OECD voices concern over widening income disparity - Polidicks

[URL="http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php/sid/233094515"]BIGNEWSNETWORK.COM[/URL] [quote] [B]PARIS - The widening gap between haves and have-nots in much of the developed world is currently at the highest level in 30 years, and [highlight]is dramatically holding back economic growth[/highlight], according to a new study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).[/B] The rising income inequality not only has social and political implications but also economic ones, says Paris based OECD in its study 'In It Together, Why Less Inequality Benefits All'. "We have reached a tipping point. Inequality in OECD countries is at its highest since records began," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria. "By not addressing inequality, governments are cutting into the social fabric of their countries and hurting their long-term economic growth." The 330-page report cites that an increase in income inequality between 1985 and 2005 in 19 OECD countries knocked an estimated 4.7 percentage points off cumulative growth between 1990 and 2010. The report cites Chile, Mexico, Turkey, the United States and Israel among OECD countries where income inequality is a major cause of concern. In the US between 2008 and 2013, real average household disposable income among the top 10 percent rose 10.6 percent, while in the bottom 10 percent it fell 3.2 percent, the OECD said. The income by the top 10 percent of the well off was found to be 11 times higher than that of the poor 10 percent 30 years ago but by 2013, the difference was to 19 times higher, far higher than the average of 9.6 times in OECD's 34 member countries. Austria, Denmark and France are other countries where rising income at the top has been accompanied by falling incomes at the bottom. In the 1980s, this ratio stood at 7:1 rising to 8:1 in the 1990s and 9:1 in the 2000s.[/quote] Remember kids, income disparity is in the end fucking [I]everyone[/I] over, including the actually well off people, as it stunts growth. If somebody tells you that limiting and scrutinizing your rich people is going to harm your economy, they don't know what they are talking about.

Took em long enough to realize honestly. World has and is getting shittier day by day.

[QUOTE={TFS} Rock Su;47794965]Took em long enough to realize honestly. World has and is getting shittier day by day.[/QUOTE] Well, there's people who have been pointing this problem out this for decades, some for over a century, but challenging the economical right wing magically makes people automatically lose all credibility in the eyes of the majority so here we are.

Yeah, inequality is a big problem in that it's generally the poor who drive consumption in economies by spending money on all sorts of goods, which stimulates industries to produce goods. Controlling inequality is good in that regard, otherwise you end up with money sitting at the top not doing anything. For building and strengthening the market economy, reducing excessive inequality is essential. [QUOTE={TFS} Rock Su;47794965]Took em long enough to realize honestly. World has and is getting shittier day by day.[/QUOTE] Eh I wouldn't say it's been getting shittier. Remember that the past 25 years have also seen the greatest reductions in poverty, and biggest gains in gender equality, health, and education in human history. [QUOTE=Awesomecaek;47794986]Well, there's people who have been pointing this problem out this for decades, some for over a century, but challenging the economical right wing magically makes people automatically lose all credibility in the eyes of the majority so here we are.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't really say that the rightwing are necessarily opposed to equality. I remember Friedman (and a bunch of other monetarist economists) talked about having a minimum income or negative income tax of some kind for the lowest brackets so people had enough money to live on, because they realized that gross inequality is a bad idea.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;47794986]Well, there's people who have been pointing this problem out this for decades, some for over a century, but challenging the economical right wing magically makes people automatically lose all credibility in the eyes of the majority so here we are.[/QUOTE] The economic left should actually use arguments from real economists rather than just appeals to emotion to win, speaking as a Centrist. I think that libertarian arguments are ridiculous given the 2008 Crash and the events after it, but the left seems incapable of presenting itself as a credible alternative to people. Labour had this issue in the UK - It presented the issue of taxation as almost being a way to try to punish the rich, didn't present clear economic policy, and used ridiculous language such as referring to businesses as either being 'predators or producers'. What we need is a credible centre-left party that actually appeals to facts rather than appeals to emotion, and maybe voters will be attracted to it rather than what they see as being the hard-headed reality on the right wing. [editline]25th May 2015[/editline] The main thing for me is the fact that the poor are taxed so much through both income tax, but also taxation such as the VAT, which disproportionately effects the poor, heightening inequality and hurting the economy (as the poor are more likely to spend - which is beneficial for the economy). Yet instead of cutting taxes for the poor, the Conservatives cut taxes for the rich (which results in less of a benefit to the economy) whilst increasing VAT to further tax the poor. It is simply illogical in economic terms.

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;47796062]The economic left should actually use arguments from real economists rather than just appeals to emotion to win, speaking as a Centrist. I think that libertarian arguments are ridiculous given the 2008 Crash and the events after it, but the left seems incapable of presenting itself as a credible alternative to people. Labour had this issue in the UK - It presented the issue of taxation as almost being a way to try to punish the rich, didn't present clear economic policy, and used ridiculous language such as referring to businesses as either being 'predators or producers'. What we need is a credible centre-left party that actually appeals to facts rather than appeals to emotion, and maybe voters will be attracted to it rather than what they see as being the hard-headed reality on the right wing. [editline]25th May 2015[/editline] The main thing for me is the fact that the poor are taxed so much through both income tax, but also taxation such as the VAT, which disproportionately effects the poor, heightening inequality and hurting the economy (as the poor are more likely to spend - which is beneficial for the economy). Yet instead of cutting taxes for the poor, the Conservatives cut taxes for the rich (which results in less of a benefit to the economy) whilst increasing VAT to further tax the poor. It is simply illogical in economic terms.[/QUOTE] You will never have a successful centrist party. You will need a new idealogly that would go against both the left and right simultaneously to provoke change in the proper direction.....

[QUOTE=CrossTownNews;47796376]You will never have a successful centrist party. You will need a new idealogly that would go against both the left and right simultaneously to provoke change in the proper direction.....[/QUOTE] It's also a bit fucked with regards to FPTP. You can have the third largest party with a good chunk of the electorate and get nothing.

UM WHAT The reason why politics has gradually drifted towards the center is because the average voter is by definition centrist! To win elections, both in the UK and the US you need to at least present yourself as being a centrist as this is what will match the ideology of the average voter best. Electorally, being centrist is a good idea.

And even people here say the U.S minimum wage should be kept as is. Like, it shouldn't go to $15 per hour overnight or anything like that, but at the least it should be indexed to inflation which it isn't. Lawmakers in the U.S. are either idiots when it comes to economics, or evil.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;47796535]And even people here say the U.S minimum wage should be kept as is. Like, it shouldn't go to $15 per hour overnight or anything like that, but at the least it should be indexed to inflation which it isn't. Lawmakers in the U.S. are either idiots when it comes to economics, or evil.[/QUOTE] They're generally smart when it comes to economics. A lot of them have really good educations and I think they know better than what they say a lot of the times. The better word is self serving.

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;47796397]UM WHAT The reason why politics has gradually drifted towards the center is because the average voter is by definition centrist! To win elections, both in the UK and the US you need to at least present yourself as being a centrist as this is what will match the ideology of the average voter best. Electorally, being centrist is a good idea.[/QUOTE] I have tried joining centrist parties. They end up fracturing along left and right and nothing gets done. And who said one has to win elections and be in office to gain power and get anything done? As for the comment concerning if there was a big third party and still won't win, there's a way around that too....