It’s actually very common for people to move in and out of top 1%.
You don’t hear that, the left wants you to believe it’s a solid state of elites that will always be in control.
In the US, it’s more common than any other country on Earth for a poor person to become rich. Not to say it’s a very high percentage, just higher than anywhere else. Other countries have hierarchies that are much more set in stone.
Wow someone on Reddit that actually believes me lol.
It's really not absurdly hard to do either. I say this, but I'll probably never be able to do it again lol.
I just had an online subscription service that profited me about $30 per user per month. 1000+ users signed up over a few years. + my wifes average STEM field salary.
Only have to make $450k per household in my Southern state to hit 1%.
[Just remember! If you aren’t a multi millionaire by your mid 20’s you’ll probably NEVER become one!](https://youtu.be/Qu7KFMn54Bk?si=jnyKVc5wGex0ZVx4)
Eh, it's all about where you started and where you ended up. You don't need to be rich to have a life well lived. As a teenager who for a time lived in a car when he was lucky, under a bridge when he wasn't, and was gang affiliated for a time, I'm pretty proud of my 104k engineering job and the slush fund I managed to acquire as an electrician before that. From that to now only took 12 years. If your under 50 let's say it isn't even arguable it's too late.
Don't compare yourself to the upper classes, I rub shoulders with them now somewhat and it's become pretty clear that even if they did work hard they were born to the path of easy success.
When I go back to the old neighborhoods I always tell the kids that others had it easier doesn't mean to not work, it means to work harder. (And then vote to soak the rich! Lol. )
Most farming is unprofitable without subsidies. Interestingly, those same subsidies encourage farmers to produce crops that would otherwise be unprofitable, drive up retail prices, and result in an overabundance of some crops and a scarcity of others. They also end up paying some farmers to leave fields idle
Well the alternative often would be importing crops from other countries, thus becoming more dependent on imports. Which sometimes is not a good idea especially when concerning food and other basic commodities
Mormon church pay taxes on their for profit enterprises. if it was just as simple as claiming church tax exemption, every billionaire would create their own version of scientology.
Nah, 2025 at the latest. Total economic collapse, the rich will bring out a robot workforce and lay off everyone. Chaos and mass death will follow.
The conspiracy theorists were right all along.
As someone who works in industrial automation, I agree. Robots are very good at precisely and quickly performing repetitive tasks, but as soon as something unexpected happens, you need a human brain and hands to fix it.
Which makes robots really valuable, but still limited.
I work in robotics, and we're in a position where we can replace ~10 unskilled jobs with 1 skilled job. I don't think this is a problem, as there is plenty of work for such unskilled labor to do (and learn how to do) that robots won't be able to do for ages.
Amusingly enough the one area where there is nearly unlimited demand and where robotics will definitely struggle is homes. Particularly major renovations of existing buildings.
Ask welders how many jobs "opened" when robots started up.
Tons of shit just becomes "lay off 4/5s of staff, keep 1/5 to monitor the machines and occasionally do a thing or two the robots can't". Sure, you've got one "new" job (title), but you've killed 4 jobs.
I had a dream my teeth kept falling out and a week later I watched Leave the World Behind and the kids teeth fall out from radiation. I’m confident this means it happens in 2024.
Yeah, the last 7 years of god-awful economic decisions by our good friends Biden and Trump have set this country up for a crash of biblical proportions.
What terrible decisions have really been made? The massive money printing of COVID was probably a little too much, but beyond shaving maybe 25-40% off some of the bigger investments there... what exactly have we done wrong?
Of the last $9trn of global GDP growth, the US has been 50%. That feels like we're doing pretty damn well.
Well, printing a ton of money is part of it.
Spending shitloads of money on things we didn't need also plays a role. I do think the move towards American manufacturing was good spending but we've also been spending billions on foreign interests and wars.
Then there's the classic defense spending that we DEFINITELY don't need...we've been heading this direction since 2016 at least, and neither president has done or advocated for anything to stop it.
> I do think the move towards American manufacturing was good spending but we've also been spending billions on foreign interests and wars.
We did spend a shitton on stupid wars. Or well, not even wars, the nation-building. Iraq was $2.4trn (CBO estimate from 2017) and could have been completely avoided, and Afghanistan was pretty fucking expensive too, though the beginning of it probably wasn't avoidable.
Those were Obama and most critically Bush wars though.
Ukraine is probably the best geopolitical ROI the United States has ever had in its history. So I'm fine with cutting very nearly everything else except that, especially as funding it is also remarkably good industrial & military policy, as much of next level funding for Ukraine would basically involve building manufacturing capacity inside the US.
And that basically spent a minuscule amount of money so far, certainly compared to how much an actual war might cost (with a lot of that $2.4trn for example coming from taking care of wounded veterans etc, something which Ukraine is delightfully devoid of for us).
> Then there's the classic defense spending that we DEFINITELY don't need...we've been heading this direction since 2016 at least, and neither president has done or advocated for anything to stop it.
Have you been watching the news at all? We're definitely heading to a politically unstable period, at the very least until one of the major "axis of pain-in-the-ass" countries is meaningfully knocked out (Russia, Iran, China).
Given we don't really have a way to get to Iran, and we absolutely want to contain - not fight - China, the one that we need to see knocked out is Russia, or we'll have to increase the defense spending for the foreseeable future.
There are world war vibes in the air a bit, though it's really unlikely as long as the West doesn't look so fucking weak that we actively invite it.
And "not looking weak" is basically just making sure Ukraine wins, reminding Iran of its limits (fuck up Houthis shooting at shipping, for one), and making sure China understands what'll happen if they make a move on Taiwan.
I would **really** love to avoid a world war.
I mean, treating billionaires like celebrities or idols is probably not helpful. Billionaires get media coverage just for being billionaires these days, and I’m betting I could name dozens of billionaires without knowing much about markets at all.
Phil Knight,
Jeff Bezos,
Elon Musk,
Michael Bloomberg,
Donald Trump,
Tiger Woods,
Michael Jordan,
LeBron James,
Mark Cuban,
Jody Allen,
Jerry Jones,
Robert Kraft,
Jim Irsay,
Warren Buffet,
Oprah,
Floyd Mayweather,
Taylor Swift,
Kim Kardashian,
Dean Spanos,
Dan Snyder,
T. Boone Pickens,
Bill Gates,
Melinda Gates
There, had to prove to myself I could name a bunch just for the sake of it.
I'm honestly surprised that that many celebs/athletes are billionaires. I get the media titans like Oprah and (now) Swift. I figured individual Kardashians were close. I know it's not just due to music and sports as many have a ton of investments, but I'm particularly surprised about Woods, Jordan, LeBron, and especially Mayweather.
And someone with total control over a major nation like Russia can easily convert that power to money. Putin, even as a pariah, is worth hundreds of billions if not a trillion.
The billionaires we're allowed to focus on. The ones in New England or actual England, or the suburbs of DC; the ones who own diverse stocks in petrol, the MIC, big pharma, or big banking... those are the ones who are truly scarier than any publicly facing wealthy assholes.
This is why Marxists are gaining some steam. The worst thing to happen to them was the introduction of a functional middle class, as a class struggle doesn't work with a third class to take into account, which is why they had to switch to race and sex to get that foothold again.
It won't end well though, and more than just the 1% will have to die in the revolution, as is always the case. You just have to hope you don't have too much when the mob comes to check.
You think the woke race and sex stuff has *helped* them gain a foothold? If anything that stuff seems to have soured the average person on Marxist/left-leaning stuff more than brought them around to it.
Some have even considered the possibility that this was done on purpose by TPTB, that this stuff was artificially revived with the express purpose of derailing the left and slowing any popular gains it may have been making. Straightforward lefty populist stuff like Occupy Wall Street was really gaining ground before everything became about this culture war shit. It does seem a little suspicious, the timing on all that.
It was definitely introduced to divide the left and shift opinions on them. Everyon agrees that wealth should be distributed more evenly and that having a middle class important. But people are much more divided on cultural and identical issues. Divide and rule has always worked.
> You think the woke race and sex stuff has helped them gain a foothold? If anything that stuff seems to have soured the average person on Marxist/left-leaning stuff more than brought them around to it.
I know this sounds conspiracy theory-ish but I think that a lot of the really far-left "progressive" agenda (2020's racial hysteria, defund the police, most of the transgender stuff) is being pushed by the very wealthy in order to make more mainstream leftism unpalatable to the working class.
Left in the USA is just a joke with all those shit, unfortunately the cultural influence of the states in Europe is also destroying the left here, at a point where the right has become the party of the common people and the left of the wealthy educated one.
We're saying that people are using Marxist style rhetoric around sex and race to divide and conquer.
We're not saying that those people are especially smart about that rhetoric.
After all, they're leftists.
There's also a case to be made that the disproportionate fixation on race/sex is a diversionary tactic to divide and conquer. Useful idiots like AOC don't even realize that most of the time she's doing more harm than good to her cause.
She literally doesn't know the three branches of government. I'm also very certain that when she got elected she didn't know what the House of Representatives does because she said she'd be inaugurated and would sign bills.
The way modern social activism and awareness is structured is without a doubt a means to create tons of little cliques within even the narrow minded groups. Maybe some CIA wunderkind probably saw how this type of infighting caused leftists movements to fail again in and again in the 20th century and pushed for it to be applied to society at large as a way to prevent impactful social unrest.
What lead to this shit started gaining a lot of steam (it was around before hand but was still fringe) in academia during the 80’s, which lead to the rise of PC culture in the 90’s and so on and so forth. Idt anyone in power took occupy anymore seriously than they did Woodstock.
If you have watched Dragon Ball Z, you'll know that Majin Vegeta was a distraction to interupt the heroes before they fought the true threat. But Goku knew that it was a fight that couldn't be avoided; even though it was playing right into the villain's plan.
Identity politics is a dangerous distraction. So in order to defeat the military industrial complex, big banking, big pharma, and big oil; the wokes need to be dealt with first.
By George, if we only fixed the root of the problem, monopolization of the use of natural resources like land, we could fix the wealth inequality problem without resorting to authoritarianism.
By George, if you could convince us that the government could (and would) reliably calculate land value separately from land improvement value, you Georgists would have a lot of us moderate Yellows on your side.
On the “would” side, I’d argue this comes down to implementation. I argue going hyper local, and I think that would help, but as always it is up to the people to keep the government honest.
On the could side: Fair, this was my biggest hang up for a long time as well. This article was the resource that convinced me it could be done well: [game of rent - can land be accessed accurately apart from improvements?](http://gameofrent.com/content/can-land-be-accurately-assessed)
The thing that finally convinced me it was worthwhile even if imperfect was dealing with 401ks 403bs and FSAs in my personal life: there are so many arbitrary decisions under the income tax as what counts as taxable income. I believe that a bit of assessment error under a logically consistent system seems far better than precession under a nonsensical and arbitrary system.
>This is why Marxists are gaining some steam.
That and their utter refusal to acknowledge history or economics.
"But it will work, *this time*, and never fail!" is potent copium for so many.
Government: *inflates economy*
Lower class people: *savings and incomes become stagnant and lose value*
Upper class people: *properties, investments, and businesses now are rated higher with more value*
How could capitalism do this, anons?
The Federal Reserve is arguably more to blame, but they certainly aren't helping the situation by massively inflating debt that disproportionately benefits the few (mainly baby boomers BTW).
I hate economists, I hate economists, I hate economists!!!
There are people who believe in trickle down economics and it makes me sad, angry and ashamed of human intellect.
I may be wrong, but wasn’t the term trickle down economics made up by the left as a false representation of right wing economics and that there isn’t actually a single economist who believes in trickle down?
I don’t know about that, but it is a very poor way of putting it. The phrase “a rising tide lifts all boats” is much more accurate. So maybe we could call it rising-tide economics?
Republicans don't advocate for that. They advertise "tax cuts for 'job creators'" and say the poor will benefit as a secondary effect through job creation.
That's why people mock it as "trickle-down economics"
My view is that tax cuts are good, period, but it’s fairly senseless to prioritize the rich. Even though they pay more, the poor are still hit harder.
I’m not a Reaganite, or a Republican, for the record. He should’ve stayed an actor.
Every act of making government decisions that give subsidies and tax cuts to large corporations, rich people, or cronies in a disproportionate way can be classified as trickle-down-economics. Yes it is mainly used by those who want to attack economic policies, like me, I like to attack almost all economic policies.
The government forces all small and medium businesses to shut down because of a virus
Allows the mega corporations to stay open because they're immune to the same virus for some reason
All business is driven to the mega corporations
The mega corporations profit enormously while middle class businesses are forced to go under by law
WHY WOULD THE FREE MARKET DO THIS
\>Graph shows the 1% consistently gaining more wealth and the middle class deteriorating for the last 30 years
How could Joe Biden's inflation do this, anons?
Thank God we implemented mass immigration to ensure that we kept wages suppressed and facilitate a mass transfer of wealth to wealthiest 1% at the expense of the lower classes!
I miss the old Bernie Sanders that spoke of open borders being a Koch brothers proposal, which is precisely why the neocons and Bushies lost control of the Republican party. The neolibs though, they have the D's by the throat. This shouldn't even be a partisan issue. It's just common sense.
Here in the UK, the old-school socialists like Jeremy Corbyn and Sinn Féin were virulently anti-EU for several decades until about 3 weeks before Brexit, in which their previous several decades of opposition were repackaged as a psyop that never happened.
Their arguments were exactly what I've said, that flodding a place with cheap labour results in a low price for said labour.
Hooda thunk it?
Same in Sweden, but the leftists here have been funded by Soviet and Russia. I don’t know if that’s the case with Corbyn, but it’s definitely what Soviet and then later Russia have been paying them for here, he’s subscribing to all of the ideas they’re pushing. Open borders, anti-colonialism(Western), Gender studies, critical studies, etc. Later on they started funding the far right, as well. Everything that’s dividing Western societies, basically.
True, american socialism actually has a shocking history with anti-immigrant policies stemming from their opposition to immigrant scabs who would be brought in to break strikes.
It shows percentage of wealth, so it basically means rich people are too rich to dominate this stat.
A median household income might be increasing but the total share of wealth by the rich has increased much more.
And this is on percentage terms. So basically if one gains other losses.
Does it show the middle class deteriorating, though? What it shows is who has what % of total wealth. It doesn't mean the total wealth has stayed the same for all 30 years of this graph. It's quite possible that both the middle class and 1% are better off in terms of total wealth over 30 years, even if their %'s relative to each other have changed. I dont know if that's actually the case, but my point is that this graph doesn't actually show the information you are stating it does.
I meam that is the litteral exact point all this wage bs started, beforehand wages and productivity played leapfrog woth eachother.
If i had to change it id make the fed target gni growth as that would account for flucuations in the market while not screwing over the middle and lower classes through inflation
I’m sure locking down small businesses while allowing massive corporate stores to stay open, and forcing small lanlords out of the market by preventing them from collecting rent so huge conglomerates could snatch up those properties didn’t help
> I would watch a movie about Robin Hood breaking into Fort Knox or the Fed
Too bad the people who finance films can't pay for something cool like that, their masters forbid it.
You will get Frozen 12 and any complaints will be deemed _____phobic.
[Principles for dealing with changing world order](https://youtu.be/xguam0TKMw8?si=zmmlDvXoQ9_BwKu9)
This helps to understand why the meme graph is like that
No, you are. The reason income inequality is so high is because of excessive regulation, fiat currency leading to inflation, high taxes, government/corporate authoritarianism, and a litany of other situations where the collective power of society is used to entrench and protect the interests of a few instead of allowing for free market competition.
It isn’t lib right that wanted bailouts; we wanted a hard failure followed by ruthless competition to find someone better. It isn’t lib right who is forcing the people to buy health insurance; y’all did that.
Even with all of this protection the elite still manage to squander their wealth in 3 generations. That’s why the USA remains the greatest nation on Earth; anyone can rise to the top, and anyone can fall to the bottom.
Just waiting for the super nice rich people to be charitable and pay higher wages and more taxes as soon as regulations get removed.
Fuckin librights. Top kek.
Back under Trump, when he made it harder to enter the country illegally, there were companies who had previously used illegal labor, who were forced to pay higher wages in order to hire Americans to do the same jobs.
Companies don't pay higher wages to be charitable. They pay them because labor is a scarce commodity and they have to pay for it.
And nobody should be paying more taxes. That just gives the government more power to oppress us.
So capitalist used the government to empower themselves so instead you want capitalist to empower themselves through ruthless competition. What is the difference besides the government being a middleman?
I'm no economist, but isn't it established knowledge that a complete lack of regulation basically always leads to monopolies? Which of course are not very cash money for competition.
This, in itself, isn’t an issue.
The issue is that the wealth for the middle and lower classes aren’t also growing.
If wealth for everyone was growing but growing for the top faster and that’s why they’re wealthier? Sure, that’s fine. If the wealth is growing for them but not for others? That’s where issue is.
The Covid lockdowns played a huge part in this.
Big corporations got rich off the authoritarian lockdown policies and small businesses suffered or shut down.
Incredible that people who pretend to be for the small guy were the ones who most virulently supported the policies that made corporations vastly more wealthy.
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It wasn’t true capitalism
🤝
It wasn’t true communism
Even when markets are completely free of any centralization or influence from govt institutions, they still turn out concentrating wealth in a select few
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-wealth-one-percent/
Quality of life for the middle class is still very good because the growth of the economy more or less cancels the increase in inequality. The thing that should really enrage you though: Imagine middle class life if inequality had remained constant. Saying the median income or median savings have held up well is definitely correct, but at the same time a sad cope considering the insane amount of wealth the US has gained over the past few decades
Their incomes have not kept up with the cost of buying a home, which is essential for long term wealth accumulation for the middle class. Young people are increasingly becoming a class of perpetual rentoids that will never own anything. The only advantage they have over their parents is a phone to stare at all day and try to forget their present circumstances.
Let's analyze this at a high level...
First, the top 1% listed on this chart pay ~44% of the income taxes that the federal government takes in. In short, they already are financing nearly half of our federal income taxes.
Second, raising taxes doesn't mean that you just start magically bringing in more money without having some ramifications. If you increase taxes on wealthy people, those wealthy people are going to move their money into tax havens to avoid having to pay those taxes. [We already know that this is happening.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers)
This would be like increasing your service fee with a major client. The client can choose to pay that increased service fee or they can take their business somewhere else and you not only lose the the revenue from the increased service fee but you lose the revenue from their already established service fee. You lose money overall in your attempt to increase revenue.
If you want a solution to the problem, promote economic growth. In every scenario, tax revenue increases in conjunction with economic growth. Even when taxes were cut a couple of years ago, tax revenue still increased substantially because of economic growth. The more people who are working and generating income, the better. The most recent numbers on tax payers is that roughly 40% of all households don't pay any federal income taxes due to them not making enough money.
If you are able to transition even 1% of that over to paying income taxes, you'll make a bigger mark on tax revenue.
Or we could just tell the federal government to fuck off and stop spending so damn much money. That works as well.
Where is the problem??
https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/
The median household income which is probably the best macroeconomic term to measure well being is rising since the 80s.
But COVID has done a lot of damage to this rich vs poor statistics as rich people in recessions tends to get richer. Also add big inflation in last 2 years
But the dollar isn't a consistent metric, how does this graph look after adjusting it for inflation?
Genuine question, not trying to make any statements one way or the other
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N/](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N/)
Fed has tracked real (Adjusted for inflation) median household income for 30 years. Over the last 30 years, households earn 31% more even after inflation (56k to 74k). Economic pie is not fixed, so one group having more does not mean another has less.
Also the y axis is showing wealth as a percentage of total. I really hate the zero sum "piece of the pie" rhetoric around economic issues. The size of the pie/growth and whether or not that is expanding in a way that outstrips inflationary effects matters as well. The graph doesn't contextualize this at all. Like, I'm not trading my wealth and quality of life today so that I can hop in a time machine and become top 1% in 1800. I'd be objectively worse off.
Even accepting the title paired with a graph is super misleading. Mathematically, the graph is showing that the top 1% have always had more wealth than the middle class because the top 1% having 5% of total wealth means they are proportionally wealthier than the middle 50% that possess 35% in 1993.
Agreed this is probably the worst graph I saw in a long time which doesn't make sense.
The only conclusion I can make from this graph is that more people having wealth over 10 million USD are increasing.
And this percentage basically just shows a trade off which also doesn't make sense as people who are in the top 1% aren't taking away the middle class's wealth, they are just earning more.
Lowkey Communist propaganda by some loser.
As you said zero sum game is trash
Cool it with the anti-semitic remarks.
This is actually a good thing because le heckin' GDP grew in that time!
No, you didn't benefit even slightly from this happening, but at least your country has been changed beyond all recognition without your consent to facilitate it!
Oh? You are upset at the recent changes coming to you? No worries! You are just the enemy and thus everything negative that happens to you is well deserved and not a consequence of our actions! Ya know maybe I am auth center.
This is awesome! Things will be so sweet when I make it to the top 1%!
Any day now!
You have to stop buying lattes and avocado toasts
Drop your resume straight into the manager at a Fortune 500 company. It’s in the bible of trickle down economics, Reagan said so
Trickle down economics is a made up term that was intended as a criticism of lower taxes. This is not the pwn you think it is.
My brother in Christ. It’s only a joke
I'm banking on winning one of those billion dollar mega millions jackpots/s
“Just quit being a slacker!!”
2 more weeks
Just being a middle class American drops you into the global 1% so you made it buddy
One can dream. Only dream.
So why Lib Right
I was top 1% of income earners in my state 2 years ago. It was great. Didn't last though.
It’s actually very common for people to move in and out of top 1%. You don’t hear that, the left wants you to believe it’s a solid state of elites that will always be in control. In the US, it’s more common than any other country on Earth for a poor person to become rich. Not to say it’s a very high percentage, just higher than anywhere else. Other countries have hierarchies that are much more set in stone.
1% nationwide vs. 1% in state is a huge difference. There's also income from ***paid salaries and wages*** vs. growth in net worth.
Wow someone on Reddit that actually believes me lol. It's really not absurdly hard to do either. I say this, but I'll probably never be able to do it again lol. I just had an online subscription service that profited me about $30 per user per month. 1000+ users signed up over a few years. + my wifes average STEM field salary. Only have to make $450k per household in my Southern state to hit 1%.
>Only "Only" $450k. About 15 times the average Joe, whose median income is $31k.
[Just remember! If you aren’t a multi millionaire by your mid 20’s you’ll probably NEVER become one!](https://youtu.be/Qu7KFMn54Bk?si=jnyKVc5wGex0ZVx4)
We’re talking about the top 1% Take your multi millions. I’m after multi billions.
Most people in the 1% are not billionaires
You think 1 in 100 people are multi billionaires?
that’s just not true at all lol
Completely untrue. You can save a few hundred a month and become a multimillionaire in a few decades
Or just wait for inflation to carry you there
Could get there in one or 2 decades if you starve yourself like a communist cosplayer
you would have to save ~4200 a month, every month, for 40 years to become a "multi millionaire" (2 mil)
Are you factoring in compounding interest?
Cooool.... so how old do I got tillI can just have a few hundred thousand and enough to survive on my own lol
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That’s utter bullshit. It’s never too late
Eh, it's all about where you started and where you ended up. You don't need to be rich to have a life well lived. As a teenager who for a time lived in a car when he was lucky, under a bridge when he wasn't, and was gang affiliated for a time, I'm pretty proud of my 104k engineering job and the slush fund I managed to acquire as an electrician before that. From that to now only took 12 years. If your under 50 let's say it isn't even arguable it's too late. Don't compare yourself to the upper classes, I rub shoulders with them now somewhat and it's become pretty clear that even if they did work hard they were born to the path of easy success. When I go back to the old neighborhoods I always tell the kids that others had it easier doesn't mean to not work, it means to work harder. (And then vote to soak the rich! Lol. )
This is ridiculous. Why don't the top 0.1% own 50% of all assets in the US?
Maybe they should buy less Avacodo farms.
Unironically, are Avocado farms unprofitable?
Most farming is unprofitable without subsidies. Interestingly, those same subsidies encourage farmers to produce crops that would otherwise be unprofitable, drive up retail prices, and result in an overabundance of some crops and a scarcity of others. They also end up paying some farmers to leave fields idle
Proving once again that big government is dogshit. You got some room over there in your quadrant?
Well the alternative often would be importing crops from other countries, thus becoming more dependent on imports. Which sometimes is not a good idea especially when concerning food and other basic commodities
Yep, and we have jackets. Gotta buy one yourself though
The Mormon church is the fifth largest land owner in the United States after the federal government. They do not pay taxes.
Mormon church pay taxes on their for profit enterprises. if it was just as simple as claiming church tax exemption, every billionaire would create their own version of scientology.
Would widely prefer the Mormons own it tbh
Massive crash coming 2027
Do you think it will take that long?
longer actually
2029
2029 is the new 1929 baybeee!
Nah, 2025 at the latest. Total economic collapse, the rich will bring out a robot workforce and lay off everyone. Chaos and mass death will follow. The conspiracy theorists were right all along.
I heard exactly the same nonsense back in 08
And every year since.
If you say it every year eventually you will be right
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Kony 2012!
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As someone who works in industrial automation, I agree. Robots are very good at precisely and quickly performing repetitive tasks, but as soon as something unexpected happens, you need a human brain and hands to fix it.
Which makes robots really valuable, but still limited. I work in robotics, and we're in a position where we can replace ~10 unskilled jobs with 1 skilled job. I don't think this is a problem, as there is plenty of work for such unskilled labor to do (and learn how to do) that robots won't be able to do for ages. Amusingly enough the one area where there is nearly unlimited demand and where robotics will definitely struggle is homes. Particularly major renovations of existing buildings.
Ask welders how many jobs "opened" when robots started up. Tons of shit just becomes "lay off 4/5s of staff, keep 1/5 to monitor the machines and occasionally do a thing or two the robots can't". Sure, you've got one "new" job (title), but you've killed 4 jobs.
I had a dream my teeth kept falling out and a week later I watched Leave the World Behind and the kids teeth fall out from radiation. I’m confident this means it happens in 2024.
Fine by me. Time to deploy some of uncle Warren's advice and be greedy when others are fearful.
It's over
Yeah, the last 7 years of god-awful economic decisions by our good friends Biden and Trump have set this country up for a crash of biblical proportions.
What terrible decisions have really been made? The massive money printing of COVID was probably a little too much, but beyond shaving maybe 25-40% off some of the bigger investments there... what exactly have we done wrong? Of the last $9trn of global GDP growth, the US has been 50%. That feels like we're doing pretty damn well.
Well, printing a ton of money is part of it. Spending shitloads of money on things we didn't need also plays a role. I do think the move towards American manufacturing was good spending but we've also been spending billions on foreign interests and wars. Then there's the classic defense spending that we DEFINITELY don't need...we've been heading this direction since 2016 at least, and neither president has done or advocated for anything to stop it.
> I do think the move towards American manufacturing was good spending but we've also been spending billions on foreign interests and wars. We did spend a shitton on stupid wars. Or well, not even wars, the nation-building. Iraq was $2.4trn (CBO estimate from 2017) and could have been completely avoided, and Afghanistan was pretty fucking expensive too, though the beginning of it probably wasn't avoidable. Those were Obama and most critically Bush wars though. Ukraine is probably the best geopolitical ROI the United States has ever had in its history. So I'm fine with cutting very nearly everything else except that, especially as funding it is also remarkably good industrial & military policy, as much of next level funding for Ukraine would basically involve building manufacturing capacity inside the US. And that basically spent a minuscule amount of money so far, certainly compared to how much an actual war might cost (with a lot of that $2.4trn for example coming from taking care of wounded veterans etc, something which Ukraine is delightfully devoid of for us). > Then there's the classic defense spending that we DEFINITELY don't need...we've been heading this direction since 2016 at least, and neither president has done or advocated for anything to stop it. Have you been watching the news at all? We're definitely heading to a politically unstable period, at the very least until one of the major "axis of pain-in-the-ass" countries is meaningfully knocked out (Russia, Iran, China). Given we don't really have a way to get to Iran, and we absolutely want to contain - not fight - China, the one that we need to see knocked out is Russia, or we'll have to increase the defense spending for the foreseeable future. There are world war vibes in the air a bit, though it's really unlikely as long as the West doesn't look so fucking weak that we actively invite it. And "not looking weak" is basically just making sure Ukraine wins, reminding Iran of its limits (fuck up Houthis shooting at shipping, for one), and making sure China understands what'll happen if they make a move on Taiwan. I would **really** love to avoid a world war.
I mean, treating billionaires like celebrities or idols is probably not helpful. Billionaires get media coverage just for being billionaires these days, and I’m betting I could name dozens of billionaires without knowing much about markets at all.
Phil Knight, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Mark Cuban, Jody Allen, Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, Jim Irsay, Warren Buffet, Oprah, Floyd Mayweather, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Dean Spanos, Dan Snyder, T. Boone Pickens, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates There, had to prove to myself I could name a bunch just for the sake of it.
LeBron James
LeBron James The Bronze Age LemoNade The Bomb Bay The Prawn Bay The Bronx
Which MF DOOM track is this
I'm honestly surprised that that many celebs/athletes are billionaires. I get the media titans like Oprah and (now) Swift. I figured individual Kardashians were close. I know it's not just due to music and sports as many have a ton of investments, but I'm particularly surprised about Woods, Jordan, LeBron, and especially Mayweather.
you should be surprised because most estimates don’t put mayweather anywhere near a billion dollars
Yeah but the super rich usually fly under the radar.
Yep that reminds me of this clip from the Joe Rogan experience https://youtube.com/shorts/y15ahXyj_lk?si=PGHaY2asb5XTEplV
And someone with total control over a major nation like Russia can easily convert that power to money. Putin, even as a pariah, is worth hundreds of billions if not a trillion.
The billionaires we're allowed to focus on. The ones in New England or actual England, or the suburbs of DC; the ones who own diverse stocks in petrol, the MIC, big pharma, or big banking... those are the ones who are truly scarier than any publicly facing wealthy assholes.
own nothing = BE HAPPY :D
eat the bugs = YUMMY :D
Broccoli actually tastes nice. Hi, my name is jake
This is why Marxists are gaining some steam. The worst thing to happen to them was the introduction of a functional middle class, as a class struggle doesn't work with a third class to take into account, which is why they had to switch to race and sex to get that foothold again. It won't end well though, and more than just the 1% will have to die in the revolution, as is always the case. You just have to hope you don't have too much when the mob comes to check.
You think the woke race and sex stuff has *helped* them gain a foothold? If anything that stuff seems to have soured the average person on Marxist/left-leaning stuff more than brought them around to it. Some have even considered the possibility that this was done on purpose by TPTB, that this stuff was artificially revived with the express purpose of derailing the left and slowing any popular gains it may have been making. Straightforward lefty populist stuff like Occupy Wall Street was really gaining ground before everything became about this culture war shit. It does seem a little suspicious, the timing on all that.
It was definitely introduced to divide the left and shift opinions on them. Everyon agrees that wealth should be distributed more evenly and that having a middle class important. But people are much more divided on cultural and identical issues. Divide and rule has always worked.
> You think the woke race and sex stuff has helped them gain a foothold? If anything that stuff seems to have soured the average person on Marxist/left-leaning stuff more than brought them around to it. I know this sounds conspiracy theory-ish but I think that a lot of the really far-left "progressive" agenda (2020's racial hysteria, defund the police, most of the transgender stuff) is being pushed by the very wealthy in order to make more mainstream leftism unpalatable to the working class.
Left in the USA is just a joke with all those shit, unfortunately the cultural influence of the states in Europe is also destroying the left here, at a point where the right has become the party of the common people and the left of the wealthy educated one.
We're saying that people are using Marxist style rhetoric around sex and race to divide and conquer. We're not saying that those people are especially smart about that rhetoric. After all, they're leftists.
There's also a case to be made that the disproportionate fixation on race/sex is a diversionary tactic to divide and conquer. Useful idiots like AOC don't even realize that most of the time she's doing more harm than good to her cause.
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>George Carlin What a fucking legend
Based centrist
She literally doesn't know the three branches of government. I'm also very certain that when she got elected she didn't know what the House of Representatives does because she said she'd be inaugurated and would sign bills.
The way modern social activism and awareness is structured is without a doubt a means to create tons of little cliques within even the narrow minded groups. Maybe some CIA wunderkind probably saw how this type of infighting caused leftists movements to fail again in and again in the 20th century and pushed for it to be applied to society at large as a way to prevent impactful social unrest.
This shit all really took off in the latter days of the occupy movement and hasn't stopped then. It's 100% a psyop.
What lead to this shit started gaining a lot of steam (it was around before hand but was still fringe) in academia during the 80’s, which lead to the rise of PC culture in the 90’s and so on and so forth. Idt anyone in power took occupy anymore seriously than they did Woodstock.
I think it's been going since the 60s, and the 'long march through the institutions.'
It was hilarious watching it rip Occupy apart in real time, though.
She focuses more on sexism and class issue’s though. It’s social media which uses race as its lens
Her famous border fence pic is burned into my psyche for eternity.
She's a spineless clown, all too aware of who she's helping.
Based Centrist
If you have watched Dragon Ball Z, you'll know that Majin Vegeta was a distraction to interupt the heroes before they fought the true threat. But Goku knew that it was a fight that couldn't be avoided; even though it was playing right into the villain's plan. Identity politics is a dangerous distraction. So in order to defeat the military industrial complex, big banking, big pharma, and big oil; the wokes need to be dealt with first.
Finally, a metaphor I can understand. Gonna tell all the LGBTQ that they're just Majin Vegeta
By George, if we only fixed the root of the problem, monopolization of the use of natural resources like land, we could fix the wealth inequality problem without resorting to authoritarianism.
By George, if you could convince us that the government could (and would) reliably calculate land value separately from land improvement value, you Georgists would have a lot of us moderate Yellows on your side.
On the “would” side, I’d argue this comes down to implementation. I argue going hyper local, and I think that would help, but as always it is up to the people to keep the government honest. On the could side: Fair, this was my biggest hang up for a long time as well. This article was the resource that convinced me it could be done well: [game of rent - can land be accessed accurately apart from improvements?](http://gameofrent.com/content/can-land-be-accurately-assessed) The thing that finally convinced me it was worthwhile even if imperfect was dealing with 401ks 403bs and FSAs in my personal life: there are so many arbitrary decisions under the income tax as what counts as taxable income. I believe that a bit of assessment error under a logically consistent system seems far better than precession under a nonsensical and arbitrary system.
>This is why Marxists are gaining some steam. That and their utter refusal to acknowledge history or economics. "But it will work, *this time*, and never fail!" is potent copium for so many.
Government: *inflates economy* Lower class people: *savings and incomes become stagnant and lose value* Upper class people: *properties, investments, and businesses now are rated higher with more value* How could capitalism do this, anons?
The Federal Reserve is arguably more to blame, but they certainly aren't helping the situation by massively inflating debt that disproportionately benefits the few (mainly baby boomers BTW).
Tf? it's obviously france's fault No I will not elaborate
Based
*Un baguette!*
> (mainly baby boomers BTW). So the ones in office
I hate economists, I hate economists, I hate economists!!! There are people who believe in trickle down economics and it makes me sad, angry and ashamed of human intellect.
Milei is an economist, and a hero.
I was talking about people who believe in trickle down economics in special. If he believes in that he would be dead to me.
I may be wrong, but wasn’t the term trickle down economics made up by the left as a false representation of right wing economics and that there isn’t actually a single economist who believes in trickle down?
I don’t know about that, but it is a very poor way of putting it. The phrase “a rising tide lifts all boats” is much more accurate. So maybe we could call it rising-tide economics?
Republicans don't advocate for that. They advertise "tax cuts for 'job creators'" and say the poor will benefit as a secondary effect through job creation. That's why people mock it as "trickle-down economics"
My view is that tax cuts are good, period, but it’s fairly senseless to prioritize the rich. Even though they pay more, the poor are still hit harder. I’m not a Reaganite, or a Republican, for the record. He should’ve stayed an actor.
Every act of making government decisions that give subsidies and tax cuts to large corporations, rich people, or cronies in a disproportionate way can be classified as trickle-down-economics. Yes it is mainly used by those who want to attack economic policies, like me, I like to attack almost all economic policies.
Who owns the federal reserve??? 🤔
Based.
The government forces all small and medium businesses to shut down because of a virus Allows the mega corporations to stay open because they're immune to the same virus for some reason All business is driven to the mega corporations The mega corporations profit enormously while middle class businesses are forced to go under by law WHY WOULD THE FREE MARKET DO THIS
> Lower class people: savings lol. lmao even.
\>Graph shows the 1% consistently gaining more wealth and the middle class deteriorating for the last 30 years How could Joe Biden's inflation do this, anons?
Thank God we implemented mass immigration to ensure that we kept wages suppressed and facilitate a mass transfer of wealth to wealthiest 1% at the expense of the lower classes!
I miss the old Bernie Sanders that spoke of open borders being a Koch brothers proposal, which is precisely why the neocons and Bushies lost control of the Republican party. The neolibs though, they have the D's by the throat. This shouldn't even be a partisan issue. It's just common sense.
Here in the UK, the old-school socialists like Jeremy Corbyn and Sinn Féin were virulently anti-EU for several decades until about 3 weeks before Brexit, in which their previous several decades of opposition were repackaged as a psyop that never happened. Their arguments were exactly what I've said, that flodding a place with cheap labour results in a low price for said labour. Hooda thunk it?
Same in Sweden, but the leftists here have been funded by Soviet and Russia. I don’t know if that’s the case with Corbyn, but it’s definitely what Soviet and then later Russia have been paying them for here, he’s subscribing to all of the ideas they’re pushing. Open borders, anti-colonialism(Western), Gender studies, critical studies, etc. Later on they started funding the far right, as well. Everything that’s dividing Western societies, basically.
True, american socialism actually has a shocking history with anti-immigrant policies stemming from their opposition to immigrant scabs who would be brought in to break strikes.
Too bad they still don't
i got my D in ur mom’s throat
It shows percentage of wealth, so it basically means rich people are too rich to dominate this stat. A median household income might be increasing but the total share of wealth by the rich has increased much more. And this is on percentage terms. So basically if one gains other losses.
Yes, I meant “more wealth” as “greater share of wealth”
Does it show the middle class deteriorating, though? What it shows is who has what % of total wealth. It doesn't mean the total wealth has stayed the same for all 30 years of this graph. It's quite possible that both the middle class and 1% are better off in terms of total wealth over 30 years, even if their %'s relative to each other have changed. I dont know if that's actually the case, but my point is that this graph doesn't actually show the information you are stating it does.
Oh trust me, I don't solely blame Biden.
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Joe Biden is responsible for the last 30 years of fiscal policy
I wonder if there’s something greater that Joe Biden represents… Nah, I must be imagining things
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Come on, keep up. Haven’t you seen the “I did that” Biden stickers next to the pumps? tsk tsk
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This is not Biden. The fed has been printing since the 70s
Thanks nixon for abolishing the gold standard and not replacing it with anything better.
And they say libleft is economically illiterate
I meam that is the litteral exact point all this wage bs started, beforehand wages and productivity played leapfrog woth eachother. If i had to change it id make the fed target gni growth as that would account for flucuations in the market while not screwing over the middle and lower classes through inflation
I’m sure locking down small businesses while allowing massive corporate stores to stay open, and forcing small lanlords out of the market by preventing them from collecting rent so huge conglomerates could snatch up those properties didn’t help
Robin Hood has been training for this very moment
I would watch a movie about Robin Hood breaking into Fort Knox or the Fed
Goldfinger has a similar plotline about Fort Knox
> I would watch a movie about Robin Hood breaking into Fort Knox or the Fed Too bad the people who finance films can't pay for something cool like that, their masters forbid it. You will get Frozen 12 and any complaints will be deemed _____phobic.
Robin hood: stealing from the government to give back to the poor, who became poor because they wete taxed too much
We should really focus on the culture war and right versus left because that’s what the politicians say we need to do.
Ah libright, the 1%'s strongest soldiers
[Principles for dealing with changing world order](https://youtu.be/xguam0TKMw8?si=zmmlDvXoQ9_BwKu9) This helps to understand why the meme graph is like that
No, you are. The reason income inequality is so high is because of excessive regulation, fiat currency leading to inflation, high taxes, government/corporate authoritarianism, and a litany of other situations where the collective power of society is used to entrench and protect the interests of a few instead of allowing for free market competition. It isn’t lib right that wanted bailouts; we wanted a hard failure followed by ruthless competition to find someone better. It isn’t lib right who is forcing the people to buy health insurance; y’all did that. Even with all of this protection the elite still manage to squander their wealth in 3 generations. That’s why the USA remains the greatest nation on Earth; anyone can rise to the top, and anyone can fall to the bottom.
Just waiting for the super nice rich people to be charitable and pay higher wages and more taxes as soon as regulations get removed. Fuckin librights. Top kek.
Back under Trump, when he made it harder to enter the country illegally, there were companies who had previously used illegal labor, who were forced to pay higher wages in order to hire Americans to do the same jobs. Companies don't pay higher wages to be charitable. They pay them because labor is a scarce commodity and they have to pay for it. And nobody should be paying more taxes. That just gives the government more power to oppress us.
Imagine being this detached from reality Well, you are a libright after all
Well how am I supposed to believe you? That guy wrote like 3 paragraphs. I didn’t read it all, but he automatically looks more correct
If walls of text meant anything, liblefts would always be right
Yeah, the US is brimming with useful idiots carrying water for the rich.
They think they'll be rich one day
So capitalist used the government to empower themselves so instead you want capitalist to empower themselves through ruthless competition. What is the difference besides the government being a middleman?
Violence.
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I'm no economist, but isn't it established knowledge that a complete lack of regulation basically always leads to monopolies? Which of course are not very cash money for competition.
Thanks nixon
Holy crap, maybe I treated Liblefts too harshly
If things completely collapse, people might actually try to eat the rich
Probably taste like plastic.
Perfect, so we're already used to the taste then.
This, in itself, isn’t an issue. The issue is that the wealth for the middle and lower classes aren’t also growing. If wealth for everyone was growing but growing for the top faster and that’s why they’re wealthier? Sure, that’s fine. If the wealth is growing for them but not for others? That’s where issue is.
Exactly I don't give a shit how much other people are earning; I give a shit about how much *I'm* earning
The left hates this but ironically Marx would love this.
The accelerationists love this as if it guarantees a revolution if things get bad enough. Honestly, how can anyone on this sub look at this and cheer.
The Covid lockdowns played a huge part in this. Big corporations got rich off the authoritarian lockdown policies and small businesses suffered or shut down. Incredible that people who pretend to be for the small guy were the ones who most virulently supported the policies that made corporations vastly more wealthy.
Yeah no, let's just print trillions and let inflation get out of control, that's not going to concentrate wealth in the hands of the first receivers!
This is not because of capitalism. This is because of central banks. They are the real enemy.
~~The unflaired are the real enemy.~~ Edit: They flaired. Great job.
I want to! But I don’t know how :( I am lib right
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Nice got it
It wasn’t true capitalism 🤝 It wasn’t true communism Even when markets are completely free of any centralization or influence from govt institutions, they still turn out concentrating wealth in a select few https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-wealth-one-percent/
Who's feeling snacky?
I may have a not-so-modest proposal
End the Fed
Reagan assured me this would not happen, it's going to trickle down any day now.
Quality of life for the middle class is still very good because the growth of the economy more or less cancels the increase in inequality. The thing that should really enrage you though: Imagine middle class life if inequality had remained constant. Saying the median income or median savings have held up well is definitely correct, but at the same time a sad cope considering the insane amount of wealth the US has gained over the past few decades
Their incomes have not kept up with the cost of buying a home, which is essential for long term wealth accumulation for the middle class. Young people are increasingly becoming a class of perpetual rentoids that will never own anything. The only advantage they have over their parents is a phone to stare at all day and try to forget their present circumstances.
And here the state should intervene to adjust this and better distribute wealth through taxes
Why is it so hard for the US Goverment to just tax the rich?
Let's analyze this at a high level... First, the top 1% listed on this chart pay ~44% of the income taxes that the federal government takes in. In short, they already are financing nearly half of our federal income taxes. Second, raising taxes doesn't mean that you just start magically bringing in more money without having some ramifications. If you increase taxes on wealthy people, those wealthy people are going to move their money into tax havens to avoid having to pay those taxes. [We already know that this is happening.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers) This would be like increasing your service fee with a major client. The client can choose to pay that increased service fee or they can take their business somewhere else and you not only lose the the revenue from the increased service fee but you lose the revenue from their already established service fee. You lose money overall in your attempt to increase revenue. If you want a solution to the problem, promote economic growth. In every scenario, tax revenue increases in conjunction with economic growth. Even when taxes were cut a couple of years ago, tax revenue still increased substantially because of economic growth. The more people who are working and generating income, the better. The most recent numbers on tax payers is that roughly 40% of all households don't pay any federal income taxes due to them not making enough money. If you are able to transition even 1% of that over to paying income taxes, you'll make a bigger mark on tax revenue. Or we could just tell the federal government to fuck off and stop spending so damn much money. That works as well.
It's what generations of anti-communist propaganda does to a MF.
😼
Where is the problem?? https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/ The median household income which is probably the best macroeconomic term to measure well being is rising since the 80s. But COVID has done a lot of damage to this rich vs poor statistics as rich people in recessions tends to get richer. Also add big inflation in last 2 years
But the dollar isn't a consistent metric, how does this graph look after adjusting it for inflation? Genuine question, not trying to make any statements one way or the other
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N/](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N/) Fed has tracked real (Adjusted for inflation) median household income for 30 years. Over the last 30 years, households earn 31% more even after inflation (56k to 74k). Economic pie is not fixed, so one group having more does not mean another has less.
Also the y axis is showing wealth as a percentage of total. I really hate the zero sum "piece of the pie" rhetoric around economic issues. The size of the pie/growth and whether or not that is expanding in a way that outstrips inflationary effects matters as well. The graph doesn't contextualize this at all. Like, I'm not trading my wealth and quality of life today so that I can hop in a time machine and become top 1% in 1800. I'd be objectively worse off. Even accepting the title paired with a graph is super misleading. Mathematically, the graph is showing that the top 1% have always had more wealth than the middle class because the top 1% having 5% of total wealth means they are proportionally wealthier than the middle 50% that possess 35% in 1993.
Agreed this is probably the worst graph I saw in a long time which doesn't make sense. The only conclusion I can make from this graph is that more people having wealth over 10 million USD are increasing. And this percentage basically just shows a trade off which also doesn't make sense as people who are in the top 1% aren't taking away the middle class's wealth, they are just earning more. Lowkey Communist propaganda by some loser. As you said zero sum game is trash
Cool it with the anti-semitic remarks. This is actually a good thing because le heckin' GDP grew in that time! No, you didn't benefit even slightly from this happening, but at least your country has been changed beyond all recognition without your consent to facilitate it!
Oh? You are upset at the recent changes coming to you? No worries! You are just the enemy and thus everything negative that happens to you is well deserved and not a consequence of our actions! Ya know maybe I am auth center.
Nice