Will America's Income Gap Keep Widening?

[@gabrielmartinez2455]

It is called redistribution of wealth. They saved the top 1% at the expense of the middle class.

[@roxycauldwell544]

I think I read somewhere that only 2 of our richest people have more money than the entire world combined

[@jonathantaylor6926]

The "Top 1%" is a myth. The world isn't rigged for a successful dentist... its the top 0.001% that own the world, make its laws and loot the middle class.

[@wiredforstereo]

@@roxycauldwell544 It's not nearly like that. The richest person is Elon Musk with less than $200 billion. The total wealth for the earth is around $450 trillion. That's over 2000 times as much as Elon has. Whoever is second has less than him, so the idea that two people could have more than the rest of the world combined is simply not based in fact. That's not to say it's good or okay. It's not. It's just that what you were told is untrue.

[@Dan16673]

@@roxycauldwell544 uh no

[@hahamasala]

Yeah, and Republicans complain when there are attempts to redistribute wealth the other way. They'd rather have socialism for the rich than socialism for the poor and middle class. Hence their constant push for tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

[@tsrocks2029]

I’m so concerned about how I will build a future or how any future children of mine would build a future. House prices double and wages never do. How will the young generation afford million dollar starter homes making maybe $20-30 an hour ? If they even get that? This problem is just getting insane .

[@darwinjina]

It is. My daughter bought (and became a house slave) a house that she could only afford by finding roommates for the extra rooms. She figured that house prices would always rise so it was always a best investment. She said that paying rent was a waste of money. Now 4 years later, she is down to one roommate. Seems to be working for her.

[@wayward03]

@Darius Moon 4 years ago homes were not nearly as inflated as they are now....still not cheap though

[@avppr3451]

@@wayward03 Maybe is the dollar that is losing purchasing power?

[@nikopoulos5241]

@@darwinjina Atleast she bought a house right before massive real estate hikes. Even if she has to work hard and have roommates, she couldnt have gotten a house at a better time.

[@knurlgnar24]

Listed to the WEF. The plan is in black and white on their website. Your children will be poor and work as wage slaves for the elite with no privacy, no freedom, and no future. Those who see this usually choose to not subject their children to such a future by not having children.

[@SavageBunny1]

I love this guy, he gets straight to the point.

[@andygreen1769]

Same

[@venick7716]

Very clear, no fluff, more facts, less opinionated. It's perfect learning material.

[@Eyes0penNoFear]

Came here to say the same thing. Most other videos have a 60 second intro, and another 30-45 second outro, plus extra fluff in the middle. Add to the fact that this channel puts together data in ways I've not seen before and it is becoming one of my favorites.

[@rejectionistmanifesto8836]

Boycott their corrupt system by not getting pregnant to produce more slave baby future worker drones. Young guys/girls - now is NOT the time to start a family as we enter the GREATEST DEPRESSION as explained by Gerald Celente the most accurate Trends Forecaster. Do NOT get PREGNANT or if you're a guy get someone else pregnant. Many decades of extreme poverty awaits as Price Inflation has just begun unlike the lies told to us.

[@kw5961]

60% of my income goes to rent and utilities, and it just keeps getting worse.

[@nelzelpher7158]

I think experts say that if over 30 percent goes to rent. Than the individual is dangerously rent loaded.

[@kw5961]

@Nel Zelpher I will probably have to move in the next year or so. My raise will not keep up at all with inflation.

[@zoeylamant8298]

@Nel Zelpher Yeah the “experts” are paid to make sure you never believe anything or anyone but you is the problem. If you’re still listening to “the experts” in 2023, you’re IQ can’t be more than 50.

[@Adoro.Pro.]

In Greece 60% of income is TAX !

[@nelzelpher7158]

@@zoeylamant8298 I hear that.

[@Forlorn.]

This analysis seems to be missing a few things, such as record profits for companies at the same time as real wages decreasing.

[@TheRustyrambo]

profits are nominal and real wages are.. real talking about comparing apples to oranges

[@knurlgnar24]

Large companies will always benefit from government overreach. Who lobbies for onerous regulations of commerce? Large companies. It keeps competition out and profits high. If you want real wages to increase and corporate profits to fall then get rid of all the regulation and competition will guarantee low profit margin.

[@der6409]

@@knurlgnar24 >get rid of all the regulation my favorite. But never hold private industry accountable as well right? If a train derails and nukes an entire county in toxic chemicals, public resources and taxes should be spent to fix it, and a pat on the head to the CEO's responsible, just to make sure it's fair. Since Raegan you deregulation shitstains have been going on about how much better everything will be once the government doesn't have any oversight, and here we stand, with fewer regulations than the earily 1900s and neoliberalism has gotten us nothing but corporatism.

[@goldenhate6649]

@@TheRustyrambo That's not the point. Profits are the real value increase of a company after expenses. Companies are seeing record breaking value increases while absolutely crushing those below them all the while refusing to hire new staff to keep up with demand.

[@randomuser5443]

By inflation adjusted or by wealth concentration. Like big oil got record profits but their value didnt explode like amazon

[@Butterkin]

We tricked ourselves into thinking we didn't have to put everyone to work during the last bust cycle. Some people would like to argue that we need to prevent the boom and bust cycle as much as we can, but the actual way to handle that is to *temporarily* put people to work and create stockpiles/contingencies for busts so that people don't starve and so that people make it through bust cycles. Bust cycles are where governments can update their infrastructure, start planning new cities, work on large projects that requires lots of workers, housing, public transport, railways, dams, bridges, interstates, highways, electrical grids, opening up a little bit of that federal land for new cities. People need to be bailed out during bust cycles, with hard work and contingency plans. The very last thing you want to do is bail out large businesses or corporations, during a bust cycle you want to completely ignore the private sector destruction- because that private sector destruction is pivotal to future economic health and future economic stability. We wouldn't be in these situations if we didn't bail the big businesses out during the recession, bank bailouts and corporate bailouts should have been off the table. The businesses that die in recessions and depressions MUST die for the economy to function correctly. When they get bailed out you create stagnation at every level, when they should have been replaced by a new business model, or new owners and managers, when other people could have stepped into to fill their shoes and created proper competition- which would stabilize and keep prices down, none of that was allowed to happen with the bailouts and we will suffer every year moving forward because of it.

[@josepheridu3322]

The pandemic has been the greatest scam and disaster in centuries. We are JUST starting to realize how bad it is, but we are in collective denial. People responsible for this have to PAY but we all know they never will.

[@puddintame7794]

Now that we know it was fabricated in a lab... with our own money! Maybe its time to demand criminal charges for the mass murderers?

[@dvsmapple]

There's an issue with the government size approach called "Europe". Yes, we know Europe is an all declining contingent and whatnot, but on the household level, and average European has seen their incomes rising faster than an average American, not to mention that the old continent has been closing their productivity gap with the US for quite a while. Plus, some Nordic countries seem to be even more productive than the United States, while having much higher public spending ratios. Not to mention the US will most likely experience even higher levels of spending as their population ages and the reserve funds for both Medicare and Social Security get drained even more. Something that Europe will be able to contain, since most of their pension plans have been switched to at least partially funded system rather than the PAYGO model. If anything, the US is falling behind select European countries in pension assets to GDP ratio. Europe's healthcare coverage is unlikely to expand as drastically as well, since it already covers everyone. Yes, it will increase, but more on a per capita basis, while Medicare will have to fund both increased per capital expenditure and do that for an ever-growing proportion of people, as the nation grows older. Put much higher household saving ratios seen in Europe as opposed to the US, and you get even better picture. TL;DR it's more about how you design your welfare state and what one uses public spending for, rather than just the expenditure-to-GDP ratio.

[@michaelblaes9847]

Wrong you didn't take immigration, crime and declining birth rates into account. Europe is in big trouble.

[@dvsmapple]

How is that related to government? North American crime rates are even higher, with comparable immigration levels. Birth rates are 1.4-1.8 depending on regional differences. If you wanna talk about European problems, look at fragmented finance and energy costs, as well as underperforming academia and weaker tech diffusion. @@michaelblaes9847

[@dvsmapple]

@@michaelblaes9847 European both rates are on par with the US. Immigration is also largely comparable. All the while Europeans have much lower child mortality and higher labour force participation. Now do you have any actual points to make besides clinging to a bunch of outdated stereotypes from late 1990s?

[@the_expidition427]

@@dvsmapple When speaking of Europe which part? The data in the 2024 and going back 10 years show an unhealthy toxic problem

[@dvsmapple]

@@the_expidition427 again, what part of Europe? The Nordics have effectively pre-funded their welfare state, Benelux have been riding high on productivity growth. Talking about "Europe" as a single unit makes very little sense when it comes to their welfare states.

[@arftejano2284]

This, at home buying and family starting age. Income has doubled through job changes and promotions in a single year, combined with fiancé household income is six figures, but we STILL feel like we can’t afford to own a home or start a family. The most frustrating thing is that when we talk to family about it, it’s just “Just take out a loan, just use a credit card, just go into debt” The conditioning the older generations have gone through to make them so receptive and carefree about unsustainable levels of personal debt is astonishing, to the point that they can’t comprehend why someone wouldn’t want to go into massive debt to maintain a lifestyle.

[@khanfauji7]

As someone that works in tech. It feels a lot of the projects we do are focused on replacing people. Meaning that you need fewer people to service products today then you needed in the past. Let’s take Amazon as an example since they sell mostly tangible products. In the past these products would have been sold at local shops and the profits would have gone to a lot more people. With Amazon those profits go to 1 company and others working to sell on the platform are left with a race to the bottom with their margins and in fear of competition from Amazon basic products. Technology is deflationary and reduces prices and reduces the overall income of the masses and focuses it on the few working on the tech sector. Not to mention that IA now has the potential to displace even more workers and especially the high end white collar tech workers. The end result will be the private sector displacing workers and salaries plummeting and governments stepping in with some kind of basic universal income to help sustain any kind of functional society. Not really sure how that would work as we just saw the impact giving free money has in inflation.

[@danlightened]

Yeah, tech will do that and it's not bad. UBI will eventually happen. And we would still have a good amount of money. Because without us having money, we can't buy stuff; stuff these corporates produce. The aim of the elite has been to give us crumbs so that we can keep working. And buy back their stuff with some of that crumb. This Keynesian economics is what makes today's economy grow. And if the economy didn't grow, they won't become richer.

[@goldenhate6649]

@@danlightened Oh how delightfully ignorant you are. UBI is such a joke. People already find a way to live off welfare in the most destitute of living condiitons. UBI will absolutely destroy the US. Good luck finding staff for anything. You want to talk about having a world ran by an absolute oppressive elite communist cabal, UBI is where you go.

[@goldenhate6649]

Amazon is already having issues with its technological platform. 50+% of the products you see are scams. Its become a minefield of scams that are hurting people and amazon does little to nothing about it. Also, people willingly using amazon is absolutely destroying landfills right now. My states landfill usage doubled since the pandemic.

[@danlightened]

@@goldenhate6649 No. We can talk about a world run by an absolute oppressive elite capitalist who lobby with the politicians to suck common man dry as well as the earth. And convince folks it's for their own good. Eg. All financial institutions in the West; the biggest of banks, insurance companies, investment banks, big 4 CA firms, hedge funds all colluded together create a bubble on top of a bubble on top of a bubble, the burst which held to the 2008 housing crisis which blew away many a seniors pension funds and caused a recession for the next 4-5 times. And this is just one of the scams. Redfin & Zillow have been buying millions of houses since that crash, for the sole purpose of speculation and inflating housing prices. But yeah, all that is fair as long as it's not socialism right? Except for their stock prices are down 80-90% because the bubble is about to burst again.

[@luis.m.yrisson]

Your children will be slaves to Elon Musk's children and you'll like it or go to jail.

[@jimmiller5600]

Anybody notice that MinWage hasn't gone up since 2009 instead of going up every couple years like pre-2009? We've lost 3 raises since then.

[@RigelOrionBeta]

Minimum wage also hasn't kept up whatsoever with inflation, cost of living, or productivity. If it did, it would be around 25 bucks today. And before anyone says min wage isn't supposed to do that, the guy who instituted it, FDR, said the min wage is supposed to be enough to live a decent life. You can't even live a minimal life on the minimum wage. You need to take on debt, live with five other people and eat peanut butter for breakfast lunch and dinner, while skateboarding to work.

[@jonathantaylor6926]

@@RigelOrionBeta FDR was a moron.

[@jimmiller5600]

@@RigelOrionBeta Sorry! Due to R1 zoning rules jobs are now miles away from affordable housing.

[@knurlgnar24]

All data and logic has the obvious conclusion that minimum wage laws do nothing to help those who work near minimum wage. It's entirely irrelevant. You should focus on the issues that actually matter like minimizing liability for companies who hire low wage staff. Did you know that it costs a company around $50 per hour in costs to pay a worker $15 per hour? Much of that is waste due to government regulations. Remove much of that and you'll immediately see your wages increase substantially.

[@jimmiller5600]

@@knurlgnar24 Theory is fine, until you realize that all the countries with higher minimum wages have much more stable societies and look down on the US as a "sheethole" country not worthy to immigrate to. Your theory is disproven by reality.

[@VicLabs]

26% to 36% is a 38% increase relative to the starting percentage.

[@RigelOrionBeta]

The fact that Americans aren't seeing growth in wages is the cause of indebtedness, not the result. When I can't get my car fixed because I have to choose between that and my prescription, it goes on my credit card. 60% of Americans report they live paycheck to paycheck. That means they have to take out debt frequently. This number was about 40% six years ago, it has been steadily increasing. Blaming this on entitlement spending is frankly absurd. We pay into that system, we should get that money back. Entitlement spending is in no way contributing to our debt. And blaming the government debt for the problem? Again, that's the WRONG message. The government spending on corporate welfare far exceeds social welfare. The problem is the government has been captured by corporate America, and is being used to fuel their revenue. How can you look at a period where corporate profits are high, income and wealthinequality is high, and come to the conclusion that the reason for slowing wage growth is somehow debt or the government? Nope, it's corporate power, plain and simple. And don't talk about how we shouldn't be in debt, or Americans need to live smaller and frugally. You know what would happen if the government or people did that? The economy would crash HARD. Truth is, America is an economy built around providing a middle class life, but with a shrinking middle class. To sustain that economy, we take on debt because powerful companies are not willing to pay their workers what they are owed. That's why they ship jobs overseas and outsource instead of paying fair wages. You do identify the problem, but your analysis on what is causing it is just plain wrong. Expand your view past 2000s to the last seventy years, and you'll see a pattern: when our government was the largest, during the 50s and 60s, we had the most prosperous economy in our history. Tax rates were 92% for the top bracket. We had just introduced Medicare and Social Security had been in effect since the 40s. We had nearly free college. Since the mid 70s, wages have not kept up with inflation, the cost of living, or productivity. What occurred in the 70s? Major tax breaks for the rich, the financialization of our entire economy, and deregulation, the cutting of our social welfare programs, as well as the decline of unions due to anti union presidents and policies. We used to have a 35% unionization rate. That is now around 7%. The corporations and the rich control the economy and our government. That is the root problem.

[@edubmf]

Even if corporations *did* pay better wages it would instantly be soaked up by private banks who would lend more credit at the same multiple. Asset prices would rise significantly, existing home owners would capture the uplift and younger people without a home would be back at square one, working decades for a home. Land value tax. Euthenize the rentier.

[@erickillian313]

This is what i was thinking, too. It seems disingenuous to make the conclusions in this video without even tacitly addressing corporate profits and wealth inequality. I'd love to hear Eric's @epbmacros take on this.

[@erickillian313]

And I would add on the private sectors manipulation of the government for their benefit through lobbying and kickbacks.

[@RigelOrionBeta]

@@erickillian313 Great points. And to add to this, the manipulation of the market itself! Through stock buyback, which were once illegal before the 80s. Remember those striking railroad workers? Well Union Pacific recently announced buybacks that were more than 50% more expensive than their entire labor costs! They have the money to pay their workers and give them more benefits, they choose not to.

[@RigelOrionBeta]

@@edubmf This is absolutely true. A lot more needs to happen than a willingness from companies to pay their workers more. Our entire tax system needs an overhaul, and we need to rethink how our economy functions at a basic level. This simply is not sustainable for anyone, including the rich.

[@TheFirstTriplefife]

This is what happens when we are forced as a society to take a proverbial loan out against ourselves through money printing. No one could pay for it in the first place.

[@goldenhate6649]

This is what happens to unchecked corporatization of property.

[@mitchellcouchman1444]

​@@goldenhate6649 its the end of real growth due to many reasons, one is energy costs, one is resource costs and finally the high tax burden due to a government spending money frivolously.

[@themeatjesus]

.. also, unionization has steadily gone down and is now its lowest participation: 10%... we pushed people into white collar jobs, typically non-union, now we have a short fall in blue collar sector(heavily union). Form a union where ever you work. Its literally free and can change your whole life experience. Theres a reason corporate profit percentages keep going up. :)

[@michaelcap9550]

And be replaced by AI.

[@Satchmojones]

Transfer of wealth, it was either planned or a huge blunder.

[@jwonz2054]

Assume ignorance before malice. Often the greatest human tragedies have good intent and bad foresight.

[@RigelOrionBeta]

@@jwonz2054 the richest people in the world and corporations that have teams of lawyers aren't ignorant. I wouldn't even call it malice. They are just sociopaths who are in a system that rewards sociopathic behavior.

[@slop123456789]

@@jwonz2054 Isn't it interesting how this "ignorance" seems to have consistently lead to the concentration of more and more wealth and power in the hands of a smaller and smaller supra-national class of oligarchs over the past half century...? To suggest that these looting networks would not coordinate amongst themselves covertly to continue advancing their own interests (which are most often divergent from those of the public) is utterly naive.

[@handlemonium]

Mostly planned as we are in the Gilded Age of the 21st Century as it's a tendency towards "winner takes all" both in politics and corporate growth strategy that exploits everything in it's path in the name of maintaining and expanding profit with 90-99% of the spoils going to the richest 0.1-1% of humanity. On the other hand it's a huge blunder cuz rate of the base from which the wealth is being funneled from becomes unsustainable until society as we know it fundamentally breaks or the rest of us non-multimillionbillionaires (including myself) dies from poverty due to reverse economic mobility.

[@carloschip]

@@slop123456789 another viewpoint could be that this is simply the natural progression of late-stage free-market economics, and that the ending point was always going to be extreme wealth concentration with the few...since those with money can make decisions regarding that money, they are obviously going to act in their best interest. These videos made with a framework that capitalism=good which I don't necessarily agree with.

[@advancetotabletop5328]

This is what happens when you have quantitative easing when you don’t need quantitative easing. As said in 2:15, this has been a trend for “the last 20 years”.

[@HermanWillems]

It's a way to keep government debt in place. My country in Europe only has less than 50% debt to GDP so we don't have this problem so super much as the USA. But in the EU we do have some countries that show problems the soutern countries.

[@MrKreationsHD]

To put it simply, the value and knowledge laden within your videos is remarkable.

[@Jeff__M]

It’s all about housing. Housing is everything. Shelter is what everyone needs to buy and it’s what we spend the majority of our income on. They expanded M2 money supply by 42% in 18 months, what happened to housing? Up 44% in 18 months. We had 10 years of home price appreciation in 18 months. If you did not own a home, you lost 10 years of your financial life in 18 months. That’s also why there is this huge discrepancy. This was a really well put together video! I love lacy hunt! 👏 and epb research! Go check out Lyn Aldens recent tweet about housing and the bottom 50%.

[@youngtrench3711]

What could go wrong...

[@jwonz2054]

@Billy Campbell Or income needs a major increase. The factor that matters is income relative to housing price.

[@overbuiltlimited]

One could look around and move to a place that has seen normal housing appreciation post pandemic. I live in Anchorage and our house has appreciated 3.5-4% every year before the pandemic as well as after. There must be other areas/cities that are similar.

[@edubmf]

yes agreed, and they don't include housing fully in the inflation stats, so thes graphs are not accurate.

[@Jeff__M]

@billycampbell4510 yep.

[@loriss3419]

What's about the rising gap between the poor and the rich? Maybe consider the Gini-coefficient in the analysis. IMO, the privat sector had a lot of growth in the past years, but the money only goes to the rich (stockmarket and Top-1%-Staff with astronomically high bonuses, even when the company produces losses)

[@looseycanon]

I have my doubts here. Looking at companies letting go of people and then announcing huge profits for investors and bearish years for tax agency... I wonder. What would happen, if we saw correlation between average EBITDA of US companies and these salaries... I'd say, we'd see a massive spread between the two, hence it wouldn't be the size of the government or the debt, but rather, unwillingness to pay a living wage...

[@dakov2498]

Amazing. Thank you, and please keep creating this outstanding content.

[@lammyjammer6670]

So, where are we accounting for companies investing more on stock buybacks than on their own growth? We are registering record corporate profits as well. I worked for a company that told us last year that we should be happy for being flat as other companies in the sector weren't as fortunate while on the side they were buying back their own stock to prop up the price for investors. Curiously since the pandemic started we remained flat for the following 2 years with the same excuse... I think the real issue is the priority isn't on company growth anymore. It's really on keeping the stock price healthy at any cost. You can't spend money on your workforce if you're transferring all your free funds to investors through buybacks. There's no incentive for these companies to grow wages. The incentive is to be as lean as possible which by definition means keeping wages as stagnant as they can get away with. The government is forced to continue growing because the only way this is sustainable is if they keep chipping in the difference.

[@Finraen]

Student loan debt and the rising cost of education is a big contributor here. I think the next generations will not go to college in nearly the numbers the last two have. Also, rising cost of healthcare may have crossed a threshold at some point (Obamacare?) where it began to hurt real incomes.

[@LammyHowl]

Thank you thank you thank you! Now I have the hard data I need to talk about this with those folks who just keep telling me to "just work hard and get promoted" or "just find a different job that pays better" as if the economy works the same it did when they were my age.

[@jwonz2054]

You still should try job hopping and seeking promotions. That is still necessary advice.

[@spdaltcap5433]

Excuses

[@joshuagodinez5867]

3 questions since there are many advocates for increased government spending: What are the arguments in favor of sustained/increased government spending, what evidence do you have that these arguments are specious (I'm guessing it's this video, but does that address the individual arguments), and why don't the programs relieve personal expenses and add that freed income to the disposable income amount?

[@richardni2048]

EPB Research frames government size as a contributing factor to private sector income growth reductions, which is fair - but fails to mention that strong welfare, government-owned healthcare admin (i.e. single-payer), and state-operated education significantly bring down cost-of-living by reducing aggregate expenses (of which healthcare and education are huge for Americans). Your intuition that government programs relieve personal expenses is absolutely correct (in governments that are competent enough to do it right). Though government size may impact *private sector* real disposable income *ex-government payments*, it probably improves *aggregate real disposable income* - this correlation is seen when comparing countries by standard of living (1. Switzerland, 2. Denmark, 3. Netherlands, etc.) and countries by government size.

[@EPBResearch]

Aggregate real disposable income per capita was graphed in the video and it's lower today than it was 3 years ago.

[@jamesdiamond2583]

Does union membership have anything to do with real wage growth? Also, I think it would be interesting to chart the growth of government size against the rise of America’s elderly population

[@the_expidition427]

It's a defense mechanism to old problems. Problems that are old have old mechanism for defense. A union is a tradition a solution to a problem long after the problem was forgotten about. Guess what? The problem is back and the solution returned

[@edubmf]

I totally disagree it's big government. The problem is we don't differentiate between rentier activity and real wealth creation. Credit is issued against both. Rentier activity is more profitable so more and more people do it. This means less and less create real wealth, which hurts productivity.

[@CaptainCaveman1170]

So, who's been bidding up the cost of housing and cars so much then? We've seen a small correction in both...but they're both still historically unaffordable (except that somebody's still affording them).

[@HermanWillems]

well people with money, so in the end it's false. There are so many people with a lot of money. But yeah maybe you are just not one of them?

[@tomc.5704]

I appreciate your insights, especially towards some of the root causes. The simple answer I keep hearing, that wages are too low and they should keep up with increasing housing/education/healthcare/basic living costs, kind of feels like a band aid. And a great way for inflation to start spiraling out of control, wiping out people's savings. The core problems are probably (imo) too much debt and too much wealth concentrated at the top. Size of government...yeah, sure, gov't should probably sit between 15-25% of GDP. That meshes with my gut instinct. There's only so much useful infrastructure, regulation, military, and welfare you can buy before the money starts to be spent on inefficient things.

[@empemitheos]

excellent video, whenever someone takes out debt, that money isn't free, it comes at a cost to society as a whole through the Cantillion effect, created money for one person, means another person has to work harder to buy the same goods with the new inflated currency in the system, and we effectively pay for all new debt collectively

[@1stdragon123]

this becomes a real issue with essentials for things like education, the fact is if debt and government funding (like the military free college) that no one could afford to pay 20k+ a year for college, which the largest price increase isnt for classes or teachers but for the administration and their fat wallets. they would be forced to slim down or go bankrupt without their blank checks. i mean if other countrys who are far poorer can give the same education for less then a restaurant bill then its clearly an American problem, rather then a modern one. it shouldnt be cheaper for me to fly and live in germany while getting my education then the state community college.

[@xvx4848]

This is why the housing crash will be so crazy. Americans have literally run out of money. Many are choosing alternative ways of living such as living in vans or cars. When suddenly nobody can afford anything the everything bubble will implode because suddenly nothing will be profitable. Housing may appreciate over time but when you have no tenants to pay your mortgage you're gonna find yourself selling extremely quickly. Plus the crazy amount of equity loss will also push prices down.

[@jwonz2054]

False FUD.

[@tsrocks2029]

This is how I feel. I have adult family members living in vehicles , and family members condensing households to save money. Idk where the wealthy think the poor will keep getting money from to keep paying increasing rents and prices. At a certain point people give up and rather live with their parents, in a van, or even a shack in the woods rather than keep trying to keep up. I know many people who have given up in recent years. There’s no incentive to work hard

[@derrickmiles5240]

I'm not normally one for socialist policies. But we should totally just empty the bank accounts of anyone who contributed to coof hysteria, and give it to the people who were saddled with this bs economy against their will.

[@YouAreAAAwesome]

Just wondering is public sector spending growing faster or is private sector spending shrinking? Is our public sector bigger than those in Europe whose wages seem to grow more steadily? I feel like I'm missing a lot of info from this video that the other ones tend to cover better. But overall good job on your videos.

[@danlightened]

I think it was to do with the implementation. It's like he said in a video that expands upon the negative effects of government spending over 15% of the GDP. He says that higher spending means higher taxes. But also that if you're spending your own money, you'll think twice before fine dining. But you won't think as much if it's on a corporate card. And even less so, when your friend is paying with his corporate card. Same way, the government officials in charge are spending the tax payers money to let's say for some welfare scheme. Most of them don't care if it's actually reaches the needy. In poorer countries, like in my case India, the government officials are highly corrupt. Not only they don't care, they actively take huge cuts from that fund because it's a poorer country. Maybe in Nordic countries, where the government officials a high standard of living, they don't feel the need for corruption and actually want others to have a good standard of living too. So, even though their spending maybe more, it's being used effectively for the benefits of its citizens. Not having to invest in insurance or paying large sums in hospitals that could bankrupt you is probably helping them actually save or buy other necessary items.

[@riddlerandsa8161]

I was wondering the same thing. Correlation is not causation. How does this stack up to (mostly) European countries and their growth when they went through that "magic" 15% of GDP spending?

[@joachimfrank4134]

​@@riddlerandsa8161 I thought similar. Wouldn't government grow because of some issue that needed to be solved. It is possible that an issue big enaugh would also affect the economy.

[@Christopher-po8pt]

it's worrying that Medicare and Social security are set to be insolvent by the 2030's too

[@VicLabs]

Meanwhile we have an entire government who (at least on the surface) have vowed to do nothing about it, except borrow more money I guess.

[@anothertexan1036]

Slowing population growth, continued decline in US birth rates, etc. Our only hope is to push HARD for immigration reform and hopefully increase the number of prime age tax payers in the system. But a gridlocked, hostile government will not even entertain the thought. Meanwhile, China has been observing us the whole time while establishing influence in resource rich countries around the world. The next 150 years likely belong to China.

[@edubmf]

they will just print more

[@Christopher-po8pt]

@@anothertexan1036 Depends on china's demographics and any sort of disasters like drought. There's no where for these immigrants to live really. Yeah your right about the government pretty much being impotent.

[@MatthewNIsawesome]

How much of the decline in rates of real wage growth can be attributed to the law of diminishing returns?

[@throwawayanon]

Could someone give me an example of the productive investment which Eric refers to at 4:15 ?

[@prxdigyz]

I think of oil refineries that caused Rockefeller to lower his costs by extreme margins, or the railroad that significantly lowered lead time / cheaper transportation costs than hauling with horse. Warehouse/Buildings could be seen as a productive investment given specific circumstances, but majority of the time it just goes into fixed costs "strangling" the opportunity / capacity for additional debt to be taken for productivity investment. Hope that helps 👍

[@DegenerateStreet]

End the FED!

[@ivancho5854]

Back in the real world: perhaps embrace the opportunities which it provides by accentuating market swings.

[@daanishdan318]

Hi, If you take the slope of the line of best fit / regression at 4:06, instead of final - initial (basic base lining). You get a more positive picture. Similarly it would be interesting if you share the results of a more robust statistical analysis of the periods between crisis. From a macro perspective, it would be interesting to juxtapose this against interest rates and inflation.

[@pf6112]

Looks like the ramp up in debt to GDP began in the early 80s. Is this a result of supply-side/Reaganomics?

[@MichaelChengSanJose]

Great video. The other major issue not mentioned is our demographic trap. It’s hard for an economy to increase incomes when workers are on average aging out past their prime years. Given what’s likely going to happen with our total debt load, better to lean into the trend than wait for a hopeful solution.

[@DIYOrganicLawnCare]

Great content (as always).. One thing I didn’t quite understand is the notion of Growing government size = weaken private sector. I’m sure there’s tons of reasons but I’m looking to understand the major factors in play. Thanks!

[@worndown8280]

This is just another version of the laffer curve. If you can understand how the laffer curve works you can understand why what the video states is happen is in fact happening.

[@danlightened]

He said this in another video and I'll try to summarise it here. There's negative effects of government spending over 15% of the GDP. He says that higher spending means higher taxes. So, less money in your hands. But also that if you're spending your own money, you'll think twice before fine dining. But you won't think as much if it's on a corporate card. And even less so, when your friend is paying with his corporate card. Same way, the government officials in charge are spending the tax payers money to let's say for some welfare scheme. Most of them don't care if it's actually reaches the needy. In poorer countries, like in my case India, the government officials are highly corrupt. Not only they don't care, they actively steal from that fund. In the end, maybe only 10% of the fund allocated reaches the needy.

[@DIYOrganicLawnCare]

@@danlightened thanks! You’re right I do recall that video now that you mention it!

[@danlightened]

@@DIYOrganicLawnCare Glad to be of a lil help.

[@itsme-le1bg]

you are a brilliant economist highlighting very salient points with depth and clarity

[@Zachary-Daiquiri]

Debt based currency, when borrowed too heavily against, will lose purchasing power faster than gains in production will increase it resulting in a loss of real income. Expect this trend to continue as demand for public services likely increases alongside public programs like social security and medicare becoming more and more unstable.

[@edubmf]

It's the boomers. They benefited from housing detaching from income due to credit issuance. They are the social security bill and medicare. We have to say no to the boomers, to default on the obligations they promised to themselves, to be delivered by us.

[@paxundpeace9970]

The high debt since 2020 is not the cause for low wages. Wages and wage growth were low because many lost employment due to the pandemic. Millions then started with more basic pay into the next job then. The additional government spending while not good for the debt balance did avoid an even worse recession. The debt ceiling how ever was crossed in 2005 at the time the housing sector began to crash and the industrial sector got into truble too. Car production and sales slumped.

[@doctortraumacock]

Idk... is debt to gdp the issue or corporate consolidation mixed w/ tax evasion & deregulation our problem. I don't want more government, just for the existing rules to be followed in hopes we get back to REAL capitalism.

[@allensparks6512]

What happens when you overlay average investment return and wealth concentration on this graph over the same time period? I bet that would be a shocker.

[@erickillian313]

Great question and one I have too. This topic seems incomplete without addressing corporate profits and wealth accumulation at the top.

[@rosskline]

Great research and logical points! But again, what's the takeaway? What should we do with this information?

[@PSCA1988]

Duh!

[@danlightened]

That's the fun part. You can do nothing about it. You keep working harder and it gets more difficult to buy a house. Or even educate your children. But seriously, if you wanna do something, you gotta educate yourself about the macro economics, the geopolitics etc. Spread awareness. And only when a lot of people are aware of the ways the elite indulges in the wealth transfer, would they rise. Which is next to impossible. So yeah, just watch and do nothing.

[@TonicofSonic]

The question to ask yourself after watching this is "are we voting in people who do not know about these problems or are we voting in people who do not care about these problems?"

[@dee-jay45]

I don't think the correlation between government size and stagnating wages was convincing.

[@jandraelune1]

In the early '80s 2 things > stopped < happening: Enforcement of Anti-Trust laws, Taxing of super rich and big business. This is the cause of increased debt and super jacked up prices. It is because of the lack of enforcement of law and regulation is why the current monopolies exist, big businesses buys off key politicians to give the business more favoritism.

[@360mariners]

Love the videos! What software do you use to generate the graphs?

[@nah88]

Ill add in, low interest rates (so increased borrowing) + a booming stock market, has shifted the mentality from income being your source of wealth, to assets and investments. The over inflated stock market, huge debt, high inflation and soon to be high interest rates, will soon burst this bubble, likely bringing about alost decade. The emphasis in the next decade will be, borrow less, spend less, make/demand more. The unnatural growth of the market lulled us into a false sense security, thus giving up our working value.

[@brushylake4606]

Your 10% increase in government size is incorrect. Going from 26% to 36% isn't a 10% increase in the size of government as a portion of GDP, it is almost a 40% increase.

[@cyberdeth8427]

Oh man. In Australia it's just as bad. Disposable income has stagnated since 2008, new dwelling owner occupier purchases has falling 7% since Jul 2022 and rentals/rent has trippled since 2021.

[@mprobison]

Hey, as always, great info. Thank you for sharing.

[@gigiduru125]

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall

[@Nernst96]

Inflation hits people a lot harder than a crashing stock or housing market as it directly affects people's cost of living that people immediately feel the impact of. It's not surprising negative market sentiment is so high now. We really need help to survive in this Economy.

[@blueDog697]

So when I look at the full graph going back much further, it doesn't look nearly so bad. Looks to me like it takes significant time to repair things in situations like the last 3 years. The gap from the 2008 crisis seems in many ways worse.

[@DillyPutty]

Yes, following previous recessions it took time for income to recover. We are not that far along after 2020. Also, not sure about this magic 275% debt number. Is that based on some fundamentals of the system, or was it picked because it corresponded to the lower growth seen empirically?

[@blueDog697]

@jmwichert8842 Agreed about both statements, I'm not sure that we are even technically out of the 2020 event. Yes covid-19 is largely wrapped up in the West, but China seems to still be dealing with this to some non negligible degree (we may never know how bad it got). Also, in the meantime, we've watched China slip into its own debt/real-estate bubble (in an epic China scale) and an enormous but so far contained frigging land war in Europe. Not to mention one of the parties in said land war is the basically the gas station for all of Europe and both parties are major suppliers of both wheat but the things needed to grow food (almost) everywhere else in the world... i.e. potash, and fertilizer... And I'd that wasn't enough the second largest economy in the world would really, really like to invade Taiwan, the largest producer of the most advanced semiconductors in world bar none... and all of this is happening in the backdrop of demographic population implosions going off as worlds baby boomers all retire and leave the workforce to a much smaller replacement team ... and al the while we get to watch globalization rapidly unwind before our eyes. Now that I've said all this out loud I'm pretty sure this whole thing is maybe in the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end... Unfortunately for all of us, I think the 2020s are going be us living the reality of 'may you live in interesting times' curse. Think about 2020 covid-19 Supply chain issues Ukraine Russia conflict China's economic and now military waxing Population/ demographic implosions across the world Russia excised from the world economically and politically China and Russia go full autocratic Also, autocratic populism and jingoistic forces sweep many nations Hungary, Poland, US, Germany... The baby boomers retire in mass taking there expertise and their investment dollars... And America and China seem to be on a collision in the next 2-5 years which there will be no true winners from regardless of the outcome. Geez, this decade has and is going to really blow!

[@barryballinger6023]

This is not what I wanted to hear on a Friday afternoon. The bad thing is we won't place the blame where it belongs and keep doing the same thing.

[@tmharperjr]

Government Size = Government Spending = Military Spending … and the size of the military hasn’t really increased. Rather, the program costs have ballooned with projects like the F-35, LCS, DDG 1000, Columbia Class, B-21, etc. Do we cut these programs, reign in their costs, or tax the CEO of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, or BAE? Raise taxes on the rich and you’ll reign in the costs of these programs because they suddenly won’t be as profitable as they are now. If money is power, then the rich are currently running the country not the voters. We need to flip that dynamic around to take back control of our country and to pay down the national debt.

[@doctorwilly]

I really like your videos. However i don't think those 2 factors can fully explain weakened income growth in the U.S.. First I don't think higher level of debt really restricted private sector's access to capital. Long periods of low interest rate have made debt financing really cheap and created a lot of risk capitals chasing equities, VCs, energy projects (especially the U.S. shale boom.) While high government spending and the inflation associated with it could be a contribute to loss in income growth I can think of other factors such as: - the rise of EM, especially China that pushed up global commodity prices and captured a lot of manufacturing jobs. - low interest rate pushing up housing prices and depressed low risk returns on people's savings

[@mninmk]

This might be your most outstanding video yet. Simple and to the point. I am wondering if can you use this data to correlate with the CPI i.e how much should the CPI be for a $1 trillion dollar loss of real income? Compare that with government-reported CPI and find the difference. I think it's an open secret that CPI numbers are bogus and I would like to know what the actual inflation rate in the economy is.

[@imblackmagic1209]

i wouldn't say the private sector became weaker, only greedier...

[@1stdragon123]

i dont mind a large government if its spending going towards the people. think roads, healthcare, education, all of which improve american lives and raise the average productivity. also the irl needs a budget increase so they can actually audit the largest earners. tax law doesnt matter to someone like jeff bezos if he is too expensive to fact check and so they can put whatever they want on their taxes.

[@mathieuswaby3460]

Is there a channel like this but for canada?

[@Etaoinshrdlu69]

One of the best channels on YT

[@toddgardner2826]

Is this also why the raised taxes... people didn't raises but the government still wants it's raise? Or is this a movement of people shifting from the private sector to the public sector... aka

[@stevengreidinger8295]

The video sees high debt levels as reducing room for growth now. Instead, the historical increase in debt could be a cause of the higher rate of increase in living standards at the time. Now, since there is less room to take on more debt, or taking on more debt is less effective, the standard of living cannot benefit as much from robust increases in debt levels. We also have increased healthcare costs and more regulation of new home building. Meanwhile, the figures for the increase in the standard of living don't look like they incorporate the increase in lifespan from 2007->2020. They only focus on the standard of living in any particular year of life. That's a measurement error.

[@Arbitrary_Moniker]

Great stuff Eric, as usual.

[@peaceonearth8693]

Production jobs went overseas. Service sector jobs don't actually make "value".

[@juancortez4726]

thank you for your insight! you're right on the money!

[@belladonnaRoot]

This is a very good overview. IMO, government spending isn't necessarily a problem. The problem is where that money is spent. If it's being spent on stimulus/roads/education/etc, IE. community based spending, the money is spent in those communities and ends up circulating in those communities, as most of it starts out going to base level workers or small businesses and bolstering communities. That is good; its what caused the economic boom during and after Pres Johnson's policies. The issue with the US government's current spending is that it tends to end up everywhere except in communities. It ends up going to megacorps' investors; they are already rich enough to cover their community-based needs, so that money doesn't end up in the community. It gets spent on bailouts for bad business practices (bailouts aren't bad...letting businesses get large enough where one needs to happen is). A lot of it gets spent to deal with lobbyists, and lobbyists take out a giant chunk of change of megacorps that could be going to actual profit. And a lot of it gets spent on politics; if every race was capped at say $2m/candidate, that would save a shitton more money that's being wasted, and make politicians less buy-able. Another big factor is medical costs; those are constantly rising, and the system is designed to extract maximum cash from each individual, even if it means making them less healthy. It oftentimes means maximizing cost rather than minimizing it, as most insurance companies take a percentage cut...to get a larger piece of pie, they make the whole pie much larger than it should be.

[@mightylotan]

"generous transfer payments" WE PAY THAT MONEY AS TAXES. Government just gave us some back. Average American gets fleeced as corporations chase exponential growth and pay as little as they can and rarely get properly audited.

[@iivanov22]

What app do you use to create your presentation, they are very nice 🙂

[@puddintame7794]

During the 1990s the US abandoned the free enterprise model, sold our industrial equipment to China, and embraced the rent seeking model of economic activity. The fundamental problem with an economy based on rent seeking is that it must eat itself, since nothing of value is produced. Unlike an ouroboros however, an economy that consumes itself... eventually starves.

[@MaxPower-11]

Real (inflation-adjusted) personal income may be down since the beginning of 2020 but the stock market is up 20% (also inflation-adjusted) during this time. Regular folks may be doing bad but Wall Street is doing great 🤔

[@kimwelch4652]

I think your answer is too simple. When income (including tax income for the government) does not keep up with costs, debt rises to fill the gap. So, the rise in debt is definitely a symptom of the income growth gap. Whether it is the cause of that gap is an as yet unproven conjecture. Correlation is not causation. It may be exacerbating the situation, but did it actually begin the trend or did the gap begin with systemic issues in the economy--issues with global rather than local trade. It's simply way too simplistic to say, because the debt is increasing and the income gap is increasing that the debt must be the primary cause, rather than an just an exacerbating symptom. Sure if we cured the debt it might make people "feel" better (or worse) but it very likely will not make the economy grow faster. Is the flu caused by a fever or a cold by a stuffy nose? Dig a little deeper.

[@shotelco]

I too see the gaping flaws in this presentation. My position is based on "Triffin's dilemma." The U.S. is the Global Exchange Currency Issuer - which is the _only_ major asset that the U.S. has right now. All other real wealth building assets have been relocated to the rest of the world - due to Triffin's dilemma. You do your own research on Triffin's dilemma/paradox. But in short, it is an immutable fact that the U.S. prints/conjures up currency - and via its military - pretty much forces the rest of the world to use this currency for Country-to-country commerce transactions. If a single country can print up/conjure up Fiat currency out of thin air (backed by nothing but the threat of violent military intervention) , then in order for all other nations to get this currency, they must exchange something of real value for it. Thus, a Country will send iPhones (example) to the U.S., and in return they get freshly printed paper (U.S. Currency). They in turn use this currency to purchase things of value from other Countries. The problem is because we get value goods for free, there is no profit reason to manufacture those goods domestically. Yet we still need to account for for the currency we print up. This accounting leads to a growing government debt deficit. But it's not real debt when it is denominated in US dollars, dollars that we in turn just print more of to pay the debt. If you or I could print our own currency, and force everyone in our neighborhood to use it between each other - and the only way they can get it is to trade something (value) we want in exchange for our currency, me and you would never have to work...other than to keep our printing press going and make sure our neighbors don't start using another currency. Something to consider.

[@kimwelch4652]

@@shotelco It's not our currency that is the world reserve. It is our debt, or Treasury bills, that is the world's collateral of choice. That's why world trade is in dollars. When we shrink our debt we shrink the world supply of trade collateral--we take dollars out of the global market and increase inflation globally. Global banks don't actually trade in dollars they leverage their trades with US treasuries. Thus the dollar denomination on exchange contracts.

[@kimwelch4652]

@@shotelco You know even if the GOP makes us default on some bills, it is unlikely that any confidence will be lost in US treasuries as they are still a better collateral than anyone else's debt. And, the entire global banking system is built around them so it's not something that can easily be replaced. Which is why there is currently a dollar shortage in the global market. We are not selling as many T-Bills as we used to.

[@edubmf]

@@kimwelch4652 how much of the dollar supply is created inside the USA? We have private banks outside the USA creating Euro$$ which have, I suspect, contributed to the parabolic rise in asset prices since 1997.

[@kimwelch4652]

@@edubmf Yes, global commercial banks create money, not the Fed. However, this money creating involves exchange contracts which requires collateral. They do use German treasury bills, but Germany doesn't generate much of these. The US is the biggest supplier of high quality Debt contracts (i.e., Treasury Bills) in the world. The collateral backed exchange contracts include interest payments which is where the increase in dollars comes from. There is actually a Euro-dollar shortage or a shortage of high quality dollar denominated collateral. This makes the dollar worth more. China is selling off US treasures to buy Yuan to keep the Yuan from tanking against the dollar. They want to buy oil with Yuan because they can't get dollars. The current "inflation" is a supply shock caused by the pandemic and the Ukraine war. It is not caused by too many dollars.

[@sudo2998]

You'd think there would be a productive side to government spending - like building infrastructure, and an unproductive side - like handing out freebies, or excessive health insurance payments.

[@philliplamoureux9489]

Corporations have posted overwhelming large profits since the beginning of the pandemic and they are still rising faster than inflation. These profits are the inflation. The weak worker earnings are the results of hoarding by the corporate sector. The top holders of US wealth have added to their personal fortunes by exactly that trillion dollars you highlight. If this is not the focus of your analysis your economics are flawed.

[@segriffincom]

I wonder if the data that they're looking at is too contemporaneous. Is government spending causing a problem a historical issue, or is it just something that happens in the current era?

[@cavokmc]

Dalio continues to remind us that we are approaching the end of the long term debt cycle and that a monetary reset is likely. The debt level is growing at an unprecedented rate and everyone should be deeply concerned about it but unfortunately very few are which reveals the financial IQ of the world is poor.

[@thehistoricalgamer]

I have one issue with your use of the data here... you mention the slow growth from 2001-2007, but then ignore the fact that govt side, declined that entire time. What gives? Shouldn't the reduction in govt spending as a % of the GDP have driven healthier economic activity? You just completely ignore that data which you show.

[@Asmith218]

Its tough to keep the spending low when we're at peak boomer retirement and they're starting to take their social security as well as pulling their investments in the market and pulling money out their retirement plans. The market will be capital starved regardless of the government spending otherwise. The cuts we'd need to do to offset this and still maintain the 3% growth would likely start to see negative effects overall with out of work civil servants and less government money infusing its way into other sectors. We're going to have an interesting few years is the only thing for sure.

[@richardbeucler6425]

Wha is the solution?

[@rogerhayek3782]

Eye opening. Your presentations are excellent, Eric. Keep em coming.

[@uhadme]

What about 'entitlement taking"?? If I was able to invest my FICA in a US treasury bond at age 12 ($50 per week)... what would they be worth now almost 50 years later? They entitled themselves to take money from me, for my greater good, I'm not entitled to cash in, I paid for this. pay me back or enjoy a curse on your thieving family bloodline. Mark 11:21

[@brucemorales3229]

Great analysis as always. Thanks!

[@hardrocklobsterroll395]

Glad to see the comments raising questions about what that underlying government spending is covering up. Is it bailouts of private sector companies including welfare payments for not providing living wages? Medical care costs? How much of an effect that spending has on the economy is probably directly related to where it’s ending up

[@imilegofreak]

This is happening since the 60s with the decoupling from the gold standard, it is not a new phenomenon.

[@jeffreymarshall4572]

I guarantee you none of these devastating metrics will change until some sort of collapse happens.

[@shuki1]

Can you correlate against the decrease in entrepreneurs and increase in people becoming employees instead? In the last couple of years specifically, the number of startups is down while big tech threw a ton of money at the brilliant minds to pull them over to be employees instead of risking many of these people naturally create start ups.

[@brandonbagwell7676]

America: the country where everyone's an engineer, and no one makes a f***ing thing.

[@prima6170]

It's not just government getting bigger. Corporations are getting bigger at an ever increasing rate. Going off the gold standard has had a long-term detrimental effect on our economy.

[@jonathantaylor6926]

What is wealth? It's not numbers, percentages or dollars. Wealth is innovation. Wealth is productive capacity. The USA and the world experienced MASSIVE technology advances but mankind is entering an advancement lull. A new "dark age". The semi-conductor revolution has run its course. Will something as meaningful as the steam engine, the assembly line, electricity, locomotives on rails, the internal combustion engine, the semi-conductor be invented again? Probably, but it could take decades and that will be painful for a world grown accustomed to seemingly constant technological advancement. Moores law isn't a law, but the law of diminished returns, is.

[@patrickshanghai2064]

it's all in the removing government subsidies. the actual line is straight, and it fits people's needs. my conclusion is that 2023 Americans will work only as far as it's needed. what do you say, Eric?

[@m4c4c0]

This is where all those people living in tents on the sidewalk, and even spilling out into the street, come from. Of course overweening government has no solution, because it is the cause.

[@-LightningRod-]

i think it is far worse than even you are calculating. My point is that the bottom 50% earns ALOT less than the top 50%,...the ratio gets more extreme the tighter you make the tolerances. I think that the top 1% makes as much as the 99%, ..maybe im wrong. that Trillion dollars came off the bottom half wage growth after inflation of even 0.5% is kinda a stretch, ..i think individuals have dropped dramatically in what they are able to afford.

[@jackdiamond5340]

Wow- going into trillions of dollars of debt to give endless amounts of money to those who just don’t want to work is bad for the workers. Shocking.

[@weirdwarlock625]

considering the richest people in our system exist simply by taking debt on their assets to the amount of hundreds of billions to tens of trillions, I don't understand why we must all suffer together when we see the problem is rooted in the few.