Why Inequality Starts Becoming a Problem Now
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2024
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The global wealth disparity has been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic, and there is a concentration of wealth among the top 1.2% of people. We explore factors causing inequality, the role of debt, and finding an optimal level of inequality (because you do need some).
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The Left's Equality plan
1. Print Money
2. Borrow money
3. Pay off other people's problem (college loan and Ukraine)
Your start picture show Greenland wrong. It are part of the Kingdom of Denmark. If it were not your percentage would soon be correct!
one thing you forgot to mention is something known as "the elephant curve". much of the inequality comes from outsourced parts of the economy.
DUDE!!!!!!!!!!! WEALTH HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MONEY!!!!!!!! FOR EXAMPLE, MOST OF THE WEALTH IN THE WORLD CONSISTS OF STOCKS/SHARES FROM COMPANIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF THE TOP 500 COMPANIES WERE LIQUIDATED THEN HALF OF THE WORLD'S ENTIRE WEALTH WOULD DISAPPEAR INTO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know who else feels inequality actually means something? Monkeys that get fed a complete diet when their mates get only grapes... #JustSayin
No mention of rent seeking, which I believe is the real issue. More and more, the money of the rich is not going towards investments in producing value, but instead into investments into creating monopolies via acquiring land, lobbying for anti-competitive legislation, and aggressive business tactics to shut down competition by undercutting prices or buying out any competitors. This isn't producing value for anyone, as it's draining money away from the productive parts of the economy and into an increasingly swollen parasitic rent seeking class.
this comment is worth more than the video. nicely put! very succinct.
This comment is U N D E R R A T E D. VERY well put!
I'm sorry but this is completely counter-factual. Your comment might have some validity in the days of Ma Bell or railway tycoons, but look at the richest people today and they're effectively all innovators: Facebook which effectively kickstarted social media, Tesla which kickstarted the EV industry, Amazon which revolutionised online shopping (and deliveries and has one of the world's best supply chains). Time and again, the *most* successful are still innovators and inventors, not established players.
I am a strange libertarian in that I believe that land and infrastructure should be the domain of government. In other words, government should own the land and charge rent for it's use. In balance though, I don't believe in an income tax or sales tax. Governments should not be allowed to own individuals or tax them directly.
@@obliviouz All of them are established players wth.
Resentment towards income inequality in Western nations is about the stagnation of the median wage, not the existence of multi-billionaires. Most people are fine with a few getting fabulously wealthy as long as they're moving up too. But when the top is the only segment with wealth growth, the average folks feel exploited.
then they're idiots. it is not fine for a small minority to accumulate more and more and more wealth. having a few individuals with that amount of monetary power is... dangerous.
we don't have to be a communist hellhole and make everyone earn the same regardless of what they add but when a single individual has more money than entire nations you know they will start doing things that are good for them but not so much for everyone else
Absolutely. The wages in the United States, and surely in many other place, have been increasing much slower than the cost of housing, for example; there are also other trends that due to their blatant unsustainability have over the last few decades decreased our quality of life and living standards in general. I remember that only a few decades ago you frequently had millionaires living as neighbors of "regular" people on an average street because the "regular" people had comfortable access to enough resources to live just great and jealousy was therefore a rare thing. Nowadays rich people have been consolidating in terms of where they live so much that they occupy entire streets or even districts, right behind the 10 feet tall walls, security systems and guards.
People do care about multi-billionaires because it simply feels unfair.
Extreme wealth concentration creates imbalances of power and undermines social cohesion.
@@lennardr.4387 Sod off commie.
Because they have been. Ever since women entered the work force, making all wages be halved in the long run due to double the labor, double the output, double the profit, half the cost of labor because you can keep wages what they are, while doubling yoir own profit.
The biggest issue with inequality has to be residential property, which is horded by the wealthy and effectively extracts the wealth from middle class. The hypothetical example of investing in industry sounds fine, but outbidding for extra residential units is also seen as an investment, with deteriorating outcomes in the current economic system. Property for farming might have been the important thing in the past, but now, having a room to sleep in is a struggle for many. I'm surprised this was not addressed in the video.
Thank you. When you consider lobbying, superpacs, and the fact that we can't eat factories and planes, Wealth concentration only serves the wealthy.
This system gets in the way of every basic need a human has.
A major factor in runaway house prices in some places is simply supply constraints, though. You could make the argument that the rich would want to limit housing construction in order to drive rent and sale prices up, but if there were more property being built, there'd be an absolute larger pool of property for them to own. I think NIMBYs blocking construction and governments stupidly enforcing rent controls are as much at fault here for the housing issue as rich investors eating half the property on the market. It's a complex matter.
@@zibbitybibbitybop airbnb is a major constraint, so is the rental market. You're kinda right that increased supply is needed, but it doesn't have nearly the same impact as one human owning the housing for hundreds.
Hoarded. A horde is a bunch of barbarians. A hoard is an accumulation of stuff.
Also don't forget laws, our government for one make laws what make them wealthy, straight up damaging our healthcare (life expectancy) education (chance to get out poverty) and economy (companies not made wont make profit, again get out of property). So whiles it can be seen as a pure eco problem, it has a lot to do with corruption too caused by that eco interest.
As far as i understand it, the point is: If there is too much concentration of wealth on the top, it will lead for investments also to be concentrated in areas where high profit margins can be achieved, which are then likely luxurious goods or expensive real estate e.g.. This seems to lead to a situation where the economy becomes more and more focused on the needs of the few wealthy while ordinary people only get as much as is needed to produce these goods, while the surplus or profits go again to the wealthy to finance their lifestyle. So over time investments into stuff that would help ordinary people become less attractive overall.
I would say is the spending of the people of the top driving investments in those areas and not the other way around. If the spending was more bottom heavy, more investments would go into normal goods and away from luxury
@@apc9714 You just paraphrased OP, but applied reverse casaulity to reach the opposite conclusion. Wages fell, the wealthy grew wealthier through investment, this created a feedbakc loop where investors offered betetr servcies to the wealthy who owned shares in their businesses and fewer businesses catered to the common man who progressively owned less and earnt less- and *then you claimed that the problem is the poor don't spend enough.* No, the issue was allowing for the disproportionate accumulation of wealth by assets relative to earnings that encouraged the shift away from a middle class to a lower, lowest and upper class system.
The problem is globalization and centralization. That's what capitalism does. It consolidates power so it's easier to make a decision, ie. Legislative branch vs. Executive branch. A powerful executive branch is easily corruptible, and a vast legislative branch leads to poor continuity. The worst part, is neither forces has extensity to prevent the external migration of wealth, without some form of protectionist and mercantile policies.
I find that the biggest issues of today result from a laissez-faire ideals. People are so used to personal freedom that we forget why we have government in the first place, it's to maintain a standard of justice, and prevent wars. The populace, unhinged, can be just as vile and cruel as the nobility, so having a common ground both for economics, social etiquette, and politics are a necessary measure to prevent the extremes of either. In fact, you can even force a standard of wealth, anyone with asset worth more than they can possibly use should be forced into retirement, this way, not only can the youth grow in a flourishing society, their son and daughters will also have the same opportunity to build the same wealth without having to rely on their fathers. It will allow everyone to make mistakes, grow, and compete. Progress don't come from wrangling out a dry sponge so your son and daughter is filled to bursting that they can't move, but allowing everyone an opportunity to fight for it. And with a flourishing economy, even if your son and daughter won't be forced to retire, at least, they won't ever starve.
Which is likely to get worse as we see more and more automation and AI systems. The thing that keeps middle and lower class people in the economy is that the people with the most wealth need their labor. The less of that labor they need, the less money has to flow to them, and the more can be kept in the wealthier part of the economy.
I get what you mean by this. In theory it makes perfect sense, but in reality the line between people's needs and desires is actually pretty fuzzy. Opportunity exists for average people because of this fuzziness. If billionaires want people to build private jets and rockets they need those people to go to school to learn how to do that. It's necessary for people to be granted opportunities to advance the economy.
Something has bugged me about this channel for a long time and I finally found it. I imagine it's a by product of the way economics is taught but EE point blank endorsed trickle down economics. Didn't use the name but flat out described them in a positive light
EE teaches Keynesian, Neoliberal pseudoscience and labels it economics.
@@slop123456789 You mean Friedman, who is the father of Neoliberal Economics, and inspired trickle down. Keynes held nearly the opposite view of economics.
Sadly, most people educated in western countries are likely to have been indoctrinated in the Friedman style Neoliberal Economics, which was the basis of trickle down economics. Krugman at times seem extreme the other way, but none of his policies lead to millions of people living in poverty, unlike Friedman.
Economics is not a science period lol.
Trickle down economics is a political catchphrase. It's not even a real belief.
If you look at the data, almost all social problems track with with relative poverty, not absolute poverty. When you look at statistics like crime, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, mental health outcomes, substance abuse, youth delinquency, social cohesion (and on and on) you are better off in a poorer, more equal country than a rich unequal one. Inequality within communities matters more than how rich each individual in the community is. That's why you see so many social problems in a wealthy country like the US.
Source: Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, 'The Inner Level'
I think this is the best take I've read in this comment section. Perfect, and thank you for the source! So glad there's writing on this.
And this is what it would look like, for economics explained not to talk around the real problems in the room.
Now i started thinking abt who funds this yt channel
@nathanielroach6559 In what poor and "equal" country is crime, life expectancy, infant mortality, substance abuse, and youth delinquency at all better than in western less equal countries? Are you referring to (ex-)communist states?
@@Mersoh I'll be honest with you, I never tried to find the poorest most equal country. You don't need to. If you look at all countries on a graph with social problems, any and all social problems, against inequality and the picture is plain. And I'm not into engaging with people about whether measures are communist or not. I'm interested in what works and I won't be drawn into that kind of scare mongering.
I realize this is an economics channel, but it could have used more discussion on the political and social consequences of inequality. Many political scientists, for example, think it poses a threat to democracy.
Because this channel isn't really about educating they've been pushing neoliberal hogwash for a while now.
Democracy isn't real anymore, people on top don't play by the same rules as everyone else. It's a cryptocracy and we're enslaved to/ drunk on the cheap power it provides us. There's no solving sociopolitical issues like democracy anymore as we're overly reliant on petrochemical supremacy, and no amount of democracy can demolish the creatively destroyed structure of the landscape we've developed. We have placed ourselves in a position of ecological overshoot, and it's slated to collapse. Economics is just about finding more and more ways of scraping the bottom of the barrel. Politics is a circus for oil oligarchies and produces no meaningful results under full fledged abomunism. Unchecked capitalism has morphed into an owner class ruled mess
@@pooplazer2247we are more like in a corporatism economy with big business corpos buying out both politicians and small competitor businesses. There is no more free market anymore. It's just "don't ask questions, just consume product and get excited for next product."
You're 100% right. It's one of the reasons why ppl will turn to extremist ideologies like communism or fascism
And where automation and AI should mean the citizen can enjoy the opportunity of free time, to do whatever they want , to do nothing, or go hiking and camping ,or learn a musical instrument, or learn to think critically, or become truly engaged in decision making etc, this can never happen, because the means of production are privately owned. Automation and AI mean unemployment, and even greater levels of poverty.
We, all peoples, have allowed to dominate an idea that keeps up slaves.
Talking from the perspective of "billionaires adding value to the economy" (by consuming or investing) sidesteps completely the problem of inequality. Just because more profits are produced doesn't mean that they will be distributed equally, on the contrary, that mostly happens under the principle of exploiting workers as much as possible (and in doing so paying them as little as possible). Yes, a billionaire might incentivize thousands of jobs by buying a jet, but the fact that profits go to the (already wealthy) employers and not the employees is not taken into account in the example.
The thing is that most of those high industries are indeed quite well paid.
I like to pay as little as possible for UA-cam. Am I exploiting billionaires? If the investment makes production more efficient, new wealth is created out of thin air. The new wealth is then split between buyer and seller.
Let's say someone invests in a way to watch TV more efficiently. The difference between streaming and cable was split between the buyer and seller, let's as 50/50, with steaming costing half of cable to produce. Cable is $100. Streaming is $75. $25 goes to watcher and $25 goes to producer. In this hypothetical, a 50/50 split creates wealth inequality.
@@Gabriel-pk8lw high industries that belong to rich people and that don't pay their workers enough.
@@Gabriel-pk8lw Just as an example: not the miners that produce the raw materials for the circuits, nor the communities of people whose water get poisoned during such operations.
@@theBear89451 You are confusing buyers and sellers with owners/employers and workers/employees. It's not the same thing at all. Buyer-seller relationships doesn't explain where wealth accumulates, nor why. Owner-worker relationships on the other hand explains much more, like how value is produced and who produces it (in a very real-material way, the worker) and who gets to own the product of the labor (the owner, because they already own the capital, the factory, the land, etc.: "money makes money").
And you need to think of the consequences of the feedback loop implied by such a way of production (not just a single round).
How you always manage to present interesting questions, then break everything down, explain the very basics, distract us with a pinch of nicely graphed data and stock images, then skirt around the actual big questions you have raised and before we know it - end the video and we are none the wiser - that's real talent there.
I know right?! By the end of the video I was left wondering what I had learned.
Amen
you learned nothing because inequality is not the problem. the problem is U.S. is a wild compared to coutries like singapore. There 90% of the population own their homes
Come up with your own answers to these questions. You could even make your own video about it. You don't need EE to give you an answer, because this channel isn't the solution to whatever it is you're seeking.
Exactly. And its not just this channel. The whole UA-cam is overhyped about making "serious" click-bait documentary videos, without research, stock-videos and kindergarten arguments!
He did everything to defend the status quo besides say "trickle down"
Trickle down is not a real economic theory or political philosophy.
Kinda missed the point there Charlie.
I’m sure this guy is funded by some big wigs.
What a shame
An important consideration missed here is that the Anglophone economies with high consumption and high national debt are not investment constrained but rather consumption constrained, which means that inequality directly slows down the economy.
You know who else feels inequality actually means something? Monkeys that get fed a complete diet when their mates get only grapes... #JustSayin
@@Daily_Llama Is that sour grapes?
@@DiscoFang What?
Absolutely Teracosa I work in real estate investment and I have 10x more equity than that there are deals (consumption of housing).
You are saying that as the wealth is more concentrated avarage people have less spending/consuming power
Thus less growth
But what he explains is the concentration of wealth actually increases the spending power of avarage people faster than if the wealth was distributed equally
Reality check: getting enough to eat is still the main preoccupation of billions of people. A few billionaires buying planes (or whatever else) won't solve it because those millionaires own the plane factories and make sure to pay miserably small salaries to the workers.
the workers in those factories have no problem getting food. the people needing food are in africa . they don't build planes. they are ruled by dictators and or super corrupt politicians.
Don’t exaggerate. We 8 billion and not billions of us are starving. But it would be better if we are fewer so don’t complain about birth decline.
@@CheapSushithey are mostly in poor countries where they don't even know what a billionaire is.
You’re both uneducated
not a single person in the US suffers from famine. You cant compare the US population with that of the Congo. And yes private planes do make a difference, the more complex the production process and the more technically advanced the RandD needed, the wider
the pool of people who profit from it is. people who arent rich don't consume a lot nor do the consume complex to produce goods.
The primary issue with inequality is downstream from politics. The economic impact is felt when a small percentage of the country owns soo much of the nation's wealth that any form of taxation is basically just a tax directed at them. When this is the case, they tend to use their wealth to pass things like tax cuts at increasing frequency. Eventually, policies designed to suit their interests start to hurt the working man, and this also starts impacting their bottom lines. When this occurs, rather than using their power to pass policies that would fix the problem, they call it a failing nation and move their resources and labour to greener pastures.
problem is people so not understand the taxes. we also have allot of corruption in politics.
@@Master-ls2op The government is far from perfect. There's a legitimate argument to be made that some of the money would be better in the hands of the people, but there are a number of examples in history where the people in power reduced state taxation soo far due to their class interest that it lead to the downfall of their entire society. When it serves their interests people are willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of others, even when it's demonstrably a bad idea for everyone (including themselves).
I think politics are secondary. I would rate zero-sum-ish situations as primary. For example, home square foot per capita is at an all time high in the US, but because of inequality homes create an inequality feedback loop.
If people had votes relative to the taxes they paid this would solve this problem.
Did you know that Sweden has more billionaires per capita than US?
It isn’t about wealth it is about owning the means to create more wealth. Unless you have those means you have no real power and no real means of attaining a much greater degree of wealth.
betterhelp forces you to sign up for multiple sessions before even trying it. the lowest they go is about $60 per session, but you need to sign up for at least 4. so you do the math. most people are depressed and stressed because they are poor. we cant afford rent. we certainly can't afford mental health treatment.
Im a failure that will never own a home and be a rent slave for life.
Sorry about that, 60$ please.
Beyond billionaires being the only category with wage growth since the 80s in industrialized nations, there's a massive case of equity and ethics involved in allowing people that are not beholden to the majority to control such a massive chunk of global resources. It's non democratic, usually unethical and almost always self fulfilling
Indeed. Didn't touch on that and didn't touch on the fact that these same billionaires have consistently directed capital flows to utterly valueless propositions...or arcane financial instruments that serve to create zero actual value...over the last 24-ish years at this point.
@@phuturephunkI mean it started back with Reagan but yeah.
Replace "industrialized nations" with "USA" and you have a point. It's been mostly an issue there, not all across the globe.
Billionaire is not a measure of wages for one and second wage growth has been fine for highly skilled professionals. Wage growth has stalled for less skilled and unskilled workers. The US' workforce has doubled in size since what you probably think of as the days when this was good or at least better and globalization has made the world a far smaller place.
@@BTrain-is8ch billionaires wealth is directly tied to the surplus profit after paid wages, as wage suppression is maximized under capitalism. The appreciation and growth of that capital rests of the surplus wages of other industries and assets that appreciate as the value of money decreases. Skilled and unskilled labour are more of philosophical statement than a tangible, measurable metric, giving credibility to the argument that economics is astrology for the privileged. And the wages of *skilled* labour is skewed ever so high by the vast number of educated professionals in contract positions in all industries, performing the jobs of a highly skilled workforce for low wages, precious employment status and no benefits. (ex. A web developer working under contract as an "IT consultant").
The next economic crisis will be bigger since we can't afford to bail it out like last time. It should have been worse last time and honestly it wasn't as bad as it should have been. Also, those who will default on their loans will be those individuals who had good credit scores and the loans were more prime, which makes it scarier in many ways. Moreover, we have inflation now devaluing the dollar and markets, yet back then we really didn't(other than high gas prices).
Many people are still getting fantastic returns on their investments during this time. Simply maintain a strong sense of reality or ask for professional assistance.
The effects of the U.S. dollar's increase or fall on investments, in my opinion, are complex, but it has never been simpler to learn how to build your money than it is right now, when you may discover and experience a genuinely broad market passively by working with a successful Financial Consultant.
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It was easy locating your coach's webpage by looking up her name online. Did my due diligence on her before scheduling a phone call to use her services. She seems proficient considering her resume.
F***ING bots promoting bullsh*t merchants now.
One of the things that freezes the inequality gap n place is that we don't have real capitalism. We have 'crony capitalism' where those with extreme wealth (not someone who has managed to save $1mln their pension) are able to influence the rules of the game to limit competition.
Accumulation of power inevitably leads to this IMO - the world is a game where, when you get 100 points, you get to change one rule. It quickly cascades until you end up with a "crony" version of just about anything.
EXACTLY!! You'll have people say capitalism is inherently "crony" but they need to learn some economics and history to understand how that is not the case. The big businesses and rich billionaires all love government cause well government is a monopoly and if they are on your side nothing is going to change that. In a true capitalistic society these things would never arise. I am not advocating for removal of government but instead that governent should focus only on law and military.
Unfortunately the evidence suggests that more unrestrained capitalism leads to monopolies, rent seeking behaviour, and the crushing of competition.
@@frostbyte1987 capitalism is an economic theory, whereas human greed is a fact of life. We're damned if you do, damned if you don't - the concentration of wealth and power is never justified, yet occurrs in pretty much every society. I see capitalism as one manifestation of a darker side of humanity that tends to show up whenever there are things to horde or people to dominate.
That's just regular capitalism
Showing the inequality (Gini) index of the US trending up, while saying it's been going down. "We've been going in the right direction until recently". What do you even mean? Inequality has gone down in recent years on the very chart you're showing. Do you even know how the Gini index works? A higher number means more inequality. Very thoroughly researched, as I've come to expect from this channel.
Its weird how he referenced global inequality going down by showing the Gini coefficient of the US going up, which, as you pointed, is rising inequality, then accurately states at 5:20 that Indonesia's inequality has been increasing. Hopefully its just due to editing and using incorrect visuals for the script, but he clearly knows how the Gini coefficient works, but applied it wrong to the US/Global inequality.
@@kyletrusler4565 Maybe putting one inaccuracy per video increases comments I don't know, but I would feel ashamed if I put such glaring errors online.
@@vsnkqfo8 Agreed, it should have been caught, if it was intentional. Its possible it was put in there to lead to the videos conclusion
In the US, I think the end of the Soviet Union in the early 90's basically gave capitalism free reign to be its true self. When communism was seen as a valid threat and alternative, capitalists felt some pressure to try and convince people that our system really was better at making everybody more prosperous. ( 1950's America at the peak of the cold war tension was when we had the greatest income equality. ) But starting in the 90's we started seeing CEO pay increase astronomically while everybody else's pay stagnated. Capitalism ditched the benevolent mask and became its true gilded age self, because it's only benevolent and socially responsible when it has a gun to its head.
Interesting view, so the conflict between the economic ideologies pacified capitalism?
Reality is caotilism os repackaged socialism because with majority poor peoole will get freebies and will act like slave to politocal parties,
Reality is both socialism and caotilism is messed up we need couple of other alternative
>only benevolent when it has a gun to its head
This, and basically this. Capitalism gets treated as a religion, and the peasants argue about gender politics and defend the megacorps instead of reminding themselves they vastly out number their modern feudal overlords
it's better then having no ceo's. if america didn't outsource it's factories there wouldn't be any rich CEO's that pays low income to U.S. citizens since countries like japan, korea, china, india with low labor would dominated the U.S. market. low is better then nothing dear.
@@user-pn6di3od1h > if america didn't outsource it's factories there wouldn't be any rich CEO's that pays low income to U.S.
Smooth brain take, maybe learn something about economics.
So the conclusion is that...
Inequality can be good as it drives investment, so the rich get richer and the poor get richer.
Inequality can be bad if top earners spend their money on consumption rather than investments.
Even if money is spent on consumption ... it helps everyone below the rich
@@drwalka10yeah but investment is better way of doing it than consumption
I kinda don't understand, how can the poor get richer when the rich also get richer ? It's feels like money are infinite or something. Thus making money worthless overtime ? Drives inflation or something like that ? Or it's just the numbers that goes up with no actual value ?
Thing is consumtion of essentials should be treated like investment.
If you spend on social housing decreasing homelesnees you increase productivity of previously homeless people. Universal Healthcare, housing and education is best investment in society.
@@ilyamarfeara1226 Don't think of money like it's a resource. Rather think of it as "the meter of value", with sales really just being points where value is measured between two people (or a person and a corporation) and an exchange is made. You're not exchanging money for something, you're exchanging the work you did to earn that money for something, with the money you pay measuring how much work you're exchanging for the good.
That being said, it is important for money to be a relatively stable metric. We don't really want it to be a good store of value, because then people will hoard it and watch its value go up as money becomes scarce. At the same time, we want it to be stable enough in the moment that people will agree to use it for their transactions - those "measurements" from before.
But everything that gets added to the economy adds value. It's not a zero sum game, everyone's work - be it in organizing labor, investing in new endeavors, securing investments, building something, designing something - makes the pie bigger. The theory being is that the rich and poor can both get richer if the new pie is distributed in some part to everyone.
I'd argue that if your nation has an inflationary currency (as all modern economies do), then your economy does become a zero-sum game, as wealthy people are forced to store their wealth in assets, which drives up the cost of essential assets for the rest of the population. And since wages (how poorer people make money) are always lagging behind these assets, it leads to more and more inequality over time, which is exactly what we are seeing.
The problem is people are thinking of economy as ONLY zero-sum.
People in the middle class often own a house and/or a car. I guess it makes sense that inequality rises more when less people own houses and cars.
No. There is not a (in long timeframes) finite amount of resources. You can grow food, and better more innovative processes can grow more food from the same area of land and inputs, for example.
@@obliviouz It is not the ability to produce resources that is the problem. We could easily build millions more houses, and grow enough food to feed the whole world many times over. However, with an inflationary economy where the wealthy are trying to protect their wealth via hoarding assets, such things are kept artificially scarce in order to protect said wealth. Houses are not built via zoning schemes in order to keep house prices constantly rising (ahead of inflation), and farmers are paid by the government not to produce too much food.
@@the11382 Yep, as assets become more concentrated at the top, and the poor are taxed further and further via inflation, since they are the last to use newly created currency, inequality must rise.
I have gripes with how things are structured paywise. All the people who actually know how to do the work at the company I work at are the lowest paid, and the highest paid people are people who can direct from a higher level. If all the lower tier workers left, that would be it, the company wouldnt function. If all the executives left, the company would just go on as usual. We literally have people directing the company who do not know the area they are directing in, despite that the company I work for is one of the largest in the country I live. This is while regular workers live in a city that has an average monthly rental rate of 2500, and we are making 50-65k gross income (so like 40-50k net).
Yep. An we're increasingly monitored and controlled via metrics that completely miss the point because nobody who knew anything was allowed in the room when those metrics were pulled out of some narcissistic vampire's asshole.
“Starts”… and “Now”… as if it hasn’t objectively been a clear and growing problem for the past fifteen years.
It takes a resurgence in the labour union movement and price gouging and record profits triggering inflation not seen in a generation for you to start to notice?
The inequality itself isn't the issue. The issue is that we have all sorts of disadvantaged, poor, disabled, homeless, and other vulnerable people in the world whose needs are nowhere near to be being met, all while a few people get ridiculously wealthy. If the basic needs of all people were taken care of, and then a few people got really rich, we could at least be fine with that.
Our productivity has skyrocketed in recent years, yet wages remain stagnant, labour laws are not any better for employees, we don't work fewer hours or have better paid leave, many people live on the fringe of homelessness and medical bankruptcy, we have developed an insane dependence on cars, we are attached to employer-sponsored healthcare, we have rising living costs, etc.
Rich people might improve things when they spend money, but that money was earned on the backs of regular people who now have to wait for some minor amount of wealth to "trickle down" on them.
This is what happens when regular people in highly developed nations get complacent and the rich sees it as an opportunity to make more money by exporting jobs to maintain or reduce operational costs. The wealthy, and the poor & middle class from developing countries love it, it's a win-win solution on a global level. It's only the poor & middle class of wealthy nations that are getting screwed and they are the minority.
Trickle down doesn’t exist, as you stated it is the working man who created the value that was used to buy the plane, it was the working man who built the plane, and it is the working man who lost all the value and resources of the plane, there is only exploitation here.
My personal opinion is that a lot of societal issues pertaining to resentment and hate toward immigrants and minorities of all sorts can be attributed to the fact that 26 people own half the world's wealth. Humans have an innate expectation of meritocracy, and when you show them the wealth distribution curve of the current society(you can't tell them that it's the actual curve though or their bias will kick in), nearly all of them will tell you this curve is unfair and not a reflection of a society that is meritocratic.
really depends who you ask. If you are actually a believer of meritocracy, seeing the top portion owning the most by far is just what makes sense and what you would want and expect
Kind of have the feeling this channel is going less in deapth and becoming one of the channels who say alot without saying much.
Ending felt a little abrupt. What is the key takeaway from this video?
The inequality issue comes down to 2 things. The only way wage workers were ever able to build wealth is investment over a life time. That is not possible anymore, but to stock buy backs, instead of dividends. And the second reason is after a point, wealthy people no longer spend their money on anything beyond influence. After you buy everything you want all that is left in power, influence, and gaining importance. All this waffling around with all these factors are just pointing people attention and anger away from the real issue, there is NO way to for the normal masses to participate in politics due to not being allowed to accumulate wealth over a period of time.
If what you say is true, that politics only comes to those who have managed to accumulate wealth....
... then those who can't could never participate in politics, and they could never get out of their predicament.
That doesn't sound good.
Its the inflation and tax thievery and discrimination by tax authority that causes issues. Equality isn't simply about making similar income but similar treatment and respect.
It's surprising how so many people who had the good fortune to be born healthy and intelligent into a wealthy society seem so disgruntled.
Equality is a false idol that doesn't exist in nature, never did and never will. Many people value things like national stability and strength, tradition or individual freedom over equality. Equality is not an intrinsic universal value nor should. Life is change and competition by default. You have to work with nature, not against it. Poverty, however, is definitely a problem for society that should be mitigated as much as possible. In other words, I couldn't care less how much more money Elon Musk makes compared to myself, but I care about having my basic needs met. If you have a problem with other people being more successful, you should work on your jealousy to become humble. It's a spiritual problem, not an economic one. The marxists tried to control society for the sake of equality and they made everybody miserable and hungry across five continents. Never again.
@@ferdinanddaratenas3447 Most people are not looking for equality of outcome, but rather basic fairness. Analysis shows that the poorest people pay the highest % of their income as tax, and the percentage decreases the higher you go. That's BS. This is because of the taxes on the basic essentials of life and the unnecessarily complex systems that enable the rich to use loopholes for their own benefit.
Nobody is arguing about working with nature and not against it - but calling out the BS that is modern day inequality IS natural. You think if 99 neanderthals had just enough to meet their basic needs, whilst 1 neanderthal was thriving in riches, the 99 neanderthals would be content with that and let them be?
You seem to be mistaking humans natural capacity and desire to rectify perceived injustices, especially when to the detriment of themselves and those they care about, as being unnatural.
@@ferdinanddaratenas3447people don't want equality for the purposesnof taking rich people down though, that's a strawman argument rich people use to avoid scrutiny. They want a system where the checks and balances are in power to ensure the rich aren't using their powerful position to cement further power for themselves and instead resources are going towards making the ladder to success easier.
@ferdinanddaratenas3447 You are contradictory in every statement. Your moot point is basically that equality and fairness is not natural and we should follow the nature and not expect better. Which immediately invalidates the second half of what you wrote. Poverty and famines are natural. Should we normalize them? There is no legal system in nature. Should we go with kangaroo courts and natural justice? What about agriculture? That thing is artificial too. Nature's only values is kill or be killed and might makes right. So even the values you speak of like national stability and strength are not natural. How about competition by all means? In nature competition means elimination of the opponents. Should we allow Apple and Microsoft to go after each other's facilities and bomb each other?
Your fundamental point doesn't hold. Human progress at this point is entirely artificial and self determined. Same is true for all our values. If nature doesn't agree, it can take a hike. I prefer a fair and honest society over wild nature any day.
To be fair I never said absolute equality; not because it's unnatural; but because it's impractical. All I want is decentralized structures and overly powerful megalomaniacs put their place in society; for normal people to be treated equally and fairly by the very system they fund with their taxes. I don't think that's too much to ask for.
I don't care how much money Elon made if he didn't influence jobs, my 401k and my ability to speak my mind out in public. Unfortunately money brings power and power corrupts. If Elon's fickle mind can bankrupt an entire region of families, I would definitely want some checks and balances.
It is good we acquire as much wealth as we can, most people fail to understand what it takes to become wealthy, they want to become wealthy overnight by thinking their savings will help them attain that, they fail to understand that investment is what truly builds wealth. I advise you all key into investing and earn side money than depending on your savings if you truly want to be wealthy
Meeting with someone genuinely good at the financial market was a break through for me
To the newbies, you should also note that this data is worthless without an existing understanding of data analysis
8:18 that's the thing, they don't spend it. The money's almost all in stocks that get used for easy dividends.
7:40 you fail to mention here that those tiers already exist. You can make poorer people richer, by making the ultra ultra wealthy a bit poorer a.k.a more people in the middle, instead of a majority at the bottom
And they borrow against their investments to never trigger capital gains.
@@JustinHalford Which is why there should be a wealth tax like in Sweden. But not like how you think.
Like this: the total value of all your stocks are taxed. Even if you don’t sell or it goes down. But very, very little, like 0.005%. So folks like Elon will have to pay, but he won’t mind because it is very small. Everybody is taxed like this but everybody is happy.
@@TheBooban totally agree. The trick is to have a system to transparently monitor assets and minimize offshore shelters
This is why there's a paradox that could not allow post consumer, post scarcity societies.
Because not all people can't be rich at the same level or have the same income level, but if more people are helped to grow out of a Bad situation, it would be better for everyone.
I think post scarcity societies can only happen when we achieve a certain level of technology. We have recently started scratching the surface. Things like AI and robotics, space mining, increased globalization could, if fully developed and properly managed, theoretically create a post scarcity society. It would be a longshot though and many things would have to align. Even if we solved the labour part with AI and some how many the transition from capitalism, which would be likely but very difficult and slow, wed still have to manege to get countries like the US and China to agree to exchange essential resources that only they produce at no cost.
@@davidk.d.7591 Too much ifs… Thing is, we will never have post scarcity as long as we have capitalism because scarcity is its very core.
@@naniyotaka Are you high? Scarcity is at its highest in non-capitalist societies. Only free markets produce abundance.
@@davidk.d.7591 How do you plan to ensure that all humans retain a claim to a slice of the economic output, if their labour is no longer valued?
How do you plan to ensure that humans remain empowered to pursue their project -- and maybe work towards social good -- in a world full of machines intelligent enough to do all human labour -- and undermine all those human projects.
In short, how is this post-scarcity world of yours, not a dystopia?
If you have a good answer to that question, then you make me a much more optimistic person about the future.
How do you keep your video so informative and fun! Well done AZNM9T and team!
So you just buy all those likes? Beep beep
Nice shill comment, keep boot licking Trickle down economics.
Reminds me of an old saying:”the U.S. has the richest poor people in the world.”
Only because other countries don't have a way to track their richest.
Know this is a literal economic channel, but inequality will always be present because of endless growth model of business and investment. I feel it will inevitably led to over concentration of wealth as the only businesses that can grow are businesses that are virtual monopolies.
The only inequality that must be tackled is inequality of POWER. Concentration of power is the begining of all evil.
Yeah, but the opposite is also bad. Spreading power too broadly will cause bureaucracy issues which delays progress more than concentration of power.
My country is currently facing this issue internally. Bureaucracy is hindering progress of the country.
All things should be given a considerate amount, not too narrow nor too wide.
@@n_core bureaucracy is a problem, but it is not becauce of "spreading power", it happens exactly because of concentration of power. Rich people and politicians just don't want this progress, and that's why they use bureaucracy to stop it
@@JJzerro Spreading power will ultimately cause bureaucracy since every peer needs to check in balance of power and everything needs to have an approval from every party since they have equal amount of power.
You don't expect everyone to agree with each other because everyone has different opinions and agendas.
If you want progress, that means you need something that's forcing you to move forward so you don't have to keep wasting your time going back and forth from one peer to another.
Singapore is one example of this. They can be successful because of the power of the ruler has over the country. They can make swift changes because no one can objects of what the government's do. But Singapore is far from what's so called dictatorship.
This is a rare case of benevolent autocracy can be a good thing for the country. You can't just replicate it in other countries.
When considering the topic of equality, I believe it better to establish a Human Standard, a set of annual $ that would ensure the stability of basic requirements being met, according to the standard of living in the country.
The measure of how poor or rich the people are is then to be compared with that Standard, with the deviation showing the actual inequality/fairness.
The average would differ wildly from what is actually needed in various regions, within many countries.
Good luck getting people to come to an agreement on what the amount of $ is. You're clearly living in a dream ... wake up
BS. Who would supply this so-called standard, huh?)) seriously?)
@@drwalka10ur not getting it , it doesnt take the government to establish that number… me and you can , and unless everyone is getting the amount that is set , there are protests, refusal to work , thats not a dream thats a union
Human Standard would be a bad idea, because goverments of countries that would need it the most would just ignore such regulation and treat it as "western degeneracy"
AZNM9T is more favorable with government and it will probably be the one that government institutions will rely on. Still worth holding both.
If few people hold most of the funny money then at some point it ceases to be money.
You guys should do a video on how economically hard times permanently depress birth rates.
I think the inequality only matters now because so many people have a full time job but cannot comfortably or stably afford shelter, utilities and basic food. Even if the job they do is considered barely worth having as a job, and even with the consideration that some people who are a lot smarter or have contributed a lot more with their job should have more wealth and afford more luxuries, someone who does a full time job that by definition someone must need doing otherwise the job would not exist, should have reliable and stable access to a lockable bedroom even if kitchen and washing are communal, and enough food to not starve even if poor nutrition will cut their lifespan a bit. It sounds strange but i've seen areas where a crate full of luxury goods like gadgets, tools, accessories, ornaments etc. are owned by people struggling to pay their bills but looking at the actual costs, the luxuries barely matter at all in terms of paying bills because the shelter/food/utilities cost so much by comparison. I already feel like i'm not explain it well but at the very least, I know i'm not particularly smart, I don't expect i'll ever be in one of the increasingly narrow field of jobs people recommend to make large salaries, but as long as I keep doing a job, I would like at some point like to be able to live somewhere in my country because I chose to live there, and not have to worry about losing money each month even if I do nothing but commute to and from work, house and a grocery shop, and watch internet videos for entertainment after dinner.
The ancient Greek and Roman philosophers would disagree with you the world owes you nothing and you deserve nothing!!!!! I'd actually for most people even the poorest of the poor people that live in a modern civilized Western Society enjoy The Preserves that was once only available to royalty yes life is hard, and you have to work very hard and oftentimes can barely get by I grew up in a very poor family on government assistance with food stamps the whole nine yards 9 yards but you know what we were very happy because we were not obsessed with material things I as an adult and not rich by any measure in fact I would be considered probably the Working Poor but as the Working Poor I live in a studio apartment with modern refrigeration air conditioning and a 55in flat screen LCD television and full internet access in my little humble apartment I have more entertainment and power than the mightiest of Kings just a couple hundred years ago!! Everything in life is relative and you will know No Greater Joy than the day that you stop comparing yourself to what you have versus what others have!! If you are a male and you've ever been inside of a locker room and I've seen what other males have been endowed with by Nature as far as the size of their genitals then you understand that life is not fair and men are in fact not created equal not created equal!!!!!!!!!!❤❤❤❤❤
@@nathanbond8165 Having basically unlimited entertain as a distraction is fine and all but is it really that much of a privilege if you don't know where you'll be living in two months or are too hungry to pay attention to it? You are trying to say that what i'm talking about is privilege but if you had a studio and you had food stamps that you had the level of stability that i'm talking about - as long as you kept working you would get food and shelter. Also isn't that a contradiction if you're saying the world owes you nothing but you are receiving government assistance?
@@lewisroach8723 I think we're talking on two different philosophical levels of course food and shelter is important but every person must earn their keep!!!! Otherwise the entire system falls apart as I stated before all forms of government are evil be they capitalist or be they socialist or be they Nazis etc etc etc but here in this reality they are a necessary evil have you ever asked yourself the question why are you here what is your purpose? Perhaps all of this is ultimately meaningless and it doesn't matter or perhaps you are here and I am here for a reason all of that I'm saying is that all forms of government are imperfect and have blood on their hands
As a person who was doing well and then lost everything after a horrible cancer diagnosis I now live at the bottom of the food chain, but in Australia where there is a lot of support - so not complaining but now very aware of what inequality feels like from 'down here'. I don't resent the rich at all, but I am now very aware of just how incompetent policy makers have been over the last few decades. We live in a world where everyone could be doing well, enjoy economic security, but for the obsession with wealth over income. Political decision makers have made serious efforts to suppress wages (think of Union power in the 1970's vs today) while simultaneously increasing wealth through property ownership and other speculative investments. Productivity has been declining as wealth has been traveling up the chain, stressing the middle class and smashing the vulnerable. Printing money because decision makers couldn't solve the problems that came with the GFC of 2008 has been a spectacular contributor to inequality. For me, one of the major contributors to this was the mass sell-off of social housing in the 1970's. There is a big, complicated story here, but basically the total privatization of property unleashed speculation that made all houses disproportionately expensive, and left the bottom half of the food chain struggling to keep a roof over their head.
Listen to this it become my question, why innovation should be sponsored by credit, and not by investment? Maybe we give banks too much power? Maybe we should split them from holding and operation on money (everyday stuff) and investing/savings accounts with %/lending?
what is credit for you is an investment for someone else. Investment in debt securities.
Credit is investment. When you get a bank loan, where do you think the money is coming from? Even with fractional reserve banking, the bank still needs new deposits from investors to lend more.
@@riteshgupta4002 and this is problem, because this "securities" are first not cover 100% by savings, and 2nd you don't have any control over this.
And do you know why? Because before age of computer it was impossible to manage it. Same with shorts on stock, they was created not to bet against company, it was to make stock exchange work in era of pony delivery. Where it take days or weeks to deliver change. Today we would not create this system at all. And this is what I proposing, not thinking how to change system, but how would we design it with today technology.
BTW EU have much better banking system, in my country I have instant free transfer between banks on free account.
PS I think we should learn basic of economy and investing in mid/high schools.
@@mirzaahmed6589 nope, credit is giving money for money in return. Investment is giving money to get part of investment you putting money in. Where is big difference between this to.
Pretty soon a full time job wont even pay enough to have a safe place to live, let alone any holidays or luxury items like electricity. When a third or half the country is basically enslaved, working for just enough for the lost basic life, things might get dark. Really dark.
This is my favorite topic in economics! Thanks for this video. It would be great if you could do a follow up video to dive deeper into it!
GREEE! GREED! & GREED! It baffles me that for all their number crunching & economic theories of why wealth inequality exists? That I rarely ever hear Economist's talk about greed, the lengths to which the 1% of the 1% will go to hide trillions of taxable dollars due to unchanging tax loopholes & most importantly how this severely hampers progress in nearly all aspects of humanity's development! The root of most complex problems are rather simple once you get around too it! The more society fails to solve the greed issue, the more & more i believe the future will resemble that of the world of Cyberpunk 2077! We need economist highlight the true dangers of greed, & not be afraid of these psychopathic CEO's & Banker's hellbent on destroying the planet for a profit!
Ever since COVID and GameSpot stock market issues, the “economy” to me is a game. Money is meaningless and valueless intrinsically and the only value it has is due to the players that benefit from the abstraction it creates between the “haves” and “have nots”. Essentially blinding everyone but the most financially literate from ways to make wealth, grow wealth, keep wealth, while those that already have it can create a fly wheel of prosperity on the backs of billions of people and their time, labour, and bodies.
Money is an abstraction layer because it simplifies the interface between resources and the people that need them. It allows governments, companies, and the capitalist to interact with workers and consumers without needing either side to understand the details of prohibitively complex supply chains, technology, and their impacts on people and the planet. This is one of a dozen reasons we live in a world that is burning literally, philosophically, morally, economically, and socially.
". Essentially blinding everyone but the most financially literate from ways to make wealth, grow wealth, keep wealth,"
I was broke two years ago, now i'm living comfortably working part time, It's not societies fault you aren't competent and don't see improving your skills as a net gain.
Money is a futures contract on labor.
@@dirtydangler nice ASSumption about people. Even those that struggle to make ends meet and work 3 jobs should somehow also find the time to learn finance. Or, a single mom taking care of kids and working should also be studying finance so she can find all the loop holes that she could use.
Also, the point isn’t “improving skills” it’s knowing the unknown. Immigrants for example who gain citizenship after travelling from a third world may not even know to look for social security, grants, or other benefits available to them.
@@rathelmmc3194 hahahah. Awesome. Hope you don’t mind me using that.
@@MatsueMusic Yes they need to learn finance, can't excpect to do well FINANCIALLY while having no knowledge of FINANCE.
i feel like another part of the problem, atleast for millennials and younger is actually hidden at 7:49 - Rent is basically wealth made by taking money from the economy .
All wealth is made by taking it from others under capitalism, your options are to exploit others or be exploited.
Can you please do a video on the independence of central banks? Thanks & keep up the great work! 😊
Its a quick video, they are not independant, lol.
@@JohnDoe-gg6kc :)
Knowing EE though, he'll go on a few interesting related tangents to explain other things and the videos will eventually be 20 minutes.
@@JohnDoe-gg6kcthey'll get you on for that episode so
The central bank of most countries is independent from government to a degree. Even though central banks are created by government legislation, Governments are not allowed to interfere with the monetary policies made by the central bank.
If wealth is more equally distributed, there’s still investment - just that the trajectory of what’s invested into is more democratically decided and thus on average more contributive to the common good. Extreme wealth inequality is completely incompatible with democracy and freedom.
this is exactly the type of information i subscribed for
Global inequality is not as much of a problem for a society as domestic/national inequality. You can have 2 independent countries with radically different levels of wealth, and they can work well together. There is a natural tendency to "catch up". But domestic inequality causes massive social strife, and there is a growing tendency towards "rent seeking" and feudalist tendencies unless the government cracks down on it.
I have always found the premise of the "Economic problem" that people have unlimited desires, very naive.
Economics student here.Mind telling why
remember in the 90s where homer simpson was considered a lower middle class worker, but happened to own a home, 2 cars, had 3 kids, and a stay at home wife? yea.... that's how far living standards have degraded. most ppl dont understand that the vast majority of ppl in the US now live at or very near poverty levels, but it doesnt visibly show because of access to credit, but really most ppl are dirt poor.
reminds me a little bit about the video done a few months back, on the possibility of an economy that runs just for the wealthy, producing and providing services only for them, but everyone else just lives one minimum government subsidies
Can you make a video on ecological economics? I am not an Economics major but I like your channel. But, I have found information on that theory on other channels and your take would be interesting.
inequality is not a problem 0.1% of hoarders is problem as always monopolising our common resources and capital
"inequality is not a problem, inequality is problem" how genius
There is a lot of talk around about minimum income(minimum wage, UBI) but I think the best strategy is to set a maximum income and everything else would fall in line behind that. If the CEO and the share holders can only take so much or if what they take has to be set in a ratio with worker pay then we wouldn't need to talk about minimum wage. Very few people are making 7 figures all by themselves - the overwhelming majority of high earners work in corporations and/or are shareholders. A few simple rules set by government would have a ripple effect throughout society. Of course, the government is controlled by the same people who control the corporations, so...
Your wrong and ignorant
Bill Gates has a big house, but is there any other resource he is hording? Most of his net worth is speculative value.
@@chase-warwick Elon's income is low because in proportion to his wealth it's low. It's not a tax avoidance strategy. It's just a consequence of having far more wealth than income. It happens even to normal workers (who are properly preparing for retirement) as at some point the growth of your portfolio exceeds the growth and amount of your annual income.
The problem I have noticed is "debt-ability"... our economy is based around our ability to go into debt, not our ability to earn money, therefore, prices will become increasingly out of line with wages, until implosion.
Well Explained👍
What is best for the economy, one person spending millions of dollars on a private plane or thousands of people spending hundreds of dollars on everyday items?
Can you do a video on the impact of inequality on inflation? And what does it mean for income in inflation adjusted terms?
Watch part 1
I don't mind a bit of inequality, as long as it's based on fair playing field, remains within reason and the poorest are not just left to die. If you work hard or make a great new innovation, you should be rewarded. But the modern "invester frat-boy multimillion compensation for crashing the economy and casusing people to starve" inequality goes too far.
A bit of inequality is one thing. Billionaires complain they pay too may taxes and running their own private space programs is too expensive. We have billionaires that complain that their $800 million yacht is no longer the most expensive in the world.
If you really want to see something depressing you should watch a john oliver piece on trailer parks. A guy become a billionaire by buying up trailor parks and then jacking the rent up. He produced nothing of value, huge numbers of people lost their homes, many more can't find one as a result and did quite a lot to fuel the housing shortages. He personally made billions doing it. Noting of value was produced, he is just a parasite.
@@Immudzenbillionaire AND landlord? 🤢
@@Immudzen Perfect examples of billionaires putting money into the economy though? They paid people to create those things. Once it was made the item is valued at 800 million. They now own a 800 million property and the individuals who got paid walked away with the checks they had made. Your example is the exact explanation he provided. They didn't do a ponzi scheme to steal money from the economy. They generated economic activity in their pursuit of luxury.
The trailer parks gets me curious though.
Hard work doesn't automatically deserve to be rewarded. It has to be directed toward something there is actual demand for. You can spend hundreds of hours on an art project. But if nobody wants to buy it, it's not worth anything. We don't reward misdirected effort.
@@travisspicer5514 I think it would have done more good for the economy if so much of the money handn't gone to the billionaires. They may have had the idea but a lot of others hard work is involved in that.
Of course the ones I hate the most are when companies pay the executives in stock and then do something like fire a bunch of workers to make the stock go up. Even worse is when they used the money from the fired workers to do a stock buyback to make it go even higher.
"A riding tide lifts all boats" is only good news to people with boats.
The funny thing about owning something is that you only get to keep it if you are stronger than the person trying to take it from you.
Inequality is a complex problem with no easy solutions. However, there are a number of things that can be done to address it, including:
Investing in education and job training: This will help to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed in the workforce.
Enacting policies that favor the poor and middle class: This includes policies such as raising the minimum wage, expanding access to healthcare, and providing affordable housing.
Reforming the tax system: This includes closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and making sure that everyone pays their fair share of taxes.
Promoting social mobility: This means creating opportunities for people from low-income families to move up the economic ladder.
The irony is some of these things actually increase wealth inequality. Just look at the COVID response.
Like the videos , the Australian intonation with statements sounding like questions is also linguistically fascinating
I love how multifaceted this video is. You don't just say inequality equals bad always, nor do you say that the rich just spending is always good.
No talk of why inequality is starting to become a problem. Just kind of danced around it for a while.
The reason it's a problem is because wealthiest 1 percent of households in the United States own 40 percent of the nation's non-home real estate, while the next 9 percent of households own another 42 percent. Because they have so much money then they can afford to pay insane amounts of money for the land while kicking the filthy peasants to the curb. It's the same for many other valuable resources as well and because they have them, you can't. Not unless you have access to a bunch of money.
It's not just about the people adding value to the economy but those people having a share of control in the economy. As wealth and power become more centralized then you start to see the powers at play become corrupt and manipulate government to their benefit rather than ours. Ford & GM are the reason you can't get to a grocery store without a car, most of the food in the grocery store is owned by less than 10 organizations, big pharma probably caused the pandemic on purpose, and I'm not convinced arabs suddenly decided to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks just to start a war. What do they stand to gain from starting a war against the country with the most oversized military, armory and advanced weapons technology.
Watching these types of videos make sad and anxious because I want enough money just to have a nice house and stable job and the idea of living in poverty is one thing that scares me.
It's important to note that inequality is not wrong in and of itself, but it can have other adverse effects depending on other economic factors.
Inequality is the norm, but we are talking about the inequality that is growing, not shrinking.
Some people will always have more than others. That is normal. But when the world is facing problems and people are getting less and less a group is getting more and more..... that is inequality for you. If "things are bad now" then everybody should be felling it the same way. But the super rich is getting always richer and richer, while the workers are getting poorer and poorer.
@@mikatu people are not getting poorer, they're getting richer but the rich get richer faster
@@triplea7536Exactly.
@@triplea7536 and thus the poor DO get poorer, cause that money has to come from somewhere, unless you print money at the same speed that poor folk get richer.
Like what? Every person I talked to that says inequality is bad simply doesn't have an answer to any follow-up questions. At best, they'll argue that the wealthy "hoard" their money instead of consuming it, which is simply not true, as explained in this video regarding investments.
An important distinction has to be made between Wealth and Income inequality. Income inequality can be a good thing, as it is a great motivator. Wealth inequality is mostly driven by inheritance and leads to inefficient allocations
There is nothing wrong with inheriting great wealth. The family is the primary group structure. The government, the community and society are secondary. They should not be allowed to interfere in family matters.
I like the derivative of that!
Let us strip the old money families if their wealth & distribute it among everyone!
Too bad, this would never happen unfortunately, because the old money families are old money for a reason, they control governments....
@@Roel93 The Family is a faulty functional unit. How many incompetent children inherit wealth?
@@zachjones6944 Those incompetent children will be at the mercy of the free market and that is good news for the common man.
@@eat_ze_bugsexplain Elon Musk then
Thanks for the awesome content and great videos!!!!/
Income inequality in the US and Canada is pretty damned scary.
Trickle down economics the movie?
We should make entertainment more affordable to keep masses' minds off economic inequality
Oh! We could have dozens of circuses in every city! And give out loaves of bread at the circuses! That'll satisfy those dirty pleabian poors.
A yes the hollywoo way
I don't know what you are smoking, hollywood has extremely leftist commie/socialist views and a hatred for billionaires even tho some of them are billionaires.
Love this man. Just posting to feed the algorithm.
Things in the US are objectively getting worse. Inflation is rampant across the board, but middle & lower class wages haven't kept up for decades, unlike upper class wages. Tuition and healthcare are absurdly expensive and houses and cars are increasingly unaffordable. Manufacturing left for Asia, and took working class jobs with it. Crime and gun violence are up, likely (at least partially) because of all that. Government spending is out of control, and corruption is rife. People are getting increasingly angry, and I think we're headed for something...unpleasant. And the US isn't alone here.
Im heavily invested in the guillotine industry. I put my life savings in its production really taking off
Shut up and take my money!
The central economic question has been invalidated. The real economic relationship between happiness and money is limited. It almost entirely disappears over 1 million dollars and is gone or negative over 10 million. Most happiness is gained by the time your making 100k.
It's even worse. Self deletion rate negatively correlates to country's GDP.
Yeah it's pretty annoying that such an influential social science is based on a statement that isn't actually...you know..true
9:13 .. hey shoutout to the TVS i-Qube from India
Inequality has been a problem for a while now. It's just that it is getting to the point that it can't be ignored that ordinary people cannot live decent lives any longer, and that struggle soons turns to resentment, intolerance and discussion.
The two are not connected, forget the wealthy and focus on how the majority can make a decent living
I don't think it's the wealth inequality itself that people have a problem with. I think the real issue is the social inequality that it comes with. More wealth does not equal more happiness, but it does equal more power and influence. Wealthy people are more privileged. They have more access to opportunity, are under less pressure financially, and their punishment for crimes are less severe. They have more freedom to do what they please, and their decisions can directly impact the lives of thousands of people.
That is exactly right.
I've just had a huge thought. If the economy is continuing on as planned, should people take on debt to keep up with inflation?
This is such a big topic for a 15 min video, there are so many factors that have to be discussed that it is impossible to come to a conclusion.
I'd say at the minimum you'd want a system where inequality stays constant. Where wealth and income of every percentile group grows at the same rate as productivity.
Inequality is so bad because all the income growth went to the top 20% or so for the last 50 years. The divide is those who can profit from debt and those who can't.
You could probably even keep this system as long as you ensure the bottom 80% profit equally. If that is even possible, that is.
Another issue is that rising inequality increases single parenthood and fatherlessness, which are THE indicator for serious troubles later in life. They especially set your personality and mental health up to fail. The more these rise among the general population, the harder it will be to get rid of the inequality, because it will ingrain itself. It's setting people up to fail. That's why our society is falling apart at the seams.
You don't have to argue with me over this, there is no discussion, this is what the data shows.
Very good example of problems with inequalities, in sanctioned countries, the middle class and lower class just go lower and upper class go higher(because they still have more dollars and money)
Your videos have gone down in quality. It started with posing 4 questions but never really directly answered them. The insights & takeaways get buried in noise. Don't feel like I learnt anything new / nothing stuck with me. Sincere feedback.
You could call this channel "Lucid Economics". Love it.
graphics were stellar this video!!!
Also, we have to remember that people don't make much in poorer countries but things don't cost as much either, as they find resources from within versus exploitation of poorer nations
Sounds like he believes in trickle down economics. I prefer trickle up economics.
1:10 I'm not sure it's quite like that. I remember hearing something in some video or something about this that said most technologies and discoveries are because of public money. So at the level of a State, money from taxes, thus the results of common effort, of the average Joe pretty much. Because research and exploration is not a safe bet. Like even the current most out there developments, such as going back in to space, we see the titles but we don't read the book. As the companies doing all that are doing it on mostly governmental money.
Reason for why i am a supporter or taxing the rich more, why i think that progressive tax rates are good approaches, kind of like those examples regarding fines being correlated to the offender wealth so it has overall same deterring effect or same punishment sting.
Like there are those examples of big companies moving money around and having plenty of lawyers and economists finding and exploiting kinks in the armor of the law sort of speak. Just to pay as little taxes as possible. Yet same companies couldn't be what they are without the societal framework and infrastructure that is build and maintained by the State. This building takes time and is compounded over time, so if you manage to disturb that through lobbying, corruption or whatever, you get holes in the whole system that overtime may even bring everything on its knees.
Like take the communication networks for instance. How many companies kept up with times in regards of technology, you know speeds and whatnot, if the market was already under them and had no proper competition anymore? That's why areas that catch up later ended being way better in regards of overall speeds and price. I mean, where i'm from i get gigabit residential for like 10$ monthly. Areas from US or other first to the party places have it a bit different.
the cursive ee in the lightbulb is brilliant
The pandemic really exposed the reality of inequality.
Awesome video.
TL;DR: The global pandemic caused a setback in reducing global extreme poverty levels, reversing a decade's worth of progress. Meanwhile, the world's richest individuals became even wealthier, with 1.2 percent of people owning 47.8 percent of the world's wealth. Over 2.8 billion adults, more than half of the global adult population, have a net worth of less than $10,000. While inequality is a complex issue, a concentration of wealth can potentially benefit others by stimulating industry and creating more opportunities. Historically, advancements in technology and industry have led to improved living standards for many. However, for the first time in 250 years, economic progress may be reversing due to global debt, which now exceeds $300 trillion. While economists have not been overly concerned about the debt until recently, it poses challenges to reducing inequality and maximizing prosperity for all. Wealthy individuals can contribute to economic growth by either spending their money or investing it in industries that add value to the economy. However, excessive consumption at the top and the concentration of wealth can lead to resource misallocation. Additionally, global debt is mainly owned by households and corporations, which, if managed effectively, can provide necessary capital for worthy projects. However, decisions on lending and resource allocation should not be controlled by a small group of people. An optimal level of inequality motivates innovation and hard work but too much inequality can hinder progress and waste resources.
Thanks.
You know who else feels inequality actually means something? Monkeys that get fed a complete diet when their mates get only grapes...
Jeff Bezos made his wealth adding value to the economy.
Bernard Arnault made his wealth taking value from the economy.
Ultimately it depends on if the use of capital is in areas that provide long term value and advancement. We need to differentiate today between these 2 billionaires, becuase how people make wealth matters.
Not every anti-billionaire person is an idiot it seems. Kudos to you.