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Top economists call for action on runaway global inequality

The letter says: “We know that high inequality undermines all our social and environmental goals. It corrodes our politics, destroys trust, hamstrings our collective economic prosperity and weakens multilateralism. We also know that without a sharp reduction in inequality, the twin goals of ending poverty and preventing climate breakdown will be in clear conflict.”

shatteredsword ,

Ok, but what do the bottom economists have to say about it?

afraid_of_zombies ,

The majority of polled economists in the US do not support getting rid of student loan debt but continue to argue that the Wall Street Bailouts were a good idea. The Brookings Institute for example publishes near monthly articles on the subject.

Economists are not objective. They work for banks. They tells us what banks want us to think.

Sambarkjand ,

This is so far from being the truth. Please get an economics degree and see if you still think that.

I don’t know if I like this place. Everything is so conspiratorial.

afraid_of_zombies ,

This is so far from being the truth. Please get an economics degree and see if you still think that.

First off I don’t need a degree in theology to be an atheist. Nor a degree in Chiropractic “medicine” to know that it is dangerous bullshit.

Secondly, what did I say that factually was not true?

I don’t know if I like this place. Everything is so conspiratorial.

Sorry, you should ask for your money back. Go hang out on like reason.org or some economists blog and circle jerk each other on how great student loans are.

Sambarkjand ,

Correct, you don’t, because those are garbage disciplines based on nothing whereas economics is decidedly not. Economics is the study of constrained choice, using rigorous math to model these scenarios and applied statistics to test the models. Any 1st or 2nd year course you take in economics isn’t revealing truisms about the world - they are introducing concepts and highly simplified, abstracted models so that when you get into upper year courses and you start using extremely heavy math to make more realistic models that are serious attempts to explain actual human behavior, you’re not completely lost.

You take at face-value that certain subsets of economists argue in favor of bank bailouts but against student loan relief is proof that they’re evil, or garbage, or bought and paid for, without even understanding the arguments. The bank bailouts were loans which the banks paid back - would you be fine with the government giving out more loans to pay off existing student loans?

afraid_of_zombies ,

based on nothing whereas economics is decidedly not.

Incorrect. It is garbage based on whatever power structure says is true. Basically religion.

You take at face-value that certain subsets of economists argue in favor of bank bailouts but against student loan relief is proof that they’re evil, or garbage, or bought and paid for, without even understanding the arguments

How did you determine what I know and don’t know? Please show me your methodology of mindreading. Hey everyone watch as this one ignores this question

The bank bailouts were loans which the banks paid back

Gotcha. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. The loan portion was a fraction of the entire bailout package. There was also the shutdown of their competition via stresstesting and the excessive reserve program which dwarfed the loan portion. Plus there is the get out of jail free card the government issued to them. I am going to assume you knew about all three and like your economists friends were hoping that I didn’t. A lie by omission. Garbage rhetorical tricks they teach in economic classes these days.

If I paid off a cop to not arrest you, gave you a free apartment building to live in, murdered your rivals, and then you paid me back ten bucks you lent me before that would pretty much describe what happened.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_reserves

would you be fine with the government giving out more loans to pay off existing student loans?

I don’t know, go ask the bank that pays you to tell you what to think to do.

alvvayson ,

Just bringing back inequality from current insane levels to the levels of the 80s/90s would give young people so much more food and housing security.

It’s depressing to see what happened since 2008.

MercuryUprising ,

It wasn’t since 2008, it was more or less since Reaganomics and the neoliberal push in the west around the same time. It’s been the same shit ever since, and it’s 100% bipartisan. In fact, the worst offender since Reagan was definitely Slick Willy Clinton, who killed Glass-Steagall and introduced the telecommunications act of 1996, allowing for consolidation of every media empire and telecom network, which severely limited broadcast journalism’s investigative power. It’s been nothing but mega mergers and 1% fuckery ever since. The last chance was Occupy, anyone else remember the lack of coverage? I was in Europe at the time and had to watch fucking RT to see anyone talking about it. They will never let that happen again.

What most of us need to remember, is that they never let it happen the first time around either.

alvvayson ,

There is a noticeable uptick in the wealth share of the top 1% after 2010, while their share had fallen en been quite stable between 1995 and 2010.

equitablegrowth.org/the-distribution-of-wealth-in…

MercuryUprising ,

Looks like it briefly went down in 1995 and then started climbing around 9/11 and the war boom. Didn’t the dot com bubble happen around 1995? I figure that could account for the random downturn.

FarceMultiplier ,
@FarceMultiplier@lemmy.ca avatar

They should fear more.

clobubba ,

deleted_by_author

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    BNE ,
    @BNE@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I mean, Portland was the beginnings of one.

    housepanther ,
    @housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com avatar

    Caveat Emptor: I have not read the article. I am immediately suspicious of most economists because, at least in the US, they have a decidedly conservative bias. Generally US-based economists side with the concerns of the wealthy and promote policies friendly to them which are often at the expense of the poor and working classes.

    sovietcreditcard ,

    Bingo. Pretty much any non-Marxist economists will favor “the market” over workers. Neoliberalism, the predominant ideology in most western countries, is seen as an alternative to conservatism (very much so in the US), but they’re centrists at best, and conservative-lite at worst.

    artifice ,

    Is Lemmy full of communists?

    livus ,
    @livus@kbin.social avatar

    The lemmy devs are.

    artifice ,

    That’s a shame… I’ll just try to block any community related to politics and live happier.

    dartos ,

    Mhm

    sovietcreditcard ,

    i.makeagif.com/media/6-05-2017/BoUMTR.gif

    afraid_of_zombies ,

    I am not one, won’t speak for anyone else. Economists lie and I don’t trust them.

    Nomecks ,

    Is a federated community, run by community members, for the betterment of the community, communist?

    Veraxus ,
    @Veraxus@kbin.social avatar

    Exactly. Neo/liberalism is just right-wing feudalism with extra steps. If you allow (let alone encourage) the unmitigated consolidation of wealth (and therefore authority) you will ALWAYS move society rightward. Hence the term “Late-stage Capitalism”.

    Economies require trade and incentive to thrive, but there must be limits to how much a person or entity can accrue.

    CorruptBuddha ,

    Does that mean you believe society is now more right leaning then it was 40 years ago?

    livus , (edited )
    @livus@kbin.social avatar

    This is a case of "perfect is the enemy of good".

    This thing was signed by a bunch of non-US economists like Thomas Picketty and people like Helen Clark, a left politician who used to run the UN Development Programme.

    Economic neoliberal bias, sure, but what they are proposing is still an order of magnitude better than what we have now.

    Edit: I can't see anything below this in this comment chain, not even my own comments!

    Not sure if it's a kbin bug or if @hglman blocked me. (Is this the effect blocking has in the fediverse? Can you guys still see the rest of the chain?)

    hglman ,

    Pointing out how it can be better is not the enemy of the good; your concern trolling is.

    livus ,
    @livus@kbin.social avatar

    Huh? This isn't reddit. I'm not a "concern troll". I'm just an ordinary person who happens to disagree with you about something.

    I'm not a fan of economic neoliberalism either, but I would rather an international group of economists demanded anti- inequality measures than nothing.

    sovietcreditcard ,

    Helen Clark is left LOL

    livus ,
    @livus@kbin.social avatar

    Yeah I know, not by some standards, really depends on your Overton window.

    She led a majority government on centre-left policies in New Zealand so that still meant she was in charge of a Monetarist economy with all the neoliberal economics that implies, but she also presided over a massive tax revenue transfer to working class families that is still going on today.

    CorruptBuddha ,

    Pretty much any non-Marxist economists will favor “the market” over workers.

    Just going to point out that “the market” is people’s freedom of choice compounded across society.

    Neoliberalism, the predominant ideology in most western countries, is seen as an alternative to conservatism (very much so in the US), but they’re centrists at best, and conservative-lite at worst.

    It’s almost like political parties are tied to the values of their voters.

    livus ,
    @livus@kbin.social avatar

    I don't quite see how a reduction in global poverty would hurt poor people though.

    In economic terms inequality actually hurts everyone. Recessions last longer, there is more stagnation, more unrest, and interestingly there are effects like worse health outcomes even for the rich in a highly unequal society.

    Enkers ,

    Because in the long term, their interest is to give up as little as possible to maintain the status quo. They’re not actually interested in the harm that economic inequality causes to poor people, only in walking back from the harm a mass unrest event would potentially cause them.

    livus ,
    @livus@kbin.social avatar

    Well, Thomas Piketty is one of the signatories, so...

    The thing is though that there has been a massive shift in the last decade from the old "Establishment" having power, to the phenomenon of Disaster Capitalism.

    Disaster capitalists thrive on things like mass unrest. They will do everything in their power to continue down this track. And right now they have the upper hand.

    Enkers ,

    Yeah, I’m not an accelerationist, but it seems to me like there’s no way out. We’ve squeezed our way into a very tight spot where we can’t back up but going forward would have a huge cost in human life.

    livus ,
    @livus@kbin.social avatar

    I guess instead of going backwards we need to swerve to the side somehow.

    terminateprocess ,

    We could attempt a more complicated maneuver as I have seen described once in a magazine in the library: a somersault.

    OldWoodFrame ,

    If we’re needlessly overthinking, I must point out that by rejecting a call to reduce global inequality because you suspect it doesn’t go far enough…you’re siding with / helping the people who DON’T want to reduce global inequality.

    Enkers ,

    That’s a fair criticism. I don’t really have a better answer to the situation at hand. I think it’s just important to keep in mind that this is why were in this situation to begin with.

    terminateprocess ,

    I don’t think it’s needlessly overthinking as you put it to ask that people work toward sustainable long term changes that can not only alleviate current problems but improve conditions and systems resiliency and fairness long term. The unfortunate truth is that going part of the way also helps the people who don’t want to reduce global inequality. If people are satisfied with a world in which the equilibrium is reached between poverty that is so destructive and impossible to tolerate that global unrest increases as predicted, and a poverty only slightly more tolerable, that is not, in my humble opinion, anything to strive for. It would in fact be the least optimal result, since it maximizes suffering and precludes change.

    terminateprocess ,

    You mean the kind of economists someone with money would, at a respectable arm’s length, choose to pay to be an economist.

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