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Cut from the article:
This sounds like a partisan criticism. So it should be attributed to a partisan. Say rather that Democrats and/or socialists criticize Republicans and this can go right back into the article.
It should, then, be balanced with either:
-- Uncle Ed 17:37, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This article is incoherent. The intro apparently is referring to people with money investing it to make additional money. But the examples shown are talking about something else:
In the first case, the corporate officers are allegedly leveraging connections, but this has no direct connection to wealth. One could imagine a poor man with connections becoming wealthy by getting a cozy job with a corporation. In the second, we are talking about wealth being taken away from people, albeit in reduced quantities following a tax cut. How can this be an example of leveraging wealth by its current owners?
This article can certainly have examples, in fact it should definitely have them so as to help me understand what it's supposed to be about, but it would be good to clarify the connection between the above and the intro before returning them to the article. - Nat Kraus e 16:49, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
Is there another way to phrase or qualify the argument against the “trickle down effect”? If you take the first sentence of the first and third, they seem to be in complete, yet angry agreement.
“The thrust of these arguments in support of free markets and the wealth disparity they create is that even if the gap between rich and poor widens, the poor themselves are actually better off than they would have been in the more equal state without free enterprise.”
“Critics of this position also point out that the total wealth of the United States is vastly higher than most other nations, and that the relatively superior standard of living of the American poor is solely due to this single disparity.”
The way I read the first paragraph, the argument for wealth condensation is that restrictions would stifle the economy, or in other words, freedom helps grow the economy. The second paragraph seems to argue that it is unfair to compare the United State’s poor to other nation’s poor, because the United State’s economy is larger. Unless there is an argument that somehow the United State’s economy is larger for reasons external to its free market economy, the two “opposing” arguments are in complete agreement.
In addition, http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie4.html is strong evidence against saying that the poor actually get poorer as a result of wealth condensation. I am not familiar with the arguments on wealth condensation, I have come up with some plausible arguments:
I have tried to explore every avenue of attack on the “trickle down effect” and therefore, I will not add them to the article, as I am sure fairly that half of the arguments will turn out to be held only by extremists or are just figments of my imagination. I would encourage those that know better than I to copy in the arguments that make sense.-- Techieman 07:09, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I am looking for a map like this one, but instead of people... money density http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0303/peopleearth94_usda_big.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.231.163 ( talk • contribs) 20:33, 28 july 2005 (UTC)
It would be nice to put something here on intergenerational inequality and wealth condensation. Talk about the process through which high amounts of wealth are transferred from one generation to the next. -- Kodemizer, december 2 2005
Trying to make certain parts NPOV. The "free market enthsiasts" paragraph was full of verbs like "claiming" and modifiers like "alleged" and "supposedly", while the critics paragraph uses "point out" and "is" with no modifiers. PAR 23:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
The article seems to confuse absolute wealth condensation (i.e., the fact that the wealthy get wealthier) with relative wealth condensation (i.e., growing wealth inequality). For instance, positive real rates of return are given as a cause of wealth condensation, but obviously they would only cause absolute wealth condensation, not relative wealth condensation (unless the rich have access to better capital markets). Also, the assertion that the average real rate of return on risk-free assets is negative should be backed up by evidence (since it is probably false). Finally, with respect to Japan: obviously Japan had negative real interest rates, considering its real exchange rate appreciated very strongly between, say, 1950 and 2000. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.139.224.52 ( talk) 03:30, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
I've removed the first two sections called "political objections to wealth condensation" and "in defence of wealth condensation". The first one gave the historical marxian view and the second gave various "free market" arguments in favour of wealth condensation. All in all, they were horribly biased and I think that if this article would benefit from a for and against section, it would be much better to rewrite them from scratch. Bob A ( talk) 03:58, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
unless the unearned income were consumed more rapidly that it was accumulated.
modified to:
unless the unearned income were consumed more rapidly than it was accumulated.
132.8.8.45 ( talk) 15:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Are there any economists specializing in this area? If so please contribute here. As far as I can tell, this is essentially original research, and has most certainly not been adopted by economists.
The only two papers cited here were written by physicists, not economists. For example, "Wealth condensation in a simple model of economy" by Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, Marc Mezard (CEA-Saclay, Science et Finance and LPTENS-Paris). The problem is they are both physicists with some interest in finance. But they are not economists, seem to lack any substantial training in economics, and their paper ignores all the most important, fundamental lessons from economics. There is no gain from exchange in their model, no sense of wealth creation through arbitrage or entrepreneurship, not even a meaningful brush at investment. They only model cash movements in a completely stochastic environment, where investment returns are a (Gaussian) random draw multiplied by an agents current cash holdings. It's not even clear what "transactions" means in their paper. A more accurate term would have been stochastic transfers. There's no economic reasoning in it.
I am not an expert in agent based simulations, though. Would someone please address this? I'm sure the authors are excellent scientists, but they are way out of their field. I wouldn't trust an article on dark energy written by economists either. Plutologist ( talk) 20:35, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
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Cut from the article:
This sounds like a partisan criticism. So it should be attributed to a partisan. Say rather that Democrats and/or socialists criticize Republicans and this can go right back into the article.
It should, then, be balanced with either:
-- Uncle Ed 17:37, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This article is incoherent. The intro apparently is referring to people with money investing it to make additional money. But the examples shown are talking about something else:
In the first case, the corporate officers are allegedly leveraging connections, but this has no direct connection to wealth. One could imagine a poor man with connections becoming wealthy by getting a cozy job with a corporation. In the second, we are talking about wealth being taken away from people, albeit in reduced quantities following a tax cut. How can this be an example of leveraging wealth by its current owners?
This article can certainly have examples, in fact it should definitely have them so as to help me understand what it's supposed to be about, but it would be good to clarify the connection between the above and the intro before returning them to the article. - Nat Kraus e 16:49, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
Is there another way to phrase or qualify the argument against the “trickle down effect”? If you take the first sentence of the first and third, they seem to be in complete, yet angry agreement.
“The thrust of these arguments in support of free markets and the wealth disparity they create is that even if the gap between rich and poor widens, the poor themselves are actually better off than they would have been in the more equal state without free enterprise.”
“Critics of this position also point out that the total wealth of the United States is vastly higher than most other nations, and that the relatively superior standard of living of the American poor is solely due to this single disparity.”
The way I read the first paragraph, the argument for wealth condensation is that restrictions would stifle the economy, or in other words, freedom helps grow the economy. The second paragraph seems to argue that it is unfair to compare the United State’s poor to other nation’s poor, because the United State’s economy is larger. Unless there is an argument that somehow the United State’s economy is larger for reasons external to its free market economy, the two “opposing” arguments are in complete agreement.
In addition, http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie4.html is strong evidence against saying that the poor actually get poorer as a result of wealth condensation. I am not familiar with the arguments on wealth condensation, I have come up with some plausible arguments:
I have tried to explore every avenue of attack on the “trickle down effect” and therefore, I will not add them to the article, as I am sure fairly that half of the arguments will turn out to be held only by extremists or are just figments of my imagination. I would encourage those that know better than I to copy in the arguments that make sense.-- Techieman 07:09, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I am looking for a map like this one, but instead of people... money density http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0303/peopleearth94_usda_big.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.231.163 ( talk • contribs) 20:33, 28 july 2005 (UTC)
It would be nice to put something here on intergenerational inequality and wealth condensation. Talk about the process through which high amounts of wealth are transferred from one generation to the next. -- Kodemizer, december 2 2005
Trying to make certain parts NPOV. The "free market enthsiasts" paragraph was full of verbs like "claiming" and modifiers like "alleged" and "supposedly", while the critics paragraph uses "point out" and "is" with no modifiers. PAR 23:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
The article seems to confuse absolute wealth condensation (i.e., the fact that the wealthy get wealthier) with relative wealth condensation (i.e., growing wealth inequality). For instance, positive real rates of return are given as a cause of wealth condensation, but obviously they would only cause absolute wealth condensation, not relative wealth condensation (unless the rich have access to better capital markets). Also, the assertion that the average real rate of return on risk-free assets is negative should be backed up by evidence (since it is probably false). Finally, with respect to Japan: obviously Japan had negative real interest rates, considering its real exchange rate appreciated very strongly between, say, 1950 and 2000. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.139.224.52 ( talk) 03:30, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
I've removed the first two sections called "political objections to wealth condensation" and "in defence of wealth condensation". The first one gave the historical marxian view and the second gave various "free market" arguments in favour of wealth condensation. All in all, they were horribly biased and I think that if this article would benefit from a for and against section, it would be much better to rewrite them from scratch. Bob A ( talk) 03:58, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
unless the unearned income were consumed more rapidly that it was accumulated.
modified to:
unless the unearned income were consumed more rapidly than it was accumulated.
132.8.8.45 ( talk) 15:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Are there any economists specializing in this area? If so please contribute here. As far as I can tell, this is essentially original research, and has most certainly not been adopted by economists.
The only two papers cited here were written by physicists, not economists. For example, "Wealth condensation in a simple model of economy" by Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, Marc Mezard (CEA-Saclay, Science et Finance and LPTENS-Paris). The problem is they are both physicists with some interest in finance. But they are not economists, seem to lack any substantial training in economics, and their paper ignores all the most important, fundamental lessons from economics. There is no gain from exchange in their model, no sense of wealth creation through arbitrage or entrepreneurship, not even a meaningful brush at investment. They only model cash movements in a completely stochastic environment, where investment returns are a (Gaussian) random draw multiplied by an agents current cash holdings. It's not even clear what "transactions" means in their paper. A more accurate term would have been stochastic transfers. There's no economic reasoning in it.
I am not an expert in agent based simulations, though. Would someone please address this? I'm sure the authors are excellent scientists, but they are way out of their field. I wouldn't trust an article on dark energy written by economists either. Plutologist ( talk) 20:35, 25 September 2011 (UTC)