America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90% • Hacker News Board

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

#671

Post by Rury » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #613

adam_arthur wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Inflation in home prices is great for property owners, bad for everybody else. Should renters not have the opportunity to buy a home?

> Should renters not have the opportunity to buy a home? there should not be societal subsidies for people wanting to buy their home. If rents are not growing at a rate that's higher than wage growth, then it is stable and thus acceptable. Owning a home is a privilege, not a right. Thus, the CPI calculations correctly only includes rental costs, and not ownership.

>If rents are not growing at a rate that's higher than wage growth, then it is stable and thus acceptable

Nonsense. Theoretically if wages and rents grew 5% in step together yoy, but most other goods increased at >100% (say houses), your statement implies things would always remain stable. I'd think not...

The real reason CPI is garbage (for measuring total inflation) is because it doesn't track everything, and hence misses the inflation in things that the CPI doesn't track (such as houses). More specifically, it's a measure that only tracks what urban people CAN & typically spend money on. It doesn't track the things which some people have been entirely priced out of and hence don't spend money on (such as home ownership, as well as other assets).

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

#672

Post by benrbray » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #509

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.

> So we haven't been experiencing inflation? I guess it's just me seeing all the real items in the economy skyrocket in price. We have not. Your impression of prices doesn't necessarily correlate with actual inflation.

Rent and food prices have increased dramatically in the last 10 years, at least in urban / suburban areas. For consumer goods, shrinkflation has led to a huge decrease in product longevity, meaning I need to replace items more frequently. If the price for e.g. a toaster or blender has stayed the same but I need to replace it twice as often, then I'm really paying twice as much.

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

#673

Post by themacguffinman » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #515

fat_pikachu wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things that have seen large price increases are things that aren't scalable i.e. they still require the same amount of human input labor to produce Childcare is constrained by the fact that each childcare worker by law (for better or worse) can only look after so many children at once. This ratio varies by state but it's usually around 4 children per childcare worker. The result is that it has to be expensive bec…

What a load of tosh. Textbooks are now distributable by e-books, easily scalable. Yet somehow capitalism has utterly failed to deliver it's supposed benefits. College tuition is now distributable by remote learning, theoretically massively reducing costs. Again, capitalism has utterly failed to deliver it's supposed benefits. Housing has massively advanced, with cheaper construction, high rises, etc. but laws have be…

The cost of textbooks is not primarily in the distribution method, it's the labor of content creation.

The cost of tuition is not primarily in where or how people attend classes, it's the labor of developing curriculum, mentorship, and research.

The cost of housing is not primarily in construction, it's the scarcity of land. High density construction does address this, but you even mention that laws are obstructing this. How is this capitalism's fault when democratic governments enact laws that are literally stopping it from functioning freely?

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

#674

Post by refurb » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 2:55 AM UTC

ska wrote: post #591

refurb wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check the percentage of total income vs. percentage of total taxes paid. The system has become more progressive even ignoring the increase in income.

How can you ignore the increase in income? I'm not claiming I know what is actually happening in the US, it's complicated and I haven't spent enough time looking at it to be confident. However, it's true that if there is a) an increase in total income that b) is entirely captured by a small percentage of people, then naturally their share of the total income tax paid will increase and everyone else's will decrease as…

What is means is if you control for income, the top 1% are paying a bigger share of total income tax.

So even if they weren’t earning more, they be paying more taxes.

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

#675

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #584

adam_arthur wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the situation we're in is unprecedented. Never before has the government stepped in with this much force in response to an economic crisis. The March crash was the event that was going to normalize asset prices, but really just became a blip due to the pump. Should the government have done nothing? Absolutely not, but aid should have been better targeted. Overleveraged and poorly run businesses should fail. Pe…

> The March crash was the event that was going to normalize asset prices, but really just became a blip due to the pump. The main reason it was a blip, is because earnings have returned almost to pre-COVID levels for large public companies. Just as everyone expected. Did fiscal and monetary policy help smooth things out? Sure. But again, earnings are normalizing, like we knew they would. Markets discount the entire f…

[deleted]

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

#676

Post by danans » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

jonnycoder wrote: post #571

danans wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even with income remaining stagnant, the prices for goods and services should have been continually going down due to technology and outsourcing. The price for goods did go down. Everything from food to toys to tools got much cheaper than it was before. However, the price for cornerstone needs that govern access to opportunity - i.e. healthcare, housing, education, physical security - and the percentage of income a…

You mention healthcare, housing, education needing governing and those have been "governed" to outrageous prices. Our governing parties have destroyed wealth for the bottom 80% unless those of us with kush tech jobs or anyone who bought a house between 2010 and 2016.

> those have been "governed" to outrageous prices.

In the US. But in other societies they have been "governed" such that they are more accessible. The kind of governing makes a big difference.

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

#677

Post by ska » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #577

ska wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doctors and top lawyers are in the top 1%. According to BLS, median physician salary doesn't quite make your list, at 208k. Median lawyer is more like 120k. And you are assuming there are two such wage earners per family here, which is probably the minority case. I know a few two doctor couples, by I know far more where the other career either doesn't exist or is much less lucrative. Any way you cut it, top 1% of i…

I'm not arguing all doctors and lawyers are in the top 1%, just a significant percentage of them. Your average specialist salary will get you very close to that threshold and being a specialist is not exactly a "capital owner who doesn't have to work". To say that all top 1% are "capital owners who don't need to work" isn't accurate. There are plenty of wage earners in the top 1%.

The whole point of medians is that half of them are below that. So half of physicians don’t get there even if they double up (2 physician incomes per family)

I’m certainly not arguing that all of the 1% are living off capital only, but it’s worth noting that the people in there that primarily do it off a wage are unusual even amongst high wage earners.

Absolutely the top 0.01% is different than the top 1%. But that doesn’t make the top 1% just folks.

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

#678

Post by lumost » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 3:00 AM UTC

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…

I've begun to wonder whether short-term economic depression in '08 and maybe '20 would have been preferable to the slow march to endemic corruption and aristocracy that the US is on. If the trend continues one would eventually expect long-term disruption to the US's ability to maintain cohesion.

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

#679

Post by coderaptor » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 3:00 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #584

adam_arthur wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the situation we're in is unprecedented. Never before has the government stepped in with this much force in response to an economic crisis. The March crash was the event that was going to normalize asset prices, but really just became a blip due to the pump. Should the government have done nothing? Absolutely not, but aid should have been better targeted. Overleveraged and poorly run businesses should fail. Pe…

> The March crash was the event that was going to normalize asset prices, but really just became a blip due to the pump. The main reason it was a blip, is because earnings have returned almost to pre-COVID levels for large public companies. Just as everyone expected. Did fiscal and monetary policy help smooth things out? Sure. But again, earnings are normalizing, like we knew they would. Markets discount the entire f…

> Did fiscal and monetary policy help smooth things out?

We're assuming the crash in March was due to COVID - though there's no proof this was the case. This very much could have been a correction to more realistic valuation.

> So you're saying "this time is different." Let's see how that plays out.

Agree here - I think we're in for an interesting year. We may have amplified the upswing dynamics with Fed action, but I'm pretty sure we'll see amplified downswings, as a result.

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

#680

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #637

skynet-9000 wrote: post #610

> 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 issue is the distribution of the wealth. Can one thousand people build the same amount as one million people? No. They can’t even build 1/1000th as much. So then why is a disproportionate amount of wealth given to people who are not the movers and shakers? Society doesn’t cease to be pump blood when leeches are peeled off.

> Can one thousand people build the same amount as one million people? No. They can’t even build 1/1000th as much.

Except that is one of the root causes for wealth/income disparity. A few thousand software developers can and did obviate maybe million+ secretaries, travel agents, book sellers, retail middlemen, map makers, camera manufacturers, advertisers etc.

The reason tech companies have such high profits per employee is because they deliver even more value per employee, far more than previous companies have ever delivered on a per employee measure at their scale. That’s the power of the infinitely scalable solutions and near zero marginal costs of software.