But how general quality of life changed in the same time frame?
The last decade?
My shopping cart is only half as full and costs more on average.
Video entertainment sources have become fragmented walled gardens riddled with commercials.
Niche internet sites millennials used to cite on their homework have fully disappeared; the web has for the most part been swallowed by corporate giants.
Local Events that used to be niche and cheap have steadily become overcrowded and commercial; Every sort of local market now sells the same mass produced guff
I have to use a lot more benefits and tricks like couponing to afford things i could previously just pay full price.
Every kind of medical professional i need seems to be overworked with a full agenda.
I get to work from home which is nice, it took a pandemic to happen and they tried to take it back after which is not so nice.
There’s a really comprehensive article by Eurostat, covering the situation in EU member states - I didn’t read it entirely yet, but it seems general population is slightly better off, than a decade ago.
I haven’t found data for US tho.
Which is why it’s so insane when media/politicians talk about “the economy”.
The rich are squeezing everything they can out of the 99.9%, and are the only ones that can afford to save.
All that money is moving tho. Which is how we measure “the economy”. Which wasn’t a big deal 50 years ago when wealth inequality wasn’t as bad.
But the metrics are essentially useless these days. Either the people bragging about the economy have no idea what’s happening, or they’re just flat out lying.
Yeah, every time you see “the economy” mentioned in a news article, especialy business news, just replace it with “the 1%’s money” and it will make sense.
The rich are squeezing everything they can out of the 99.9%, and are the only ones that can afford to save.
That’s not entirely accurate. The rich use a system to their benefit that was created by politicians and bankers to make bankers richer, and that gives politicians access to unlimited money. Surplus spending and inflation can squeeze everything out of the 99.9% just fine.
I think much of this obscene wealth is kind of “fake.” Like, if I buy a house, and I do nothing to that house, no improvements, nothing, then turn around and sell that house for double what I bought it for, was any new wealth created? I now have more money, and the person I sold the house to now has an asset that is worth double what it once was, but where did all this new wealth come from? The house didn’t change at all.
I mean, let’s say I bought the house for $100,000, I wait a few years and sell it for $300,000, I just made $200,000. Then the person I sold it to sells it after a few more years for $500,000, making him $200,000. Then the person he sold it to sells after a few more years for $700,000, and he makes $200,000. That’s $600,000 thousand dollars generated from one asset. Isn’t that a little odd? It seems like at some point someone is going to buy the house but they’re not going to be able to sell it for more than they bought it for. I just don’t see how assets can just keep going up in value forever.
The last part of your first paragraph is what I truly don’t understand. If I pull a trash bike from the garbage pile and sell it to an idiot as a vintage bike and he pays me 50000 dollaroos for that, I just scammed that dude. The bike still belongs in the trash.
I mean there’s where inflation is coming in
I don’t see this changing until the housing supply exceeds the demand. At the rate we build, that’s not happening any time soon.
Two economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit.
The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit.
They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit.
Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, “You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can’t help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing.”
“That’s not true”, responded the second economist. “We increased the GDP by $200!”
that’s gross! …actually, they don’t pay taxes, so it’s mostly net
Yes but immigrants and trans, no one ever speaks about that problem!
According to chatGPT if you earn more than 60 - 70k a year you belong to the richest 1% globally.
According to “AI”, glue is is an acceptable pizza topping. Let’s not confuse the ability to form sentences with the ability to reason or produce fact-checked information.
Now we wait for it to trickle down…
It trickles down…right?
RIGHT??
I think we need to start typing out the numbers. $42 Trillion is $42,000,000,000,000.
The thing is, these numbers are unfathomable to most people.
If you say, “government gave $30B in subsidies to car companies”, most people will stare at you blankly and shrug…
But people will get really angry if they see a headline like, “man commits $5000 of welfare fraud”, or “goverment spent $100 000 housing 5 refugee families” because those are real numbers to them.
That’s 10 millions:
100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000
That’s 10 millions minus a new Porsche:
100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000 100000
I would do the same thing with 100 millions but the message would be too long, so instead I’ll share this website: https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
I love the verbal visitation;
A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.
And if it continues, we shall soon find out how palatable their flesh is.
This ongoing wedding party cost $600 MILLION.
My God, that’s right in line with the old royal weddings from the divine right age. Nobody should be that rich.
So they have plenty to help out with the national debt
Okay, let’s say we plan on murdering everyone who makes 1 billion or more. Nah, let’s say 10 million or more in dollars. I say 10 million because I went to school and have a good paying job but in my life time I could never make that kind of money. So let’s say 10 million, bam, you’re dead. Like, now what? They’re all dead. So where’s the money? Let’s say each billion people get 1 trillion dollars each. So like 1000 bucks each basically. Ok now what? If you’re hungry you gotta spend some. If you’re in the US that won’t hold you for more than a month. If you’re in the Philippines you’ll be king for a few months. Ok so then what??? We go back feeding money to another set of assholes? And when they get to the 10 million mark we dispatch them softly with a 2x4 against a jagged granite rock?
Lol what? Your ridiculous proposal is obviously not the only option.
It’s 53 dollars per person per month.
That seems like nothing in the US but it would be like pouring rocket fuel into the economy of a developing country. And that’s the point. It’s also about the knock on effects that aggregation of wealth causes, like political corruption. And the runaway inflation caused by the race to aggregate wealth.
Nobody is under the illusion that eliminating these fortunes would make them rich.
