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Samizdata quote of the day At the weekend, the left-wing firebrand Polly Toynbee lamented the “extraordinary growth of inequality”. She has previously described it as “soaring”. The Observer columnist Will Hutton has said that the income gap is “ever-increasing”. It has become a factoid that the income distribution is widening year-on-year, especially after the financial crisis. And yet, these claims are just not true. To uncomfortably paraphrase Ronald Reagan and Mark Twain, the trouble with our left-wing friends is not their ignorance about inequality in the UK, but that they know so much that ain’t so.
– Ryan Bourne.
The final paragraph of this article has a lovely sting in the tail.
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Surely Ms Toynbee knows more about inequality in and around her villa in Tuscany than in the UK?
Firebrand? Only if froth can catch light then I would agree, she is a firebrand. In the meantime, her comfy media work ensures the gap between her and those who actually do physical work for a living keeps the soaring going.
Lets see, the value of your money is being inflated away day by day.
You own nothing but your wages.
The value of your stocks/land keeps pace or outstrips inflation, because its the only stuff which is able to do so, therefore it is an attractive investment.
You are “earning” based on the rate of inflation + uncertainty.
Theres 9/10ths of your “widening gap” right there, the stealth tax of inflation and uncertainty.
And lo and behold, government generated.
So what is their ideal? A static world where nothing changes. Why didn’t she move to the moribund Soviet society, or is she looking backwards through blood-red coloured glasses to an imaginery perfect past? She can still emigrate to North Korea, where they say they practice the perfect equality that she praises! Maybe we can all contribute to a one-way ticket for her!
+ 10,000 QE programs to frolickingmole
It wouldn’t matter if it WERE true. Wage gap/wealth gap is complete bullshit. These people are innumerate.
Hypothetical Joe makes 200K a year while Hard Luck Steve makes 20k. Joe gets a cost of living raise of 2.5% of his current income. Meaning Joe will make 205k next year. Steve, however, gets a better job for an aditional 4k of income, an increase of 20%. Joe’s lifestyle is essentially unchanged while Steve’s lifestyle will change dramatically. Yet the “wage gap” increased by 1k.
Oh, and income is not “distributed”. Sheesh! (smh)
Yes, Thailover, and utility does not scale linearly with income, either. When the poor people have indoor plumbing I’m pretty happy for them. Polly Toynbee should go and spend a year hand-ploughing fields then come back and write about inequality.
A Lib Dem saying the same thing as the City AM article, but with graphs and some useful discussion: http://www.libdemvoice.org/is-income-inequality-in-the-uk-growing-49177.html
The obsession with rising inequality (real or fantasy increases in inequality) is indeed absurd and harmful – and the government has indeed played into the hands of the left.
However, there is an non legitimate form of inequality of income and wealth – that which results from the Credit Money flow from the Central Banks (the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England. the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Switzerland and so on.
It is not exactly a new discovery that Credit Money expansions benefit the rich at the expense of the poor – Richard Cantillon noted it back in the 1700s….
Perhaps Polly T. (and the rest) will now campaign for the end of such funny money flows – and for the principle that all lending should be from Real Savings (with interest rates rising to attract more Real Saving – the actual sacrifice of consumption).
No? I thought they would not be wildly in favour of such principle.
Paul is correct: rising “wealth inequality” (I’m not addressing “income inequality, if it even exists) is in large measure the direct result of central banks printing money and other governmental “stimulus” programs. Much of that “stimulus” flows directly into the capital markets, inflating the prices of financial assets and, to a lesser extent, physical ones (such as land). Since most of those assets belong to those who are already rich, the wealth disparity naturally increases. Toynbee and the left generally have indeed identified a legitimate problem, but as usual they completely misunderstand its nature and causes. Their proffered remedies will thus be ineffective at best, and likely will actually make things worse.
I doubt that the Left would even give the issue of central banks a moment’s thought, they would not understand the principles, and even if they did, they would dismiss them due to ‘cognitive dissonance‘ as it might infect their world view.
And further, you would be mistaken if you thought that they cared about inequality, they don’t care about anything but themselves, they just resent, or hate, the fact that they are not in total control of everyone’s lives.
Mr Ed, I’m sure that’s true about Toynbee and her ilk. However, I’m not so sure it describes the average secular “progressive-on-the-street” who is seduced by the “inequality” meme. Such a person doesn’t understand central banking, either, but is, I suspect, capable of and susceptible to being educated on the topic, should anyone actually try to do so. But that’s not really in anyone’s interest, is it?
Mr. Ed said,
Any system that won’t allow people to fail, also won’t allow people to win. It’s difficult to tell how much they really think being rich causes others to be poor or how much they thrive off of selling that idea to complete idiots.