Time to Talk About the Buffett Rule

[ApatheticNoMore]

If anyone knows of an example in history where a society was rejuvenated through forceful capture of the assets of the wealthy and a subsequent redistribution to the 'lower classes' please let us know. I don't believe there are any. The attempt ultimately fails every single time. Or the society does.

At a certain level of wealth inequality can you even have a healthy society? Well look certainly you can't when short sighted wealth captures the political system (cough, cough, that would be now). But also if you become a banana republic with a few rich people and many many poor. Um what is the status of civil liberties of the democratic process etc. etc. in THOSE countries? At a certain point you are dictatorial just to keep the masses from revolting. Ever been countries with civil liberties, in which the democratic process actually worked with this level of wealth inequality? Probably not because at a certain level of wealth inequality the democratic process will likely decide to redistritube some wealth . But if not that, you do have to keep down revolution.

It absolutely amazes me that the entire Democratic position appears to be based on the "fact" that wealth is a zero sum game. It's not. Wealth CAN be created. Do the top few percent control a big share of the pie? Yes, obviously they do. Did they get it by taking it out of the pockets of the middle class. No.

Maybe, maybe not. Are BPs profits taken out of the pockets of the middle class. Well it is not a middle class thing, they have taken from us all. It is wealth creation in private pockets through destruction of the commons (which btw is SO MUCH that is wrong with modern captialism, much of what the harshest critics critique, the destruction of the world by the economic system is precisely this). What about agribusiness profits from conventional farming? Same thing. We all know about bankster profits, clearly they have got us coming and going. They pocket profits in the boom and then when those profits prove to have been acheived through deception, pocket bailouts in the bust (not just their bailouts were illegitimate the boom profits also were really, although at least letting them go broke or be nationalized ...). Many of our big businesses seem quite corrupt not to mention the FIRE economy. Most mid-size businesses are rather mundane (they aren't necessarily destroying the planet wholesale or engaged in chicanery). Although I will say outright that anecdotally every business I've ever worked in when it reached a certain size had quite a decent part of it's sales coming from government for what it's worth (and I don't consider that by itself immoral or anything. Some were probably prompted to do so in self-defense from the government - yea I'm speaking of actual historical timelines of businesses I have known here. I'm just showing how business and government are all wrapped up in each other even when it's not corrupt - when it's corrupt, oh boy!). But yea many businesses mundane. Great innovators are the exeception. A google or something more the exception than not and maybe pure ephimerialization (Bucky Fuller), money created through idea generation, something existing where it didn't before. When you start dealing with the pure physical world though, more for some can become less for others, it's a finite planet, that's that capture of the commons stuff.

If you want to effect some good for the middle class through policy it needs to be in a way that will cause the assets held by that class to increase in value. Housing, for example. That's where the middle class holds their wealth and it is a declining value asset. As long as that is the case we can not reverse the course, except at gunpoint, of course.

That is a disasterous way to help the middle class. I mean really the housing bubble - disasterous. That such policies are actively pursued and they were, whether or not they are to give money to the middle class (may have been as much for the banksters as anyone but it did create a middle class wealth ILLUSION) is just ugh. What the middle class needed was real wage increases. Housing is both an asset and an expense for the middle class and some kind of shelter is a *necessary* expense too. Let that sink in, who really wants their expenses to increase? Do we go around saying we want higher food prices etc.? (well some of us do because we want externalities fullly internalized, but it's not a popular position). Expense increases in such a case can accomplish good, but expense increases are not BY THEMSELVES a good. So middle class person buying their first house, with housing prices increased will pay far more for it in terms of downpayment (ha downpayments what a quaint old-fashioned notion - but if he has a downpayment it won't go as far!), in terms of monthly nut, in terms of taxes (property taxes based on property value), and especially in terms of interest owed over the life of the loan (for two reasons, downpayment covering less of the loan and higher cost meaning more money lent)! So who is really getting rich here? The homeowner or the banks? Hmm ..... Now there is a way to win a housing bubble, get in while it's cheap, sell out at the peak etc.. But that doesn't mean the majority wins from housing bubbles. In fact housing bubbles actually *ARE* true ZERO SUM wealth. Higher housing prices also increases rents for those who seem at first glance outside the game entirely (the renters). So no, you want to help the middle class: increase wages, not housing prices (the last decade is testament to that). How? Not so easy, but pro-worker policies could probably help.