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

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

#241

Post by ffggvv » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:40 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…

yeah but eventually home prices/rent can go down and you can get wiped out (see 2008)

but the fed and treasury wont allow that to happen i guess because they prefer inequality as long as it produces a wealth effect

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

#242

Post by zepto » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

Thorentis wrote: post #226

zepto wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the thread is about how $50T has been appropriated from the poor it seems odd to say that the poor should use $250 phones, and they have no business owning anything which costs more.

But not everybody can be in the top 1% by definition. So either a category of people exists that do not need/cannot afford $1500 phones, or $1500 phones are a basic necessity that every human needs alongside food and shelter. I would argue that yes, in the first world a smartphone is almost required, but there are plenty of great <$200 Android phones that do everything one would deem essential. $1500 smartphones are…

> But not everybody can be in the top 1% by definition.

Sure - but what should the wealth ratio between the top 1% and everyone else be? Perhaps if the ratio were lower, everyone would be able to afford great phones.

Also, who ‘deems’ what is essential?

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

#243

Post by NittLion78 » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:40 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…

I always found this graph enlightening, but strictly on its face:

https://fee.org/media/17509/prices2-1.png?width=645&height=6...

I don't agree with the argument FEE is trying to make: "Consider each product or service shown. College is heavily subsidized, regulated, and exclusionary, and the costs are soaring. The textbook industry is hobbled by extreme copyright regulation, and can depend on captive buyers. Childcare is one of the most regulated industries in the country. Not just anyone can enter. Every aspect of childcare provision is controlled by the state."

To me, the point is the things that people truly need have risen steeply whilst things that are luxuries have decreased greatly in cost and I believe that's a failing of government to not correct where the market would not. If you're surprised that things like healthcare and childcare are regulated, you've likely never been anywhere they were not, but that doesn't mean the costs to end users have to be so exponentially exorbitant as time marches on.

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

#244

Post by miltondts » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #142

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…

Potato, potatoe. Who do you think controls "the Fed?" Cui bono ? Your comment would also imply that before there was such a thing as a Federal Reserve, income and wealth inequality didn't exist. This is false.

To add a bit more to this, from [1]: “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

And "The bigger spender wins congressional races 91 percent of the time" [2].

Talking about policies without even mentioning who makes them, kind of misses the point. Big money controls everything. It's no wonder that people come out to defend them, when they control much of mass media and shape the narratives to such an extent.

[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/0...

[2] - https://www.vox.com/2014/10/27/7077647/midterms-spending-mon...

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

#245

Post by zepto » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

chris11 wrote: post #199

zepto wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos wealth isn’t cash he paid himself that he could have been distributing to the workers. It’s a number based on the value of his ownership stake of the business itself.

If significantly raising the pay of Amazon's low-paid workers would negatively impact it's value then part of Bezo's wealth comes from keeping Amazon's cost of labor low.

Is it? Or is it part of the reason those workers have jobs that pay more than minimum wage, rather than no job, or a minimum wage job.

It’s not a zero sum game. A successful Amazon creates jobs. Presumably if there were better jobs elsewhere, people would not work for Amazon.

It’s also part of the reason that low paid workers can shop at Amazon themselves.

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

#246

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

loudmax wrote: post #240

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…

Who do you think appoints the people who run fed Fed? If you're looking to cast blame on bad policies, then blame those ultimately responsible: the politicians and the voters who put them there. Ideally, the United States would have a mechanism that would allow voters to choose politicians with the best policies. What we have instead is a system where voters have to chose between the least worst of two possible optio…

> reelecting the people who appointed them in the first place.

Everyone loves their Congresspeople. It's the other 433 who are screwing everything up.

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

#247

Post by adam_arthur » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #222

adam_arthur wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when coupled with the excessive fiscal stimulus. We should absolutely help those most impacted by the pandemic, but the amount of money being injected amounts to gross negligence. Why were people who made 6 figures and still employed being given checks, for example? The stock market is on fire, and many businesses are smashing earnings expectations, yet we inject another $2 trillion? I've got a sizable por…

> Why were people who made 6 figures and still employed being given checks, for example? Because it's easier to do this than to gauge need, and with the paltry amounts handed out it doesn't add up to much compared to the big picture. The real question is why this has become a political talking point, and the answer is to distract from that much larger rapidly-implemented scam of bailing out the bond market that you r…

It doesn't have to be one or the other.

100% agreed that fed action via bond buying has been excessive as well. In a healthy economic system, there need to be "down" cycles where overleveraged or poorly run businesses fail.

If the government will backstop all investments, then why not leverage up as much as possible and take on excessive risk? Those that have been financially prudent have been punished consistently. I wonder how much of the fiscal/monetary response is really driven by personal bias towards protecting their own portfolios.

Helicopter money is certainly good optics in the short-term, but terrible governance on a longer timescale.

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

#248

Post by hn_asker » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

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…

So this must be why Bitcoin has no inflation.

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

#249

Post by Apocryphon » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

syops wrote: post #235

exabrial wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's absurd to defend the violent nature in which these funds are acquired, regardless of the outcome. The end does not justify the means.

It’s absurd, in my opinion, to think that the society that created the opportunities you have to earn money ought to be enjoyed by you at no cost. We can’t all be free loaders and leeches. Acting as if taxes are immoral is nonsensical.

It's also incredibly ahistorical.

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

#250

Post by chordalkeyboard » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #234

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every government has taxes. > In the U.S. you have the option of leaving if you find the cost too high. So you acknowledge that there’s no alternative, but you still act like people have the choice of an alternative. > This is the system we have developed for people to pay for the privilege of earning in this society. Some people believe that the freedom to earn a living is a right, not a privilege.

The right of exit, as they say, is still there. > Some people believe that the freedom to earn a living is a right, not a privilege. There is also freedom in the security of living in a content and happy society that isn't setting up guillotines because massive underclasses have been pushed to their breaking points. The price you pay for civilization, and so on.

> The right of exit, as they say, is still there.

The existence of rights does not obviate the possibility that they will be infringed upon.

> There is also freedom in the security of living in a content and happy society that isn't setting up guillotines because massive underclasses have been pushed to their breaking points. The price you pay for civilization, and so on.

So I’d really like these leaders to quit pushing us to the breaking point but they keep doing things that benefit themselves and their cronies and telling me its for my own good. So I’m not really sympathetic to the idea that civilization requires central banks run by oligarchs or tax laws (written for the benefit of oligarchs) that punish productivity and reward sloth.