The Rich Have Gained $5.6 Trillion in the 'Recovery'; The rest lost $660 Billion

[Domingo Halliburton]

Homeboy has been talking about this for at least 3 to 4 years, since I've been listening to him......when I first heard him mention it......

"Webster Tarpley and Abby Martin Discuss the Fiscal Cliff, Wall Street Sales Tax"
Webster Tarpley and Abby Martin Discuss the Fiscal Cliff, Wall Street Sales Tax, and Syria - YouTube

^^ that never going to materialize "Nasdaq dowJones" album needs this idea rapped about....

I mean the guy has a point if you want to ban high frequency trading. But when you're selling stock you're selling equity. which is taxed at the corporate level. then this guy wants to tax it again when you sell it to somebody. then on top of that you want to tax it again when some makes a capital gain on it.

bottom line: rich people own the majority of stocks, bonds, financial instruments, etc. so when the fed sits there and pumps the economy full of money and inflates assets in attempt at a recovery, who do you think is going to benefit the most?

 

[Swirv]

I mean the guy has a point if you want to ban high frequency trading. But when you're selling stock you're selling equity. which is taxed at the corporate level. then this guy wants to tax it again when you sell it to somebody. then on top of that you want to tax it again when some makes a capital gain on it.

bottom line: rich people own the majority of stocks, bonds, financial instruments, etc. so when the fed sits there and pumps the economy full of money and inflates assets in attempt at a recovery, who do you think is going to benefit the most?

There is a way for everyone to eat if people stop being greedy.

 

[No1]

Yeah, I did. Thanks for the heads up.

I disagree, just reading around it has a lot of articles where people reach conclusions using very simple logic and stating things without first properly connecting all the dots. It's nowhere near as credible as Salon and the writers are not of that quality. Though there are some good pieces and having Noam Chomsky write a piece certainly doesn't hurt, but on a skim the best pieces on there are contributed from people not affiliated with the site in an official capacity.

 

[No1]

This would be funny if it weren't just tragic.



1. Isn't the fact that "Too Big to Fail" is still a problem implicit in an article like this (Not to say that an explicit statement isn't needed, if extremely late, but just asking)?

2. If anything in that Forbes article was going to be put into place, it would've already happened. That's the type of stuff that economic and financial blogs have been wonking about since about 2009, yet nothing's changed. As anti-capitalist as I am, I'm not going to go on a screed about it. But I will say that you can't fix a problem regarding capitalist philosophy with mere infrastructural changes. Something much more major and fundamental needs to occur.

At least they're kinda-sorta acknowledging that it's a philosophical problem now.

No, I don't think "too big to fail" is a problem is implicit in an article like this. Mostly because too big too fail was being billed as collective apocalypse and credit lines drying up, though there were claims that this money would be paid back, it was never stated that these guys wouldn't still be rich. I never assumed as much and these trends aren't all that different from what's been happening since the last 70s. What I didn't recognize was that when people got laid off, employers would realize they could get the same productivity (or near it) while hiring less people and offering less benefits. The transfer in wealth is a result of many of those factors. It would be too simple to say that "too big too fail" failing is demonstrative of the wealth transfer of the past 3 years. It is that only in the sense that it shows that we support corporate welfare and protecting corporate institutions over social welfare. But you'd have to go much further into the minutia of the details to make the connection.

As far as the philosophical argument, I would offer a distinction. You can fix this process by structural changes and there are countries that have done so. But it also has to be accompanied by a philosophical change. You can have regulations that are so clear, and without exception that you're necessarily violating them by acting in a certain way. But a there are rules, and then standards which are more indeterminate. The philosophical change will have to be in regards to the actors enforcing the standards and how they interpret them (and the rules as well to a degree) and of course the public.

 

[88m3]

Thanks Obama

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

I disagree, just reading around it has a lot of articles where people reach conclusions using very simple logic and stating things without first properly connecting all the dots. It's nowhere near as credible as Salon and the writers are not of that quality.

Like you actually read alternet with any consistency. Salon has some crappy articles too. There is barely any daylight between Salon and Alternet. They even have a working partnership.

Salon and AlterNet Launch Partnership to Fund Investigative Journalism « SoapBox

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

What are we even focusing on too big to fail for? That's not the only reason why we have such exploding income inequality. With the trend of liberalization of trade, crushing labor rights, a rigged tax code, the maximizing of productivity as cheaply as possible, politicians bought by corporate lobbyists, and Senate rules that make no sense, etc it's looking more and more like there's no real answer to this. Capitalism is fundamentally flawed.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

As far as the philosophical argument, I would offer a distinction. You can fix this process by structural changes and there are countries that have done so. But it also has to be accompanied by a philosophical change. You can have regulations that are so clear, and without exception that you're necessarily violating them by acting in a certain way. But a there are rules, and then standards which are more indeterminate. The philosophical change will have to be in regards to the actors enforcing the standards and how they interpret them (and the rules as well to a degree) and of course the public.

And none of that shyt has a chance of even getting done unless there's filibuster reform, and a president and Congress that actually wants to do it. We got a democratic President, a democratic house, and a 60 seat democratic Senate majority and when it comes to real reform of the banking system, we got nothing.

Dodd-Frank was a useless piece of shyt and even that's getting dismantled as we speak. Congressmen from both parties are working on ways to create exemptions for derivatives trading.

 

[Serious]

time for wealth redistribution or too raid the Bastille

There is a way for everyone to eat if people stop being greedy.

Nah bro it's never enough. N1ggas want private yachts, jets, and ferraris at their disposal.

LoL @ being fair.

 

[No1]

Like you actually read alternet with any consistency. Salon has some crappy articles too. There is barely any daylight between Salon and Alternet. They even have a working partnership.

Salon and AlterNet Launch Partnership to Fund Investigative Journalism « SoapBox

I know I don't read it with consistency, how did you come to that conclusion aside from the fact that I just said that in my very first post in this thread, and again in the post you just quoted....:obamaword:

That aside. It's not hard for me to spend an hour looking around a site. Too many of their writers (not all, I read a decent 3 page piece) embark on tasks require more detail and they don't always provide it. Not knowing these people I skimmed articles that I know other places have written and I wasn't that impressed. I can get the same subjects with better insight, or written with better quality from other places. I'm not mad at them though. It looks like a good place for summaries of issues (which is clearly necessary). I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to writing quality and I admit that.

But I didn't see any equivalents of this article on austerity: Austerity never works: Deficit hawks are amoral — and wrong - Salon.com

There's generally 5 or 6 articles of that quality on Salon's front page at a given time.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

..but wasn't this "recovery" engineered by Obama and his team? The ones behind the "American Recovery Act" and QE3, GM bailout, and God knows what other corporatist fukkery?

So where are the defenders of corporatism, Krugman, Keynesian economics, and QE3?

@ Robin Hood Tax

Yeah, we should've just listened to thr Austrians.

 

[OsO]

Why that's important is because it takes credibility away from the whole article.That is a ridiculous statement...

After reading a statement like that I know the author started with a headline and tried to find ways to support their already determined conclusion or if I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt has no idea what they're talking about.

i understand what you're saying.

i just think in this case the data point is the more important piece. if the data is correct and the distribution of wealth as a result of recovery policies has been that unequal, then it doesnt matter if this guy is talking about pink dragons in the sky imo.

the data is the important part. and the data can be correct or incorrect separate from the opinion of an individual.

in my mind it almost doesnt matter what the dudes opinion is cause i already know shh is fukked up. i just want to know if his numbers are accurate.

but thats just me.

 

[OsO]

What are we even focusing on too big to fail for? That's not the only reason why we have such exploding income inequality. With the trend of liberalization of trade, crushing labor rights, a rigged tax code, the maximizing of productivity as cheaply as possible, politicians bought by corporate lobbyists, and Senate rules that make no sense, etc it's looking more and more like there's no real answer to this. Capitalism is fundamentally flawed.

my question is this... is capitalism the problem? or is it the people running the system of capitalism who are the problem?

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

What are we even focusing on too big to fail for? That's not the only reason why we have such exploding income inequality. With the trend of liberalization of trade, crushing labor rights, a rigged tax code, the maximizing of productivity as cheaply as possible, politicians bought by corporate lobbyists, and Senate rules that make no sense, etc it's looking more and more like there's no real answer to this. Capitalism is fundamentally flawed.

Every economic system is flawed when you have corrupt, greedy, immoral humans operating them. Fiat currency makes sense. The Fed makes sense. Capitalism makes sense. If you had a computer operating them. You put a human behind the controls, its only a matter of time.

"FOR A PLATE OF FOOD 'IM A SELL MANKIND FA"

So imagine what he will do with the world's largest military, or the power to make laws, or the controls of the printing press of the dollar.

The only way we can have a system that works is by engineering it to be isolated from human corruption. You really look at it, that's where all the problems come from. The "rationalized" exceptions, greed, etc etc... everyone wants rules but only to have to follow them when it works in their favor. Its madness.

You look at humans vs the laws of nature for example. We have made planes and nuclear weapons. But at the end of the day you can't cheat gravity. You can't cheat force = MA. So we all make decisions based around that. We need an economic and political system that is that absolute. You have a trillion dollars in assets leveraged 30x? When your shyt inevitably crashes you should be held personally responsible for whatever comes of it. You have a business that can't be competitive/profitable w/o subsidies? Look into a new business. Etc. Govt's job is to facilitate and protect people's rights. Its gone way out of its scope.

 

[Blackking]

my question is this... is capitalism the problem? or is it the people running the system of capitalism who are the problem?

Capitalism is the problem because at it's nature there has to be these wealth gaps and competition that is supposed to encourage economic growth... but really feeds into the greed of the already wealthy.

either way, that question is irrelevant. A better question is what are the people of a nation to do to correct this? What are the options for the other 98% of the population? Or do we just have to accept it? We already know that there is no incentive for politicians or the rich to distribute wealth or to close the wealth gap.