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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%

#121

Post by lm28469 »

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.

We should be careful about wording here. The lack of education is a direct consequence of the top "1%" politics and very well thought decisions. They have everything to gain from us plebeians not thinking about these issues.

> (you choose)

It's much more complex than that, especially in America. If you can choose between A and B but the right answer is C you have everything but a choice. Even worse than that, if the entire culture and education of your country is built on making you think only A and B exists, C being the right answer will never even materialise.

We're past the time of blaming "the people", when the entire system is corrupt to the bone we should stop blaming eachother and look up, when all the parties converge to the same point you know you're being played

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

#122

Post by JamesLeonis »

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…

Except this wasn't the federal bailouts. Those are an entirely different beast. It's talking strictly about income stagnation.

The study shows that if wages kept up with productivity (as was the case in the immediate post-WW2 era) the bottom 90% would earn $2.5 trillion per year more.

> We document the cumulative effect of four decades of income growth below the growth of per capita gross national income and estimate that aggregate income for the population below the 90th percentile over this time period would have been $2.5 trillion (67 percent) higher in 2018 had income growth since 1975 remained as equitable as it was in the first two post-War decades. From 1975 to 2018, the difference between the aggregate taxable income for those below the 90th percentile and the equitable growth counterfactual totals $47 trillion.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html

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

#123

Post by ryanmercer »

raiyu wrote: post #82
ryanmercer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not remotely. It's like pointing out the absurdity of 1 man, over the past year, having his net worth increase 2.32 million times the annual median household income (of the U.S.) of $68,703 (2019, per census.gov). While something like 20% of the planet doesn't even have access to reliably safe drinking water and something like 800 million lack the amount of food require for an active life.

Well the original post was someone who had access to reliable safe drinking water, so I'm not sure where that is coming from. Also if you look historically over the past 100 years overall rates of poverty have declined everywhere. If you look even further back in time the amount of rights that global citizens enjoy today is fundamentally a million times better than it was 100, 200, 300, 400 years ago. Humans were rul…

>Well the original post was someone who had access to reliable safe drinking water

That someone was me, in the same text I also mentioned homeless persons and individuals living in "third world" nations.

And I only have access to reasonably safe drinking water because I added filtration equipment totaling about 2.5% of my annual gross to reduce the nearly 'unacceptable' lead levels in my well for my drinking water and have to, with some regularity, test that water on an ongoing basis to make sure the well hasn't been contaminated by any number of natural and man-made pollutants (chemical spills, chemical fertilizers from neighboring farms, etc). I don't have the luxury of turning on the tap and knowing that an entire industry is testing and chemically treating my water on a daily basis but I still have it a lot better than at least 1/5 of the world.

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

#124

Post by saint_abroad »

raiyu wrote: post #82
ryanmercer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not remotely. It's like pointing out the absurdity of 1 man, over the past year, having his net worth increase 2.32 million times the annual median household income (of the U.S.) of $68,703 (2019, per census.gov). While something like 20% of the planet doesn't even have access to reliably safe drinking water and something like 800 million lack the amount of food require for an active life.

Well the original post was someone who had access to reliable safe drinking water, so I'm not sure where that is coming from. Also if you look historically over the past 100 years overall rates of poverty have declined everywhere. If you look even further back in time the amount of rights that global citizens enjoy today is fundamentally a million times better than it was 100, 200, 300, 400 years ago. Humans were rul…

Progress over the last 400 years is being undone by regressions of the last 40 years.

> individuals born in 1980 have only a 45% chance of outearning their parents at age 30, compared to 93% for those born in 1940. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar...

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

#125

Post by throwawaysea »

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" when people can't afford food, healthcare, or any leisure time is the 2021 equivalent of "Let them eat cake".

The iPhone is a luxury product within a category of luxury products. No one needs a smart phone to be successful in life - you don't need it to educate yourself, to find jobs, to do work, to entertained, etc. It could be used for all those things, but it isn't a prerequisite or the only way. But the fact that the vast majority of adults in the US can afford the disposable income to acquire such a luxury, a device that we could scarcely envision 15 years ago, is a sign of how healthy capitalism is. But leaving America aside - consider as well that globally, extreme poverty has plummeted under capitalism (https://fee.org/articles/extreme-poverty-rates-plummet-under...).

People today have greater purchasing power, standards of living, and life expectancy than ever before, at every income level. To claim that people somehow cannot afford the basics in a country where immigrants regularly show up, live frugally, grind, save, and find a way to thrive, seems disconnected from reality. Instead of blaming the system fully, some blame must also be apportioned for those who don't show the personal responsibility required to manage their life well. That's not insulting, it's just common sense in my opinion.

> Asking the wealthy to pay a greater share to improve society is perfectly reasonable.

How is this not explicitly unfair and discriminatory?

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

#126

Post by randomdata »

readams wrote: post #85
koboll wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From 1960 to 1985 the top marginal tax rate crashed from 90% to 30%. And then of course there's the demise of private sector unions, the effects of computerization, etc. Arguably, it was always a natural law, but the 1970s were an inflection point after which capital was allowed to accrue advantages at a much faster rate.

It's mostly a myth that there was a 90% marginal tax rate. It's technically true, but when the top tax rate was removed they also removed all the loopholes and deductions that were being used to reduce the effect tax rate on top earners to below 45%. All the while the proportion of tax receipts as a percentage of GDP has remained constant. Meanwhile, the proportion of taxes paid by the top quintile earners has increa…

> actual rich people make most of their money not as income, but as unrealized capital gains.

Technically, they make most of their wealth as as unrealized capital gains. It doesn't become money until they realize the gains, at which point it is taxable income.

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

#127

Post by shireboy »

I'm definitely not 1%, and sympathize with/understand somewhat some of these claims. Bail-outs and unchecked government spending or borrowing from future generations worry me. However I'm also pretty aggressive at investing. I feel like in general my retirement and taxable investing has benefitted me financially, though I'm solidly middle class. I feel (with data to back me up) like I'm upwardly mobile, though still not "financially independent". I have had limited success in "side projects" and feel like it's been pretty easy to start a side business.

In general, my attitude has been "yes, we should work to better help those in poverty move up, but I don't begrudge the Musks, Gates and Bezos of the world as long as I am free to start my own businesses and cheaply invest in index funds to share in the profit." In other words, I am not rich, but see a path available to me and don't see the barriers as being significant. The main barriers to me personally are not billionares, but myself and my goals.

I understand those below the poverty line may not have the luxury of opening a IRA, stock account, etc. or immediately starting their own online business. Certain people may feel additional barriers based on culture, education, etc. and those situations should be addressed. But for the majority of middle-class Americans, isn't greater access to markets and small/online business creation a big factor missing from this conversation? At no time in history has it been easier or cheaper for an "average joe" to start or invest in a business. For that matter, while getting a degree is expensive, self-education has never been easier.

I guess what I'm curious from the HN crowd: Make this article relevant to a middle-class person on track to retire in their 60s, who tinkers on weekends with a few startup ideas, and generally thinks their kids will be better off if they continue to have the same access to education, business and investing. Why should that person be personally concerned about income inequality? I'm genuinely asking here. (Again, assume some level of care for poor/underprivileged- we can agree some baseline should be assisted more.)

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

#128

Post by r00fus »

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.

You may be misinterpreting what brandonr is saying. It's about increasing transparency for influencing elections and restricting (overtly) how much influence money has in elections.

Reducing the powers of money is tough (and kind of a game of whack a mole) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

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

#129

Post by LanceH »

JamesBarney wrote: post #51
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.

and servicing debt

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

#130

Post by LanceH »

AlexandrB wrote: post #93
throwawaysea wrote: post #72

"Taken" is a misleading and false. They aren't taking wealth. Others are giving them money in return for something they value. If I am selling a product, or my services, or a share of stock, I'm not "taking" anything from anyone. It's incredible to me that these casual editorialized titles are acceptable so broadly in the journalism industry, and yet labels like "fake news" are reserved for only right-leaning news me…

If you want to get into the nitty gritty, the 1% rich generally don't sell products or services. They own companies who employ workers who do these tasks. Some surplus portion of the value generated by those workers is then captured by the organization (and its owners) as profit. Whether you want to call that "taking" or not is a question of ideology, not of fact. Arguably, omitting the word "taken" from the headline…

The use of "taken" panders to the view of wealth being a zero sum game, which is decidedly false.
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