Inheriting is becoming nearly as important as working
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Did we really need an article to know that? It's basic math.
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So still inheritance, just consolidated, going to another nepo baby.
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The Economist nearly spelling out the truth there.
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Our system survives by creating economic slaves. For instance the mortgage acts as a gatekeeper in the fiat system, by locking up an inelastic good in a form that can only be unlocked by completing the payment obligations. Housing rises in price to max out the metaphorical bucket of whatever interest rates allow for debt accumulation, and property ownership is controlled by one's ability to secure debt. This ensures that the financial system has a steady stream of obligations that help sustain the flow of currency, which helps drive aggregate demand.
The goal is to create a 2% inflation, as calculated by an index that excludes housing appreciation and investments, you require ever growing money supply. Money supply is grown via debt accumulation, this then funnels down into foods and services, excluding substitutions and hedonic adjustments, deriving a 2% inflation to a dynamic basket of goods. Housing works well for this because housing is finite and demand in inelastic; prices can rise faster than fundamentals, and it is therefore a liquidity sponge.
We need a liquidity sponge because for every person who saves money someone else must have a corresponding debt. Since the gold standard ended debt now has to grow, to create the new money supply to pay past debts. The money you spend at the grocery store is somebody else's debt, its somebody's mortgage or bank loan, that you acquired by working a job to produce something that the newly issued currency desired.
If the next guy doesn't take out debt, say because prices are falling, then the entire scheme unwinds, and we get a crisis. That money owed has already been spent several times, until it ends up in an equity, unmortgaged home, or bond, and outside of what the CPI uses to hold back money supply growth. If debt isnt taken out then rates will keep falling until someone is encouraged to borrow, in which case debt is securitized into a new supply of money, which creates the windfall that can be spent on consumer goods to derive a 2% inflation.
If debt does keep accumulating you can extract the cantillon effect, as long as the next guy in line takes out debt past debts are inflated away and your past debt is paid off. As people realize this phenomenon they are then willing to sign up for ever larger debts, and you get a bubble in asset prices, because we treat promises of future money the same as present money. So in my opinion its the monetary system that is the main cause of the growing wealth inequality, and the farther we get from the gold standard the worse it will get.
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Meritocracy dies when inheritance outweighs effort—welcome to the new feudalism.
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lmao, my parents are dumbfucks who spend all their money on Disney vacations and Harley Davidsons when they don't even have any retirement accounts and everything is in cash. I have no inheritance coming my way, are you kidding me?
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Yeah well assisted living with skilled nursing costs a fortune. Luckily most people only need that for 6 months to a year before they die anyway. I'm talking more like "55+ downsized housing" that doesn't yet require a nurse, memory care, or any of that stuff.
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Kings and nobles know this one simple trick
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The biggest problem is housing becoming unaffordable, and believe me paying 40-50% of your net income just to put a roof over your head is very depressing. It really makes a big difference in your lifestyle. And mind you it is almost impossible to buy even a modest apartment in big cities on an average salary.
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Yes, but that’s not what they were saying. Self-educated people might be just as smart as people with a formal education (possibly smarter even), but that does little good if you can’t get a job without the official credentials.
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Why shouldn't your parents be allowed to spend their money on whatever makes them happy? Don't blame them for this financial system.
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Sounds like they can’t really afford to live the lifestyle they are.
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Yes, let them be happy supporting Disney, a company founded by a Nazi sympathizer and HD, a company that makes over-priced and 'Murican sized motorcycles with a built-in engineering defect that has become a feature.
Even with this shit financial system, you can make better choices. My comment still stands, they are dumbfucks. They've shown me that have no respect for me and my life, or my sibling and their child's life. But yea, let them be happy while they piss on nature with their wallets.
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It’s plain impossible to buy a condo on a big city (the ones with jobs) on 2 above average salaries as well.
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No it isn't.
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I agree. Growth (quantitative and qualitative) is slowing down overall, on the whole planet, especially in the "west". And since growth requires human labor input - much more so than simply maintaining things does - demand for human labor is going down. And that can be noticed, by observing how wages (i.e. prices for human labor) are also going down.
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Inheriting is the problem. We need a 90% inheritance tax.
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I think it's the economic system that is designed to funnel money to the 1%.
