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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%

#801

Post by chii »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #784
chii wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they were raised and educated by society and have inherited technology unprecedented in scale and influence. any this opportunity was available to "everyone" in society. its just that only some chose to take it early on, and reaped the proportionate reward to having taken it on early (not knowing that it would lead to this end result). Now that it is known that tech is high pay, people now naively claim that it's u…

>any this opportunity was available to "everyone" in society. What does "everyone" mean?

i meant by "everyone" as in there's no special privileged class of people that were allowed to become techies. Of course, not everyone can afford a college education, but in general, back in 2004, right after the big crash, the openings were available, the opportunities existed then. It just looks risky back then, because tech just crashed. However, if you weren't willing to take on risk, you cannot blame that the outcome for those who take on risk gets more.

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

#802

Post by Thorrez »

jb775 wrote: post #517
bseidensticker wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inject the money somewhere else? UBI perhaps?

I mean as a personal investment hedge to protect against the artificial inflation

Just invest in the stock market. That protects you from inflation.

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

#803

Post by wyre »

908B64B197 wrote: post #543
klmadfejno wrote: post #18

"But poor people have iphones now" when people can't afford food, healthcare, or any leisure time is the 2021 equivalent of "Let them eat cake". The balance of wealth is insulting when we have so many basic needs not being met for those at the bottom "Stealing" is a word that gets knee jerk reactions. But the more polite way to phrase it is that the rich benefit from societal structure 1000x more than the poor and ar…

> But poor people have iphones now A second hand or refurbished iPhone SE is probably the best deal out there. It replaces a land line, especially for lower income folks who move a little more, has built-in internet access (a gateway to accessing government services, jobs, healthcare and knowledge) and built-in navigation, making navigating confusing public transit easier. And Apple supporting hardware forever means…

I’ve spent so much money on cheap or inexpensive phones the past few years. They end up breaking or they lose functionality and become unusable.

I have the new SE and knowing that it will likely be supported (and repairs, if needed, are accessible) I until the next SE comes out. I’m very excited the next SE will probably be the form factor of the 12 mini or very close to that.

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

#804

Post by Thorrez »

nmfisher wrote: post #766
tylerhou wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying dividends to shareholders accomplishes the same thing as buying back stocks: both return capital to investors. Increasing the company pension would not have saved them from their current woes: they would still need to issue debt or equity.

Not exactly, because share buybacks are optional. A shareholder can decline to participate, increasing their stake in the company (meaning the investor believes that the net present value of the shares is higher than the price offered under the buyback). It’s not common, though (and for the purposes of the comment you responded to, the distinction isn’t relevant). If management are saying “we can’t think of anything…

A shareholder can also reinvest dividends. Doesn't that accomplish the same thing as not participating in a buyback?

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

#805

Post by WalterBright »

wyre wrote: post #793
kamaal wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is there are were a lot of dot coms back then and no one really knew which one would have been the next Amazon. The entire push behind diversifying one's income is to ensure that people who don't have lots of $1000's to spare don't lose $1000s investing it behind few stocks. If you know the future. Tells us a few stocks where investing $1000 today would give you a million in 2 decades.

I feel as if this opportunity is past us. Any company with the potential for that amount of growth is going to get bought out by multi-billion $ corps to further increase their already out of reach stock prices.

> out of reach stock prices

Robinhood enables buying fractional shares.

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

#806

Post by bartimus »

adamcstephens wrote: post #310
bartimus wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the low interest rates that caused the housing prices to sky-rocket. Also not to mention this new trend where younger generations prefer to spend their paychecks on vacations, smartphones, fashion as opposed to long-terms investments like a home.

A home isn’t an investment, at best it’s a low interest savings account. That people consider it to be one is part of the reason house prices continue to outpace inflation. Buy a home to live in it, but don’t expect that you’ll make money from it.

Depends how you look at it. If you manage to attain mortgage free home ownership, you'll be free from rent or mortgage expenses.

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

#807

Post by chii »

arrosenberg wrote: post #770
themacguffinman wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you want to succeed you are going to see a lot of Bezos-built barriers to climb. Like what, though? How is Amazon unfairly stopping indie stores from succeeding?

Lots of ways. Directly, such as - https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its... . It's a marketplace for laundering counterfeit and knockoff goods, harming the interests of legitimate businesses. Also indirectly by creating market pressures around logistics, pricing, SEO, and paid advertising that make it very difficult for a small operator to succeed against. A small business can struggle against a…

None of those are barriers. If you want to live on the amazon platform, you end up being a serf on their platform. That's a given.

If you want to start a small business to compete with amazon, then of course their logistics, pricing and SEO is better than you. That's like saying that you want to start a garage car manufacturing plant, but you are out-competed by automanufacturer's investment in robotization and automation, and streamlined inventory management.

That's not a 'barrier' per se - it's the point of amazon. As a small operator, if you do not have a value proposition, you don't have the right to exist.

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

#808

Post by throwaway2037 »

SethMurphy wrote: post #602
rbultje wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 increas…

You wrote: "food is not included". The US Federal Reserve currently uses the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_consumption_expenditu...

The PCE fraction for "food and beverages" (home, away, alcohol) ranges from 13.8% to 17.0%.

That Wiki page also has a nice comparison to the consumer price index (CPI), which was previously used by the US Fed. US Social Security still uses CPI to adjust national pension payments.

Also, you wrote that food prices had more inflation in 2020 compared to other recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had cheaper transportation costs, which would offset some or all of this food price inflation.

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

#809

Post by nmfisher »

Thorrez wrote: post #804
nmfisher wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly, because share buybacks are optional. A shareholder can decline to participate, increasing their stake in the company (meaning the investor believes that the net present value of the shares is higher than the price offered under the buyback). It’s not common, though (and for the purposes of the comment you responded to, the distinction isn’t relevant). If management are saying “we can’t think of anything…

A shareholder can also reinvest dividends. Doesn't that accomplish the same thing as not participating in a buyback?

Only if the company allows them to (or is simultaneously raising capital). Also I believe (though not 100% sure, depending on where you are) that income tax is paid on dividends, irrespective of whether you subsequently reinvest.

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

#810

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #801
lotsofpulp wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>any this opportunity was available to "everyone" in society. What does "everyone" mean?

i meant by "everyone" as in there's no special privileged class of people that were allowed to become techies. Of course, not everyone can afford a college education, but in general, back in 2004, right after the big crash, the openings were available, the opportunities existed then. It just looks risky back then, because tech just crashed. However, if you weren't willing to take on risk, you cannot blame that the ou…

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