Where has all the wealth gone?

[Jeremiah Ames]

Why is there so much poverty in the U.S.?


Possibly nearly 4 decades of Republican policies aimed at transferring the wealth of the many to a small percentage of people at the top?

Which has created unnecessary opulence for a select few such as this:

This chart shows that in 1989 (the beginning of the Reagan money grab) the top 1% had 12 times the wealth of the bottom 50%. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Bush/Trump continuation of giveaways to the rich has made it so the top 1% now has INFINITELY more wealth than the bottom 50%. (The bottom 50% now has negative net worth)

 

[MNoBody]

predatory economics.

 

[Nimos]

Why is there so much poverty in the U.S.?

Because the moment anyone mention the word "equality" some capitalist numbhead, yells "Socialism" or "Communism" and everyone gets scared and run away, while the capitalist go count his profit

 

[blü 2]

Ask the people who voted against Obamacare.

 

[Polymath257]

Wealth is not a conserved quantity.

But it is also not distributed evenly. The inequalities tend to be amplified over time.

 

[icehorse]

I've posted this video before, I think it's worth a look:

 

[Mindmaster]

This chart shows that in 1989 (the beginning of the Reagan money grab) the top 1% had 12 times the wealth of the bottom 50%. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Bush/Trump continuation of giveaways to the rich has made it so the top 1% now has INFINITELY more wealth than the bottom 50%. (The bottom 50% now has negative net worth)

China and the people who are supposedly elected to look out for you who are taking their money.

 

[Nakosis]

Why is there so much poverty in the U.S.?


Possibly nearly 4 decades of Republican policies aimed at transferring the wealth of the many to a small percentage of people at the top?

Which has created unnecessary opulence for a select few such as this:





View attachment 44232


This chart shows that in 1989 (the beginning of the Reagan money grab) the top 1% had 12 times the wealth of the bottom 50%. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Bush/Trump continuation of giveaways to the rich has made it so the top 1% now has INFINITELY more wealth than the bottom 50%. (The bottom 50% now has negative net worth)

You don't transfer wealth, you create wealth.

If your thinking is to transfer wealth, guess what. There is a limited amount to transfer. If you add more and more people to the equation then the amount that can be transferred gets less and less.

It doesn't matter if 1% of the people have 99.9% of the wealth. What matters is what you have. Whether you have enough to live "comfortably".

You don't need to take someone else's wealth to create your own wealth. You just need to know how to create wealth. This is totally independent of the wealth a rich person has or what a political party does.

Unfortunately, our education system does a really bad job of teaching people how to create wealth. You know who could do a really good job in teaching people how to create wealth? The wealthy.

 

[MNoBody]

All the perplexities confusion and distress in America arise not from defects of the Constitution, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation. -John Adams
This pamphlet by Ben Franklin is helpful

American history has been a compendium of the ongoing battle with the privately controlled Bank of England, beginning with the revolutionary war. To understand our history, we need to go back to Benjamin Franklin who is often called the “father of paper money” though it been used thousands of years earlier (more accurately, he was the father of colonial American paper money).

Franklin’s paper money was a primary reason for fighting America’s War for Independence.

 

[Stevicus]

Why is there so much poverty in the U.S.?


Possibly nearly 4 decades of Republican policies aimed at transferring the wealth of the many to a small percentage of people at the top?

Which has created unnecessary opulence for a select few such as this:





View attachment 44232


This chart shows that in 1989 (the beginning of the Reagan money grab) the top 1% had 12 times the wealth of the bottom 50%. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Bush/Trump continuation of giveaways to the rich has made it so the top 1% now has INFINITELY more wealth than the bottom 50%. (The bottom 50% now has negative net worth)

Yeah, it pretty much started under Reagan, but his successors have continued the same policies to the point we're at now.

Reagan's policies were based on the assumption that, if you give more to the wealthy, they'll spend it and invest it, which will bring jobs, economic growth, more spending, etc. The wealth was supposed to "trickle down" that way, which was supposed to lead to a better standard of living for all.

It didn't happen that way. It just led to more corruption, more dishonesty, and more shenanigans. Why the voters continued to allow it has been a mystery to me.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Why is there so much poverty in the U.S.?


Possibly nearly 4 decades of Republican policies aimed at transferring the wealth of the many to a small percentage of people at the top?

Which has created unnecessary opulence for a select few such as this:





View attachment 44232


This chart shows that in 1989 (the beginning of the Reagan money grab) the top 1% had 12 times the wealth of the bottom 50%. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Bush/Trump continuation of giveaways to the rich has made it so the top 1% now has INFINITELY more wealth than the bottom 50%. (The bottom 50% now has negative net worth)

This is because of Republicans? Are you kiddin? Or nuts?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Yeah, it pretty much started under Reagan, but his successors have continued the same policies to the point we're at now.

Reagan's policies were based on the assumption that, if you give more to the wealthy, they'll spend it and invest it, which will bring jobs, economic growth, more spending, etc. The wealth was supposed to "trickle down" that way, which was supposed to lead to a better standard of living for all.

It didn't happen that way. It just led to more corruption, more dishonesty, and more shenanigans. Why the voters continued to allow it has been a mystery to me.

That's a better explanation.

 

[Twilight Hue]

We are where we are because of out of control greed and revised corporate mentality.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Why the voters continued to allow it has been a mystery to me.

I can answer that one. Naturally they voted for what they saw as the lesser evil. The voters' thought they had to choose between blue or red. If they believed that abortion was criminal then they voted for red. If they believed pro life was better they voted blue. If that wasn't their issue then they just had to pick blue or red depending upon what their #1 issue was. Hence nobody actually voted for trickle down after Reagan, though after Reagan the media kinda went crazy pitting voters against each other. After that absolutely everything the blues did was either wrong or right and similarly for the reds. It was like NFL sports teams...very nasty. This got worse, and it got worse until we are in this current predicament. Almost nobody still believes in trickle down economics except a few baby boomers, and I think most of them have also dropped it. It doesn't matter now, because money speech according to the supreme court. Its always trickle down now.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What matters is what you have.

What we had was feudalism at one point. Didn't matter. It wasn't working and it had to go. Just as 1% controlling 99% of wealth. A healthy society can't function with that.

 

[Salty Booger]

How are we measuring wealth--dollars, assets, happiness?

 

[Twilight Hue]

predatory economics.

Yep. Build cheap, give little, and charge a massive fortune for it.

 

[MNoBody]

Yep. Build cheap, give little, and charge a massive fortune for it.

that and usury....

 

[Estro Felino]

I've posted this video before, I think it's worth a look:

Very interesting reasoning.
But slightly incomplete...because the greatest misconception economics learners have nowadays is that taxes have the purpose to drag wealth from the rich so it can be re-distributed equally.

Taxes (T) are just the necessary money flow from the households and firms to the State to keep the demand of money under control (and so to prevent high interest rates ...or inflation in the long run).

So...high taxes on the rich is not the solutoon. If there were no rich people, nobody could afford jewels or luxury products and many businesses would close.
But the video is absolutely right. The rich are not job creators in most of cases, so taxing them is useful to create balance and equality in the short run.
But in the long run more money printed by the State will be needed.

The State does not need taxes to fund the public expenditure. It is supposed to create money from a Central Bank.

So the problems are Central Banks which do not print the necessary money, that must circulate to allow
a) entrepreneurs to start businesses
b) customers to buy the goods and services ftom these businesses.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

.
Unfortunately, our education system does a really bad job of teaching people how to create wealth. You know who could do a really good job in teaching people how to create wealth? The wealthy.

Unfortunately, that often means indulging in white collar crime, inheriting it, or getting lucky with numbers.