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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%

#481

Post by ItsMonkk »

tylerhou wrote: post #425
ItsMonkk wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> highest-profile recent example of borrowing for buybacks: > Apple (ticker: AAPL). The tech giant sold $14 billion in bonds this month, and said it would use at least part of the proceeds on buybacks and dividends.[0] Kinda problematic when one large company doing buybacks dominates over thousands doing issuing reversing your entire narrative. Taking out bonds to give to shareholders is not something that helps main…

You're right: even though $2 trillion of bonds have been issued by US companies, one $14 billion ($0.014 trillion) issue to buyback stocks completely reverses my entire narrative. The pandemic has not hit Apple as hard as other industries, and they're taking advantage of low interest rates by issuing debt. And there's nothing wrong with buying back stock. It's bad when managers use it to boost their personal compensa…

One company(like Apple) negates thousands of small companies. There are many large companies like Apple. The Market Cap of the S&P 500 is up $4 trillion. All of those bonds went straight into the market.

Why not just show me the increased consumption? Show me these increased workers. Show me the raises.

CPI is up 1.5%, due directly to Congress, not the Fed. Unemployment is at 10%. The money supply is up 25%. The velocity of the M2 is down 21%. Straight into assets.

There's nothing wrong with using debt to buyback stock because the environment is corrupted. That's the problem. Fix the environment.

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

#482

Post by misiti3780 »

People read this article and love to bitch, but what is the solution?

Flat tax? Raise income taxes ? Inheritance tax?

The fact of the matter is poverty is really what is sad an unacceptable. People you should access to free health care and their basic needs met if they cant meet them, but I do not see what is fundamentally wrong with Bill Gates earning 100000X more than someone that is making a good living wage, with healthcare, and a 401K in SV.

If anyone is interested, this book has some interesting ideas on how to tackle the current disaster:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XRTTHL3/ref=as_li_tl?ie...

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

#483

Post by parasubvert »

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…

This narrative is completely contrary to what any economics course or textbook teaches.

It is a popular Internet narrative, but it is also completely false. The Fed’s policies have directly helped the US at being one of the least impacted countries from the Great Recession.

Also, asset inflation isn’t actually a thing.

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

#484

Post by CyberDildonics »

Aunche wrote: post #438
CyberDildonics wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where did you get $40,000 from?

5.3 Trillion in stimulus divided by 150 million people who pay income tax in the US is actually $35.3k USD. The final stimulus toll may be higher and taxes come from a variety of places so that may be high for the final burden per person, but I think it will be close by the time all is said and done.

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

#485

Post by User23 »

virmundi wrote: post #474
tehjoker wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democratic control of the economy.

That would be absolutely terrifying. The economy we have now is due to experts tinkering. Allowing the masses, who can't organize their own lives, to attempt to organize the economy will lead to more deaths and misery than the current system. Would you want a democratically elected airplane pilot with no training?

Plenty of people think it's important that airplane pilots be democratically representative[1].

[1] https://www.ksby.com/news/national/new-law-looks-to-attract-...

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

#486

Post by dedev54 »

natenthe wrote: post #401
tylerhou wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fed is stabilizing the price of the USD because of the coronavirus pandemic. If it were not printing money, then there would likely be a deflationary spiral that would cause a depression. That's one of the reasons why the Great Depression was so bad: the US was on the gold standard at the beginning. The US can't create gold out of thin air, so the USD started deflating, people stopped spending, and capital stoppe…

This is one of the worst takes I've read in awhile. First off, there is no general consensus about the exact cause of the Great Depression and the cause of the recovery. If you're going to make an attempt at a history lesson, at least get it right. We know that the stock market crash and banking panics played a large role in the contraction of economic activity, but there is absolutely no general consensus for the ex…

I disagree with your take, I think its wrong and misleading.

Perhaps the causes of the Great Depression are unknown, but there is consencus that had the Fed stepped in to prevent monetary deflation, the Depression would have been much less severe and ended much earlier.[1]

As for your second point, I would like to point out two things: first, it is indeed possible for the Fed to greatly increase the money supply without causing inflation if the velocity of money decreases, as tends to happen during a pandemic when people cannot go out and buy things in person. Secondly, the US dollar exchange rates have not deviated in a radical manner compared to other currencies, which would imply that things are relatively stable. (besides bitcoin, which I will get to later)

As for the US debt, there is no arguing that it is not a problem, however should the Fed not have acted, it is likely that a Depression would have happened, and the resulting doom loop would have made it impossible to ever pay our current debts, since without stimulus you would never leave the recession.

Now comes the elephant in the room: bitcoin. The only non hedge fund company I know of that actually bought bitcoin is Tesla, which is certainly not a figurehead for other corporations considering how its valuation is larger than the largest carmakers in the world put together despite having a small percent in the market.

Now Im going to be a bit more speculative from here on but I think its an important point.

Bitcoin only proves the supremacy of the dollar, since all people care about is how many dollars they can get from their bitcoin. And indeed, there are no signs bitcoin will actually be used for anything other than speculation, especially since I doubt anyone can tell me how much bitcoin my sandwich would cost.

You're right though about bitcoin being deflationary in nature. Imagine if everyone finally bought into bitcoins incredible returns, and billions of people put their savings into the coin, watching as their wealth grew and grew... except wait a moment, what's this the financial system is hollowed out! Theres no money to make loans with, no money to invest with, not even the most profitable of opportunities? Perhaps people should be lending out bitcoin? But wait we can make more money just sitting on it cant we? After all the less we spend the more money we have?

[1]http://www.employees.csbsju.edu/jolson/ECON315/Whaples212377...

-see the page marked 143

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

#487

Post by jb775 »

tchalla wrote: post #467
tylerhou wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fed is stabilizing the price of the USD because of the coronavirus pandemic. If it were not printing money, then there would likely be a deflationary spiral that would cause a depression. That's one of the reasons why the Great Depression was so bad: the US was on the gold standard at the beginning. The US can't create gold out of thin air, so the USD started deflating, people stopped spending, and capital stoppe…

> The Fed is stabilizing the price of the USD because of the coronavirus pandemic. If it were not printing money, then there would likely be a deflationary spiral that would cause a depression. And by doing that, we have the Cantillon Effect [0]. > The Cantillon Effect refers to the change in relative prices resulting from a change in money supply. The change in relative prices occurs because the change in money supp…

What's a good hedge against the Cantillon Effect?

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

#489

Post by rdevsrex »

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…

Don't get me started on how the Fed (not to mention the income tax) was originated in secrecy by the rich.

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

#490

Post by mattmanser »

fullshark wrote: post #406
AlotOfReading wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of a 'historical baseline' is nonsensical. As you extend your timeline, inequality is going to decrease because most human societies have not had the kinds of disparity we measure today. Moreover, we're not beholden to historical norms of any sort. Collective action can change things. It's happened quite a lot historically. If you insist on a specific citation, check out Ten Thousand Years of Inequality .…

I think it's worth considering the post WW2 period as possibly exceptional in the planet's history, and understanding why that may have been, and what can be done policy wise to extend the best parts of it.

Exceptional as in there are no longer slaves and a bunch of rich people with swords killing anyone who disagrees with them?

As that's not "exceptional", that's justice.

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