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

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

#111

Post by namelessoracle »

edoceo wrote: post #105
namelessoracle wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the poison pill that Amazon/Walmart/et cetra have injected into the conversation to make sure they keep on top. Unless you think that all the top 1% have adopted identity politics out of the goodness of their hearts? It's just classic divide and conquer strategy. It's no coincidence that identity politics is so popular with the relatively affluent tech community who dont want to take a good hard look at themselv…

Kulak is on Wikipedia ""During the Russian Revolution, the label of kulak was used to chastise peasants who withheld grain from the Bolsheviks. According to Marxist–Leninist political theories of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants"" TIL.

I think the oxford definition conveys it better "a peasant in Russia wealthy enough to own a farm and hire labor. Emerging after the emancipation of serfs in the 19th century the kulaks resisted Stalin's forced collectivization, but millions were arrested, exiled, or killed."

IOW. The middle class. Small business owners. People who have acquired a tiny amount of capital.

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

#112

Post by throwawaysea »

Pfhreak wrote: post #95
throwawaysea wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is contrived. Assets don't have to go up in value. You could also end up holding the bag in a place like Detroit. You may not end up being able to rent out your second property at a profit. You may end up with a deadbeat tenant, unforeseen expenses, or simply falling rents. These decisions involve risk and they have accordingly, an associated reward. Claiming that there's a "natural law of wealth" doesn'…

My example is not contrived, it represents an understanding of the market over the long term. Are there bubbles? Yes. Are there dips? Yes. You are making the inverse mistake of someone who looks at a large jackpot win in Vegas and thinks it's a good investment, when in reality the expected value of a bet is negative. The rate of return on capital has held relatively steady at ~4% for hundreds of years. Stop thinking…

No it hasn't remained "steady". You're quoting an average and claiming it is steady but there are periods where your savings would have not seen that growth and even seen negative return. Example analysis: http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/...

I'm also not sure what you mean by "sufficient capital". You can by shares one at a time. You don't have to be wealthy to have access to growth in assets.

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

#113

Post by TuringNYC »

silexia wrote: post #68
natenthe wrote: post #57

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. T…

The bailouts are tragic as it undermines the natural garbage collection in democracy - bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is an incredible positive because it allows for the safe and sane dismantling of bad organizations. The question is - how do we apply a mechanism like bankruptcy to government organizations?

>> The question is - how do we apply a mechanism like bankruptcy to government organizations?

Not sure if this is an answer for every government org, but hundreds of municipalities and possibly even states are going to go bankrupt due to obscene pension liabilities. The very difficult "solution" is to let them to bankrupt, and allow them to re-negotiate liabilities.

Unfortunately many municipalities have promised the world to retirees, often with inflation adjustments and often starting at 20yrs of service (that is, age 41 until death). Add in tricks like matching final year salary (which is often packed with overtime) and you have unbearable pension obligations. It isnt the worker's fault. But the local leaders and pension managers are at fault, and citizens are on the hook. Unfortunately the decisions were made by leaders 10 or 20yrs ago, so it may not even be the current leadership.

If the municipalities are bailed out, then it gives a signal to every other municipality to overpay massively because either the state or uncle sam or PBGC will come in and bail everyone out. It is going to be a mess.

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

#114

Post by mdoms »

adolph wrote: post #42

How is this different from any random conspiracy theory? The term "counterfactual" is used instead of "I made a strawman?" Edit: the reliance on "taxable income" instead of gross is interesting. Wouldn't a progressive tax policy look similar to the paper's stats since more income would be taxable for folks with lower income? https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html

> the reliance on "taxable income" instead of gross is interesting

Taxable income is gross income when you're pulling a wage. Even in a progressive tax system where, for example, your first $10,000 untaxed, it's still taxable income because even if you make $12,000 then the full amount is used to determine your tax bill.

> Wouldn't a progressive tax policy look similar to the paper's stats since more income would be taxable for folks with lower income?

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. Be specific.

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

#115

Post by nickpp »

natenthe wrote: post #57

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. T…

Naval had an extremely pertinent tweet [1]:

The road to socialism via inflation:

• Print money, crash the reserve currency, destroy savers, and force them into inflated assets.

• Asset inflation leads to inequality. Demonize asset holders and tax the nominal gains, thereby confiscating the real value of the assets.

[1] https://twitter.com/naval/status/1359650086221930496?s=21

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

#116

Post by natenthe »

nickpp wrote: post #115
natenthe wrote: post #57

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. T…

Naval had an extremely pertinent tweet [1]: The road to socialism via inflation: • Print money, crash the reserve currency, destroy savers, and force them into inflated assets. • Asset inflation leads to inequality. Demonize asset holders and tax the nominal gains, thereby confiscating the real value of the assets. [1] https://twitter.com/naval/status/1359650086221930496?s=21

Naval is a smart man. Couldn't agree with this more. We are nearing the end of the road to socialism via inflation.

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

#117

Post by Pfhreak »

throwawaysea wrote: post #112
Pfhreak wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My example is not contrived, it represents an understanding of the market over the long term. Are there bubbles? Yes. Are there dips? Yes. You are making the inverse mistake of someone who looks at a large jackpot win in Vegas and thinks it's a good investment, when in reality the expected value of a bet is negative. The rate of return on capital has held relatively steady at ~4% for hundreds of years. Stop thinking…

No it hasn't remained "steady". You're quoting an average and claiming it is steady but there are periods where your savings would have not seen that growth and even seen negative return. Example analysis: http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/... I'm also not sure what you mean by "sufficient capital". You can by shares one at a time. You don't have to be wealthy to have access to growth in ass…

> You don't have to be wealthy to have access to growth in assets

You have to be wealthy to see an appreciable growth in assets. Both the absolute and percentage amounts matter. Yes, anyone can get a 3% return on their investments over time, but that doesn't really matter when you can only invest $1.

Living has a certain minimum set of fixed costs, those with sufficient capital can pay for those fixed costs through the growth of their capital and still see a net increase in wealth . Someone making $30k a year in wages will never achieve that, even if they see some growth in assets.

> You're quoting an average and claiming it is steady but there are periods where your savings would have not seen that growth and even seen negative return.

You are making a pedantic semantic argument. I acknowledged the presence of dips and bubbles. But on "average" you will see a return on capital, especially a diversified market.

That analysis only looked at the S&P 500, which is a tiny share of the economy and not at all representative of the growth of capital over time. What about housing, bonds, precious metals, commodities, short positions, international funds, etc.

Move up one level of abstraction and look at the forest, not the trees.

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

#118

Post by ksec »

RIMR wrote: post #83
natenthe wrote: post #57

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. T…

Lack of education is the #1 issue here. America's education system emphasizes nationalism and obedience. It doesn't encourage critical thinking or alternative worldviews. We're so deeply entrenched in the "American Dream" (Capitalism & Trickle Down Economics) that we're unable to challenge the current status quo. Worse yet, this is driving us towards the defunding of public education, and the further worsening of our…

>It doesn't encourage critical thinking...

Critical Thinking requires some dose of cynicism. Which in itself is against the main stream thought of American Optimism.

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

#119

Post by AnimalMuppet »

zirkonit wrote: post #5
h3rsko wrote: post #2

Inequality seems to be a completely pointless buzzword to me. The only thing that matters is if there are more or less poor people, and how poor are those people compared to similar percentiles in the past. It shouldn't matter how rich the richest people on earth are. I really love seeing people on the Internet try to convince themselves that because Bezos or Musk are worth $100B, they must be stealing it from poor p…

You are absolutely right! Everyone, from the most hardcore Marxist-Leninist leftists, to "don't tread on me"-style libertarians, would agree there is absolutely no difference how rich rich people are if there is less poverty. This is precisely the reason why Dengist reforms happened in China -- to foster getting a billion people out of poverty by market reforms that yes, would make a few hundred billionaires. The thi…

The poor in America are getting poorer. The poor in much of the world are getting richer. This seems to be the consequence of globalization. So, no, it's not a law of nature that rich people getting richer and poor people getting poorer go together.

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

#120

Post by natenthe »

ksec wrote: post #107
natenthe wrote: post #57

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. T…

>It amazes me why most people do not grasp this. I think it is lack of education. I dont think that is the case at all. The concept is simple and easy enough to understand. Most people just dont care and want a single target to blame. And someone decide that target will not be government or Feds.

Bingo. I was being politically correct but actually agree wholeheartedly. Didn't want to get too conspiratorial on this forum.
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