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"Although today high levels of inequality in the United States remain a pressing concern for a large swath of the population, monetary policy and credit expansion are rarely mentioned as a likely source of rising wealth and income inequality. [...]
The rise in income inequality over the past 30 years has to a significant extent been the product of monetary policies fueling a series of asset price bubbles. Whenever the market booms, the share of income going to those at the very top increases.[...]
[F]inancial institutions benefit disproportionately from money creation, since they can purchase more goods, services, and assets for still relatively low prices. This conclusion is backed by numerous empirical illustrations. For instance, the financial sector contributed massively to the growth of billionaire's wealth"
Source: https://mises.org/library/how-central-banking-increased-inequality
I'll leave my comments as comments, but note that The Mises Institute is proudly, one might say almost by definition, Austrian School. Both the Institute and the School have had their fair share of criticism. Which of course doesn't mean that individual author is wrong on this particular matter. -- Ed.(FP)
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:07PM (38 children)
It doesn't benefit you. Neither does it harm you. What goes on in a billionaire's life by in large has zero bearing on your own.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:33PM (5 children)
Not with money = political speech. Those damn billionaires are subverting democracy and buy laws to favor themselves.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:23PM (4 children)
Take a page out of gewg_'s book then and start your own socialist "buy a politician" fund. The politicians don't care where the money that lines their pockets comes from.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DECbot on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:47PM
Then they are doing it wrong. They should at least vet if the money is a one-time contribution or if it is reoccurring. Likewise, they should determine the possibility of how the news media and the courts would approve of their acceptance of the funds. Taking cash from terrorists==fine as long as you didn't accept the cash in a combat zone while firing on US troops (which may not necessary be bad...); taking candy from babies or white nationalist==career ending.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 4, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:03PM (2 children)
So we're supposed to fix the problems caused by wealth accumulating in one part of society by *outspending* the people who have accumulated all of that wealth? You don't see a bit of a problem with that logic...?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:12PM (1 child)
No, I see no problem in that statement. If it's worth enough to you to keep something from happening, pool your money with like-minded people and keep it from happening. Billionaires aren't any more capable of going all-in on every single issue than you are. Not if they want to stay rich.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:10PM
Do you have any idea how skewed the distribution of wealth is in this country? 90% of the nation's wealth is held by people earning more than $260k/year. If the rest of us perfectly coordinate and pool our resources, they can still outspend us 9 to 1. And that's before you consider that I have to spend around 2/3 of my income on food and housing, and they don't.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:33PM (8 children)
In that case, how do you explain the fact that despite productivity increasing substantially, all classes except the ultra rich have either remained stagnant or become poorer? Where is the golden age that libertarian economists have promised us?
It's really simple when you look at the numbers Buz. All of this unaccounted wealth is going somewhere, and it's really hard to ignore the elephant in the room and conspicuous absence of sensible alternative hypothesis to explain what we are observing.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:25PM (7 children)
It's funny that the same people arguing against automation will also argue that the productivity increases had to have come from the workers. Clue: the workers are the same workers they've always been. If you see a productivity increase, it came from someplace else.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @11:40PM (2 children)
It came from technology helping humans be more efficient along with simple business practices like the assembly line or specialized jobs that allow humans to become more efficient at a narrower set of responsibilities. Regardless, there is nothing in your rationale that makes it OK to screw over the workers. You can deny it all you want, but the rest of humanity sees what you are too ignorant / willfully stupid to get.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:13PM (1 child)
And how do you figure they were screwed? Did they pay for the automation that assisted their productivity or are they the same warm bodies they've always been?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by lentilla on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:47PM
Well; in a way; yes to both.
It was the workers that did the; well; work. Yes, they got paid, but when there is sufficient wealth it really does need to be shared with those around you. Perhaps if you visit me you might only get beans, rice and water for dinner because that's all I had in the larder. If one visits a wealthy friend, dinner might be veal, oysters and champagne. I would consider it wrong for the wealthy friend to feed the poor friend only beans and rice - particularly if when we ate together his plate was graced by veal and oysters, and champagne in his cup alone.
I can't argue that there won't always be some level of disparity between people - that appears to be human nature. There does come a point however, where someone has enough to share with the people around him. A moral imperative, if you will. I'm not suggesting you give your only car to a poor man but at the point that you have so much wealth that it starts increasing by itself, you are obligated to share some part of it.
This kind of obligation is not an artefact of the modern age - humans were considering these needs well over two and an half thousand years ago - allow me to quote from Leviticus 19:9:
Now I don't do much reaping of fields or gathering from vineyards personally but I do see the clear applicability of this to modern life.
- = -
Now, on to your second question: "are [not the workers simply] the same warm bodies they've always been?" Well, yes, they are.
(Well; actually; a modern worker is likely to be far more educated than his pre-Industrial era forefather, so in a way an average worker of today is likely to be quite a good bit more than a warm body and muscles. Anyway, I won't explore that further.)
Anonymous Coward says in the grandparent to this post: "It came from technology helping humans be more efficient along with [other various improvements]". I think our Anonymous friend is absolutely spot on the mark. We - humanity that is - have collectively improved over time. "Collectively" is the important part. It wasn't one person who did all the improving, it was millions of humans, most long dead, that contributed to this common wealth. Now the people with the money might have put up some needed capital - and I hope they were richly rewarded for doing so. Don't forget though, that the conditions of the time allowed both; (a) the smart man to come up with an innovation, just as much as; (b) the wealthy man to get (or stay) wealthy. So I really think excess "wealth" - "common wealth" as I said above - does need to be shared.
So are modern workers the same as their ancient counterparts? Well, even if you were to take the affirmative position, I would still say we have an obligation to share the bounty with those around us because this common wealth was earned not by one man alone but by "team humanity" working solidly throughout the ages.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:12AM (3 children)
So perhaps you would like to live of the same income that agrarian peasants had (adjusted for inflation)?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:14PM (2 children)
I create wealth, thank you very much. Do the same and you can be other than poor as well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:10PM (1 child)
I am far from poor, thank you very much.
But that's not the issue. You seem to think that billionaires need to be protected. Perhaps you think that one day, you might be a billionaire?
Let's be clear here. You are never going to be a billionaire. You vote and argue against your own interests.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DECbot on Wednesday August 23 2017, @09:35PM
If we're being clear, let's be clear. The billionaire will spend tens of thousands of dollars each year to protect his wealth from the government and will thus be unaffected from any wealth distribution scheme. However, the "fortunate" in the $40,000 to $120,000 income bracket will not have more than a few hundred dollars a year to protect themselves and will likely pay more in taxes than the billionaire.
Your right, nations do not better themselves by enriching the wealthiest of their population. Likewise, they cannot embetter themselves by imposing heavy taxes on the serfs. What we've seen work historically is light taxes on the serfs and heavy penalties on the billionaires for not keeping the serfs gainfully employed.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 4, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:35PM (8 children)
I would disagree. Eric Schmidt being a part of the Bilderberg group and bedding with the Democratic party, steering his company toward becoming a surveillance monster rather than an advocate of internet freedom is having quite the bearing on our lives in this moment, though we may not notice it, and it will continue to have grave consequences in the future as soon-to-be CEOs brought in and indoctrinated with the Alphabet mindset without experiencing and working with the alternative steer the company further in one direction.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:27PM (7 children)
Fair argument but not really what I was speaking about. I simply meant that someone else having more money than you does not change your standard of living one iota in and of itself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @08:37PM (1 child)
But if enough people have more money than you then your standard of living can change as prices rise since there are now more people able to pay more.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:15PM
True but this is far, far from the case. The 1% are, by definition, 1%.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:03AM (1 child)
Small minded fool, I really am shocked at how one dimensional your thought processes are. Its been 50 years of it and the effects are very clear. Billions for a few individuals means a massive percentage of society can barely get by. While modern economies are much more complex, the pie metaphor works quite well here. The lies about "job creators" has been outed, I'm intrigued at how you'll defend your proposition.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:16PM
You haven't presented a reasoned argument against it, so I've no reason to. See how that works?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:28AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @08:41AM (1 child)
Wrong. Someone else having more money means that person being able to spend more money, which means increased demand and thus rising prices, and thus reduction of the spending power of your money.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:20PM
Except for being utterly wrong, you would be correct. Tell me, how much have prices gone up on your daily staples since the 90s? How about luxury items? Have televisions gone up or down in price for a monster flat panel? Housing? Cars? Yeah... sling your bullshit elsewhere.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:35PM (2 children)
I've seen you make some lame statements before, but wow being this out of touch with reality is something else.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:27PM (1 child)
Troll harder. That was some weak, weak shit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:40AM
It matched your original statement, blame yourself.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:43PM (2 children)
>"What goes on in a billionaire's life by in [sic] large has zero bearing on your own."
This is not true. Billionaires affect me in many ways. They can buy up property, goods and services, making them either more expensive or unavailable to me. Their concentration of wealth changes the way I can earn money. On the average, the rest of us have to cater to the rich in order to earn back some money for ourselves. These effects are not wrong per se, but it are not to be dismissed lightly.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:29PM (1 child)
How, precisely? It hasn't changed the ways I can earn money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:43PM
Of course it has changed the way you can make money! (Although perhaps not you, specifically.)
A few years ago, I took a favourite pair of sandals to the local bootmaker and asked him to put a new pair of soles on them. Upon my return I admired his work and said "how much?" "Ninety dollars.", said the bootmaker. I really thought I had misheard him. I gave him his money and walked away feeling very sad - and I had just paid more to have the shoes re-soled than the original purchase price.
The reason that I was sad was the realisation that the local bootmakers' days are numbered. Here's a man who is really good at fixing shoes. His conversation is limited, he's probably not the smartest or most adaptable on the planet, but he happens to good at fixing shoes. Nobody goes into the shoe repair business expecting to get rich. Unfortunately, he's got to eat, and he's got to pay rent - and I'd be entirely unsurprised if the rent on his tiny little alcove in the village shopping centre surpassed $1000 per week. Hence the extreme cost of a simple repair. As I said, this happened several years ago, and I haven't been back. I doubt I'm alone in this - increase the price of repairs to the point where people avoid coming to your shop - the consequence is you can't afford to run the shop and you go out of business.
For most of human history, if you were passably good at (say) a trade, you hung up your shingle in the village and people would come to do business with you. Now, things are different. A lone bootmaker just can't compete, it's unlikely that he has the business acumen to "go online", and he's probably not good at much else than fixing shoes.
So we won't have a local bootmaker for long. Bootmaking is a needed function in the village and now we will be deprived of that.
There are a lot of folk like my local bootmaker - honest, simple and unassuming - but they hold their head up high in society (and rightfully so) because they contribute something useful and their needs are met. I fear we are growing a class of people that can't find a place for themselves in society, and also mourn the loss of their contributions.
(Score: 1) by Gault.Drakkor on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:26AM (1 child)
Wealth is power. Wealth is political voice. Huge wealth is easily translated into political power. As you point out there are many different political stripes that are wealthy.
But in balance there are more selfish people then people who want what is best for the major majority. If they have a political axe to grind they can employ people full time to see that that axe is ground.
But the biggest problem with wealth is that it is accumulating at an accelerating rate. That is, approximately for each magnitude of wealth, you can get an additional .5% income from said wealth. How? if you have 100K$ wealth, at 1% spent on wealth manager you have him for part of his time. at 100M$ you have 1M$ to spend on manager, probably do better finding deals, can broaden investment portfolio etc. Or as in this article you have access to investing best opportunities at financial institutes. Somewhat minor cost of living is not proportional to income. Higher wealth allows for more income to be available for re-investment.
There are positive feed-back loops on income+wealth at low and high ends driving it to extremes. This is going to further destabilize the economies of the world.
The decisions of the wealthiest have big influence on every bodies lives. The more wealthy the bigger the possible influence.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:24PM
I fail to see any of that as a problem. Someone having a pile of money big enough to paper the walls of their mansion has no effect on me. Money and wealth are not remotely finite.
Political power? It's still one man, one vote (or one corpse, one vote if you're a Democrat). You really want change, stop voting for the ones that you know will sell you out. I did.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:33AM (2 children)
>What goes on in a billionaire's life by in large has zero bearing on your own.
Poop of all the farm animals.
The disproportionately wealthy buy and hold large swaths of coastal real-estate, restricting my access to the beaches and oceans.
Billionaire individuals and corporations are the primary customers of Gulfstream Aviation, employer of ~12,000 people near the booming town of Pooler, GA where I had lunch today. A relative of ours works 4:30am to 2:30pm 4 days a week for Gulfstream, good job if you like that sort of thing - but without the Billionaire crowd, there wouldn't be a private jet market at all.
Billionaires, and lesser wealthy individuals, feed angel investment funds - most of my career has been in and around startup companies that live off of these investment funds. A major part of the business involves courting investment, which basically means knowing (intentionally, or accidentally) how to appeal to these people and get them to choose to invest in your company instead of the hundreds of others clamoring for their attention. Logic, experience, a sound business plan, solid research, and ability to execute are only a small part of how you actually close those deals.
The highly wealthy keep places like the local beach-spas operating, employing hundreds of local people and training them in the art of hospitality, aka serving the rich.
Billionaires and their kin own your Congresscritters, just try to get something done "for the constituency" against the rich benefactors and find out how much.
If you don't deal with the ultra-wealthy directly, you're probably less than 3 degrees of separation away from someone whose life is utterly ruled by them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:26PM (1 child)
Start up a fund and buy your own then.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 24 2017, @12:24AM
How many plebes does it take to out-bid the billionaires? Virtually all of them, at least all of them that you could mobilize to donate some of their disposable income - just ask Bernie.
There's a funny curve of economic position vs political influence. On an individual basis, you can get some political influence without money, but of course with money your influence is greatly magnified. In both instances, it takes both money and man-hours to get effective political influence - though with enough money you can buy man-hours, so infinite money always wins. But, given the (rough) formula of I = N * t * (k + di) where:
N is the number of people pushing in the same direction
t is the time invested (note that t = t of the individual + t purchased from representatives, so you can in effect substitute di / r for t where r is some hourly rate
k is a constant representing the respect given to individuals regardless of money (let's put this at about $50) and
di is disposable income devoted to influence
At the bottom end, the unemployed have nearly zero di, but high N and very high available t, so they can wield a significant amount of political influence
Moving "up" to the working poor, they have neither t nor di, so their effective political influence is approaching zero, regardless of their N
Then you get to the "middle class" (whatever that is) where you can kick around $50 now and then, and maybe attend a rally once a month or so without destroying your whole life to make it happen, some influence per individual, very high N, but t and di are still really small.
Once you progress to the independently wealthy, their t increases by a factor of 10 or more, simultaneously with a dramatic increase in di - their numbers are small (say ~2%), but if they should choose to become politically active, they have great lobbying power, even as individuals
Then you can climb into the stratosphere of the 0.1% - they command so much disposable income that it can translate directly into political influence simply by hiring lobbyists - effectively out-shouting all other classes combined without investing any more of their personal time than they want to.
This sort of bathtub curve seems to reflect the tax and spend patterns - "incentives" for the rich such that they have the lowest effective tax rate (as a % of income) even while their need for that extra income has nothing to do with survival and everything to do with power and influence - coming down the curve you come into the bulk of the taxpayers, paying the highest rates while receiving the least of the benefits, then at the bottom end the unemployed are actually qhite well taken care of - when I became unemployed my children started receiving the best insurance coverage I ever experienced, for free. We went to all our same doctors, had lower or non-existent co-pays, same choice of treatments as the private pay insurance, and no premiums - all I had to do to receive this $10K+/yr "benefit" from the government was be unemployed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:09AM (2 children)
That statement, is both wrong and stupid.
It's wrong in that what billionaires do very definitely affects my life. For example, the influence of the Mercers on the recent election, or the creation of the Tea Party by the Koch Brothers.
It's stupid in that:
a. It assumes the status quo, where we have extreme wealth inequality.
b. The phrase is "by and large", not "by in large".
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:29PM (1 child)
You think the Koch brothers created the Tea Party? You poor, kool-aid-drinking fool. You probably even think the election was bought last time around as well. Pro-tip: if it had been, Hillary would have won.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:07PM
You actually want to deny the links between the Tea Party and the Kochs? Really? Are you for real, or just trolling?