Earlier quoted context omitted.
> American labor was fucked anyways, Globalism only accelerated trends that would have happened anyhow. Globalism didn't "accelerate" trends that would have happened anyhow, it created those trends. American labor is fucked because of globalism. You might argue the standard of living might have ended up the same under protectionist policies (e.g. poor because of high prices rather than low wages), but I doubt we'd se…
> You might argue the standard of living might have ended up the same under protectionist policies (e.g. poor because of high prices rather than low wages), but I doubt we'd see the same level of inequality under protectionism. The inequality that you see today wasn't caused by globalism, but by tax cuts on the very rich, which incentivized and legitimized overblown executive pay. All that wealth was then funneled in…
Source?
Only a minority of companies in the US even have executives that get the much maligned high pay and bonuses in the last decade or so. What about the massive percentage of wealth that didn't fall into this category? They may have gain significantly from globalism but that was hardly the result of US tax policy alone.
Lets not forget that democrats were in power for the last 8yrs and the state has only grown exponentially since the 1990s under both republican and democrat governments. Just because tax rates weren't the extremes of pre-1980/1970s doesn't make them low. They've been relatively consistent while the middle class income dropped.
The complexity of the tax code and lack of competitiveness with international countries may have heavily influenced inequality. But it was hardly the result of explicit tax reduction for the rich...
The idea that tax havens are something that were merely a matter of weak policy is naive. Even worse than the drug war hawks.
Just because the middle class didn't keep pace with the wealthy doesn't mean only the wealthy were at fault. The fact the middle class lost wealth is hardly singularly the fault of the wealthy. I know this narrative sells well in politics but it's very short sighted.
Even if the US adjusted tax policy to redistribute a larger chunk of taxes towards the middle class it would hardly make a dent in the new reality in the fact there is hardly a middle class economy like there used to be. So you must either develop a new middle class economy or you get temporary perks of taking it from the wealthy. This is the big whale in the room that the Bernie bro guys are ignoring. The likely scenario is that the wealthy would become continually less competitive over the years, shift way more money over seas, and the middle class would be in the same situation with a little bit more money for a short period.
Gov spending under any administration that enacts those policies would largely offset most of the gains going directly to the people regardless (which is good if it results in universal health care, but little else if it's not sustainable).