World Income Distribution

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Jin+Guice
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World Income Distribution

Post by Jin+Guice »

The World Income distribution is infinitely interesting to me. However, I've had trouble locating a decent estimation of it. Global rich list (globalrichlist.com) seems inaccurate. The lowest possible income that can be entered is $1,000 per year which puts you in the top 58.03% of world income earners. Assuming that this is calculated in $PPP, this can't be true. I don't think it's possible to live in America for $1,000 a year, Daniel Suelo aside. I know PPP isn't perfect and that the real calculation likely involves imputation which is notoriously hard, so I get that an estimation will always be an estimation. However, saying the median income lies at around $1,300 a year (global rich list again) strikes me as an abuse of these difficulties.

Economist Branko Milanovic did some work on the world income distribution. However, most of his work focuses on the upper 1% and global income inequality. I know he has to have estimated the distribution but I can't find it. I've found that a lot of the work on the global distribution suffers from this problem. Researchers are most interested in those at the top (perhaps because this is easier to estimate and includes them and their peers) and then talk about growing or shrinking inequality, while ignoring the (to me) most interesting part of the distribution. Does anyone know of an existing distribution or research that addresses these problems?


An interesting question in all of this is does poverty exist in America? I've always wondered how many Americans live below the global median? I doubt it's many. An ERE perspective makes poverty difficult to discuss with my social circle. Most people I know consider themselves poor even though they are in the top 1% of world income earners (cut off is around $30,000/ year according to research above). I believe it does exist, but mostly because of extreme resource waste, poor initial conditions and poor previous decisions. Many people on this forum live well below the poverty line but are not poor.

I was drunkenly debating a friend about this one night and he brought up, in different words, the head tax concept. His argument was that the head tax is so high in the U.S. that poverty does exist. Did the forum ever reach a consensus on an approximate minimum head tax for the U.S.? Do you buy the argument that it contributes to poverty in the U.S.?

I recently visited Argentina and, while there I was wondering whether ERE was possible for the average Argentinian. Argentinians are much more frugal than Americans (purely observational) but I think this is out of necessity. On the surface, the lives of those I observed don't look much different from those in America (except that, Christ Jesus, we are so much fatter). However, they do all of this at a fraction of the cost and I'm not sure their salaries allow for much saving. On the other hand I think necessities are cheaper there (observational again, based on the price of food relative to other goods). On yet another hand, they're central bank is a big fan of run away inflation. How rich and economically stable must a country be for the average salary to enable ERE?

Campitor
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Campitor »

Do you have Jacob's book Early Retirement Extreme? He discusses this in the topic Economic Degrees of Freedom. And also see Savings Rate for Financial Independence on page 196 of his book.

There has to be economic stability otherwise you risk losing your ERE stash. If you own housing, capital, a business that generates passive income, etc., there has to be protections and stability in place that guarantee a probability of fiscal integrity and stability that is greater than the potential for loss. Lose your stash and you lose ERE. The only ERE to be had in regions with no economic stability is living off the land similar to an Amazonian Indian but then you wouldn't be ERE - you would be eking an existence out of the harshness of nature and vulnerable to all the fluctuations therein.

To ERE you basically need to save enough money that can sustain you on a yearly basis that doesn't exhaust your resources before your expected death. So the formula will change depending on your desired income level, the level of your frugality/systems thinking, the average growth of your stash, and the years left to live.

Jin+Guice
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Jin+Guice »

I do have Jacob's book, I didn't see where he discussed the world income distribution in either of the sections mentioned. The ideas he details in those sections could be used to think about where ERE is possible in the world; however, he doesn't directly address this. Perhaps I missed something in the book or posed the question poorly?

I could say the same thing for head tax. The book discusses ideas that could be used to answer a head tax question in the want vs need section. However, it's still interesting (to me) to think about what the actual head tax is and how one would choose to define its parameters.

7Wannabe5
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

There really isn't a head-tax in the U.S. You could, for instance, rough camp in the National Forest, and purchase no insurance, since if your income is low enough you would be exempt from alternated shared contribution requirement for health insurance. What does exist in various manifestations is something like unto an Infrastructure Tax.

Average income of resident of a given realm is very strongly correlated with infrastructure. For instance, number of electrical outlets/acre has somewhat super-linear relationship to average income of residents of a given acreage. So, both the cost and the taxes associated with living in a high infrastructure realm will be higher.

So, if you want to beat Jacob at his own game, just choose to live somewhere with less infrastructure than Chicago OR occupy similar realm at a greater human/acre density (create your own mini-slum!)

According to best research I have seen, the global median income/capita is approaching .5 Jacobs, or approximately $10/day. Infrastructure growth at the global fringes is odd mix, because there are many people who now have cell phones while still lacking clean water supply.

trfie
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by trfie »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:57 pm
The World Income distribution is infinitely interesting to me. However, I've had trouble locating a decent estimation of it. Global rich list (globalrichlist.com) seems inaccurate. The lowest possible income that can be entered is $1,000 per year which puts you in the top 58.03% of world income earners. Assuming that this is calculated in $PPP, this can't be true. I don't think it's possible to live in America for $1,000 a year, Daniel Suelo aside. I know PPP isn't perfect and that the real calculation likely involves imputation which is notoriously hard, so I get that an estimation will always be an estimation. However, saying the median income lies at around $1,300 a year (global rich list again) strikes me as an abuse of these difficulties.
Maybe I am missing something, but how can you look at global income distribution and then say it's not possible to live in the US for $1000/yr? The people who are making $1000 are not living in the US?
Jin+Guice wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:57 pm
An interesting question in all of this is does poverty exist in America?
There are homeless persons who have very few possessions, so yes, poverty does exist. But also, how are you defining poverty? That is going to impact the question a great deal.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:57 pm
I was drunkenly debating a friend about this one night and he brought up, in different words, the head tax concept. His argument was that the head tax is so high in the U.S. that poverty does exist. Did the forum ever reach a consensus on an approximate minimum head tax for the U.S.? Do you buy the argument that it contributes to poverty in the U.S.?
What is a head tax? Tax rates vary based on a large number of factors including income?

Jin+Guice
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Jin+Guice »

@7w5: Interesting, I have never read or thought about the relationship between infrastructure and COL or taxes. A mini-slum for ecology bourgers = transition town movement? What is the best research you have seen?

$10/ day still seems low for the median. I would argue that 1 Jacob is actually close to the minimum head-tax in the states assuming one lives a "normal" "modern" life (lives inside, doesn't grow or scavenge all of their own food, wears clothes, etc...). Highly subjective of course. I'm also assuming that Jacob's spending efficiency is higher than the world median (could definitely be wrong about this). How is half of the world getting by on half of his income or less? Are they homeless? Is it 1 person/ 50sq ft? Do they grow all of their own food? Does the lack of infrastructure explain it? What I'm getting at is are those toward the world median twice as efficient or do they have half as much? In either case, how?

$PPP = purchasing power parity dollars, meaning I should be able to compare them to someone living in the U.S. Without this meaningful comparison is difficult because $1,000 goes a lot further in many places than in the U.S.

Head-Tax= the amount of money required to simply exist in a given place. This is a term and concept I got from this forum that I also find very interesting. To my knowledge, it also lacks a precise definition, which would be required for a precise number.

The difference in head-tax makes calculating $PPP, especially with respect to what I'm getting at, difficult. Let's look at what is generally considered the largest expense, housing. Housing is expensive in the U.S. relative to the parts of the world where a large part of the population is making under $10,000/ year. I'm going to assume that around the median world income people are still living in what we could reasonably call a house or apartment. What's the minimum cost of living in a house in the U.S.? I doubt it's less than $1,300 a year, so we've already used all of our median income on housing. Of course the U.S. has taxes on property and zoning laws so you can't just live on a vacant lot in a trailer or build a shack out of scrap wood, legally. We are also a rich country and many adults won't share a room with another adult who isn't their SO. We don't tend to have multiple generations living in the same house. If the average housing situation in a median income country is multiple generations, with multiple persons in each room, living in shacks constructed of driftwood, direct comparison in housings costs will be difficult.

After typing this I'm wondering what kind of house someone around the median world income lives in, where they live, what they eat and what they use for transportation.

NPV
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by NPV »

This seems to be a reasonable way to think about global income distribution:

Level 1: This is extreme poverty, with people living on less than $2 a day.
Level 2: About 3 billion are in this category, surviving on between $2 and $8 a day.
Level 3: In this category, people live on between $8 and $32 a day. About 2 billion are in this category.
Level 4: The rest of the world, about a billion people, spend $32 or more per day.

I took out the qualitative description of the categories from the linked article because I think it's way off base ("Kids might even be able to finish high school" for $8-32 per capita per day, really? Most of my relatives back in the old (developing) country are in this bucket, almost all of them have university degrees, some have PhDs - $15-30 per day goes a long way in many countries).

http://www.newser.com/story/257518/bill ... ories.html

7Wannabe5
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Jin+Guice wrote: What's the minimum cost of living in a house in the U.S.? I doubt it's less than $1,300 a year, so we've already used all of our median income on housing. Of course the U.S. has taxes on property and zoning laws so you can't just live on a vacant lot in a trailer or build a shack out of scrap wood, legally. We are also a rich country and many adults won't share a room with another adult who isn't their SO. We don't tend to have multiple generations living in the same house. If the average housing situation in a median income country is multiple generations, with multiple persons in each room, living in shacks constructed of driftwood, direct comparison in housings costs will be difficult.
I am rather fascinated by this question too. Likely because both of us have experimented with affluent-version "homelessness." Zoning code and enforcement of zoning code varies a good deal across the U.S., and once again pretty much in direct correlation with infrastructure. For instance, the code relevant to the 10 acre chunk in rural Michigan my BF owns is very minimal, because the property has never been subdivided or designated. He can live in a shed and sh*t in the woods, and it is unlikely that anyone would care.However, the 1 acre chunk he owns that attaches the 10 acres to a functional road and a lake does have much more code attached, and it is assessed at a higher value for property tax, and his millionaire lakeside neighbors would definitely complain if he tried to erect a rough shack . I pay a much higher tax/acre on my vacant lots in the city. If you examine the break-down of your property tax bill, or that of your landlord, you can see that it is not arbitrary. There is a list of services/facilities provided and proportion of bill that pays for each service or facility. For instance, library books are only free if you don't consider the proportion of tax bill that pays for the library or if you don't own property or pay rent in the library district. So, one of the downsides of being a roving van-dweller would be inability to maintain long-term library lending privileges.

My "ex" was a landlord in a very affluent city with extremely strict codes, and one of the things I was interested to learn while helping him with his business is that maximum occupancy of rental property was 2X the number of bedrooms plus 1. So, one couchsurfer is legit even in high code/enforcement zone. So, obviously it is cultural influence or personal preference rather than code that prevents people from saving money by living 5 to a 2 bedroom apartment. Most people in the U.S could likely greatly mitigate "head tax" at this level of occupancy. This would likely also be even less expensive than solo living in a van or similar vehicle. Since most U.S. residents are hugely under-occupied, both in terms of code-limit and results of happiness surveys which suggest 350 square ft /human is adequate, or even ideal if "alienation" is taken into account, and most Americans are over-worked, it is not difficult to find free house-squat situations available for minimal contribution to domestic maintenance, if your appearance and behavior are judged to be fairly benign.

Jin+Guice
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Jin+Guice »

@ NPV: Now we are getting somewhere. What amount of income would put you in each group in the U.S.? This is $PPP, this is what we want!
NPV wrote:
Sat Sep 08, 2018 10:46 pm

I took out the qualitative description of the categories from the linked article because I think it's way off base ("Kids might even be able to finish high school" for $8-32 per capita per day, really? Most of my relatives back in the old (developing) country are in this bucket, almost all of them have university degrees, some have PhDs - $15-30 per day goes a long way in many countries).

http://www.newser.com/story/257518/bill ... ories.html


I've often suspected that charitable groups use $nominal instead of $PPP to make the poor appear to be even poorer. As you said $15-30 goes a long way in some countries. However to answer the question we need the descriptions and not the nominal dollars.

Level 1: They probably walk in bare feet, sleep on dirt floors, must fetch their water, and cook over an open fire. About 1 billion are in this level.
Level 2: about 3 billion are in this category. Life is typically a little easier with a gas stove, mattresses, a bike (perhaps to fetch water), and shoes. Children are able to go to school instead of working.
Level 3: Think running water, a refrigerator, maybe a motor bike. Kids might even be able to finish high school. About 2 billion are in this category.
Level 4: About a billion people. They probably have a car, a high school education, and can take the occasional vacation.

Alright, what are the equivalent groups in America?

Level 1: The rich world counterpart is homeless. This would be the "underworld" from this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20151006183 ... n-the-u-s/ Jacob posted in the "squeezed" thread. This group is the hardest to estimate $PPP for. What is the income of the homeless in the rich world? A lot of imputation here. The homeless are also not 100% comparable because, in the rich world, homelessness is generally the result of drug addiction or mental illness and not lack of access to resources. However, "sleep on dirt floors" implies Level 1 may live in a house, which is surely worth more than not living in a house. OTOH, most rich world homeless have shoes. Perhaps a better method would be to go back in history to when the rich world had a lower floor, I'm thinking share croppers, and use their income, inflation adjusted.

Level 2 (contains the median, if distributional assumptions are accurate): This group would be in extreme poverty in the United States but not homeless. If we arbitrarily assign this group an income equal to the poverty line in the U.S. for a family of four (https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines), we get $25,1000/4 people = $6,275/ person. Strikingly close to a Jacob, although at this level you'll feel that $775 difference.

Unless this group doesn't have electricity? Maybe I'm overestimating? This is also the largest group and a group where an extra $500 is going to make a massive difference.

Level 3: Definitely electricity, appliances and even motorized transport. I'd say we're getting to the at least $15,000/ person in the rich world (again we're talking about the average consumer here, not ERE folks).

Level 4: Definite rich world citizen. I would imagine most of Latin America and Eastern Europe are in this group. Rich world equivalent of $20,000/ person.

What do y'all think? Does anyone have a different resource for world income distribution?

Jin+Guice
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Jin+Guice »

@7w5: I'm perplexed by people who want to live in large houses by themselves. I hate living by myself. I really liked living in a co-op (warehouse floor with rooms built inside,illegally constructed by some long ago replaced carpentry hipsters and run by coked out squatters), a small amount of privacy combined with lots of chances for socialization and tons of humanity per sq. foot. The squatters weren't big on annoying co-op things like "rules" or "house meetings" either, cocaine libertarianism at it's finest. Perhaps this is the minimum head-tax assuming roof solution or perhaps it's rough shack on wealthy BFs non-lake adjacent land.

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Bankai
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Bankai »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Sep 09, 2018 5:14 pm
Level 4: About a billion people. They probably have a car, a high school education, and can take the occasional vacation.
If you define lvl4 this way, I'd say probably 2-3b ppl are in this category. EU, US and Japan alone are already 1b. Add Europe east of EU, Russia, Australia, Canada, S Korea, Turkey, big parts of China and Latin America, rich Arab countries, parts of India...

Jin+Guice
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Jin+Guice »

@bankai: I'm not surprised that, given the source, the top group is estimated to be smaller than it probably is. Charities seem to be the only group interested in estimating the distribution beyond the "global 1%." They also have an incentive to convince potential donors that the poor are poorer than they are in actuality and that much of the world is in horrible poverty.

I'm of course not suggesting that terrible poverty doesn't exist, I'm just suggesting that our estimates of it aren't very well done or informative.

7Wannabe5
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Jin+Guice:

I also really enjoyed living in a co-op when I was young. The one I lived in was core inhabited by the frugal Bohemian graduate student youth of the most educated city in the United States, so the drug use was mostly in the form of pot-smoking in a large room full of sofas where Star Trek episodes were watched 24/7. One co-president of the co-op had the same personality type and IQ as Jacob and Joe Dominguez, and he later became the president of a very popular internet-based classified ad service. My nearest sister and I both married into this circle, and my youngest sister grew up in this circle, so I remain very comfortable in any environment that reminds me of it. This forum is kind of like a leaning more conservative version of that co-op. I am going to put myself on the waiting list for senior primarily-retired-academic housing in the same community, but until I move in there (either 18 , 25, or 32 years from now, depending on my decline into decrepitude), I will just have to punt. Physical cowardice is the primary limiting factor to camping alone in the shed on my BF's acreage, but likelihood of drifting into complete eccentricity might also be a problem.

Anyways, my income is well below U.S. poverty level, but since I am long-practiced in the most frugal version G2 lifestyle, my standard of living/quality of life is generally fairly high. I joke about being an aging sugar-baby, but it's really much more like I am something like a poly-G2-"wife' to several fairly affluent G2 men who could easily be mistaken for the late middle-aged versions of the young men I lived/slept with in the co-op. All I need is a room, a bicycle, and some garden space of my own, and access to a kitchen and library, and a lover or 3 to provide me with sex, conversation and other amusements, and I'm good.

OTOH, the kids I tutor in Detroit are not living nearly so well on below poverty level incomes. They don't even have secure access to basic English vocabulary or freedom from fear of gunfire. Even though he is one of the people nominated to be the opposite of Jacob in outlook, I think Peter Diamandis offers a fairly accurate, because optimistic, description of worldwide poverty situation in "Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think." He writes about a goal for mid-21st century of raising everybody up to the level above absolute poverty (as opposed to relative) where they have a fair shake at then making their way forward through personal initiative. There are children currently living in Detroit, who for a variety of reasons (definitely inclusive of parental substance abuse), do not have secure access to these Base Pyramid resources, including basic literacy and basic physical security. There are children living in Bangladesh, on much lower income (of subsidies are included), who do have access to these Base Pyramid resources.

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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by jacob »

Here's my+DW's total budget:

Mortgage = $0
RE Tax = $4,535 (most of this money goes to pay for various pension plans (city, highschool, college) that started decades ago; the roads around here are in a sorry condition but somehow the streets are still swept once a week to get rid of the lonely paper cup; we do have a great library system which costs $86/year via taxes)
Insurance = $4,998 (all of this is mandatory except the umbrella which is a couple of hundred. I only have the umbrella due to frivolous lawsuits, etc. I could also get rid of the car and the car insurance ... but mostly this is just buying security against exorbitant costs; e.g. a sprained angle in Mexico costs $15 in health care costs where in the US you could easily be charged four-five figs for what is essentially the same result)
Utilities = $2,166 (a lot of this is connection fees and taxes. We use 10% of the average American household on electricity and natgas and 50% of the water. Costs are still high because we use under the minimum charge (e.g. we use 5 units of water but get charged a minimum of 10). Basically by being frugal we're subsidizing more wasteful households)
Food+ = $1,800 (first line of expense where I think we actually get our money's worth)
Car = $1,243 (optional)
Meds = $400 (would be a lot cheaper in any other country)
Dog = $300 (see meds)

RE taxes would be 1/4 of what we pay west of the Mississippi. Insurance (40% of that is health insurance) could be a lot less if the health care system was replaced with single payer. And so on ...

In that sense there is a de facto head tax simply for living in an area where the finances are/have been poorly managed. Consider the Trump Tax cuts for example. Those are being paid by going 1T into debt which amounts to $400/person/year for the next 10 years. There's no escaping this ghost tax. Stuff like that ...

However, if you look at the actual resources we actually use at ERE HQ (removing all taxes and minimum fees), we're under $3000ish per person, in Chicagoland, in the US.

Riggerjack
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Riggerjack »

The middle class has such blinders about the rich and poor.

Being homeless in an urban areas is not cheap, but mainly consists of living on the excesses of urbanites. They are there, because it's easy. Camps and urban support.

Being homeless in the sticks ain't cheap, in that it takes work, and lots more work. See halfmoon's journal. Not much money, but lots of work. And that isn't what I would call backwoods homeless. She has a very nice slice of earth. Mike Oehler wrote the $50 underground home, and was a big mover in the back to the land movement in the 70-80's. There is very interesting video Kirsten Dirksen made of his houses after a few decades. The woods are full of people who built or scavenged or adapted similar structures. Watch the video for what I mean. Avoiding the same fate is a primary factor in my decision to continue working.


https://permies.com/mobile/t/49039/Mike ... eo-Kirsten

As to head tax and infrastructure being related, I think this is a loose relationship, at best.

Let's compare, shall we?

Property tax for my 1120 sq ft house on .1 ac in Everett, wa:
Central Puget Sound transit authority: 51.77
City of Everett:592.69
Everett school district: 1235.25
Port of Everett: 61.59
Snohomish county: 180.03
State: 648.27
Total 2769.60 on appraised value of 264.7k just over 1%, and under appraised by over 100k I am currently selling this house for 373k.

Vs my 2864 sf house on 5 acres on Whidbey island:

State school: 632.91
Island county gen fund:207.33
Island county roads 263.05
Port of South Whidbey: 59.51
Parks: 76.39
South Whidbey school 480.33
Fire 247.83
Library 135.08
EMS 157.25
Whidbey hospital 134.37
Conservation fund 17.99
Clean water ultility fee (admin fund, no water provided) 39.13
Forest protection 17.40
Conservation district 5.25
Fire patrol fee: 0.50
Total 2474.32
On appraised value of 348k, maybe 75-100k under market

Vs my 5 acres of woods I bought to keep neighbors away and trees close:
State school: 253.02
Island county gen fund: 82.88
Island county roads 105.16
Port of South Whidbey: 23.79
Parks: 30.54
South Whidbey school 192.01
Fire: no structure, no fire tax
Library 54.00
EMS 62.86
Whidbey hospital 53.71
Conservation fund 7.19
Clean water ultility fee (admin fund, no water provided) 39.13
Forest protection 17.40
Conservation district 5.27
Fire patrol fee: 0.50
Total 927.46 on appraised value of 130k. About 30-50k over market. There are ways to cut this, but they would further restrict use, and or just delay the taxes until further use.

As near as I can tell, the infrastructure difference between the Whidbey house and the Everett house:

Closer fire department and cops, along with greater need for closer fire department and cops.

Same library. Both counties teamed up.

Everett house pays for water to be piped from reservoir to home, through household plumbing to river at approximately $1500 per year, minimum. Whidbey has a well, so I pump water out of the ground, through the house, and back into the ground via the septic system. Cost is electricity, and $166/year to have tanks pumped every 3 years.

Whidbey streets are in far better shape than Everett's, which are in far better shape than Seattle's. And our bus system is fare free (supported by a local sales tax) including dial a ride service.

Now I don't know what Chicago offers in infrastructure that Whidbey doesn't, but I expect it to mainly just be cost disease. This is a blue island in a blue state. You can tell by the itemized breakout of all the popular sounding funds, water utility that provides no water, conservation funds and extra money for local schools, etc.

But I could be wrong. Maybe urbanites are buying something with their property tax I am not seeing...

7Wannabe5
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Riggerjack:

Apologize. I stated the relationship incorrectly. There is economy of scale in infrastructure, so it scales sub-linearly per capita with size of city. Network density and socio-economic metabolism and wealth scales super-linearly per capita with size of city. So, public services are more expensive in the city, because everything is more expensive in the city, because the city is where people go to make themselves some money.

Also, in my neck of the woods, property tax rates AND land costs are hugely reduced in rural areas vs. urban. The SEV on my BF's 10 acre backwoods section is only 3.5x the SEV on my .2 acres of vacant lots, and the tax rate in his township is almost 1/3 the tax rate in the city. So, his property tax bill on 10 acres wooded is only slightly more than my property tax bill on .2 acres vacant. However, he would be hard-pressed to find lucrative employment within even an hour commute from his property and I can walk from my property to an automotive facility where he used to work.

Riggerjack
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Riggerjack »

So, public services are more expensive in the city, because everything is more expensive in the city, because the city is where people go to make themselves some money.
I seem to use a lot of words, in a contentious tone, to agree with someone. So maybe that Big 5 test was right to score my agreeability as a 1. :roll:

But everything being more expensive in a city, gives city folk very odd ideas about money and poverty.

Homelessness is not about poverty. It's about us, as a nation, giving up on drug addiction and mental health issues. Poverty is just a side effect.

Yet that is what city folks think of as poverty. It's just a skewed perspective.

Jin+Guice
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Jin+Guice »

Cities offer a lot of things that non-cities don't, which explains the willingness to pay. I don't think the taxes are allocated properly towards the reasons people are choosing to live in cities. This has never bothered me because taxes are rarely allocated efficiently, the costs are hidden to me (renter) and I only recently began thinking seriously about these issues after trying to decrease my yearly expenditures to ~1 Jacob. Most of the people I know who complain about property taxes are 1)old people I don't like or 2) angry nerds I sort of like if only they'd stop talking about property taxes (not meant as an insult to current internet posting company, talking IRL here). After examining the process by which I found myself in the FIRE community I've found that how the message is delivered has a YUGE effect on my ability to hear it.

Head tax debate is heating up on this thread... still looking for more world income distribution action if anyone's got anything.

Riggerjack
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Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Riggerjack »

Same principle applies. Cities are more expensive than out in the sticks, for the greater income proximity.

And the first and new world are more expensive than the third, for the same reasons, in the same way. The exceptions in the third world are in the cities with relatively high income proximity. So again, one can separate the city costs from rural costs.

I'm a bit unclear as to what your looking for. A direct translation table? Something to aggregate these differences? Why?

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Jean
Posts: 1890
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2013 8:49 am
Location: Switzterland

Re: World Income Distribution

Post by Jean »

Hère in expensive switzerland, property taxes +insurances amount to 600 a year. Minimum utility would be 50 à month (just for the first metric ton) With low income and high déductible, health insurances is around 50.- à month. That puts the head tax quite low.

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