I’ve been using a variation of the budgeting system described in StackBacks Automated Budget System (Wayback Machine) for many years now. It’s super simple to setup. Here’s a summary of the 3 key points from the PDF: Budgeting should be automated. The 2 types of expenses are planned and unplanned. To setup the system, figure out your expenses, setup your account and then setup the flow. See also Is inequality inevitable? Better schools won’t fix America
Better Public Schools Won’t Fix Income Inequality (The Atlantic) is one of those belief-altering articles that completely changed my thoughts around education. Here are 8 of Nick Hanauer’s most powerful points: Educationism is the idea that poverty and inequality can be solved with education. Education-reform ignores the greatest driver of student achievement: household income. Great public schools don’t create a thriving middle class, great public schools are a product of thriving middle class. Income inequality has exploded despite education progress. The lower the parent’s income, the lower the educational attainment. Educationists ignore the disease (economic inequality) and focus on the symptom (education inequality). Limited family income is difficult to overcome even for students that are naturally gifted. Pay the average worker more, and you will create a thriving middle class that addresses both economic and educational inequality. See also StackBacks automated budget system Is inequality inevitable? Stop collecting, and start producing
In G. William Domhoff’s piece Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power, he makes 8 compelling points that should make you wonder whether you truly understand where you stand in America: Wealth is the value of what you own while income is what you earn. Wealth is highly concentrated in just a few hands in the US. Wealth leads to power, and power leads to wealth. US is a power pyramid with the bottom 80-90% having no power. Tax cuts on capital gains and dividends benefits only the top Americans who get the majority of their income from capital gains and dividends. The US has both wealth and income highly concentrated. In the US, taxes and transfer payments reduce inequality but not much. CEOs generally get the salary they think they deserve. See also Neutralizing social Darwinism Is inequality inevitable?
Key characteristics of the affine wealth model: The affine wealth model is agent-based i.e. each person or corporation is an agent. Wealth distribution arises from pairwise agent transactions e.g. agent A has a transaction with agent B. Wealth moves when an agent makes a mistake. The affine wealth model matches empirical data on US wealth distribution. chi stabilizes the wealth distribution and avoids oligarchy. zeta results in partial oligarchy. kappa shifts the wealth distribution downward to model debt. See also Is inequality inevitable?
Is Inequality Inevitable? (Scientific American) makes a compelling argument about wealth that I’ve always suspected but lacked support. The key ideas I took away from Bruce Boghosian’s article are: The affine wealth model reveals the tendency towards wealth concentration or extreme inequality even if the outcome of a transaction is chosen randomly. If the transaction outcome is random, then luck plays a bigger role in amassing wealth than most people think. Wealth tends to flow upward. As a result, the free market is essentially a casino you can never leave. Fortunately, redistribution sets a limit on inequality, but it’s not necessarily a tax (see chi, zeta and kappa parameters of the affine wealth model). See also StackBacks automated budget system Neutralizing social Darwinism Who rules America? Better schools won’t fix America