3 ms·

Rahm Emanuel oversaw with Obama the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history. And now he's chiding elites.

ChrisLomont 7y ago
If by upward transfer, you mean elites gained the larger percentage, then also include that immediately previous to Obama the same elites saw the largest percentage losses under the Bush financial collapse. The gains as the economy improved restored some of those losses. Also under Obama the middle class gained significant wealth, through reduction in unemployment, restoring of stock values (i.e., pensions and 401ks), and wage increases (the largest year over year median wage increase on record was under the Obama admin).
- chris_mc 7y ago
  >under Obama the middle class gained significant wealth https://www.huffpost.com/entry/middle-class-charts_n_6507506 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/middle-class-charts_n_6507506 Check out these charts and tell me you're not full of shit. Edit: it took me 30 seconds of googling to find this, next time research your position before you make a fool of yourself.
  - ChrisLomont 7y ago
    Your article is dated 2015. You're ignoring a decent amount of historical growth. Here's a pretty decent chart to let you know how good your news sources are https://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/#iLightbox[gallery138]/0 https://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exa... Here's historical wage growth reports from BLS. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/earnings-and-wages.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/earnings-and-wages.htm Here's 75 consecutive months of growth under Obama, a record: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/december-jobs-report/512366/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/decembe... Here's wage growth charts https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth Here's median householdincome from FRED https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N Here's income data from Census, which you can download in Excel and analyze yourself. Again same conclusions. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... As you can see, all of these paint a much rosier picture than HuffPo. And places like BLS and FRED and Census are vastly more trustworthy for data, since you remove opinion piece writers trying to get eyeballs. >Edit: it took me 30 seconds of googling to find this, next time research your position before you make a fool of yourself. Indeed.
    - chris_mc 7y ago
      You just sprayed links all over, expecting me to fish through that data? From what I can tell, your data shows mediocre growth that has barely kept pace with inflation. Half the links you show are for "median" values, which will always increase in an economy that is growing (as it did under the Obama years). It's fact that the middle class as stagnated as the ultra-wealth have gained immensely over the past decades, no amount of FUD will make your argument factual. I'm not arguing any further with someone who argues in bad faith.
      - ChrisLomont 7y ago
        >Half the links you show are for "median" values, which will always increase in an economy that is growing (as it did under the Obama years). It's fact that the middle class as stagnated as the ultra-wealth have gained immensely over the past decades, You're confusing median with mean. Median is the middlemost income, which represents the middle class well. Mean is the average including tops and bottoms. >I'm not arguing any further with someone who argues in bad faith. You presented worse sourced, out of date data, misuse or don't understand basic terms, and don't look at evidence from well respected sources when presented. How am I the one not arguing in good faith?
consumer451 7y ago
I’d love some more detail on your statement, but either way I don’t think we should attack the messenger here. The message in OP is solid in my view, and the fact that it’s coming from an “establishment” Democrat is refreshing.

If by upward transfer, you mean elites gained the larger percentage, then also include that immediately previous to Obama the same elites saw the largest percentage losses under the Bush financial collapse. The gains as the economy improved restored some of those losses. Also under Obama the middle class gained significant wealth, through reduction in unemployment, restoring of stock values (i.e., pensions and 401ks), and wage increases (the largest year over year median wage increase on record was under the Obama admin).

chris_mc 7y ago
>under Obama the middle class gained significant wealth https://www.huffpost.com/entry/middle-class-charts_n_6507506 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/middle-class-charts_n_6507506 Check out these charts and tell me you're not full of shit. Edit: it took me 30 seconds of googling to find this, next time research your position before you make a fool of yourself.
- ChrisLomont 7y ago
  Your article is dated 2015. You're ignoring a decent amount of historical growth. Here's a pretty decent chart to let you know how good your news sources are https://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/#iLightbox[gallery138]/0 https://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exa... Here's historical wage growth reports from BLS. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/earnings-and-wages.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/earnings-and-wages.htm Here's 75 consecutive months of growth under Obama, a record: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/december-jobs-report/512366/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/decembe... Here's wage growth charts https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth Here's median householdincome from FRED https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N Here's income data from Census, which you can download in Excel and analyze yourself. Again same conclusions. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... As you can see, all of these paint a much rosier picture than HuffPo. And places like BLS and FRED and Census are vastly more trustworthy for data, since you remove opinion piece writers trying to get eyeballs. >Edit: it took me 30 seconds of googling to find this, next time research your position before you make a fool of yourself. Indeed.
  - chris_mc 7y ago
    You just sprayed links all over, expecting me to fish through that data? From what I can tell, your data shows mediocre growth that has barely kept pace with inflation. Half the links you show are for "median" values, which will always increase in an economy that is growing (as it did under the Obama years). It's fact that the middle class as stagnated as the ultra-wealth have gained immensely over the past decades, no amount of FUD will make your argument factual. I'm not arguing any further with someone who argues in bad faith.
    - ChrisLomont 7y ago
      >Half the links you show are for "median" values, which will always increase in an economy that is growing (as it did under the Obama years). It's fact that the middle class as stagnated as the ultra-wealth have gained immensely over the past decades, You're confusing median with mean. Median is the middlemost income, which represents the middle class well. Mean is the average including tops and bottoms. >I'm not arguing any further with someone who argues in bad faith. You presented worse sourced, out of date data, misuse or don't understand basic terms, and don't look at evidence from well respected sources when presented. How am I the one not arguing in good faith?

consumer451 7y ago

I’d love some more detail on your statement, but either way I don’t think we should attack the messenger here. The message in OP is solid in my view, and the fact that it’s coming from an “establishment” Democrat is refreshing.