[rndmize]

Your post is optimistic to the point I choked on my coffee.

Our economy is predicated on consumer spending; we have a whole set of industries built on the backs of poor financial decision making and being near-broke (payday loans, credit cards, overdraft charge reordering, debt collectors, etc.) all of which pull power away from desperate people and give it to others (now your landlord/phone company/ISP/etc have legal grounds to kick you out, terminate your service, etc.) Never mind the difficulty of making use of a court system stacked against the poor...

> I hope voters and politicians recognize...

Actually, it appears that voters and politicians have zero interest in improving this situation, seeing as the current administration is making every effort to demoralize and defang the CFPB[0], which was literally created to do some of the things you're interested in.

I especially like how Mulvaney is moving everything into "financial education", as if an agency with 500M budget is going to make a dent against the billions spent on marketing related to financial "services".

[0] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cfpb-student-loans-201...

[master-litty]

It's so childish putting optimistic people down.

Our economy, habits, and mindset can change with a great deal of work and energy. People are becoming more connected than ever before, and with that we can build a new kind of social momentum.

Hey, you're right, things suck now, but it doesn't have to be like this.

[jadedhacker]

The piece you're missing is that none of this is a mistake, the entire economy is designed to do this. Apathy and hoping it'll get better will if anything make it worse (not that I'm implying that's your position).

The only thing that will make it better is demanding that things change. This means mass unionization, strikes, worker owned businesses, protests, leftist politicians like Sanders and Corbyn, and a whole program of fundamental goods provided free at the point of service like healthcare, education, and child care. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

[alasdair_]

>the entire economy is designed to do this

Unless you are a firm believer in the power of the Illuminati, we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day.

Just because a behavior or other feature in a complex system is emergent doesn't mean the system was initially designed that way.

[api]

I really dislike how absurd conspiracy theories are used to discredit any discussion of networks of power and how those networks operate.

There is no vast monolithic conspiracy but there are certainly many smaller ones (lobbyists, front groups, back room deals, etc.) with incentives that align. Alignment of incentives can generate a result that looks a whole lot like the result of a big organized conspiracy.

If anything the less organized network of aligned interests is tougher to resist than an "Illuminati." It's more resilient and antifragile. Big vertically integrated power structures are slow and brittle.

[heurist]

Read this book and tell me America is a free market: https://www.amazon.com/Framers-Coup-Making-United-Constituti...

In short:

1. A big chunk of the issues leading to today's constitution were tax and debt relief measures being instituted by the states in response to populist movements.

2. The framers were mostly very wealthy and biased toward preservation of capital.

3. Many of the measures instituted in the constitution were designed to preserve wealthy Americans' property (slaves, for instance). Populist debt relief efforts made this an especially high priority.

4. The only way to get the states to ratify the constitution was to concede many populist goals (state legislators were largely very wealthy as well, and apparently stubbornly pessimistic about the constitution despite its immediate necessity).

The book goes into great detail on the reasoning and compromises made to create the constitution. I think you will find that politics rigidly define the operation of our markets.

I get where you're coming from but you have some insufficient assumptions about the context in which this particular complex system operates.

[toofy]

> we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day.

I understand why this might seem like the most obvious answer, but your analysis seems to not take into account things like revolving door politics, regulatory capture, lobbyists priority access to lawmakers, citizens united, etc... etc... etc...

I don’t think most people would suggest that there is a small table surrounded by evil cackling billionaires conspiring to pull every single worldwide string, but rather there is a relatively small number of people who have enough money to buy themselves access to writing regulation and laws which favor their own interests which will often coincidentally align with the other billionaires who can afford this kind of access.

We can’t ignore the ways in which issues like this skew influence to a small number of powerful interests.

[grigjd3]

I'm not in line with jadedhacker, but its hard to ignore how often regulatory legislation is written by the industry being regulated.

[eli_gottlieb]

Then explain the extreme degree of market concentration seen in today's "free" economies.

[jadedhacker]

I am a firm believer in corporate consolidation, so yes, those smoke filled rooms do exist. However, you can consider this a systemic critique of capitalism which systemically concentrates wealth. The intention doesn't matter if the system is set up to create a particular result.

[eli_gottlieb]

>The only thing that will make it better is demanding that things change. This means mass unionization, strikes, worker owned businesses, protests, leftist politicians like Sanders and Corbyn, and a whole program of fundamental goods provided free at the point of service like healthcare, education, and child care. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

Of course. That's no excuse to snarf your coffee instead of putting nose to the grindstone and doing the work. Agitate, educate, organize!

[pishpash]

All you're going to do with that is to piss off the upper middle class, not the people who actually got fat on the backs of the poor and who are so far ahead of the situation that you're never getting that money back. It's gone. The only equalizer left is massive inflation, which may happen for other reasons.

[aninhumer]

Inflation doesn't make much difference to inequality, because the wealth of the rich is primarily assets not cash.

[eli_gottlieb]

Insofar as those assets are actually debt instruments, they become worthless under high inflation.

[kamaal]

This is so true.

If anything inflation only makes matters worse for people who weren't careful enough to save and invest in assets(like land) early on in their life.

[jadedhacker]

Don't despair comrade, the revolution is coming (we must hope). Trump and Sanders both showed that the citizenry are restless and are ready to demand (some kind of) change.

[scarface74]

Yes and when they demand change and start "taxing the rich". You're going to find that a lot of doctors, lawyers, and people in IT who are making low six figures are going to be classified as "the rich".

[maxsilver]

> "According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the top 1% had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year."

"Doctors, lawyers, and IT people making low six figures" have absolutely nothing to fear. And for the extremely few fortunate people who actually make more than half a million dollars each year, they will easily be able to afford the new taxes.

[aninhumer]

Yes of course?

If you're trying to suggest that higher income socialists won't like it if they're the ones being taxed, then I don't think you understand socialists.

[UncleMeat]

So? I'm down to pay more taxes.

[ryanx435]

This is an even more childish comment. You think you can change how human nature fundamentally works? How naive.

People are selfish and greedy. They always have been. They always will be.

Any solution to a problem that relies on building "a new kind of social momentum" are ignorant at best and actively harmful at worst.

[smilangalang]

You are wrong. In a healthy, high functioning family, values are extremely different than what you describe. The fact that massive amounts of homes are broken, with the children only being raised by one parent, the prevalence of drug abuse, "substance" abuse such as caffeine and sugar, poor diets and habits... Is not human nature, it's a systemic illness. These two things are not the same.

[jabgrabdthrow]

You sound like you’re trying to be edgy. Are Democracy and Polio Vaccines actively harmful?

Parent comment is right.

[ryanx435]

Oh are we listing arbitrary inventions or historical events to prove our points?

People are selfish and greedy:

Subprime mortgage crisis

Enron

George Soros shorting the British pound

The entire Mongolian expansion and their culture of rape and pillaging

* Small time Nazi officers stealing Jewish people's wedding rings

* Too big to fail

* Literally any employment contract where people are laid less than market value.

* Thieves exist.

* Murderers exist

* Corruption exists

* Swindlers exist

I guess that acknowledging human nature is edgy now. Well, fuck it. I must be edgy then.

[ionised]

For each of those destructive things you mentioned I could name a positive and contributing thing.

Humans aren't all bad or all good. It's a spectrum of traits and behaviours, and they absolutely can be altered and conditioned.

[dragonwriter]

> Actually, it appears that voters and politicians have zero interest in improving this situation, seeing as the current administration is making every effort to demoralize and defang the CFPB

The current administration was elected with fewer votes than the leading opponent, so it certainly reflects a subset of voters and the politicians comprising the administration, but hardly is a basis for concluding that voters in general have zero interest in issues simply because the administration evidently does not.

[smilangalang]

While I agree with your stance, I don't think using HRC as an example, nor her supporters is an accurate example. She got played trying to play the GOP's own games. Now if you had said Bernie specifically...

[stevenwoo]

Although comforting, the having a majority of the votes is a misleading metric in some ways, the electoral college is skewed so that voters in states with lower population have more power so each vote is not equal. This effect carries over to the Senate where a similar outcome with lower population states having more power so one person's vote is more powerful depending upon their geographic location.

[dragonwriter]

> Although comforting, the having a majority of the votes is a misleading metric in some ways

In some ways, perhaps, but not when the question is whether the actions of the person elected can, based on the election results, be taken as proof that the voters collectively have zero concern for an issue.

> the electoral college is skewed so that voters in states with lower population have more power so each vote is not equal.

True.

> This effect carries over to the Senate

No, it's a carryover from the Senate: electoral college representation is identical by state to Congressional representation in both houses combined.

[eli_gottlieb]

> Your post is optimistic to the point I choked on my coffee.

Don't sneer. Do the hard work to make necessary things happen.

[smilangalang]

Statistically and psychologically speaking, his voice reflects the paradigms and perceptions of someone who has resorted to corrupt behavior, i.e. Using other people, relying on people to bail him out of taking responsibility for his actions, lying and skewing or hiding the truth to gain a competitive edge, etc. He could also just be someone who recently forsook his values because that is the nature of corruption, it slowly spreads like a cancer.

This will become more and more apparent in the coming years and I do believe it will be at the center of all conflict and political discourse going forward.

Nihilistic minds will lead us down a path that depletes the healthy parts of the system(s) upon which such people rely too heavily. And these aforementioned parasitic systems are not good at generating wealth nor are they historically efficient at generating innovation or new, stronger systems.

There might not be a revolution, but there will be a subverting downward spiral that will end with a wake up call. One can only hope and try to convince & convert others to put on the brakes long and hard enough for us to develop immunities and fixes.

[ioquatix]

Modern day slavery. Wow, never did I see it like this before.