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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

did you read the just the first sentence?

the post acknowledges that the numerical value difference will decrease, while also acknowledging that the reality is barely different at all. so if you really want to say "the distance between wealth is less unequal" then, congratulations?

if you looked at "wealth inequality" at the very bottom of an asset crunch or recession, and never even saw what it was at the top of an asset expansion, you would still say "wow wealth inequality is super wide" only to be flabbergasted or amused at how much wider it gets

so its kind of a useless distinction if the realities are so widely different either way.

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It reduces wealth inequality. That was the original claim, which the comment I was responding to denied.

are you being intentionally obtuse to deflect from how the reality doesn't change, or just pedantic because “if (wealth < prior wealth) return “it reduces wealth inequality””

because the latter is exactly what I’m saying is a bit of a distraction from reality, not that it isnt true

Is that a conversation you are willing to have, because we can all do math and just move on to the people that want to acknowledge the relevance of the realities

What is "the reality" to which you are referring?

Inequality is measured by relative levels of wealth. When the group with the most wealth's wealth declines relative to the group with the least, inequality declines.

Are you trying to make some kind of point that, because it hasn't declined as much as you would like it to, it hasn't declined at all? I really can't tell.

the only point I'm making is that someone with $2,000,000,000 in assets, now having $1,500,000,000 in asset is in the exact same wildly more favorable and flexible position than the person that has no assets and not enough savings to support themselves for a few months as their earnings go directly to expenses. The latter group being the vast majority of the population.

I'm not making a point about which outcome is better at all, I'm making a point that the federal reserve can't do anything about that.

But the level of inequality has been reduced. Obviously the people at the very top are still going to be very rich. But there is an entire spectrum of wealth that is going to get compressed, which was the original point.

When people talk about "inequality increasing" over the past several decades, what they mean is the opposite of that spectrum compressing. In 1980 there were obviously very rich people. They were just less rich, relative to the median person than they are today. The Fed is responsible for a significant chunk of that divergence. That was the point.

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