On Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:33 PM Lawrence Crowell < [email protected]> wrote:
> The equivalency between the two parties is often drawn with the fact they > both take corporate campaign donations. > I don't mind that so much, governments have caused vastly more misery in the world than governments, that's why I became a libertarian. > Of course we all know that tariffs are a terrible way to cure trade > imbalances, > Yes, and as as often as not trade imbalances don't even need to be cured, I have a trade imbalance with my local supermarket, I buy lots of stuff from them and they never buy anything from me, but that's OK with me. > > but with t'Rump his 6th grade understanding of the world says otherwise, > You're insulting school kids, I would much rather have a bright 6th grader as president. > > The wealth gaps and the exponential growth in the power of > billionaires, while the average middle class or "petite bourgeoisie" person > is falling into at best income stagnation or decline, are a recipe for > future chaos. > Yes, that's what made me change my political philosophy, until a few years ago I was a hardcore libertarian, I still am on social issues but not economic ones. I've always thought if a theory doesn't fit the facts then it must be abandoned regardless of how much you love it, and I saw some fact I just could not ignore. In 2010 the richest 388 people had as much wealth as poorest half of the entire human race, that's 3.6 Billion people. In 2014 the richest 85 people did. In 2015 the richest 62 people did. In 2017 the richest 8 people did. Think of it, the 8 richest Human beings have as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 BILLION Human beings! History has pretty decisively shown that huge wealth inequality just ain't healthy for any society, although history has no examples of inequality of the magnitude we have now. The improvements in AI that are certain to come in the next few years will only accelerate the acceleration of this socially destabilizing trend unless something pushes back, something like government action. Health insurance for all might be a good place to start. However Donald Trump wants to push for lowering taxes on the rich, getting rid of the inheritance tax, and eliminating health care for the 24 million poorest people in the country; but that's pushing in the wrong direction and will only accelerate the acceleration of the acceleration of the wealth gap. Anybody who is not terrified by this doesn't understand the situation. One way or another this trend will NOT continue, if government action doesn't slow down the widening of the gap something far far more unpleasant will. If I were one of those 8 hyper rich people I'd be calling for change louder than anyone because I like the fact that there is a connection between my head and my shoulders and would prefer to keep it that way. Let me be clear, I'm not talking about "should", I'm not talking about morality, I'm just saying that when the gap between the rich and the poor gets too large social instability occurs and that can be very unhealthy for those at the very top. Americans like to think they live in a meritocracy but they don't, the truth is if you're born poor in the USA and are talented you're less likely to get rich than if you were born in other advanced countries, particularly one of the Scandinavian socialist countries. Take a look at this graph, it's informally called "The Great Gatsby Curve" by economists and is a plot of the Gini coefficient for several industrialized countries (a measure of economic inequality) against economic mobility (the likelihood if you're born in one economic class you'll die in the same economic class): The Great Gatsby Curve <https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.bwbx.io%2Fimages%2Fusers%2FiqjWHBFdfxIU%2Fi39D39AoA74w%2Fv1%2F1000x-1.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2013-12-12%2Fthe-gatsby-curve-how-inequality-became-a-household-word&docid=sLvBewmozWO0CM&tbnid=7SCQhdxQMkmSvM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwj44KDfgeHgAhUCD60KHUFzAUgQMwhLKAswCw..i&w=1000&h=825&bih=863&biw=1707&q=Great%20Gatsby%20Curve%3A&ved=0ahUKEwj44KDfgeHgAhUCD60KHUFzAUgQMwhLKAswCw&iact=mrc&uact=8> As you can see the USA is in the extreme upper right of the plot and that is exactly where you don't want to be; enormous economic inequality and little economic mobility, the same conditions that occurred just before the French Revolution. The only reason there hasn't already been blood in the streets is probably because the poor are unrealistically optimistic about getting rich. Here is another interesting graph, it plots several countries actual economic mobility against the perceived economic mobility with the diagonal line representing an accurate assessment of possibilities. As you can see Americans are far too optimistic while most other countries are somewhat too pessimistic, only the Italians get it about right and see things as they actually are: Actual Mobility Versus Perceived Mobility <https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0bIjqqXgAApZ3O.png> So we're sitting on a time bomb and the only thing stopping it from going off is a misperception by the poor and lower middle class, but it's only a matter of time before they wise up and when they do I suggest you invest in guillotine futures. > > The Democrats seem eager to lose another, and for all we know it might > be the last, presidential election > It very well could be that it doesn't matter who wins the 2020 presidential because regardless of the outcome Trump intends to stay in office until the day he dies, and after that Donald junior or Ivanka will take over. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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