Some links

Hat tip Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism.

Bruce Boghosian runs the numbers and shows that without redistribution of wealth, the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer…

Using a mathematical model devised to mimic a simplified version of the free market, he and colleagues are finding that, without redistribution, wealth becomes increasingly more concentrated, and inequality grows until almost all assets are held by an extremely small percent of people.

“Our work refutes the idea that free markets, by virtually leaving people up to their own devices, will be fair,” he said. “Our model, which is able to explain the form of the actual wealth distribution with remarkable accuracy, also shows that free markets cannot be stable without redistribution mechanisms. The reality is precisely the opposite of what so-called ‘market fundamentalists’ would have us believe.”...

Inevitably, some people ask Boghosian about the political implications of his research, but he tries to stay focused on the math. Still, when pressed, he said intervention is necessary.
“If the natural mechanisms of a market economy are such that what seems fair isn’t, and leads to concentration of wealth in the absence of intervention,” he said, “if that’s true, then by the same ethical calculus that outlaws pyramid schemes and justifies consumer protection laws, we need to protect people from the natural inclinations of free-market economics.”

Worth reading in full.

Tufts Now
The Mathematics of Inequality 

Taylor McNeil

Being poor results in a downward spiral. Good reason to adopt a job guarantee that matches individuals to work.

The Atlantic
The Barriers Stopping Poor People From Moving to Better Jobs

Alana Semuels

This article focuses on the decline of research, which is important, but it is only one of the issues involving the push to "save money" in education.

The Atlantic
The Decline of the Midwest's Public Universities Threatens to Wreck Its Most Vibrant Economies

Jon Marcus

Jared Bernstein — Opportunity, Inequality, Public Opinion, and Power

Class power on the table, along with rents.

Why does it matter that we as a nation understand this causal linkage [between economic inequality and lack of social mobility]? The answer has to do with both policy and power. One way of summarizing the fundamental problem of narrowly distributed growth is that those whose incomes are asset-driven hold disproportionate political power relative to those whose incomes depend on paychecks.

Thus, anti-inequality measures that threaten the top 1%–that attempt to reduce their economic “rents”—like collective bargaining, higher minimum wages, trade policy that protects workers’ rights and wages, full employment, robust safety nets, progressive taxation, are attacked as counterproductive to growth and jobs. 

That leaves us stuck in a cul-de-sac: we can’t increase opportunity because we can’t decrease inequality....

Bingo!

Unfortunately, I fear there are more Baltimores in our future.

Jared Bernstein | On the Economy

Opportunity, Inequality, Public Opinion, and Power
Jared Bernstein