Congrats. You’re All Rich
I'm always hesitant to document increases in US household net worth.
In simple terms, the figures don't represent what they purport to represent. Not really, anyway.
The media talks about "Americans' wealth," but in this context, we're actually talking about the wealth of people who own assets. And because assets are concentrated in the hands of a relative few, "Americans" is a misnomer.
For example, while a sizable percentage of the populace owns a home, a sizable percentage doesn't. Real es
“Or at least not until it reaches some totally untenable breaking point beyond which the masses realize that a tiny handful of people can’t possibly suppress the collective will of 300 million.“
The few are becoming increasingly proficient at steering the collective will of the 300 million. Scarily so.
There’s that. Fascists are getting insanely good at misdirecting the anger of their base…
“the anger” gets the best creative help on the planet from Facebook scientists it seems, according to the WSJ.
Yeah but most research done on the topic shows little to no influence from FB on voting patterns. Fox news otoh…
H-Man, economic inequality has existed for eons. If there was a solution to greed, we would have seen the blueprint.
As with most things, degree matters. Economic inequality is a given outside of a hive mind (and even then?). But inequality in the western world circa 1950-60s is very different from what we have now or what the western world was like in the 1890-1920… and that matters.
Interesting Fed paper at J-hole about link between inequality and low real rates, but at the margin it does seem to change if we are entering a few period where we are morphing away from asset swap expansion of reserves and now going to send checks directly to the public which can then spend it. Would also say that there is a possible moment brewing in which the decline in labour share of the economy is troughing out. Peoples QE implications are higher velocity, higher inflation and higher interest rates. Inflection point alert.