[Pops]

That's not income, it's wealth: accumulated profit.

The poorest half have never had any.

[Plantagenet]

That's not income, it's wealth: accumulated profit.

The poorest half have never had any.

Yes, of course. But I was talking about one of the reasons we are seeing these changes and somehow you've entirely missed my point. I will try to explain it again to you in simple, easy steps.

Here we go.....

Poor people don't have any income so they don't have any wealth.

Do you understand so far?

OK. Illegal immigrants don't have any money when the come to the US. They are often utterly impoverished.

Do you follow that idea? OK now lets take the next step.

Illegal immigrants tend to earn low wages in the US.

Therefore, on average, they don't arrive with wealth and while some do very well on average they don't create or accumulate much wealth while working at low level jobs in the US.

Are you OK with all those ideas? You with me so far? OK....next step.....

The 10+ million new illegal immigrants added to our population mostly constitute a demographic block of 10+ million new poor people who tend to have very low incomes and hence accumulate little to no wealth.

Right? OK...last step. Now these ideas require some knowledge of statistics and the ability to interpret graphs. OK with that? Then lets go for it.....

One reason the chart in question shows a lag in income for low wage people over the last several decades is that the US had added 10+ million new illegal aliens residents with extremely low incomes over the last several decades. Many of these people have had children so the total number of people living in these poor households that we have added to the US population is probably well over 20 million.

Thats a huge slug of poor people to dump into the system here in the US.

If the US had, instead of adding 10-20+ million extremely poor people to our economy we had instead set up our immigration system to add, say, 10+ million legal immigrants with high levels of education and the ability to work at professional level jobs and earn high salaries, then the addition of millions of people with good salaries would've tended to expand the middle class and IMPROVE the evenness of income and wealth distribution in the US.

Cheers!

[Newfie]

Plant,

Good point I had not thought of.

[jedrider]

What are you guys even arguing about? All, I mean ALL, that graph says is that income AND wealth disparity is rising.

So, let's say that again: Income and wealth inequality and disparity is RISING.

That has NOT been through rising income, per se, for the middle tier. Their rise in wealth is solely due to the rise in home equity.

Home equity advancement proceeds from all of the following: the ability of banks to lend money, to the government printing money, to negative interest rates.

The middle tier DOES benefit from the lower tier being plentiful and earning very little as, certainly, does the upper tier. That's what has inflation at bay, except for assets, which are inflating according to how much money is available.

I don't have any links for this, but it is rather common knowledge, I suppose.

[Cog]

Pops wants illegals here as long as they don't move in with him.

[Pops]

10+ million

1 or 2% of cheap labor added to the bottom 50% may have made that group poorer by some slight fraction.

Doesn't explain how it made the top group $30,000,000,000. richer.

Shielding the rich from paying taxes, busting unions, labor arbitrage, transferring externalities to society does.

[Plantagenet]

10+ million

1 or 2% of cheap labor added to the bottom 50% may have made that group poorer by some slight fraction....

Thank you for being honest enough to admit the principle is correct.

Now lets do the math right.....there are ca. 131 million workers in the US.

The best estimate of the number of illegal aliens in the US is something over 12 million.

Lets say 13 million just to make the math easy. That would mean that something like 10% of all US workers are illegal aliens. If we just consider the lower 50% of workers as you suggest in your post, then illegal aliens make up about about 15% of all those workers are illegal aliens. Either way your estimate of 1-2% is off by an order of magnitude (that means its wrong by a factor of 10, i.e. its really really wrong).

So, yes, if 10% of all US workers are impoverished illegal aliens working for very low wages and accumulating little wealth, that will skew the numbers on any estimate of income or wealth distribution in the US. In addition, adding millions of low skilled people will tend to depress wages for American born low skill workers.

We're in an unusual historic moment when the US unemployment rate is at record lows and there are jobs for just about everyone. But I doubt that will last.

IMHO we'd be better off doing what Canada does and redesigning our immigration system to encourage immigration from well educated people who can create jobs or fill high skilled positions, while discouraging immigration from people who have no education and who will for the most part wind up impoverished in the USA. Of course we need some low skills people for low skill jobs, but IMHO we don't need millions and millions of low skill uneducated people.

Cheers!

[Pops]

Thank you for being honest enough to admit the principle is correct.

Let's test it. If all additions to the population were in the bottom 50%, and they all had 0 wealth, that would push some marginally wealthy from poorest 50% to the middle. That would lower the average wealth of the middle, right?
The higher population in the middle then would move some at the upper margin into the top 10%, again, lowering the average wealth in the top 10%, right?

Yet the top 10% are $30 trillion richer.

Now lets do the math right.....there are ca. 131 million workers in the US.

OK, pretty sure it won't explain where that $30T came from tho

If you are gonna do it right probably should start with the right numbers. These numbers jibe with this total through last month.

[Pops]

What are you guys even arguing about?

Plant is trying to argue Mexicans cause inequality.

I've said it before, trump is using clinton's playbook. In this case he's stolen the Ds thunder by claiming to be all about jobs and taxing the rich. The difference is clinton did reduce welfare, trump on the other hand made promises but what he did was give a huge tax break to the wealthy, and a trade war, paid for by Americans, that has cost 300k jobs so far.

I've no doubt that at the bottom of the scale illegals have increased competition, lowered wages and to some extent that has increased the profits of the ownership. trump hires illegals for a reason.
The way to fix that is not a wall but prosecuting business that abuse ilegals.

We should put American workers first by ensuring that workers already here get the first opportunity to fill any available positions. We should empower workers, not employers, by coupling any expansion of legal immigration with real accountability on employers who break the rules, exploit workers, or don’t adhere to basic labor standards.

Doesn't have quite the ring of "they're bringing rapists" granted
.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The way to fix that is not a wall but prosecuting business that abuse ilegals.

Since they're ILLEGALS, another approach to discourage illegal immigrants would be to harshly prosecute US businesses who knowingly HIRE illegals. Having some sort of credible E-Verify system would make this possible. Now I know "wall" is a dirty word re illegal aliens, but that would be a virtual wall that could be effective, vs. a physical wall, which is idiotic since the ports and visitors overstaying their visas are the way huge numbers of illegals end up in the US -- and a physical wall does NOTHING about that.

Oh, and I'm not talking about ending work visa programs for folks who pick crops on a seasonal basis, etc. I'm talking about dealing with the millions of illegals who have no right to be here.

But of course, neither the Dems nor the GOP WANT a credible E-Verify system (for different reasons), so it doesn't happen.

Why is it that law and order is important, except when it's about illegal aliens?

If we all get to just ignore whatever laws we don't agree with, the system won't work very well.

[Newfie]

Outcast,

Excellent post.

Could I please encourage you to copy and paste it over on “The Immigration Thread” for we are getting far off topic here.

post1418626.html

[Pops]

But of course, neither the Dems nor the GOP WANT a credible E-Verify system (for different reasons), so it doesn't happen.

Why is it that law and order is important, except when it's about illegal aliens?

even a cursory google search gives lots of actual info it's not even hard to do.
Granted, harder than saying both sides are the same

E-Verify spending dramatically increased under President George W. Bush and Obama.
...
Under Bush, workplace raids on factories and meatpacking plants received much attention. But after Obama took office, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled a new strategy and ditched the workplace raids, which also tended to punish employees, in favor of "paper raids" -- I-9 paperwork audits of employers to determine if they complied with employment eligibility verification laws.The change [under obama] was dramatic: the number of I-9 audits soared from 503 in 2008 to more than 8,000 in 2009.
...
In the 1990s, INS handled a higher number of civil cases, while Bush focused on criminal investigations against employers and workers. Obama has pursued civil audits and criminal investigations against employers.

https://www.politifact.com/florida/stat ... s-who-hir/

But if you are actually concerned about limiting employment, you need someone who will support improving e-verify. Probably not this guy

President Trump’s budget proposes an 8 percent funding cut to the E-Verify program — even though the administration is usually bent on boosting spending on anything to curb illegal immigration.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/mo ... ify-411837

No surprise

the Trump family did not even cease employing undocumented laborers at its own company until this January, when negative press forced the Trump Organization to adopt E-Verify — a system that allows employers to confirm the legal status of job applicants.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/ ... ented.html

[Outcast_Searcher]

That's not income, it's wealth: accumulated profit.

Ah, the assumptions liberals make.

How do you suppose many people GET to be relatively wealthy?

I started with a college education which I contributed to with basic grunt work I'd done for years, and a $200 car I held together with coat hangers and duct tape. I'd say my greatest gift was being taught good values re obtaining and hanging onto wealth via hard work and savings by my two depression era parents. (Values sadly lacking today, thus all the moaning about poverty instead of far more people making a serious attempt to improve their situation, IMO. Not everyone can, but not everyone makes anything close to minimum wage, either).

Apparently, re the 2017 chart, I've managed to get into the top 10%.

https://dqydj.com/net-worth-brackets-we ... e-percent/

And I know liberals can't imagine this, but that wasn't given to me. Frugality, hard work over a career, as well as saving a large proportion of my paycheck and living, literally, like a poor man for decades was what made all the difference.

And yes, I invested, and that helped, but for those who aren't given a bunch of money, they have to EARN and SAVE to have capital to invest. So a lot of patience and self-discipline went into that as well.

To be clear, I never had a particularly high income. Frugality was the main "engine" to obtain that capital. (IBM was a relatively safe employer, but they didn't pay that all that well unless you got to the VP ranks or were some kind of superstar.)

According to the following inflation calculator, in 2019 dollars, my starting salary was about $61,000 and my ending salary plus 401-K match was about $131,000. (Considering 4 promotions and a hell of a lot of (unpaid) overtime, it's not like I had some significant salary rise over 26+ years. Things looked good in the early 90's, 12ish years into my career, but that's when IBM got into financial trouble, and raises were a joke for almost everyone after that.

(Bonuses were pretty much meaningless, as my single award of IBM stock options for being a "valued employee" was shortly after the tech bubble, and IBM never got close to that high again in the 10 year life time those options had).

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Being used to living frugally, I chose to retire at age 48 and continue to live frugally, but relatively securely, and have some life left (re probabilities) before my health goes.

So according to the liberal meme, I suppose, I must be lying through my teeth on all of this because "the wealthy" have everything given to them, via hundreds of years of stored wealth. (I recently saw this nonsense on Netflix re the racial wealth disparity on "Explained". The usual slanted liberal meme re wealth. Assume hard work, values, etc. have nothing to do with it and it's all luck via inheritance.)

Sure. And by chance it just happens to imply the wealth tax, the death tax, and the highest income taxes possible are great things because the rich didn't earn much of their wealth. So elect Bernie the Taker and Liz Warren the taker, because no amount of wealth redistribution is enough.

I'd be willing to bet that there are more "wealthy" people like me than people who did nothing and got handed a huge inheritance. I'd also be willing to bet that a large proportion of people who inherit a large lump sum basically blow it within a decade. (Is that my fault too?)

But thanks for playing. I'm sure every self-made wealthy person appreciates it. And while we're at it, let's pretend that ONLY millionaires ever inherit anything.

By the way, actually doing a study on the proportion of millionaires who inherited A gives more like 21% than all. That number sounds about right to me. And then there's death taxes. Oh, and about 21% inherit overall, rich or poor.

https://www.chrishogan360.com/how-many- ... ir-wealth/

https://www.investopedia.com/financial- ... myths.aspx

By the way, "The Millionaire Next Door" book had a hell of a lot of facts and figures based on a hell of a lot of research. So don't just presume that's a far right blog. Their 20%ish figure agrees is from the early 90's, based on when the book was published.

As usual for such subjects, how millionaires are characterized differs greatly re political lines. One game the left likes to play is pretend like all millionaires are like the Forbes 400. Fun and games with statistics.

https://inequality.org/research/selfmad ... ting-rich/

Of course, why expect "inequality.org" to be unbiased? (So don't bother to try pretend all the "bias" is from the right.) The usual suspects like CNBC.com, nytimes.com, etc. unsurprisingly skew things left.

(I googled: "proportion of wealthy people who inherited large sums" and grabbed my examples from the first page of hits) .

...

It would be nice to see some balance on this from either side. But I guess you can't get much of that in the current political climate.

[Newfie]

Outcast,

In many ways we are alike. Humble beginning, frugality, eventual relative wealth. And maybe along the way we had some good luck. Didn’t feel like much good ouch getting wiped our in a divorcée at 40, but I met a great woman (good luck) and we came back.

Then there those folks who have taken different paths and not done so well. I’ve a good friend since high school. He has made decisions such that at 68 he is pretty broke. But it’s the life he choose and he is content with his place. He is a better man than me in many ways.

Then there are folks who made poor decisions and have suffered the consequences and are now bitter and envious. I feel for some of those folks, the cards were stacked against them, often unfairly.

Adjustments should be made to level the field where possible but I see no way to rope back time and repair old injuries. And I think that’s what we hear a lot of; bitterness and blame.

[Pops]

That's not income, it's wealth: accumulated profit.

Ah, the assumptions liberals make.

How do you suppose many people GET to be relatively wealthy?

Pray tell!
LOL, Pretty funny to start a post about liberal assumptions by making assumptions about liberals.

My parents were janitors, I inherited their funeral costs, I only took some college, worked part time for the last 20 years. I'm around top 20% woo hoo!


Here's what I think, you think you're a "rich guy" so all the slings and arrows directed to the ownership are directed at you, the hard working, frugal self-disciplined one. Just like roc defends corporate suits, you think you have to defend The Rich.

But truth is the top 10% is a million or two bucks. Nice but not "rich." A tract home on either coast is a million, so just paying the mortgage 30 years gets you there. Most important, a million or two doesn't get you any more clout that the regular guy — you need to donate that much to even get on a list. And when it's time to go, if you leave anything, you're leaving the kids a downpayment on a nice house but not much more. Sorry, that ain't wealth.


Once you get to the 1% and the .1% then you're talking some influence. Your blind spot is that libtards don't resent your money, sorry, you really don't have all that much. What the left and especially the libertarian left resents is the power the truly wealthy wield over politics and working people just like you. The thing the left doesn't understand is why you elect to keep them in power, they aren't your friend.

Thanks for posting some links.
Top one percent is $10M according to your link.
According to this, half that is inheritance plus interest:

[Cog]

Class envy is so low brow. A product of trailer parks and Democrat politics.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Thanks for posting some links.
Top one percent is $10M according to your link.
According to this, half that is inheritance plus interest:

Sounds reasonable since a number of links I saw (left and right wing) make the claim that the amount of wealth inherited is between about 30% and about 80%, and the rest is earned.

Can we agree that 50% or so is in no way close to 100%? That's the problem I have with much of the liberal meme, that any financial success is basically unearned, NOT that a good proportion of the truly rich inherit quite a bit on average.

And I suppose, a lot of "rich" is a matter of perception. Fact is, I wouldn't want or know what to do with the trappings of the 1%.

So are you saying it's fine to confiscate the wealth of the 1%, but not the 10%? As a strong believer in property rights, and knowing that the wealthy pay a tremedous proportion of the US income taxes and all the death taxes on top of that, where I draw the line is when politicians and their minions want to confiscate wealth on top those taxes, and claim that the rich never pay "enough".