141–150 of 207 posts
That works out at about 33 people per member of congress. A manageable number I suppose, should they all decide to lobby.
I do find it highly unlikely that they'll ever reach a consensus at those sort of numbers though.
That said, around 1,245 of the top 0.01% should statistically be sociopaths, which is a concern.
Works out that around 31,191 people rule america . That works out at about 33 people per member of congress. A manageable number I suppose, should they all decide to lobby. I do find it highly unlikely that they'll ever reach a consensus at those sort of numbers though. That said, around 1,245 of the top 0.01% should statistically be sociopaths, which is a concern.
Assuming an even distribution… which is unlikely.
I'll sum it up: hard working people in the bottom half of the "top 1%" are not evil power-brokers but the most successful professionals. You have to look at the top 0.5 or top 0.1% (I'd argue that even 0.1% is generous) before engaging "the corridors of power", which consists of financial and real estate elites as well as contractors exploiting corrupt government officials. Is this news?
A more interesting exposition might be the ruse that exists because Americans conflate these two classes of rich. It has all sorts of pernicious cultural effects. American conservatism is founded on the false belief that the $5m/year bankers are merely scaled-up versions of the $400k/year neurosurgeon who has been working hard since he was 6... when in fact, they're totally different.
This is fairly important if one looks at where revolutions begin. They usually start from the high end from the middle class, among people who are "rich" but not especially powerful. The American colonists were very wealthy, but had no clout because they were 3000 miles away from those making the decisions. The French revolutionary thought leaders were wealthy salon denizens, although far from the court at Versailles, and therefore increasingly out-of-power as the clouds darkened over France. History describes such revolutionaries, radicals, and agitators as "middle class" in hindsight (they're our heroes, and the U.S. associates "middle class" reflexively with virtue) but these people did, in fact, come overwhelmingly from the richest ~5 percent. The American "Founding Fathers" were downright rich. Revolutionary agitation usually comes when hard-working, intelligent, and previously fortunate people become out of power and hit a ceiling, either because society is deeply stagnant or because they're actively being deprived of autonomy. Eventually, conflict between the small, closed, social-network-based "upper" elite and the larger, fluid, merit-based "upper-middle" elite reaches a boiling point. It was this way at the end of the 18th century in America and France, and it will very likely be this way in the major conflict of the first third of the 21st century. The danger is that the conservative American has been misled into believing that the more noble elite ("elitist liberal intellectuals") is the oppressor while the truly damaging elite is held up as the good one, as if there were any similarity between a $20m/year, fifth-generation-wealthy banker and "Joe the Plumber". There's not. But conservative Americans have been led to believe that bankers are hard-working people just like them while "intellectuals" are an elitist enemy oppressor. Culture is, in the U.S., slowly replacing race as the elite's favorite divide-and-conquer mechanism. American conservatism is a machine for driving a wedge between the people who are trying to save this society ("liberal intellectuals", although neither word should be pejorative) and the common people of the country they are trying to save.
No news in the OP. The world is run by a morally debased and increasingly incompetent oligarchy, heavily intertwined with the banking system and with about 40% of its membership in the U.S. upper class. That was only news in 2008 to people who weren't paying attention.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This misses the point of the article, which is that many in the top 0.1% got there from some form of self-dealing. His argument is that they are profiting from their position in the economy rather than from the value they add. And by position, he doesn't mean nearness to the money press. I think he means nearness to the center of wealth and power, which at the moment happens to be the financial industry. > This is wh…
The self-dealing by the banks since 2008 has been almost wholly underwritten by the Fed and the Treasury. Beyond TARP there are myriad guarantees, lending programs, and regulatory exemptions, all designed to provide the banks with greater profit and allowing them to offload risk, usually to the Fed or the taxpayer. Indeed, if you look closely, much of the "profit" in the banking system today is coming from banks borr…
Most of the profit in the banking industry comes from being able to take on massive risk, while simultaneously being cushioned from that risk by the government. Risky positions and derivatives are extremely profitable, but for most people -- those without guaranteed bailouts, or cushy borrowing rates -- the risk is too great. For investment banks, as we've seen, the risk is minimal to nonexistant (or at least the banks seem to function as though it is).
Traditionally, the role of the financial industry was to "provide access to capital," primarily by underwriting, facilitating, and assisting in the execution of large transactions and deals for corporate clients. This role is, ostensibly at least, productive to the overall ("real") economy.
Over the last 30-odd years, and especially over the last decade, the center of profit for the financial industry has shifted away from its traditional role (transactional facilitation), and toward the taking of proprietary positions in various capital markets. It's simply too tempting not to -- as Uncle Sam will lend you your leverage virtually free of charge, and he'll also be there to mop up your mess if you make one.
Imagine being able to gamble at a roulette table with free money, and being given more chips every time your bet busts.
It makes perfect sense that most people in the top 0.1% are associated with the financial and banking industries if you know how banks work. Banks, and the Federal Reserve, create new money. They give this money to themselves, and then loan it out. This is as bad as, and effectively equivalent to, counterfeiting. Creating new money, i.e. counterfeiting, i.e. inflation, does not create new wealth. It merely changes th…
This misses the point of the article, which is that many in the top 0.1% got there from some form of self-dealing. His argument is that they are profiting from their position in the economy rather than from the value they add. And by position, he doesn't mean nearness to the money press. I think he means nearness to the center of wealth and power, which at the moment happens to be the financial industry. > This is wh…
-- Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744 - 1812), a popularly-alleged quote
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This misses the point of the article, which is that many in the top 0.1% got there from some form of self-dealing. His argument is that they are profiting from their position in the economy rather than from the value they add. And by position, he doesn't mean nearness to the money press. I think he means nearness to the center of wealth and power, which at the moment happens to be the financial industry. > This is wh…
Newb question: If new money only gets in the system by loans how do we not run out of money? If I lend you 100 bucks you have to pay back 105 that is great and all. If I loan you every dollar in existence and you have to pay back every dollar in existence plus 5% then there is a problem.
In the real-world, with more than two persons, it would look more like this: I pay you back some amount of the debt, you spend this money and it propagates through the economy, until some part of it reaches me (in the form of a wage), so that I can use it to pay back more of the debt.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Newb question: If new money only gets in the system by loans how do we not run out of money? If I lend you 100 bucks you have to pay back 105 that is great and all. If I loan you every dollar in existence and you have to pay back every dollar in existence plus 5% then there is a problem.
If there is only $100 in the economy, I can still owe you $105. To pay it back, I could start working for you and be paid $1 per hour. Now everytime you pay me $1, I would pay you back this dollar until my debt is zero. In the real-world, with more than two persons, it would look more like this: I pay you back some amount of the debt, you spend this money and it propagates through the economy, until some part of it r…
The author of this article seems to be trying to confuse things: Membership in this elite group is likely to come from being involved in some aspect of the financial services or banking industry, real estate development involved with those industries, or government contracting. What does "involved in some aspect" mean? ...built a small company and was acquired with stock from a multi-national. Stock is often called a…
All of the people in the examples made money as salaried financial services employees or through stock. So for example, the programmer didn't make her money from selling her programming products; she sold her stock, a financial instrument.
If Mark Zuckerberg sold all his "stock" in Facebook, that doesn't mean he made his money from the financial services industry.
The majority of wealthy people are wealthy by equity (ownership of a business), not from annual income. If the author used traders as an example of people making money on stocks, that would be an argument more inline with his thesis.
The way he defines being involved with the finance sector, of course the majority of wealthy people (business owners) will have touched the financial services industry - the same way the average joe a touches retail bank.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point now, based on your replies, I can only assume you are trolling so I will ignore the first 2 responses and reply the to third and fourth. >Nope. It very much is because bankers wanted to get rich. The Federal Reserve was designed by bankers. Other central banks are designed by bankers. Governments go along with it because they get to benefit from the inflation just like the bankers. Are you a techie? Do…
>If that's the case, why has inflation been so low in the US in the last two years, when the Fed undertook the largest expansion of it's balance sheet in modern history? i.e. it has printed more money recently, than at any other time in it's mandate - but inflation AND inflation expectations are still low. That is because all that inflation has been exported to other countries. There are economies who have bet their…