I’m all about a universal basic income as well – but most people I talk to are not. Society is a co-operative thing, so that is just how it is I guess 🙂

I agree.

Whatever Bill actually meant, and given that policies and institutions account for the marked differences in inequality across the OECD, it would appear to be the case that the government isn’t doing that well at lowering income inequality. And this isn’t Nats bashing specifically – previous governments have let it slip as we’ve adopted a version of capitalism that’s let it happen. I think the above is straight out factual.

This next bit is less so as I have no proof that it is the best way forward. But anyway, I can’t wait until we all come around to realising that a universal basic income IS the best way forward 😉

“Regarding English’s comment, we have to factor in that NZ’s
redistribution is off a narrow base, largely of income tax only, and
that that redistribution is partly offset by GST (GST being regressive”

Two things here. The base in NZ is not really that narrow – and GST is not regressive.

http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2012/04/04/on-gst-and-regressivity/

Don’t get me wrong, I think lifetime inequality can be an issue, and inherited wealth hardening into lower mobility is a serious concern. But we can’t really get that just by looking at historical data, we also need to think about “strutural shifts” that are under that (technology, relative price changes, etc). This isn’t saying lets ignore the question – its saying lets get onto analysing it more 🙂

“But I agree with you overall – economists have to find better ways of
getting their point across without losing the audience on the way there”

This is true, but pretty tough!

I am just very uncomfortable with the fact that people talk about policy without thinking about how prices change – given that this is a key key point … and economists speciality. More ways of communicating that would be pretty exciting!

Fair point for sure! I completely see where you are coming from, I just have to admit I read the comment a bit differently when I said I agreed with it 🙂

I was reading him as saying “hey, remember we do redistribute” rather than saying “hey, we redistribute at the right level”. I can sort of appreciate where his comment would come from, as there are a lot of people that don’t really realise that redistribution does occur – and information about that is pretty important!

Indeedy – both good points.

Also, they way you describe the point it technically accurate but not a good sound bite – would people in the street recognise a ‘market transaction’ when they make one? Their first response may be that they don’t own any shares!!

But I agree with you overall – economists have to find better ways of getting their point across without losing the audience on the way there….

And today’s publication of our rich list would appear to prove the bracketed point in the quote above 😉

But I think it’s easy to talk past each other in this debate.

This paper http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/PikettyZucman2013WP.pdf%E2%80%8F shows that private wealth to GDP ratios – in major advanced economies – are tracking back to pre-1900’s levels, with the kicker that:

“Because wealth is always very concentrated (due in particular to the cumulative and multiplicative processes governing wealth inequality dynamics)…implies than the inequality of wealth, and potentially the inequality of inherited wealth, is likely to play a bigger role for the overall structure of inequality in the twenty first century than it did in the postwar period.”

All of which would appear to nicely segue into Gareth Morgan and Susan Guthrie’s The Big Kahuna.

And equally nicely takes us past self-serving blog posts (not TVHE!) and simplistic utterances of politicians!