tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5366199.post789977063989931218..comments2023-12-24T00:27:57.613-06:00Comments on Kole Hard Facts of Life: The Spectacle Of Wealth EnvyMike Kolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17573721231319244630noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5366199.post-85131432285442495992012-02-14T14:41:53.705-06:002012-02-14T14:41:53.705-06:00Doug- I wasn't writing it to you or with you i...Doug- I wasn't writing it to you or with you in mind. I was writing in reaction to a guy without any perspective, a genuinely wealthy man doing something others may find less valuable than being a teacher, honking pissed about someone making a few million a year more than him.<br /><br />But also, I wrote it as a cautionary piece, warning that a lack of perspective can land a political impetus right back in one's own face as a boomerang. <br /><br />To the point of your comment, I don't believe envy is the only possible reason people would want to level off starting at the top. I think others believe they will be safe from such leveling, so it's all good to go forth and redistribute. <br /><br />It's probably hard to demonstrate sincerity here. I can take the wealthy who call for higher taxes on the wealthy, and then do nothing to shelter their earnings from taxes at their word and pay it straight, in full. After all, it's easy to be generous with other people's money.Mike Kolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17573721231319244630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5366199.post-10712647130318724852012-02-14T14:07:21.470-06:002012-02-14T14:07:21.470-06:00What irritates me to no end isn't people makin...What irritates me to no end isn't people making more than me; it's people declaring that envy and only envy is the only reason someone could possibly want to level out the economic system to one extent or another. <br /><br />It's not much good declaring that one isn't envious; but I'll do it anyway. I'm not. In the scheme of things, my family and I are awfully comfortable. I know some really wealthy people; for the most part (from my perspective anyway), my family seems a lot happier than them. <br /><br />But, I can't say that money is entirely irrelevant to happiness. If you're sweating how to feed, clothe, shelter, or provide medical care to your family; I can see where money is significantly intertwined with happiness. Or, if you have to work so many hours you've got nothing left over for your family, I can see that as well. <br /><br />To some degree, disparity of wealth is an actively healthy thing for an economy. It encourages hard work, ingenuity, and risk taking to get ahead; things which not only benefit you, individually, but leads to infrastructure and innovation that helps everyone to some extent. <br /><br />But at a certain point, I think the disparity becomes wasteful -- it no longer encourages economically useful behavior to any appreciable degree (most individuals who do what they do for $200 million, I'll bet, would do the same for $150 million; the economy has left $50 million on the table.) It becomes toxic as it encourages envy. It might be a drain on others -- say, if a pension goes bankrupt because a hedge fund manager figured out a legal way to make his $150 million by performing some risky maneuver with the pension assets. <br /><br />Or, if a factory owner figures out he can make $200 million instead of $150 million by moving his factory to China, cashing in by externalizing his costs to employees working without safety protection or to a locality without any environmental protections. <br /><br />So, anyway, I appreciate that envy could be a source of advocacy for more income equality. But, I'm going to keep pushing for acknowledgment that a difference of opinion, independent of envy, on what economic system provides the most utility to its participants might also be a source of advocacy for more income equality.Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11424730556609713021noreply@blogger.com