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Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 22:17:21 -0400
To: Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu>
Cc: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Michelle Sternthal <mjste &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: mind the gap

I'm in the midst of dissertation woes, but I have not ignored this  
discussion or Danny's comments.  I challenge your point, Danny, that  
inequality is only correlationally tied to poor health.  There are  
causal pathways, and I will certainly dig up the evidence for you.   
Myriad studies have been done-- prospective, large scale,  
longitudinal-- that have looked at this, and they have controlled for  
potential confounders.  My silence on this matter is not because you  
stumped me-- i'm just knee-deep in deadlines.
So no conclusions yet!

On Sep 4, 2007, at 8:04 PM, Daniel Reeves wrote:

> This is what is so awesome about improvetheworld.  These debates  
> actually *get* somewhere!  Seriously, I'm excited about this. :)
>
> Let's pause for a straw poll:
>   http://dreeves.wufoo.com/forms/mind-the-gap/
>
>
> --- \/   FROM James W Mickens AT 07.09.04 16:51 (Today)   \/ ---
>
>>> And I don't think you clarified what James is saying.  He said  
>>> that more real wealth to billionaires does directly hurt poor  
>>> people.  I'd like to hear the chain of causality he has in mind.
>>
>> According to Graham, "wealth is not money. Money is just a  
>> convenient way of trading one form of wealth for another. Wealth  
>> is the underlying stuff---the goods and services we buy." The  
>> underlying stuff, the goods and services, are constrained  
>> resources. For example, using a wealth resource in one way often  
>> prevents its use in a different way; real estate that is used to  
>> build a library can't be used to build a sports stadium. Wealth is  
>> also constrained by the rate at which it can be produced. There  
>> are a finite number of automobiles that can be produced per month.  
>> There are a finite number of hours that doctors can spend treating  
>> patients. These figures may improve over time, but they will still  
>> be finite. This means that many types of wealth are scarce. Ergo,  
>> distribution matters. In particular, skewed wealth distributions  
>> directly hurt poor people because there is a finite amount of  
>> wealth for everyone to share, and giving a unit of wealth to one  
>> person is equivalent to taking it away from someone else. Thus,  
>> the Daddy Model of Wealth is not totally broken. Wealth is not  
>> money, but many types of wealth *are* constrained by natural limits.
>>
>> A society's wealth can grow over time, but it will never be  
>> infinite. Thus, there will never be enough wealth to maximize  
>> everyone's utility. But given diminishing utility returns on  
>> wealth accumulation, sound public policy should ensure that wealth  
>> imbalances do not grow too large.
>>
>> ~j
>>
>
> -- 
> http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"
>
>  "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
>    -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
>
>
>