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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%

#391

Post by tylerhou »

Retric wrote: post #388
tylerhou wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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) No. Stock prices only directly impact companies when they actually sell stock. So, propping up the market has zero long term impact as the value of future cash flows is unchanged. It’s simple a handoff of money from the government to people selling stocks over a short period. It’s popular because it keeps highly leveraged investments viable.

And conveniently for my point, 2020 saw the largest stock and bond issuances of all time.

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

#392

Post by Apocryphon »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #377
Apocryphon wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, so is slavery. So is monarchism. So is marital rape. So is property. So is language. So is symbolic thought. > I’ll identify myself as an anarchist for being opposed to violent coercion of resources if you will identify yourself as a criminal for being in support. Sound fair? Anarchism is an existing ideology with many school of thoughts within it. You seem to be an anarcho-capitalist, to be precise. I, of co…

> So is property. So is language. So is symbolic thought. Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments. > I, of course proudly admit to being a criminal ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEXTt9OmJis&t=1m18s ) insofar living in modern society makes criminals of us all, yourself included, even under duress. I’m not convinced that it is meaningful to make that assertion. But this is fine, I’m an ana…

> Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments.

They are according to John Zerzan.

> But this is fine, I’m an anarchist because I oppose coercion and you’re a criminal for supporting it.

Anarchism, fwiw, is not meant to be a pejorative, but a reference to an actual ideological framework, albeit a radical one. One that has both left and right variants, including the aforementioned ancaps.

> And so that makes it moral to suppress peasants with unjust taxation regimes?

No, it's moral to provide people with food and shelter, health care and education, opportunities for social advancement, funded by surplus wealth generated by a society, in a manner deemed agreeable by societal consensus, so as to create a stable social order. A just tax regime would not be taxing peasants more than nobles nor burghers.

> I decline to identify as a proponent of any belief system because of the harmful epistemological consequences of group identity.

But by crowing "taxation is theft", you have clearly virtue-signalled yourself to be a libertarian.

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

#393

Post by letstaxtherich »

shireboy wrote: post #127

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…

> I understand those below the poverty line

You don't understand shit. Are you even capable of empathy?

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

#394

Post by carabiner »

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?

Ask the citizens of countries with those programs? They seem satisfied.

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

#395

Post by subsubzero »

tobmlt wrote: post #150
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…

Yep. The fed is an engine, whose purpose is to move wealth silently from the masses to the powerful monied few, via time-asymmetric inflation. (Mostly Inflation of assets presently) The resulting data looks like corporations have used their power to directly disenfranchise/disempower workers, and so the mass clamber for protective laws. More laws will be enacted by those in power. The time is certainly right for it.…

housing is in a gigantic bubble now, I have owned my house for a few months, I had to go 15% over asking just to get it(against 15 other bidders), and I checked its value recently and it jumped another 8% in the few months I have owned it. (socal location). Another house in my neighborhood sold for a similar amount as the new value so its spot on. With '08 you had housing in a bubble, this time I feel like cars, housing, medical, college, stocks etc are all way overvalued. I don't know how this will end but I think it will be alot worse than the 2008 crash.

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

#396

Post by letstaxtherich »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #278
shireboy wrote: post #127

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…

I don't feel like "inequality" is a problem in and of itself. I don't care that there are a lot of people with a lot more money than me. I would get upset if they don't make a fair contribution to running and maintaining our society. I get upset when I read that there are some very large organizations that don't pay tax. I get upset when our government hands out bailouts. I get upset when polluters don't pay to clean…

> I don't feel like "inequality" is a problem in and of itself.

That's because it doesn't effect you.

You don't have to face death because you can afford insulin or food or housing.

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

#397

Post by brobdingnagians »

learc83 wrote: post #326
tobmlt wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your counter argument and am familiar with it. I disagree about the Great Depression and pretty much everything else you’ve said, but I mean no disrespect, only contend that there is a whole body of economic thought that agrees with me, and that mainstream Econ (recognizing the plurality of schools of thought here) has swept under the rug, because it’s inconvenient. I know “my side” is unpopular and “dis…

If you're talking Austrian economists, who are the primary proponent of the "fed is the bad buy, bring back the gold standard" argument, they explicitly reject any attempt at modeling or mathematical analysis. They are only interested in arguments based on "self evident" axioms. I've read many of the books you're talking about, and there's a reason they are "unpopular" and “discredited".

I think their main point is that mathematical models, without connection to reality and logically tracing out the fundamentals of how and why people act, are dangerous in isolation. Statistics is useful, but statistics can lie. Having a conceptual framework of why people do things is valuable. Then add the mathematical models on top.

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

#398

Post by letstaxtherich »

namelessoracle wrote: post #96
slowhadoken wrote: post #67

She had me with the history of income inequality and then she lost me with “wage gap” talk. Why is a plea for bipartisanship always followed by throwing shade at white men? It’s wearing on me.

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…

> I remember seeing a meme the other day about two justice systems in America, one black kid getting held for 3 months in jail, while a white kid with a more serious charge got out on bail immediately. Of course the meme framed it as a racial issue. The actual root cause was ya know, the white kid has a family who could pay or put up the bail while the black kid didn't, which means it was income inequality issue. But it sure seems there's a dedicated group that really really wants you to think its a racial issue.

You're an ignorant racist.

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

#399

Post by CyberDildonics »

InitialLastName wrote: post #336
afarrell wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The problem is that the Fed only has the power to inject dollars at the top of the economy, yet sales taxes and the IRS drain dollars from a broad base of the economy. I think an MMO designer would suggest two options: A. Nerf the Fed, which would have the problems you note. B. A balancing mechanic -- Some more universally-accessable way to inject income at the base of the economy.

> B. A balancing mechanic -- Some more universally-accessable way to inject income at the base of the economy. Something like, for example, giving $1000 to every adult?

Possibly, though printing off $40,000 for every tax payer then cutting them a few thousand is probably not going to be the best approach.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1REAL

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

#400

Post by letstaxtherich »

A12-B wrote: post #292
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…

What's amazing to me about HN is comments like this don't get downvoted, but comments about how maybe we should tax the wealthy a little bit do.

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