I congratulate our new Chinese overlords

[pchang]

I cannot believe that pchang and Dinner have been conversing in this thread, without spewing personal insults back and forth.

???? Dinner and I actually like each other. What are you talking about?

[The Mad Monk]

Same thing he always talks about.

[Geronimo]

The basic argument is that when the return on capital is larger than the growth rate of the economy, wealth will naturally accumulate in the hands of the few (the ones with the capital). During times of rapid economic growth, the growth rate of the economy can be greater than the return on capital. When this happens, wealth inequality will decrease.

He claims that the world's rapid growth after the 2 world wars is a temporary thing and that we are returning to the normal pattern where return on capital is larger than the growth rate of the economy. He thinks the way to stop this is a progressive tax on wealth (and not income). Obviously, there are a lot of obstacles to getting something like this passed by our Government. It is also very difficult to measure wealth accurately (as opposed to income).

This idea is especially painful for Americans who believe government has grown far beyond its optimal size. The conservatives are passionately and adamantly opposed to any "wealth transfers" or "class warfare" and yet they are also the only political option to curtail unsustainable growth in government as a fraction of the total economy.

If you believe in limited government size as a fraction of the total economy, believe that ever growing income disparities are bad for the economy and population as a whole, and also believe some recognizable variation of the argument you offer here, then there is generally nobody to vote for in american politics who will not make things worse if given the chance.

What's worse still, when the Democrats and Republicans manage to "compromise" on anything the deal always involves sacrificing principles on both sides that would address these problems in order to preserve ideologies that accelerate the damage.

[pchang]

Canada, I am wanting to defect

[pchang]

On the other hand, if you are not too concerned with the overall size of the Government......

Democrats FTW

[Dinner]

???? Dinner and I actually like each other. What are you talking about?

Indeed. PChang is a great guy to go out for a beer with.

[Dinner]

Canada, I am wanting to defect

I recently read a great article about how Canada's middle class has been doing much better than the US's middle class. A large part of it was Canada didn't have the boom and bust in the realestate market like the US did but real wages have actually been going up in Canada for regular people so that even folks working in big box warehouse retail stores can expect to make ~$24 per hour. That is certainly not the norm in the US. Also Canada is a giant country with a small population so the value of natural resource extraction gets spread around a lot fewer people and that allows them to pad government services a bit more.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

How much is $24 Canadian in real money right now? -Still pretty impressive for working at Walmart or equivalent, I'd guess.

[Dinner]

Amazon is now saying my copy of Capital in the 21st Century won't be shipping until May 30th. This is the second time they've pushed my order back.

[Dinner]

How much is $24 Canadian in real money right now? -Still pretty impressive for working at Walmart or equivalent, I'd guess.

I believe the Canadian dollar is still at about parity with the US dollar though I honestly have checked for a while. BTW these are the articles I was talking about:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-the-us-middle-class-is-falling-behind-canadas/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/how-did-canadas-middle-class-get-so-rich/361053/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-american-middle-class-is-no-longer-the-worlds-richest.html?ref=business&_r=0

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

About parity? Huh. I thought it was close to 3/4...

[Dinner]

Google says it is currently at C$1 = US$0.91. For most of the last 5 years or so it has been mostly 1=1. Canada's currency has been boosted by strong export earnings especially for raw materials much of it going to China where it is turned into finished goods.

[pchang]

About parity? Huh. I thought it was close to 3/4...

You must not have gone to Canada in the last 10 years....

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I've never been out of America, except Texas, and I used to travel a lot for work. Go figure.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

This idea is especially painful for Americans who believe government has grown far beyond its optimal size. The conservatives are passionately and adamantly opposed to any "wealth transfers" or "class warfare" and yet they are also the only political option to curtail unsustainable growth in government as a fraction of the total economy.

If you believe in limited government size as a fraction of the total economy, believe that ever growing income disparities are bad for the economy and population as a whole, and also believe some recognizable variation of the argument you offer here, then there is generally nobody to vote for in american politics who will not make things worse if given the chance.

What's worse still, when the Democrats and Republicans manage to "compromise" on anything the deal always involves sacrificing principles on both sides that would address these problems in order to preserve ideologies that accelerate the damage.

US political duopoly seem to have grown into the oligarchy as the external USSR pressure disappeared.

Perhaps Chinese will put some heat onto that fire once again and things shake up for the better soon. Though there are many barriers that have been put up legally in last 20 years though which make such a political shakeup a lot harder to do now than it ever was before, as today US is not exactly far away from 1$ one 1 vote setup.