14 ms·

The US Is a Banana Republic: The 1% Own More Wealth Than the Entire Middle Class

243 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

tim333 5y ago
You tend to get this effect when there's a boom on and photo sharing websites, crypto nonsense and such like get valued at hundreds of billions. It doesn't necessarily hurt the poor and often doesn't last forever.
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
ZeroHedge is a Russian backed "News" source from what ive read. Im not listening to them on anything.
giansegato 5y ago
The first plot is especially troubling. The last time the top 1% had as much as the bottom 90% was right on the eve of WWII. Now, an exclusively economic interpretation of history is certainly wrong, but one cannot refrain from thinking that this much inequality won't lead to social unrest at best, flat out war at worst
- amelius 5y ago
  As long as the public has access to cheap entertainment like Netflix and social media, there will be no war. Panem et circenses.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    Bread and circuses only protect against attack from within.
    - orangepanda 5y ago
      Export it then. "My people are now buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music"
      - toyg 5y ago
        Culture victory imminent!
    - i_am_proteus 5y ago
      The USA is, metaphorically, a powerful exporter of both.
  - yetihehe 5y ago
    Yeah, but it looks like we will be out of "bread" soon (or "bread" too expensive to buy, which is the same). Netflix won't be enough without access to food.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    Netflix does not pay rents, food, gas, healthcare and the rest. Entertainment only distracts you from minor inconveniences.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Some people are content on SNAP, Medicaid, public housing, etc.
      - yardie 5y ago
        And in most states, all 3 of those programs require they have some form of work, except those on disability.
        giantg2 5y ago
        I don't think that's completely true. Generally, housing and SNAP have work requirements for most people. Medicaid generally does not. There's a recent waiver process that allows states to implement a work requirement, but most states have not taken advantage of that. I have a relative that lived in free public housing, recieved SNAP, and is on Medicaid. I know they still get food from the food bank, but I'm not sure if they still get SNAP. They moved out of the free housing into an apartment (inheritance). They refuse to get a job.
        yardie 5y ago
        Food banks aren't means tested. I've seen plenty of BMWs pull up to one during the pandemic. Medicaid is extremely means tested. You can't own assets >$3000. Chances are your relative that inherited an apartment is no longer receiving Medicaid. And SNAP not only has a work requirement but there is retraining requirement as well. So somehow your relative managed to not get caught by 3 different gov't agencies?
        giantg2 5y ago
        I believe it was transferred in an indirect way, maybe a trust.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    People don't only need Netflix and Facebook - they also need homes, medical care, and enough free time to make use of Netflix and Facebook.
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses António de Oliveira Salazar, the dictator of Portugal had a similar take on it. The triple Fs of Fado (music), Futbol (sports) and Fiesta (entertainment: Três F https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%AAs_F https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%AAs_F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salaz...
    - throwaway59553 5y ago
      The third F is for "Fátima" (Our Lady of Fátima). And besides the Football, it has nothing to do with Bread and Circus, as every people should cling to their Faith and customs. Edit: This is present in your own links you didn't bother reading, and you'd see those "Three Fs" wasn't any Regime motto, but post 25 April propaganda, the official one was "Deus, Pátria e Família" (God, Fatherland, Family).
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    You are missing the bread part, as housing, education and healthcare become unaffordable
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  That is the main thesis of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce.... IIRC, most societies don't tolerate such inequality and there are two options to reduce them greatly (besides taxes): - wars (in the end, massive destruction tends to make all _surviving_ men more equal) - and hyperinflation (the poor suffer but since most wealth is held by the rich, inflation affects them most).
  - roenxi 5y ago
    Hyperinflation doesn't directly hurt people who have wealth, the valuation of the wealth in cash terms is the part of the system going up. Hyperinflation directly hurts income earners and anyone who holds a significant part of their wealth in cash.
    - pydry 5y ago
      It hurts creditors more than anybody else. It certainly helps hit the reset button on aggregate debt levels.
      - Sebb767 5y ago
        Only in part. A lot of loan and mortgage contracts (at least in the EU) have provisions built in that allow banks to reject down payments over a specific limit, usually 5-10%. If push comes to shove, the state might even force you to mortage your home to finance itself after crisis [0]. It surely helps debtors a bit, but you can't just go to your bank with a single note and be done. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwangshypothek#Geschichte https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwangshypothek#Geschichte (unfortunately only in German)
        pydry 5y ago
        >have provisions built in that allow banks to reject down payments over a specific limit, usually 5-10%. That would mean instead of paying them a lump sum of equivalent-to-$100 to pay off your mortgage you end up paying an equivalent of, say $2 per month? I have heard of this sort of thing happening to some people when hyperinflation kicked in - effectively getting a free house/car/etc.
- easytiger 5y ago
  You know that inequality in the USA had absolutely nothing to do with WWII right?
  - christophilus 5y ago
    Monetary woes (and egregious war penalties) had a whole lot to do with the rise of fascism, though, so it’s not totally off-base.
    - easytiger 5y ago
      Really? The guy just tried to equate particular wealth in the USA with Hitler's desire to establish the 3rd Reich. It's not on the same planet, let alone on base
  - giansegato 5y ago
    You know that the US had one of the largest stake in Germany's appalling debt before Hitler took power, right? Why do you think it took 10 years for the Nazis to go to power? Between '23 and '33 one thing happened: 1929. And yes: it happened in New York.
    - easytiger 5y ago
      I think you'll find more than one thing happened. As it happens the Nazis rise to power is just about the most studied period of human history. Trying to generate some level of John Nash type synchronicity going from an invalid inference of similarity between wealth inequality in two separate periods of history to ww2 to impeding doom is absurd. Even more foolish to assert the great depression was so simply explained by inequality. That's obviously not the case.
      - giansegato 5y ago
        Never once I said it's the _only_ reason this happened (obviously). But between "it's the only reason" and "it has nothing to do with it" there's a lot of ground to cover, don't ya think? I don't think it's far fetched to assert that the US and Germany in the 20s were extremely connected, financially speaking. How much this impacted the subsequent events can be debated. But believing in no impact at all is just intellectually dishonest. It's a plain fact that '29 and investment dry-up in Europe caused incredible hardship on Germans (and their voting preferences in the '33 elections).
- alfiedotwtf 5y ago
  With no enforced minimum wage in America, and with planned "Company Towns" where employers like Amazon have employees rent company-owned houses, it's almost like America is On The Road To Serfdom.
  - kazen44 5y ago
    more ilke a return to the gilded age. The question is if the violence of the last half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century will return aswell.
roenxi 5y ago
Much as I hesitate to show any support for a Zerohedge article - this is probably linked to all the money creation and the lack of inflation. It is becoming more obvious what happened to the money.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
I’m sure it’s the upper 1%, especially. Still, what’s different about life when you move from the 2% to the 1%? I would hypothesize an experience where you realize that your money can work harder than you can. Also, this whole intergenerational wealth vision. What’s that like?
- garmaine 5y ago
  It’s quite nice.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    Honestly, I doubt that. Some part of your brain must realize the suffering that enables your cushy lifestyle; some shred of remaining conscience must look at yourself with pity. There are endless rationalisations to choose from, endless distractions to buy - but actual contentment will only grow further away. All of history's wisest people agree on this; many quotes from Buddha and Jesus relate to exactly this point.
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
      Maybe you've already sold your conscience when becoming part of the 1%, so you don't need more/difference excuses when reaching the next levels. Most people in my country's 1% have already made the choices that allow them to accumulate with no end. They're already placed in a strong enough bubble that they don't see the results of their actions, e.g if their investments/lobbying hurts the poor (e.g all law makers are from the same class, media sources are so personalized so you don't share the same experience with the rest of society, they starts presenting the poor as "lazy, dumb, evil zombies", your Uber won't let you cross anyone from below levels or make sure you avoid certain districts, etc). There's a French word for that: l'entre-soi -- people choosing to live in their microcosm (social, political, etc.) avoiding contact with those who are not part of it.
    - nindalf 5y ago
      This kind of hyperbole is just virtue signalling. You want to tell us what a great person you are because clearly you think about all this and you've fixed it by not exploiting anyone else. In your rush to excoriate someone for being a part of the 1%, you've forgotten that you're easily in the 1% of people living on earth and we're all connected thanks to global trade. All the things you've said apply equally to you. You can't tell us with certainty about the living conditions of everyone who made your shoes, your phone or your means of transport.
mickjagger 5y ago
It wouldn’t matter, IF they paid some appropriate tax level. But they don’t. So it does matter.
- garmaine 5y ago
  Taxes are progressive, so they do pay more taxes than the 99%.
  - 988747 5y ago
    Really appreciate the sarcasm :)
  - lm28469 5y ago
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/06/08/richest-americans-including-bezos-musk-and-buffett-paid-federal-income-taxes-equaling-just-34-of-401-billion-in-new-wealth-bombshell-report-shows/?sh=58caeb857fe1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/06/08/richest-...
    - garmaine 5y ago
      Tax deferral is not tax avoidance. If Elon Musk gets a loan backed by his Tesla shares to diversify his holdings, that isn't actually a "tax free" cash out. The tax is just deferred to if/when the bank margin calls the loan, or he dies, etc. But the taxes do get paid, eventually. These Forbes articles and such conflate different issues and really confuse this point.
  - willis936 5y ago
    Have you not read the news this week or anytime since 2016?
    - garmaine 5y ago
      Facts: https://www.thebalance.com/what-the-average-american-pays-in-taxes-4768594 https://www.thebalance.com/what-the-average-american-pays-in... "According to the Tax Foundation's review of 2018 tax returns, the latest year for which data is available, the top 1% paid an average income tax rate of about 25.4%." To pay an average income tax rate of 25.4% in 2018 would require an income of $165,000/yr. That would put you in the top 2%. And this is completely ignoring deductions, credits, etc. which proportionally help lower income tax brackets more due to cutoffs and phase outs. 98% of Americans have a lower average income tax rate than the top 1%, even under conservative assumptions. ----- I suggest looking up facts and doing some fermi calculations yourself instead of blindly believing what you read in the news.
Tepix 5y ago
There's no peaceful way out of this dilemma - the ultra-rich have the money to corrupt the politicians. They get to write the rules that make them even richer. Meanwhile, democracy's mechanisms are no longer working.
- zarkov99 5y ago
  1% isn't ultra rich.
  - consp 5y ago
    For most people in the world the 1% in the US are the ultra rich. And for the other 99% of the US population they might just as well be.
    - criley2 5y ago
      This isn't a fair or useful way to see things. Just because "American minimum wage is a fortune in India" or something doesn't mean someone making minimum wage in America isn't dirt poor. We all have our costs of living, and how "rich" we are is relative to where we live.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    $700k/year and $7,000k/year are the same thing to someone who occasionally has to decide which essential bill to incur a reinstatement penalty over.
  - ac29 5y ago
    According to the IRS, the annual income of the top 1% starts at $516,714 and averages $1,625,221: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5398.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5398.pdf I think certainly most of the bottom 90% would consider an annual income well in excess of $1M/year to be "ultra rich".
- akudha 5y ago
  It is depressing to see how cheap it is to corrupt the politicians. A few thousand here and a few thousand there - thats all it takes. Maybe we should crowd source funds to counteract the bribes from the rich!
jahnu 5y ago
This zero hedge obsession with the gold standard and simplistic view that if it were reinstated the problems listed would be largely eliminated makes it hard to take them seriously. You know who also is not on the gold standard? Every other country where a large range of conditions exist.
- zkomp 5y ago
  Fine but zerohedge is not really one author or one agenda, it is an aggregate of many different views and you can’t trust all of them equally…
  - hnmullany 5y ago
    It has a fine sprinkling of Russian state information talking points for some weird reason.
    - zkomp 5y ago
      I dont find it weird, just mildly disturbing having to sift through. Still worth it.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
    The have exactly one view - that of a pro**nda bureau of a certain country.
    - zkomp 5y ago
      I disagree, and that is fundamental point. It is not just one view, you can pretty much check the different authors or find the original sources and they are not in agreement. Propaganda is useless, but calling bullshit on another certain countrys propaganda, that is refreshing. It is all your loss disregarding and hating on it
- jeltz 5y ago
  Especially since the US abandoned the gold standard in the 1930s, and the issues with wealth inequality clearly existed with the gold standard.
drstewart 5y ago
>banana republic >Learn to pronounce >noun >a small state that is politically unstable as a result of the domination of its economy by a single export controlled by foreign capital. Do words just not have meaning anymore?
- kiryin 5y ago
  "Banana republic" implies more than what the dictionary definition is. If you look at the wealth distribution in any example "banana republic", you'll find a few very wealthy people/warlords and many dirt poor with close to nothing in between
  - cle 5y ago
    There’s already a well-established word for a country run by rich elite. Calling the US a “banana republic” is a shocking headline, which I think is the real point. The US economy is not very similar to actual banana republics though. There are some aspects which are becoming similar, yes, but also many in which they’re not. To me it reads as a clickbait headline.
  - lelanthran 5y ago
    > "Banana republic" implies more than what the dictionary definition is. I think that any argument that needs the dictionary to be wrong, is probably wrong.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  The meaning of words changes over time, based on how people use them. More at 11.
  - B-Con 5y ago
    That isn't a license to misuse words in a way that forgets your agenda whenever you want.
    - mandmandam 5y ago
jarcane 5y ago
Surely this site must have some standard about it's sources? https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge
- dalmo3 5y ago
  I think as long as it adds to the discussion, linking to sites like rationalwiki shouldn't be a problem.
- throwaway59553 5y ago
  Rational Wiki, another totally unbiased source.
fredestine 5y ago
no wonder. those nice 1% distracted americans into a war of races (while we all agreed long that there is only one race it isn't the case anymore looking at fox, cnn, biden, paski, white and black racial movments,...). they did that right after occupy wall street. they understood that this movement was dangerous for them because targerting the right people responsible for the racism, inequalities and theft in western societies. and instead of fighting against us they just poured money into minority-based marketing so that now the goldman sachs of the world sponsor the gay pride and other minority movements to push the narrative that racism is because of the "way society is" hell they even call it "systemic racism" so that way it is something dumb that you name and never understand, hiding away the fact that those 1% are the one creating this system and profiting off it from every poor person and middle class in america. whatever their color.
- toyg 5y ago
  There is no direct link between civil-rights awareness increases and Occupy ending. Occupy simply ended like most cultural movements end: organizers were slowly coopted by the system, one way or the other, because people get old and settle down. In my 40+ years of life, I've seen multiple movements with similar themes emerge and subsume, they are like tidal waves. In many ways, they are just a path for certain personality types to carve their role in society. On the other hand, civil-rights advancements are a slow but well-rooted change in social attitudes. Because these ideas are not conflictual with capitalism (in fact they complement it, by expanding the market for goods and services to under-represented groups), they get swallowed and repackaged by the system, becoming mainstream.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Which civil rights movements would you think can make a lasting change in this era?
    - toyg 5y ago
      It's hard to think of something completely new. I suspect we will see something that aims to reduce the influence of machines over humans, particularly in the workplace and/or around AI, because that balance is getting out of whack in ways that are becoming more and more difficult to ignore. It will be mixed with some anti-capitalist content; the system will discard the latter and coopt the former, somehow, in the same way it did with the sexual revolution and civil rights.
kiryin 5y ago
I applaud for having the balls to post zerohedge here. I only skim the headlines most of the time but now and again, they post a really good article with in-depth information if you have the patience to see past the heavily opinionated commentary. If you're into finance and can handle it, it should be on your reading list. Variety is the spice of life.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
TheGigaChad 5y ago
Idiot.
scotty79 5y ago
Given that only the laws that are accepted by financial elite are passed and preference of poor people doesn't matter you'd have to influence (scare?) only the rich people to achieve some change. You can completely skip making the public aware or trying to get politicians onboard. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4...
Vosporos 5y ago
hahahaha
pjmartorell 5y ago
"American dream" they call it
- jason0597 5y ago
  "It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it!" - George Carlin
  - nec4b 5y ago
    He was a millionaire. You should take his quote with a grain of salt, because he was a self made man.
maratc 5y ago
A reminder: take any sum operation of wealth with a huge grain of salt. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS228821959920140404 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS228821959920140404
- sergiosgc 5y ago
  I disagree with the premise of the article. If someone has negative assets, they are poorer than people with zero assets. The article paints access to credit as a form of wealth, which it is, but in the end wealth is measured by accumulated assets, as a proxy indicator for earning potential. If you use credit to acquire assets, real estate for example, you won't move the needle on your total net worth. So, the overindebted in the US are those who used credit for expenses or for failed investments. They are poorer than those with zero debt. The only exception that I can see, and which the article does not mention, is the use of credit for acquiring untangible assets, such as education. The correction would be to measure earning potential per individual, instead of net-assets, but that is basically impossible at large scale. We are stuck using net assets as a proxy for earning potential. Sum of wealth is an acceptable measure of income inequality.
  - maratc 5y ago
    > So, the overindebted in the US are those who used credit for expenses or for failed investments. They are poorer than those with zero debt. Someone who owns a $200,000 house (and a mortgage of $210,000) is poorer than someone who has no house? Someone who took a $50,000 loan for a new car and drove it for one day, technically lowering its price to $45,000, is poorer than someone who has no car?
  - hnbad 5y ago
    It's worth noting that Eike Batista, whom the article mentions as an example for someone "anybody trying to get by on less than a dollar a day" would "happily change places with" had most of his assets seized a year after the article was written and was recently sentenced to 30 years in prison. Additionally Jérôme Kerviel's €4.9 billion fine was reduced to $1 million two years after the article came out but he served five months in prison the same year the article was written. The article's framing implies that these "debt billionaires" significantly impact these statistics but doesn't demonstrate whether this is the case by contrasting them with other measures, only making vague comparisons between American and Chinese "savings relative to household income". But arguably a debt-free Chinese person with modest savings is less poor than a working class American with debts they can barely afford paying the interest on because the latter is practically living under indentured servitude.
_rebocador_ 5y ago
From my pov, seems like the top 1% has wealth in stock, company valuation, which is only done by the middle class and lower class, buying stock. So everything they have is handed to them by the ones who buy the stock. Quit doing it. Why do people buy so much stock, is that because they want to invest in companies? sure there are cases of that, but most importantly they don't want to see their money devalue with the inflation caused by gov policies.
- _rebocador_ 5y ago
  by the way this fits well with this. https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2020/09/24/wtf-happened-in-1971 https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2020/09/24/wtf-happened-i...
  - jaybrendansmith 5y ago
    Correlation != Causation. There are many reasons for this that have very little to do with the Gold Standard. I would suggest that technology itself has caused much if not most of this, as has the destruction of Unions, deregulation, and yes government corruption. But I've yet to hear a plausible explanation for how the Gold Standard somehow maintained wages in line with GDP. The only somewhat plausible reason I see here is that a free currency encouraged a move to assets, which protected the rich against inflation somewhat better than the rest.
    - _rebocador_ 5y ago
      my first comment has a plausible explanation.
disabled 5y ago
Sure this is a problem but if the American people had the reasonable expectation of being cared for, with respect to healthcare and end-of-life care, a lot of this 1% wealth chasing would not be occurring. If you want a good read about how the *****y the US healthcare system is, this is a very worthwhile read. Ironically the author is the screenwriter of “Girl, Interrupted” and the story she writes is about how her son got screwed by the US healthcare system and is titled “Boy, Interrupted”. It also shows you how desperate people get for specialized care, and will shell out unfathomable amounts of money for “treatment” at sketchy places: https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/06/boy-interrupted-a-story-of-akathisia/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/06/boy-interrupted-a-story... Ironically, the last straw for me, when it came to living in America was my diagnosis of akathisia (just like the linked story), which is 1000x worse than it sounds. I have severe depression and I had been taking my medications as prescribed. Because of my taking these medications, I developed severe akathisia. Literally, before all hell broke loose from the severe akathisia (of which I likely had to varying degrees for years) my highly respected neurologist in movement disorders immediately wrote a scathing report of my situation with the diagnosis. He also gave a ton of recommendations. He also wrote letters to all of my doctors. He did this all within an hour and took the situation extremely seriously. Unfortunately, even though he is technically a high powered doctor, the US healthcare system has taken a tremendous amount of power away from doctors in general. So a scathing write up in my medical record plus letters to all of my doctors (with recommendations) was all he could really do for me. I literally ended up in the ER 6 times in a week, with improper help. I kept on being discharged over and over again without any further help and even got in to trouble with the law multiple times. One time, after being drugged with Ativan (a benzodiazepine) and Ketamine (a general anesthetic) in the ER, from which I had been discharged. I had called my mother and she was going to pick me up from the hospital. She was well on her way for picking me up. Honestly, I thought I was just waiting outside on the sidewalk right next to the ER, for my mother, but something very wrong had happened. All of the sudden I see a cop car pull up about 30-40 feet away from me and they were headed my way to talk to me. Obviously the number one rule is to never talk to the police under any conditions. Traffic stops are a good time to practice that, by the way. The best thing you can do is say “no comment, I need to talk to my lawyer first.” Anyways I was drugged up to the extreme so it was not like I was not talking and running my mouth to both of the cops observing the situation. Obviously I had caused some sort of public disturbance and somebody had called the cops on me and clearly I should have never been discharged from the hospital. Honestly, I have no idea how, when, or even where the public disturbance occurred (obviously this is public record but it is not healthy for me to investigate the situation further). Anyways, after the cops talked to me, they said that an “emergency detention order” was being issued and that I was going to be forced to get treatment at the ****hole hospital which had improperly discharged me after being hella ativaned and ketamined up. Long story short, I had 3 interactions with the cops in 1 week. Prior to that I had only had 2 interactions with the police in my adult life (+14 years). Both were traffic stops, but neither were for moving traffic violations (burnt out headlight and expired registration during COVID-19). I was tremendously lucky that I was never charged with anything over that week from hell, and the cops managed to see that something was “off”. Anyways, like in the above link (excellent storytelling by the way so it is a worthwhile read), there are common denominators that I share with the writer’s son. I am a dual US|European Union (Croatian) citizen and I fled the US after the final hospital trip (from hell actually...it was the worst hospital trip of all time and I am hardcore chronically ill just in general) for Croatia exactly 21 days later (I had to obtain legal documents). Because of my training in electrical engineering, which I am profoundly fortunate to have, I do LORETA (technically sLORETA) neurofeedback training completely on my own to help heal my brain, just like the person in that story. Anyways, there is much more to the story that is better not put in writing. Just know that there is nothing that will bring me back to the USA.
JimWestergren 5y ago
Wonder how many HN readers are part of the 1% income earners ... but 0.1% is another thing of course. How is it going with Wealth Tax proposal from the Democrats? It sounds reasonable: "2% annual tax on wealth over $50 million, rising to 3% for wealth over $1 billion."
- Freskis 5y ago
  Almost all Hacker News readers will be part of the global 1%, of course most people in the 1% don't consider themselves to be in the 1%.
  - fergie 5y ago
    As of 2018, membership of the global top 1% needed a net worth of $871,320 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-part-of-the-1-percent-worldwide.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-b...
    - achenet 5y ago
      To quote the New York rap group M.O.P. "I'm nine hundred ninety-nine thou short of a mil".
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    On the contrary, many more people think they are in the top 1% than actually are. A survey [1] done about 20 years ago showed that a full 19% of Americans thought they were currently among the top 1% and a further 20 percent expect to be someday. So that’s 39% of people who expect to be hurt when anyone proposes taxing the ultra rich. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hope-over-self-interest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-ho...
    - kazen44 5y ago
      isn't it a stereotype that americans consider themselves "temporarly embarressed millionares". the false consciousness of the USA is stunning, especially compared to the southern hemisphere.
qwerty456127 5y ago
Is this even theoretically possible to fix? Presuming we don't consider communist-style measures of expropriation?
- krapp 5y ago
  Probably not. To me, this is the expected and inevitable final form of American style neoliberal capitalism. I don't believe guillotines or hard communism are necessary as a solution (although the former would certainly be cathartic) but all possible solutions must be socialist to some degree. At the very least, the US needs to reassess its belief that free markets are a moral good, and effective government is a moral evil.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    I can imagine a grim socialist future where everyone is finally given everything basic (healthcare, schools, food) for free and no money beyond necessary to pay their rent (just to keep them busy), all actual money is owned by the ultra-wealthy class and they never meet...
    - krapp 5y ago
      That grim socialist future is still better than a lot of Americans who already live hand to mouth have. Heck, throw in free wifi and I might sign up.
- Factorium 5y ago
  5%+ inflation rate, 0.25% interest rate. The USA interest rate should be at least 2% right now. That would take the wind out of insane asset valuations.
giantg2 5y ago
So... where is the tie-in to being a banana republic? Usually it's defined as a small country supported predominately by a single export, or by foreign companies doing business there. Sometimes ruled a dictatorship. Edit: Why downvote without a response?
cerradokids 5y ago
I wish Brazil, which is really a Banana Republic, had the same wealth and quality of life of US. The article doesn't know what a Banana Republic really is, and is downsizing how awful is live in a real Banana Republic.
- sumedh 5y ago
  Its not a D measuring contest. The fact is lot of poor/lower middle class people in the US are not doing good. Saying that things are better compared to Brazil and other countries helps no one.
oakfr 5y ago
The first plot is interesting, but could also be mixing correlation with causation. I actually find it unlikely that raw financial inequality would be a direct generator of worldwide wars. Some confounding variables are the root cause, and they are not exposed in this article.
AndyMcConachie 5y ago
Why is it that when Americans want to criticize Americans for doing bad things they compare themselves to non-Americans? Is the society really that xenophobic? The term Banana Republic comes from the idea that a south/central American country is a dictatorship run by a small oligarchy and a powerful foreign company. The classic example is Guatemala or Cuba under the United Fruit Company. The US exported murder to central America to ensure that the UFC didn't have to deal with unions and violently molded these Banana Republics. Now, completely unironically, this article uses the term to compare wealth inequality in America to America's imperial projects. It's gross. Rhetorically, it's as if the article is saying, "We're supposed to be the exploiters, not the exploited." And it's not as if America's imperial projects have slowed down. These monsters are still regularly overthrowing governments in central and south America. See recent attempts in Bolivia and Nicaragua. I don't understand American culture. The people there don't give a shit about what their government does in other countries, but then when they're subjected to the same inhumanity, suddenly they're comparing themselves to what they created elsewhere as a means to object to their local circumstance. The writer of this article expects their audience to know what a Banana Republic is, hence the title. So it's not like Americans are ignorant of the term or its history. They just don't give a shit until it happens to them.
- vehemenz 5y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I'm not sure what this article has to do with "American culture". ZeroHedge is a fringe website—hardly representative of the average American. Either way, I don't think it's a problem to compare aspects of one's state to more regressive ones. It is useful to point out that China under Xi looks a lot more like North Korea and that fundamentalist Christians hold views similar to Islamist extremists. In this case, the average, uneducated citizen might not be aware that their great America resembles "shithole countries" (their words) in many ways, and if a rude comparison is what's needed, so be it.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    I think his gripe is with the fact that US had, in some cases, created those 'shithole countries'
Leader2light 5y ago
Jan 6 was just a warm up. When the rage of the people comes, millions will fly to arms across the nation.
hmottestad 5y ago
If you made as much as a nurse makes per year, but per day instead, then after a full career you would still not have as much as one of Norway's richest men. Kjell Inge Røkke didn't have much when he started out, now he has close to 20 billion Norwegian kroner. Roughly 2.3 billion USD. A nurse starts out at a bit above 400 000 kr (48 000 USD). If they paid you a years salary every day for a regular 5-day workweek, 46 weeks a year (to account for holidays) and you worked from when you were 20 and retired at 70. You would still only make 4.8 billion kr, roughly 1/4 of what Røkke has made so far. 414000 * 5 days * 46 weeks * 50 years = 4 761 000 000
- chii 5y ago
  it's a poor example. Of course one would not earn enough just keeping the cash. The nurse earning 400,000 per day would out-earn Kjell Inge Røkke, if she invested that money in the market. https://www.calculator.net/interest-calculator.html?cstartingprinciple=0&cannualaddition=0&cmonthlyaddition=7935000&cadditionat1=beginning&cinterestrate=5&ccompound=semiannually&cyears=50&ctaxtrate=0&cinflationrate=0&printit=0&x=41&y=21#interestresults https://www.calculator.net/interest-calculator.html?cstartin...
relievedMussel5 5y ago
Oh no, somebody is richer than me, eat the rich or something... right?
criley2 5y ago
ZeroHedge is a pretty nasty propaganda outlet to find it's way to this website. You should read the comments, it's mostly Q-ANON and radical far-right trolls, and their batting average on their economic predictions nears 0%. It's doomer media and totally unfit for this community IMO.
xbmcuser 5y ago
The way the economic system is in the US and many other countries each year the ratio will keep getting worse till the system breaks. If the economy grows 2-3% and 80-90% of the growth is captured by 1-2% of the population each year more and more wealth moves to the rich. Taxing the rich is just 1st part of the solution the 2nd part is getting that money into the hands of the actual poor where as currently larger part of government taxes go back into the pockets of the rich. Food stamps subsidised health care etc are the bogey man created to hype up the right and the left but majority of that money also goes back to the rich.
- q1w2 5y ago
  These data points often just omit the opposite happening during down cycles of the economy. In 2008, the richest 1% lost, by far, the most money, even measured as a percentage. The reason these trends seem perpetually unsustainable is because the authors of these articles are always switching metrics and altering class definitions in order to make dramatic titles that folks will click on. These exact same titles have been present for as long as I can remember reading newspapers - since the 1970s.
- jokoon 5y ago
  > till the system breaks Meaning? Economic crises rarely caused virtuous political change.
Freskis 5y ago
Wildly low-quality comments, as always happens when zerohedge is posted. (including this one)
- Freskis 5y ago
  "Zero Hedge has accurately predicted 200 of the last 2 recessions."
hilbert42 5y ago
This fact isn't surprising. The US has always had a culture where individualism and libertarianism combine in ways that make it almost impossible to flatten wealth distribution to any significant extent. Countries where wealth is more evenly distributed have cultures with a more socialist bent. 'Socialism' is a dirty word in US culture, more so than in any other country that I know of. Thus, I doubt very much that this imbalance can be addressed anytime soon as individualism in US culture is so ingrained that conditions for change just aren't there.
- jseban 5y ago
  Yeah and this inequality also comes with a lot of benefits, who knows how much of that wealth would even exist in the first place if you didn't have that motivation. I mean we've seen what happens in more equal socialist countries, I think these comparisons are pretty childish actually and seems to serve mostly to agitate. You'd have to consider many different aspect of this to create a good understanding to what this is good for vs bad. And you can easily spin this around to say something like: the ultra rich is now only 0.1% of the population, compared to 5% of the population before, the rich are getting fewer, great! The big question is, if the middle, and lower class have also gotten more, in absolute terms. If everyone wins, who cares if a couple of individuals somewhere have an underground garage with 12 sports car, I couldn't care less.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    "If everyone wins, who cares if a couple of individuals somewhere have an underground garage with 12 sports car, I couldn't care less." The point the article was making was the enormous size of the ratio/disparity (which is more than just a couple). Whether one agrees with the situation or not depends on one's political compass - and I've no comment on that.
  - m_ke 5y ago
    I’d argue that geopolitics have much more to do with the prosperity in the US than the economic system. It helps to be the largest English speaking nation and separated by two large bodies of water from any possible threat.
known 5y ago
Ditto in India; Due to the uncivilized https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) 1% owns 73% wealth in India https://archive.is/xnR7U https://archive.is/xnR7U https://archive.is/M4DLV https://archive.is/M4DLV https://archive.is/pOmij https://archive.is/pOmij
bmitc 5y ago
"The 1%" doesn't even begin to capture the wealth inequality. The top 0.00012% have around as much wealth as the bottom 60%.
mandmandam 5y ago
Saw this story go the number one spot to the third page in a few minutes. Unfortunately, it's now on page 5. No, 6. No wait, it's page 12 now, at position 357; between a 16 hour old story with 3 points and a 15 hour old story with 8 points. Saw this drop over mere minutes. Seems pretty unusual, and worth pointing out for the record.
stooliepidgin 5y ago
Zerohedge is not a reliable source. It happens that this title is within the realm of reason and fact, and Robert Reich, a White House veteran, has been shouting about how grotesque is inequality from the rooftops for years. Nothing will happen so long as the wealthy control the media and the political process that manufactures consent and buys policy.
cannabis_sam 5y ago
What do people expect after (at least) 25 years of society-destroying anti-tax policies?
pm2222 5y ago
I see this topic on first page this morning and now it's ranked 508. How did that happen?

243 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

You tend to get this effect when there's a boom on and photo sharing websites, crypto nonsense and such like get valued at hundreds of billions. It doesn't necessarily hurt the poor and often doesn't last forever.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

ZeroHedge is a Russian backed "News" source from what ive read. Im not listening to them on anything.

giansegato 5y ago

The first plot is especially troubling. The last time the top 1% had as much as the bottom 90% was right on the eve of WWII. Now, an exclusively economic interpretation of history is certainly wrong, but one cannot refrain from thinking that this much inequality won't lead to social unrest at best, flat out war at worst

amelius 5y ago
As long as the public has access to cheap entertainment like Netflix and social media, there will be no war. Panem et circenses.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  Bread and circuses only protect against attack from within.
  - orangepanda 5y ago
    Export it then. "My people are now buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music"
    - toyg 5y ago
      Culture victory imminent!
  - i_am_proteus 5y ago
    The USA is, metaphorically, a powerful exporter of both.
- yetihehe 5y ago
  Yeah, but it looks like we will be out of "bread" soon (or "bread" too expensive to buy, which is the same). Netflix won't be enough without access to food.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  Netflix does not pay rents, food, gas, healthcare and the rest. Entertainment only distracts you from minor inconveniences.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Some people are content on SNAP, Medicaid, public housing, etc.
    - yardie 5y ago
      And in most states, all 3 of those programs require they have some form of work, except those on disability.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        I don't think that's completely true. Generally, housing and SNAP have work requirements for most people. Medicaid generally does not. There's a recent waiver process that allows states to implement a work requirement, but most states have not taken advantage of that. I have a relative that lived in free public housing, recieved SNAP, and is on Medicaid. I know they still get food from the food bank, but I'm not sure if they still get SNAP. They moved out of the free housing into an apartment (inheritance). They refuse to get a job.
        yardie 5y ago
        Food banks aren't means tested. I've seen plenty of BMWs pull up to one during the pandemic. Medicaid is extremely means tested. You can't own assets >$3000. Chances are your relative that inherited an apartment is no longer receiving Medicaid. And SNAP not only has a work requirement but there is retraining requirement as well. So somehow your relative managed to not get caught by 3 different gov't agencies?
        giantg2 5y ago
        I believe it was transferred in an indirect way, maybe a trust.
- michaelt 5y ago
  People don't only need Netflix and Facebook - they also need homes, medical care, and enough free time to make use of Netflix and Facebook.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses António de Oliveira Salazar, the dictator of Portugal had a similar take on it. The triple Fs of Fado (music), Futbol (sports) and Fiesta (entertainment: Três F https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%AAs_F https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%AAs_F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salaz...
  - throwaway59553 5y ago
    The third F is for "Fátima" (Our Lady of Fátima). And besides the Football, it has nothing to do with Bread and Circus, as every people should cling to their Faith and customs. Edit: This is present in your own links you didn't bother reading, and you'd see those "Three Fs" wasn't any Regime motto, but post 25 April propaganda, the official one was "Deus, Pátria e Família" (God, Fatherland, Family).
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  You are missing the bread part, as housing, education and healthcare become unaffordable
rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
That is the main thesis of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce.... IIRC, most societies don't tolerate such inequality and there are two options to reduce them greatly (besides taxes): - wars (in the end, massive destruction tends to make all _surviving_ men more equal) - and hyperinflation (the poor suffer but since most wealth is held by the rich, inflation affects them most).
- roenxi 5y ago
  Hyperinflation doesn't directly hurt people who have wealth, the valuation of the wealth in cash terms is the part of the system going up. Hyperinflation directly hurts income earners and anyone who holds a significant part of their wealth in cash.
  - pydry 5y ago
    It hurts creditors more than anybody else. It certainly helps hit the reset button on aggregate debt levels.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      Only in part. A lot of loan and mortgage contracts (at least in the EU) have provisions built in that allow banks to reject down payments over a specific limit, usually 5-10%. If push comes to shove, the state might even force you to mortage your home to finance itself after crisis [0]. It surely helps debtors a bit, but you can't just go to your bank with a single note and be done. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwangshypothek#Geschichte https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwangshypothek#Geschichte (unfortunately only in German)
      - pydry 5y ago
        >have provisions built in that allow banks to reject down payments over a specific limit, usually 5-10%. That would mean instead of paying them a lump sum of equivalent-to-$100 to pay off your mortgage you end up paying an equivalent of, say $2 per month? I have heard of this sort of thing happening to some people when hyperinflation kicked in - effectively getting a free house/car/etc.
easytiger 5y ago
You know that inequality in the USA had absolutely nothing to do with WWII right?
- christophilus 5y ago
  Monetary woes (and egregious war penalties) had a whole lot to do with the rise of fascism, though, so it’s not totally off-base.
  - easytiger 5y ago
    Really? The guy just tried to equate particular wealth in the USA with Hitler's desire to establish the 3rd Reich. It's not on the same planet, let alone on base
- giansegato 5y ago
  You know that the US had one of the largest stake in Germany's appalling debt before Hitler took power, right? Why do you think it took 10 years for the Nazis to go to power? Between '23 and '33 one thing happened: 1929. And yes: it happened in New York.
  - easytiger 5y ago
    I think you'll find more than one thing happened. As it happens the Nazis rise to power is just about the most studied period of human history. Trying to generate some level of John Nash type synchronicity going from an invalid inference of similarity between wealth inequality in two separate periods of history to ww2 to impeding doom is absurd. Even more foolish to assert the great depression was so simply explained by inequality. That's obviously not the case.
    - giansegato 5y ago
      Never once I said it's the _only_ reason this happened (obviously). But between "it's the only reason" and "it has nothing to do with it" there's a lot of ground to cover, don't ya think? I don't think it's far fetched to assert that the US and Germany in the 20s were extremely connected, financially speaking. How much this impacted the subsequent events can be debated. But believing in no impact at all is just intellectually dishonest. It's a plain fact that '29 and investment dry-up in Europe caused incredible hardship on Germans (and their voting preferences in the '33 elections).
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
With no enforced minimum wage in America, and with planned "Company Towns" where employers like Amazon have employees rent company-owned houses, it's almost like America is On The Road To Serfdom.
- kazen44 5y ago
  more ilke a return to the gilded age. The question is if the violence of the last half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century will return aswell.

roenxi 5y ago

Much as I hesitate to show any support for a Zerohedge article - this is probably linked to all the money creation and the lack of inflation. It is becoming more obvious what happened to the money.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

I’m sure it’s the upper 1%, especially. Still, what’s different about life when you move from the 2% to the 1%? I would hypothesize an experience where you realize that your money can work harder than you can. Also, this whole intergenerational wealth vision. What’s that like?

garmaine 5y ago
It’s quite nice.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  Honestly, I doubt that. Some part of your brain must realize the suffering that enables your cushy lifestyle; some shred of remaining conscience must look at yourself with pity. There are endless rationalisations to choose from, endless distractions to buy - but actual contentment will only grow further away. All of history's wisest people agree on this; many quotes from Buddha and Jesus relate to exactly this point.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    Maybe you've already sold your conscience when becoming part of the 1%, so you don't need more/difference excuses when reaching the next levels. Most people in my country's 1% have already made the choices that allow them to accumulate with no end. They're already placed in a strong enough bubble that they don't see the results of their actions, e.g if their investments/lobbying hurts the poor (e.g all law makers are from the same class, media sources are so personalized so you don't share the same experience with the rest of society, they starts presenting the poor as "lazy, dumb, evil zombies", your Uber won't let you cross anyone from below levels or make sure you avoid certain districts, etc). There's a French word for that: l'entre-soi -- people choosing to live in their microcosm (social, political, etc.) avoiding contact with those who are not part of it.
  - nindalf 5y ago
    This kind of hyperbole is just virtue signalling. You want to tell us what a great person you are because clearly you think about all this and you've fixed it by not exploiting anyone else. In your rush to excoriate someone for being a part of the 1%, you've forgotten that you're easily in the 1% of people living on earth and we're all connected thanks to global trade. All the things you've said apply equally to you. You can't tell us with certainty about the living conditions of everyone who made your shoes, your phone or your means of transport.

mickjagger 5y ago

It wouldn’t matter, IF they paid some appropriate tax level. But they don’t. So it does matter.

garmaine 5y ago
Taxes are progressive, so they do pay more taxes than the 99%.
- 988747 5y ago
  Really appreciate the sarcasm :)
- lm28469 5y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/06/08/richest-americans-including-bezos-musk-and-buffett-paid-federal-income-taxes-equaling-just-34-of-401-billion-in-new-wealth-bombshell-report-shows/?sh=58caeb857fe1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/06/08/richest-...
  - garmaine 5y ago
    Tax deferral is not tax avoidance. If Elon Musk gets a loan backed by his Tesla shares to diversify his holdings, that isn't actually a "tax free" cash out. The tax is just deferred to if/when the bank margin calls the loan, or he dies, etc. But the taxes do get paid, eventually. These Forbes articles and such conflate different issues and really confuse this point.
- willis936 5y ago
  Have you not read the news this week or anytime since 2016?
  - garmaine 5y ago
    Facts: https://www.thebalance.com/what-the-average-american-pays-in-taxes-4768594 https://www.thebalance.com/what-the-average-american-pays-in... "According to the Tax Foundation's review of 2018 tax returns, the latest year for which data is available, the top 1% paid an average income tax rate of about 25.4%." To pay an average income tax rate of 25.4% in 2018 would require an income of $165,000/yr. That would put you in the top 2%. And this is completely ignoring deductions, credits, etc. which proportionally help lower income tax brackets more due to cutoffs and phase outs. 98% of Americans have a lower average income tax rate than the top 1%, even under conservative assumptions. ----- I suggest looking up facts and doing some fermi calculations yourself instead of blindly believing what you read in the news.

Tepix 5y ago

There's no peaceful way out of this dilemma - the ultra-rich have the money to corrupt the politicians. They get to write the rules that make them even richer. Meanwhile, democracy's mechanisms are no longer working.

zarkov99 5y ago
1% isn't ultra rich.
- consp 5y ago
  For most people in the world the 1% in the US are the ultra rich. And for the other 99% of the US population they might just as well be.
  - criley2 5y ago
    This isn't a fair or useful way to see things. Just because "American minimum wage is a fortune in India" or something doesn't mean someone making minimum wage in America isn't dirt poor. We all have our costs of living, and how "rich" we are is relative to where we live.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  $700k/year and $7,000k/year are the same thing to someone who occasionally has to decide which essential bill to incur a reinstatement penalty over.
- ac29 5y ago
  According to the IRS, the annual income of the top 1% starts at $516,714 and averages $1,625,221: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5398.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5398.pdf I think certainly most of the bottom 90% would consider an annual income well in excess of $1M/year to be "ultra rich".
akudha 5y ago
It is depressing to see how cheap it is to corrupt the politicians. A few thousand here and a few thousand there - thats all it takes. Maybe we should crowd source funds to counteract the bribes from the rich!

jahnu 5y ago

This zero hedge obsession with the gold standard and simplistic view that if it were reinstated the problems listed would be largely eliminated makes it hard to take them seriously. You know who also is not on the gold standard? Every other country where a large range of conditions exist.

zkomp 5y ago
Fine but zerohedge is not really one author or one agenda, it is an aggregate of many different views and you can’t trust all of them equally…
- hnmullany 5y ago
  It has a fine sprinkling of Russian state information talking points for some weird reason.
  - zkomp 5y ago
    I dont find it weird, just mildly disturbing having to sift through. Still worth it.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  The have exactly one view - that of a pro**nda bureau of a certain country.
  - zkomp 5y ago
    I disagree, and that is fundamental point. It is not just one view, you can pretty much check the different authors or find the original sources and they are not in agreement. Propaganda is useless, but calling bullshit on another certain countrys propaganda, that is refreshing. It is all your loss disregarding and hating on it
jeltz 5y ago
Especially since the US abandoned the gold standard in the 1930s, and the issues with wealth inequality clearly existed with the gold standard.

drstewart 5y ago

>banana republic >Learn to pronounce >noun >a small state that is politically unstable as a result of the domination of its economy by a single export controlled by foreign capital. Do words just not have meaning anymore?

kiryin 5y ago
"Banana republic" implies more than what the dictionary definition is. If you look at the wealth distribution in any example "banana republic", you'll find a few very wealthy people/warlords and many dirt poor with close to nothing in between
- cle 5y ago
  There’s already a well-established word for a country run by rich elite. Calling the US a “banana republic” is a shocking headline, which I think is the real point. The US economy is not very similar to actual banana republics though. There are some aspects which are becoming similar, yes, but also many in which they’re not. To me it reads as a clickbait headline.
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > "Banana republic" implies more than what the dictionary definition is. I think that any argument that needs the dictionary to be wrong, is probably wrong.
mandmandam 5y ago
The meaning of words changes over time, based on how people use them. More at 11.
- B-Con 5y ago
  That isn't a license to misuse words in a way that forgets your agenda whenever you want.
  - mandmandam 5y ago

jarcane 5y ago

Surely this site must have some standard about it's sources? https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge

dalmo3 5y ago
I think as long as it adds to the discussion, linking to sites like rationalwiki shouldn't be a problem.
throwaway59553 5y ago
Rational Wiki, another totally unbiased source.

fredestine 5y ago

no wonder. those nice 1% distracted americans into a war of races (while we all agreed long that there is only one race it isn't the case anymore looking at fox, cnn, biden, paski, white and black racial movments,...). they did that right after occupy wall street. they understood that this movement was dangerous for them because targerting the right people responsible for the racism, inequalities and theft in western societies. and instead of fighting against us they just poured money into minority-based marketing so that now the goldman sachs of the world sponsor the gay pride and other minority movements to push the narrative that racism is because of the "way society is" hell they even call it "systemic racism" so that way it is something dumb that you name and never understand, hiding away the fact that those 1% are the one creating this system and profiting off it from every poor person and middle class in america. whatever their color.

toyg 5y ago
There is no direct link between civil-rights awareness increases and Occupy ending. Occupy simply ended like most cultural movements end: organizers were slowly coopted by the system, one way or the other, because people get old and settle down. In my 40+ years of life, I've seen multiple movements with similar themes emerge and subsume, they are like tidal waves. In many ways, they are just a path for certain personality types to carve their role in society. On the other hand, civil-rights advancements are a slow but well-rooted change in social attitudes. Because these ideas are not conflictual with capitalism (in fact they complement it, by expanding the market for goods and services to under-represented groups), they get swallowed and repackaged by the system, becoming mainstream.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Which civil rights movements would you think can make a lasting change in this era?
  - toyg 5y ago
    It's hard to think of something completely new. I suspect we will see something that aims to reduce the influence of machines over humans, particularly in the workplace and/or around AI, because that balance is getting out of whack in ways that are becoming more and more difficult to ignore. It will be mixed with some anti-capitalist content; the system will discard the latter and coopt the former, somehow, in the same way it did with the sexual revolution and civil rights.

kiryin 5y ago

I applaud for having the balls to post zerohedge here. I only skim the headlines most of the time but now and again, they post a really good article with in-depth information if you have the patience to see past the heavily opinionated commentary. If you're into finance and can handle it, it should be on your reading list. Variety is the spice of life.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

TheGigaChad 5y ago

Idiot.

scotty79 5y ago

Given that only the laws that are accepted by financial elite are passed and preference of poor people doesn't matter you'd have to influence (scare?) only the rich people to achieve some change. You can completely skip making the public aware or trying to get politicians onboard. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4...

Vosporos 5y ago

hahahaha

pjmartorell 5y ago

"American dream" they call it

jason0597 5y ago
"It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it!" - George Carlin
- nec4b 5y ago
  He was a millionaire. You should take his quote with a grain of salt, because he was a self made man.

maratc 5y ago

A reminder: take any sum operation of wealth with a huge grain of salt. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS228821959920140404 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS228821959920140404

sergiosgc 5y ago
I disagree with the premise of the article. If someone has negative assets, they are poorer than people with zero assets. The article paints access to credit as a form of wealth, which it is, but in the end wealth is measured by accumulated assets, as a proxy indicator for earning potential. If you use credit to acquire assets, real estate for example, you won't move the needle on your total net worth. So, the overindebted in the US are those who used credit for expenses or for failed investments. They are poorer than those with zero debt. The only exception that I can see, and which the article does not mention, is the use of credit for acquiring untangible assets, such as education. The correction would be to measure earning potential per individual, instead of net-assets, but that is basically impossible at large scale. We are stuck using net assets as a proxy for earning potential. Sum of wealth is an acceptable measure of income inequality.
- maratc 5y ago
  > So, the overindebted in the US are those who used credit for expenses or for failed investments. They are poorer than those with zero debt. Someone who owns a $200,000 house (and a mortgage of $210,000) is poorer than someone who has no house? Someone who took a $50,000 loan for a new car and drove it for one day, technically lowering its price to $45,000, is poorer than someone who has no car?
- hnbad 5y ago
  It's worth noting that Eike Batista, whom the article mentions as an example for someone "anybody trying to get by on less than a dollar a day" would "happily change places with" had most of his assets seized a year after the article was written and was recently sentenced to 30 years in prison. Additionally Jérôme Kerviel's €4.9 billion fine was reduced to $1 million two years after the article came out but he served five months in prison the same year the article was written. The article's framing implies that these "debt billionaires" significantly impact these statistics but doesn't demonstrate whether this is the case by contrasting them with other measures, only making vague comparisons between American and Chinese "savings relative to household income". But arguably a debt-free Chinese person with modest savings is less poor than a working class American with debts they can barely afford paying the interest on because the latter is practically living under indentured servitude.

_rebocador_ 5y ago

From my pov, seems like the top 1% has wealth in stock, company valuation, which is only done by the middle class and lower class, buying stock. So everything they have is handed to them by the ones who buy the stock. Quit doing it. Why do people buy so much stock, is that because they want to invest in companies? sure there are cases of that, but most importantly they don't want to see their money devalue with the inflation caused by gov policies.

_rebocador_ 5y ago
by the way this fits well with this. https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2020/09/24/wtf-happened-in-1971 https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2020/09/24/wtf-happened-i...
- jaybrendansmith 5y ago
  Correlation != Causation. There are many reasons for this that have very little to do with the Gold Standard. I would suggest that technology itself has caused much if not most of this, as has the destruction of Unions, deregulation, and yes government corruption. But I've yet to hear a plausible explanation for how the Gold Standard somehow maintained wages in line with GDP. The only somewhat plausible reason I see here is that a free currency encouraged a move to assets, which protected the rich against inflation somewhat better than the rest.
  - _rebocador_ 5y ago
    my first comment has a plausible explanation.

disabled 5y ago

Sure this is a problem but if the American people had the reasonable expectation of being cared for, with respect to healthcare and end-of-life care, a lot of this 1% wealth chasing would not be occurring. If you want a good read about how the *****y the US healthcare system is, this is a very worthwhile read. Ironically the author is the screenwriter of “Girl, Interrupted” and the story she writes is about how her son got screwed by the US healthcare system and is titled “Boy, Interrupted”. It also shows you how desperate people get for specialized care, and will shell out unfathomable amounts of money for “treatment” at sketchy places: https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/06/boy-interrupted-a-story-of-akathisia/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/06/boy-interrupted-a-story... Ironically, the last straw for me, when it came to living in America was my diagnosis of akathisia (just like the linked story), which is 1000x worse than it sounds. I have severe depression and I had been taking my medications as prescribed. Because of my taking these medications, I developed severe akathisia. Literally, before all hell broke loose from the severe akathisia (of which I likely had to varying degrees for years) my highly respected neurologist in movement disorders immediately wrote a scathing report of my situation with the diagnosis. He also gave a ton of recommendations. He also wrote letters to all of my doctors. He did this all within an hour and took the situation extremely seriously. Unfortunately, even though he is technically a high powered doctor, the US healthcare system has taken a tremendous amount of power away from doctors in general. So a scathing write up in my medical record plus letters to all of my doctors (with recommendations) was all he could really do for me. I literally ended up in the ER 6 times in a week, with improper help. I kept on being discharged over and over again without any further help and even got in to trouble with the law multiple times. One time, after being drugged with Ativan (a benzodiazepine) and Ketamine (a general anesthetic) in the ER, from which I had been discharged. I had called my mother and she was going to pick me up from the hospital. She was well on her way for picking me up. Honestly, I thought I was just waiting outside on the sidewalk right next to the ER, for my mother, but something very wrong had happened. All of the sudden I see a cop car pull up about 30-40 feet away from me and they were headed my way to talk to me. Obviously the number one rule is to never talk to the police under any conditions. Traffic stops are a good time to practice that, by the way. The best thing you can do is say “no comment, I need to talk to my lawyer first.” Anyways I was drugged up to the extreme so it was not like I was not talking and running my mouth to both of the cops observing the situation. Obviously I had caused some sort of public disturbance and somebody had called the cops on me and clearly I should have never been discharged from the hospital. Honestly, I have no idea how, when, or even where the public disturbance occurred (obviously this is public record but it is not healthy for me to investigate the situation further). Anyways, after the cops talked to me, they said that an “emergency detention order” was being issued and that I was going to be forced to get treatment at the ****hole hospital which had improperly discharged me after being hella ativaned and ketamined up. Long story short, I had 3 interactions with the cops in 1 week. Prior to that I had only had 2 interactions with the police in my adult life (+14 years). Both were traffic stops, but neither were for moving traffic violations (burnt out headlight and expired registration during COVID-19). I was tremendously lucky that I was never charged with anything over that week from hell, and the cops managed to see that something was “off”. Anyways, like in the above link (excellent storytelling by the way so it is a worthwhile read), there are common denominators that I share with the writer’s son. I am a dual US|European Union (Croatian) citizen and I fled the US after the final hospital trip (from hell actually...it was the worst hospital trip of all time and I am hardcore chronically ill just in general) for Croatia exactly 21 days later (I had to obtain legal documents). Because of my training in electrical engineering, which I am profoundly fortunate to have, I do LORETA (technically sLORETA) neurofeedback training completely on my own to help heal my brain, just like the person in that story. Anyways, there is much more to the story that is better not put in writing. Just know that there is nothing that will bring me back to the USA.

JimWestergren 5y ago

Wonder how many HN readers are part of the 1% income earners ... but 0.1% is another thing of course. How is it going with Wealth Tax proposal from the Democrats? It sounds reasonable: "2% annual tax on wealth over $50 million, rising to 3% for wealth over $1 billion."

Freskis 5y ago
Almost all Hacker News readers will be part of the global 1%, of course most people in the 1% don't consider themselves to be in the 1%.
- fergie 5y ago
  As of 2018, membership of the global top 1% needed a net worth of $871,320 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-part-of-the-1-percent-worldwide.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-b...
  - achenet 5y ago
    To quote the New York rap group M.O.P. "I'm nine hundred ninety-nine thou short of a mil".
- ryandrake 5y ago
  On the contrary, many more people think they are in the top 1% than actually are. A survey [1] done about 20 years ago showed that a full 19% of Americans thought they were currently among the top 1% and a further 20 percent expect to be someday. So that’s 39% of people who expect to be hurt when anyone proposes taxing the ultra rich. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hope-over-self-interest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-ho...
  - kazen44 5y ago
    isn't it a stereotype that americans consider themselves "temporarly embarressed millionares". the false consciousness of the USA is stunning, especially compared to the southern hemisphere.

qwerty456127 5y ago

Is this even theoretically possible to fix? Presuming we don't consider communist-style measures of expropriation?

krapp 5y ago
Probably not. To me, this is the expected and inevitable final form of American style neoliberal capitalism. I don't believe guillotines or hard communism are necessary as a solution (although the former would certainly be cathartic) but all possible solutions must be socialist to some degree. At the very least, the US needs to reassess its belief that free markets are a moral good, and effective government is a moral evil.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  I can imagine a grim socialist future where everyone is finally given everything basic (healthcare, schools, food) for free and no money beyond necessary to pay their rent (just to keep them busy), all actual money is owned by the ultra-wealthy class and they never meet...
  - krapp 5y ago
    That grim socialist future is still better than a lot of Americans who already live hand to mouth have. Heck, throw in free wifi and I might sign up.
Factorium 5y ago
5%+ inflation rate, 0.25% interest rate. The USA interest rate should be at least 2% right now. That would take the wind out of insane asset valuations.

giantg2 5y ago

So... where is the tie-in to being a banana republic? Usually it's defined as a small country supported predominately by a single export, or by foreign companies doing business there. Sometimes ruled a dictatorship. Edit: Why downvote without a response?

cerradokids 5y ago

I wish Brazil, which is really a Banana Republic, had the same wealth and quality of life of US. The article doesn't know what a Banana Republic really is, and is downsizing how awful is live in a real Banana Republic.

sumedh 5y ago
Its not a D measuring contest. The fact is lot of poor/lower middle class people in the US are not doing good. Saying that things are better compared to Brazil and other countries helps no one.

oakfr 5y ago

The first plot is interesting, but could also be mixing correlation with causation. I actually find it unlikely that raw financial inequality would be a direct generator of worldwide wars. Some confounding variables are the root cause, and they are not exposed in this article.

AndyMcConachie 5y ago

Why is it that when Americans want to criticize Americans for doing bad things they compare themselves to non-Americans? Is the society really that xenophobic? The term Banana Republic comes from the idea that a south/central American country is a dictatorship run by a small oligarchy and a powerful foreign company. The classic example is Guatemala or Cuba under the United Fruit Company. The US exported murder to central America to ensure that the UFC didn't have to deal with unions and violently molded these Banana Republics. Now, completely unironically, this article uses the term to compare wealth inequality in America to America's imperial projects. It's gross. Rhetorically, it's as if the article is saying, "We're supposed to be the exploiters, not the exploited." And it's not as if America's imperial projects have slowed down. These monsters are still regularly overthrowing governments in central and south America. See recent attempts in Bolivia and Nicaragua. I don't understand American culture. The people there don't give a shit about what their government does in other countries, but then when they're subjected to the same inhumanity, suddenly they're comparing themselves to what they created elsewhere as a means to object to their local circumstance. The writer of this article expects their audience to know what a Banana Republic is, hence the title. So it's not like Americans are ignorant of the term or its history. They just don't give a shit until it happens to them.

vehemenz 5y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I'm not sure what this article has to do with "American culture". ZeroHedge is a fringe website—hardly representative of the average American. Either way, I don't think it's a problem to compare aspects of one's state to more regressive ones. It is useful to point out that China under Xi looks a lot more like North Korea and that fundamentalist Christians hold views similar to Islamist extremists. In this case, the average, uneducated citizen might not be aware that their great America resembles "shithole countries" (their words) in many ways, and if a rude comparison is what's needed, so be it.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I think his gripe is with the fact that US had, in some cases, created those 'shithole countries'

Leader2light 5y ago

Jan 6 was just a warm up. When the rage of the people comes, millions will fly to arms across the nation.

hmottestad 5y ago

If you made as much as a nurse makes per year, but per day instead, then after a full career you would still not have as much as one of Norway's richest men. Kjell Inge Røkke didn't have much when he started out, now he has close to 20 billion Norwegian kroner. Roughly 2.3 billion USD. A nurse starts out at a bit above 400 000 kr (48 000 USD). If they paid you a years salary every day for a regular 5-day workweek, 46 weeks a year (to account for holidays) and you worked from when you were 20 and retired at 70. You would still only make 4.8 billion kr, roughly 1/4 of what Røkke has made so far. 414000 * 5 days * 46 weeks * 50 years = 4 761 000 000

chii 5y ago
it's a poor example. Of course one would not earn enough just keeping the cash. The nurse earning 400,000 per day would out-earn Kjell Inge Røkke, if she invested that money in the market. https://www.calculator.net/interest-calculator.html?cstartingprinciple=0&cannualaddition=0&cmonthlyaddition=7935000&cadditionat1=beginning&cinterestrate=5&ccompound=semiannually&cyears=50&ctaxtrate=0&cinflationrate=0&printit=0&x=41&y=21#interestresults https://www.calculator.net/interest-calculator.html?cstartin...

relievedMussel5 5y ago

Oh no, somebody is richer than me, eat the rich or something... right?

criley2 5y ago

ZeroHedge is a pretty nasty propaganda outlet to find it's way to this website. You should read the comments, it's mostly Q-ANON and radical far-right trolls, and their batting average on their economic predictions nears 0%. It's doomer media and totally unfit for this community IMO.

xbmcuser 5y ago

The way the economic system is in the US and many other countries each year the ratio will keep getting worse till the system breaks. If the economy grows 2-3% and 80-90% of the growth is captured by 1-2% of the population each year more and more wealth moves to the rich. Taxing the rich is just 1st part of the solution the 2nd part is getting that money into the hands of the actual poor where as currently larger part of government taxes go back into the pockets of the rich. Food stamps subsidised health care etc are the bogey man created to hype up the right and the left but majority of that money also goes back to the rich.

q1w2 5y ago
These data points often just omit the opposite happening during down cycles of the economy. In 2008, the richest 1% lost, by far, the most money, even measured as a percentage. The reason these trends seem perpetually unsustainable is because the authors of these articles are always switching metrics and altering class definitions in order to make dramatic titles that folks will click on. These exact same titles have been present for as long as I can remember reading newspapers - since the 1970s.
jokoon 5y ago
> till the system breaks Meaning? Economic crises rarely caused virtuous political change.

Freskis 5y ago

Wildly low-quality comments, as always happens when zerohedge is posted. (including this one)

Freskis 5y ago
"Zero Hedge has accurately predicted 200 of the last 2 recessions."

hilbert42 5y ago

This fact isn't surprising. The US has always had a culture where individualism and libertarianism combine in ways that make it almost impossible to flatten wealth distribution to any significant extent. Countries where wealth is more evenly distributed have cultures with a more socialist bent. 'Socialism' is a dirty word in US culture, more so than in any other country that I know of. Thus, I doubt very much that this imbalance can be addressed anytime soon as individualism in US culture is so ingrained that conditions for change just aren't there.

jseban 5y ago
Yeah and this inequality also comes with a lot of benefits, who knows how much of that wealth would even exist in the first place if you didn't have that motivation. I mean we've seen what happens in more equal socialist countries, I think these comparisons are pretty childish actually and seems to serve mostly to agitate. You'd have to consider many different aspect of this to create a good understanding to what this is good for vs bad. And you can easily spin this around to say something like: the ultra rich is now only 0.1% of the population, compared to 5% of the population before, the rich are getting fewer, great! The big question is, if the middle, and lower class have also gotten more, in absolute terms. If everyone wins, who cares if a couple of individuals somewhere have an underground garage with 12 sports car, I couldn't care less.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "If everyone wins, who cares if a couple of individuals somewhere have an underground garage with 12 sports car, I couldn't care less." The point the article was making was the enormous size of the ratio/disparity (which is more than just a couple). Whether one agrees with the situation or not depends on one's political compass - and I've no comment on that.
- m_ke 5y ago
  I’d argue that geopolitics have much more to do with the prosperity in the US than the economic system. It helps to be the largest English speaking nation and separated by two large bodies of water from any possible threat.

known 5y ago

Ditto in India; Due to the uncivilized https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) 1% owns 73% wealth in India https://archive.is/xnR7U https://archive.is/xnR7U https://archive.is/M4DLV https://archive.is/M4DLV https://archive.is/pOmij https://archive.is/pOmij

bmitc 5y ago

"The 1%" doesn't even begin to capture the wealth inequality. The top 0.00012% have around as much wealth as the bottom 60%.

mandmandam 5y ago

Saw this story go the number one spot to the third page in a few minutes. Unfortunately, it's now on page 5. No, 6. No wait, it's page 12 now, at position 357; between a 16 hour old story with 3 points and a 15 hour old story with 8 points. Saw this drop over mere minutes. Seems pretty unusual, and worth pointing out for the record.

stooliepidgin 5y ago

Zerohedge is not a reliable source. It happens that this title is within the realm of reason and fact, and Robert Reich, a White House veteran, has been shouting about how grotesque is inequality from the rooftops for years. Nothing will happen so long as the wealthy control the media and the political process that manufactures consent and buys policy.

cannabis_sam 5y ago

What do people expect after (at least) 25 years of society-destroying anti-tax policies?

pm2222 5y ago

I see this topic on first page this morning and now it's ranked 508. How did that happen?