Wealth inequality and the Fed's inflationary monetary policy

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pmbug

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Over the last two years, the richest 1% of people have accumulated close to two-thirds of all new wealth created around the world, a new report from Oxfam says.

A total of $42 trillion in new wealth has been created since 2020, with $26 trillion, or 63%, of that being amassed by the top 1% of the ultra-rich, according to the report. The remaining 99% of the global population collected just $16 trillion of new wealth, the global poverty charity says.
...
Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, called for taxes to be increased for the ultra-rich, saying that this was a "strategic precondition to reducing inequality and resuscitating democracy."
...
Click to expand...

www.cnbc.com

The richest 1% of people amassed almost two-thirds of new wealth created in the last two years, Oxfam says

Since 2020, the richest 1% of people have accumulated close to two-thirds of all new wealth created around the world, according to a new report from Oxfam.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com

Direct link to the report:

www.oxfam.org

Survival of the Richest | Oxfam International

www.oxfam.org www.oxfam.org
 
Well, over the past two years governments and central banks around the world conjured up trillions of dollars and dumped them into their economies in the name of "stimulus". Now we know where all that money went. And the only thing surprising about this is the fact that some people seem to be surprised by it.
 
Ensoniq said:
The non richest 99% need to be like Avis and try harder

this isn’t a zero sum game

get busy dudes and dudettes
Click to expand...
Normally you and I see things eye-to-eye.

Not this time.

The One-Percenters are not getting rich off talent, or service to their fellow man.

They're STANDING IN THE SPRAY - of fiat pumped out by the Fed. That is to say, they're crony rentiers, taking their seigniorage...created from nothing, and devaluing the dollars we WORKED for...they're taking that money by the truckload, and using it to buy stocks mindlessly, buy land (including residential single-family homes) to price it out of reach of working schlubs; and to pay for the cost of making a particular poison that we're ordered to call a vaccine.

The Fed needs to go the way of the dinosaur. And crony rentiers need to go the way of Nuremberg convictees.
 
Fed QE money inflated asset bubbles. 1% owns those assets disproportionately to the 99%. Fed was actively inflating the wealth of the top 1%.
 
Jarrod32 said:
Well, over the past two years governments and central banks around the world conjured up trillions of dollars and dumped them into their economies in the name of "stimulus". Now we know where all that money went. And the only thing surprising about this is the fact that some people seem to be surprised by it.
Click to expand...

Where else would it go other than to those selling the goods that the people who got the conjured up trilion$, wanted to spend it on.
 
Income inequality is not the evil it is being made out to be. It's just more class warfare stuff being employed by those pushing for socialism and social equity.

John Stossel explains it quite nicely in about 4 minutes.

Inequality Myths​


 
whats the saying , a rising tide lifts all boats

some boats get lifted higher. 😂
 
spinalcracker said:
whats the saying , a rising tide lifts all boats

some boats get lifted higher. 😂
Click to expand...
As they always will. In a society where People are free to make less-than-good decisions, it'd be a shame if everyone got equal results.
 
spinalcracker said:
whats the saying , a rising tide lifts all boats

some boats get lifted higher. 😂
Click to expand...
WEALTH is naturally "redistributed" through free economic transactions.

SEIGNIORAGE, that is, the printing-up of new fiat, given to the connected rentiers...CREATES inequality.

It's the difference between a harbor - where all boats rise with the tide - and "hydraulicking" - using fire hoses to wash away topsoil in a destructive form of mining.
 
Thom compares us to the other developed countries. Quite telling.

How Inequality Makes Americans Miserable​

Thom Hartmann P
Jan 17, 2023


Americans are not as happy as they should be - Income inequality is making Americans miserable. 9:55
 
The majority of children today aren't being raised with a work ethic. They aren't out hustling washing cars, baling hay, mowing lawns, or shoveling snow. They are being raised like veal, fixated on their cell phones, and being taught to be gay Marxists in public school. They get out of college with a completely worthless Arts degree and expect to land a six figure job with a corner office and then they are disillusioned when nobody wants to hire them. And, if they are lucky enough to land a job, they are shocked and horrified when they are actually expected to produce something and show up on time. Their idea of investing is saving up for that next tattoo or nose piercing.

These people may never know "wealth" as our generation has. I think the sad reality of the situation is that many will never even own a home in their lifetime.
 
Then there is Life inequality... some live longer than others.....
 

A tough economy has revived the ‘bootstrapping' myth. Here’s why it takes more than just a good idea to get out of poverty​


As we face a tough economy, it’s not uncommon to read advice to entrepreneurs that now is the perfect moment to launch a new business.

“The greatest opportunity in a generation,” according to an article in Forbes. And according to Entrepreneur, “entrepreneurship is about taking that idea and doing something with it. Today.”

Assertions such as these reinforce the popular bootstrapping myth: Any hard worker with a good idea can simply seize the moment and become successful. It’s a perspective that demonstrates a complete ignorance of the experiences of people in poverty, and particularly entrepreneurs who have worked–or are working–their way out of poverty.

Read the full article:

 
...
All in all, the market hummed at the ideas that the Fed was close to a rates peak; so was everyone else; that there wouldn’t be a recession; that the dollar is weakening; that rates would go down; and so assets would go up. The latter is of course all that really matters.

Are the assembled billionaires in Davos really worried about what was already projected as a mild recession that would reverse very low unemployment rates and very high (nominal) wage growth? No! What worries them are tight labor markets and nominal wage growth: that, and the asset-price recession in 2022 as interest rates rose in response.

With higher rates, the rich have already been in recession, and they didn’t like it. One year was quite enough, thank you very much, and now it’s time for central banks to make the rich richer and the poor poorer again, as before. ...
Click to expand...

"Now It's Time For Central Banks To Make The Rich Richer And The Poor Poorer Again, As Before" | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com www.zerohedge.com
 
Some random thoughts on ending wealth inequality part 1. Been thinking about this stuff for a good number of years. Here's some ideas I've come up with.

- Teach economics in school to the point that when someone graduates they can live and function in the real world. They'll have the knowledge to make sound financial decisions.

- Have a credit union branch in every public high school. It must be a good and highly reputable credit union that pays decent interest. This way students can use their education, make deposits, withdrawals, etc so they are established and "banked" when they graduate.

- Have an ABI (American Basic Income) that starts in 12th grade and continues throughout the individual's life. Maybe start out at 50% in 12th grade with direct deposits going to an individual's credit union account (see above.) Upon graduation you'll get 100% deposited into your account on a monthly basis. With an ABI no one will be walking around without cash. You'll have money to live on if you're outta work, injured, etc. If done right this could eliminate the need for welfare, unemployment, etc. The ABI will be paid on a monthly basis in addition to any other source of income an individual may have. It's yours to help you live a decent life.

- Create the AIC (American Infrastructure Corps) that would be based on the old CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) where you could go to get a technicial - trade school education. Get a job and if necessary, a place to live. The ideal would be to rebuild and maintain America's infrastructure, take back depressed city neighborhoods, rehab abandoned homes which would be used in an "urban homesteading program," reclaim lands that have been laid waste by both nature and man and turn those lands into productive farmland or places where people could live. If you joined up to learn you'd be paid. If you joined up to work, you'd be paid. If you were retired but you had a skill and wanted to teach, you'd be paid. And like the military there would be an AIC Reserve. Maybe one weekend a month and one or 2 weeks a year. You'd be paid. And also like the military, the ACI would have it's own retirement plan that would be separate from and in addition to the NPP (National Pension Plan.)

- Have a NPP (National Pension Plan) that would take the place of Social Security. Everyone would be enrolled and have their own interest-bearing account. It would be an individual's own account and no politician or political entity would have anything to do with it what-so-ever. It would drawl interest and be managed to keep drawling interest. The individual and the employer would both contribute. There would be no bullshit with this like we have with today's social security.

- Private pension plans. These would be in addition to the NPP and businesses would be highly encouraged to provide these to their employees. Actually business would get tax breaks and government help with these. They would be managed to make the individual account holder money. Not lose it.

- Create a NHP (National Health Plan) where medical, dental, eyeglass and prescriptions would be covered for every citizen. No more people going broke because of health care costs. No more bankruptcies due to health care costs. No more people going hungry because they had to pay for some prescription. Every American would be covered.

- Federal Reserve and interest rates would have to be dealt with. If you have money in a credit union or a bank you will get a decent interest rate. If you borrow money you will pay interest on it.

Getting tired of typing. Will continue with a part 2 later on.
 
@searcher - it looks like your suggestions are geared towards setting a floor. There will always be wealth disparity whether markets are free or crony. The issue I was trying to highlight with this thread is the disproportionate effect of central bank monetary policy on growing the inequality gaps with their asset bubbles. It's built into the fiat cake.
 
pmbug said:
The issue I was trying to highlight with this thread is the disproportionate effect of central bank monetary policy on growing the inequality gaps with their asset bubbles. It's built into the fiat cake.
Click to expand...

Had no clue. I thought the thread title was (is) "Wealth inequality." My reply was geared toward things that could be done to help ease wealth inequality. You never mentioned central bank monetary policy in the title although I mentioned it a bit when I mentioned the fed reserve in my reply. I was also going to mention it in part 2. Won't be doing that lol.

Your forum and all that happy horseshit, but if you are only looking for certain replies to your threads you should state that. No big deal to me. Also you should title threads so that people know what you're talking about. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'm also pretty sure some people don't know where certain threads belong due to your forum titles.

Really not a big deal. But you really should lighten up a bit on certain things. No one here is stupid or dumb. You need to be a bit more explicit.
 
pmbug said:
It's built into the fiat cake.
Click to expand...
They ARE the bakers after all...
Jarrod32 said:
You could make everyone in this country equal in terms of wealth tonight, and they would be unequal by morning.
Some would save conservatively, some would invest at varying risk levels, some would spend on depreciating assets and become poorer.
Click to expand...
It's been proven by that college professor. Graded everyone the same. Failed everyone at the end because 'Socialism' is the great equalizer.
 
searcher said:
Had no clue. ...
Click to expand...

I kind of figured that. That's why felt compelled to clarify what I was doing. I wasn't being critical of your posts and you are welcome to expound your thoughts with part 2. I'll try to do better.
 
Casey Jones said:
Normally you and I see things eye-to-eye.

Not this time.

The One-Percenters are not getting rich off talent, or service to their fellow man.

They're STANDING IN THE SPRAY - of fiat pumped out by the Fed. That is to say, they're crony rentiers, taking their seigniorage...created from nothing, and devaluing the dollars we WORKED for...they're taking that money by the truckload, and using it to buy stocks mindlessly, buy land (including residential single-family homes) to price it out of reach of working schlubs; and to pay for the cost of making a particular poison that we're ordered to call a vaccine.

The Fed needs to go the way of the dinosaur. And crony rentiers need to go the way of Nuremberg convictees.
Click to expand...
Agree completely

my only point is effort is still worth it even if rich are free riding
 
Joe King said:
As they always will. In a society where People are free to make less-than-good decisions, it'd be a shame if everyone got equal results.
Click to expand...
how about in a society driven by propaganda to a population taught they're the 'best consumers in the world'


what i'd like to see, one day are equal opportunities

weird i'd ever type that...what i mean: many were left behind due to the various technologies that were created and forced upon us where at the 'watercooler' at work, you were the one 'left behind' if you didn't watch last nights programming....

too many humans were 'left out' by 'progress' which means, they weren't 'salvaging' some of us, while the criminal element has now been vaulted into that category...they're worth releasing because they're more 'productive' while we move into chaos, than those who now live in tents and spend their days escaping, if only through drugs and theft...


as they always will, that may apply, but they're now doing things to us, at warp speed, no one is avoiding much of all of it....and what is happening is to take more wealth from 'us' to solve what 'they' created...


we're pawns...i see things more clearly today and judgement of 'society' is no longer on my ticket



2¢, but you know that already

:cool:
 
The Fed released its always shocking quarterly data on the distribution of wealth on Friday. It divides US households by category of wealth: The “Top 0.1%,” the “Remaining Top 1%,” the “Next 9%,” the “Next 40%, and the “Bottom 50%.”

What’s always shocking – though we’ve known it all along – is the huge wealth disparity between these groups of households, even between the “Top 0.1%” and the “Remaining 1%,” and even between the “Top 0.1%” and the “Next 9%.”
...
During QE and interest-rate repression, the already wealthiest people got immensely richer, as shown by the explosion of the wealth of the “Top 0.1%” (red line in the top chart) and of the “Remaining Top 1%” (purple line) through 2021.

The Fed has never made a secret out of its official policy, the “Wealth Effect.” Yellen published a paper about it in 2005 when she was head of the San Francisco Fed; Ben Bernanke published an editorial in the Washington Post in 2010, whacking dumfounded Americans over the head with his explanation of why the Fed was going for the wealth effect. The effect was supposed to be that this wealth somehow trickles down.

What we got instead of the wealth-trickledown is the worst inflation in forty years that followed the biggest wealth disparity ever.

I explained the Wealth Effect here, also citing the various references, including those from Yellen and Bernanke.

But the Fed has become quiet about the wealth effect recently. The failed policy has been replaced by a record amount of QT and rate hikes. It’s like “wealth effect” has suddenly become the dirty word that it has always been.

The Fed’s QT and higher interest rates have begun to reverse the wealth effect and have lowered the wealth disparity a little. The Top 0.1% have given up on average $3.1 million of their wealth since the peak in Q4 2021, despite the big gains in Q1 and Q2 this year.

In Q1 and Q2 this year, stocks have seen a historically huge bounce – and you can see in the charts above how part of the lost wealth was recovered. But Q3 is negative for stocks so far. The Fed will release the wealth data for Q3 in three months. The rapid wealth gains or losses at the top are largely due to changes in equity valuations.
Click to expand...

More (charts and source links):

 
pmbug said:
More (charts and source links):

Click to expand...

Some pretty good comments below the linked article.

Here's part of one by RH. Don't want to post the whole quote for privacy / copyright concerns.

"Sorry. The wealth disparity has not been reduced if you consider how poorer Americans lost money through inflation, while wealthy companies could pass it through via increases in costs. It will not be actually reduced, ever under our current, tax loop-hole-filled system, unless you assume that the .1% wealthiest Americans report all of their wealth accurately and do not hide any of it off shore in tax shelters or in gold or negotionable, bearer instruments, etc.: e.g., in case the government takes over gold holdings, as they did using Executive Order 6102."

Here's a link I found in a comment by ApartmentInvestor. Pretty good pensions, imo.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/p...ounty-pension/?e=CCC FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT
 
Sometimes Fed monetary policy picks winners and losers. Sometimes Fed monetary policy picks losers and losers.
 

How likely are you to get an inheritance, really?​

We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but you’re probably not going to get an inheritance. Hopefully, this information doesn’t surprise you as much as it did our kids — and by “kids” we mean the dog.

A little over 1 in 5 U.S. households had received an inheritance at some point in their lives as of 2022, according to the Federal Reserve’s remarkable Survey of Consumer Finances. The inheritance rate jumps to 2 out of 5 if you look only at folks in their 70s, who have had more time for their parents and favorite aunts to meet a regrettable but timely demise. But even those folks are in the lucky minority.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/per...heritance-really/ar-AA1jHzGG?ocid=socialshare
 
It took me about 10 years of hard work in my 20s to surpass my parents. Kids today want everything handed to them for free.
 
I have been hearing that the trades are declining because young people just don't want to work.

So... What the HELL are they going to do?!

Code?! NO! I am an experienced programmer (or developer, your choice) and I KNOW FOR A FACT that this is a talent that is not teachable. It is something born and inside the programmer. It is a logical attitude. It is attached to life. It is NOT! (added exclamation) just some new skill like "operating" a milling machine. And again, I have to separate those with real machine skills from those who just operate machines. And DAMN! I have to separate those who will operate the machines from those who will not touch a machine. I have to applaud all those who will do the work, regardless of its level.

Yes, I have done the programming, and I have done the physical work.
It sucks when the HR people don't or can't recognize your skills and just keep to their stupid script. Stupid is as stupid does.
 
pmbug said:
www.cnbc.com

The richest 1% of people amassed almost two-thirds of new wealth created in the last two years, Oxfam says

Since 2020, the richest 1% of people have accumulated close to two-thirds of all new wealth created around the world, according to a new report from Oxfam.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com

Direct link to the report:

www.oxfam.org

Survival of the Richest | Oxfam International

www.oxfam.org www.oxfam.org
Click to expand...
this is beacuse the poor have a generally LOW IQ and are typically lazy. perfect combination for poverty
 
jrog100 said:
this is beacuse the poor have a generally LOW IQ and are typically lazy. perfect combination for poverty
Click to expand...

The whole point of this thread was to highlight the effect of inflation (caused by central bank monetary policy) disproportionately benefitting asset class owners (the top 1%) while hurting everyone else (inflation taxes). The deficiencies of the low IQ and lazy are understood. They contribute to folks not being top 1% asset class owners. That doesn't change the fact that the Fed's inflationary monetary policy benefits the very few while stealing wealth from the everyone else. There are also a lot of very smart and hard working people that don't achieve top 1% wealth and they are also being hurt by inflationary monetary policy.

Joe King said:
Creating lots more dollars should fix it!
Click to expand...

Hammer meets nail.
 
That's half of the problem. The other is high energy prices.
 
pmbug said:
The whole point of this thread was to highlight the effect of inflation (caused by central bank monetary policy) disproportionately benefitting asset class owners (the top 1%) while hurting everyone else (inflation taxes). The deficiencies of the low IQ and lazy are understood. They contribute to folks not being top 1% asset class owners. That doesn't change the fact that the Fed's inflationary monetary policy benefits the very few while stealing wealth from the everyone else. There are also a lot of very smart and hard working people that don't achieve top 1% wealth and they are also being hurt by inflationary monetary policy.



Hammer meets nail.
Click to expand...
Top 1% actually requires a lotta luck and likely some shrewed dealings that many arent willing to participate in. Most highly intelligent hard workers can get to the top 5% (net worth over 3 million), without too much effort.
 
jrog100 said:
Most highly intelligent hard workers can get to the top 5% (net worth over 3 million), without too much effort.
Click to expand...
Then get screwed the most.

Edited to add: per this chart, everyone making below $200k is pretty close to getting a free ride.

960x0.png



I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Everyone should have to pay the same dollar amount in taxes. Ie: not to be confused with same percentage.

If we have equal Rights, equal representation, and equal benefit of government as they say we are supposed to have, we should all pay the same amount for those things.

The price of government should be set the same way a gallon of milk is priced. Same for all buyers.

Edited again to further add: if we did that, the days of big bloated wasteful gov would come to a quick end, and freedom would once again reign in America.
 
Joe King said:
Then get screwed the most.

Edited to add: per this chart, everyone making below $200k is pretty close to getting a free ride.

View attachment 12637



I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Everyone should have to pay the same dollar amount in taxes. Ie: not to be confused with same percentage.

If we have equal Rights, equal representation, and equal benefit of government as they say we are supposed to have, we should all pay the same amount for those things.

The price of government should be set the same way a gallon of milk is priced. Same for all buyers.

Edited again to further add: if we did that, the days of big bloated wasteful gov would come to a quick end, and freedom would once again reign in America.
Click to expand...
equal right s is a myth.
 
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