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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%

#521

Post by markdown »

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…

> Correction: The Fed's policies have taken $50T of wealth from the Bottom 90%.

What do you think the Fed is? The Fed is made up of the top banks, which means it's controlled by... the 1%.

EDIT for the downvoters:

> The Federal Reserve is "Controlled by member private banks"

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve

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

#522

Post by omosubi »

anonymousiam wrote: post #501

Wealth is not a zero-sum game. The whole premise that the rich make money by taking it from poor people is flawed. This premise has been the basis for many political uprisings (e.g. Venezuela) where wealth has been destroyed instead of created.

so the american 1% alone has created 50T in wealth in the last several decades? seems unlikely

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

#523

Post by rbultje »

lallysingh wrote: post #506
cmmeur01 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we haven't been experiencing inflation? I guess it's just me seeing all the real items in the economy skyrocket in price. But I guess when you can just readjust the definition and what's included it doesn't matter. The fed won't be able to raise interest rates without crushing the same people they were lowered to support.

1.4%? https://www.kiplinger.com/economic-forecasts/inflation

The official inflation numbers do not appear to reflect people's significant worries that rent prices or health care cost (etc.) keep going up.

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

#524

Post by onethought »

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…

When you say: The Fed Policies... who do you think influenced them? The same 1% the article is referring to.

You are violently agreeing with the article with the pretence of disagreement

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

#525

Post by willcipriano »

wyre wrote: post #495
willcipriano wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I post this here for posterity: Within ten years a film will come out about the next economic disaster and everyone will be saying "how could we be so stupid to allow firms to buy their own stock with debt?" much like the housing crisis.

I don’t think the average person really knows how stocks work and isn’t even aware firms are able to buyback stock with debt.

How many knew about CDOs before The Big Short?

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

#526

Post by kar5pt »

anonymousiam wrote: post #501

Wealth is not a zero-sum game. The whole premise that the rich make money by taking it from poor people is flawed. This premise has been the basis for many political uprisings (e.g. Venezuela) where wealth has been destroyed instead of created.

But if there's an alternative tax/regulation structure that can make distribution more equitable without affecting production too much, then the game can be zero sum, or close to zero sum.

We don't have to choose between America and Venezuela. That's a false dichotomy.

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

#527

Post by pjmorris »

jb775 wrote: post #487
tchalla wrote: post #467

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. 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?

My own personal favorite notion of a hedge for this is wages. Boost wages to match the money supply, and most of those wages will get spent across the economy as well as providing for the wage earners. Of course, this is what many more economically-educated people than I warn against.

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

#528

Post by anonymousiam »

omosubi wrote: post #522
anonymousiam wrote: post #501

Wealth is not a zero-sum game. The whole premise that the rich make money by taking it from poor people is flawed. This premise has been the basis for many political uprisings (e.g. Venezuela) where wealth has been destroyed instead of created.

so the american 1% alone has created 50T in wealth in the last several decades? seems unlikely

50T looks about right according to this chart: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

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

#529

Post by onethought »

anonymousiam wrote: post #501

Wealth is not a zero-sum game. The whole premise that the rich make money by taking it from poor people is flawed. This premise has been the basis for many political uprisings (e.g. Venezuela) where wealth has been destroyed instead of created.

Some wealth is not zero-sum. But a lot of wealth is resource based which is by definition zero-sum.

But that aside: the top 1% got their by exploiting the surplus value of the 99% regardless of whether wealth was being created or moved, it definitely wasn’t that 1% creating or moving it.

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

#530

Post by toiletfuneral »

natenthe wrote: post #502
pembrook wrote: post #480

> It amazes me why most people do not grasp this. I think it is lack of education. Huh? Literally everybody grasps this. This is the most widely parroted mainstream narrative about the economy right now on the internet. Hell, you can't throw a rock at the Wall Street Journal (conservative) or the New York Times (liberal) without hitting a sentence that mentions wealth inequality brought on by fed policy. For further…

The article that this thread is based off of is literally the opposite take from my original post. The article claims that America's 1% is responsible for the wealth inequality. That is why I posted my comment. My opinion, and the "majority" opinion according to you, is that wealth inequality is because of Fed policies, not the 1% boogey-man. The people protesting are not protesting the Fed. No institution (i.e. medi…

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