re: Billionaire investor says government should have helped consumers instead of companies

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But what about the divergence of productivity growth, gdp growth vs. wages growth?

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I view these as the same thing. More profit for the same amount of effort results in higher productivity while the same effort is rewarded the same.

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Those were in lockstep until the 70's and have been just undermining our economic stability ever sense. We have had an incredible period of stability since the 70's. Trickle down economics works great for GDP and the upper class.

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This crazy thing happened in the 70’s called globalization where transportation became so much cheaper and wages across the globe facilitated moving manufacturing there.

Also what started to happen was automation. That job you used to be able to get with barely a HS degree and live a comfortable
Middle class life with no longer exists because anything that is repetitive is automated.

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Not so much for the economic stability and the working class (including traditional middle class) - which if it destabilizes enough, will be catastrophic for the upper class as well.

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Absolutely agree

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Also regarding the parents thing, its still declining - even since the 70's, upward mobility isn't a likely outcome for most kids today.

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I don’t rightly know what the first half of your sentence means or what you’re getting at here.

As for the lower mobility, I wonder what the shift in single parent households have done to that.

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I think a lot of folks problem with UBI stems from the people who have openly talked about it and their other policies. The American public are in desperate need of basic upgrades like a cost of living adjustment but that is seen as Socialism by so many on this site, now throw UBI into it and you see where I am going. My problem with UBI is that immigration needs to be either cut to 0 (preferably) or make it so that immigrants arent eligible for it because if you dont do either of these things then Central America will just move up here and bankrupt us while turning us into another new world shithole.

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For Yang's plan, you had to be an American Citizen - not just green card, etc. Like I said in my above post, I love UBI when well thought out - but each plan must be considered along with how it will be funded and distributed.

That said, i'm very depressed about the direction our country is headed - I'm afraid we may get closer to a welfare state by doing nothing to help the workign class who wants to work but is just getting screwed by the upper class again and again.

If their economic opportunity / upward mobility isn't really present - and they see a welfare option that improves their life (the $600 monthly unemployment for example), then I can't really fault someone for doing something that is better for their family. The smart move would be to both help that person out in a way that inspires them to keep working, get education, improve themselves because they have some UBI income to spend on such efforts and still meet the needs of their family / daily life.

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So it’s the growth of the welfare state that has most caused this and not trickle down economics?

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Trickle down economics is a large part of what has been helping grow the welfare state in my opinion.

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I love UBI when well thought out


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I'm afraid we may get closer to a welfare state


Holy balls

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^ someone who doesn't understand the concept

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What that says to me is the middle declined the same as the top increased while bottom stayed the same. Would that not mean that more people in the middle moved to top earners?

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The bottom being flat is expected.

So the upper class’s gains as portion of national income has to come from somewhere.

You trying to say that the graph means more people just earn that much is willful denial trying to maintain previous notions.

The same chart defines the median middle class household as earning ~90k. That’s a hell of a lot closer to the norm than thinking it’s standard today for the majority of families in the US making 200k+


The fact is the fruits of the booms of the US economy doesn’t go to the middle class backbone anymore like it did.

This isn’t really an opinion or up for interpretation.

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This is one thing that made me not understand how people were so against the idea of a UBI. If you put a Value Added Tax, these massive companies won't be able to get away with playing accounting games to avoid taxes - then instead of the gov't spending that money - send every single american their fair share.

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Because unless the VA tax is universal worldwide, you can kiss any corporate jobs goodbye. Taxes disincentive actions. They are essentially negative reinforcement

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For Yang's plan, you had to be an American Citizen

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Yea but the problem is that he was still advocating for mass immigration and a pathway for citizenship for millions of illegals, thats just not going to fly with a lot of people especially me.

In general there is a huge problem with the concentration of wealth at the top. This is a problem that has presented itself throughout history with the top accumulating to much wealth and power. This problem happened in Rome and is still happening today so this isnt some new Marxist phenomena like people insinuate.

I make shite wages and saw a third of my office get laid off in May while my CEO didnt do a thing to try to cut costs and save my coworkers jobs. She didnt take a pay cut, didnt cut spending or make any concerted effort to warn people that we needed to save money. No she just fired all of these people, some who had been here for 15 plus years then turned around and hired new people for less money including some stupid fricking immigrant who can barely speak English. So when I see that shite happen, it really makes me not care what happens to some of these assholes wallets.

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think a lot of folks problem with UBI stems from the people who have openly talked about it and their other policies. The American public are in desperate need of basic upgrades like a cost of living adjustment but that is seen as Socialism by so many on this site, now throw UBI into it and you see where I am going. My problem with UBI is that immigration needs to be either cut to 0 (preferably) or make it so that immigrants arent eligible for it because if you dont do either of these things then Central America will just move up here and bankrupt us while turning us into another new world shithole.

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This is actually what makes a lot of people against a massive social safety net like the Nordic countries have too.

You can’t have social safety nets AND significant immigration.

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For Yang's plan, you had to be an American Citizen


Yea but the problem is that he was still advocating for mass immigration and a pathway for citizenship for millions of illegals, thats just not going to fly with a lot of people especially me.

In general there is a huge problem with the concentration of wealth at the top. This is a problem that has presented itself throughout history with the top accumulating to much wealth and power. This problem happened in Rome and is still happening today so this isnt some new Marxist phenomena like people insinuate.

I make shite wages and saw a third of my office get laid off in May while my CEO didnt do a thing to try to cut costs and save my coworkers jobs. She didnt take a pay cut, didnt cut spending or make any concerted effort to warn people that we needed to save money. No she just fired all of these people, some who had been here for 15 plus years then turned around and hired new people for less money including some stupid fricking immigrant who can barely speak English. So when I see that shite happen, it really makes me not care what happens to some of these a-holes wallets.

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Ya i have some issues with some of his policies, I think he was promoting a 5 year path or something like that but can't really speak to it. I'd definitely tweak certain things if it was my plan, but I just thought it was the only reasonable solution presented by anyone up there. Again, I'm pretty pessimistic, so I think we need new ideas and changes yesterday to avoid some really tough reconciliations for the country.

Giving ppl more money just incentivizes them not to work.