Nobel prizewinner says economic inequality was created

I have no clue as to why this posted without me posting more than the title, but anyway.

An article I read just now caught my attention.

Here is an exerpt:

American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created. Market forces played a role, but it was not market forces alone. In a sense, that should be obvious: economic laws are universal, but our growing inequality— especially the amounts seized by the upper 1 percent—is a distinctly American “achievement.”

I am not American, but the article rang many bells for me, as I am sure it will for some of you too.

America’s current level of inequality is unusual. Compared with other countries and compared with what it was in the past even in the United States, it’s unusually large, and it has been increasing unusually fast. It used to be said that watching for changes in inequality was like watching grass grow: it’s hard to see the changes in any short span of time. But that’s not true now.

Is it unusual American bro's and sis's? Do you disagree with what is being said here?

Let us see a little more:

Inequality is the result of political forces as much as of economic ones. In a modern economy government sets and enforces the rules of the game—what is fair competition, and what actions are deemed anticompetitive and illegal, who gets what in the event of bankruptcy, when a debtor can’t pay all that he owes, what are fraudulent practices and forbidden

Nobel Prize winner says bla

So I guess the question is, is this true? Do you believe that the present situation is a simple problem, or is it a rather more deeply, and darkly conceived problem?

Have at it, if you want to.

a reply to: Jonjonj

It was 100% created, these problems didn't always exist, and they're even easy to address but the whole left/right dichotomy keeps people arguing and believing in myths like trickle down.

If you want to get down to it, for most of human history there have been strict price controls in place to ensure everyone got their slice. It's really only been since the 80's really where we've had 0 price controls, for the only time in the countries history.

a reply to: Aazadan

I certainly believe that wealth has been restricted. It seems clear to me that this is the case, sad really, that we share the planet with people who actually would prefer you die rather than lose some money.

We will wake up right? As a species I mean.

a reply to: Jonjonj

It was created when certain conservative big shots found out that things like the anti war movement and civil rights movements are created by a healthy middle class.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Created inequality for the purpose of division of the nation by the current administration and the controlling Elite. Just like what happened in trumps cancelled visit to Chicago.

They don't want to lose control and power so the more division they create the greater grip they have.

United we stand and divided we fall.

the nation may fall but the controlling Elite will continue until God takes them out.

a reply to: Willtell

So you actually agree that this is true? That is the question, is it true that the divide was not only inevitable, but created?

It seems to me that there is a huge difference between the two ideas. But if the premise is true, and people know that...where does that leave us?

a reply to: ChesterJohn

I don't think this is about a recent idea, it seems much more like an agenda with a long history.

Stiglitz answering question If you had to locate a fork-in-the-road moment when we started down the path toward widening inequality, when would that moment be? And what were the precipitating events?

It’s hard to pinpoint a single critical moment, but clearly the election of President Ronald Reagan [1980] represented a turning point. In the decades immediately after World War II, we had economic growth in which most people shared, with those at the bottom doing proportionately better than those at the top. (It was also the period that saw the country’s most rapid economic growth.) Among the precipitating events leading to greater inequality were the beginning of the deregulation of the financial sector and the reduction in the progressivity of the tax system. Deregulation led to the excessive financialization of the economy—to the point that, before the crisis, 40 percent of all corporate profits went to the financial sector. And the financial sector has been marked by extremes in compensation at the top, and has made its profits partly by exploiting those at the bottom and middle, with, for instance, predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices. Reagan’s successors, unfortunately, continued down the path of deregulation. They also extended the policy of lowering taxes at the top, to the point where today, the richest 1 percent of Americans pay only around 15 percent of their income in taxes, far lower than those with more moderate incomes.

Reagan’s breaking of the air-traffic controllers’ strike is often cited as a critical juncture in the weakening of unions, one of the factors explaining why workers have done so badly in recent decades. But there are other factors as well. Reagan promoted trade liberalization, and some of the growth in inequality is due to globalization and the replacement of semi-skilled jobs with new technologies and outsourced labor. Some of the increase in inequality common to both Europe and America can be ascribed to that. But what’s different about America is the remarkable growth in incomes of the very top—especially the top 0.1 percent. This is orders of magnitude greater than in most of Europe and comes partly out of Reagan’s deregulatory fervor, particularly in finance, partly out of inadequate enforcement of competition laws, partly out of America’s greater willingness to take advantage of inadequate corporate governance laws.

Throughout its history, America has struggled with inequality. But with the tax policies and regulations that existed in the postwar period, we were on the right track toward ameliorating some of that. The tax cuts and deregulation that began in the Reagan years reversed the trend. Income disparities before tax and transfers (help that is given to the poor through, for instance, food stamps) is now larger, and because government is doing less for the poor and favoring the rich, inequalities in income, after taxes and transfers, are even larger.

a reply to: desert

Throughout its history, America has struggled with inequality. But with the tax policies and regulations that existed in the postwar period, we were on the right track toward ameliorating some of that. The tax cuts and deregulation that began in the Reagan years reversed the trend. Income disparities before tax and transfers (help that is given to the poor through, for instance, food stamps) is now larger, and because government is doing less for the poor and favoring the rich, inequalities in income, after taxes and transfers, are even larger.

It is the little things, right?

a reply to: Jonjonj

Yes, little for the little man but big for the Haves. But, I have a theory that something else happened that would shadow Reaganomics and push for even more extreme measures.

You first have to know about the Koch family and David Koch's 1980 run against Reagan, getting 1% of the votes. While Reagan wanted to retool government to make it work better for the wealthy, Koch wanted to dismantle govt completely, "drown it in a bathtub". So there would be no govt to retool, no govt to act as a buffer between citizens and corporations.

Koch's far right fringe views are now mainstream Republican party statements, thanks to an infusion of money into media and think tanks to spread their message....

Reading the papers from 40 years ago, it’s not hard to recognize the Koch political movement we see today—a vast and complex network of donors, think tanks and academic programs largely cloaked in secrecy and presented as philanthropy, leaving almost no money trail that the public can trace. And it’s these techniques Charles first championed decades ago that helped build his political faction—one so powerful that it turned fringe ideas William F. Buckley once dismissed as “Anarcho-Totalitarianism” into a private political machine that grew to rival the Republican Party itself.

source--a good read

..... a little more

In about 1976, there was a plan laid by Charles Koch to build what he called a radical movement to change the way that America voted and thought. And he said we need to, quote-unquote, "destroy" the statist paradigm and start a movement. And he modeled it on the John Birch Society. He loved the secrecy of the John Birch Society. And there’s a paper that is quoted in here that he wrote in 1976 about how he was going to found a movement and launch it. So, this has been a long, long-running project. And he’s built it up. He’s an engineer. He’s extraordinarily wealthy. And he has worked with a number of very smart people to build this network that tries to sort of push, push, push the country in his direction.

Dark Money: Jane Mayer on How the Koch Bros. & Billionaire Allies Funded the Rise of the Far Right interview

There is another layer of how the spread of fundamentalist religion helped play a part, but that is more to write. And, people say that, well, there are checks and balances, but Koch influence extends even into the Supreme Court, let alone Congress. And, if all else fails for them at the federal govt level, they have a plan to bypass federal govt and work with states, working with a group called ALEC.

Truly horrific times for America and American democracy. No, the future will be horrific.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Neither do I. But it is so much clearer today

After Obama won his Nobel Prize for what he was going to do as President (and not based on any prior accomplishments) I put ZERO stock in any of them . Zip , zilch , nada , zero . Same , I used to speak on honor of them