How Wealth Inequality Spiraled Out of Control

Below is a video by Robert Reich which explains how wealth inequality spiraled out of control.

Though he doesn't use the term, what he is describing is how the economic philosophy called 'neoliberalism' has caused it.

According to Wikipedia, which, in my view, is a very good definition:

Neoliberalism, or neo-liberalism,[1] is a term used to describe the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism.[2]: 7 [3] A significant factor in the rise of conservative and libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominately advocated by them,[4][5] it is generally associated with policies of economic liberalization, including privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, austerity and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society;[6][14]


Now, I have no problem with the right balance between neoliberal and liberal ideas, and I wrote an essay in an OP on this here:

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/politics-of-the-center-what-is-it.585857/

but neoliberalism is not a balance of the two concepts, it is all or nothing to one side of the concept, which is, if I had to find just two simple words, it would be 'unfettered capitalism', which is basically lopsided all the way to the right ( where oligarchy & plutocracy are) and the end of that road is always vulture capitalism and power accruing to fewer and fewer hands because extreme wealth is extreme power and the founder's concept of liberal democracy becomes a mockery.

Neoliberalism really got accelerated under Reagan using 'trickle down' economics, or 'Reagonomics" (which is basically just neoliberalism), the two Bushes, Clinton and Trump, though Trump attempted to inject populism into the mix because it sounds popular (he's not a real populist, in my view, as a real populist would not have tried to end the ACA, but more accurately a real populist would go with UHC, support Unions, at least not the corrupt kind) Obama less so of a neolib and Biden, whom I thought was a neolib, is turning out not to be, or is at least trying to turn the ship of state away from neoliberalism, though doing it will take more than one term, probably more than one presidency, because the damage it has done has deep and entrenched. The road at the end of neoliberalism is where we are finding our country today, which is that the upper 50% own 98% of the nation's wealth, and the upper 1% own 35% of the national's wealth ( source: Federal Reserve Wealth Distribution Tables and charts).

Thing is, most conservatives, conservative libertarians, and libertarians do not see this as a problem, which, to me, is bizarre. Robert Reich explains what is happening or has happened in America much better than I can.

Now, if you want to disagree with Reich, fine, that is why I am posting this OP, to debate the subject, but any 'kill-the-source' arguments will be dismissed. If it were someone like Alex Jones, you'd have a valid point, but not with Reich.

 

neoliberalism : "there is no alternative" maggie thatcher

that would not do for the reagan team, who relabeled their economic system to sound less "liberal."

the american tax code is explicitly designed to enrich the rich and impoverish the working class. restoring capital gains, and corporate taxes to reasonable levels would help. a fractional percent tax on financial transactions would be effective as well.

 

I think the wealth disparity started long before Reagan. Let's go all the way back to Kennedy/Johnson. Reagan got his idea of cutting taxes on the rich and business from them trying to stimulate the economy. That was the biggest tax cut before Reagan. Sort of the trickle down effect.

But tax cuts isn't the only reason for the wage gap. That comes from holding down wages and we only have to go to Carter to see the effects of that. Carter devastated good paying union jobs with his deregulation. Not only that, he held down wages on our biggest employer, the Federal Government.

redstate.com › laborunionreport › 2011/01/13The Decline of Unions, Part One: President Jimmy Carter ...
Despite the myth that Reagan is the one that devastated private-sector unions, no amount of so-called “union-busting” that Reagan allegedly did matches the amount of devastation that President


www.nytimes.com › 2019/01/16 › usWhy Don’t Unpaid Federal Workers Walk Off the Job? - The New ...
Jan 16, 2019 · A law passed during President Jimmy Carter’s administration bars federal workers from striking. When air traffic controllers walked off the job in 1981, demanding better pay and

Yes, the Democrats blamed Reagan for firing the Air Traffic Controllers, when it was the law passed by Carter and Democrats that forced Reagan to do it.

So you see the decline of wages and the widening of the gap between the rich and middle class really began with Carter.

 

The part of neoliberalism that blows my mind is how it has convinced its constituency to vote against their own self-interest in the name of bogus patriotism. They created a chimera at which to direct all their anger, even though it is made up. Smoke & mirrors is all that American conservatism has left.

 

But the wage gap goes much deeper than just tax cuts and holding down union wages. The biggest killer is stupid trade deals we have made going all the way back to Kennedy/Johnson and working it's way up to today. We have allowed countries like Japan, back in the 1960's to put on trade restriction to our companies and our products that kept American business out of their country while we threw our markets open to them. They were able to take over products after products that we once dominated and put ours out of business. Watch how we lost the television, flat panel screen and VCR industry. See why we couldn't sell our cars in Japan. It all started with the television industry so page down and start with that. There is a lot to this. When you lose some of your biggest business, you lose good paying jobs and the pay gap widens. PAGE DOWN FIRST) https://users.monash.edu/~jwb/japanyes.txt

 

What you describe above is an integral part of this re-emerging serfdom. It's the most unexplainable part of it. It's the colosseum effect but with TV media and social media.

 

The vast majority are your own rich liberal elites. The ones living in multi-million dollar homes in the deep north and west coast. They are your people. Blame them. “Conservatism” didn’t cause that.

 

The rich isn't hurting us as much as stupid trades are. Trump showed us that with his tax cuts and cuts in regulations. After he cut both and our economy took off like a rocket. Yes the rich got richer, but unlike Pelosi saying only the rich got richer and we only got crumbs from the table, before the virus hit us, Trumps policies also made it so the middle class saw their biggest wage gain in their history. Even the wages for the blue collar worker came way up. Companies could now begin to compete again with foreign companies and they began moving back and expanding their business, creating thousands of jobs. Here is a great example of that

. Asked in 2016 if he would bring his billions in off shore billions home, he said no.( .Apple CEO Says Company Won't Bring Home Money Parked ...

https://www.forbes.com/.../08/17/apple-ceo-says-company-wont...

Aug 17, 2016 · Apple CEO Says Company Won't Bring Home Money Parked Overseas Until Tax Rates Are 'Fair'. Tech giant Apple is hoping that the United States' tolerance for pain is a little bit lower than mine. In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed his tenure at Apple and, not surprisingly,...

But after Trump's tax cuts

Newscentermaine.com | Why Apple is bringing billions back home
www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/nation-now/...
A second corporate campus, an additional 20,000 workers and a $350 billion commitment. That's Apple's pledge to the U.S. As the tech giant announced a sweeping set of moves Wednesday to bring back billions of its offshore cash and spur economic growth. The plan also includes paying $38 billion in taxes.

 

Thanks for underscoring my point.

 

The rich will always be rich, but the only way we will get richer is through jobs and we depend on the rich to give us those jobs. But if you throw obstacles at them like high taxes, to many regulations and make bad trades, your going to drive them either bankrupt, or out of the country. Now if they leave to another country to one that taxes less and pays less wages, with little or no benefits and take their good jobs with them, aren't you making the rich richer? But if we lose those jobs we are poorer. Either way the rich will get richer. There is only one way we'll get richer and that is through good jobs. But we keep chasing them away. With all of Trump's faults and he has many, he knew what many of the experts and Democrats don't seem to know.

 

People need to quit worry about the wealthy rich and concentrate on what will bring the rest of us wealth. The only thing that will do that is jobs. We need to make the environment so to bring jobs here, not ship them over seas. It's not free trade like a lot of Republicans think, it's fair trade. Again, Trump knew that and tried to change many of our bad trades to bring companies and jobs back. We can't do like we did with Japan, Mexico and China. They have screwed us in every way, or I should say we let them screw us. We need to think a lot differently than we do now. In just 21 short years China has gone from riding bikes and rickshaws to the largest automaker in the world. They now have the biggest Army and Navy. We borrow money off them to pay our bills. They, like Japan are buying up our businesses here, to go along with all the ones that moved to China. China is threatening war with us over Taiwan and has a defense treaty with Russia. When are we going to learn?

 

It was the promotion of corporate America downsizing under Regan that caused the giant disparity in salaries. Corporation downsized employees over age 50 who had high salaries,lengthy vacations accrued and the good benefits these corporations used to offer, replacing them with new employees at reduced benefits and pay. These corporations then told the exiting employees that if they wanted to take advantage of the full separation benefit payou they had to agree to take Soc. Sec. retirement at age 62 thereby reducing their accrued monthly retirement income from both Soc. Sec. and the company retirement plan.

 

Questions people need to examine for themselves......am I happy with my lot in life? Do I have leisure time for myself? Does the fact that here are people that own yachts, several homes, eat out often, bother me or affect me poorly? As to the last, I could give a flip. It's fun to be content and when one looks at world poverty.....we have it really good here! The "American Marxists" have a lot of propagandizing to do and those seeking to come here, steal there story!

 

Here you go. Real Time with Bill Maher: Middle Class Economics (HBO) - YouTube

 

The world under every existing political system has always had it's rich and poor.. No matter what, the rule makers will always have control of the purse

 

Are we going to talk about the role large scale immigration and population increases had in this?

With many big city areas getting overcrowded, it pushed up land and rent costs due to the shortages. (It's simple supply and demand)


Pile on top of that America outsourcing its manufacturing to other countries and the economic decline that resulted in the Rust Belt region of the country.
(There are plenty of cities that are not overcrowded in the Rust Belt, but that's because people left because the money and job opportunities disappeared)

 

Boy are you off. When Carter started deregulation, he killed hundreds of thousands of union jobs. Then he went and put up regulations that prevented millions of Federal workers from striking over wages and hours. My brother worked in the trucking industry. He kept losing job after job after deregulation. Big trucking companies went out of business and new ones came in that were non union and paid way less. After two years of this, my brother finally got out of the trucking business altogether. Go up and read my first two posts.

 

You're fogging the issue.

Both parties, until Obama and Biden, embraced neoliberalism

Republicans more so, Carter and Clinton somewhat, Obama less so and Biden is rejecting it altogether.

Neoliberalism is now the mainstay of the right, and is now rejected by the left in the progressive wing.

 

There has been a number of tests and simulations. Almost invariably, a small group of people ended up with the vast majority of the wealth. Some people just have a talent for making and keeping money. Others don't. Personally, I have never thought it was worth the effort. I am perfectly happy where I am and have no problem at all with others making and keeping more money than me.

 

Trump rejected free trade. Tried to chance things to fair trade and all the Democrats, including Biden did was bitch Trump's tariffs were causing Americans to pay more for Chinese goods. Well just how do you change bad free trade to fair trade that you say that Biden and Obama don't agree on? Do you think they will do it by asking them nicely?It was Carter who started deregulation. And I don't know how Biden is against a lot of spending with all the things he wants to do.

 

Trump is not into any -ism, but he supports many neoliberal concepts, like reducing taxes on the superrich.

My philosophy is a balance of the two, and I support free trade on raw materials, and might support tariffs in some areas at the retail level on a case by case basis.

I think Biden was wrong to keep Trump's tariffs, and he should remove the embargo to Cuba.

 

Obama was so against Free Trade he promised he would renegotiate NAFTA. He was firm about that, wasn't he? Then after getting in said he changed his mind.

www.huffpost.com › entry › obama-reaffirms-promise-tObama Reaffirms Promise to Renegotiate NAFTA | HuffPost null
Feb 12, 2009 · The Obama statement from Jan. 12 indicates the president-elect will stand firm on renegotiating NAFTA. It may no longer be a question of "will he or won't he". To confront the crisis

 

that is not the point, and no one is suggesting disallowing talented people from reaping the rewards of their work.

Where the argument always gets sidetracked is where republicans confuse the arguments progressives make, and try
and turn it into a 'punish the hard worker' argument, which is a strawman and not the argument being made.

The issue of wealth becomes a problem at the dynastic level, where it's no longer about hard work, but about
acquiring so much wealth and power, that power begets more power, such that they can more easily rig the system even more in their favor, whereby the super rich corner a larger and larger segment of the wealth of the nation.

The upper 50% have 98% of the nation's wealth, but the upper 1% have 35% of the nation's wealth,

and these sectors are growing by trillions far in excess of 'talent' and 'labor'.

Wealth grows by itself, once acquired at a certain level.

the issue becomes a problem when individuals have as much wealth as a number of small nations.

And the question becomes, is it sound policy, from a national security perspective, to allow individuals that much power?

Emphatically no is the only just, fair, and reasonable answer, in my view.

But, of course, republicans are oblivious to the issue because each one of them, secretly or otherwise, wish to become super rich.

So, they don't want to enact any policy that they deem, however remote the possibility actually is, to backfire on themselves, if and when they do become super rich (which, of course, is fantasy for the vast majority of people, but that's how republicans think. How do I know? I used to be a republican).

 

Dude, it's not that. The same thing happened (and is happening) all over the Western World.

It has nothing to do with local partisan politics.

 

Robert Reich is a Jew that endorsed fellow Jew Bernie Sanders. Commie Bernie Sanders. I really don't care what the wannabe Bolshevik has to say. They all say nice things until you are in chains.