America's 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%

The problem is that even if we redistributed the money back, this is just a form of inflation and will just result in prices going up accordingly.

 

Yeah, no kidding, i agreed.

And yet knowing this, you still can't figure out how the economy became finacialized, with huge sums of currency flowing to those who produce nothing but paper and get bailed out with trillion$ when they fail

 

OK, but I wouldn't mind some context on that "Marxist" statement.

Empire has a lot to do with it. After WW2 we set up a brilliant international finance system called Bretton Woods. Unfortunately, our deficit spending on the empire resulted in a run on our gold, and Nixon took us off the gold standard, killing the heart and soul of the Bretton Woods agreements.

Reagan cut taxes and raised spending a lot, with the result we went from being the world's largest creditor to being the world's largest debtor. Reagan had a lot to do with cranking financialisation into high gear.

If you want to discuss this, I can, but do try and narrow the focus a bit.

 

I don't think that's correct.

When economists talk about income inequality, it's about income, wages and such.

That's not redistribution.

The best economists, like Stiglitz, think we need to do more, and that would be redistributive. But things like better schools just make sense. Covid 19 is an object lesson on why everyone needs basic health care. So that is also just common sense.

 

Inequality isn't a problem as long as the standard of living isn't affected. Even if an employee isn't earning as much in dollar values, it really doesn't matter how much paper money he has. What matter is the supply of products available to buy vs the number of people trying to buy them. If you just give people more paper, it just increases prices if supply remains the same.

 

Income inequality (economists are terrible at messaging, that's a terrible name) is a severe problem.


https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequa...y&qid=1600610052&sprefix=stigl,aps,176&sr=8-2

 

I'll read it if you buy it for me.

 

Even if your library doesn't have it, they can get it.

 

I don't go to the library because of covid. Plus I mostly read fiction. But thanks for the reading suggestion.

 

Funnily enough inflation is good for people with less. Take out a morgage and you have to pay a lot back but with a good dose of inflation within a few years it is not that much. Inflation helped those less well off but hit into the profits of those making the money.

 

Most libraries have adapted to Covid. Give them a call, they can help.

I don't know what you like for fiction, but I am a total fanatic for The Expanse.

 

Inflation is good for assets, bad for income.

 

I am no economist. I simply know that during the times of high inflation inequality was reducing. However are you sure it is as basic as you are saying. If I need to pay less in real terms then yes I will gain. However who I am borrowing the money from has my house as its assett as well surely and in real terms they will lose. In those days people had unions so they would demand their wages were increased to make up for inflation. Anyway I remember seeing things and the people who lost during this time were the 'have's not your ordinary person. Thatcher and Regan decided to change it so that this would not happen and the super rich have become more super rich to everyone's deficit but I don't know enough on economics I would need to find what I watched which put that argument strongly.

 

FWIW, I live in Central Florida. And Floridians aren't exactly known for sophistication and wealth. But as I look about, I'd say that the people here are far better off than fifty years ago. So rather than robbed, I think we've been increased.

 

Inequality is a problem in a democracy because everyone is supposed to have the same chance and structural inequality without social mobility which the US has the worst of in the 'Developed' world, does not provide that.

 

You possibly have. There has been a massive drive towards people buying lots of things during neo liberalism and people defining themselves by what they have rather than who they are so I think possibly people do have more things and more debt but not a better quality of life. Add to that the lack of savings people have, that the US is expecting an enormous surge in homelessness and unemployment and it looks pretty downhill from there on..

 

I got free higher education and a grant to live on while I was doing it. My daughter now in her late thirties and in a well paid job who only had to borrow a little because Scotland very quickly started paying for Higher Education again, is still paying off what she had to borrow. These sort of things do take from the quality of people's lives but I read once that the reason for making people pay for higher education was not that it was necessary financially for the State but that it was intended to take away from the wealth of the educated to stop them having the time to be political and working for changes in society and improving things for those with less as they did in the 60's and 70's - even in the US.

 

The point of origin of goods has nothing to do with capitalism.

 

Have you ever worked a day in your life? You sound like the worst employee ever. I wouldn’t hire someone like you to work for me if all you ever did was whine about your paycheck.

 

They're very big on Buyer's Remorse. Like teenagers with Christmas money from Grandma .. blow the lot in an instant, then regret it.

 

So don't be an employee, be your own boss. That's the beauty of the capitalist democracy you live in .. none of it is compulsory. You should be very ****ing thankful.

 

But that's no fun.

 

The poster addressed reality. If you spend less than you earn, you cannot NOT get ahead.

Nothing more reality than cause and effect.

 

How, exactly, are they 'robbed'. Who held guns to heads and forced them to buy iphones and fast food?

 

What lesson would that be, exactly? Nobody was being denied health care due to COVID. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Hospitals couldn’t wait to get COVID patients to come in their doors, seeing as how there were so many empty COVID clinics and centers outside of the NYC area.