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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%

#601

Post by jazzyk »

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…

Almost noone in my highly educated and successful social circle grasps this. We are talking MBAs and PhDs. They all think that the bailouts in 2008 and in 2020 were necessary because otherwise "the economy would collapse".

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

#602

Post by SethMurphy »

rbultje wrote: post #523
lallysingh wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also, food is not included and is a significant portion of my perception of prices. Food prices went up significantly last year and it's not something you can decide not to buy.

It may be pandemic influence, but that's the world we live in now.

From USDA (source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/su...):

In 2020, food-at-home prices increased 3.5 percent and food-away-from-home prices increased 3.4 percent. The CPI for all food increased 3.4 percent over this same period. In general, food price inflation in 2020 was much higher than in 2018 (0.4 percent), 2019 (0.9 percent), and the 20-year average (2.0 percent).

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

#603

Post by bsanr2 »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #197
User23 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is almost a natural law of wealth. When you have significant capital, you can do things like loan it out with interest It is a natural law of usury, which is what you describe. This is why we used to ban usury as unjust.

Again, what's the alternative?

Interest-free loans, given as a public good and to hedge against a wealth tax.

Get your name on some newfangled venture and keep Uncle Sam's hands out of your pocket, but you don't get to rent your money.

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

#604

Post by Godel_unicode »

bedhead wrote: post #552
deelowe wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're entering a potentially deflationary period. An aging demographic and technology create deflarionary pressure as people leave the workforce and technology improved efficiency. The Fed wants to create inflation. We know what's going to happen over time by observing germany and japan.

Not entering, in. Have been in one for over a decade. And it's getting worse.

What data are you basing this statement off of? The generally reported inflation figures for the US economy tell a markedly different story than you are.

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

#606

Post by selectodude »

ItsMonkk wrote: post #481
tylerhou wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 velo…

Apple is kind of a poor example here because they're borrowing money at extremely low interest rates and the collateral is all the money they have overseas. They took advantage of that one time 15.5 percent rate after the TCJA passed but they didn't stop earning gobs of money overseas. They're not taking on actual debt to finance buybacks, they're just creatively getting around tax laws.

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

#607

Post by konjin »

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…

>Wealth inequality and social unrest in America is DIRECTLY related to corrupt and/or incompetent (you choose) Fed policies. It amazes me why most people do not grasp this. I think it is lack of education.

I'd say it is the intended result of education. Why would you expect a school named after a billionaire to teach you how she is stealing from you any more than a school named after Karl Marx to talk about the problems of socialism.

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

#608

Post by pembrook »

jkhdigital wrote: post #568
pembrook wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was replying to OP's claims that the Federal Reserve is the "evil puppet master" behind wealth inequality. This is patently false. Inequality has been expanding since the 1970s, long before the "evil bank bailouts" and accommodative monetary policy of the 2010s Federal Reserve.

That’s the point. The Fed essentially gained complete control over the value of the dollar once Nixon severed it from gold in the early 70s. Easy monetary policy has been the norm since the 1990s.

You only need to go back as far as the 2000s to see interest rates of 6+ percent.

I'm not sure anyone would consider that "easy monetary policy."

Also, you do know that inflation and boom-and-bust cycles still happened while we were on the gold standard right?

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

#609

Post by evo_9 »

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…

No, 100% for sure everyone does not know or understand this.

Most of my family are clueless about this stuff; do you think Fox News - their and many peoples only news source - are sharing that bit of insight with their audience?

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

#610

Post by skynet-9000 »

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

Wealth is not a zero-sum game. If I take two lines of code and put them together, I've created something of value that I might be able to sell.

Wealth is created all the time out of thin air. It might take the form of an innovative new technology, open source code, or even art. It might be because you bought raw materials and built a house, and the subsequent value of the house is greater than the costs that went into it.

Scale that up, and you can create vast amounts of wealth without ever taking it from anyone else. The local coffee shop didn't steal $5 (well, $10, but who's counting) from my wallet; I pay it willingly.

This very common idea that if one person has wealth then they must have taken it from someone else is simply not true.

There are just as many fair and honorable ways (perhaps more) to make wealth as there are the opposite.

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