The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans

[Tamas]

eg. if you want to super-tax high-end cash bonuses to move the corporations toward investing in assets and such, then they will just, for example, buy a house and give it to the manager they want to reward. If you tax that they will move on to expensive jewelry etc. Or just buy something from the manager at a ridicoulously high price.

[Grey Fox]

Force them to spend it on non-officer employees or take it away.

[DGuller]

eg. if you want to super-tax high-end cash bonuses to move the corporations toward investing in assets and such, then they will just, for example, buy a house and give it to the manager they want to reward. If you tax that they will move on to expensive jewelry etc. Or just buy something from the manager at a ridicoulously high price.

That shit may work in Eastern Europe or former USSR, but in countries with entrenched rule of law, all of that would be illegal.

[crazy canuck]

I could be wrong but my impression has been that one of the reasons for obscene managerial bonuses and such is that basically -to a degree- the people deciding ont hem are the ones receiving them. If not directly, then their immediate collegaues/circle.

You are correct.  And that is one of the strongest arguments for why there needs to be an economic incentive to stop that practice rather than cutting income taxes for the wealthy and further exacerbate the problem.

Btw your example of buying a house (or something else) and giving it would be caught as income.  It already is a taxable benefit under the current tax code - at least in Canada.  Again, taxing all forms of income is relatively straight forward.  What is missing is the political will to do it.

[alfred russel]

Probably because you missed the point which in turn is probably because Marti has mangled Picketty's argument so badly.  Again, Piketty's problem isn't that there are wealthy people. He expressly says so in his book.  His concern is income disparity which in turn reduces social mobility which in turn reduces the legitimacy of the whole system.

I've personally felt that the lack of social mobility in previous times has been more utilitarian than it is given credit for (with most accounts citing it as a result of a rigid social structure enforced by religious and government decrees).

For example, in a close to subsistence agrarian economy with low population density where very few are literate and there aren't textbooks, there probably aren't the resources to give more than a handful of people an education, under an apprenticeship model. Those will naturally (and probably most efficiently) the children of the rulers, who will then likely be the only qualified rulers in their time.

it seems more and more that relevant education is on the job. In my narrow field, yes you need a college degree in accounting, but every accountant I know says they knew very little when starting work. In a lot of ways it seems it has a lot of elements of an apprenticeship model, which is of course not new, but with the increasing complexity and technical nature I think that is increasing. So much is based on the experience you get early on, and parents who are in a spot to land their kids plum gigs (or the resources for the kids to create their own) are giving them a big leg up.

[crazy canuck]

Since I am a direct beneficiary of social mobility through education I have to say I don't agree that only educating the children of the elites is a particularly attractive model. 

[alfred russel]

Since I am a direct beneficiary of social mobility through education I have to say I don't agree that only educating the children of the elites is a particularly attractive model. 

Of course not. I'm a beneficiary of that as well, and paid for college with scholarships and student loans.

Neither of us are really reaching the super elite status though.

I have been working for about 10 years. When I look at what the CEO of my company was doing with my experience level, I am way behind, even if most people would say I'm doing well. The CEO's father would qualify as elite, and while it doesn't say in his official biography, it isn't hard to imagine his early opportunities were partially opened by his father.

[Siege]

Free market capitalism. That's all we need.

[crazy canuck]

Since I am a direct beneficiary of social mobility through education I have to say I don't agree that only educating the children of the elites is a particularly attractive model. 

Of course not. I'm a beneficiary of that as well, and paid for college with scholarships and student loans.

Neither of us are really reaching the super elite status though.

I have been working for about 10 years. When I look at what the CEO of my company was doing with my experience level, I am way behind, even if most people would say I'm doing well. The CEO's father would qualify as elite, and while it doesn't say in his official biography, it isn't hard to imagine his early opportunities were partially opened by his father.

I am not sure what you are arguing.  That only the children of the elite in society can become very successful?  If so, there are too many counter examples to bother listing here.

[DGuller]

I am not sure what you are arguing.  That only the children of the elite in society can become very successful?  If so, there are too many counter examples to bother listing here.

Counter-examples work in algebra.  They don't work in statistics.

[Jacob]

Counter-examples work in algebra.  They don't work in statistics.

Interesting. Care to explain?

[alfred russel]

I am not sure what you are arguing.  That only the children of the elite in society can become very successful?  If so, there are too many counter examples to bother listing here.

Children of elites have a disproportionate opportunity to be successful.

The reason is because as as education increasingly moves outside of traditional classroom settings, the children of elites have much better access to this informal system, which in part negates the work done to ensure improved access to traditional schooling across income groups.

[DGuller]

Counter-examples work in algebra.  They don't work in statistics.

Interesting. Care to explain?

What we're concerned with here is tendency, not ironclad certainty.  Do people born into privilege start with an advantage?  How strong?  That's what we want to answer, and correct if we don't like the answer.  There will always be outliers that either pissed away their family fortune, or pulled themselves by their bootstraps from grinding poverty to insane riches, but they don't by themselves say much about how egalitarian our society really is.

[Malthus]

Since I am a direct beneficiary of social mobility through education I have to say I don't agree that only educating the children of the elites is a particularly attractive model. 

Of course not. I'm a beneficiary of that as well, and paid for college with scholarships and student loans.

Neither of us are really reaching the super elite status though.

I have been working for about 10 years. When I look at what the CEO of my company was doing with my experience level, I am way behind, even if most people would say I'm doing well. The CEO's father would qualify as elite, and while it doesn't say in his official biography, it isn't hard to imagine his early opportunities were partially opened by his father.

The problem these days - and not talking only about the super-elite here - is that education is increasingly a necessary - but not sufficient - criterion for success.

[Jacob]

What we're concerned with here is tendency, not ironclad certainty.  Do people born into privilege start with an advantage?  How strong?  That's what we want to answer, and correct if we don't like the answer.  There will always be outliers that either pissed away their family fortune, or pulled themselves by their bootstraps from grinding poverty to insane riches, but they don't by themselves say much about how egalitarian our society really is.

Ah, I see. Yeah, that makes sense - though I don't think either of Alfred Russel nor CC were framing the question in that way, so I'm not sure whether that's what they want to answer. It seemed more like an exchange of anecdotes and opinions than an attempt at answering a statistical question.