Hacker News Reader

Comment by Benjo | Hacker News Reader

The main problem is that the adjusted income of the bottom 90% of earners has been flat over the last 40 years.

Forget the morality of wealth distribution. How long do you think 90% of a democracy can go without an increase to their standard of living before they realize they need to drastically change the system?

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3309

If you are looking for a systematic problem with income concentration, look at Figure 2 in the link above. Notice any correlation between the peaks of income inequality?

View on HN

How long do you think 90% of a democracy can go without an increase to their standard of living?

I think you are conflating two distinct concepts. Standard of living is not identical with the percentage of national income you have. The former could increase while the latter decreased, if the total amount of income increased. And that is exactly what has happened.

Or to get specific again, in the subset of society consisting of just me and Larry Page, my percentage of the total income has decreased dramatically. But my standard of living has not declined.

> Standard of living is not identical with the percentage of national income you have.

I totally agree and didn't mean to imply this. My point is that the median income level as an absolute, adjusted for inflation, has not increased significantly since 1970. I believe this does correlate fairly well to standard of living over the long term.

EDIT: Here's one source. Open to criticism. http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Median...

It would correlate, except so many things have gotten dramatically cheaper while the cost of, say, bread has stayed the same (adjusted for inflation). It's possible for inflation-adjusted income to stagnate while standard of living increases, and I'd argue that it has. As petty as it sounds, I'm pretty glad I live in a world with Google.

This may be a gap in my understanding of objective measures of standard of living. I agree I'd rather have Google. I'll have to do some research.

It may be a moot point, since no one can objectively compare their standard of living to that of an equivalent person 40 years ago (or even themselves 40 years ago.)

Depends how you define standard of living. If we consider "standard of living" to mean "happiness", as you seem to imply, that actually correlates well with real (inflation/CPI-adjusted) income. Accordingly, happiness levels have been flat and/or declining for the vast majority of the population [1], just as real wages have.

[1]: http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7487.html

What do the superrich do with their money? I think seeing where their money goes would shed some light into the question of, 'how does superwealth affect the world?'.

Personally I'm fine with people who are superrich, if they have learned to be responsible with that money. OTOH I do want superwealth to be a little more transparent in its effects on my environment.

Little stars, big stars, are all fine by me. But I don't like'm black holes. They're eff'n scary.

Technological progress has increased everyone's standard of living, though, despite the inflation that's kept real incomes stagnant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com