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Except there is not enough redistributable capital around to let it happen. Even if all U.S. capital stock ($70T) was distributed to everyone evenly, it won't l

Except there is not enough redistributable capital around to let it happen. Even if all U.S. capital stock ($70T) was distributed to everyone evenly, it won't let people out of poverty (sustainable income derived from this will equal to about the minimum wage per adult). So even the most terribly unfair capital redistribution imaginable will ok, maybe pay for food stamps for everyone, but hardly much more.

smaryjerry 5y ago
In the last year 33.8% of all personal income in the US came from the government. It’s crazy to think that number could go much higher but no wonder we are experiencing shortages of just about everything and inflation.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  That is incredible, do you have a link by chance?
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    I'm guessing it's a cherry picked statistic that is using covid relief to paint some broader picture that doesn't exist. Of course I'd expect government assistance to increase during the worst pandemic in a generation.
    - smaryjerry 5y ago
      How is that painting a picture that doesn’t exist? I never said that was in normal times. I said in the last year.
  - smaryjerry 5y ago
    https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1389376827915919361 https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/138937682791591936... Can’t find a link to an article but here is a writer for Bloomberg with reference to his graphs from Bloomberg.
- imtringued 5y ago
  I'm not sure you understand your own comment because what you are saying is basically that people are asking for way too high wages. Why? Because governments don't force people to work for them, they have to hire them on the open market, which means that they have to pay the prevailing wage and that wage is too high for private companies, which forces them to raise their prices, in short, higher wages drive inflation, which means wage growth is leading inflation, which means workers are actually benefiting from the current situation. This is true to some extent and it explains 2% inflation, but the boring answer is that gasoline prices are rising much much faster than wages which is another 2% for 4% inflation in total.
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
Just some back of the envelope work - with 70 million million divided amoung 300 million people, that's 233,333 per person. Assume 4 people per household that's about a million per household. Avg s&p dividend is 2.3% - That's minimum wage per 2 working adult household. The math does seem to stack up. The problem is distribution, not total wealth it seems Edit: Ok this is skewed as US stock markets are really a global stock market, but if you took for example global GDP (~115 Trn) and divided by 8 bn people or 4 person households you end up with 60k per household globally. Here's a trick I was explaining to my son earlier. We really do live in the Matrix. An announcement comes on and they are resetting - everyone gets a new life starting tomorrow - but randomly allocated over the 8 billion possible "players". We can keep the current social order or we can design a new one. Do you hope the 8 billion sided dice rolls in your favour and you land in Jeff Bezos body? Or do you think maybe we should redesign society ?
- anovikov 5y ago
  Yes but that way of splitting would very quickly destroy for the very very obvious reason - no money must be given to children... And dividing by adults, say over-15s, it's 70T per 257M, $272K per adult or $1044 per month for that family of 4 with 2 adults in it... That hardly solves any questions. And you can't divide all of it, because it means destroying capitalism, taking the bottom out of society. Only a small fraction of capital stock can possibly be distributed this way.
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    > $272k per adult or $1044 per month for that family of 4 with 2 adults in it Something fishy about your math here. $272k per adult is $544k per family. If you paid it over one year that's $45k per month. Edit: oh, I see, you are only giving people the interest on the capital and assuming a growth rate of ~2%. Both of which seem quite silly to me, but whatever.
    - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
      The numbers are silly - but I am not advocating some massive one off redistribution - I am just trying to argue against the idea there is not enough money to go around.

smaryjerry 5y ago

In the last year 33.8% of all personal income in the US came from the government. It’s crazy to think that number could go much higher but no wonder we are experiencing shortages of just about everything and inflation.

vegetablepotpie 5y ago
That is incredible, do you have a link by chance?
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  I'm guessing it's a cherry picked statistic that is using covid relief to paint some broader picture that doesn't exist. Of course I'd expect government assistance to increase during the worst pandemic in a generation.
  - smaryjerry 5y ago
    How is that painting a picture that doesn’t exist? I never said that was in normal times. I said in the last year.
- smaryjerry 5y ago
  https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1389376827915919361 https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/138937682791591936... Can’t find a link to an article but here is a writer for Bloomberg with reference to his graphs from Bloomberg.
imtringued 5y ago
I'm not sure you understand your own comment because what you are saying is basically that people are asking for way too high wages. Why? Because governments don't force people to work for them, they have to hire them on the open market, which means that they have to pay the prevailing wage and that wage is too high for private companies, which forces them to raise their prices, in short, higher wages drive inflation, which means wage growth is leading inflation, which means workers are actually benefiting from the current situation. This is true to some extent and it explains 2% inflation, but the boring answer is that gasoline prices are rising much much faster than wages which is another 2% for 4% inflation in total.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

Just some back of the envelope work - with 70 million million divided amoung 300 million people, that's 233,333 per person. Assume 4 people per household that's about a million per household. Avg s&p dividend is 2.3% - That's minimum wage per 2 working adult household. The math does seem to stack up. The problem is distribution, not total wealth it seems Edit: Ok this is skewed as US stock markets are really a global stock market, but if you took for example global GDP (~115 Trn) and divided by 8 bn people or 4 person households you end up with 60k per household globally. Here's a trick I was explaining to my son earlier. We really do live in the Matrix. An announcement comes on and they are resetting - everyone gets a new life starting tomorrow - but randomly allocated over the 8 billion possible "players". We can keep the current social order or we can design a new one. Do you hope the 8 billion sided dice rolls in your favour and you land in Jeff Bezos body? Or do you think maybe we should redesign society ?

anovikov 5y ago
Yes but that way of splitting would very quickly destroy for the very very obvious reason - no money must be given to children... And dividing by adults, say over-15s, it's 70T per 257M, $272K per adult or $1044 per month for that family of 4 with 2 adults in it... That hardly solves any questions. And you can't divide all of it, because it means destroying capitalism, taking the bottom out of society. Only a small fraction of capital stock can possibly be distributed this way.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  > $272k per adult or $1044 per month for that family of 4 with 2 adults in it Something fishy about your math here. $272k per adult is $544k per family. If you paid it over one year that's $45k per month. Edit: oh, I see, you are only giving people the interest on the capital and assuming a growth rate of ~2%. Both of which seem quite silly to me, but whatever.
  - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
    The numbers are silly - but I am not advocating some massive one off redistribution - I am just trying to argue against the idea there is not enough money to go around.