Many Americans don’t really understand how the economy works.
The fact we heavily tax the labor of the lower majority, and rarely tax economic rents or externalities, and often subsidize the private collection of economic rents; supports that belief.
The economy was rigged from day ! How doesn’t slavery ‘rig’ the economy. How does the minority Jefferson and Madison fought so hard to protect that they then witnessed, become as the corrupt capitalist oligarchy not rigging the economy.
How does no labor laws at all, not ‘rig’ the economy ?
Reagan re-rigged the economy as reflected in this:
The US arguably already does massive wealth redistribution. But only for the rich: The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% over since the 1980s.
In a sense it is like a reverse socialism exclusively for the rich. What do you think about this? Is this justified? What is the solution to extreme inequality in your view?
The elephant in the room is extreme income inequality. How big is this elephant? A staggering $50 trillion. That is how much the upward redistribution of income has cost American workers over the past several decades.
According to a groundbreaking new working paper by Carter C. Price and Kathryn Edwards of the RAND Corporation, had the more equitable income distributions of the three decades following World War II (1945 through 1974) merely held steady, the total annual income of Americans earning below the 90th percentile would have been $2.5 trillion higher in the year 2018 alone.
That is an amount equal to nearly 12 percent of GDP—enough to more than double median income—enough to pay every single working American in the bottom nine deciles an additional $1,144 a month. Every month, for years before and more, every single year since.
That’s a small house for every worker paid for by 2000.
I call that capitalist greed.
The economy *is* rigged. Citizens United has resulted in crony capitalism. 4 cell carriers are reduced to 3, while there are 2 phone operating systems. Medical providers form cartels with insurance (including Medicare) to create a pricing structure where a self-insured patient pays quadruple compared to corporate insurance. We pay double or more for prescriptions, enforced by a government funded police force for big pharma, the DEA.
The Federal Reserve had been regulating banks for years in order to produce losses on deposits at banks because the “real” interest rate (interest rate – inflation rate) was negative. That disproportionately affects the middle class. Meanwhile, this federal control of price discovery in debt markets wound up making it attractive for corporations to buy back stock, benefiting the one percent.
The Fed printed up $2.5 trillion to buy mortgages, which induced investors to buy up houses. That increased demand which drove prices out of reach for many would be homeowners.
Of course it’s rigged, because the one percent control the government. That’s why they’re trying to put the rabble against the other rabble. But we’re all being screwed, and I see the underlying cause being the two-party political system that relegates third parties to being spoilers. System won’t work so long as they keep up boxed in to voting for the lesser evil.
Until we get ranked voting/instant runoff/etc, I don’t see change coming. It’s not a millennial/baby boomer, black/white, straight/gay, etc issue. The issue is this one percent controlled two party system.
Not rigged like some arcade game, its not an arcade game. Voters really wanted the “winner takes all” economy. Being a future b/millionaire is sure exciting.
Parties with deeper pockets will always outmuscle those with less money. This is what financial-feudalism is all about. Sure everyone is free, just the money now dictates where you belong and how much you have to bend over.
What would it mean for the economy to not be rigged?
Many Americans believe in free competition and free markets. Let the market decide what things are worth.
If you believe that, then if I make 10,000 times as much money as you do, doesn’t that mean I should have 10,000 times as much say in how the market works?
If I “rig” the market to benefit myself, don’t I have the *right* to do that because I have earned that right by collecting more money from the market?
If we set up rules to keep me from rigging the market, don’t we have to rig the market to do it?
I personally think we ought to rig the market to make things more fair, but then we have the problem of deciding what’s fair. Again, if I produce 10,000 times as much benefit to the economy as you do, is it fair for me to get 10,000 times as much benefit myself? How should we decide whether I really produced 10,000 times as much benefit? If I figure out a way to create a bottleneck so a whole lot of money has to go through me, that probably doesn’t benefit the economy. But look at all the benefit I actually provided! Even though I arranged that there not be any alternatives, still I did provide all those benefits. And what if it wasn’t me that created the bottleneck, I was just the one who exploited it. Its more obviously wrong if it’s my fault.
Figuring out the fair way to do things is not easy.
It’s a mess.
No shit?
Why didn’t I realize the system has been rigged by the ultra wealthy to ride the backs of the middle class and poor while handing out tax break after tax break to the ultra wealthy earlier?
7 comments
Many Americans don’t really understand how the economy works.
The fact we heavily tax the labor of the lower majority, and rarely tax economic rents or externalities, and often subsidize the private collection of economic rents; supports that belief.
The economy was rigged from day ! How doesn’t slavery ‘rig’ the economy. How does the minority Jefferson and Madison fought so hard to protect that they then witnessed, become as the corrupt capitalist oligarchy not rigging the economy.
How does no labor laws at all, not ‘rig’ the economy ?
Reagan re-rigged the economy as reflected in this:
The US arguably already does massive wealth redistribution. But only for the rich: The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% over since the 1980s.
In a sense it is like a reverse socialism exclusively for the rich. What do you think about this? Is this justified? What is the solution to extreme inequality in your view?
The elephant in the room is extreme income inequality. How big is this elephant? A staggering $50 trillion. That is how much the upward redistribution of income has cost American workers over the past several decades.
According to a groundbreaking new working paper by Carter C. Price and Kathryn Edwards of the RAND Corporation, had the more equitable income distributions of the three decades following World War II (1945 through 1974) merely held steady, the total annual income of Americans earning below the 90th percentile would have been $2.5 trillion higher in the year 2018 alone.
That is an amount equal to nearly 12 percent of GDP—enough to more than double median income—enough to pay every single working American in the bottom nine deciles an additional $1,144 a month. Every month, for years before and more, every single year since.
That’s a small house for every worker paid for by 2000.
I call that capitalist greed.
The economy *is* rigged. Citizens United has resulted in crony capitalism. 4 cell carriers are reduced to 3, while there are 2 phone operating systems. Medical providers form cartels with insurance (including Medicare) to create a pricing structure where a self-insured patient pays quadruple compared to corporate insurance. We pay double or more for prescriptions, enforced by a government funded police force for big pharma, the DEA.
The Federal Reserve had been regulating banks for years in order to produce losses on deposits at banks because the “real” interest rate (interest rate – inflation rate) was negative. That disproportionately affects the middle class. Meanwhile, this federal control of price discovery in debt markets wound up making it attractive for corporations to buy back stock, benefiting the one percent.
The Fed printed up $2.5 trillion to buy mortgages, which induced investors to buy up houses. That increased demand which drove prices out of reach for many would be homeowners.
Of course it’s rigged, because the one percent control the government. That’s why they’re trying to put the rabble against the other rabble. But we’re all being screwed, and I see the underlying cause being the two-party political system that relegates third parties to being spoilers. System won’t work so long as they keep up boxed in to voting for the lesser evil.
Until we get ranked voting/instant runoff/etc, I don’t see change coming. It’s not a millennial/baby boomer, black/white, straight/gay, etc issue. The issue is this one percent controlled two party system.
Not rigged like some arcade game, its not an arcade game. Voters really wanted the “winner takes all” economy. Being a future b/millionaire is sure exciting.
Parties with deeper pockets will always outmuscle those with less money. This is what financial-feudalism is all about. Sure everyone is free, just the money now dictates where you belong and how much you have to bend over.
What would it mean for the economy to not be rigged?
Many Americans believe in free competition and free markets. Let the market decide what things are worth.
If you believe that, then if I make 10,000 times as much money as you do, doesn’t that mean I should have 10,000 times as much say in how the market works?
If I “rig” the market to benefit myself, don’t I have the *right* to do that because I have earned that right by collecting more money from the market?
If we set up rules to keep me from rigging the market, don’t we have to rig the market to do it?
I personally think we ought to rig the market to make things more fair, but then we have the problem of deciding what’s fair. Again, if I produce 10,000 times as much benefit to the economy as you do, is it fair for me to get 10,000 times as much benefit myself? How should we decide whether I really produced 10,000 times as much benefit? If I figure out a way to create a bottleneck so a whole lot of money has to go through me, that probably doesn’t benefit the economy. But look at all the benefit I actually provided! Even though I arranged that there not be any alternatives, still I did provide all those benefits. And what if it wasn’t me that created the bottleneck, I was just the one who exploited it. Its more obviously wrong if it’s my fault.
Figuring out the fair way to do things is not easy.
It’s a mess.
No shit?
Why didn’t I realize the system has been rigged by the ultra wealthy to ride the backs of the middle class and poor while handing out tax break after tax break to the ultra wealthy earlier?