the rich aren’t just grabbing a bigger slice of the income pie — they’re taking all of it.

[Centrist1984]

22. Response

1. Your fight against the pie is bad sophistry. At any given point in time, there exists an aggregate amount of goods and services, denominated in dollars here in the US, that is given the designation "income" because it is tracked as it flows to individuals and entities. When you argue that the pie doesn't exist, you are arguing that we can't add up total amount of income in the country. Yes, that is really your argument. I call it bad sophistry because you continually fixate on the words used instead of the ideas behind them.

I think you are misunderstanding my point about the pie claim. Of course we can add up the total amount of income in the country. Just like we can add up the total amount of weight in the country. But no one would argue that say the poor are being forced to carry around a greater share of society's weight. Similarly, to claim that the rich are taking a greater share of the national income, as if the national income exists off to the side in some fixed supply that gets distributed out to society like Social Security checks, and the rich are hogging more and more of it for themselves, leaving less and less available for everyone else, is wrong.

You claimed that no group can take a share of the national income. Yet, you used the designation "the rich" in the sentences preceding this claim. You don't get to have it both ways. It's clear that you understand, and share, the commonly accepted delineations of American society. It's also clear that you're attempting to obscure those delineations by trying to obscure their common meanings in order to advance your arguments. Essentially, your argument is that America consists of atomized individuals, each pursuing his or her own maximal economic gain. Thatcher was wrong when she said it and so are you.

How so? That is, in fact, what America consists of. Terms such as "the rich" are just arbitrary definitions that refer to specific income and wealth brackets. They do not refer to fixed classes of people or individual people. But the way such language is used in much political discourse, that is how it is made to sound.

2. Your definition of income mentioned what one produces. In plain English, that means labor. Labor can be mental or physical, so your asides about coal miners and software engineers are pointless. Your definition did not include investment income. Go back and read it. You may have meant something else, but that is not what you wrote.

By labor, I was thinking you mean physical. With regards to non-labor income however, that is still income that is produced, albeit from the assets owned (and oftentimes managed, which would be a form of labor) by a person. Basically, it is a way for a person to multiply their labor. For example, owning an asset like a business multiplies the labor of the person.

3. Reagan was elected in an electoral vote landslide, not a popular vote landslide. Clinton was re-elected in a three-way race while taking less than half of the popular vote. Gore squeaked out a victory in the popular vote.

If you're going to quote me, read what I actually wrote. You emphasize Reagan and Clinton, yet you ignore the cases that disprove your point. If your assertion can't withstand the slightest bit of contrary evidence, it's false.

I said that you made good points. But my arguments were primarily in reference to the 1980s and 1990s. Also I was not aware of Reagan winning more by the electoral and not popular vote or that Clinton's re-election included a three-way race. I do still argue however that many remember the 1990s as having been great times economically. The Democrats themselves have pointed this out multiple times, from Obama arguing about why to go back to the 1990s tax rates to Hillary.

4. Yeesh. Seriously, you're going to rehash what I wrote with an emphasis on the part that makes your arguments look better? How about you account the ever-increasing financialization of the economy? Maybe quantify that bald assertion on the "massive" contributions from increased productivity? You didn't make an argument, you tried to piggyback off mine.

The economy has become increasingly financialized, and yes that also has been a factor for a lot of the new fortunes created, but I think you are ignoring the contributions of the computer. In almost every profession, the computer has hugely increased productivity to a degree that is almost impossible to quantify. In addition, we have had lots of various new fortunes created due to the further development of technology relating to the computer. You did not see the kind of technology entrepreneurship that occurred in Silicon Valley during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s pre-1980.