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The trend is going on for decades now. The rise of the finance sector is IMHO the main reason. In the finance sector, multitudes more money is flowing today, t

The trend is going on for decades now. The rise of the finance sector is IMHO the main reason. In the finance sector, multitudes more money is flowing today, than in the real economy with products and services. Big money is going, where the most interest is been made ... but the interest must come from somewhere. To think, that it just appears somehow and everybody is getting richer, is just wishful thinking. Finally, some day, somebody will have to work for it or somebody will loose something (e.g. land that is sold to investors, that use it to generate even more money). So, more and more interest is made by investments, money lending or even speculations. Who are the losers? The working people, that just have not enough money to invest and use their working power or their brains to get the money for living. Globalization is helping this trend. Money can just go where it is cheapest, instead fighting fights with worker organizations. In many countries, people are so desperate, that they sell their work for a prize, they merely can survive on. Trend is going on. Money seeks better places to invest, more land to grab, more patents, more, more, more -- and for those that have not got money already, the possibilities to earn money or to get better of are vanishing, since more and more land is owned, more "intellectual property", more lobbyist, which say, how the laws shall be that shape our future. Also more trade treaties, like TPP, TTIP and the others, which create better conditions to invest and to make profits for corporations ... which are owned by big money.

ThomPete 11y ago
But you have to ask yourself why the finance sector have been on the rise and the answer to that inevitably become technology which powers 4 things. Automation Digitalization Globalization Capital intensive companies instead of labour intensive ones. All these things allow for scalability and therefore support a "highlander principle" where very few players can control most of the wealth.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  Of course, everything is interconnected. But I wanted to point out, which financial, social, business and political trend is following and in the same time behind many developments. That technology drives changes and also drives capital accumulation increase is something we see for more than 100 years. But in the time between the first and second world war (and short after) we also saw a limiting trend that limited capital power. But since the Reagan / Thatcher areas and somehow now accelerated threw the fall of the so called communist block, dominance of capital over labor power and also over social achievements (look in the sweat-shop countries and look in western countries, that drop social standards to be more "competitive") is rising globally in a rate never seen before. Never did we have that many possibilities to speculate or to invest, in things that are more and more artificial. One of the reasons of the finance disaster of 2008 where artificial "financial products" that where derived of derivations of real things (housing loans) -- so the investors could not know, what they where investing in. But the possibilities to speculate are growing and growing. Now I read here, that there are people speculating on lawsuits ... There are so many ways to earn money -- without ever taking up a tool or move a muscle. Just by letting the the computers do the job. But in the end, somebody will have to farm the crops that are used to bake the bread you buy from the speculated money -- or somebody will loose the land, where you build your bungalow on. It just seems that "capital" has taken over everything: Morals, social standards, individual believes, even religion.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Globalization because of technology before first world war was actually increasing and was only stopped by the two wars. So what you saw was globalization briefly held back and technology innovation going into the war. When that stopped technology started to be used for civilian innovation again and globalization started increasing again now with the help of the computer and later internet. The villain isn't capital or capitalism they are just pawns in the larger game where technology is the primary factor to look for. As I mentioned somewhere else. Technology is seen as an externality in economic theory. It's the dark horse that everyone is talking about the wrong way IMO.
    - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
      > Globalization because of technology before first world war was actually increasing and was only stopped by the two wars. I have a slightly different view. The US had some very good presidents. Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of them. He did some serious reforms in the US and countered some of the capitalistic outgrowths. As much I understood, he really did fight for a more human society. In my view, that was one of the main brakes against capital aggregation. An other of course where the two world wars. These factors where important for the rapid growth of social systems and wealth in many western nations. The reversal came later with presidents like Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK. --- In my opinion, yes, technology can bring capital aggregation and thus become a problem for democracy itself -- but good and brave statesmen can counter this trend. I see the few decades after the 2nd WW, which brought wealth to many people (not only the few), as example that technology needs not to be a money accumulating force. Human decisions are also important -- but where to take brave politicians, when there are none? The problem is, that we are all already corrupted by money and easy living (and brainwashed by the tv).
      - ThomPete 11y ago
        The point is that globalization happened outside the US too so regardless of any one president this was made possible by technology not politics.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >But you have to ask yourself why the finance sector have been on the rise and the answer to that inevitably become technology It's not technology at all. Technology doesn't confer the monopoly powers which have led financial giants to be so dominant. Technology can be copied, reproduced and replicated. The reason is much more mundane. The financial sector has been given dumptrucks full of cash and special privileges in the form of valuable guarantees. They're an adjunct of the government in all but name.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    This trend happens everywhere around the world. Even in social democratic countries like the Scandinavian countries this is happening and is only slowed down by the strong redistribution of wealth. So yes regardless of how tight or lax the regulation is same trend is seen everywhere and the only thing they have in common is the use of technology. Ignoring that is simply lying to ourselves.
tomp 11y ago
> make profits for corporations ... which are owned by big money. I agree with your general sentiment, but I'm not sure you're right on this point... Increasingly, the largest shareholders are becoming mutual funds, in which the largest shareholders are pension funds. So essentially, the corporations are becoming more and more owned (although not controlled by) the public.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  The global trend is, that the wealth (in money, shareholder-value, ...) of the world is mostly owned by <<10% of the people. Of course, when you put together all the money of the middle class and also the better of lower class, you get a huge stack of money ... but this part of the worlds wealth is distributed much more than the money of the 1% richest persons. I am not sure, how the pension funds fit into this ... but ask yourself, who controls all the money. In most cases, the money of smaller owners is controlled by the money of the big owners. Of course, it is absolutely conforming with the system, that the small owners also become shareholder threw own investments or funds. But the system is always that way, that money is inherently not democratic, but those with the (singular) hugest stack of money controls the rest. Also those with the most money can draw the biggest benefits from it -- and finally, the money will concentrate more and more in few hands. Might be, that corporations are owned to a large part by the public ... as long as the most benefits go to the wealthiest people (normal people seldom have funds so huge, that they and their children's children don't need to work to have a good live ... billionaires have) and are controlled by the wealthiest people, the extra money from public funds are just a welcome benefit for the system.
laotzu 11y ago
>the interest must come from somewhere This is one of the primary problems of the financial system according to Prof. Franz Hormann. In his banned TED Talk he explains that when money is created and loaned out by the central banks, the money to pay back the interest which is owed is never created, only the principal is created. So basically we are not playing a zero-sum game. The money owed in the form of interest physically can never be paid because it does not exist, and this unpayable debt is what is shoved down to the bottom rungs of society and is what creates the "rat race". We are told we must work to pay off a debt that literally can never be paid off by default. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYWVbdSX7B4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYWVbdSX7B4
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  The problem IMHO is, that even the finance experts do not understand our finance system completely and partly it is more like a believe system instead of real science.
  - laotzu 11y ago
    >The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. -John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, where it went

ThomPete 11y ago

But you have to ask yourself why the finance sector have been on the rise and the answer to that inevitably become technology which powers 4 things. Automation Digitalization Globalization Capital intensive companies instead of labour intensive ones. All these things allow for scalability and therefore support a "highlander principle" where very few players can control most of the wealth.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
Of course, everything is interconnected. But I wanted to point out, which financial, social, business and political trend is following and in the same time behind many developments. That technology drives changes and also drives capital accumulation increase is something we see for more than 100 years. But in the time between the first and second world war (and short after) we also saw a limiting trend that limited capital power. But since the Reagan / Thatcher areas and somehow now accelerated threw the fall of the so called communist block, dominance of capital over labor power and also over social achievements (look in the sweat-shop countries and look in western countries, that drop social standards to be more "competitive") is rising globally in a rate never seen before. Never did we have that many possibilities to speculate or to invest, in things that are more and more artificial. One of the reasons of the finance disaster of 2008 where artificial "financial products" that where derived of derivations of real things (housing loans) -- so the investors could not know, what they where investing in. But the possibilities to speculate are growing and growing. Now I read here, that there are people speculating on lawsuits ... There are so many ways to earn money -- without ever taking up a tool or move a muscle. Just by letting the the computers do the job. But in the end, somebody will have to farm the crops that are used to bake the bread you buy from the speculated money -- or somebody will loose the land, where you build your bungalow on. It just seems that "capital" has taken over everything: Morals, social standards, individual believes, even religion.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Globalization because of technology before first world war was actually increasing and was only stopped by the two wars. So what you saw was globalization briefly held back and technology innovation going into the war. When that stopped technology started to be used for civilian innovation again and globalization started increasing again now with the help of the computer and later internet. The villain isn't capital or capitalism they are just pawns in the larger game where technology is the primary factor to look for. As I mentioned somewhere else. Technology is seen as an externality in economic theory. It's the dark horse that everyone is talking about the wrong way IMO.
  - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
    > Globalization because of technology before first world war was actually increasing and was only stopped by the two wars. I have a slightly different view. The US had some very good presidents. Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of them. He did some serious reforms in the US and countered some of the capitalistic outgrowths. As much I understood, he really did fight for a more human society. In my view, that was one of the main brakes against capital aggregation. An other of course where the two world wars. These factors where important for the rapid growth of social systems and wealth in many western nations. The reversal came later with presidents like Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK. --- In my opinion, yes, technology can bring capital aggregation and thus become a problem for democracy itself -- but good and brave statesmen can counter this trend. I see the few decades after the 2nd WW, which brought wealth to many people (not only the few), as example that technology needs not to be a money accumulating force. Human decisions are also important -- but where to take brave politicians, when there are none? The problem is, that we are all already corrupted by money and easy living (and brainwashed by the tv).
    - ThomPete 11y ago
      The point is that globalization happened outside the US too so regardless of any one president this was made possible by technology not politics.
crdoconnor 11y ago
>But you have to ask yourself why the finance sector have been on the rise and the answer to that inevitably become technology It's not technology at all. Technology doesn't confer the monopoly powers which have led financial giants to be so dominant. Technology can be copied, reproduced and replicated. The reason is much more mundane. The financial sector has been given dumptrucks full of cash and special privileges in the form of valuable guarantees. They're an adjunct of the government in all but name.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  This trend happens everywhere around the world. Even in social democratic countries like the Scandinavian countries this is happening and is only slowed down by the strong redistribution of wealth. So yes regardless of how tight or lax the regulation is same trend is seen everywhere and the only thing they have in common is the use of technology. Ignoring that is simply lying to ourselves.

tomp 11y ago

> make profits for corporations ... which are owned by big money. I agree with your general sentiment, but I'm not sure you're right on this point... Increasingly, the largest shareholders are becoming mutual funds, in which the largest shareholders are pension funds. So essentially, the corporations are becoming more and more owned (although not controlled by) the public.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
The global trend is, that the wealth (in money, shareholder-value, ...) of the world is mostly owned by <<10% of the people. Of course, when you put together all the money of the middle class and also the better of lower class, you get a huge stack of money ... but this part of the worlds wealth is distributed much more than the money of the 1% richest persons. I am not sure, how the pension funds fit into this ... but ask yourself, who controls all the money. In most cases, the money of smaller owners is controlled by the money of the big owners. Of course, it is absolutely conforming with the system, that the small owners also become shareholder threw own investments or funds. But the system is always that way, that money is inherently not democratic, but those with the (singular) hugest stack of money controls the rest. Also those with the most money can draw the biggest benefits from it -- and finally, the money will concentrate more and more in few hands. Might be, that corporations are owned to a large part by the public ... as long as the most benefits go to the wealthiest people (normal people seldom have funds so huge, that they and their children's children don't need to work to have a good live ... billionaires have) and are controlled by the wealthiest people, the extra money from public funds are just a welcome benefit for the system.

laotzu 11y ago

>the interest must come from somewhere This is one of the primary problems of the financial system according to Prof. Franz Hormann. In his banned TED Talk he explains that when money is created and loaned out by the central banks, the money to pay back the interest which is owed is never created, only the principal is created. So basically we are not playing a zero-sum game. The money owed in the form of interest physically can never be paid because it does not exist, and this unpayable debt is what is shoved down to the bottom rungs of society and is what creates the "rat race". We are told we must work to pay off a debt that literally can never be paid off by default. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYWVbdSX7B4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYWVbdSX7B4

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
The problem IMHO is, that even the finance experts do not understand our finance system completely and partly it is more like a believe system instead of real science.
- laotzu 11y ago
  >The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. -John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, where it went