Economic Inequality Does Not Equate To Poor Well-Being or Mental Health, Massive Meta-Analysis Finds (nature.com) 123
A new sweeping meta-analysis has found no reliable link between economic inequality and well-being or mental health, challenging a long-held assumption that has shaped public health policy discussions for decades. The study, led by Nicolas Sommet at the University of Lausanne and Annahita Ehsan at the University of British Columbia, synthesized 168 studies involving more than 11 million participants across most world regions. The researchers screened thousands of scientific papers and contacted hundreds of researchers to compile the dataset, extracting more than 100 study features from each paper and linking them to more than 500 World Bank indicators.
They also replicated their findings using Gallup World Poll data spanning 2005 to 2021, which surveyed more than two million respondents from more than 150 countries. People living in more economically unequal places did not, on average, report lower life satisfaction or happiness than those in more equal places. The average effect across studies was not statistically significant and was practically equivalent to zero. Studies that did find links between inequality and poorer mental health turned out to reflect publication bias, where small, noisy studies reporting larger effects were over-represented in the literature. The study adds: Further analyses showed that the near-zero averages conceal more-complex patterns. Greater income inequality was associated with lower well-being in high-inflation contexts and, surprisingly, higher well-being in low-inflation contexts. Greater inequality was also associated with poorer mental health in studies in which the average income was lower. We conclude that inequality is a catalyst that amplifies other determinants of well-being and mental health (such as inflation and poverty) but on its own is not a root cause of negative effects on well-being and mental health.
They also replicated their findings using Gallup World Poll data spanning 2005 to 2021, which surveyed more than two million respondents from more than 150 countries. People living in more economically unequal places did not, on average, report lower life satisfaction or happiness than those in more equal places. The average effect across studies was not statistically significant and was practically equivalent to zero. Studies that did find links between inequality and poorer mental health turned out to reflect publication bias, where small, noisy studies reporting larger effects were over-represented in the literature. The study adds: Further analyses showed that the near-zero averages conceal more-complex patterns. Greater income inequality was associated with lower well-being in high-inflation contexts and, surprisingly, higher well-being in low-inflation contexts. Greater inequality was also associated with poorer mental health in studies in which the average income was lower. We conclude that inequality is a catalyst that amplifies other determinants of well-being and mental health (such as inflation and poverty) but on its own is not a root cause of negative effects on well-being and mental health.
Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:4)
Does the study imply that poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing?
I'm assuming that there are more poor people in an inequal society, compared to an equal one.
Re:Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:5, Informative)
Basically it is an exercise in statistical bullshit.
The "researchers":
1. Collected some articles that report something or other,
2. Quote an absurd number of eleventy million studied subjects, when they only deal with articles and never with anything else,
3. In this manner they try to build an image of "huge" statistical base
4. Then they "borrow" some statistical methods from the very close and relevant field of epidemiology to "adjust" what they perceive as "differences" between the reported outcomes of the articles they study and
5. finally they compare the "data", thusly massaged, to a
6. "random model" based on some recent "theories" about how poverty and mental health and self-assessed "well being" are unrelated and
7. say, roughly, hey, the "adjusted" data we made up show no difference from our own random model, therefore our predefined conclusion, based on some theories that this is so [1] are valid.
But it makes a beautiful narrative totally in line with the new politics, and therefore is likely to get a lot of traction, as we see in comment #1 already.
1. These are the "theoretical basis" for the model and the adjustments
Hirschman, A. O. & Rothschild, M. The changing tolerance for income inequality in the
course of economic development. Q. J. Econ. 87, 544–566 (1973).
Cheung, F. Can income inequality be associated with positive outcomes? Hope mediates
the positive inequality–happiness link in rural China. Soc. Psychol. Pers. Sci. 7, 320–330
(2016).
Sommet, N. & Elliot, A. J. A competitiveness-based theoretical framework to study the
psychology of income inequality. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 32, 318–327 (2023).
Agree on the stats (Score:5, Informative)
Agree with your opinion on the statistics. It would greatly help if the many sub-optimal papers get retracted also. Those include
- Self reported surveys
- A too small (50?) sample size
- Papers with a biased starting sample (surveying only middle aged white women) and generalizing to the entire population including men
- Ones with survey questions which seek to confirm an already held conclusion (e.g., using "Is it OK to speed if you are driving a critically sick person to the hospital?" and reporting it as "Is it OK to speed?")
- Papers which are an opinion piece with no backing data
Then
- Then evaluating papers with cite them as primary sources to see if they need to be retracted also.
- Then evaluating papers from journals having a high level of retractions
- Then evaluating papers which have many self-citations, citations from the journal's staff or colleagues, or citations from a circle of academics who cite each others work for cross-promotion
- Then evaluating papers by authors and/or academic departments who have repeated retractions
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If only those researchers were as smart as slashdot pundits...
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I think the keyword here is "equate", which probably means "very strongly correlated". If it is merely strongly correlated, "does not equate" would already be true. Essentially a nice example for a lie by misdirection.
Third-world and mental health (Score:5, Insightful)
It begs the question, are those in poverty in other countries more likely to have both parents, more likely to have a strong community and extended family and less likely to overdo social media consumption?
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No, it does not. But I notice you are too dumb to have understood the statement you answered to, so expecting you to understand anything here is probably a bit of a stretch.
Re: Third-world and mental health (Score:2)
What's not to understand? You made multiple speculative statements and concluded based on them that the authors are doing exactly what you're trying to do.
Which is totally within your character, given your past comments. By the way, this paper has already passed peer review and been published in a pretty well known journal. That trumps your nicotine fueled speculation.
Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:2)
I'm assuming that there are more poor people in an inequal society, compared to an equal one.
You know what they say about assumptions. Behind the iron curtain they didn't have homelessness, but they were all equally waiting in bread lines.
Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:2)
Behind the iron curtain they didn't have homelessness, but they were all equally waiting in bread lines.
I'm not sure where you're trying to go with this. If you put a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, in urban Moscow, but you still have the Holodomor in rural Ukraine, are you saying that's an improvement??
Wait a fucking minute, was Stalin, was Moscow starving? Or was that Ukrainian farmers, rural peasants.
How is equality the bad guy in this story, cause if Stalin was hungry I bet some fucking policy might have changed. Do you even think this stuff through?
Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:2)
How is your three day special military operation working out for you?
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Economic inequality is not equal to "poverty". I didn't see the word "poverty" used here, and I don't know where you got that.
An economically unequal society in one in which the wealthiest are far wealthier than the least wealthy. That's it. This might mean, for example, that a few people are billionaires, whereas the poorest members of society are just millionaires who only get to own two cars. Relative poverty is not (necessarily) actual poverty.
Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:3)
That was my first thought. The headline they wanted to write was something like "Poors are unhappy because they make stupid decisions, not because they are poor"
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I've been both poor, and well off. As a child, my family was dirt-poor, with income around the Federal poverty line. But we were a happy family. Sure, there was stress about some expenses, but overall, our lives were good. Even my parents agree, so it's not just my childhood tunnel vision.
As a software engineer, I've moved well into the upper middle class. While my own family remains happy, I know many others with similar incomes, who are terribly unhappy. Everything is always doom and gloom, though they ha
Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:2)
Why would you assume that? Observationally, it seems to me that "inequality' only matters when the total pie stops growing fast enough. Then people become obsessed with how the pie is divided rather than how they can help grow it (and, to be fair, the already rich then focus more on extracting rent from the non-rich than on wealth producing activities)
Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:2)
Observationally, it seems to me that "inequality' only matters when the total pie stops growing fast enough. Then people become obsessed with how the pie is divided rather than how they can help grow it
Here's the fun thing with pie analogies. How are you slicing it?
If the purchasing power in the rich people slice is reduced 10%, they buy fewer vacation homes. If the purchasing power of the poor people slice is reduced, they are fucked in the ass dry.
What's the dry end of a pie you certainly must be asking yourself. That's the crust. So we cut the pie in concentric rings from the inside out. Warm gooey center upper class, firm tasty middle, then you have the end of pie, the crust.
The total pie growing fast
Inequality (Score:3)
Re: Inequality (Score:2)
The prevailing wisdom of the last couple of decades is that, in even fairly prosperous societies, the mere fact that there are very rich people makes others miserable, even if all of their needs are being met.
Then why are you so miserable when those yuppies from California bought up all the housing inventory and made your property taxes go up? You couldn't get your driveway paved because all the crews were busy on bigger projects? Cost of lumber went up too much to finish your deck because out of state assholes bought all the new home construction?
Ooooooh, ok, "that's different(TM)", that's not rich people existing. That's rich people ... spending money? Rich people spending money they didn't have before that yo
Re:Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This point is significant:
Greater inequality was also associated with poorer mental health in studies in which the average income was lower.
When the average income level is high, inequality doesn't necessarily mean a lot of poor people. But when the average income is low, inequality means a lot of people below the already low average.
It's been known for a long time that the correlation between wealth and happiness mainly exists at the very low end. Poverty makes people unhappy. Once you have enough money that you're not worried about being able to satisfy your basic needs, further wealth has little or no benefit to happiness.
Wrong question (Score:2)
Does the study imply that poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing?
I'm assuming that there are more poor people in an inequal society, compared to an equal one.
No. You’re begging the question. That assumption is incorrect. The study equates happiness of the bottom quintile to success. In other words it favors improved outcome for the poor over lowered disparity. It’s really easy to lower disparity if outcomes are ignored - just redistribute wealth and justice based on identity (socialism, fascism, oligarchies, ethnostates, religious leadership, etc) instead of simply by individual need, merit, and productivity (classical liberalism).
But history proves
Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score:2)
When Teslas first started including self-driving cameras, a lot of viral videos started showing up on the internet of people, for seemingly no reason at all, keying parked Teslas. When caught and asked about why they did it, it was usually something to the effect of them thinking to themselves "why does somebody else get to have something this nice and I don't?"
And this wasn't even a new thing, this has been happening to luxury cars for a long time, just this was the first time it was getting caught on vide
The problem is poverty, then. (Score:5, Informative)
Greater inequality was also associated with poorer mental health in studies in which the average income was lower.
This is the unsurprising fact. It implies that it's the closeness to poverty that has a negative impact on well-being and mental health.
While inequality is a cause of that globally, there are plenty of parts of the first world that include the meaninglessly rich alongside the adequately resourced.
On the other hand with less inequality globally, there'd be less poverty.
Re: The problem is poverty, then. (Score:2)
"While inequality is a cause of that globally, there are plenty of parts of the first world that include the meaninglessly rich alongside the adequately resourced."
Why isn't universal basic income the obvious solution?
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Why isn't universal basic income the obvious solution?
It would help nothing. The super-rich would still be super-rich, and the super-poor would still be super-poor. Universal basic income has absolutely zero chance of ever working in a free society. Every time the government pumps more money into the economy, prices rise to compensate for it. The end result will always be economic harm to everyone who isn't already wealthy.
Re: The problem is poverty, then. (Score:1)
If the super poor have an inflation-indexed income sufficient to access enough material goods for a decent life, does your argument collapse?
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Re: The problem is poverty, then. (Score:2)
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The argument isn't about inflation, it's about feeling superior to those beneath you.
Isn't that what this meta-analysis refutes?
Highly classed societies aren't, of themselves, contributing to poor wellbeing or mental health.
Only where the average income is lower.
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If the super poor have an inflation-indexed income sufficient to access enough material goods for a decent life...
That won't happen any more than it does now. Look at what happened during the Covid lockdown. Trillions of addtional dollars were pumped into the economy, and the end result was a staggering inflation spiral. That had a short-term benefit to the super poor, but they were soon in the exact same situation they were in before the stimulus. That happens for many reasons, but the end result is that giving money to people will cause as many, if not more, problems than existed prior to the giveaway.
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Exactly.
Re:The problem is poverty, then. (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand with less inequality globally, there'd be less poverty.
As American taxpayers are finding out rather quickly with regards to Somalian “daycare”, there is no shortage of money to correct the problem of poverty. There is a massive fucking problem with what happens to that money.
Fix the problem of anti-corruption enforcement. Make THAT the focus of equality with common laws and proper enforcement, and the problem of poverty evaporates.
Poverty was solved long ago. Corruption wasn’t.
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Outside of a hit youtube piece of some MAGAt that has already been debunked and massive repeats thereof, what actual evidence is there of "Somalian fraud"?
I’d say it’s summed up quite nicely in your shitty SIGN language, where you abuse Shame, Insult, Guilt, all for a Need to be right instead of providing an actual retort.
But perhaps we should ask the Quality Learing Center how to spell “learning” first. I mean before we dig into the IRS paperwork that hopefully won’t also get stolen through a robbery by cutting drywall from the inside of your daycare office while claiming to be a victim of daycare records theft. A crime that h
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name another President who gave every Military member a Christmas bonus that was more than a fucking coffee cup
You are so fucking gullible: "Trump's 'Warrior Dividend' for troops is housing money approved by Congress" https://federalnewsnetwork.com... [federalnewsnetwork.com]
From your link:
This payment will be made outside of the regular pay cycle by Dec. 20.
Given the fact that BAH and COLA subsidies are part of the standard pay allowances for all qualified Military members , you know what THAT above statement means? How dead wrong you are to try and deflect from my fucking point. THAT, is called a bonus. Period. Full stop. Now, name another President who’s done that. In time for the holidays.
Seems America had PLENTY of Congressional funds available when President Autopen and the Open Border Czar were sending over $100 BILLION to a cou
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From the abstract:
"Meta-regressions revealed that the adverse association between inequality and mental health was confined to low-income samples."
What they appear to be saying is that, if you ignore the poor people, then income inequality doesn't negatively affect people. That seems like a disingenuous "analysis".
Well-being is a choice? (Score:1)
I feel that well-being can be a complicated and a many faceted thing and at the same time, well-being can also be a personal choice, that can happen at any time, anywhere, any place. And then gone in an instant.
Thank goodness, as this study apparently shows, well-being is not something you can buy!
Re:Well-being is a choice? (Score:4, Interesting)
well-being is not something you can buy!
Yes, of course it is. You can buy physical well being fairly directly, in the form of healthy food and adequate medical care. Some people have health problems we don't know how to fix yet, but for everyone else, it's a matter of lifestyle and care. Someone has to pay for the care.
Mental well being is harder to just buy, but your economic status absolutely affects it, because having your needs met and not having to worry all the time (i.e. experience stress) absolutely improves mental health.
The only societies in which inequality doesn't significantly affect average physical or mental health are those in which nearly everyone's needs are met. Otherwise, some people's are, and some aren't, and it's determined by economic status because capitalism is the worldwide dominant paradigm determining access to resources.
Inequality is cool says study backed by rich (Score:1)
"minimum thresold for comfort" (Score:2)
I imagine that a certain point, most people would have "enough money to not worry about the certain immediate doom".
However i bet there's a few billion people that are not even in that.
Also given certain lists being that were released and badly censored etc, you probably should have a study on the mental health of people with too much money.
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Also given certain lists being that were released and badly censored etc, you probably should have a study on the mental health of people with too much money.
Most successful CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits. We the defenders and definers of a “modern” society have deemed those traits as a good thing.
What is the ACTUAL fucking problem here? The psychopath, or the ones putting psychopaths on a fucking pedestal to worship in MBA class?
Studies don’t happen because the root cause is often found to be uncomfortably obvious.
reverse the cause and effect (Score:3)
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That is a third-world situation though.
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I know someone with some significant mental difficulties where the only reason they're not on the street is that their parent owns their home and they don't have to pay rent.
I work with people who cannot support themselves all day. For many of them, and AFAICT most of those to whom it applies long term, it is specifically due to mental health issues. I'm not trained to make diagnoses, so take that with any needed salt, but frankly if you work with enough people you learn to recognize some signs.
I don't know
Re: reverse the cause and effect (Score:2)
Which state and what's the name of the halfway house?
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Your family member was fortunate enough(?) to have violated the law. Particularly against a priveleged member of society. Take the typical schizophrenic living on the street and there's no help for them. No food, housing or amenities.
Our mental health system has collapsed. Due both to the left wing's desire to defend the rights of everyone. Including those who are incapable of handling them. And the right wing's desire to save a buck. Butwe are slowly swinging back the other way. Recognizing that there are
Culture and mind set (Score:3)
As with happiness, I suspect that well being is partly a mind set.
i.e. Two people with exactly the same level of wealth, with exactly the same types of social relationships, etc., can have different levels of well being.
One example is expectations. If you expect to be in a better situation than you are, then you will feel dissatisfied. If, on the other hand, you feel grateful for your current situation, then you are more likely to feel satisfied.
This has bearing on how society chooses to look on various occupations. If society chooses to "respect" a wealthy few, and look down on blue collar work, then this will result in a greater number of people dissatisfied with their lot. If society gives genuine respect to manual labourers that diligently and responsibly carry out their work, then the opportunities for people to be contented with their role in society will be greater.
What is their definition of inequality? (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to live in a society where I can consume goods, housing, leisure and healthcare and not constantly worry about the future.
I don't want a society were we demonize the wealthy so they leave or don't reinvest in what they did well, where we demonize landlords to the point no one invests in rental housing and the young lose all geographic mobility to find a career. I also don't want a society where we create artificial housing wealth by restricting home construction.
At the end of the day I would rather be a poor person in society where there is a huge amount of consumption of all the things I want than be an asset or earning rich person in a society that has scarcity of the things I want to consume.
What, physical wealth does not make you happy? (Score:2)
Who would have thought?
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Rich people?
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You mean rich people generally know that they are unhappy? Not my impression, even if quite a few of them obviously are.
Reason Magazines take on inequality (Score:2)
Note: These guys are heavily libertarian.
Paywalled, but any "religion" variables involved? (Score:1)
\o/ (Score:1)
oh look self-reporting (Score:2)
People living in more economically unequal places did not, on average, report lower life satisfaction or happiness than those in more equal places.
Denial is a well-known and highly observed coping mechanism.
compare USA and socialist/communist Venezuela (Score:2)
Inequality is not the right indicator, Dignity is (Score:2)
This study smells funny to me, likely agenda driven to assuage capitalist consciences (or those of the policy makers and implementers).
But the conclusion does track with my own (limited) observations: the real issue is not wealth, but dignity. Individuals who have their needs reasonably met, plus a sense of security in those needs being met for the forseeable future, plus some sense of authonomy and opportunity for self-expression, will be more or less happy regardless of relative economic circumstances. Se
inequality and poverty are not independent (Score:1)
Not all inequality is created equal (Score:2)
The poor in the US are very well off compared to the poor in "developing" countries. In the West, we don't know what real poverty is.
I volunteer with an inner city mission in Houston. The people we work with are considered the poorest of the poor. Yet they live in apartments, they have cars and smartphones, they have food. Yes, their poverty is real, but their basic needs are met.
What we find, is that the happiness or wellbeing of these families, is tied more to their own perspectives and the way they choos
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Exactly, after basic needs are fulfilled, the happiness starts depending on other non-material parameters. But there is still some unhappiness caused by "relative poorness".
Please Then, Send Me All of Your Money (Score:3)
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As we’re “learing” [sic] from Minnesota, HUD and Medicare are heavily weighted down with graft. This is sand in the gears. Clean it out. For example, now that third world Medicare-funded autism centers have been partially cleaned up, there are reports from families with actual autistics that they’re finding it much easier to get care.
Only Human's Financial Trading Economic Places (Score:2)
That's weird... (Score:2)
If you believe this article, you should go spend time in the poorest parts of Iceland, then the poorest parts of South Africa.
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Only until this "meta-analysis", which is another name for "bullshit", is retracted.
Your ilk will then say "Oh, see, science sucks, all the findings that I don't like are also invald".
We've seen you being there too many times, trumptards.
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Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:1)
Everyone with wealth give everything you have to someone without wealth then come back and tell us how happy you still are.
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:2)
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:2)
Why would it? It's not zero-sum. Let's see if I can put this in terms a person like you could relate to:
As you know, in your neighborhood, there are exactly 12 igloos. One day, another wildling comes from over the mountain and wants to settle in. He needs an igloo, obviously, or else he'll freeze at night.
If you were in a zero-sum world, there are only 12 igloos there, and there will never be more than that. That means he has no choice but to get out his club and fight one of you to the death, and then take
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Except in this analogy, a wealthy wildling will feel that they shouldn't have to build their own igloo, and since they want to sleep now and now three hours from now they can't pay someone to do it so they will pay someone to force someone out of their igloo.
This would mean that, among you wildlings, the path of least resistance is paying one wildling to kill another wildling than it is to just pay him to build another igloo. It also means that none of you guys would care that the previous occupant of that igloo disappeared on the same day that a new wildling moved in. And that you wildlings will happily sell each other out. And while that is the case, the fact that you can build more igloos if you want to means it remains positive sum.
Think of the igloos as laws and the people they pay to be lobbyists to bend the rules for them and lawyers to cover what they do.
Laws aren't relevant to w
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:2)
What an odd and clumbsily made statement... And where do I even start? Hmm...
How about this: How are you defining wealth? The literal meaning would be things like the shirt I'm wearing, the car I drive to work, the phone in my hand, etc. Sure, that would pretty well suck, but how is that even relevant? Your statement is predicated on the assumption of a zero-sum world, which I don't live in.
Perhaps where you live, there is a fixed amount of everything, and every time somebody gets a new car, that means some
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You seem to be entirely missing the point. I will spell it out for you: You argued that income inequality is not bad and, by extension, that those on the low end of the equation actually have it just as good as those on the high end. So, if that's the case, then those on the high end should have no problem giving up their wealth. Obviously that's not happening and the obvious reason why is because it's not actually so great being on the low end of extreme wealth inequality.
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You seem to be entirely missing the point. I will spell it out for you: You argued that income inequality is not bad and, by extension, that those on the low end of the equation actually have it just as good as those on the high end.
That is not what that means. What it does mean is that somebody who earns more on the high end doesn't come at the expense of those on the low end.
So, if that's the case, then those on the high end should have no problem giving up their wealth.
Yes, they would. You're creating a false dilemma here. It doesn't have to be one or the other, it can literally be both. Again, it's not zero-sum.
Obviously that's not happening and the obvious reason why is because it's not actually so great being on the low end of extreme wealth inequality.
Define "great". I mentioned a car earlier, so let's go with a car analogy. 30 years ago, you bought a Dodge Neon. I didn't even have a car back then. Only one of us had a car. 20 years ago, I bought a Toyota Corolla of
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It kind of is though. Wealth ultimately is the ability to motivate others to act on your behalf.
Every time you spend one hour building someone else's dream life - that's an hour you didn't spend building your dream life. Sounds like zero sum to me.
That would only make any sense if you and the other person had the exact same skills as one another. Most people don't. Otherwise, this is an opportunity cost that is just a wash, and nobody would even bother. Here's a thought experiment: Say you spent the last 10 years making shirts, and let's say the other guy I replied to, tragedy, spent the last 10 years making shoes. Odds are you've developed your own method for quickly making shirts, and tragedy did the same for shoes.
Say it takes him one day to make
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:2)
The "meta-study" shifts the blame to inflation.
If you make the same money but people around you pull in more and more... what happens, your prices go up, duh.
So when young rich AI-boomers from out of state start buying up homes around you old retired conservatives out in the boonies, we're going to calmly say don't believe your lying eyes gramps, that's not increasing wealth inequality, it's just inflation that somehow excluded your income. Think that one through a bit.
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Noting that it is good to hear that individual happiness and well being are not correlated to how much money you have.
That might be a handy campaign message.
Re:Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:4, Informative)
Noting that it is good to hear that individual happiness and well being are not correlated to how much money you have.
And in actual reality, not even the misleading title says that.
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:1)
"Noting that it is good to hear that individual happiness and well being are not correlated to how much money you have"
Isn't this just the Easterlin paradox? Why do we pursue GDP when it doesn't even make us happier?
Re:Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a liberal or conservative take here, the UN, World Bank and the usual NGOs have pushed for Europe (who doesn't approve of the president and follows socialist policies) and the USA to pay money for past events, past allegations, or unproven grievances claimed by a third-world country.
What's common with this first-world to third-world wealth transfer, the UN and NGOs get their cut of the money, keep their influence and media promotions, and get to employ lots of people.
Countering the group of people who assign collective blame and collective responsibility at birth to one group of people for some real or unproven issue in the world; and then push for those in that group to somehow pay retribution for things they could not have possibly done because it was before they were born and before they were voting age adults.
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:5, Informative)
Europe (who doesn't approve of the president and follows socialist policies
Europe isn't socialist.
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
The republicans have long time ago redefined socialism as being any law limiting profit.
Republicans have defined socialism, communism, and wokeism as bogeymen representing the enemy. Nothing more. Most Republicans are not able to define these terms, and it doesn't matter because their are intended to be strawmen to be attacked.
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The republicans have long time ago redefined socialism as being any law limiting profit.
Firstly, why are you even asking them to begin with?
Secondly, people who claim to hate the American Republican Party while at the same time talking about how badly they want socialism themselves usually don't even understand what socialism is. Amimoji is one of those I've had to correct on this, and he lives in the UK, where the American Republican Party isn't even relevant. He even told me about how his political party (he didn't specify which) calls itself socialist, and how his country calls itself socia
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That phrase is intended for the communist stage, where there is no money. Also, Karl Marx was opposed to welfare.
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more bs, the upper class is here and now and these evil people are hoarding all our capital and impoverishing the rest of us
look at these powerful complicit people and their bs self-justifications while they cheat and steal from the poor and powerless
this is exactly what evil looks like
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:2)
Capital doesn't come in finite supply.
Re: Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:2)
Land is one of the most important forms of capital. There is a finite supply of land.
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True, though we're not running out of it any time soon.
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> True, though we're not running out of it any time soon.
Isn't most usable land already owed by some entity making it a fixed amount?
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Most of it, and only by governments.
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Re:Bad news for grifters and the UN (Score:5, Informative)
Noting that it is good to hear that individual happiness and well being are not correlated to how much money you have.
That's not what the study said. The study said that happiness is not correlated to inequality. Inequality is different than how much money you have.
If you're going to criticize a study, at least think first.
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They corrected for a person's economic status and then found that income inequality by itself is not correlated with how happy people are. So it was basically a very pedantic study. Trolling.
The reality is that wealth is correlated with happiness, up to $75k [slashdot.org] or $500k [cbsnews.com] of annual income.
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Oh, I'll bet they very much are. Being extremely poor, e.g. not being able to feed yourself, etc., is going to make you unhappy, I'm sure. And having more than the bare minimum is going to make you at least somewhat happier. But that's different from inequality, i.e. whether someone else has more than you do - as long as you have enough.
Three generations of instition building (Score:2)
We have three generations of NGO and nonprofit institution building since WWII.
How much of the budget of individual institutions seeks to increase the size of the institution and not carry out the societal benefits purpose of the institution?
It should be acceptable for a reasoned discussion of
- How the institution's budget is spent
- The news, research, and opinion produced by the institution
- The demographics and leadership of the employees and contractors paid by the institution
- Whether an institution for