A global study led by a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and published in the journal Scientific Reports finds that economic inequality on a social level cannot be explained by bad choices among the poor nor by good decisions among the rich. Poor decisions were the same across all income groups, including for people who have overcome poverty.
I have a friend that believes she is entitled to nice things, even though her income cannot accommodate it. She gets a new car every other year, wears name brand clothing, and ‘upgraded’ to a house that costs $120k more than her previous home. We earn similar income, I drive used cars, wear clothes from Target, am content with my 3 BR home, and have steadily invested in mutual funds. I will be able to retire at 60, she will work until the day she dies… We’ve made different decisions, there will be different outcomes.
I get what you’re saying, but this is what they call anecdotal evidence. Plus, the article doesn’t claim that a person’s choices can not affect their financial outcome, it says that [edit: “biased decision-making”] alone do not account for the amount of income inequality prominent in the countries studied.
What you’re saying may be true, but if a terrible fate befell one of you, you would both have the assets to weather it. However, someone in the lower income bracket would not, no matter what choices they made, for reasons many times beyond their control.
Jerome and Tina attend ACME High School. Jerome spends his evenings studying for tests and completing homework assignments. Upon graduation, Jerome enrolls in college and eventually gets a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Shortly after leaving college, Jerome obtains employment as an engineer and is prudent with his financial decisions, positioning himself to enjoy a comfortable life.
Tina spends her evenings smoking pot and hanging out downtown with her friends. She thinks being successful in school is for suckers, and chooses to live in the moment. Thanks to today’s lax education standards, she ‘graduates’ with effectively no marketable skills. She takes multiple low skill/low wage jobs throughout her life, all the while bemoaning the unfairness of it all.
Tina and Jerome made different decisions, there are different outcomes.
Anecdotal Evidence can certainly have value. Suppose I am sitting in a room with an empty box on the floor, and I notice a snake crawled into it. Then you enter the room and reach down to examine the contents of the box. I caution you that you may get bitten if you proceed…now, there hasn’t been a scientific study completed on the box contents…so will you ignore my warning? I mean, it’s anecdotal, after all…
But if at birth Tina has a trust fund of say $900,000 that is invested in index funds and blue chip stock, Jerome is likely to have significantly less money than Tina at retirement even though he worked hard and she just partied.
Capital outpaces labour, mathematically speaking.
Wait, did you write this non sequiter in defense of rebul’s garbage take?
Christ no.
I was trying to explain the main point in Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the 21st Century in a way they might understand, but I soon saw that I had vastly underestimated how hard that is to do.
That’s my bad, next time I’ll either take the time to spell it out a lot more clearly, or just walk on by.
Not sure how you came to the conclusion I’m defending their argument, when I can see you just downvoted me for telling them I don’t understand them?
Does this mean my bootstraps aren’t enough?
@Aesculapius It’s funny, tragic, and sad that modern Republicans started using that phrase unironically. It actually means the opposite of what they think it does, it’s clearly impossible to do:
Back in the 1800s, the expression “pull oneself up by the bootstraps” meant the opposite of what it does now. Then it was used mockingly to describe an impossible act.
An 1834 publication ridiculed a claim to have built a perpetual-motion machine by saying that the inventor might next heave himself over a river “by the straps of his boots.” An 1840 citation scoffs that something is “as gross an absurdity as he who attempts to raise himself over a fence by the straps of his boots.” source
While online surveys seem like not the best method this is interesting. I would love to see more studies like this. It’s really hard to show systemic problems and people have a really hard time believing that this exists since they can find anecdotal examples to the contrary
people have a really hard time believing that this exists since they can find anecdotal examples to the contrary
“I once met someone who rolled a 12 with 2 dice. Why did those other people not choose to roll better than a 7 on average? Must be because of bad decisions.”
