes, and b) 
actually paid their workers better wages). The middle class, in the US, 
are vanishing.

Post a reply to this message

On 8/6/2013 2:41 AM, scott wrote:

> The industry is highly competitive (at least in UK), customers are free
> to keep their numbers and switch providers whenever their contract
> expires. Most contracts don't distinguish between calls/texts to one
> provider or another, and coverage is pretty much equal across all
> networks. There is no way one company would be able to charge
> significantly more than the others, they would simply lose customers.
> Net profit at Vodafone UK was 1.5% last year, not exactly excessive.
>
Well, I don't doubt this is true, and this is maybe a poor example of 
the effect. But, the real point is, the reason there is a market for 
"throw away" phones at all, outside of say.. drug dealers, is that some 
people can't afford $50 a month for to use *all* of the phones features. 
But, if you go to certain other countries, many of them ironically "less 
developed", you pay one flat fee, and a much smaller one, instead of 
tacking on everything separately. Its symptomatic of the, "Even though 
it costs *us* the same to send you voice between two places as it does 
to download an app, we are going to charge you extra, for the second 
one, even if you use it less than one time a month." And, you see this 
logic with just about everything, except, maybe, the internet.

>> And, you think we fix this by taking a budget of roughly $1300 a month,
>> where like all but a few bucks of that goes to insurance, rent, food,
>> heating, etc., to buy a $20 item, from a slightly less insane company,
>> instead of a $10 one, from Walmart... Yeah, that has worked "so well",
>> so far, given the huge amount of extra, left over, income everyone has,
>> at the end of every month...
>
> I think you're making exactly the same point as me, the fact is people
> would rather have a bit bigger house, a bit nicer food, a bit bigger TV,
> a bit better phone etc rather than paying a bit extra to get something

> Walmart option, if it means they've got another $10 to allow them to get
> the latest iPhone or more TV channels or whatever.
>

Let me try to put the US situation in starker contrast, since we are 
talking about "levels of poverty". From a purely practical stand point, 
without government assistance, and working a normal 40 hour week, within 
a year, if this condition where somehow "imposed" on the poor in the US 
(and there are people that want to cut back, or even eliminate the 
programs that help them), we would probably have stacks of bodies in the 
streets, no one would have a TV in those neighborhoods, never mind 
anything else, since all of their money would be going to rent, and 
*maybe* food, when they could afford it, and I wouldn't be surprised if 
we saw a sudden industry of "clothes made from the rich people's news 
papers" pop up, to replace the clothes they couldn't buy with the money 
they didn't make.

Its only not that bad **yet** because a) they do get government help, b) 
they are working anything from 2, to in some insane cases, 5 jobs, at 
anything from 50-90 hours a week, and c) everyone shops at walmart, 
k-mart, and.. all the other "big corp" companies, whose workers are all 
the same, "minimum wage, but we can only give you 15 hours this week", 
jobs, which result in people having 2, 3, 4, or more of them.

So.. I suppose, if you want to define "not poverty" as, "working like 
slave labor", and, "At least the government doesn't make you stand in 
bread lines.", then.. sure.. we can claim its not that "bad" in the US. 
But, if you think that is an insane way to live, and it sounds like most 
of the country is one idiot legislative bill from becoming a Somalian 
refugee, we might be finally be on the same page.

The people in charge, right now, are the inmates of the asylum over here.

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 17:06:50 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On regulation: Regulations are bad, if they stifle my business, but
> good,
> if they stifle worker's rights.

Yep, just look at the recent problems with lack of regulation in Texas - 
and then that Rick Perry is advertising in other states about how *easy* 
it is to set up business in Texas because they don't have a lot of 
regulation.

Yeah, they don't have a lot of regulation, just the highest capital 
punishment rate and a bunch of dead people from an explosion that 
would've probably been prevented by some sensible oversight and 
regulation.

But who cares, it's just a few dead people, right?  Bring your CA/IL/NY 
based business to Texas, because we care so little about regulation, 
we're prepared to let people die so we don't have to have any.

m-/

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 8/6/2013 2:52 AM, scott wrote:
>>> A long time ago you could only buy local, between then and now (when
>>> there was plenty of choice) everyone has voted with their wallets that
>>> they would rather buy the cheaper non-local mass-produced items. Large
>>> corporations are simply providing us with what we want. If they thought
>>> everyone wanted local items (and were happy to pay a premium), they'd
>>> sell local items.
>>>
>> No, they won't.
>
> They would if there was more profit in it for them. There isn't because
> people aren't willing to pay the extra.
>
No, as I said, in the US, its not "unwilling", its "unable", most of the 
time.

I mean, we literally have morons who work in my store, complaining that 
"poor people on food stamps are 'allowed' to buy luxury goods, like TVs, 
but keeping a few bucks a month", for an entire damn year, just to be 
able to afford one. They actually think, "They need to get a better job 
like mine, somewhere, and stop using food stamps." And, they are saying 
this to someone who a) thought they management had changes his job title 
3 years ago, and just got screwed over by the company, is still making 
minimum wage, is averaging 32 hours a week, doesn't pay for his own 
food, electricity, etc., due to living with other people, who can 
actually afford them, and **knows** that, if I ever had to rent my own 
place, before I even paid the first months rent, I would ***have to*** 
got to the nearest agency, and sign up for assistance, to make ends 
meet. Oh, and these same people **know** that the jobs in town divide up 
like this, more or less:

5% walmart - minimum wage
5% k-mart - minimum wage
5% sterilite (a cheap plastics company) - slightly over minimum, but 
they require 10 hour days, staggered, so as not to pay overtime (5 days 
one week, then 3 the next, so they don't actually pay you more than if 
it was 10 '8 hour' days.
10% small businesses - almost all minimum wage, and less than 30 hours a 
week.
70% restaurants - require to pay minimum wage **only** if wages (at 
$3.50 an hour) + tips is "lower" than the minimum would be, and then.. 
nearly all of them "pool" the tips, and divide them among all of the 
staff, including management.
10% general "other" jobs - some of which "may" pay more than minimum.
5% The assholes that own all of it.

This is in a state where "minimum" is *now*, as of a few months ago, 
$7.80/hr, and the average cost, per month, to live here is, in fact 
(this is two parents, with one kid):

Monthly Housing 		$723
Monthly Food 			$514
Monthly Taxes			$251
Monthly Healthcare		$280
Monthly Childcare		$499
Monthly Transportation		$468
Monthly Other Necessities	$297
==============================
Total: $3,032, or 388.7 hours a month, or 97 hours a week.
In one of the "higher cost" places in the state, it is: $3,521, or 451.5 
hours a month, or 113 work hours a week.

They state legislature thought that raising it from $7.65 would be a 
"huge" improvement... But, no matter how you look at it, it means 
someone has two jobs, if they can find even one 40 hour job in the first 
place, but.. the average job is 15-20 hours, 30, if you are lucky, so.. 
even then, in some place like the city I live in, which those numbers 
come from, one of them is working a single, 30 hour job, and the other 
is working "two" 30 hours jobs, or both of them are working, on the 
worst case, two 15 hour jobs, and "still" coming up 7 hours short, in 
either case, of paying the bills, never mind saving any money after.

None of this would be "quite" so bad, if you could find a 40 hour job 
any place, like at all, but giving someone 40 hours means actually 
providing them with "legally mandated" things, which "includes" 
insurance, better pay, actual raises, etc. All that stuff that "might" 
result in someone saving money, instead of blowing it all on silly 
things like utility bills.

The level of completely delusional thinking among people that should 
know better here, and outright denial of how bad it is, not to mention 
why, is.. beyond belief, in a lot of cases. Some parts of the country, 
the "cost of living" isn't any lower, the minimum is, and its all the 
same, "I am sorry, we can't give you more hours this week, but.. we an 
hire two new people, and give each of them 15 hours.", BS.

And, as I said before.. there are people that are, progressively, 
arguing that there shouldn't be a minimum at all, and, might have, if 
there was a Republican in office, actually eliminated the federal 
minimum, or, at least lowered it, followed by some of the more insane, 
and delusional, state legislatures.

Post a reply to this message

On 8/6/2013 8:05 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 05 Aug 2013 20:45:58 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> No, they won't. Those corporations didn't just edge out small businesses
>> by selling non-local goods. Most local businesses, with the exception of
>> food providers, or other "immediate sale" types, ordered parts, or
>> goods,
>> had them shipped to them, in smaller, more expensive, volumes, or
>> special ordered them, and then you waited. The big corporations could do
>> "volume"
>> purchases, hire their own, lower paid shippers, then undercut the prices
>> of the local sellers, even selling the **exact identical items**.
>
> I spent about a decade working in the food & drug industry as an IT
> professional, and towards the end of the time, when my "Fortune 50"
> company was acquired by another Fortune 50 company, we had to take a
> course on "retail business basics".
>
> In that course, one of the things we talked about was the death of the
> "mom & pop" style grocery store.  Companies like ours were responsible
> for those smaller local shops going away for precisely the reasons you
> state, Patrick:  Volume purchases, the ability to sell some items at a
> loss (which is actually a sound strategy, because you lay the store out
> so you have more impulse purchases and drive the average sale up).
>
> But here was the interesting thing (and part of the reason that the
> combined larger company itself became an acquisition target - that and
> incompetent senior management, IMHO):  Walmart was (and is) doing the
> exact same thing to stores that focused on just food & drug.  Walmart
> leverages the welfare system in (IMHO) an unconscionable way to drive
> prices even lower than what food & drug retailers (who deal with unions
> in most states) can afford.  A not insignificant number of Walmart part
> time employees have to supplement their income with food stamps or other
> forms of welfare because they don't make a living wage (the ironic
> statement that "Walmart employees can't even afford to shop at Walmart"
> is sadly true in a lot of cases).
>
> So now the food & drug giants like Safeway, Albertson's, Supervalu, and
> so on are faced with being on the receiving end of what they did to the
> mom & pop grocery stores.  To say they're not liking it is an
> understatement.
>
> Jim
>
True, but, as I implied in another post farther up, there are two 
solutions to this:

1. Fix the problem from the only end that can - hint, its not the 
consumer, or the businesses who can do that, since one doesn't have the 
purchasing power to force a real change, and the other is the one 
getting its ass kicked.

2. Cave in, and do the same thing Walmart is doing, and either don't ask 
the government to do anything, or help elect the very people that 
*won't*, since.. after all, having picked this solution, if someone goes 
and fixes the damn thing... guess who else loses, besides Walmart.

Guess which one "some" of the other grocery stores have picked, along 
with other "Walmart competitors"...

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