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I recently read Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty - In the book Piketty suggests that the return on capital is now so much higher than the return on labor that traditional income taxes would not be very effective for increasing the tax contributions of the extremely wealthy. Let me know if I'm off-base here, but wouldn't a 90% top income tax bracket just hit a small number of very high earning professionals like doctors, lawyers, etc.?
Correct. Read Piketty's book Capital in the 21st century.
The market if left to its own devices, will over time, bring us all back to feudalism. As ever larger shares of wealth travel in ever fewer amount of hands. Someone eventually wins the Monopoly game.
I don't disagree that Piketey has probably got it right, that if we don't make it our business as regular people to transition into interest bearing stuff, by way of the market, we have trouble.
The real concern is that Boomers, most definitely did "break" America by way of acceding to the notion that they could have "everything" without having to work for it, the notion of "pay it later" or "leave it for the kids" is EXACTLY what became respectable during the 1980's.
It turned the United States from an aspirant republic capable or generating wealth by way of fostering upward mobility, and through decades of disinvestment in schools, healthcare and infrastructure, to say nothing of militarizing the civic services, we ended up in short order, in an Ayn Rand inspired dystopia, where the engineers and "smart people" all were told to work 80 hours a week and do well, the "moochers" did FAR worse, and at the end of the day the "best and brightest" got the shaft, at some raw outsourcing deal.
So while there are winners in our society, the Mark Z's, and Eric Princes of our society, they were going to do just fine whether fortune smiled heavily or lightly upon them, that they just make it clear, that in fact we've become a casino / winner take all type economy.
It's a massive regression, so instead of public services and intentionally socializing major industrial/economic benefit projects, we wait on the hopeful benevolent patronage of some hyperwealthy person who can personally fund moon-launches, mars colonies. One wonders if they don't name the first colony Galt's Gulch.
What's screwed up is to see the boomers vigorously fuck over their own children and grandchildren so they don't have to think too much about any sort of responsibility or cost to themselves.
The 'me' generation all the way.
This is the syllogism they are using.
A) Black people use this social program B) Republicans want to cut this social program
Therefore, Republicans want to cut social programs because Black people use them.
So if you want to cut welfare you hate black people. If you point out that the large majority of people who use welfare in America are not black, so why you hear, "DIBRPORITONALLHY BLACK." These people have no idea what a proportion is or what it should mean. Ask someone, "What is the proper proportion that something should be of another thing?" They have no idea and can't unpack it.
Bonus points, if instead of talking about disproportionate black people they instead say "people of color" you can ask them how they got so racist that they would use an old-timey racist phrase like "colored people" AND lump in all races into one group as if Cubans, and Italians, and Arabs and Indians and African Americans and Koreans are all the same, have no special identity that matters to them and their only feature is not being white. Sounds like a white supremacist talking point, doesn't it?
Edit: People should actually just read this book instead of launching misinformed and unrelated arguments against what I said. It turns out the professional academic goes into a little more detail and cites extensive sources, unlike my exceedingly brief reddit comment. Literally, go read a book. It's very short, because half of it is citations.
Picketty's <em>Capital in the Twenty-First Century</em> is an excellent read for anyone interested in wealth inequality, the data behind it, and its effects.
If you're interested in economics then I'd recommend. It gives a comprehensive overview of the titular economic models and their historical-societal contexts.
I don't know how hours of reading can be avoided. One book I've found very valuable is Richard Wolf's Contending Economic theories. https://www.amazon.ca/Contending-Economic-Theories-Neoclassical-Keynesian/dp/0262517833
As far as left economics it really only deals with Marxist style socialism. But it does so by contrasting it with Keynesian and Neoclassical theory in such a way that you come out the other end with a pretty good picture of the entire economic horizon (at least in the minds of the most influential thinkers in economics today). From there I'd look for books on other variants of post-capitalist economics.
If you are lookin for an in-depth read on the topic I'd suggest the book How Asia works
He co-authored a pretty decent book on Economics. I've been reading it, pretty dry tbh.
Other than that, I think he's just been busy doing his political activism, which probably leads to some marginalization by the academic community.
What??? Do you think FDR was communist? Do you think Bernie is communist? Do you think Norway and Sweden are communist? Learn what communism is and what it is not.
Again, the USA had its best years when we had 70-90% taxes on the rich. If we want to bring back the good years, we need to pass something like the Green New Deal that has marginal tax rates that max out at 70%. Or a 2% tax on wealth above 50 million would be great too.
Think how much we would free the serfs of the US if we could cancel college loan debt!
Try picking up this book, you may learn something.
https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty-ebook/dp/B074DVRW88
A book that is not as much critiques but a primer on neo, Keynesian and Marxian is this:
https://www.amazon.com/Contending-Economic-Theories-Neoclassical-Keynesian/dp/0262517833
My library had a copy. It was pretty good. The Marxism chapter is a little long but it’s good. But again not really criticism, just discussion about how the three differ.
If you want to bookend your sleep I'd recommend Contending Economic Theories. It'll have you sleeping like a baby in minutes.
Oh that's cute. You linked me Sowell. Now try reading a big boy economist: https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496878948&sr=8-1&keywords=Capital+in+the+Twenty-First+Century
I know the math looks really hard but trust me, it won't be so bad.
I don't get your fixation on the raw number of shares someone holds it should be on the amount of money the have in it. If you have 100k worth of a company A with 10 shares and 100k worth of company B with 5 shares and they both pay a dividend of 10% you'll still get paid 10k from both companies regardless of the amount of shares you have.
I will agree though as I have numerous times throughout this thread that wealth inequality is a problem and I would 100% not want money being concentrated in the higher parts of society.
Yes I agree 10000% that the fed's lowered interest rates which have allowed for the growth of capital/assets to be higher than the growth in the economy leads to worsening wealth inequality, which Thomas Piketty extremely thoroughly discusses in his book Capital.
What I've been trying to get at (although badly, sorry slow day) is that given the circumstances that we've been dealt, and with the knowledge that the Fed's actions do help the economy recover and lessen the effects from a recession, and "as long as we don’t see inflation on the consumer side" during the Fed's efforts I dont see a problem with the lowered rates.
The main problem is how long it took the economy to recover and the length at which the fed kept it's policies in place, which I why I stated that I hope we start to see a continuation of the precovid labor market as well as large gains with wages so that the Fed can start to ease off its easy credit policies fast and asset prices can drop/stabilize.
I recommend <em>Capital in the 21st Century</em>. It's an extensive study of income, economy growth, capital, and how it all relates to the rising rates of inequality in the world. It finishes with tentative policy recommendations for governments to look into to counteract the inevitable market trends.
It's written by an economist, so it is kind of number heavy, but I think it's worth getting through.
It's an interesting subject.
One factor is that the black population tends to be younger, which has an impact.
Thomas Sowell went into this in more depth in his book, "Discrimination and Disparities."
The book changed my perspective, which had previously been that our institutions were riddled with so much racial bias and corruption as to be almost useless, to something more tempered.
There's definitely discrimination at play. But for a real, more permanent, more effective, and faster solution, we will need to look deeper. But there are other factors that may make it appear worse than it is. And these factors should inform the solution.
For instance, banks owned by blacks are actually less likely to make loans to black borrowers, and that's the case in both single-factor and multi-factor analysis.
The point is, to win the fight against racism, not fight people or companies that simply happen to look racist, when, in fact, they may be applying policies that have nothing to do with racism.
Because the situation is not always as it seems at first glance.
Send me a message if you'd like to talk about this, because my family and I have been discussing it, back and forth, for some time.
20 pounds new on co.uk for the hardcover version. (Remember that amazon has excellent policies if you somehow get shipped a used version)
Just in case you don't like reading on pdf (I know I don't): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Reason-Thomas-Paine/dp/1515090825/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1471357854&sr=8-4&keywords=age+of+reason 5 pounds
Not to make this political. But everyone should care. Global inequality is at all time highs.
We can feed and clothe the poor many times over and we choose not to. We destroy the environment and pollute our bodies in the name of economic growth. It ultimately leads to civil unrest, which we are experiencing now, because people can’t get by working full time jobs. They can’t afford health care. They can’t provide for their families. The middle class is disappearing and being replaced by what amounts to modern day slaves.
Capital in the Twenty First Century is on my reading list and covers some of these topics.
Discrimination and Disparities https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541645634/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_4kCuFb699QVY1
Her entire argument is trashed by a much more intelligent man than her. Thomas Sowell is the boss when it comes to these topics.
Quote him and watch them call him a racist. Then drop a picture of him. 😂
>Government wasn’t as big, and we weren’t giving that much handouts back than then
That doesn't address his point about how the wealthiest are taxed. Did you know that they used to pay at least 70% of their income in tax and now generally pay less than 15%, sometimes zero? If you want sources, let me know, but first let me know that you're not one of those types that only accepts right-wing sources.
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>I agree that the trickle down affect of the tax break affects the bottom employee/worker the least. If there was a better way to motivate/improve on Capitalism then I’m all ears.
If you're really all ears, read Capital in the Twenty-First Century. At least read some of the Amazon reviews for it. We're very far from needing to speculate on how capitalism can be reformed, and the answer is one we used for the 30-40 most prosperous years in the history of humanity, progressive taxation.
Entire manufacturing industries have been hollowed out: textiles, steel, construction materials, automobiles, etc. Even high-tech manufacturing has been outsourced (IC manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, computer assembly, etc.). And not only manufacturing jobs have gone, but medium-skill service jobs as well (customer support, remote technical support, etc.).
The impression you seem to have is that these shifts are no biggie, that people can just retrain, and that the problems we're having with social stability have some unrelated cause. If so, you've got a lot of learning to do. Why don't you start here: Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited? Also, Capital in the Twenty-First Century is fantastic for what's been happening with income inequality generally. Both of these are serious books by serious economists. I doubt they're the best "intro" books (especially the second), but you seem like a serious person, just a bit underinformed and pedantic.
Is not obvious that conservatives are using Marx as a boogie man to push people away from research into race and class inequality?
Adam Smith also discussed populations and inequality due to economic power structures. He sympathized with the working class. Unfortunately he did not foresee the power of land lords and wrote them off as harmless. Future economists discussed this and why markets are efficient, but not equitable. John Stuart Mill is my dude.
My point is that class has always been discussed for a long time. I feel like accepting the Marx critique of CRT would also require rejecting a lot of other research done by Economists that you would agree with.
Sources (from memory)
I'm a very successful capitalist. I don't believe in UNBRIDLED capitalism.
Unfortunately, too many folks don't really understand that capitalism is just an economic philosophy, not a religion, or a system of government. It is an ongoing experiment and is SUPPOSED to be tweaked/perfected/regulated to keep it humming, but now too many dipshits (including politicians too dumb for Congress, but somehow were elected) treat it as sacred and not to be touched.
There's overwhelming evidence that vast wealth is incompatible with democracy.
If you are genuinely interested to know more, I would recommend reading Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st century.
Net worth is in no way comparable to wage income. You're comparing apples to orangutans.
Of course apples are not primates and don't get hardons, and orangutans don't belong in your fruit salad. So the point you're trying to make about groceries and hardons, weird as it is, kind of gets lost in that.
I would recommend Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. It goes deep into wealth and capital vs wages and salary, and into inequality and what can be done about it, etc.
There's a lot to think about there, but conflating net worth with wage income is just going to confuse things.
While I certainly didn't have time to read all of that (you didn't either...wokes rarely do) I did read enough to see that there were very little actual disparities in the few I was able to read. I agree that there's a 5-10% cost of racism and we should work toward getting rid of that. But CRT posits that everything is racist and must be changed. That would be bad for everyone, including black people.
As a counter, I offer https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1541645634
I'm also a big fan of John McWhorter https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/opinion/critical-race-theory.html?searchResultPosition=3
As a mediocre American, you are about as unqualified to speak on either of these topics as a human being could possibly be.
Yes we are rapidly approaching a society that will be very similar to the aristocratic society of Europe prior to word war 1. I would suggest this book as a look at the macro forces behind that transition: Capital in the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674979850/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_GF0TE571X5PNTJB4W96Y . Amazon link because I am to lazy.
Book links were not sent for you to counter in a reply. They were provided in case you, or anyone reading this, would like to go deeper into the topic/data. Our back in forth communication with links to articles is a good starting point to try and dig into what reality is but a book with years, or a lifetime of research, is much more effective/useful. Unfortunately the media does a great job of manipulating data and swaying popular opinion with misleading headlines and biased/misleading articles to push a grand narratives and make money. Books are the most useful antidote. Again, if anyone is interested, what I consider the two most important book links are below.
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Thomas Sowell should be a house hold name. Man is a genius. Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell...
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Data, data and more data. Facing Reality by Charles Murray...
Because absurd levels of wealth have no benefit other than perpetuating more wealth for those that hold capital. [If you genuinely want to know why this is valuable, rather than arguing with non-economists you could read this book.](https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/0674979850(
>Imagine taxing middle class or upper middle class people with only a few hundred thousand dollars invested that they worked hard for their whole lives. To be taxed at 1-3 percent per year for what?
Piketty advocates for 1% over 1.3 million but we both know you don't care. In actuality, a "few hundred thousand" dollars in investments (non-real-estate, of course) put the people you are talking about in the upper class by any honest assessment. The only way I can think you justify this framing is you either draw the upper class line at 5% of wealth or it is literally just the how much could a banana cost? meme.
In the African slave trade (lets say approx. 1500s-1800s), there were potentially as many as 1-1.5 million white, European enslaved laborers taken to Africa (source: Sowell's Discrimination and Disparities) - most of this occurred before and just as the North American Slave Trade was starting. Now this number, despite being high, is still significantly smaller than the 10-14 million African enslaved laborers brought to North America.
And that number pales in comparison to the estimated 40 million humans currently living in enslaved conditions with ~71% are women used in some form of human/sex trafficking.
TLDR; slavery was and continues to be rampant.