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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%

#361

Post by potshot »

NittLion78 wrote: post #243
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. Childca…

This is explored in detail in "Why Are the Prices So Damn High?" [1]

"Education and healthcare are notable examples of sectors seemingly stricken by constantly rising prices ... At the same time, home appliances and telecommunications have become much cheaper. Why?"

[1] https://www.mercatus.org/publications/healthcare/why-are-pri...

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

#362

Post by eznzt »

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…

With so many mentions of the Fed, I find this comment to be extremely antisemitic.

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

#363

Post by downut »

pessimizer wrote: post #258
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…

A lot of magic is happening in your second paragraph. Inflation reduces debt and wealth at the same time. Wages at the low end rise with the cost of living. Debt and wealth are denominated nominally. The cost of a new car may go up, but the cost of the car you're currently driving (and haven't paid off) is going down. Printing money doesn't steal from the poor. Printing money and giving it to the rich steals from the…

Yeah I agree with this more, but let's ignore the US for a moment and observe that inflation has been steady and low for decades now in most wealthy countries. And then we observe the same is true in the US.

So whatever the causes of the (I certainly agree) massive transfer of relative wealth to the 1%, I don't see much evidence that it's US government financial institutions that are to blame. As for fixing the problem, in the simplest, most effective way: highly progressive real income and wealth taxation and whatever Picketty thinks the fraction the inheritance tax should be.

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

#364

Post by tt433 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #251
mywittyname wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reelecting the people who appointed them in the first place. Everyone loves their Congresspeople. It's the other 433 who are screwing everything up.

I'm pretty sure everyone hates their congresspeople, if they are of the opposing party.

Not really, ticket splitting is a thing for many americans -- it's decreasing though

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

#365

Post by tick_tock_tick »

ceejayoz wrote: post #178
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at USA spending on education the money isn't the issue at all.

I think the argument is less "we don't spend enough" and more "we spend a lot on the wrong sort of education".

Most of the time the argument is "if we spend less on military and more on education it would solve X". So I disagree. The people I get into a discussion with on education funding always seems to think the USA spends less than other first world countries.

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

#366

Post by lovegoblin »

tengbretson wrote: post #316
standardUser wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...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. If tomorrow everyone was given all of those programs, but the income distribution stayed the same as it were today, would everyone go home satisfied or would they discover new things that needed providing?

> would they discover new things that needed providing?

...of course? These programs would (imo) make a better world, but not a perfect one.

Just because you accomplish Goal #1 doesn't mean that you can't continue on to strive for Goal #2.

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

#367

Post by john_moscow »

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.

Because the people who figured that out also figured out the divide-and-conquer strategy. So first you quietly take X% out of everyone's pocket, and then you do massive PR campaign splitting them into identity groups and forcing them to fight over who should be more entitled to a 0.1X% bonus in the name of equity and justice. And you turn a blind eye, and even somewhat encourage people burning each other's businesses and getting each other fired over made-up differences.

And it works, it just works. All the recent equity activism is about raiding the upper middle class and giving to those who openly oppose economic independence and self-reliance. Completely ignoring the fact that it's the corporations and the people controlling them, who are actually behind the economic degradation of the rank-and-file stratum. And calling it out publicly can now cost you your job [0].

So, endless equity fights for the bottom 99% and an unprecedented increase of power for the top 1%. Congratulations, people.

[0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9248331/amp/Mandalo...

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

#368

Post by nostrademons »

sjy wrote: post #304
nostrademons wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think wages haven't kept up with productivity? The decoupling of wages from productivity started around 1971-1973, which is suspiciously close to the Nixon Shock and beginning of the 1970s inflation. In periods of inflation, firms with high bargaining power (notably monopolistic corporations, corporate executives, and right now, software engineers & quants) can extract the excess money floating around. Fir…

I’d say it probably has something to do with the collapse in union membership, deregulation and growth of the finance sector, and capture of the political system by those who can afford billions of dollars worth of advertising, but it’s a complicated story. Are you suggesting that wages haven’t kept up with productivity because inflation has been consistently high since the US abolished the gold standard?

Yes, mostly. I'd say that high inflation, declining union membership, and growth of the financial system are all consequences of the U.S. dollar's status as a fiat reserve currency.

The causality for the decline in union membership runs [collapse of Bretton Woods system] -> [U.S. dollar becomes global reserve currency] -> [U.S. manufacturing becomes uncompetitive abroad] -> [American manufacturing firms go bankrupt, allowing them to renegotiate or renege on union contracts] -> [decline in union membership]. Step 3 had a lot of help, between poor corporate governance and quality control at American corporations, the rest of the world rebuilding from the ashes of WW2, the collapse of communist systems in China and the eastern bloc, and globalist policies from Washington. But probably the most significant factor is that the dollar is overvalued, which makes American exports overpriced, which makes all but our highest-productivity industries uncompetitive.

The causality for inflation-lowered wages is [U.S. dollar is global reserve currency] -> [U.S. must "print" an excess amount of dollars to satisfy foreign demand - here really referring to interest rates, since physical currency is a minority of foreign trade] -> [excess dollars flood financial markets, causing asset inflation] -> [ordinary workers lack the bargaining power to divert some of these excess dollars to themselves, falling behind in purchasing power]. Note that when ordinary workers do have this bargaining power - like when they work for Goldman Sachs, or when they're paid in Google/Apple/Facebook stock - they actually have shared in this inflated prosperity.

The causality for growth of the financial industry is [U.S. dollar is global reserve currency] -> [a significant number of foreign transactions require trade in dollar-denominated assets] -> [more jobs are needed to manage these money flows] + [manufacturing careers in the U.S. suck, per second paragraph] -> [smart, ambitious people go into finance because it's where the money is, literally].

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

#369

Post by ItsMonkk »

tylerhou wrote: post #357
ItsMonkk wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an inaccurate narrative. The more wealth inequality there is in a nation, the less that increases in the money supply effect the economy. This is why we have no inflation with trillions injected. The rich simply store the money in assets like stocks and houses and it never touches consumption. The only thing that needed to happen to keep the economy afloat was the Congress passing their bills.

> The rich simply store the money in assets like stocks and houses and it never touches consumption. But these do affect consumption. 1) Stonks going up means that companies have more capital (through stock issuances and equity raises). Companies use this capital to buy things and pay workers, so the dollars end up recirculating through the economy just like if a regular person spent it. 2) Buying houses is consumpti…

1. When the money supply is increasing at a rate faster than stuff, the best use of capital is to hoard it. Can you show me examples of major companies issuing stock right now? Looks to me like they are all buying back their stock, which has the opposite effect.

2. Buying houses is an investment and is specifically carved out in the CPI. Consumption is Owner's Equivalent Rent, buying is not.

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

#370

Post by PragmaticPulp »

matwood wrote: post #308
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…

> you steal from the poor and give to the rich At this point it's really future generations who are being stolen from. I'm older, own a house, and paid for multiple degrees years ago. Inflation is good for me personally, but destroys young people. Salaries just can't keep up with how fast housing and education (and healthcare) costs have risen. I do not think the fed is solely to blame though.

> I do not think the fed is solely to blame though.

This doesn't get repeated often enough.

People like to blame the fed for everything, but much of the inflation in categories like tuition has been driven by misguided efforts to increase college loans to young people and encourage everyone to attend the most prestigious college they can get into. Colleges have been more than happy to soak up the increased demand with ever-rising tuition costs.

The fastest way to reduce college tuition would be to put an upper limit on federal subsidies and bankruptcy protection for college loans. College tuition would magically drop to match that amount, almost overnight.

Likewise, we need to stop going to such lengths to incentivize everyone to own a home. It started with good intentions, but it turned into an unsustainable arms race. Slow down the federal backing of home loans and let the market sort it out. Renting isn't nearly as bad of a financial choice as many young people think.

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