A question for the right on how to return to an economy where everyone prospers

[theeedude]

OP, I think you got your answer, the right doesn't care if we return to this economy. If anything, they view middle class prosperity as a burden on "job creators." While there is a prosperous middle class, there is still room to slash salaries and benefits, and/or outsource to cut labor costs.

 

[xBiffx]

OP, I think I got your answer, the left doesn't care if we return to this economy. If anything, they view the middle class' prosperity as a opportunity to tax for government job growth. While there is a prosperous middle class, there is still room to increase government entitlements through taxation and increase governments role in private industry through regulation.

EDIT: Sorry this doesn't answer the OP's question at all. Oh well.

 

[ElFenix]

We also need to fix the cost of college education. Its been going up more than inflation every year for a while, its causing kids to graduate with a mortgage and no house. This will do a lot to get the burden of debt off our young people and give them a better start. We need to get government out of the student loan business entirely, we need to stop giving out and guaranteeing loans. This will greatly increase the interest rates for getting these huge loans and make them almost impossible to get. This will greatly decrease the demand for college education and cause colleges to start lowering prices drastically. Allowing people to take out much smaller loans and making sure that they only major in things that they are sure they can pay them back. We are subsidizing all these expensive private colleges and over-inflating their tuition prices. There's no reason they should be this high. Its killing our young people.

i never did understand the logic of attempting to make college more affordable by stimulating demand. increase supply, morans.

the student loan business has done little but cause places like UoP to pop up that basically serve to leach money from the government. the cost of tuition there is shockingly high compared to community college. and i know i'd rather go to community college to get my pre-reqs in than UoP.


if the republicans can continue to crash the stock market then you'll see a lot fewer millionaires. -404.60 today.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

The cost of education goes up faster than inflation because the cost of providing it also does. This past week my wife's college learned that there are new disability standards they'll have to pay for. For example if a blind person wants to take biology the school has to (without compensation for costs) pay someone to look through a microscope and say "theres a little dot on the left side"...

Between increasing costs of doing business and of regulatory compliance many schools are going to go under. All well and good you may say but that's going to do nothing for cost or access.

 

[theeedude]

The cost of education goes up faster than inflation because the cost of providing it also does. This past week my wife's college learned that there are new disability standards they'll have to pay for. For example if a blind person wants to take biology the school has to (without compensation for costs) pay someone to look through a microscope and say "theres a little dot on the left side"...

Between increasing costs of doing business and of regulatory compliance many schools are going to go under. All well and good you may say but that's going to do nothing for cost or access.

BS excuse.

 

[Craig234]

What I am suggesting is not a change to free trade, but a change to monetary policies, these can also be done without a gold standard and with a federal reserve central bank, but the federal reserve must be filled with people who understand the damaging effects that manipulating the interest rate can have on an economy. Strength of the dollar to attract imports in the last 30-40 years has grown foreign debt holdings greatly and left us with a far smaller manufacturing base than if the dollar reflected the strength and balance of our economy. Our import/exports could have been balanced if the fed had not constantly sought to strengthen the dollar. Eventually this could be restored on either a gold or fiat currency.

I don't see how your policy, based on one economic ideology, corrects the distribution of wealth issue this thread is about.

 

[Craig234]

Since we are never talking about distribution of weath but rather redistribution of wealth the OP is pointless. But its funny that one looks at it as distribution rather than acquirement. Makes it seem like there is a magical pot of gold or a baron somewhere that all this money comes from rather than wealth being anywhere and everywhere as long as you have the skills to obtain it.

Let me repeat for the hard of reading:

This thread is not to discuss any defense of this trend, any argument about whether to reverse the trend.

I don't want to have to keep repeating the same thing on that.

This thread isn't to address your confusion on the topic. 'Distribution of wealth' is a description of who has how much a share, 'redistribution' is what we've had massively for 30 years, redistributing wealth to a new distribution heavily concentrated, as I said, at the top. Policies affect the distribution.

 

[Munky]

The premise of this whole thread is based on an assumption. Why exactly is everyone's wealth expected to increase? By what means is that supposed to happen?

 

[momeNt]

I don't see how your policy, based on one economic ideology, corrects the distribution of wealth issue this thread is about.

Offshoring manufacturing happened because it was cheaper to move jobs overseas in an exchange rate arbitrage.

Offshoring was sustained because monetary policy protected the strength of the dollar at the expense of increasing the debt load on our economy, allowing continued exchange rate arbitrage by the wealthy.

Offshoring productive factors of our economy hurts the bargaining power of the middle and lower classes which allows their wages to fall in relation to the wealthy.

 

[sm625]

It is not possible to have an economy where everyone prospers, because some people just do not give a damn. Some are lazy, others are simply non-materialistic.

The way we get closer to universal prosperity is to embrace free market principles, new fields of science, and of course technology.

I recommend you immerse yourself in the works of Lloyd Pye, Stefan Molyneux, Alan Watt, Jordan Maxwell, Michael Tsarion, David Wilcock. They will lead you to a lifetime of knowledge. If you spend at least 40 hours on each of those people, you will learn to see very clearly what is wrong and how to fix it. But good luck explaining it to someone who responds with "tldr" when you send them a sonnet. The effort required matches what is at stake... our very existence. If people dont start getting spiritually educated, it is over. Plain and simple. All that will be left is the most pathetic dumbed down mindless hollowed out husks of people. iDrones working in an iPoop factory. Never asking. Just consuming. Devoid of any and all spirituality.

Its not a very political answer, except that free market principles is key because people have to be allowed to fail, and they cannot be rewarded for it. People who dont give a damn about anything can sit there and zombie out till they can no longer afford that lifestyle. It MUST NOT be subsidized, in any way, by the government. It simply must not. Basic assistance is ok. No food stamps, period. Maybe some money for soup kitchens. But mostly that should come from private charities. Quite simply put this government needs to shrink by at least 75% before we can return to prosperity.

Personally I think a lot of people living the life they live now, even with more wealth, would actually be much happier living like they did in the depression. But that is another story.

 

[Craig234]

...

This not a thread for your ideology, as I've said repeatedly.

 

[xBiffx]

This not a thread for your ideology, as I've said repeatedly.

The thought police calling for censorship...Orwell would be happy. Move along proles.

 

[Craig234]

Offshoring manufacturing happened because it was cheaper to move jobs overseas in an exchange rate arbitrage.

Offshoring was sustained because monetary policy protected the strength of the dollar at the expense of increasing the debt load on our economy, allowing continued exchange rate arbitrage by the wealthy.

Offshoring productive factors of our economy hurts the bargaining power of the middle and lower classes which allows their wages to fall in relation to the wealthy.

What evidence do you have showing how much your recommendations would change the distribution of wealth?

How much of the massive shift of the distribution to the top can be shown to have been related to offshoring, whatever other problems it's caused?

 

[bfdd]

People need to stop being such bitches and start doing the work that "American's won't do", other people need to realize they need to make less fucking money, that their absurd salaries are just that, absurd. We need to stop regulating ourselves into the ground environmentally and focus on energy businesses that will actually create jobs, not this retarded solar push. We need to get our banking regulations back in check, institute a flat fair tax which EVERYONE pays(based on a % of income earned) and immigration reform. We cannot allow millions of people to illegally be in our country. That just doesn't fly and I don't care if their kids are American citizens or not, that's their problem, but hopefully with the correct reforms this won't be such a big issue. We also need to ensure fair trade among our trading partners. We can't keep allowing ourselves to be screwed left and right.

 

[momeNt]

What evidence do you have showing how much your recommendations would change the distribution of wealth?

How much of the massive shift of the distribution to the top can be shown to have been related to offshoring, whatever other problems it's caused?

Offshoring lately is now just the symptom, not the cause. Some graphs to illustrate this.

Interest rate manipulation by the federal reserve, cheap rates (cheap in relation to the natural rate) = debt explosion due to falling exports and productivity from our manufacturing base.

Interest rate manipulation allows risk free profit for banks

http://www.24hgold.com/english/contributor.aspx?article=1819036178G10020&contributor=Antal+E.+Fekete

Bull speculators, armed with the knowledge that the Fed was in need of buying more bonds preempt the purchase in buying the bonds first, dumping them into the lap of the Fed later, thus pocketing risk-free profits. Now the sky was the limit to which speculators could bid up bond prices. The gates to the black hole of zero interest were thrown wide open, as shown by events of the past thirty years. As I have already explained, the main root of depressions is not vanishing demand as suggested by Keynes, but vanishing capital caused by the deliberate suppression of interest rates.

The Fed in pushing the interest down unnaturally from 1981 - current. Allowed banks and higher orders of the capital structure (Bank CEOs, Large Company CEOs in stock markets, wealth in stock markets) to take all the money and leave the nation with all the debt.

Thanks for taking the time to analyze and ask intelligent questions to the responses in this thread. Good discussion so far IMO.

 

[Craig234]

Offshoring lately is now just the symptom, not the cause. Some graphs to illustrate this.

Interest rate manipulation by the federal reserve, cheap rates (cheap in relation to the natural rate) = debt explosion due to falling exports and productivity from our manufacturing base.

Interest rate manipulation allows risk free profit for banks

http://www.24hgold.com/english/contributor.aspx?article=1819036178G10020&contributor=Antal+E.+Fekete
The Fed in pushing the interest down unnaturally from 1981 - current. Allowed banks and higher orders of the capital structure (Bank CEOs, Large Company CEOs in stock markets, wealth in stock markets) to take all the money and leave the nation with all the debt.

Thanks for taking the time to analyze and ask intelligent questions to the responses in this thread. Good discussion so far IMO.

Thanks for participating.

But on your point, you seem to be discussing 'harms of offshoring', not related to 'distribution of wealth'.

If offshoring reduces wealth, that could be across the board, or selective.

I'm trying to look specifically at the distribution being more broad again, whatever issues there are with the size of the pie.

Your chart shows 'debt drains wealth' - I don't think there's much question of that in the long run, whatever the benefits of short-term debt for Keynesian stimulus. And large debt has a couple of harmful effects - one is that all that wealth diverted to interest payments goes to the financers, the worst place for it to go; another is the 'starve the beast' problem that it strangles the budget that is good for people and growing wealth.

I do think you have hit on one related issue - the way the finance industry can extract wealth. That increases the concentration of wealth.

There seems to be a high correlation between the finance industry exploding to take 40% of all profits, and these top-earning Wall Street figures - while the fortunes 'made' on Wall Street aren't really 'made', but extracted wealth draining it from others most of the time, the 'making' of wealth now a niche industry there.

We're getting into some complicated areas though, for example trying to claim that policies for low interest rates are far more harm than good.

Not just because they inadvertantly fueled the housing bubble scam, but more.

Would changing those polices to have higher rates really cause a large broadening of the distribution of wealth? Is there evidence for that as an overall result?

 

[momeNt]

Thanks for participating.

But on your point, you seem to be discussing 'harms of offshoring', not related to 'distribution of wealth'.

If offshoring reduces wealth, that could be across the board, or selective.

I'm trying to look specifically at the distribution being more broad again, whatever issues there are with the size of the pie.

Your chart shows 'debt drains wealth' - I don't think there's much question of that in the long run, whatever the benefits of short-term debt for Keynesian stimulus. And large debt has a couple of harmful effects - one is that all that wealth diverted to interest payments goes to the financers, the worst place for it to go; another is the 'starve the beast' problem that it strangles the budget that is good for people and growing wealth.

I do think you have hit on one related issue - the way the finance industry can extract wealth. That increases the concentration of wealth.

There seems to be a high correlation between the finance industry exploding to take 40% of all profits, and these top-earning Wall Street figures - while the fortunes 'made' on Wall Street aren't really 'made', but extracted wealth draining it from others most of the time, the 'making' of wealth now a niche industry there.

We're getting into some complicated areas though, for example trying to claim that policies for low interest rates are far more harm than good.

Not just because they inadvertantly fueled the housing bubble scam, but more.

Would changing those polices to have higher rates really cause a large broadening of the distribution of wealth? Is there evidence for that as an overall result?

Noting your questions but I probably can't respond until later tonight or early tomorrow morning. Just an FYI that i'm not ignoring your questions.

 

[Fern]

Question for the right: how can the US return to the approximate distribution of wealth in the nation by the end of the liberal era', say after JFK/LBJ around 1970?

Easy, and there's only way: Roll back technology to that of the 70's.

No cable TV, no internet, no PCs, no 'retail' stock market, no pro athletes making salaries in the multiple millions etc.

Edit: Wanted to add we likely had a 'real' death tax back then too.

Fern

 

[Fern]

LOL thread title fail. What period of time exactly was it that "everyone" was considered prosperous?

Thought the same thing when I read it, too.

Fern

 

[dmcowen674]

Offshoring manufacturing happened because it was cheaper to move jobs overseas in an exchange rate arbitrage.

Offshoring was sustained because monetary policy protected the strength of the dollar at the expense of increasing the debt load on our economy, allowing continued exchange rate arbitrage by the wealthy.

Offshoring productive factors of our economy hurts the bargaining power of the middle and lower classes which allows their wages to fall in relation to the wealthy.

We know what the wealthy did and still doing, Craigs question is how do we stop them and reverse this?

 

[dmcowen674]

Easy, and there's only way: Roll back technology to that of the 70's.

No cable TV, no internet, no PCs, no 'retail' stock market, no pro athletes making salaries in the multiple millions etc.

Edit: Wanted to add we likely had a 'real' estate tax back then too.

Fern

Well some of that is starting to occur as more and more people can no longer afford high Cable/Satellite TV rates as well as skyrocketing Internet costs when they are losing jobs and jobs that pay less and less.

 

[Craig234]

Easy, and there's only way: Roll back technology to that of the 70's.

No cable TV, no internet, no PCs, no 'retail' stock market, no pro athletes making salaries in the multiple millions etc.

Edit: Wanted to add we likely had a 'real' estate tax back then too.

Fern

Idiocy. Distribution of wealth is not forced to be highly concentrated by those technologies, and can be much more broad with them. You're trolling.

 

[Double Trouble]

Idiocy. Distribution of wealth is not forced to be highly concentrated by those technologies, and can be much more broad with them. You're trolling.

Baloney. The more sophisticated society gets, the more those who are smart enough to make good use of the technology and tools will prosper, and the more others will fall behind. That's partially why we're seeing the wealth concentration now.

 

[Fern]

Idiocy. Distribution of wealth is not forced to be highly concentrated by those technologies, and can be much more broad with them. You're trolling.

Wrong.

Look at the how the richest American (Gates) got there.

And Buffett wouldn't be there if the stock market hadn't gone retail.

Fern

 

[sm625]

This not a thread for your ideology, as I've said repeatedly.

Well you've just provided as good an answer as any for your question. People are too lazy, uneducated, and or chicken to actually debate issues of significance. That mentality erodes wealth. Ideology is at the heart of the issue.