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I have nothing against you personally. I'm just refuting your idea that Fed actions from the 2010s are responsible for wealth inequality that has been rising s

I have nothing against you personally. I'm just refuting your idea that Fed actions from the 2010s are responsible for wealth inequality that has been rising since the 1970s. So how do you explain everything that happened on the wealth inequality front from the 1970s up to the financial crisis of 2009? I don't agree with everything in the original article either, but many of the points it made are correct.

jkhdigital 6y ago
The 2010s were especially crazy, but I’m pretty sure this criticism of Fed policy extends back to at least the 1990s.
f38zf5vdt 6y ago
So this all started when the US went off the gold standard then?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  No, the oil shocks of the 1970s were short term disruptions which unsettled things, but the big durable change was the major tax burden shift under Reagan.
  - fuzzfactor 6y ago
    >the oil shocks of the 1970s were short term disruptions which unsettled things Which led to the removal of the gold standard by those who knew the outcome would proceed as it has. If Reagan didn't shift the tax burden the very wealthy would not have been able to recover their massive losses as rapidly.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
> So how do you explain everything that happened on the wealth inequality front from the 1970s up to the financial crisis of 2009? Are you able to articulate why you believe "because Fed policy" doesn't apply as a valid argument for 1970 through 2009?
WalterBright 6y ago
> how do you explain everything that happened on the wealth inequality front from the 1970s up to the financial crisis of 2009? In one word: computers. In tsunami after tsunami from 1975 to the present, computers have revolutionized everything we do. I remember one tsunami in 1975, when slide rules in September were $125 and by December they were $5 and in January they disappeared. The calculator had arrived. In 1980 at Boeing you could hear the roar of the tsunami coming in the form of CAD. Then spreadsheets, word processing, on and on. It's no coincidence that the biggest companies in the world are all American, and all computer companies. The big increase in wealth was created by the computer companies, and accrued to the people working in them and those smart enough to have invested in them. BTW, according to Google: "The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid roughly $616 billion, or 38.5 percent of all income taxes, while the bottom 90 percent paid about $479 billion, or 29.9 percent of all income taxes."
- TrinaryWorksToo 6y ago
  > and those smart enough to have invested in them. Correction: Wealthy enough to be able to invest in them.
  - undefined1 6y ago
    or early enough $1,000 invested in AMZN is now worth over $1M. or $10 in Bitcoin would have done the trick.
    - TrinaryWorksToo 6y ago
      Do you understand how poor some people are?
      - unishark 6y ago
        This is a different goalpost. The story is about the top 1 percent versus the bottom 90 percent.
        6y ago
swixi 6y ago
> So how do you explain everything that happened on the wealth inequality front from the 1970s up to the financial crisis of 2009? Of course there's never a single thing that explains a complex issue, but the root of the current Fed's monetary policy goes back to Greenspan, so the poster's argument could easily be extended to that iteration of the Fed. Also, the 1980s is when (modern) wealth inequality really started to take off. And it's much worse today.
maneesh 6y ago
Fed/government actions from the 1970s are responsible for the inequality that has been rising since the 1970s...unpegging the USD from the gold standard in 1971, and the creation of the derivative market at the same time. Money used to have gravity, but now it is created magically at will -- especially in terms of derivatives. The world's money supply now doubles faster than Moore's law. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization-2020/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and... https://www.ted.com/talks/maneesh_sethi_money_the_greatest_story_ever_told https://www.ted.com/talks/maneesh_sethi_money_the_greatest_s...

jkhdigital 6y ago

The 2010s were especially crazy, but I’m pretty sure this criticism of Fed policy extends back to at least the 1990s.

f38zf5vdt 6y ago

So this all started when the US went off the gold standard then?

dragonwriter 6y ago
No, the oil shocks of the 1970s were short term disruptions which unsettled things, but the big durable change was the major tax burden shift under Reagan.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  >the oil shocks of the 1970s were short term disruptions which unsettled things Which led to the removal of the gold standard by those who knew the outcome would proceed as it has. If Reagan didn't shift the tax burden the very wealthy would not have been able to recover their massive losses as rapidly.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

> So how do you explain everything that happened on the wealth inequality front from the 1970s up to the financial crisis of 2009? Are you able to articulate why you believe "because Fed policy" doesn't apply as a valid argument for 1970 through 2009?

WalterBright 6y ago

> how do you explain everything that happened on the wealth inequality front from the 1970s up to the financial crisis of 2009? In one word: computers. In tsunami after tsunami from 1975 to the present, computers have revolutionized everything we do. I remember one tsunami in 1975, when slide rules in September were $125 and by December they were $5 and in January they disappeared. The calculator had arrived. In 1980 at Boeing you could hear the roar of the tsunami coming in the form of CAD. Then spreadsheets, word processing, on and on. It's no coincidence that the biggest companies in the world are all American, and all computer companies. The big increase in wealth was created by the computer companies, and accrued to the people working in them and those smart enough to have invested in them. BTW, according to Google: "The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid roughly $616 billion, or 38.5 percent of all income taxes, while the bottom 90 percent paid about $479 billion, or 29.9 percent of all income taxes."

TrinaryWorksToo 6y ago
> and those smart enough to have invested in them. Correction: Wealthy enough to be able to invest in them.
- undefined1 6y ago
  or early enough $1,000 invested in AMZN is now worth over $1M. or $10 in Bitcoin would have done the trick.
  - TrinaryWorksToo 6y ago
    Do you understand how poor some people are?
    - unishark 6y ago
      This is a different goalpost. The story is about the top 1 percent versus the bottom 90 percent.
      - 6y ago

swixi 6y ago

> So how do you explain everything that happened on the wealth inequality front from the 1970s up to the financial crisis of 2009? Of course there's never a single thing that explains a complex issue, but the root of the current Fed's monetary policy goes back to Greenspan, so the poster's argument could easily be extended to that iteration of the Fed. Also, the 1980s is when (modern) wealth inequality really started to take off. And it's much worse today.

maneesh 6y ago

Fed/government actions from the 1970s are responsible for the inequality that has been rising since the 1970s...unpegging the USD from the gold standard in 1971, and the creation of the derivative market at the same time. Money used to have gravity, but now it is created magically at will -- especially in terms of derivatives. The world's money supply now doubles faster than Moore's law. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization-2020/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and... https://www.ted.com/talks/maneesh_sethi_money_the_greatest_story_ever_told https://www.ted.com/talks/maneesh_sethi_money_the_greatest_s...