Friday, March 01, 2019

It's All About Who Reaps the Gains (Asset Bubbles) and Who Eats the Losses (Stagnating Wages)

Even if the Fed hadn't institutionalized perverse incentives to borrow and speculate in asset bubbles, the economy would still be generating far fewer winners than losers.
If we scrape away the shuck and jive (a difficult task when the majority of what the media presents is shuck and jive) the whole economy boils down to who reaps the gains and who eats the losses. While conventional economics focuses on how much the pie is expanding (GDP is higher, yea!), the real action is in how the pie is sliced up and distributed.
Since the end of the dot-com boom (see chart below), which actually increased labor's share of the gains, the gains have all flowed to those holding assets that have bubbled higher while the losses have been distributed to 95% of those selling their labor for wages, and to everyone exposed to high inflation in big-ticket expenses such as healthcare insurance, rent and college tuition.
The central bank shenanigans that exacerbated this remarkably unequal distribution were sold as promoting "the wealth effect": as assets bubbled higher, the lucky recipients of this unearned wealth would feel richer and would then start borrowing and spending freely, propping up a sickly economy which was no longer expanding organically.
But since only the top 5% of households own enough assets to matter, this amounted to a stealth "trickle down" policy in which the top slice of asset owners would be so enriched they would spend more, and this spending would trickle down to the bottom 95%.
As this chart shows, the spending of the top 5% has far outpaced the spending of the bottom 95%, but as the chart of labor's share of the economy reveals, very little has trickled down.
Not much trickled down. The Mercedes salesperson got a commission and the bistros and bars are crowded with free-spending top-5ers and wannabes living on debt, but this trickle hasn't been enough to push wages higher.
Meanwhile the neofeudal structure of the American economy-- an economy dominated by state-cartels that enforce monopolistic rentier skims on vast swaths of the economy (healthcare, higher education, national defense, etc.)-- guarantees prices rise while wages stagnate. Many of us have addressed the reality that official inflation (Consumer price Index) doesn't accurately reflect real-world price increases, especially in big-ticket expenses such as healthcare, higher education, housing/rent, vehicles, services, etc.
Also missing in the statistics is the enormous difference between those protected from real-world price increases via government employment or subsidies, and those fully exposed to the unrelenting leaps in costs the unprotected.
By reducing interest on safe assets such as savings to near-zero, the Fed has pushed everyone into risk assets. This has pushed prices higher as bubbles inflate, but it's exposed much of the nation's capital to catastrophic declines as the artificial asset bubbles pop.
Even if the Fed hadn't institutionalized perverse incentives to borrow and speculate in asset bubbles, the economy would still be generating far fewer winners than losers. As I've described in my books (Get a Job and Build a Real CareerMoney and Work Unchained and Pathfinding our Destiny), many of the skills and credentials that once had scarcity value no longer have any scarcity value, and so the value of those skills and credentials in the marketplace has declined accordingly.
When only 20% of the working populace had a college diploma, that diploma had some scarcity value. Now that roughly half the working populace has a college diploma or some college, the scarcity value of college diplomas has fallen to near-zero except in specific fields--fields which are quickly inundated with a flood of new graduates once the word gets out, reducing the value of that diploma to background noise.
As a result of these factors--the neofeudal economy and an over-abundance of normal capital and labor--only the top 5% of wage-earners have enjoyed real increases in earned income.
There are no easy answers to these structural realities. It's difficult to wean an economy that's dependent on assets bubbles off of asset bubbles, and it's difficult to reverse demographic and technological changes.
Our goal should be to eliminate the privileges embedded in neofeudal structures and create structures which open opportunities to get ahead for everyone rather than for just a select few. I describe such a system in my book A Radically Beneficial World. Doing more of the what's failed is not going to change the structure whose only possible output is more failure.


Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 ebook, $12 print, $13.08 audiobook): Read the first section for free in PDF format.


My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)
My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format.


If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.
Thank you, Edward ($6.13/month), for your monumentally generous pledge to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.
 
Thank you, Patrick J. ($5/month), for your magnificently generous pledge to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Terms of Service

All content on this blog is provided by Trewe LLC for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. These terms and conditions of use are subject to change at anytime and without notice.


Our Privacy Policy:


Correspondents' email is strictly confidential. This site does not collect digital data from visitors or distribute cookies. Advertisements served by a third-party advertising network (Investing Channel) may use cookies or collect information from visitors for the purpose of Interest-Based Advertising; if you wish to opt out of Interest-Based Advertising, please go to Opt out of interest-based advertising (The Network Advertising Initiative). If you have other privacy concerns relating to advertisements, please contact advertisers directly. Websites and blog links on the site's blog roll are posted at my discretion.


PRIVACY NOTICE FOR EEA INDIVIDUALS


This section covers disclosures on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for users residing within EEA only. GDPR replaces the existing Directive 95/46/ec, and aims at harmonizing data protection laws in the EU that are fit for purpose in the digital age. The primary objective of the GDPR is to give citizens back control of their personal data. Please follow the link below to access InvestingChannel’s General Data Protection Notice. https://stg.media.investingchannel.com/gdpr-notice/


Notice of Compliance with The California Consumer Protection Act
This site does not collect digital data from visitors or distribute cookies. Advertisements served by a third-party advertising network (Investing Channel) may use cookies or collect information from visitors for the purpose of Interest-Based Advertising. If you do not want any personal information that may be collected by third-party advertising to be sold, please follow the instructions on this page: Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information.


Regarding Cookies:


This site does not collect digital data from visitors or distribute cookies. Advertisements served by third-party advertising networks such as Investing Channel may use cookies or collect information from visitors for the purpose of Interest-Based Advertising; if you wish to opt out of Interest-Based Advertising, please go to Opt out of interest-based advertising (The Network Advertising Initiative) If you have other privacy concerns relating to advertisements, please contact advertisers directly.


Our Commission Policy:

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I also earn a commission on purchases of precious metals via BullionVault. I receive no fees or compensation for any other non-advertising links or content posted on my site.

  © Blogger templates Newspaper III by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP