[mcphilip]

> This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating.

Thanks for posting this comment. I know it sounds trite, but I’m sending well wishes your way, hoping you and your loved ones make it through this crisis as minimally impacted as possible.

I think you likely see the big picture better than others. The economy is absolutely crushed. That the markets go up must be especially frustrating to those not able to partake in any gains. My take on the market is that it will go up on good or bad news for the moment. Going up on good news is self explanatory, going up on bad news could be related to speculation that the Fed and Congress will pump even more money into the economy —- the wealthy expect to be propped up by the government as they were in the great financial crisis.

My cynical take on this is that the rich expect to get richer, no matter the outcome, and are investing accordingly. My question is how much, if any, social unrest this will lead to.

[jdhn]

>My question is how much, if any, social unrest this will lead to.

The only social unrest that has happened so far have been the protests about wanting to lift or ease restrictions on states, and they were widely panned as a bunch of nutjobs. I doubt there will be any "unrest" beyond the protests.

[stcredzero]

The only social unrest that has happened so far have been the protests about wanting to lift or ease restrictions on states, and they were widely panned as a bunch of nutjobs.

It's easy to look down on people lower on the socioeconomic ladder. They're still human beings. They've been given this raw deal: For the greater good, you will now give up your job for an indefinite period of time, with no prospect of finding like employment elsewhere. You have no choice, and if you refuse, you are a horrible person and in some cases you may face civil and criminal consequences.

Injustice isn't any less unjust, because the recipients are somehow in a group one perceives as deplorable. Principles of justice and human rights are universal. This was MLK's ideological point in the Civil Rights movement.

Adherence to this principle is how I distinguish pseudo-activists who just want power and attention from those who really have justice at heart: Are the principles applied to everyone, or just to whomever it's convenient?

[kilroy123]

I completely agree with you, but... How about don't vote in leaders that only care about helping out their rich buddies then?

The Scandinavian countries have moved to pay all payrolls to keep people paid during all this madness, instead of just bailing out large debt holders.

[dlkf]

It's tough when your country isn't much of a democracy. A major difference between Scandinavia and the US/Canada/many others is that proportional representation plays a much greater role in the electoral system here.

[stcredzero]

It's a good thing, when a republic is constructed so that a minority still has a voice. One might perceive them as the "wrong" minority today, in the current context. In the future, they might well be the "correct" minority.

(That said, I think Sweden of all places in the west, have had the best, most sane reaction to the pandemic.)

[oblio]

And do you think that in Sweden of all places, minorities don't have a voice?

They have more of a voice, because they don't have a two party system. If you are American, please check out some European political systems. You'll find that politics in Europe are a lot more nuanced and minorities in general are much, much better represented.

[Mc_Big_G]

What minority are you even talking about?

[Theodores]

In the UK there is a lot of payroll being paid by central government, plus there are interest free loans for small businesses.

This is very good on the surface, however, there is a large chunk of wealth going to the rentier class. The rentseekers were encouraged under successive Tory and New Labour governments with schemes such as 'buy to let'. Now they are the only truly protected sector of society. The rich get richer.

[simonh]

Buy to let has been heavily discourages by changes to the tax system and stamp duties in the last few years, so this is an unreasonable characterisation. The previous long-running Labour government did far less to discourage buy to let and other rent seeking activities than recent Conservative governments in the UK.

Yes rent seeking activities are a serious problem and I think there's a consensus forming on this, at least in the UK.

[incog_nit0]

> The rentseekers were encouraged under successive Tory and New Labour governments with schemes such as 'buy to let'. Now they are the only truly protected sector of society. The rich get richer.

There's some truth to this, but I wouldn't say rentseekers are the only truly protected sector of society. My parents put their life savings into buying a block of flats in the 90s. They borrowed from every single person they knew and took out a mortgage against their own home and put most of their subsequent savings into paying off the mortgage sooner.

The last mortage payment is due end of this year and they were looking forward to leaving their full time jobs whilst maintaining their little property 'empire'.

So far this month they've had 3 tenants call asking for rent reductions, 1 totally unable to pay rent and another insisting on a 20% discount because their friend's landlords are offering the same.

Maintaining that block of 10 flats is no picnic. It means you're on call to unblock toilets on bank holidays or clean, paint, draft tenancy agreements and file paperwork on your evenings and weekends.

Of course - owning an appreciating asset means you're better off than someone who doesn't but you're not quite sitting pretty.

[Frondo]

That is unfortunate. All business has risk; becoming a property owner is no different. I anecdotally know a few people who bought second homes to rent out, and they're facing a crunch too. I don't see why, though, small-time landlords should be treated different from other small business owners when it comes to society-wide crises like these.

[coryfklein]

Trump was elected on a populist, "drain the swamp" agenda. The public is notoriously bad at predicting which candidate will help the people, and which will "help out their rich buddies."

[stcredzero]

The public is notoriously bad at predicting which candidate will help the people, and which will "help out their rich buddies."

For the latter, you can get pretty close with this algorithm:

    WillHelpRichBuddies() {
        return true
    }

[dcow]

Great! So just pick people with benevolent rich buddies.

[stcredzero]

I completely agree with you, but... How about don't vote in leaders that only care about helping out their rich buddies then?

Tone deafness in the media and the social and governmental leadership of any country is a key reason why demagogues and sociopaths get into power. This has been the case across time and cultures.

The Scandinavian countries have moved to pay all payrolls to keep people paid during all this madness, instead of just bailing out large debt holders.

Watch Louis Rossman's YouTube coverage of the US programs as a potential recipient/applicant. As a small business owner, he has a front seat to the incompetence of US lawmakers. It's the same kind of thing which smells like grandstanding incompetence, which also afflicted the "banking reforms" post 2008. The laws aren't written by and for people who actually know how things work.

[greedo]

Oh they're definitely written by and for people who actually know how things work. They're written by Congressional aides and advisors who do exactly what they're told by the donors to the politicians. The politicians don't care what's in the bills, they care how the voters will react.

[astronautjones]

> It's easy to look down on people lower on the socioeconomic ladder. They're still human beings. They've been given this raw deal: For the greater good, you will now give up your job for an indefinite period of time, with no prospect of finding like employment elsewhere. You have no choice, and if you refuse, you are a horrible person and in some cases you may face civil and criminal consequences.

Lots of these people (and a lot of the trumpy, NRA class at large) are bourgeoise, fwiw

[stcredzero]

Lots of these people (and a lot of the trumpy, NRA class at large) are bourgeoise, fwiw

Well, for one thing, in that subset there are still people getting a raw deal.

For another thing, it's a generally bad thing when people start formulating their political equations or thoughts of who's worthy to be listened to based on group stereotypes. "People like that," is just another form of, "those people," or "them."

I've been on the receiving end of stuff like that all my life, as being one of a few classes of minorities, some of it from people who might be characterized as "the trumpy, NRA class at large."

Ultimately, we're all individuals, and we're all human beings. Beware of people who rail against a group, then have you identify them by outward signs. Be especially wary, when those people start claiming to know the presence of bad thoughts in others, such that they "don't deserve" this or that. Be especially wary when the "don't deserve" starts extending to basic human rights.

In 2020, be triply wary if you are, in effect, being asked to think badly of and ignore the human rights of one particular group -- in the name of justice and human rights.

[mbgerring]

> It's easy to look down on people lower on the socioeconomic ladder.

That's not who's protesting with assault rifles demanding that their hairdresser show up to work.

People who are "lower on the socioeconomic ladder" are the ones going on strike for PPE, hazard pay and sick leave that the media are dutifully ignoring.

[stcredzero]

That's not who's protesting with assault rifles demanding that their hairdresser show up to work

Again, it's easy to paint a group as a "type" to justify disregarding their viewpoint. There are opportunists at any large protest. Ultimately, the protest is a collection of individuals, each with their own story.

People who are "lower on the socioeconomic ladder" are the ones going on strike for PPE, hazard pay and sick leave that the media are dutifully ignoring.

Noted!

[JoeAltmaier]

Lots is being done to lessen the effect on the lower socioeconomic ladder. My state has a $600/week stipend for all those unemployed. In many cases this is more than they earned while employed. Sort of a temporary "basic income".

So its unevenly applied (not in every state). That's an issue to bring up with your state representative.

[mcphage]

> It's easy to look down on people lower on the socioeconomic ladder. They're still human beings. They've been given this raw deal: For the greater good, you will now give up your job for an indefinite period of time, with no prospect of finding like employment elsewhere. You have no choice, and if you refuse, you are a horrible person and in some cases you may face civil and criminal consequences.

The man in front of the protest to ease restrictions in my mid-sized city was a wealthy local real estate magnate.

[stcredzero]

The man in front of the protest to ease restrictions in my mid-sized city was a wealthy local real estate magnate.

That still doesn't change the equation for those who aren't real estate magnates and were living paycheck to paycheck before the crisis.

You either listen to all people and meet them where they're at, or you give fuel to demagogues. (Who might be rich magnates.)

[mcphage]

It definitely doesn't, but it does change the tenor and content of those protests.

[stcredzero]

it does change the tenor and content of those protests.

If people who shouldn't have political power gain it by listening to the neglected, the proper course of action isn't to denigrate the people. Take back that power by listening.

[kazagistar]

Those protester people were to a large extent rich employers who wanted to start earning on the backs of others again, or benefiting from that work with normal service availability. There isn't a lot of rawness in that deal, only privilege, and their request was one that hurts others to maintain that privilege.

[harikb]

> one perceives as deplorable

There is no reason to bring that reference in an otherwise non-political discussion.

[stcredzero]

There is no reason to bring that reference in an otherwise non-political discussion.

It's hard to separate socioeconomic differentials from politics. And I specifically use deplorable to call out the political excesses of my own accustomed "tribe."

[krapp]

>And I specifically use deplorable to call out the political excesses of my own accustomed "tribe."

And, either purposely or naively, you're misconstruing the context and scope of a single quote as if you were a part of the other "tribe."

The "basket of deplorables" comment is widely and incorrectly assumed to be an expression of elitist disdain by "the left" for all rural white males, all Trump supporters, or everyone of lower socioeconomic class, when it rather explicitly referred to the - and I'm paraphrasing almost directly from the quote here - "racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, Islamophobes" who took over Trump's base and steered it in an extremist direction. In other words, people who should be considered deplorable.

It may not have been a precisely worded criticism but it was an accurate one.

[stcredzero]

And, either purposely or naively, you're misconstruing the context and scope of a single quote as if you were a part of the other "tribe."

The "basket of deplorables" comment is widely and incorrectly assumed to be an expression of elitist disdain by "the left" for all rural white males, all Trump supporters, or everyone of lower socioeconomic class, when it rather explicitly referred to the - and I'm paraphrasing almost directly from the quote here - "racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, Islamophobes" who took over Trump's base and steered it in an extremist direction. In other words, people who should be considered deplorable.

It may not have been a precisely worded criticism but it was an accurate one.

Thanks. I have absolutely no reason to reply to any of that.

I know the following from personal experience as a person of color, as a not completely hetero-normative person, and as someone who lived in the on-campus house of an organization that had non-gender specific bathrooms in the 1980's. As I mentioned elsewhere, tone-deafness and lack of self-awareness are often symptoms of someone having lost the ability to view others -- all others -- as fully equal in basic human being status.

Left as an exercise to the reader: Who exactly am I calling out here?

[cultus]

The folks participating in the protest are not at all lower on the socioeconomic latter, but predominately middle class. Black Americans, who tend to be poorer and less secure, support the lockdown at a higher rate than whites or other racial groups [0] (at least in Florida). Whites have the least support for a lockdown, but most still oppose reopening.

Lastly, at least some of the protests were funded by the DeVos family [1].

[0] https://poll.qu.edu/florida/release-detail?ReleaseID=3659

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/26/devos-family...

[q92z8oeif]

Fact that US still have to break down so much into racial cohorts in polls is weird. And offer nothing of value other than the generalizations like "who tend to be poorer" that doesn't help the discussion nor analysis. What do you do with this information in this context?

How about breaking down by religion or something else that at least points to what kind of media/message the group is more exposed to? or something that hints at extraneous interests, like homeowners or not. There are so much better ways to break down this data.

[vinay427]

> How about breaking down by religion or something else that at least points to what kind of media/message the group is more exposed to?

I'm an American that fits into neither of these groups but nearly everyone I know does, so from my third party perspective I think you might be underestimating how different the sources, messaging, and conversations are between white and black Americans on average. That being said, I think it is still vastly overused in polls, and is perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy to some degree.

[cultus]

Due to the history of the US, race is highly determinate to culture and socioeconomic status. It's a very good proxy for to cut across all sorts of differences. For example, you mentioned home owners. Guess which race has very few of those?

I would have preferred to see a poll based on income, but race is still a decent proxy for that.

[q92z8oeif]

"decent proxy" is a gross generalization that depends on your deeply set pre-conceptions.

[misun78]

Building up socio-economic status is a straw man point here given how widespread the effects of this downturn are. It could be that parts of the middle class that are protesting may have lost their jobs or businesses and the stimulus checks don’t offset that as much as it would for lower income folks.

[kyuudou]

And our middle-class is typically just a few, if not just one, paycheck away from abject poverty.

[ryandrake]

It would be much harder to "look down" on the protestors if their protests were backed by sanity. For every sign saying "I need to work to feed my family," you see 20 saying:

* Coronavirus is a hoax!

* Fake nurses!

* 5G cellphones cause coronavirus!

* Impeach Bill Gates!

* Vaccines are poison!

* Social Distancing is Communism!

* Freedom!!

There are reasonable arguments against the temporary shutdown, but the protesters are not part of that reasonable conversation.

[stcredzero]

For every sign saying "I need to work to feed my family," you see 20 saying...

Ask yourself this: Why is the media playing up those fringer crazies, and not covering the very poignant, socially relevant, and human angle of "I need to work to feed my family"? Then go and look up Manufacturing Consent. Here's how propaganda often happens in the West: Emotional manipulation is better than outright ham-handed Pravda-esque censorship.

BTW, you seem to have watched the same "All Gas No Brakes" YouTube video of the Sacramento protests I did. You name the very same nutcase signs as appeared in the video. There's part of your answer right there: If it bleeds it leads. Nutcase signs are easy to get viral sharing out of. They tick the humor and outrage buttons all at the same time.

Freedom!!

This is a good thing. If someone tries to associate freedom with bad people, it's because they want all the power for their own tribe.

Note this quote from a cousin comment: "People who are 'lower on the socioeconomic ladder' are the ones going on strike for PPE, hazard pay and sick leave that the media are dutifully ignoring." Please, ask yourself why the media are dutifully ignoring certain things.

[fzeroracer]

You realize everything what you say holds true on the opposite side of things, yes?

All of the media coverage I've seen and read played up those protesters as valiant, the suffering workers of the world uniting to stop the government from destroying their career.

Your argument that this is the result of a unified media doesn't exactly work, unless you're referring specifically to media you disagree with.

[stcredzero]

Your argument that this is the result of a unified media doesn't exactly work

Well, of course not. That's the classic trope of putting the predicate calculus version of "All" into another's mouth. However, depending on where you look, such an approach is quite predominant in the "mainstream." I don't have time to review all media myself, personally.

[ryandrake]

Complaints of media manipulation and conspiracy are also a longstanding, standard element of the fringe's message. When your message is strong and supportable, you want a camera and microphone pointed at you. When your message doesn't make any sense, then media attention is always painted as mean and biased.

"Freedom"

Every protest in the USA, no matter where it sits on the moral or political spectrums, tries to hitch its wagon to "Freedom" in some way. It's become a word you just paint on a sign when you can't think of something to actually be complaining about.

[stcredzero]

Well, depending on one's viewpoint and level of shortsightedness, there's always, "F- Your Free Speech!"

[nradov]

Do you count it as "unrest" when people just quietly ignore the restrictions without actively protesting? Because I see a lot of that, and more every day. In some rural counties the local Sheriffs have unilaterally decided not to enforce statewide "shelter in place" orders. I'm not justifying that behavior but it will inevitably increase week by week.

[jdhn]

How broad is your definition of unrest? If it’s as broad as ignoring laws while being quiet about it, then speeding could technically be seen as “unrest”. As for quietly disobeying the “shelter in place” orders, I don’t see that as unrest, but as I said earlier, depending on how broad your definition is, it could be.

[ohazi]

> I doubt there will be any "unrest" beyond the protests.

> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here.

What was that quote about society being three meals away from anarchy?

[thephyber]

Speaking of meals: US food banks have been reported as having 6 mile long lines and were required by Dept of Agriculture to maintain a 5-6 minute questionnaire (per meal recipient) up until a week ago.

Unemployment rate is underreported because states can't bring applicants onto their rolls fast enough for demand (if the state even accepts the applicant).

Rent payments, Mortgages, credit cards defaults are all growing. Once people exhaust their stopgap measures, the pressure for civil unrest grows quicker.

[shiningdays]

> The only social unrest that has happened so far

Keyword being "so far". In Italy, where people have been out of work for months, things are starting to get dicey. Here are some links:

- [Sky News: Coronavirus: Italy becoming impatient with lockdown - and social unrest is brewing](https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-italy-becoming-impati...) - [The Guardian: Singing stops in Italy as fear and social unrest mount ](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing-stops-...)

There's more but I won't flood you. The point I'm trying to make is that things _so far_ are okay, but will get increasingly dicey if people don't have access to food and the necessities for living.

[register]

I am sorry to disappoint you but no, things are not starting to get dicey in Italy, at least not yet. I am italian and value that Guardian report as I value one written in "Novella 2000". Those reported are single episodes and UK journalism is trying to build a case out of nothing as happened other times in the past.

P.S: I live in Rome and here people are still singing. P.P.S: "Novella 2000" is the unquestionable italian king of trash gossip magazines.

[jessaustin]

...widely panned...

...in the corporate news media. They have never had the full story, and they have less and less of it recently. This knob has been turned too far; it's broken now. TPTB will remember they have other knobs (every other OECD nation is directly supporting citizens' incomes, for example) or the whole machine will catch fire.

[jasonv]

Social unrest?

How about some activism, social representation..? We don't really do that in the US these days.

[modzu]

it reminds me of how i read somewhere the average citzen in china approves of their government while in the west this is hard to comprehend. think of the furor when google tried to do business there: dont they want the truth, dont they want freedom?? it turns out that actully more importance is placed on values like stability and order. its interesting to see in america the head nodding, that yes, health and safety is #1 above all else, no matter what cost (i dont mean economic cost!) -- i mean not freedom, not choice. anecdotally, it also reminds me of how doctors treated my terminally ill friend. submit yourself to drugs and surguries and live like hell but you will live a few months longer. instead the doctors should have been saying go away, live as best you can while you can! but that sentiment is technically against their duty. technically they were 'treating' her, 'helping' her. anyway this is just to say, a change is happening, a change possibly for the worse, but a change we ourselves are asking for (secure us, keep us safe, keep order... to hell with the truth and freedom, those values are for confederate flag waving 'rednecks')

[marricks]

There’s been plenty of strikes at Amazon, instacart, and others. Hell, there’s a growing movement for a rent strike in May as well.

Just go figure the only widely covered protests are the right wing astroturfed ones...

[0xffff2]

> My question is how much, if any, social unrest this will lead to.

My question is how many people have absolutely no ties to the stock market? I'm pretty far from any definition of rich, but I still have a 401k, so you're not likely to see me rioting because the S&P 500 is in the green.

[thescriptkiddie]

Only 52% of americans own any stock whatsoever [0], and the richest 10% of americans own 84% of all stock.

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/190883/half-americans-own-stock...

[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w24085

[lotsofpulp]

All taxpayers (since they will have to make up for shortfalls) and recipients of defined benefit pensions (since they will have to accept reductions in benefits) are also indirectly exposed to changes equity prices.

[ardy42]

> All taxpayers (since they will have to make up for shortfalls) and recipients of defined benefit pensions (since they will have to accept reductions in benefits) are also indirectly exposed to changes equity prices.

But that needs to be put in its proper context. Even if you have a small amount of stock or indirectly benefit from stock prices in some way, it'd be stupid if you let that mentally tie yourself to the stock market.

For instance, shortfalls in taxes do not necessarily need to be made up by "all taxpayers." With progressive taxation, they can be made up by some taxpayers (which will likely consist of most HN commentators, since software engineers are relatively wealthy).

[lotsofpulp]

Not if the shortfall is made up via asset price inflation and dollar devaluation. Then the non asset owning class takes the brunt of the pain.

Which is what I believe has been happening for decades. Progressive taxation can help, but I doubt the political will exists to tax capital gains.

[thephyber]

> I doubt the political will exists to tax capital gains

A friendly reminder that capital gains is taxed (when it is realized).* I assume that you are actually complaining about closing loopholes that exist for avoiding paying the full rate.

* Obviously this comes with the caveat that the tax code is large with lots of "loopholes" (in quotes because they were mostly intentionally created). Capital gains losses are somehow socialized as tax deductions and the "carried interest loophole" allows certain fund managers to treat capital gains as a different class of income.

[zerocrates]

The number of people in the US with defined benefit pensions is quite low and consistently falling.

[at-fates-hands]

> and the richest 10% of americans own 84% of all stock.

The top 20% of earners also handle close to 90% of the tax burden, while close to 50% of the population pay nothing in taxes.

[apazzolini]

Man, that 50% of the population that's able to buy things without paying sales tax is really fortunate. How do I sign up for that benefit?

[BetaDeltaAlpha]

You could move to Oregon...

...In all seriousness, the parent comment was probably referring to the Federal Income Tax.

[apazzolini]

Yes, I'm aware that's what he was referring to, but it's not the entirety of the tax burden in the US, and even people who pay nothing in income tax still pay taxes.

This is precisely why a flat tax disproportionally impacts lower income people.

[karatestomp]

> 50% of the population pay nothing in taxes.

Sales tax is almost 11% here. And I'm in a red-leaning purple state, not "Taxachusetts" or anything. Property tax on vehicles. FICA ("it's not a tax!" yeah OK, but it is really)

[dragonwriter]

> The top 20% of earners also handle close to 90% of the tax burden,

Only if you only count the income taxes, and ignore other (mostly regressive) payroll, excise/sales, and other taxes at the federal and state levels.

[WillPostForFood]

Including all those taxes, the top 20% still pay 66% of all taxes.

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/04/ch...

[GcVmvNhBsU]

The top 20% also owns 86% of the wealth, so it seems like they are still coming out ahead.

[jessaustin]

Well, they do have all the money. Besides, the 19.9% shouldn't complain to the 80%. Rather, they should complain to the 0.1% whose lobbyists write the tax code in the first place. We can be sure they had their reasons to set up this level of progressive taxation rather than some other level.

[JoeAltmaier]

That's because the top has looted the economy, leaving little or nothing for the rest of us. Its not a reflection on the bottom 50% at all.

[econcon]

I don't think it's because top are lotting, more like people at top have bigger leverage. But in all, all people are equally likely to loot if the places were changed.

[at-fates-hands]

> That's because the top has looted the economy

Can you explain how this happens? How does one "loot" one of the largest economies in the world?

[chrisco255]

Monetary policy and globalism. We've got an economy built on debt. We went from a production based economy 40 years ago to a consumption based one. We exported skills. We believed that a service-based economy was sustainable in the long run. We went off the gold standard and embraced an inflationary monetary policy that punished savers. Then we built a retirement system (including state pensions) dependent on yields, which causes retirement funds to chase ever riskier asset classes. We made debt so available for so many things, like education, healthcare, real estate, etc, and we made it so artificially "cheap" that it drove up prices. We never really recovered from the 2008 real estate bubble. The Fed's answer was to buy mortgage-backed securities by the trillions, and bailed out the people responsible without punishing anyone. So we kicked the can down the road and now, this downturn is so massive that we will not be able to escape the deep financial consequences and it is going to take years to overcome this. We have nothing left to borrow against and we're in tens of trillions in debt.

[econcon]

It's simple:

Think about it, a CEO of a big company is more likely to be in social circle of the politicians, judges and regulators.

They are more likely to be sympathetic to their immediate acquaintance who they see every week rather than those poor social economic class people who they have nothing in common with.

Add some dilllusion and descrimination in the mix, like "they are poor because they are lazy" and it becomes easy to make policies which benefit your immediate social circle.

And lot of poor people don't even have time or motivation to analyze those policies and even if someone manages to do that, they don't have enough influence to do anything about it.

[eli_gottlieb]

You pay people less than their cost of living, demand that the state make up the difference in food stamps and health-care subsidies, and then pocket the difference.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/time-for-postcapitalism

[standardUser]

In a society where the bottom 50% have virtually no wealth and are in debt, how much do you think they should pay in taxes and how do you expect them to pay for it?

[fzeroracer]

If someone making 1m/yr pays 1% in taxes and someone making 10k/yr pays 90%, the millionaire is still covering over 50% of the tax burden despite being impacted far less by the taxes on his wealth.

[lleolin]

In that case, I would love to be handling 90% of the tax burden right now.

[fallingfrog]

They pay sales tax, social security tax, and they never make anywhere near as much in wages as the value of what they produce, which is the biggest tax of all but since it’s a hidden, implicit tax, you can’t see it.

[sudosysgen]

Sure, but without the bottom 50% the top 20% would not be able to make nearly as much money as they do.

Progressive taxation is aware of the exploitive nature of capitalism. Just because people are being exploited doesn't mean they don't contribute, much to the contrary.

[bo1024]

The idea of the 401k is such an amazing hustle for the wealthy.

* Middle-class Americans consistently pump money into the stock market generically (not information trading), raising the value of all your stocks over time.

* Now you have a gun to their head to support policies that pump up the value of your stocks even more.

* Also, when shit hits the fan, they can't easily cash out, but you can. Both on a mega-scale (recession), and individual stocks (when companies tank, you sell first, and 401k index or diversified funds take a hit).

I'm not an expert in this stuff but it smells from miles away.

[jazzyk]

Just a pedantic note - I have most of my 401K money in Certificates of Deposit, so you do not have to pump the market.

However (thanks, Federal Reserve!), you get punished with interest rates below inflation, so people, increasingly desperate to protect their savings from inflation, put their money in risky investments (not just the stock market, also overpriced real-estate, etc).

[thedragonline]

If you research the history, you discover that the 401k was designed for the C-suite, not ordinary workers. Some calculating Wall Streeter(s) somewhere decided that it's a reasonable retirement vehicle for ordinary shlubs. It is not. See this: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/teresa-ghilarducc...

[ardy42]

> The idea of the 401k is such an amazing hustle for the wealthy.

You make a very interesting point!

I wonder what a "reverse 401k" program would look like (e.g. box the wealthy into aligning their actions with the interests poor/middle class while only marginally benefiting themselves).

[nitrogen]

I wonder what a "reverse 401k" program would look like (e.g. box the wealthy into aligning their actions with the interests poor/middle class while only marginally benefiting themselves).

Pensions? Those also don't seem to work all that well.

[q92z8oeif]

> aligning their actions with the interests poor/middle class

Any attempt to recognize classes exits will lead to class war. Everyone is upper class, or waiting to join upper class, anytime now.

[eli_gottlieb]

Class war is good.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Taxes?

[karatestomp]

About half of households own no stock at all. It's a safe bet a good portion of the other half have little enough that "the market's up!" isn't very meaningful for them.

[SketchySeaBeast]

What does what you have in your 401k matter if your house and car are being repossessed? I suppose you could pull it all out at penalties and with a bunch of taxes, but that's going to be work, and assumes you have enough in there to make it worthwhile.

[CydeWeys]

Penalties are waived for certain exigent circumstances, which I believe this would qualify as.

[SketchySeaBeast]

The larger penalty would still probably be the taxes, which I assume aren't waved, and again assume there's enough in there to make it worthwhile. I know for myself, even though I've been diligently saving for my relatively short career, I don't think there is.

[xyzzyz]

You are going to pay those taxes anyway when you retire. 401k is only beneficial if you expect to pay lower tax rate when you finally retire. Unless you expect the federal tax rates to go significantly down across the board, withdrawing from 401k when you have no other income is actually a great idea, or it would be without the 10% penalty.

However, you typically can borrow money from your 401k, and pay no penalty, which makes it a good option if you need temporary liquidity.

[CydeWeys]

And considering how early this pandemic hit in the year, if you were laid off in March you didn't even make 25% of your salary yet. That means your taxes are likely to be quite low for the year, so this is actually a good time to withdraw money from a 401k and take the tax hit.

If I ever have a full year gap between jobs (like some kind of a long sabbatical), I'm going to be doing a lot of Traditional to Roth converting, for exactly this reason.

[standardUser]

There is in fact a special exemption this year to the 10% tax penalty for taking money out of retirement accounts for COVID-19 related purposes. But make sure your specific account offers that exemption before withdrawing anything.

[mellow2020]

> My question is how much, if any, social unrest this will lead to.

Individuals must answer this question, not just ask it.

[mc32]

Most people will not want social unrest. Social unrest leads to chaos and unpredictability.

A better alternative is the less sexy but more productive political action obviously with buy in from the power brokers.

Unrest is what happens in Venezuela or Yemen, etc. it doesn’t always have to be like that as those are extreme; never the less unrest is a medicine that is in most instances worse than the disease.

[crispyambulance]

> A better alternative is the less sexy but more productive political action obviously with buy in from the power brokers.

That's the first thing that will be tried, but to be truly successful the "buy in" needs to happen equally as much from the people that are on the verge of picking up pitchforks. It also needs to be an authentic political action. Unfortunately our politics in the USA has gone into profound dysfunction. Something ugly is going to happen, I think. I don't know when, but it's been on the way for quite some time. That guy in the oval office is just a symptom of a really deep problem.

> Unrest is what happens in Venezuela or Yemen, etc

Not necessarily!

There are a number of really bad things that precede unrest, usually a collapse of systems that people rely on. The folks in Venezuela didn't want unrest either, but when your currency becomes worthless within a span of a couple years... bad things are going to happen.

[_bxg1]

Yes, this exactly. These problems are absolutely possible to solve through political action. But our leaders have had ample opportunities, spread out over more than a decade, to do so. And they've sent a clear signal that they simply won't.

[DethNinja]

Actually I believe they sent a clear message that they want problems to get even worse. It is not even keeping the status quo at same level, at the face of this pandemic almost all world governments decisively pursued enriching the 1%.

I only hope more people woke up to this fact and form a critical mass but I doubt it.

[mc32]

You can read if that way. What I see is them propping up business so that there are actual jobs to go back to once things stabilize.

It does little good to send people thousands of dollars if when that dries up, and it would, there are no above board jobs to go back to.

[lotsofpulp]

How nice of the governments to help businesses afford to eat instead of people.

There is no reason assistance to people has to go through business. The reason governments do that is because leaders own equity in the current hierarchy and definitely don’t want to disturb that by giving the lower classes leverage to demand better terms.

[jazzyk]

By buying up junk bonds the government props up irresponsible, mismanaged companies, which possibly spent money on stock buybacks and bonuses for executives, instead of product/service development.

The way to go is to protect workers during transition from one job to another by providing them with decent unemployment benefits, training, etc., not bail out lousy executives over and over.

[jessaustin]

When people die, they're dead. When businesses die, their assets are sold to better businesses and their former employees are hired by better businesses.

I swear I have yet to meet a capitalist who actually believes in "capitalism"...

[_bxg1]

I see that motion as the status quo. The velocity, maybe even the acceleration, towards enriching the 1% is the status quo. This is how things will continue to go if people leave the system alone, pandemic or not.

[base698]

Unrest starts when people had and lost. The people who were able to afford a BMW last year find themselves homeless this year.

True Believer has lots of insight into the circumstances than lead to unrest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer

[mc32]

I think it starts when people have nothing left to lose. There’s no hope to lose, there’s no illusion left.

On the other hand, some societies can descend quite a bit and be okay with going into more or less survival mode: witness Russia.

[munificent]

Not "nothing less", but just less to lose than to gain. People are willing to gamble on a roll of the dice when the upside is larger than the downside.

[mc32]

But the risks for that upside can be pretty large. You cannot predict how things turn out: Mensheviks vs bolsheviks.

[int_19h]

Russia had a lot of political unrest back in the 90s, when it was at the bottom of its descent. It elected extremist parties to parliament - commies had the majority for how long? - and street politics was also... messy at times. I remember growing up in that period, and back then it would have been entirely unsurprising to wake up one day to see ballet on TV where news are supposed to be.

So I wouldn't call it a good example of being okay. It made it through that political unrest without blowing up as a whole (but with plenty of local crises, like Chechnya)... but it was not smooth sailing at all.

[asdff]

Not even 3 decades ago all it took was a jury verdict for anarchy and looting to sweep across LA, requiring the national guard to put down the unrest. People were breaking into stores to steal diapers. What will be the breaking point this time around?

[ancientworldnow]

This intentionally ignores 100 years of oppression and institutional racism that was the actual powder keg. The verdict was just the striking of the tinder.

The exploding inequality and continuous safety net collapse in the united states could very well be a similar powder keg waiting for a match.

[asdff]

Exactly. That powder keg never went away after Rodney King. It's always been here, institutional racism exists to this day. Systemic inequality can only be tolerated so long, and patience runs thin when money runs out.

[mc32]

We’ve had those flare ups before. Watts riots, early 1900s labor riots and repression.

They’ve had them in France, they’ve had them elsewhere. That’s a kind of unrest but not the kind I think we’re talking about.

I think what we’re talking about is the kind that results in overturning of the power structure. I don’t think we’re near that. I think 99.9% of the people do not want that outside of people on the extreme left and extreme right, interestingly for quite different reasons.

[jessaustin]

Unrest is what happens in Venezuela or Yemen, etc.

As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. "Unrest" in Latin America is caused by USA's off-the-leash unsupervised services. Venezuela's government is taking better care of its citizens than our government is taking of us, in this current health emergency. This despite the crippling sanctions and attempted coups d'état we've perpetrated against them. Don't believe the war media; I recommend The Grayzone. [0]

Although, of course, for the last year or so not even the war media attempts to defend what we're doing in Yemen.

[0] https://thegrayzone.com/

[_iyig]

>Venezuela's government is taking better care of its citizens than our government is taking of us, in this current health emergency.

I've seen nothing to corroborate this.

>Don't believe the war media; I recommend The Grayzone.

Here's a video from last year of Grayzone founder Max Blumenthal cheerfully receiving honors from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled that country by violence and decree since 2015:

https://twitter.com/NicolasMaduro/status/1156588153945427970

I do trust The Grayzone to have an anti-U.S. editorial position. I do not trust them to be objective.

[jessaustin]

Venezuela is the watched pot: it should have boiled by now! Venezuelans haven't violently overthrown Maduro because they mostly consent to the results of two somewhat-democratic elections. He lets his supposed "rival" Juan Guaido prance about the country unmolested so all Venezuelans can laugh at the impotence of CIA. With continued sanctions and the price of oil at long-time lows, "natural" pressure on Maduro should be running hot. Instead, that same low price obliterates CIA's theoretical incentive to install a subservient petrostate. They've redeployed their ratfuckers to Nicaragua.

If a USA president had been subject to massive bias from nearly every news media corporation, he might be tempted to honor an independent news outlet that attempted to report with objectivity. Oh, wait... that actually happened this year, at the "State of the Union" speech.

When we fall into the trap of running to wikipedia every time we're confused by world events, we can't be surprised that the war media continues to lead us around by the nose. If we step back and see the pattern, we begin to discount every story that leads us closer to yet another stupid war. Every day this month, it has been obvious to non-Americans how deficient our system is. Every other nation on earth has responded more reasonably and more effectively to this virus. Venezuela is among those nations.

[_iyig]

>Venezuela is the watched pot: it should have boiled by now!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_refugee_crisis

[q92z8oeif]

> Unrest is what happens in Venezuela or Yemen, etc

Usually unrest is not decided so naively like that.

For example, you can organize and take political action just fine, but your larger encumbered opponent might want to start unrest for you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair#May_Day_parad...

[_iyig]

>A better alternative is the less sexy but more productive political action obviously with buy in from the power brokers.

This has been tried for many years with little result. People in my social circles have grown fed-up and tired with the U.S. political system, especially those who supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 only to watch entrenched power-brokers deny him the candidacy. Some allege similar interference in 2020 (see podcast with former Bernie staffers):

https://soundcloud.com/seeking-derangements/sd7-the-bernie-p...

>unrest is a medicine that is in most instances worse than the disease.

Millions of increasingly desperate and frustrated Americans may not be able to agree with you. People are never purely rational actors, and beat-down emotional people are among the least rational. The LA Riot's immediate outcome was arguably worse than its proximate cause, but nevertheless people rioted.

[simonh]

Very few rich people will actually get any richer. Most of them are heavily invested in stocks, which have plummeted, or owned or work for businesses which are being crushed. There are very, very few places to hide from what's going on.

One possible exception, and it's quite a small group really, may have had a lot of money in cash and bonds. They may be able to do quite well by buying or investing in businesses at relatively low prices and earn gains during the recovery. This is _not_ a bad thing. The economy desperately needs fresh investment to re-grow businesses, re-hire employees, pay salaries, rebuild supply chains. That takes a lot of capital investment.

I suppose another way would be to confiscate all their wealth and give it to the government to invest, but who do you trust to do that most efficiently and to the best economic effect. Government bureaucrats, or businesspeople with track records of investing in and growing businesses?

So on the business side now is not at all the time to bet on Socialism. We can't afford it at the best of times, let alone the worst. On the other hand, this crisis has starkly exposed the weaknesses of naked market capitalism. It's pretty obvious already that the European model of social democracy with single payer health systems and a robust social safety net has proved far better able to cope with this crisis. It's a system specifically designed to help people suffering hardships, and now it's doing exactly that on a massive scale. I think this comes out of the European experience in the two world wars. Existential crises in which all of society pulled together because we flat out had no other choice. We were all in it together. Now we're all in this together.

I suspect this will lead to similar realisations in the US. If big companies hit by disaster deserve bailing out for the common good to save jobs and economic resources, why are individuals hit by adverse circumstances any less deserving at a personal scale? If it's reasonable to help a business hit by a health crisis, why is it unreasonable to help a family? I'm no socialist, check another post on this discussion where I defend Conservatism here in the UK, but recognising that as a society we have obligations to each other isn't socialism, for me it's just pragmatism.

[int_19h]

Rich people will get poorer in the part of their wealth that is largely virtual anyway - stocks and other investments, the value of which is so far removed from the real world by now, it's all just make-believe. The actual physical assets that provide them with improved quality of life will be just fine, for long enough that all those virtual losses become gains.

But the poor and the middle class will be hit - are being hit already - at those physical assets. So their quality of life plummets directly and immediately.

[makomk]

Very few rich people will actually get any richer, but that doesn't mean that yellow journalists and political activists won't be able to convince the general public that they did by carefully starting their measurements at around the time the stock market was it its lowest, e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/24/billio...

[ausjke]

for investors there is no gain so far, definitely worse than those who did not or could not invest. I think most if not all of "us" are still under deep water, my 401K became 201K a few weeks ago, now it's about 301K, so as a matter of fact, this is a loss year for people who saved to invest, worse than those who did not invest.

[_bxg1]

> My question is how much, if any, social unrest this will lead to.

There is deep rot at the heart of the American system, and something is going to have to give. The economy has been broken for the lower 50% for a long time now. This course is unsustainable.

I try not to get explicitly political on here, but Bernie Sanders was, as far as I can see, our last shot at reversing the trend from within the current system. He is the only person on Capitol Hill with the motivation to make the real changes that desperately need making. Joe Biden will just pretend the problem doesn't exist for another four years. Trump, as a leader, is just an agent of chaos with no ideals and no plan. I can't totally blame people for taking a chance on that over the continued, slow march of rot.

I think we're going to start seeing escalating social unrest until something breaks. All we can hope for is that something breaks sooner rather than later, and that we get whatever new deal needs making before things get too bad.

[sjtindell]

Does anyone else remember Occupy Wall Street here in the US? Millions camping out in parks demanding change and support. But they were unable to rally, organize, create any lasting impact on the elites and wealthier strata of society. The middle and top looked down on the bottom as an annoyance. They were literally removed by riot police, and the movement died. Unsurprisingly, the number of homeless people increased drastically in that same period (financial crisis) and how have many municipalities responded? Laws against sleeping on benches. There was literally a tent city under Las Vegas, but the decision makers in this society are so far removed it just doesn’t matter. Until the bread runs out, we are not in a real “end of the world” crisis as you describe it. Americans are apathetic, just wealthy enough not to starve, have deeply ingrained individualism that makes them resistant to anything resembling support or handouts, and don’t understand what’s happening - that is to say, the rich are getting so rich their families will never be poor again, and the doors to that class are closing. There’s more support now for ideas like a basic income, universal healthcare, etc. but the fundamentals of the system are so ponderously difficult to change...a very interesting situation.

[samstave]

Of course!

My conspiracy theory is that because the stole 700billion with the bank bailouts and that resulted in OWS, which was quashed pretty quickly - and resulted in no consequences for those that stole that.

They have ossued the “stay inside orders” whole the now steal four trillion dollars so there wont be another OWS at scale.

[asdff]

It wasn't too long ago that Los Angeles was burning on national TV, and people had to post on roofs with rifles due to the police refusing to get involved with the situation beyond protecting the wealthiest zip codes. It only stopped when the national guard deployed armored vehicles.

People think the U.S. is removed from this sort of thing. It's not. If you push the working class to a breaking point, they will break into stores to steal diapers if they have to.

[cactus2093]

I mostly agree with what you're saying, but disagree about Bernie. Many of his biggest policies are still just trying to cover the rot with a coat of paint. Healthcare too expensive? Just have the government cover the bill. College too expensive? Same thing. Workers not paid enough? Raise the minimum wage. All very blunt, simplistic reactions, that ignore the complexities of the real world. Getting rid of the rot requires looking at the roots of the problems. If something is 10x more expensive today than it was a few decades ago, just agreeing to pay the 10x price is not a good solution. You need to figure out and address the underlying causes.

I am still hopeful for our future, maybe foolishly, but I am. If there is a silver lining of Covid-19, maybe it will highlight some of the insane bureaucracy and regulatory capture that are strangling our institutions in the US and lead to improvements. Don't get me wrong, we also need some progressive policies targeted at helping those who are struggling most, but those policies will only be effective if we also recognize and address the underlying cost disease issues. Just look at progressive havens like San Francisco to see how much money can be burned on well-intentioned ideas without achieving any results, if you refuse to acknowledge the underlying causes.

[coldpie]

> If something is 10x more expensive today than it was a few decades ago, just agreeing to pay the 10x price is not a good solution.

That's not what those proposals were. Single payer healthcare and state-provided education is how you fix those problems.

[VRay]

IMO, 4 year university degrees in the USA in their current state are basically a scam

We're promising kids that if they study hard in school they'll be elevated to the middle/upper class by their degree, but in reality most of those degrees are almost completely worthless for building a career.

People are graduating with 4 year degrees in business, math, assorted liberal arts, and then they're saddled with 6 figures of debt and not any more appealing to companies than someone with a year of experience in a desk job

Another problem: So many people are getting pushed into getting 4 year degrees now that they're now a requirement for many jobs that don't even need them. Sure, a CS degree will help if you're building some Google-scale backend code, but you really don't need one to tinker with a small web storefront's layout bugs

[0134340]

Bernie isn't trying to solve a problem, more correct it. Why fault the people for trying to correct a problem that's more to their advantage when hospitals, to this day, still haven't tried to correct the problem of expenses. One shouldn't have to forego their home to pay for small surgical procedures. When people try to correct these things we get replies like yours saying you shouldn't correct them but leave them to the system to correct them. We have to realize the "system" won't inherently do these things, we the people as part of the system have to take measures to look out for ourselves also because the system won't do it for us.

[_bxg1]

I would agree with you if there weren't so many case studies of other countries solving those problems with those exact, "blunt"-seeming solutions.

[mempko]

Are you familiar with Bernie's plans of

a) giving 20% of ownership of large corporations and 40% of board seats to workers?

b) breaking up the big banks and helping community banks.

These are insanely good ideas and aren't simplistic. Unfortunately, many, including you, only scratched the surface of what Bernie was about.

[standardUser]

"Bernie Sanders was, as far as I can see, our last shot at reversing the trend from within the current system"

If anything, Bernie Sanders was our first, worst shot at structural economic change. In fact, every candidate on stage during those Democratic debates was running far, far to the economic left of Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore or either Clinton. With some historical perspective, you might see that the tides have turned in favor of the types of changes you are calling for, not against as so many people seem to pretend.

[_bxg1]

There's truth here, but - and this is getting into subjective territory - it's my belief that none of the other candidates came by those platforms through conviction. I think they measured what voters wanted to hear, measured what kind of brand they could sell for themselves, found the intersection, and constructed a campaign around it.

Now, that doesn't completely invalidate the point! There's a genuine "economy" of votes around "I take a stance for X, you give me votes, I continue to take that stance, you continue to give me votes", which can function even in the midst of cynicism. But it's much less reliable or efficient when that's the case; when the politician, as a person, doesn't base their platform in their genuine beliefs. In fact I think the prevalence of this mentality is one of the major causes of our current situation.

There's almost nobody left among our politicians who has any real conviction. I think John McCain did. And call me naive, but I believe Bernie Sanders is authentic when he's talking about these topics. He's been doing so since the seventies. Career-politicians who do nothing but appease voters might do an okay job at running the show, but they will never truly change the system that got them elected.

[sudosysgen]

In practice, none of them would actually have implemented it, except the only one with a history of going against party and lobby. Barack Obama ran far to the left of Barack Obama, but ended up compromising with Republicans for some absurd reason as he held both the house and senate, to the degree where he passed Mitt Romney's proposal while dragging his feet.

None of them except for Bernie Sanders was willing to recognize the system as fundamentally broken. Biden and Clinton and indubitably their Democrat sosies would openly profess to the elite that nothing would change.

[standardUser]

"none of them would actually have implemented it, except the only one with a history of going against party and lobby"

Why would the person with few allies and hostile relations with various power players be the one who could "actually" implement anything? Barack Obama had a senate majority that Bernie would have killed for in his hypothetical first term, but Obama still couldn't get his own party to even consider a public option. Things have changed compared to them, but not so much that any 51-seat senate majority could pass anything close to what Bernie calls for. It's beyond unrealistic to pretend otherwise.

[sudosysgen]

Because the presidency is vastly more powerful than what you think. Obama could have pulled an FDR, or a Trump, and shifted the party very hard, but didn't. It's quite simple: you go to your opponent, you tell him that if he doesn't follow the whip you will use your vast reach to get him primaried, threaten to modify the rules of the DNC, hell, drum up support for a general strike. Threaten to slash the military budget, threaten to cancel a defence program, or to stop shale oil subsidies, play politics. But for some reason, from FDR onwards, no one plays politics except to concede towards the right. Literally no one in power. The platform of the Democratic Party has become "Let's be Republican-lite in order to win those elusive moderate independent" that for some reason seem to shift more and more towards the right for every single election cycle for the last 40 years, almost as if they were illusory or weren't as ideologically unmovable as asserted.

And it's total bullshit that the Democratic Party wouldn't consider a public option. The Republican Party was considering a public option.

[lleolin]

You're saying that even with a Senate majority, Obama couldn't get his own party to consider public option, while also arguing that through candidates that are "far to the left" of Obama (except Bernie Sanders apparently), we can achieve the kind of structural economic change that people who support Bernie Sanders want. Seems a bit contradictory to me.

[TomVDB]

> but ended up compromising with Republicans for some absurd reason as he held both the house and senate

My memory is a bit fuzzy on this, but didn't he also have to compromise with the (relatively) right-leaning wing of the Democratic party?

[sudosysgen]

Did Trump have to compromise with the left wing of the Republican Party? Did Biden have to compromise with the left wing of the Democratic Party? No, because of the implicit threat of being primaried, or for the party to be shifted. Which Obama did not even threaten, but all others presidents did (towards the right).

He also openly compomised in the name of "bipartisanship" multiple times despite it being uneeded.

[TomVDB]

The only thing that comes close to a left wing part of the Republican Party is Sue Collins, who is always very sorry and disappointed but eventually toes the party line.

[jessaustin]

I didn't believe even Sanders would do that. That's why I supported Gabbard. She wasn't as strong on the economics, but I actually believed she would try to rein in the military-industrial complex, which is an indisputable blight upon humanity and which Sanders never discusses.