Why have the rich gotten richer?

Longshot · Dec 14, 2017

doombug said: ↑

I am always hearing the left complain about the rich getting richer. They love to spout the stats of how few people own so much of the wealth. I have one question for those who do this:

What is the reason for this?

The left seems to be worried about such a thing and they try and portray it as bad but they never say why the rich have gotten richer.
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Because of the government. Otherwise, they would only receive the income that consumers give them.

TedintheShed · Dec 14, 2017

Longshot said: ↑

Look at 1970. The triangle is at the lowest point in the chart. Then it begins to rise. What happened in 1971 that caused it to rise?
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Sigh...he won't give you a straight answer, so I will.

We went off the gold standard.

Antiduopolist · Dec 14, 2017

Sanskrit said: ↑

Folks, tax policy.. up, down, sideways, within the bounds of 100 years or so of factual U.S. tax policy history, actually matters very little to how much "wealth" or "income" a middle class person has. It matters -very much- to the gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-trial lawyer-MSM Complex though, because it correlates directly with the bloated fiat benefits they drain from the productive elements of society. THAT is why the Complex and its minions are constantly on about tax policy... it's for THEM at YOUR expense, not for "the poor" or "vanishing middle class" but for THEM at YOUR expense. Never forget that while reading their whitewash distortions.

"Trickle down" is Complex speak jargon, not a real word, not a real economic concept. Anyone using it is instantly discredited as substituting propaganda for reasonable adult policy discussions... including Republicans and ex Presidents... or hell anyone, doesn't matter who uses it, when you hear it, you are listening to an ignorant person... or being conned. No option C. Did it work? Are they fooling you?

Further, ANY purported "analysis" of U.S. tax policy history and reform that includes only factors like the above ^, and omits loophole closure, AMT beefing up, deduction limitation, shelter disallowing, is so distorted as to be a purposeful LIE. The Reagan era tax reform did reduce and streamline brackets... but it also brought VAST amounts of previously exempted, untaxed income into those brackets. Anyone who doesn't mention this necessary context is running a con. Finally here, unions weren't "busted," they became irrelevant in the booming SERVICE and TECH economy. Reagan fired the ATCs for violating federal law, not to "bust" them. Public unions have grown like lice in the intervening period.

ANY statement that "the very rich effectively do not" pay FICA is so full of weasel words and Complex speak that anyone of any paygrade should be able to puzzle it out, but in case not, note that they will fluidly switch from bogus notions like "1%" to "very rich" on a dime... and insert more weaseling via "effectively." Why? Because they know that the 10-1% pay huge amounts of FICA tax. Instead of acknowledging this, they switch their jargon to nebulous outliers like "very rich" in a purposeful effort to deceive. The average high earner pays some over half the percentage of their income in FICA that the lowest earner pays, and gets royally SHAFTED when it's time to withdraw when the percentages are converted into $$ and TVM is applied. FICA is a GREAT deal for lower and middle incomes in those real terms, a shitty deal for high earners. The truth is that FICA is very progressive, extremely easy to qualify for basic benefits, and high income payers do not get anything remotely resembling an equitable return when real factors are considered.

Oh, and another omission/distortion, though it's common to call FICA "payroll taxes," that's not AT ALL how it was sold to the public, or really what FICA is or ever has been. It was sold as a "trust fund" not as a tax, and any truth-teller interested in precision and accuracy will refer to FICA contributions as just that, "contributions" to distinguish them from income taxes, and not try to muddy by calling them "payroll taxes." Like many Complex jargon examples, the nonleft has unwisely let them get away with these types of semantic tricks without question and ignorantly uses the inaccurate, slanted Complex jargon... until the internet, which is gradually exposing their lies. It's called a "tax" by everyone as shorthand, but isn't really a "tax" though, don't let that fool you into allowing them to lump it in with income tax. Again, did they fool you?

Something other than Reagan's tax policy happened in the early 80s. That something was MSDOS, which sent the previous electro-tech explosion into the stratosphere, made many people filthy rich (Gates, Bezos, 100,000 others) because of innovation miracles that the public wants. That is exchanging one type of wealth for another, not disadvantaging the middle class, quite the opposite in fact. You can live without the net, computers, five years of extra life, telecomm, etc., and sit and count the dollars you save. Trading those dollars voluntarily and making someone rich in the process doesn't mean they -took- anything from you. YOU initiated a VOLUNTARY trade of an abstraction in exchange for concrete wealth. You WON, not lost.

Finally, charts and graphs based on their doctored numbers are meaningless twaddle just like their rigged polls. Our CHILDREN are SO RICH that what would be comfortable pop celebrities in the past are billionaires today. Our middle class is SO RICH that whole industries catering to it, casual dining for example, where people crowd into Olive Garden to spend $25 a head on ONE MEAL, have sprung out of nothing over the last 40 years. (Remember when eating out several nights a week was something only rich people could afford? I do) But sure, that's all "the rich" packing those restaurants, huge big box specialty retailers and toy stores.

Want to accurately measure how "rich" the middle class of a country is more accurately than cooked charts and graphs? Simple, measure the growth in revenue from childrens' luxury goods, toys, video games, movies, phones, Taylor Swift tickets, over time, adjusting for population growth. THAT'S a far more accurate measure of how rich or poor our middle class is; based on the price and growth of Disney, our middle class is in fact stinking, filthy rich compared to recent past times. Don't fall for their bogus charts about "% of income." They lie through their teeth in calculating "wealth," (see prior long post) why wouldn't they lie in calculating income? (they do)

Remember, it's not about "the poor." It's not about the "vanishing middle class." It's not even about "soaking the rich" (whom they know full well can't pay for their do little, Complex fiat lifestyles and unearned perqs).

It's quite simply about taking more from YOU, the -real- middle class, for THEM your gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-trial lawyer-MSM Complex parasites. That's the point of all their cons, semantic BS and dissimulation. Never forget it.
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Yikes.

What can one say other than "Sanskrit."

Antiduopolist · Dec 14, 2017

Iriemon said: ↑

Those are commonly raised arguments. However, I don't think they explain the explosion in inequality we've seen starting in 1981.

First, empirically, the timing doesn't fit. Immigration, globalization, and automation didn't suddenly start happening at drastic levels in 1981 which would correlate to income inequality suddenly skyrocketing in 1981. We had these things happening before 1981 and since.

Let's consider immigration and women entering the work force. Basically, what you are arguing is that growth in the labor force is a reason why median incomes have not increased. Superficially, that argument seems plausible. If you have an increase in the labor supply, economics tells you that an increase in supply decreases the price of the supply.

Here's the civilian labor force:

As you can see, we do not see a spike in the size of the labor force happening in 1981 that would explain why income inequality started skyrocketing. Indeed, since about 2000, we've seen a curtailing of labor force growth, which should mean that we should have seen median income rising more strongly starting around 2000, which has not been the case.

While labor force growth might superficially seem to be an explanation, it don't think they make a lot of sense as an explanation in the long term. Looking simply at the growth of the labor force is only looking at part of the supply and demand equation. The other side is demand. When you increase the number of workers, you have more people earning income, more people working means more people spending creating more overall demand for products and services, and thus more production and jobs.

We've seen that. Economic growth since 1981 has been overall pretty good, though it has slowed in the last couple decades (for reasons IMO I can explain later). But the basic problem hasn't been lack of economic growth, but that virtually all that growth has gone to the rich, and virtually none to the bottom 90%.

Now, I'm not saying supply and demand do not matter. They do. When there is a recession, there is less demand for workers and you see median incomes fall. When the economy is strong, there is more demand, and median incomes will start to rise. We've seen that cycle several times, before 1981 and after. But the difference is that prior to 1981, those cycles had an affect, but over the long term they didn't preclude working folk from sharing in the growth and prosperity they helped create. After 1981, you do. That isn't explained by the growth in the labor force.

Automation is another factor, but we've had automation before and after 1981. There wasn't a sudden explosion in automation in 1981 that explains why income inequality started skyrocketing. Where we have seen automation have an effect is the type of jobs. Automation has had its most profound effect in manufacturing. While manufacturing has continued to grow, it has grown with fewer workers. There has been a dramatic shift away from manufacturing jobs to service jobs. That has had an effect on wages. Manufacturing jobs traditionally were much more unionized, and unions changed the supply and demand equation from an individual worker to workers as a group. As a consequence, folks working manufacturing jobs got paid salaries not based simply on supply and demand for an individual worker, but based more upon the value of the workers as a group. Those higher incomes bolstered middle class incomes has a whole, and generated tremendous purchasing power. The economy is based 70% on consumption, and when you have working class incomes increasing, you have more spending and more economic growth.

But as we have transitioned away from manufacturing, fewer and fewer working people have group representation. Union participation has dropped from over 30% to under 10%. People working in service industries have, not coincidentally IMO, not had group representation, and have not had the ability to leverage wages commensurate with what is being produced. The workforce has transitioned to more a supply and demand for individual workers, as opposed to supply and demand for a group of workers. This phenomenon has coincided with some of the other factors I mentioned -- minimum wage levels have not kept up with inflation, much less economic growth. Overtime law (until recently) were not kept up with the times and enforcement was lax. Consequently, real median incomes stagnated, and with it, the purchasing power of the middle class. Less spending power = less buying = less demand = less production. For a while, middle class folks made up some of the difference by borrowing more and pulling equity out of their homes, but those sources have tapped out. It's no coincidence, IMO, that as middle incomes have stagnated, we've seen a trend of more sluggish economic growth.

Globalization is a related issue. First, whatever effect it has, IMO has been overstated. Net imports over exports represents only a small fraction of the total US economy.
It is true that foreign producers have become more competitive in recent decades, though I am not aware of any incidence of globalization drastically expanding starting in 1981 that would correlation with income inequality exploding at that time. However, if foreign competition was the real problem, we'd expect to see US GDP stagnating as a result. If stagnation of US GDP were the effect, we'd see stagnation of all income levels. Of course, that has not been the case. We've had good economic growth, and incomes at the top have skyrocketed. That economic growth just has not been shared with the 90% of working Americans. Like automation, the effect of globalization has had the greatest impact on manufacturing, resulting in loss of jobs that were, in general, higher paying union jobs, and a transition into service jobs, which, as explained above, have not not been characterized by group representation of workers.

So, in sum, IMO those factors you mentioned by themselves, while I'm not saying have had no effect, do no explain the long term trend of income inequality we saw exploding starting in 1981.
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^ Some good points.

Lesh · Dec 14, 2017

HonestJoe said: ↑

No, I'd say on average they came from somewhat better positions to their peers. I'm not saying it's impossible to go from nothing to great wealth, only that starting with something makes it much. much easier. I still completely disagree that "most of the top 1% came from nothing".
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In fact "most" of the top 1% inherited their wealth

Conviction · Dec 14, 2017

doombug said: ↑

I am always hearing the left complain about the rich getting richer. They love to spout the stats of how few people own so much of the wealth. I have one question for those who do this:

What is the reason for this?

The left seems to be worried about such a thing and they try and portray it as bad but they never say why the rich have gotten richer.
Click to expand...

I think trillions in quantitative easing didn't help regular Americans. And then you have a guy like Obama in office and they hoard it in hope of better business climate.... Which Trump is delivering to us after 20 years of stagnation.

If you really want to know how everyday Americans are doing economically, look at the GDP first.

jcarlilesiu · Dec 14, 2017

Antiduopolist said: ↑

Care to discuss the links?
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Nope. Not until you weigh in.

If we are all just going to three links at each other as a forum of debate, this forum is pretty useless.

Belch · Dec 14, 2017

jcarlilesiu said: ↑

Nope. Not until you weigh in.

If we are all just going to three links at each other as a forum of debate, this forum is pretty useless.
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Yeah, a link without a description or explanation of what is in it is just nonsense. I never respond to those troll posts where they just throw out links and condescension.

Some people just aren't worth my time.

Sanskrit · Dec 15, 2017

Lesh said: ↑

In fact "most" of the top 1% inherited their wealth
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...and... that's a lie.

Sanskrit · Dec 15, 2017

Antiduopolist said: ↑

Yikes. What can one say other than "Sanskrit."

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Too long, but written on an 8th-10th grade level for this forum. Disagree or not, if you couldn't "get it" even then, well I'm real sorry about that.

Thanks for the block quote though!

Canell · Dec 15, 2017

doombug said: ↑

I am always hearing the left complain about the rich getting richer. They love to spout the stats of how few people own so much of the wealth. I have one question for those who do this:

What is the reason for this?
Click to expand...

18 Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.”

HB, Luke 8:18
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Antiduopolist · Dec 15, 2017

jcarlilesiu said: ↑

Nope. Not until you weigh in.

If we are all just going to three links at each other as a forum of debate, this forum is pretty useless.
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Neither you nor the OP understand how the forum functions; I was trying to help out by supplementing the deeply flawed/baiting OP.

But oh well - the issue is easily explored by those genuinely interested in doing so.

Antiduopolist · Dec 15, 2017

Belch said: ↑

Yeah, a link without a description or explanation of what is in it is just nonsense. I never respond to those troll posts where they just throw out links and condescension.

Some people just aren't worth my time.
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The links were examples of what the OP should have provided rather than baiting left-leaning posters; if there was trolling, it was not mine.

Antiduopolist · Dec 15, 2017

Sanskrit said: ↑

Too long, but written on an 8th-10th grade level for this forum. Disagree or not, if you couldn't "get it" even then, well I'm real sorry about that.

Thanks for the block quote though!
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Always glad to help spread the message about your mad skills, bra.

Belch · Dec 15, 2017

Antiduopolist said: ↑

The links were examples of what the OP should have provided rather than baiting left-leaning posters; if there was trolling, it was not mine.
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But the links are what YOU provided, so your entire premise is incorrect.

Sorry, but we can all use search engines. Next time, if you have anything to add, then try using logic, reason, and evidence. Not just links. I know it's hard at first, but like any other skill, it'll come with practice.

Antiduopolist · Dec 15, 2017

Belch said: ↑

But the links are what YOU provided, so your entire premise is incorrect.

Sorry, but we can all use search engines. Next time, if you have anything to add, then try using logic, reason, and evidence. Not just links. I know it's hard at first, but like any other skill, it'll come with practice.
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Try reading the forum rules; this is a bait thread with no basis for respectful discussion, and has descended into the intended chaos and acrimony.

Belch · Dec 15, 2017

Antiduopolist said: ↑

Try reading the forum rules; this is a bait thread with no basis for respectful discussion, and has descended into the intended chaos and acrimony.
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Then feel free to report it as such.

Antiduopolist · Dec 15, 2017

It's a shame; the topic is certainly valid, but the approach wanting.

Always happy to discuss the links I provided to assist the topic follow a decent track; they're from a range of sources.

Belch · Dec 15, 2017

Antiduopolist said: ↑

It's a shame; the topic is certainly valid, but the approach wanting.

Always happy to discuss the links I provided to assist the topic follow a decent track; they're from a range of sources.
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Who is going to even click on your links? You provided nothing to entice anybody to investigate them further. You just threw a bunch of links out there, and that's just not good enough.

Links are useful in order to provide some extra meat to your argument, but a link by itself, or multiple links, are rubbish and will be ignored.

We debate here. If you can't hang, then... you can't hang. Posting links is not debate.

Robert · Dec 15, 2017

StillBlue said: ↑

The answer is quite simple really. The rich have better bargaining power because they are rich.
"An economic arrangement that pays a Wall Street worker tens of millions of dollars per year to do high-frequency trading and pays just tens of thousands to workers who grow or serve our food, build our homes, educate our children, or risk their lives to protect us isn’t an expression of the true value or economic necessity of these jobs. It simply reflects a difference in bargaining power and status." http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/11/a-wealthy-capitalist-on-why-money-doesnt-trickle-down/
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If that is how, how did the black man, sleeping in the BART toilets with his son with him at night in the SF Bay Area rise to riches? They made a movie about him. Chris Gardener .... his story http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/pursuitofhappyness.php

Next explain a poverty stricken Oprah Winfrey become a billionaire or soon to be one.

How did Buffett an ordinary man become a mega billionaire?

Do you think Buffett worked selling stocks on wall street?

StillBlue · Dec 15, 2017

Robert said: ↑

If that is how, how did the black man, sleeping in the BART toilets with his son with him at night in the SF Bay Area rise to riches? They made a movie about him. Chris Gardener .... his story http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/pursuitofhappyness.php

Next explain a poverty stricken Oprah Winfrey become a billionaire or soon to be one.

How did Buffett an ordinary man become a mega billionaire?

Do you think Buffett worked selling stocks on wall street?
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Or how about the woman from the trailer park that won the lottery?
Or the guy with one hand who pitched in the major leagues.
Or the guy who made it by borrowing a $100 million from daddy?

Just because there are exceptions doesn't mean that the rule does not apply.

YourBrainIsGod · Dec 15, 2017

Because of their influence on government to bend the economic system to their will. This is consistent throughout civilization.

Antiduopolist · Dec 15, 2017

Belch said: ↑

Who is going to even click on your links? You provided nothing to entice anybody to investigate them further. You just threw a bunch of links out there, and that's just not good enough.

Links are useful in order to provide some extra meat to your argument, but a link by itself, or multiple links, are rubbish and will be ignored.

We debate here. If you can't hang, then... you can't hang. Posting links is not debate.
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You don't understand how the forum operates; you may want to review the thread posting guidelines.

TIA

Belch · Dec 15, 2017

Antiduopolist said: ↑

You don't understand how the forum operates; you may want to review the thread posting guidelines.

TIA
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ho-hum...

learn how to debate, son.

Antiduopolist · Dec 15, 2017

I'm happy to debate the links I posted due to the OP's failure to provide any basis for respectful debate.

And I'd post a link to the thread creation rules, but I understand you have trouble clicking on those.

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