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Economic inequality has massively increased since abandoning the gold standard. Of course academic economists carry water for the people at the top benefitting

Economic inequality has massively increased since abandoning the gold standard. Of course academic economists carry water for the people at the top benefitting from the inequality.

jquery 4y ago
The number of pirates has drastically decreased since abandoning the gold standard. Sure you're not carrying water for Big Pirate?
- ewzimm 4y ago
  Has it though? If piracy is the act of invading someone’s private space where they can be isolated them from help and taking from them, is ransomware just modern piracy with less violence? Of course the sea pirates are still very active on some areas.
  - FBISurveillance 4y ago
    To rephrase: global warming becomes a bigger issue as JavaScript adoption grows.
    - ewzimm 4y ago
      You might be on to something there! Think of all the heat generated by executing all that inefficient code! I’ll rephrase as well. Problems like inequality or robbery have a tendency to adapt to whatever circumstances we create for them.
mrcartmeneses 4y ago
Tax rates for the wealthy have also declined massively.
- refurb 4y ago
  The percent of all taxes paid for by the top 1% has only held steady or gone up over time.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    This is meaningless without more detailed numbers. If it's held steady or gone up by a few percent while, say, the percent of wealth and income received by them has gone up far more, then... whoops. They're better off.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Well the percent of the GDP that is taxed is pretty steady at 20%, which infers that spending/taxes grows at the same rate as income. Thus the rich are paying the same percent or more of their annual income over time.
      - FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago
        This does not follow at all from those numbers (and reality). Tax pressure has moved towards the middle and lower class, to ease the “burden” of the rich and wealthy.
        refurb 4y ago
        Reality is literally the opposite of what you claim. I highly suggest you look at actually tax data and not comments from strangers on social media. https://files.taxfoundation.org/20220119175339/The-Top-1-Percents-Share-of-Income-Taxes-Has-Increased-Over-Time-Shares-of-Income-Taxes-by-Income-Group-2001-2019-Summary-of-the-Latest-Federal-Income-Tax-Data-2022-Update.png https://files.taxfoundation.org/20220119175339/The-Top-1-Per... Tax burden for the bottom 50% has dropped. Fewer and fewer low income Americans pay any income tax at all.
        anonymous_sorry 4y ago
majormajor 4y ago
So has economic productivity, total activity, and overall quality of life. So how do you decide which correlations to believe in more than other? I believe economic inequality is a problem, but the gold standard would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, based on weak "look, these things happened at the same time" reasoning. Economic inequality has been MASSIVE at many times in the past prior to modern currency, after all.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
xupybd 4y ago
Inequality has increased but poverty has decreased. The world is so much wealthier now. Yes high inequality is a problem but I'd argue too low inequality is a problem too. You need a difference of outcomes to motivate people. If that doesn't happen in currency it will happen in another way. For example people will invest in political power and work hard to corrupt the system in their favor. This happens with high levels of inequality but is reduced as there is a legitimate path to improving ones lot. There is something competitive in us the drives us to do better than our neighbors. That needs a legitimate outlet.
- dmwallin 4y ago
  It seems plainly obvious that history shows the opposite is true; corruption is increased when money and power are centralized amongst a few people. There's a reason the term "Robber Baron" came around the last time we experienced massive inequality as a country. If you have some examples to the contrary I would love to hear them.
- FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago
  If you take China out of the numbers poverty hasn’t really decreased.
- cudgy 4y ago
  > Inequality has increased but poverty has decreased. The world is so much wealthier now. Perhaps, but this is largely a result of manufacturing (a primary source of middle class jobs) moving from developed nations to previously agrarian economies. The same cycles will repeat itself until there are no pockets of cheap labor left in the world for the owners of these corporations to exploit.
  - vageli 4y ago
    Cheap is relative as the labor market is not globally uniform.
gbear605 4y ago
Lots of other things have changed in the economy since 1971. For big one example, see the huge decrease in unions.

Economic inequality has massively increased since abandoning the gold standard. Of course academic economists carry water for the people at the top benefitting from the inequality.

jquery 4y ago

The number of pirates has drastically decreased since abandoning the gold standard. Sure you're not carrying water for Big Pirate?

ewzimm 4y ago
Has it though? If piracy is the act of invading someone’s private space where they can be isolated them from help and taking from them, is ransomware just modern piracy with less violence? Of course the sea pirates are still very active on some areas.
- FBISurveillance 4y ago
  To rephrase: global warming becomes a bigger issue as JavaScript adoption grows.
  - ewzimm 4y ago
    You might be on to something there! Think of all the heat generated by executing all that inefficient code! I’ll rephrase as well. Problems like inequality or robbery have a tendency to adapt to whatever circumstances we create for them.

mrcartmeneses 4y ago

Tax rates for the wealthy have also declined massively.

refurb 4y ago
The percent of all taxes paid for by the top 1% has only held steady or gone up over time.
- majormajor 4y ago
  This is meaningless without more detailed numbers. If it's held steady or gone up by a few percent while, say, the percent of wealth and income received by them has gone up far more, then... whoops. They're better off.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Well the percent of the GDP that is taxed is pretty steady at 20%, which infers that spending/taxes grows at the same rate as income. Thus the rich are paying the same percent or more of their annual income over time.
    - FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago
      This does not follow at all from those numbers (and reality). Tax pressure has moved towards the middle and lower class, to ease the “burden” of the rich and wealthy.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Reality is literally the opposite of what you claim. I highly suggest you look at actually tax data and not comments from strangers on social media. https://files.taxfoundation.org/20220119175339/The-Top-1-Percents-Share-of-Income-Taxes-Has-Increased-Over-Time-Shares-of-Income-Taxes-by-Income-Group-2001-2019-Summary-of-the-Latest-Federal-Income-Tax-Data-2022-Update.png https://files.taxfoundation.org/20220119175339/The-Top-1-Per... Tax burden for the bottom 50% has dropped. Fewer and fewer low income Americans pay any income tax at all.
        anonymous_sorry 4y ago

majormajor 4y ago

So has economic productivity, total activity, and overall quality of life. So how do you decide which correlations to believe in more than other? I believe economic inequality is a problem, but the gold standard would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, based on weak "look, these things happened at the same time" reasoning. Economic inequality has been MASSIVE at many times in the past prior to modern currency, after all.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

xupybd 4y ago

Inequality has increased but poverty has decreased. The world is so much wealthier now. Yes high inequality is a problem but I'd argue too low inequality is a problem too. You need a difference of outcomes to motivate people. If that doesn't happen in currency it will happen in another way. For example people will invest in political power and work hard to corrupt the system in their favor. This happens with high levels of inequality but is reduced as there is a legitimate path to improving ones lot. There is something competitive in us the drives us to do better than our neighbors. That needs a legitimate outlet.

dmwallin 4y ago
It seems plainly obvious that history shows the opposite is true; corruption is increased when money and power are centralized amongst a few people. There's a reason the term "Robber Baron" came around the last time we experienced massive inequality as a country. If you have some examples to the contrary I would love to hear them.
FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago
If you take China out of the numbers poverty hasn’t really decreased.
cudgy 4y ago
> Inequality has increased but poverty has decreased. The world is so much wealthier now. Perhaps, but this is largely a result of manufacturing (a primary source of middle class jobs) moving from developed nations to previously agrarian economies. The same cycles will repeat itself until there are no pockets of cheap labor left in the world for the owners of these corporations to exploit.
- vageli 4y ago
  Cheap is relative as the labor market is not globally uniform.

gbear605 4y ago

Lots of other things have changed in the economy since 1971. For big one example, see the huge decrease in unions.