Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id880168970
amid the wreckage, and despite some slippage, his approval ratings still hold between 43 and 48%: far higher than those of many other leaders. Why? I believe part of the answer lies in a fundamental aspect of our humanity: the urge to destroy that from which you feel excluded.
id880168480
There is strong evidence of a causal association between growing inequality and the rise of populist authoritarian movements. A paper in the Journal of European Public Policy found that a one-unit rise in the Gini coefficient (a standard measure of inequality) increases support for demagogues by 1%.
✏️ The question is.. why do we go towards authoritarian leader vs trying to push for power for all of us? Why a single dictator, instead of the desire for all of us to have control? #addto/questions 🔗 View Highlight
id880168259
At the root of some of these explanations, I feel, is something deeply embedded in the human psyche: if you can’t get even, get mean.
✏️ I know this can happen, but I’m trying to parse out if this is a universal truth.. or perhaps a subset of feeling desperate, cornered and your survival is being threatened. I will push back on narratives that say we are mean at our cores.. but I do know we can be mean. I just think it’s a reaction, not a core value or behavior. #followup #addto/questions around human nature 🔗 View Highlight
id880168253
Democracy, we are told, allows people a voice in politics. But only, it seems, if they have a few million to give to a political party.
id880168243
GDP growth was strong under Joe Biden, but as the economics professor Jason Furman points out: “From 2019 to 2023, inflation-adjusted household income fell, and the poverty rate rose.” GDP and social improvement are no longer connected.
id880167903
once benefits have been paid, the Gini coefficient for gross income in the UK scarcely differs from the Gini coefficient for post-tax income. In other words, the gap between the rich and the poor is rougly the same after taxes are levied, suggesting that taxation has no further significant effect on income distribution. How could this possibly be true, when the rich pay higher rates of income tax? It’s because the poor surrender a much higher proportion of their income in sales taxes, such as VAT.