America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90% • Hacker News Board

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#51

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #18

"But poor people have iphones now" when people can't afford food, healthcare, or any leisure time is the 2021 equivalent of "Let them eat cake". The balance of wealth is insulting when we have so many basic needs not being met for those at the bottom "Stealing" is a word that gets knee jerk reactions. But the more polite way to phrase it is that the rich benefit from societal structure 1000x more than the poor and ar…

It seems like most of taxes goes towards medicare, medicaid, social security, and the military.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#52

Post by fat_pikachu » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

patwolfe wrote: post #33

tengbretson wrote: post #30

In my lifetime some sort of switch has flipped, where the people advocating for more taxes no longer do so with an explicit intention to pay for something greater or something new, but simply on the assumption that the act of taxing people will inherently make them more equal. Is there a coherent philosophical basis for this train of thought? Is there any historical precedent that increased taxes is what we need to b…

I'd say the current biggest problem is that the highest earners simply do not pay much in taxes through loopholes and avoidance, not that taxes need to be increased across the board. EDIT: the_gastropod's comment also under this parent is a great short summary of this issue. I second their recommendation of "Capital in the 21st Century"

The "loopholes" are there for a reason. They allow the government to indirectly further their policy goals without much effort e.g. tax avoidance programs for real estate investors to encourage the building of more housing, tax credits for parents to encourage people to have more children, credits for electric vehicles to encourage the development of renewables, etc.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#53

Post by Railsify » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #23

This is almost a natural law of wealth. When you have significant capital, you can do things like loan it out with interest, leverage it into getting loans to build more capital, etc. If one assumes that the wealthy are using their money to buy commodities and selling those commodities with the expectation of getting their initial money back plus some delta, then it becomes fairly trivial to demonstrate that the more…

The return on capital is always greater than the return on labor. Piketty does a great data driven analysis on this in his book Capital in the 21st century. This phenomenon was occurring long before the US was even a glimmer.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#54

Post by raiyu » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #32

Around the same time this was shared to HN I Tweeted/FB/LinkedIn variations of the following >If I earned $10,000 a day it would take me 273.97 years to have earned 1 billion dollars. Meanwhile, Elon was worth about 20 billion a year ago, last month he was worth an estimated $185bn. Oof. In reality, I make a little over $17 an hour His net worth increased an estimated 4.66 million times my annual gross income in the…

By the same token, Elon Musk is someone who succeeded, while thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs fail, end up with debt, and don't have much to show for their work.

So using survivorship bias to compare yourself to Elon Musk which is an atypical result when it comes to business formation doesn't make sense.

You should probably compare yourself to the average business creator and see how you fare compared to them.

It's like saying I'm not that great at Basketball, but let me compare myself to Michael Jordan.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#55

Post by throwaway2245 » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

the_gastropod wrote: post #45

brandonr49 wrote: post #21

The problem of inequality in general needs to be framed as one of power asymmetry. There are a handful of people that have managed to garner, through their wealth, similar power to states with millions of people. The solutions to this involve either making money less able to purchase power, or taking some of this money away. I suspect the latter is more likely to happen but I'll happily support either method.

> ...making money less able to purchase power I'm not sure this is possible without breaking the entire concept of money. So long as money is a thing humans trade their time for to pay for living expenses and beyond, it can be used to bribe, coerce, etc.

> making money less able to purchase power

you could achieve this by: giving everyone a basic amount of money, so they are on a more equal footing to benefit from opportunities.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#56

Post by dghlsakjg » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

tengbretson wrote: post #30

In my lifetime some sort of switch has flipped, where the people advocating for more taxes no longer do so with an explicit intention to pay for something greater or something new, but simply on the assumption that the act of taxing people will inherently make them more equal. Is there a coherent philosophical basis for this train of thought? Is there any historical precedent that increased taxes is what we need to b…

The theory behind it has always been that taxes serve as a transfer of wealth. You tax the wealthy more and reduce taxes on the less wealthy, and/or spend that money on programs and projects that benefit the poor disproportionately.

Don’t confuse how politicians sell something with the mechanism. The rhetoric changed with the rise of celebrity through wealth. ‘Soak the rich’ is a sales slogan since it’s easy to punch up, and no one has any sympathy for a guy like Bezos. The same sort of rhetoric is going on right now with lines like ‘billionaires made $2t during the pandemic’, or the headline for this article. the implication is that they actively made moves that increased the amount of dollars in their bank account by literally taking money from the poor. The reality is that they continued running their businesses according to the rules of the game and the value of their business holdings is up.

In that context ‘soak the rich’ should really just be seen as a proposed rule change to the game.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#57

Post by natenthe » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

Correction: The Fed's policies have taken $50T of wealth from the Bottom 90%.

When you bail out irresponsibly over-leveraged and nearly bankrupted banks and corporations, and pay for those bailouts with tax-payer money, you steal from the poor and give to the rich.

Most importantly, when the Fed decides to print money ad nauseam, they create massive asset inflation, which steals from the poor and gives to the rich. This is because those dollars that are printed go directly into bonds, equities, and assets that only a small amount of the population owns a significant amount of. When money is "printed" the Fed actually injects money into financial markets through buying assets. This asset inflation caused by money printing gives more money to the rich to buy more assets, thus driving up the prices of financial products, real estate, and all other valued assets in society. Thus, cost of living skyrockets, but only the rich are actually increasing their net worth (which is increasing exponentially). All of this happens while minimum wage, and most wages, are stagnant.

Wealth inequality and social unrest in America is DIRECTLY related to corrupt and/or incompetent (you choose) Fed policies. It amazes me why most people do not grasp this. I think it is lack of education.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#58

Post by mattmaroon » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

the_gastropod wrote: post #45

brandonr49 wrote: post #21

The problem of inequality in general needs to be framed as one of power asymmetry. There are a handful of people that have managed to garner, through their wealth, similar power to states with millions of people. The solutions to this involve either making money less able to purchase power, or taking some of this money away. I suspect the latter is more likely to happen but I'll happily support either method.

> ...making money less able to purchase power I'm not sure this is possible without breaking the entire concept of money. So long as money is a thing humans trade their time for to pay for living expenses and beyond, it can be used to bribe, coerce, etc.

Well it’s not possible to do it 100%, but I think the problem is less the illegal trade of money for power and more the legal one. Campaign finance laws (which at this point probably require an amendment to the constitution) could help a lot.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#59

Post by standardUser » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

tengbretson wrote: post #30

In my lifetime some sort of switch has flipped, where the people advocating for more taxes no longer do so with an explicit intention to pay for something greater or something new, but simply on the assumption that the act of taxing people will inherently make them more equal. Is there a coherent philosophical basis for this train of thought? Is there any historical precedent that increased taxes is what we need to b…

"...people advocating for more taxes no longer do so with an explicit intention to pay for something..."

You should perhaps listen more closely. There are a wide array of programs proposed by people who are advocating for greater taxes on the wealthy. Universal healthcare, free education, a larger social safety net and investments in green energy are a few of the big line items being constantly and loudly discussed. Those programs are intended to improve the majority of people's lives. You can interpret that as "more equal" if you want.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#60

Post by itsoktocry » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #18

"But poor people have iphones now" when people can't afford food, healthcare, or any leisure time is the 2021 equivalent of "Let them eat cake". The balance of wealth is insulting when we have so many basic needs not being met for those at the bottom "Stealing" is a word that gets knee jerk reactions. But the more polite way to phrase it is that the rich benefit from societal structure 1000x more than the poor and ar…

>"But poor people have iphones now"

What makes that especially awesome is that Apple and the telecoms have gotten into the business of supplying credit to consumers who would otherwise have no business (literally and figuratively) owning a $1,500 phone when a $250 phone would do.