Join institutional investors, analysts and strategists from the world's largest banks: Subscribe today
Already have an account? log in
Inequality’s A Very Big Problem, Albert Edwards Reckons
Albert Edwards suspects there may be "a big problem brewing for investors."
That's not unusual. If you wake up one day to a bullish Albert Edwards note, you should spin your Inception totem. Because you're probably still asleep.
In his latest, published Wednesday, Edwards focused on inequality. He cited Thomas Piketty, and not for the first time.
At the outset, Albert blamed corporations and politicians for spiraling inequality. Naturally, he charged the Fed with being "complicit in robbing t
I agree we cannot let the “banksters” off the hook. But the single-biggest factor in the obscene inequality that exists in this country is political — i.e., the relentless effort by the Republican Party since 1980 to reduce and eliminate taxes on the renter class.
rent-seeking class
The revolution will be televised. Trump has tapped into that anger as an unintended consequence of his own grievances he rages about. Voting against their interests is a function of education and general anti government leaning. Those capitalists/owners who hold their noses and vote to reduce taxes and later bemoan our national debt levels deserve their fate.
H-Man, not to pooh pooh Edwards but inequality has been around for a long time. The guys in the front of the cave didn’t fare as well as the guys in the back of the cave when the sun went down and the big critters cam looking for food. It would seem that as long as there is some vestige of mankind, there will be inequality, It appears to be the nature of the beast.
Said cave dwellers , only got out of cave to something better ,when they started working together for shared benefit.
Very poor track record indeed.
Christian Nationalism which is promoted by many who hope to join the Orange in the dictatorship also has an extremely poor track record.
The idea that economic pain is driving populism/Trump has been extensively studied and is generally thought to play second fiddle to socio cultural concerns.
i.e., people vote Trump because they love his style and his tone. As intellectual segregation takes place, low education voters accumulate endless cultural grievances, way more than they accumulate economic ones. And that express itself into a raging anti elitism.
As someone said, it’s wrong to say they lost trust in elite institutions when they get rolled by any and every crook, grifter and conspiracy theorist. These are high-trust people! They’re just made blind and stupid by their rage.
The three times there was a major tipping point in the inequality balance were in 1642 when the English did away with their King and put Oliver Cromwell and his “Roundheads” in charge before restoring the Monarchy (Cromwell was a direct relative on my mother’s side), 1789 when the citizens of France, led by Robespierre, did away with the king and as many “aristos” as they could guillotine before the monarchy was briefly restored, and 1917 when Stalin and his Red Army did away with the Tsar and his family, and a few million others that the workers didn’t like. When the low go after the high, one best be on the correct side. The poor don’t elect their leads, they find them in the basement. Trump, one of the talls, will not be chosen. There was also the “long march,” in 1934. A former prof of mine (an economist, lol) eventually became a key player after WWI when the nationalists were driven onto what is now called Taiwan. He became the head of the republic’s central bank to help stabilize its finances. The government finally found a substitute with more experience and my prof emigrated to the US to get his doctorate.