ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Those ‘biased stats’ are from the GINI coefficient and the Bank of England ffs.
You could look at least look at some evidence before coming to a conclusion.
Crisis? What Crisis?
- Thread starter tuga
- Start date
You could look at least look at some evidence before coming to a conclusion.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
In my experience, outliers rarely provide reliable evidence of anything.
Gingerbeard
Ayup Me Duck
Because with rising interest rates the debt becomes ever more difficult to pay...
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
I thought the point was about printing money?
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
A fair point. I haven't lost £250million this week, but will try not to gloat...
paulfromcamden
Baffled
A lot of people with private pensions will have lost money this week i.e. most employees in the country.
I don't really understand the cheerleading for financial apocalypse. Do people feel sufficiently insulated from it all because they have a DB pension or a stash of crypto? Or do they have such a thing about the 'casino banksters' that they don't mind loosing their shirt too?
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Sadly, the rich haven’t lost a lot of money.
They gambled, they lost, they were bailed out.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
If pensions have lost money, who has it now?
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Have you actually read any of the coverage? $17bn in AT1 bonds were written off by Swiss regulators.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
What has that got to do with “the very rich”?
My post was a little /s: the rich bashing on PF is misplaced a lot of the time, and as you say a lot of people - pensioners, charities, and public sector organisations - have (potentially) lost a lot of money this week. As long as we deal in money though, we will need banks and as such, we should definitely not be calling for the collapse of the financial system (as you say) but rather better regulation - where the line between regulation and 'freedom' lies is hard to say - I don't think anyone has found the magic formula.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Who is cheerleading for financial collapse?
Spraggons Den
pfm Member
Depends what argument you are making. If you are saying that there was a wealth gap in 1920’s US, then there indeed was. If you are saying it was more significant than 1979, then the evidence does not support that argument.
What is evident is that unfettered economic advantage creates a growing wealth gap. It happened in 1920 US and it led to wealth inequality and economic meltdown, there followed a period of what is broadly called Keynesianism in which wealth inequality was brought down, then in the 70’s when unfettered economic advantage was again brought in, wealth inequality grew again. And we had another economic meltdown.
The evidence of 1920’s USA does not contradict the evidence of 1979, it supports it
Nice graph.
It shows the richest 10% took half national income in the late 1920s and the late 2000s. It tell us nothing about how the other half of national income was distributed amongst the remaining 90% of US denizens.
So only a partial indicator of income inequality - close but no cigar
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ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Here is the actual GINI Coefficient for US going back as far as I can find. The GINI coefficient is a measure of inequality used by most banks, not “biased data” as you called it a moment ago
It matches the corresponding period on the other graph
(For Clarity. The last 3 lines are hand drawn as the further back you go, the more you just get points)
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
The more income that goes to the top 10%, the less there is for the rest. The top get more, everybody else gets less.
If you want to break down the distribution by different income groups there are plenty of graphs available. But that doesn’t change the basic, bald arsed fact that inequality fell for the first time in a long time during Keynesianism, and increased dramatically with Reagan and Thatcher.
The evidence, as I said in the first place, is clear
Spraggons Den
pfm Member
Qualitatively, it certainly feels like there are more rich people on the planet with billionaires in China/India now as well as the western ones owning their own space travel company but unlike the 1920s there exists, for the time being at least, a welfare state in the UK and, providing the Universal Credit Gods look kindly on you, some financial assistance is possible for the poorest in society.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Are you still denying that income inequality has risen dramatically since Thatcher?
droodzilla
pfm Member
The accepted view is that income inequality decreased over the course of the 20th century (due to welfare state, unionisation, etc) until Thatcher came along, when there was a sharp increase. new Labour did little/nothing to reverse the increase in inequality. There's a chart out there somewhere.
Spraggons Den
pfm Member
I never said it hasn't. I actually said:
I was making the points that the mega-rich are not new phenomena and that there were huge gaps in economic equality in the past, particularly before the inception of the welfare state.
I was making the points that the mega-rich are not new phenomena and that there were huge gaps in economic equality in the past, particularly before the inception of the welfare state.