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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%

#751

Post by themeiguoren »

supercanuck wrote: post #743
refurb wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t watch entertainment (Netflix documentary) as a substitute for a book and think they are equivalent.

A documentary is more accessible to people and one can come away with the core the arguments

IMO understanding the arguments is useless without understanding how they were built, and what their caveats and assumptions are. Otherwise you end up parroting talking points without actually having thought about it. I’d rather people not hold an opinion on something than hold an unfounded one. A doc is not a good format for grounded understanding.

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

#752

Post by matmatmatmat »

WalterBright wrote: post #666
TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and those smart enough to have invested in them. Correction: Wealthy enough to be able to invest in them.

Robinhood has conclusively shown in the last month that ordinary Americans, even poor ones, have access to investing in stocks. This includes access to margin and sophisticated options trading.

... access that they used to YOLO some savings on some GME trade, which pretty quickly went to nearly worthless.

I'm not arguing that access in itself is bad. I'm arguing that new money speculating in the equities market often doesn't go well.

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

#753

Post by Dumblydorr »

bvanderveen wrote: post #644

One of the things that ruffles my feathers about this genre of made-for-mass-consumption clap-trap is this sort of proclamation: > Other nations are suffering less from COVID-19 because they made better choices Which other nations? As someone who regularly reads francophone european news, I can assure you it isn't any nation in Europe. OP goes on to cite minimum wage, overtime pay, state-funded healthcare/childcare/e…

One small point, medical system of the US is only vaunted for the rich. For average citizens, who are very unhealthy due to a crappy American diet, healthcare is worse than European nations for the unhealthy here.

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

#754

Post by jjcon »

railsgirls112 wrote: post #713
lotsofpulp wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 empl…

> A few thousand software developers can and did obviate maybe million+ secretaries, travel agents, book sellers, retail middlemen, map makers, camera manufacturers, advertisers etc. Your point isn't necessarily wrong, but it's worth pointing out how that came to be. Said software developers did not appear out of thin air, they were raised and educated by society and have inherited technology unprecedented in scale a…

> Said software developers did not appear out of thin air, they were raised and educated by society and have inherited technology unprecedented in scale and influence. And this is only a development of the last 80 years or so

I’m not really sure how this fits with the discussion. Literally everything builds on something that came before, software isn’t particularly unique that regard. This also doesn’t change the fact that one person can provide far more value than another.

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

#755

Post by idrios »

freeone3000 wrote: post #744
idrios wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Have you ever examined the idea that it could be you who lacks education? >You're angry because it feels like everybody is getting rich and you aren't. You could have made your point without these personal attacks. Also, I don't understand what the parent comment said that you think was wrong. Inflation is basically a flat percentage tax on everyone with USD (and subsidy to debtors as percentage of your debt). If th…

> But the parent didn't say the fed should have done nothing, (s)he said what they did do exacerbated wealth inequality. The monetary policy we got could have been one that bailed out the people whose houses were about to be foreclosed instead. Or a stimulus check to anyone who earned under a certain threshold of income. These are fiscal policies, not monetary policies. The fed cannot do these things. The fed can onl…

Thank you for this correction. I wrote this thinking "Fed" as federal government, not federal reserve, which was not smart of me. I was mostly criticising the parent's ad hominem attacks

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

#756

Post by sitkack »

kaishiro wrote: post #690
Sophistifunk wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, we just happen to be on a big (empty) island.

After having lived through the lockdown in Melbourne myself, I think it's pretty unfair to the people here to suggest that the reason the cases are so low is because it's just "a big empty island", and not the result of the fairly hard lockdown that the people here had to endure.

Think of the Wallabys!

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

#757

Post by anonytrary »

My unpopular opinion is that as long as everyone has a universal basic quality of life and isn't living paycheck to paycheck, then wealth inequality is not bad. What's bad right now is that we have some people who wouldn't bother picking up Benjamins and other people who are scrounging the streets for pennies and leftovers. That sort of inequality is baffling. At the same time, there are some folks who could be given a winning lottery ticket and be homeless the next month.

I think of UBI and wonder about all of the people who do not know how to spend their money properly, and if they'll just end up homeless anyway. Maybe UBI is not the answer, but UBS -- universal basic services. UBI is the wrong metric. The best metric is how many people are living in unfathomable poverty. I bet that UBI will not be able to solve homelessness in and of itself.

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

#758

Post by kortilla »

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…

> Huh? Literally everybody grasps this. This is the most widely parroted mainstream narrative about the economy right now on the internet.

I find this hard to believe. The narrative of the doves, the current administration, and most of the Democratic Party is that these bailouts are necessary. That’s the entire reason they are doing this.

Your post reflects current mainstream thinking in neoliberalism. There is nothing special here and it’s just a disagreement on whether near term depression is worse than supporting the inequality.

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

#759

Post by supercanuck »

themeiguoren wrote: post #751
supercanuck wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A documentary is more accessible to people and one can come away with the core the arguments

IMO understanding the arguments is useless without understanding how they were built, and what their caveats and assumptions are. Otherwise you end up parroting talking points without actually having thought about it. I’d rather people not hold an opinion on something than hold an unfounded one. A doc is not a good format for grounded understanding.

Nonsense. There are level of abstractions in all walks of life. You mustn’t be a trained economist to understand the points Piketty is making.

> Otherwise you end up parroting talking points without actually having thought about it.

That is quite a leap and a lot of assumptions baked in.

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

#760

Post by WalterBright »

matmatmatmat wrote: post #752
WalterBright wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robinhood has conclusively shown in the last month that ordinary Americans, even poor ones, have access to investing in stocks. This includes access to margin and sophisticated options trading.

... access that they used to YOLO some savings on some GME trade, which pretty quickly went to nearly worthless. I'm not arguing that access in itself is bad. I'm arguing that new money speculating in the equities market often doesn't go well.

I didn't say they should invest in GME. I said it was proved they could invest in stocks.

> new money speculating in the equities market often doesn't go well.

It goes better than lottery tickets, which target the poor and the mathematically challenged. Stocks at least have an upward bias, while lottery tickets have a strong downward bias.

BTW, wealthy people lose money in the stock market, too. Stocks do not come with guarantees for anybody.

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