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The Real Class War

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: The Real Class War

#231

Post by Slothrop479 »

take_a_breath wrote: post #144
mc32 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt but that’s amateurish compared to how we got screwed by people who said they were fighting FOR US . On the other hand he deregulated airlines and telephony which jump started the tech revolution.

I don’t see how it’s any different, let alone “amateurish”. Clinton cleared the way for the internet to create as much wealth as it has (Telecommunications Act of 1996). Every President has had positive policies and negative policies, so we could play that game all day. Acting like deregulating airlines and busting unions are on the same level is curious. One has created some new companies (and many corporate bankrup…

Clinton's policies have lead directly to these sorts of wealth imbalances. His deregulation of the financial industry is a large reason for the 2008 recession, his work with NAFTA left behind many of the working class, his welfare and prison reforms stole livelihoods from the poor, his CEO pay reforms lead to the massive increase in CEO compensation (mainly in the forms of stocks, which Clinton reduced the tax burden of by lowering capital gains tax), etc. Clinton's policies were neoliberal and largely skewed towards the wealthy.

Some details of his failures can be seen here:

https://prospect.org/health/fabulous-failure-clinton-s-1990s...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/welfare...

Re: The Real Class War

#233

Post by steveklabnik »

whytaka wrote: post #177
dlkf wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather live in a country where an individual can save and invest to become a billionaire. Steinbeck has a dynamite line about this. It's a goofy point at any rate because there is no evidence that you can realistically _save_ to become a billionaire. It's typically inherited. > Where is the growth and innovation in those countries? Literally everywhere? A fun exercise is to read about some burgeoning Canadi…

> Steinbeck has a dynamite line about this. I'd appreciate you quoting it.

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

It's often attributed to Steinbeck but in my understanding, it's not entirely clear if that's true or not.

Re: The Real Class War

#235

Post by Slothrop479 »

0x445442 wrote: post #229
simonh wrote: post #105

This is all driven by globalisation, and don't get me wrong I'm a globalist, but this is just a fact. First manual labour in manufacturing was outsourced abroad, then higher tier tech jobs in software and product engineering. Now big firms from former third world countries are muscling in on markets at every level of the economy, creating competition at every level of business. You can't add hundreds of millions of C…

The problem is the imbalance between the mobility of capital and the mobility of labor. If it were as easy for Joe Iowa to move some place with a lower cost of living to compete for labor as it is for Joe CEO to setup manufacturing there then I'd be all for Globalization.

The mechanisms by which globalization works to favor the rich is laid out well by economist Dean Baker in his book Rigged. The introduction looks at how trade imbalances with the global south benefit the rich in the west. The third chapter examines the macroeconomics of upwards redistribution itself.

The entire book is available free on his website: https://deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/Rigged.pdf

In terms of US policy, the state of American inequality, and the domestic movement of corporate interests to create policies to favor the rich - the book Winner Take All Politics is a concise overview of this history since the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner-Take-All_Politics

Re: The Real Class War

#236

Post by throwawayhhakdl »

hnuser77 wrote: post #186
WhompingWindows wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention they were all poisoned by lead, using it for sweeteners, pipes, and for their chalices and cups.

One could consider Americans poisoned by something , considering that 40% of the American population is obese (not just overweight) and sperm count has declined 50% in developed countries over the past few decades.

Hmm... is the sperm count stat normalized to the obesity problem? I keep hearing things about America’s declining health, some of which seem to be “mysterious” and concerning. But then I’m always reminded that a lot of it is just people being fat. People being fat sounds like a highly probable culprit for why sperm counts are dropping on average.

Re: The Real Class War

#237

Post by anigbrowl »

xwowsersx wrote: post #171

> But it is precisely for these reasons that the working class is unlikely to be decisive in shaping politics for the foreseeable future. However one defines the working class, it has scarcely any political agency in the current system and no apparent means for acquiring any. At most, working-class voters can cast their ballots for an “un­acceptable” candidate, but they can exercise no influence on policy formation o…

In a nutshell, public choice theory. Try The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan which explores the phenomenon from a systems standpoint without being especially partisan or ideological.

Re: The Real Class War

#238

Post by i_haz_rabies »

frockington1 wrote: post #220
squiggleblaz wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you invest when you have to decide whether to fix the car or eat? The rules aren't fair, they're made by the rich. Learning how to follow them won't make you richer because they're designed to increase the wealth at the top. Almost no-one advocates seizing wealth hrough tax. Merely work (income). Since the rich have wealth and the poor work (earn income)

Learning how to follow rules is exatly how to become rich. Entry level retail store now pays 15/hr. 60 hours at week equates to 48k/year. Hardly unfair

Try working for 60 hours a week at minimum wage with kids and let me know how much time you have left to spend managing investments.

Re: The Real Class War

#239

Post by throwaheyy »

sodafountan wrote: post #172

Virtually every problem listed in this article is solved if bitcoin continues its historic rise - and yet you mention bitcoin on hacker news and you're down-voted to oblivion, it really is unbelievable. The "Elites" are getting richer because capital is being used to accumulate more capital through dividends on stocks and revenue producing assets. The only reason money is being funneled into these assets is because t…

The world doesn’t need fucking Bitcoin.

This is merely switching one “elite” for a different, equally arbitrary, but likely less qualified “elite”.

Re: The Real Class War

#240

Post by triceratops »

sodafountan wrote: post #172

Virtually every problem listed in this article is solved if bitcoin continues its historic rise - and yet you mention bitcoin on hacker news and you're down-voted to oblivion, it really is unbelievable. The "Elites" are getting richer because capital is being used to accumulate more capital through dividends on stocks and revenue producing assets. The only reason money is being funneled into these assets is because t…

I can't tell if this is a parody post or not. But I will try to understand it.

> Bitcoin doesn't have a dividend...in order to realize any gains you have to sell it

So...like gold and silver? We've already had those for millennia. We've also had inequality for millennia - and at times it was way worse than it is now.

> The script gets flipped if that asset is a hard, un-inflatable asset like bitcoin with a built in scarcity mechanism.

I'm trying to understand this. If everyone puts their money into Bitcoin, inflation won't eat the value of their money so they won't try to increase it by investing into dividend-producing businesses? Otherwise how is this "script" "flipped? I don't understand this line of reasoning.

Also if lots of people pull money out of dividend-producing businesses and put it into Bitcoin, the prices of those assets will go down which will make their returns even better. So it seems like it would cause more of the thing ("elites" putting capital into revenue producing assets) that you're saying is the problem here.

> a lot of the truly rich people in this world have income producing businesses and other assets aside from stocks but you could argue that that's a lot better than money simply producing more money.

Money simply producing more money is bad, but selling appreciated Bitcoin to make money is good? I don't see the difference between the two. And flipping Bitcoin is better than using fiat money to start businesses that produce value?

Like maybe you have a good point but I have no idea what you're trying to say or how it relates to TFA.

> yet you mention bitcoin on hacker news and you're down-voted to oblivion,

Maybe only mention it on articles related to Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?

> The world desperately needs bitcoin to succeed.

Given the already-well-known environmental cost of mining Bitcoin, one could argue that that's the last thing the world needs.

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