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It never does. This is just accelerating the pandemic-era wealth transfer that started with the rich getting trillions to prop up their assets while everyone el

It never does. This is just accelerating the pandemic-era wealth transfer that started with the rich getting trillions to prop up their assets while everyone else got $600.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
How did the rich get trillions to prop up their assets?
- terminalcommand 5y ago
  Tax cuts for companies, increased government spending to boost stock markets, state subvenventions, significantly lower interest rate than inflation.
  - devcpp 5y ago
    That's all from the government, and by extension from the population at large, not from any set of rich people.
    - hattori_hanzo 5y ago
      Well yeah. From the government, for rich people. I don't know any poor people who can directly profit from corporate bailouts, tax cuts or has access to loans with such low interest rates. Even though as you say it comes from the population at large.
      - devcpp 5y ago
        I'm the last person to defend welfare for the wealthy. I'm saying you're blaming the player rather than the game, which is an understandable feeling but is not productive to your goals.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Tax cuts are perhaps a bit questionable, giving them trillions by not taking away the money they earned?
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  Wasn't that the point of the PPP? Give companies loans that are really grants that find their way back to asset holders through buybacks?
- ralph84 5y ago
  Trillions: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren... The rich: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/fed-officials-owned-securities-it-was-buying-during-pandemic-raising-more-questions-about-conflicts.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/fed-officials-owned-securiti... - Powell held between $1.25 million and $2.5 million of municipal bonds. They were just a small portion of his total reported assets. While the bonds were purchased before 2019, they were held while the Fed last year bought more than $5 billion in munis, including one from the state of Illinois purchased by his family trust in 2016. - Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren held between $151,000 and $800,000 worth of real estate investment trusts that owned mortgage-backed securities. He made as many as 37 separate trades in the four REITS while the Fed purchased almost $700 billion in MBS. - Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin held $1.35 million to $3 million in individual corporate bonds purchased before 2020. They include bonds of Pepsi, Home Depot and Eli Lilly. The Fed last year opened a corporate bond-buying facility and purchased $46.5 billion of corporate bonds.
baron816 5y ago
> It never does. The first thing in the article is a graph where 7 our of the 11 years shown have positive real wage growth. If worker pay never kept up with inflation, the country would be among the world’s poorest.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  There hasn't been much positive wage growth for the vast majority of Americans in 70 years. https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ The "distribution of family income" chart has been inflation adjusted. Note that for the bottom 10th and 50th percentiles, income has flatlined. The 90th percentile income earners have seen their wages nearly double, after inflation adjustment.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  How does that math work? > If worker pay never kept up with inflation, the country would be among the world’s poorest. That is flat wrong. Even if you were still making 23$ an hour as you did in the 70's: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-... https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ ...you'd still be among the top 20% of earners across the earth. Let's take another step down to simple minimum wage. over 7$/hr in the US puts you at... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_w... - in the top 20, which doesn't even include countries without a minimum wage. Your statement about "among the world's poorest" requires revision.
  - tempestn 5y ago
    "Never" doesn't only refer to the period from the 1970s to now. You'd be making a lot less than $23 per hour if wage growth never kept up with inflation.
    - Supermancho 5y ago
paxys 5y ago
> It never does Except in 10 of the last 12 years, as you can clearly see in the same chart
- noja 5y ago
  The chart excludes housing. It's pointless.
  - paxys 5y ago
    Says who? CPI does include housing.
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      CPI includes housing as "Owners' equivalent rent of primary residence (OER)". If that inspires confidence in anyone, please, I'd like to hear how.
      - paxys 5y ago
        Standard internet discourse. Numbers are bad - "See everyone, things are fucked. I told you so." (which is what this post is about) Numbers are good - "Meh, I never trust the underlying data anyways. It is all meaningless."
        kelseyfrog 5y ago
        I was being a snark, but I would still genuinely like to hear why someone would feel confident in the method.
        Aunche 5y ago
        It's the consumer price index. Rent is consumed. A house is an asset. You can sell it at a profit. Your intuition is correct in that it's not quite that simple in the real world. Housing is already the least liquid asset, and people get an emotional attachment to their homes, so they often die without cashing out on their homes. As a result, they feel poorer than they should as suggested by CPI. IMO, the problem isn't the CPI. The market is just fundamentally distorted because the government pumps money into real estate into subsidized loans.
Grimburger 5y ago
I've worked for a few companies where all staff had their salary increase by CPI each year, you could negotiate a better base rate sure, but the accepted principle in agreements was inline with inflation. Maybe it's just an Australian thing. Whether you believe CPI is an accurate representation of cost for the average person is another matter altogether.

It never does. This is just accelerating the pandemic-era wealth transfer that started with the rich getting trillions to prop up their assets while everyone else got $600.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

How did the rich get trillions to prop up their assets?

terminalcommand 5y ago
Tax cuts for companies, increased government spending to boost stock markets, state subvenventions, significantly lower interest rate than inflation.
- devcpp 5y ago
  That's all from the government, and by extension from the population at large, not from any set of rich people.
  - hattori_hanzo 5y ago
    Well yeah. From the government, for rich people. I don't know any poor people who can directly profit from corporate bailouts, tax cuts or has access to loans with such low interest rates. Even though as you say it comes from the population at large.
    - devcpp 5y ago
      I'm the last person to defend welfare for the wealthy. I'm saying you're blaming the player rather than the game, which is an understandable feeling but is not productive to your goals.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  Tax cuts are perhaps a bit questionable, giving them trillions by not taking away the money they earned?
jjoonathan 5y ago
Wasn't that the point of the PPP? Give companies loans that are really grants that find their way back to asset holders through buybacks?
ralph84 5y ago
Trillions: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren... The rich: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/fed-officials-owned-securities-it-was-buying-during-pandemic-raising-more-questions-about-conflicts.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/fed-officials-owned-securiti... - Powell held between $1.25 million and $2.5 million of municipal bonds. They were just a small portion of his total reported assets. While the bonds were purchased before 2019, they were held while the Fed last year bought more than $5 billion in munis, including one from the state of Illinois purchased by his family trust in 2016. - Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren held between $151,000 and $800,000 worth of real estate investment trusts that owned mortgage-backed securities. He made as many as 37 separate trades in the four REITS while the Fed purchased almost $700 billion in MBS. - Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin held $1.35 million to $3 million in individual corporate bonds purchased before 2020. They include bonds of Pepsi, Home Depot and Eli Lilly. The Fed last year opened a corporate bond-buying facility and purchased $46.5 billion of corporate bonds.

baron816 5y ago

> It never does. The first thing in the article is a graph where 7 our of the 11 years shown have positive real wage growth. If worker pay never kept up with inflation, the country would be among the world’s poorest.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
There hasn't been much positive wage growth for the vast majority of Americans in 70 years. https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ The "distribution of family income" chart has been inflation adjusted. Note that for the bottom 10th and 50th percentiles, income has flatlined. The 90th percentile income earners have seen their wages nearly double, after inflation adjustment.
Supermancho 5y ago
How does that math work? > If worker pay never kept up with inflation, the country would be among the world’s poorest. That is flat wrong. Even if you were still making 23$ an hour as you did in the 70's: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-... https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ ...you'd still be among the top 20% of earners across the earth. Let's take another step down to simple minimum wage. over 7$/hr in the US puts you at... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_w... - in the top 20, which doesn't even include countries without a minimum wage. Your statement about "among the world's poorest" requires revision.
- tempestn 5y ago
  "Never" doesn't only refer to the period from the 1970s to now. You'd be making a lot less than $23 per hour if wage growth never kept up with inflation.
  - Supermancho 5y ago

paxys 5y ago

> It never does Except in 10 of the last 12 years, as you can clearly see in the same chart

noja 5y ago
The chart excludes housing. It's pointless.
- paxys 5y ago
  Says who? CPI does include housing.
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    CPI includes housing as "Owners' equivalent rent of primary residence (OER)". If that inspires confidence in anyone, please, I'd like to hear how.
    - paxys 5y ago
      Standard internet discourse. Numbers are bad - "See everyone, things are fucked. I told you so." (which is what this post is about) Numbers are good - "Meh, I never trust the underlying data anyways. It is all meaningless."
      - kelseyfrog 5y ago
        I was being a snark, but I would still genuinely like to hear why someone would feel confident in the method.
        Aunche 5y ago
        It's the consumer price index. Rent is consumed. A house is an asset. You can sell it at a profit. Your intuition is correct in that it's not quite that simple in the real world. Housing is already the least liquid asset, and people get an emotional attachment to their homes, so they often die without cashing out on their homes. As a result, they feel poorer than they should as suggested by CPI. IMO, the problem isn't the CPI. The market is just fundamentally distorted because the government pumps money into real estate into subsidized loans.

Grimburger 5y ago

I've worked for a few companies where all staff had their salary increase by CPI each year, you could negotiate a better base rate sure, but the accepted principle in agreements was inline with inflation. Maybe it's just an Australian thing. Whether you believe CPI is an accurate representation of cost for the average person is another matter altogether.