An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
Pages
▼
Pages
▼
Saturday, September 5, 2015
LaRosh Wheat Harvest 2015
Only 5 people (and a camera drone operator) working. Really nice videography.
Hope this nice family that really seems to enjoy what they are doing doesn't own all of this land and equipment that might put them in the 1% then they would be bad people responsible for all of the inequality in the world.
Better if they were just leasing the land and equipment from some rentier people and avoiding being in the 1%.
The amount of land being used for agriculture has been steadily falling while output has been rising and pollution decreasing. Improvements in pest control, machinery and automation, fertilizers and C02 levels, along with genetic techologies have all lead to one of the greatest of human accomplishments: nearly eliminating hunger from most of the world. Now we have less than 20% of people in extreme poverty down from over 50% in the 80s. Huge success.
"The average annual income of the top 1 percent of the population is $717,000, compared to the average income of the rest of the population, which is around $51,000. The real disparity between the classes isn’t in income, however, but in net value: The 1 percent are worth about $8.4 million, or 70 times the worth of the lower classes." Average America vs the One Percent. Forbes, 2012
There's over 1M in equipment on that field and the minimum single crop farm size is not 500 acres to be profitable. If a family owns 500 acres (inherited wealth) and farmland is conservatively estimated at 5K per acre, do the math.
The amount of land being used for agriculture has been steadily falling while output has been rising and pollution decreasing. Improvements in pest control, machinery and automation, fertilizers and C02 levels, along with genetic techologies have all lead to one of the greatest of human accomplishments: nearly eliminating hunger from most of the world. Now we have less than 20% of people in extreme poverty down from over 50% in the 80s. Huge success.
Historically, well over 90% of a population was employed in agriculture and herding, In developed countries it is now down to almost 1%. Huge success indeed that freed up labor for industry, unless you (or your ancestors) where forced from the land into a factory.
There is a lot of success here, to be sure, but at tremendous human cost, too, and it is still happening in the developing world. Do before we beat the drums over how successful capitalism has been, let's not forget the downsides. There are always tradeoffs.
Since we've put faces and machines and acres on the face of it, so answers are less likely to be bombastic and ideological, what do these people owe the rest of the society for their privilege?
I'd say a good robust estate tax would be enough. While alive, they work hard, enjoy the fruits of their labor but the children or grandchildren are forced to convert assets to cash and allow someone else the privilege of owning and operating upon the dirt.
Most of the large farms owned by families have been incorporated. They just aren't corporate farms in the sense of owned by agribusiness firms yet. But agribusiness is now the trending model owing to capital intensity and economies of scale.
The problem is with not spent income, or spending it wrongly while others are suffering. I don't think most people gives a crap about wealthy cohort if they are also (relatively) well. The reaction is natural.
You can either increase the flows of income, and force recirculation of the current stocks (so stocks become flows again). Since the majority of the people does not see increasing flows as an option ("running out of money"), including that 1%, we are is zero-sum (political) scenario.
In that context you will get this kind of responses, and people will fight back. The blame is not on the people blaming the 1%, the blame is on those who got the power to actually change the framing and the meta-narrative. And guess what, that's precisely the 1% Matt!
Yes, generalization is bad, but there are problems and those involve both direct and indirect corruption. Off course morality is very important for the well being of a nation, if you don't think so you have to revisit history a little bit more (including recent), because when corruption is everywhere, it does not matter if you can or cannot print more money, because it doesn't end where it needs to end.
And this is part of the reason why americans don't understand what's going on in Europe: a lot of people is sick of local and national corruption, and that's why they prefer to be fucked by the EU and the ECB with austerity than giving power back to those who misused it in the past. This is how a society can be destroyed by the lack of morality, removing policy options because they are afraid of them. Maybe it comes down to an 'original problem', I track it to the oil shocks of the 70's because is when all the trouble started and devolved (if you cut down spending and flows don't go where they go to need you get increases in poverty, corruption, etc. so some can maintain their status and that's essentially what started to happen back then; is a feedback loop).
When the people spinning the narrative is at the top, the top is who is to blame. Off course removing the top and putting other people who doesn't understand their options is not going to solve anything. Historically revolution meant that people got worse, not better. But is always up to the current leadership to shape the narrative and lead. When all that is happening is that they keep spinning the same stories they only have theyself to blame when it all devolves into class warfare.
In general people does not do anything until it's fed up, or as long as is doing well. "Starve and die" doesn't usually work, and given the current narrative being spun by those in charge, they will blame... those in charge, because they are only being offered TINA.
I would argue though Ryan that today it is completely possible to have the extreme poverty rate be 0%. We produce enough food and we have enough materials to build a safe house for everyone (in the US there is already enough vacant space to house everyone). The only impediment is desire.
Regarding your second question about what they owe the rest of society I might suggest its better not to look at it as what THEY owe. Everyone owes to the rest of us a humility that recognizes that no one is "special". The planet can do without any of us. No one has done enough work or done the right work to ever ensure that they and their family never have to need anyone else. To me the biggest problem with having a select group of people being so unbelievably more wealthy than everyone else, is that they get to buy their way out of society.
They can purchase enough to not need anyone else's good will. The line between being able to express our individuality and needing to be part of a social network is nebulous no doubt. How do you encourage personal growth while maintaining a sense of responsibility to others. Only our man made money system creates the opportunity for the type of inequality we find today.
Ive often said that a pure barter society would never achieve the inequality we have, which I think is a devastating fact that undermines the foundation of monetarism and most neo classical econ. If money were just a neutral veil over a barter economy how is it that so many people have bartered away their security?
Regarding wide economic disparity and social asymmetry, the bottom line of the issue is that historically the elites of almost all societies, now the plutocrats, don't give a hoot about "the little people" — even whether they live or die — other than how they can be used to advance the interest of the elites. By and large they are a heartless cohort of psychopaths with some sociopaths thrown in for good measure. Previously the selection process was largely through violence or threat of violence. The only difference now is that it is more subtle.
Three of the world’s richest and most powerful people (and Timothy Geithner) had a good laugh over income inequality earlier this year.
Former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson and Geithner were asked about the issue by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg during a conference in Beverly Hills. When Paulson responded that he’d been working on income inequality since his days at Goldman Sachs, Geithner quipped, “In which direction?”
“You were increasing it!” cracked Rubin, as everyone on stage roared with laughter.
Ryan just look at the scenes with the 1959 Model 55 running abreast of the 9600s .... that has to be AT LEAST a 3x right there in just that one series component...
"There's over 1M in equipment on that field and the minimum single crop farm size is not 500 acres to be profitable. If a family owns 500 acres (inherited wealth) and farmland is conservatively estimated at 5K per acre, do the math."
That depends wildly on where in the country you are. My roommate in college grew up on a corn farm in Iowa, I think they had a couple sections (square mile) at most. My childhood best friend's family farm is at least 2 to 3 times larger. Land in Montana isn't nearly as fertile as land in Iowa. The entire worth of each farm is probably comparable despite one farm being at least 2-3 times larger.
Most family farms certainly have more than 1M in assets, but many are cash poor and often take an operating loan each year. These people work hard and live middle class lifestyles despite having over a million in assets. They're generally not what's meant by the 1% (sure, some are, but not all). We should really say 0.1%
I find it surprising many farmers are conservatives who dismiss climate change despite their economic livelihood being dependent on the climate.
Joe, I live in Iowa and my SO grew up on a family farm of 100 acres in Iowa so I am acquainted with conditions now. The family farm as it was known went out of business in the 80's. The family farms before them were multi-purpose, corn and beans or alfalfa, chickens, eggs, hogs, dairy, and maybe some cattle. Most families are largely self-sufficient. That's now over since that business model collapsed. Most of the former owners either retired or sold out and found work elsewhere. So did the people in the businesses that support them locally.
Now the minimum single crop farm is 500 acres. That land is not necessarily owned. A lot of it is leased either from former owners no longer farming or from investors. Farmland is an asset class now. Farmland is not going for about 8K per acre.
The new machinery is digitized and farming is most digital. Human labor is pretty much knowledge work. Very different from the old family farm. Farm work can be mostly automated and robotized and a lot has been done already. Farmers haven't milked in years.
My wife recounts how when she was a girl, the harvest was communal and everyone went from farm to farm with the threshing machines (called trashing machines in these parts). Now everyone pretty much owns (expensive) equipment or leases it. The communal harvest is a fond memory, or not so fond since it was a lot work.
Now a small hog farm is 500 head, Many are much larger.
Recently, small farming is making a somewhat of comeback in speciality goods, organic, herbs, grass-fed beef, etc.
But the trend in Des Moines (state capital) is agribusiness, which the elite and political class serving them sees as the future. There are a lot of environmental negative externalities and it's also impossible to regulate them.
"family farms certainly have more than 1M in assets, but many are cash poor"
Doesnt matter Joe read Picketty's book.... they should have to sell their assets and pay tax if they end up with too much...
Who knows, they probably bought those denim jeans with the holes already in them (that costs a lot more... its called 'distressed denim' you have to pay extra...)
Tom ... have relatives from Florida visiting us here in Montreal. Took one of them, my cousin, with me shopping to the farmers' market (known here as the Jean Talon Market). He never heard of such a place so he asked me if it was similar to a flea market: "Yeah, something like that except that local fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat is sold instead of 'fleas,'" I replied :) His first impression was how "different" the vegetables looked -- bigger, more color -- compared to the ones from the big store supermarkets. The celery really confused him -- never saw a leafy one before ... mistook it for some exotic lettuce ("celtuce"?) ... lol
Anyway, we still got the small farms here in Quebec. We try to buy local and in season when we can. Why buy a puny, tasteless broccoli, for example, that comes ALL THE WAY from California when the local broccoli is both bigger and tastier? Yeah, OK, the local produce can be at times more expensive, even as high as 50% if not more ... but the taste -- it's better.
Same here in Iowa but the farmers market are limited to the good weather. Iowa City is close to Kalona, an Amish-Mennonite community dating back almost a hundred years. They live sustainably and earn $ from selling produce and craft sales in excess of community needs. There are also local organic farmers that supply the co-op and supermarkets.
If you own a farm or a ranch, you are a millionaire. You may not have much income, some years you may even lose money, but your property makes you a millionaire.
Farmers and ranchers get MILLIONS in subsidies. One SMALL family ranch near me collected nearly $1 million in subsidies. Big operations collect many millions. If you live in ag country, go to the subsidy database and look up the subsidies in your county. You might be shocked.
BTW the UniParty recently restructured the subsidies as "insurance," to make it less transparent. Also the amounts paid out will no longer be made public, because we wouldn't want to embarrass the millionaire welfare ranchers, now would we?
In my neighborhood, 10,000 acres is considered a small hobby ranch. A fracking billionaire, Ferris Wilks, has been gradually buying up local ranches -- last I heard he was up to 70,000 acres or so -- and will eventually own the whole mountain. But this is one of his SMALL ranches. His big ranches are in Montana where he owns something like 300,000 acres. He also bought the Montana legislature, literally, as the biggest single campaign donor in Montana state politics. He is not a nice neighbor.
Even the so-called "family" farmers and ranchers have always been aristocratic rentiers. They inherited their land from great grandparents who stole it from the Natives. The current trend is for "family" ranches to cash in their chips by selling out to billionaires like Farris Wilks, and then live off the interest.
One of my pet peeves is that I pay much higher property tax rates than my billionaire neighbors, because they get an ag exemption which reduces their tax to a pittance. Why do rich farmers and ranchers get special treatment? Because they own the legislature !
I couldnt agree more with your comment about the stupidity of the left for blaming everything on the 1%. 1%er annual income less than $400K per year. This is the professional upper middle class and largely urban\suburban. Doctors arent the enemy. Lawyers arent the enemy. Small business owners and landlords (like my parents) arent the enemy. The only reason Dems want always talk about raising taxes on the 1% is because raising taxes only on the problematically wealthy .001% ($10M + in income per year) does not raise much revenue. And we all know that the holy grail of Dems is to raise revenue in order to fund more Govt spending. But in doing that, you make this class of people (who are very powerful and influential politically) vote Repub. Its a self defeating and stupid strategy.
If you want to battle real income inequality and political power inequality, you have to go after people who are actually capable of hurting the country, namely billionaires and multi-hundred millionaires. Tax anything over $20M per year at 95% effectively putting a maximum income (any type of income)cap in place (why only minimum wage rules????) and tax any inheritance over $20M per child at 100%. Pretty simple and effective. But of course that whouldnt raise much revenue so the Dems are against it.....idiots.
@Auburn, yes the 1% are the enemy and that includes doctors and lawyers. Our medical system is the way it is because doctors have lobbied against public health care and to restrict the number of medical students. Our legal system is the way it is because it is run by the lawyers for the lawyers. Our local governments are controlled by the top 20% and that includes farmers, ranchers, doctors, and lawyers, and even teachers (the teacher's union has a history of supporting regressive taxes on the working class). INEQUALITY is the issue of our time (next to endless war and climate change). Reducing inequality requires taxing the hell out of not just the 0.01%, not just the 1%, but the upper 20%.
So we lose 20% of the voters and only get 80% of the vote -- I can live with that. Of course neither the U.S. or the U.K. are democracies and we don't get to vote on taxing the rich, so it's a moot point.
People don't vote Republican because Democrats tax the rich -- Democrats prefer to tax the poor! Democrats lost in 1968 because Democrats supported the Vietnam War while Nixon claimed to have a secret plan to end the war. Democrats lost in 1980 because Carter's neoliberal austerity, deregulation, and high interest rates crashed the economy. Democrats lost in 2000 because the candidates were anti-gun Republican lite and Al Gore couldn't even carry his home state. If Democrats lose in 2016 it'll be because of their failed economic policies, endless wars, and anti-Bill of Rights positions. Not that Republicans are any better, but in a 2 party system they are the only alternative. That's a feature, not a bug.
Similar trends are observed in other so-called democracies -- Tony Abbot won because Labor supported a regressive carbon tax and was pro-immigration. Tories won in the UK because Labour was Tory-lite.
I don't see either the 1% or the .01% being the source of the problem of social dysfunction in the US. The problem with the 1% and especially the .01$ has to do with privilege, power and democracy. This could easily be changed if the upper 25 to 40% decided to do so, but they regard their interest as lying with those above them. They are the cronies and minions that support a dysfunctional social system because they see it benefitting them.
Marx pointed this out in his day. The problem is that the petite bourgeoisie identify with the haute bourgeoisie instead of with the proletariat, which he held is where their real interests lie overall in creating a good society that serves the interests of everyone instead of supporting privilege and a hierarchical power structure run on a military model for the benefit of those at the top based on trickle down. The y, too, are, getting crumbs, just bigger ones more often. But the opportunities for ascending the scale are very limited, and it’s the exceptions that keep the myth alive.
The haute bourgeoisie lets enough trickle down to keep the petite bourgeoisie on board the the proletariat from revolting and nothing more. That's the playbook.
While conditions have changed a great deal since Marx was writing and the context is entirely different, some the observations and principles still apply. I think that broadly speaking this is one of them.
It's not the 99% versus the 1% or the .01% but rather the upper middle class allied with the rich and super-rich against the lower middle class and poor, as well as men against women, and whites against non-whites, etc., which are exploitable issues that keep the game going for the haves.
It's really become a very cynical game in that the way the have-nots are kept voting against their interests is by playing on their religiosity, patriotism, jingoism and xenophobia, gender bias, and racism.
Sorry but I must respectfully disagree with the characterization of the professional class as the enemy. People who make $400K per year are not attending $27K a plate fundraisers or donating a million dollars to a candidates super-pac. The professional class do not fund think tanks to provide pseudo-intellectual cover for their bad policies. The professional class do not own newspapers and online media organizations in order to spread their propaganda. These are evils only the truly wealthy .001% can propagate.
WRT the very legitimate points you make about the professional class lobbying for supply side restrictions via various licensing type schemes in order to keep their incomes higher than otherwise, you are absolutely right that this is what professionals support. However, I believe its more a function of the larger organizations like the AMA etc that take on this lobbying and bribery responsibility. Which is why its so hard to make any rationale legislation with our current system of corruption and political bribery aka campaign finance system.
The barriers to entry of the professional class are a delicate balance. On one hand, if every doctor has to go to school for 12 years and shell out some $500K on education, then yeah its going to be more expensive to see a doctor. But you can be assured that your doctors are as well trained as possible. On the other hand, if all it takes is a weekend online course and a small licensing fee to become a doctor, then the cost to see a doctor would be alot lower. But I'm not sure I would trust the diagnosis of a doctor with such a low knowledge and experience barrier, I certainly wouldnt want to be operated on by one!!!
So maybe we split the difference and say 12 years to be a surgeon is reasonable given how difficult a job it is, but you get the education for free. Free college alone will probably increase the number of doctors significantly, which is one reason why the AMA would probably lobby against such a policy! So I'm not sure where that leaves us except to say that as a general rule of thumb its almost always better to policy decisions based on a calculation of macro utility. Yes, a policy change such as you or I might support will be bad for existing doctors, but it will be a large net positive for society as a whole because of all the marks on the pro side of the ledger.
@Auburn, people who make $400k are millionaires. Perhaps they are puny by national standards but they dominate state and local government, especially in rural red states.
My state senate is nicknamed "sirloin row" because it is dominated by ranchers, who vote for tax exemptions for themselves and for regressive taxes for the rest of us.
My state Democratic party, or what's left of it, is dominated by the teacher's union, which pushes for sales tax increases, sin tax increases, and regressive property tax increases to fund education. Besides teachers, the state Democratic party is dominated by urban professionals like lawyers and small business owners. Not that I have anything against urban professionals but their interests are not my interests. And they wonder why poor people stopped voting for Democrats?
My state does not have a medical school. Not surprisingly, the doctor-to-patient ratio is similar to Zimbabwe. Well, you don't want those farmers, ranchers, and urban professionals to pay their share of taxes to support a med school, do you ?
Like most working class people, I pay more in state and local taxes than in Federal taxes, so state and local government is a big deal.
Very good comment. I dont have much to add at this point other than that I stand by the point I made in my first paragraph above:
"People who make $400K per year are not attending $27K a plate fundraisers or donating a million dollars to a candidates super-pac. The professional class do not fund think tanks to provide pseudo-intellectual cover for their bad policies. The professional class do not own newspapers and online media organizations in order to spread their propaganda. These are evils only the truly wealthy .001% can propagate. "
That comment was aimed specifically at national policy. I dont know anything about the local politics of your state (WV right??) hell, I dont know much about local politics in my state of Illinois other than a general disgust about how corrupt it is. I cant trust the decisions made by any political body because of the profit motive.
Is this new electrical wiring rule that the town I'm remodeling a house in (bensenville IL) a result of an objective based analysis on whats best for the community, finding a good common ground between safety for homeowners and burdens placed on the contractor community (especially since alot of these extra Govt imposed costs get passed on to customers as higher prices, although its certainly not a perfect 1 to 1 dynamic)? Is the homeowner lobby simply better organized than the contractor lobby? Or vice versa? Or is simply the result of which side spent more money to bribe the local govt? How can I know? Maybe a couple of the large builders in the area have promised future homework or employment to the part-time village council.
So yes, professionals and lobbyists are a problem, but IMHO they are not the enemy. The enemy is the oligarchs. The oligarchs control the overton window, not the professional class. And the overton window governs basically all that is possible. Shift it far enough to the right and even medicare for all seems crazy. Shift it far enough to the left and even private property seems crazy.
Maybe the answer is to go more European in that we rebalance the burden of spending from the local Govt where everything needs to be offset and paid for to the Federal Govt where thats not the case. I imagine that state and local govt budgets would be mightily helped if they were relieved of the burdens of funding education, health care, retirement, welfare transfers and infrastructure spending. New homes in my area over $1M have $25K property taxes applied to them in order to keep up local funding. Its ridiculous. Or maybe people prefer local control and local taxes, even if they are higher tan would be necessary with a more federally centered fiscal policy?
Or maybe people prefer local control and local taxes, even if they are higher tan would be necessary with a more federally centered fiscal policy?
Hits the nail on the head. It's about decentralization, which is a good thing based on the principle of subsidiarity, putting decision-making as close to those chiefly affected as possible.
But it's also based on conflating the central government as currency issuer with state and local governments as currency users. If people understood this, they would like come to different conclusions about funding.
Hell we can still leave as many actual decisions to local govt as possible, just make sure the funds come from the feds
This is the obvious solution, but there still needs to be federal oversight in order to ensure that the funds aren't distributed to cronies and through corruption, and actually get to where they are supposed to go via the most transparent and efficient route. There's a lot of corruption, cronyism and shady dealing at the state and local level.
This is happening right now wrt the privatization of Medicaid services under a GOP state government allocating funds provided by the federal government.
No doubt tom. Dan already described the myriad ways the local govt corruption hurts him in his state.
The responsibility of the feds is to set up the boundary conditions to prevent races to the bottom and to provide the funding from the magic money machine
@Auburn, if it were up to me ..... (pause for drum roll) .... I'd do away with state government altogether. Let the Feds maintain the roads. Let the Feds run the schools. Let the Feds administer unemployment, SNAP, Medicaid, etc.. When is the last time a red state did anything right, anyway?
And of course all social programs should be funded by the Feds because only the Feds can deficit spend to keep those programs going during recessions when the demand for services rises.
I think the top 20% carries more political weight and does more harm to society than most people realize. I didn't realize it myself for most of my life, because I lived in working class neighborhoods where everyone else was in the same boat as me, so I didn't think much about the rich.
Then I moved to my current home where the neighborhood is more diverse, from blue collar to billionaires, and I got to observe how different the rich were. Different lifestyles, different values, straight out of the Ayn Rand playbook. And as I mentioned earlier, it burns me up that I pay a higher property tax rate than they do. Aargh !
Excellent Matt.
ReplyDeleteLove it. Excellent point. But I doubt even this family is in the 1% -- 10% certainly.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of land being used for agriculture has been steadily falling while output has been rising and pollution decreasing. Improvements in pest control, machinery and automation, fertilizers and C02 levels, along with genetic techologies have all lead to one of the greatest of human accomplishments: nearly eliminating hunger from most of the world. Now we have less than 20% of people in extreme poverty down from over 50% in the 80s. Huge success.
ReplyDeleteFarms are gigantic now. Even the “family-owned” ones.Farms are gigantic now. Even the “family-owned” ones.
ReplyDeleteCorporate farming
Walmart and Koch Industires are family businesses.
But I doubt even this family is in the 1% -- 10% certainly.
Household Income Quintiles 2000-2012
"The average annual income of the top 1 percent of the population is $717,000, compared to the average income of the rest of the population, which is around $51,000. The real disparity between the classes isn’t in income, however, but in net value: The 1 percent are worth about $8.4 million, or 70 times the worth of the lower classes."
Average America vs the One Percent. Forbes, 2012
There's over 1M in equipment on that field and the minimum single crop farm size is not 500 acres to be profitable. If a family owns 500 acres (inherited wealth) and farmland is conservatively estimated at 5K per acre, do the math.
The amount of land being used for agriculture has been steadily falling while output has been rising and pollution decreasing. Improvements in pest control, machinery and automation, fertilizers and C02 levels, along with genetic techologies have all lead to one of the greatest of human accomplishments: nearly eliminating hunger from most of the world. Now we have less than 20% of people in extreme poverty down from over 50% in the 80s. Huge success.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, well over 90% of a population was employed in agriculture and herding, In developed countries it is now down to almost 1%. Huge success indeed that freed up labor for industry, unless you (or your ancestors) where forced from the land into a factory.
There is a lot of success here, to be sure, but at tremendous human cost, too, and it is still happening in the developing world. Do before we beat the drums over how successful capitalism has been, let's not forget the downsides. There are always tradeoffs.
Since we've put faces and machines and acres on the face of it, so answers are less likely to be bombastic and ideological, what do these people owe the rest of the society for their privilege?
ReplyDeleteI'd say a good robust estate tax would be enough. While alive, they work hard, enjoy the fruits of their labor but the children or grandchildren are forced to convert assets to cash and allow someone else the privilege of owning and operating upon the dirt.
Most of the large farms owned by families have been incorporated. They just aren't corporate farms in the sense of owned by agribusiness firms yet. But agribusiness is now the trending model owing to capital intensity and economies of scale.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is with not spent income, or spending it wrongly while others are suffering. I don't think most people gives a crap about wealthy cohort if they are also (relatively) well. The reaction is natural.
ReplyDeleteYou can either increase the flows of income, and force recirculation of the current stocks (so stocks become flows again). Since the majority of the people does not see increasing flows as an option ("running out of money"), including that 1%, we are is zero-sum (political) scenario.
In that context you will get this kind of responses, and people will fight back. The blame is not on the people blaming the 1%, the blame is on those who got the power to actually change the framing and the meta-narrative. And guess what, that's precisely the 1% Matt!
Yes, generalization is bad, but there are problems and those involve both direct and indirect corruption. Off course morality is very important for the well being of a nation, if you don't think so you have to revisit history a little bit more (including recent), because when corruption is everywhere, it does not matter if you can or cannot print more money, because it doesn't end where it needs to end.
And this is part of the reason why americans don't understand what's going on in Europe: a lot of people is sick of local and national corruption, and that's why they prefer to be fucked by the EU and the ECB with austerity than giving power back to those who misused it in the past. This is how a society can be destroyed by the lack of morality, removing policy options because they are afraid of them. Maybe it comes down to an 'original problem', I track it to the oil shocks of the 70's because is when all the trouble started and devolved (if you cut down spending and flows don't go where they go to need you get increases in poverty, corruption, etc. so some can maintain their status and that's essentially what started to happen back then; is a feedback loop).
When the people spinning the narrative is at the top, the top is who is to blame. Off course removing the top and putting other people who doesn't understand their options is not going to solve anything. Historically revolution meant that people got worse, not better. But is always up to the current leadership to shape the narrative and lead. When all that is happening is that they keep spinning the same stories they only have theyself to blame when it all devolves into class warfare.
In general people does not do anything until it's fed up, or as long as is doing well. "Starve and die" doesn't usually work, and given the current narrative being spun by those in charge, they will blame... those in charge, because they are only being offered TINA.
I would argue though Ryan that today it is completely possible to have the extreme poverty rate be 0%. We produce enough food and we have enough materials to build a safe house for everyone (in the US there is already enough vacant space to house everyone). The only impediment is desire.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your second question about what they owe the rest of society I might suggest its better not to look at it as what THEY owe. Everyone owes to the rest of us a humility that recognizes that no one is "special". The planet can do without any of us. No one has done enough work or done the right work to ever ensure that they and their family never have to need anyone else. To me the biggest problem with having a select group of people being so unbelievably more wealthy than everyone else, is that they get to buy their way out of society.
They can purchase enough to not need anyone else's good will. The line between being able to express our individuality and needing to be part of a social network is nebulous no doubt. How do you encourage personal growth while maintaining a sense of responsibility to others. Only our man made money system creates the opportunity for the type of inequality we find today.
Ive often said that a pure barter society would never achieve the inequality we have, which I think is a devastating fact that undermines the foundation of monetarism and most neo classical econ. If money were just a neutral veil over a barter economy how is it that so many people have bartered away their security?
Regarding wide economic disparity and social asymmetry, the bottom line of the issue is that historically the elites of almost all societies, now the plutocrats, don't give a hoot about "the little people" — even whether they live or die — other than how they can be used to advance the interest of the elites. By and large they are a heartless cohort of psychopaths with some sociopaths thrown in for good measure. Previously the selection process was largely through violence or threat of violence. The only difference now is that it is more subtle.
ReplyDeleteThree of the world’s richest and most powerful people (and Timothy Geithner) had a good laugh over income inequality earlier this year.
Former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson and Geithner were asked about the issue by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg during a conference in Beverly Hills. When Paulson responded that he’d been working on income inequality since his days at Goldman Sachs, Geithner quipped, “In which direction?”
“You were increasing it!” cracked Rubin, as everyone on stage roared with laughter.
Only in America
Ryan just look at the scenes with the 1959 Model 55 running abreast of the 9600s .... that has to be AT LEAST a 3x right there in just that one series component...
ReplyDeletersp,
"There's over 1M in equipment on that field and the minimum single crop farm size is not 500 acres to be profitable. If a family owns 500 acres (inherited wealth) and farmland is conservatively estimated at 5K per acre, do the math."
ReplyDeleteThat depends wildly on where in the country you are. My roommate in college grew up on a corn farm in Iowa, I think they had a couple sections (square mile) at most. My childhood best friend's family farm is at least 2 to 3 times larger. Land in Montana isn't nearly as fertile as land in Iowa. The entire worth of each farm is probably comparable despite one farm being at least 2-3 times larger.
Most family farms certainly have more than 1M in assets, but many are cash poor and often take an operating loan each year. These people work hard and live middle class lifestyles despite having over a million in assets. They're generally not what's meant by the 1% (sure, some are, but not all). We should really say 0.1%
I find it surprising many farmers are conservatives who dismiss climate change despite their economic livelihood being dependent on the climate.
Joe, I live in Iowa and my SO grew up on a family farm of 100 acres in Iowa so I am acquainted with conditions now. The family farm as it was known went out of business in the 80's. The family farms before them were multi-purpose, corn and beans or alfalfa, chickens, eggs, hogs, dairy, and maybe some cattle. Most families are largely self-sufficient. That's now over since that business model collapsed. Most of the former owners either retired or sold out and found work elsewhere. So did the people in the businesses that support them locally.
ReplyDeleteNow the minimum single crop farm is 500 acres. That land is not necessarily owned. A lot of it is leased either from former owners no longer farming or from investors. Farmland is an asset class now. Farmland is not going for about 8K per acre.
The new machinery is digitized and farming is most digital. Human labor is pretty much knowledge work. Very different from the old family farm. Farm work can be mostly automated and robotized and a lot has been done already. Farmers haven't milked in years.
My wife recounts how when she was a girl, the harvest was communal and everyone went from farm to farm with the threshing machines (called trashing machines in these parts). Now everyone pretty much owns (expensive) equipment or leases it. The communal harvest is a fond memory, or not so fond since it was a lot work.
Now a small hog farm is 500 head, Many are much larger.
Recently, small farming is making a somewhat of comeback in speciality goods, organic, herbs, grass-fed beef, etc.
But the trend in Des Moines (state capital) is agribusiness, which the elite and political class serving them sees as the future. There are a lot of environmental negative externalities and it's also impossible to regulate them.
"family farms certainly have more than 1M in assets, but many are cash poor"
ReplyDeleteDoesnt matter Joe read Picketty's book.... they should have to sell their assets and pay tax if they end up with too much...
Who knows, they probably bought those denim jeans with the holes already in them (that costs a lot more... its called 'distressed denim' you have to pay extra...)
I wasn't saying you didn't know, Tom. Just thought I'd add that.
ReplyDeleteTom ... have relatives from Florida visiting us here in Montreal. Took one of them, my cousin, with me shopping to the farmers' market (known here as the Jean Talon Market). He never heard of such a place so he asked me if it was similar to a flea market: "Yeah, something like that except that local fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat is sold instead of 'fleas,'" I replied :) His first impression was how "different" the vegetables looked -- bigger, more color -- compared to the ones from the big store supermarkets. The celery really confused him -- never saw a leafy one before ... mistook it for some exotic lettuce ("celtuce"?) ... lol
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we still got the small farms here in Quebec. We try to buy local and in season when we can. Why buy a puny, tasteless broccoli, for example, that comes ALL THE WAY from California when the local broccoli is both bigger and tastier? Yeah, OK, the local produce can be at times more expensive, even as high as 50% if not more ... but the taste -- it's better.
Same here in Iowa but the farmers market are limited to the good weather. Iowa City is close to Kalona, an Amish-Mennonite community dating back almost a hundred years. They live sustainably and earn $ from selling produce and craft sales in excess of community needs. There are also local organic farmers that supply the co-op and supermarkets.
ReplyDeleteWhat percentage of the population continues to rely on subsistence agriculture to feed itself?
ReplyDelete+1 on everything Tom said.
ReplyDeleteIf you own a farm or a ranch, you are a millionaire. You may not have much income, some years you may even lose money, but your property makes you a millionaire.
Farmers and ranchers get MILLIONS in subsidies. One SMALL family ranch near me collected nearly $1 million in subsidies. Big operations collect many millions. If you live in ag country, go to the subsidy database and look up the subsidies in your county. You might be shocked.
BTW the UniParty recently restructured the subsidies as "insurance," to make it less transparent. Also the amounts paid out will no longer be made public, because we wouldn't want to embarrass the millionaire welfare ranchers, now would we?
In my neighborhood, 10,000 acres is considered a small hobby ranch. A fracking billionaire, Ferris Wilks, has been gradually buying up local ranches -- last I heard he was up to 70,000 acres or so -- and will eventually own the whole mountain. But this is one of his SMALL ranches. His big ranches are in Montana where he owns something like 300,000 acres. He also bought the Montana legislature, literally, as the biggest single campaign donor in Montana state politics. He is not a nice neighbor.
Even the so-called "family" farmers and ranchers have always been aristocratic rentiers. They inherited their land from great grandparents who stole it from the Natives. The current trend is for "family" ranches to cash in their chips by selling out to billionaires like Farris Wilks, and then live off the interest.
One of my pet peeves is that I pay much higher property tax rates than my billionaire neighbors, because they get an ag exemption which reduces their tax to a pittance. Why do rich farmers and ranchers get special treatment? Because they own the legislature !
Matt-
ReplyDeleteI couldnt agree more with your comment about the stupidity of the left for blaming everything on the 1%. 1%er annual income less than $400K per year. This is the professional upper middle class and largely urban\suburban. Doctors arent the enemy. Lawyers arent the enemy. Small business owners and landlords (like my parents) arent the enemy. The only reason Dems want always talk about raising taxes on the 1% is because raising taxes only on the problematically wealthy .001% ($10M + in income per year) does not raise much revenue. And we all know that the holy grail of Dems is to raise revenue in order to fund more Govt spending. But in doing that, you make this class of people (who are very powerful and influential politically) vote Repub. Its a self defeating and stupid strategy.
If you want to battle real income inequality and political power inequality, you have to go after people who are actually capable of hurting the country, namely billionaires and multi-hundred millionaires. Tax anything over $20M per year at 95% effectively putting a maximum income (any type of income)cap in place (why only minimum wage rules????) and tax any inheritance over $20M per child at 100%. Pretty simple and effective. But of course that whouldnt raise much revenue so the Dems are against it.....idiots.
@Auburn, yes the 1% are the enemy and that includes doctors and lawyers. Our medical system is the way it is because doctors have lobbied against public health care and to restrict the number of medical students. Our legal system is the way it is because it is run by the lawyers for the lawyers. Our local governments are controlled by the top 20% and that includes farmers, ranchers, doctors, and lawyers, and even teachers (the teacher's union has a history of supporting regressive taxes on the working class). INEQUALITY is the issue of our time (next to endless war and climate change). Reducing inequality requires taxing the hell out of not just the 0.01%, not just the 1%, but the upper 20%.
ReplyDeleteSo we lose 20% of the voters and only get 80% of the vote -- I can live with that. Of course neither the U.S. or the U.K. are democracies and we don't get to vote on taxing the rich, so it's a moot point.
People don't vote Republican because Democrats tax the rich -- Democrats prefer to tax the poor! Democrats lost in 1968 because Democrats supported the Vietnam War while Nixon claimed to have a secret plan to end the war. Democrats lost in 1980 because Carter's neoliberal austerity, deregulation, and high interest rates crashed the economy. Democrats lost in 2000 because the candidates were anti-gun Republican lite and Al Gore couldn't even carry his home state. If Democrats lose in 2016 it'll be because of their failed economic policies, endless wars, and anti-Bill of Rights positions. Not that Republicans are any better, but in a 2 party system they are the only alternative. That's a feature, not a bug.
Similar trends are observed in other so-called democracies -- Tony Abbot won because Labor supported a regressive carbon tax and was pro-immigration. Tories won in the UK because Labour was Tory-lite.
I don't see either the 1% or the .01% being the source of the problem of social dysfunction in the US. The problem with the 1% and especially the .01$ has to do with privilege, power and democracy. This could easily be changed if the upper 25 to 40% decided to do so, but they regard their interest as lying with those above them. They are the cronies and minions that support a dysfunctional social system because they see it benefitting them.
ReplyDeleteMarx pointed this out in his day. The problem is that the petite bourgeoisie identify with the haute bourgeoisie instead of with the proletariat, which he held is where their real interests lie overall in creating a good society that serves the interests of everyone instead of supporting privilege and a hierarchical power structure run on a military model for the benefit of those at the top based on trickle down. The y, too, are, getting crumbs, just bigger ones more often. But the opportunities for ascending the scale are very limited, and it’s the exceptions that keep the myth alive.
The haute bourgeoisie lets enough trickle down to keep the petite bourgeoisie on board the the proletariat from revolting and nothing more. That's the playbook.
While conditions have changed a great deal since Marx was writing and the context is entirely different, some the observations and principles still apply. I think that broadly speaking this is one of them.
It's not the 99% versus the 1% or the .01% but rather the upper middle class allied with the rich and super-rich against the lower middle class and poor, as well as men against women, and whites against non-whites, etc., which are exploitable issues that keep the game going for the haves.
It's really become a very cynical game in that the way the have-nots are kept voting against their interests is by playing on their religiosity, patriotism, jingoism and xenophobia, gender bias, and racism.
Dan-
ReplyDeleteSorry but I must respectfully disagree with the characterization of the professional class as the enemy. People who make $400K per year are not attending $27K a plate fundraisers or donating a million dollars to a candidates super-pac. The professional class do not fund think tanks to provide pseudo-intellectual cover for their bad policies. The professional class do not own newspapers and online media organizations in order to spread their propaganda. These are evils only the truly wealthy .001% can propagate.
WRT the very legitimate points you make about the professional class lobbying for supply side restrictions via various licensing type schemes in order to keep their incomes higher than otherwise, you are absolutely right that this is what professionals support. However, I believe its more a function of the larger organizations like the AMA etc that take on this lobbying and bribery responsibility. Which is why its so hard to make any rationale legislation with our current system of corruption and political bribery aka campaign finance system.
The barriers to entry of the professional class are a delicate balance. On one hand, if every doctor has to go to school for 12 years and shell out some $500K on education, then yeah its going to be more expensive to see a doctor. But you can be assured that your doctors are as well trained as possible. On the other hand, if all it takes is a weekend online course and a small licensing fee to become a doctor, then the cost to see a doctor would be alot lower. But I'm not sure I would trust the diagnosis of a doctor with such a low knowledge and experience barrier, I certainly wouldnt want to be operated on by one!!!
So maybe we split the difference and say 12 years to be a surgeon is reasonable given how difficult a job it is, but you get the education for free. Free college alone will probably increase the number of doctors significantly, which is one reason why the AMA would probably lobby against such a policy! So I'm not sure where that leaves us except to say that as a general rule of thumb its almost always better to policy decisions based on a calculation of macro utility. Yes, a policy change such as you or I might support will be bad for existing doctors, but it will be a large net positive for society as a whole because of all the marks on the pro side of the ledger.
@Auburn, people who make $400k are millionaires. Perhaps they are puny by national standards but they dominate state and local government, especially in rural red states.
ReplyDeleteMy state senate is nicknamed "sirloin row" because it is dominated by ranchers, who vote for tax exemptions for themselves and for regressive taxes for the rest of us.
My state Democratic party, or what's left of it, is dominated by the teacher's union, which pushes for sales tax increases, sin tax increases, and regressive property tax increases to fund education. Besides teachers, the state Democratic party is dominated by urban professionals like lawyers and small business owners. Not that I have anything against urban professionals but their interests are not my interests. And they wonder why poor people stopped voting for Democrats?
My state does not have a medical school. Not surprisingly, the doctor-to-patient ratio is similar to Zimbabwe. Well, you don't want those farmers, ranchers, and urban professionals to pay their share of taxes to support a med school, do you ?
Like most working class people, I pay more in state and local taxes than in Federal taxes, so state and local government is a big deal.
Dan-
ReplyDeleteVery good comment. I dont have much to add at this point other than that I stand by the point I made in my first paragraph above:
"People who make $400K per year are not attending $27K a plate fundraisers or donating a million dollars to a candidates super-pac. The professional class do not fund think tanks to provide pseudo-intellectual cover for their bad policies. The professional class do not own newspapers and online media organizations in order to spread their propaganda. These are evils only the truly wealthy .001% can propagate. "
That comment was aimed specifically at national policy. I dont know anything about the local politics of your state (WV right??) hell, I dont know much about local politics in my state of Illinois other than a general disgust about how corrupt it is. I cant trust the decisions made by any political body because of the profit motive.
Is this new electrical wiring rule that the town I'm remodeling a house in (bensenville IL) a result of an objective based analysis on whats best for the community, finding a good common ground between safety for homeowners and burdens placed on the contractor community (especially since alot of these extra Govt imposed costs get passed on to customers as higher prices, although its certainly not a perfect 1 to 1 dynamic)? Is the homeowner lobby simply better organized than the contractor lobby? Or vice versa? Or is simply the result of which side spent more money to bribe the local govt? How can I know? Maybe a couple of the large builders in the area have promised future homework or employment to the part-time village council.
So yes, professionals and lobbyists are a problem, but IMHO they are not the enemy. The enemy is the oligarchs. The oligarchs control the overton window, not the professional class. And the overton window governs basically all that is possible. Shift it far enough to the right and even medicare for all seems crazy. Shift it far enough to the left and even private property seems crazy.
Maybe the answer is to go more European in that we rebalance the burden of spending from the local Govt where everything needs to be offset and paid for to the Federal Govt where thats not the case. I imagine that state and local govt budgets would be mightily helped if they were relieved of the burdens of funding education, health care, retirement, welfare transfers and infrastructure spending. New homes in my area over $1M have $25K property taxes applied to them in order to keep up local funding. Its ridiculous. Or maybe people prefer local control and local taxes, even if they are higher tan would be necessary with a more federally centered fiscal policy?
Or maybe people prefer local control and local taxes, even if they are higher tan would be necessary with a more federally centered fiscal policy?
ReplyDeleteHits the nail on the head. It's about decentralization, which is a good thing based on the principle of subsidiarity, putting decision-making as close to those chiefly affected as possible.
But it's also based on conflating the central government as currency issuer with state and local governments as currency users. If people understood this, they would like come to different conclusions about funding.
Tom-
ReplyDeleteYep if the choice is...
1) Pay $20K in total taxes, $15k local and $5k federal
Or
2) pay $20k in total taxes, $$15k federal and $5k local
Then #1 is the obvious choice due to the control issue.
But if the paradigm gets shifted correctly the options could be something like...
1) pay $20k in total taxes, $15k local and $5k federal
Or
2) pay $15k in total taxes, $5k local and $10k federal
Assuming a constant level of govt services and spending #2 becomes a much better alternative as you get to cut your total taxes by 25%.
Hell we can still leave as many actual decisions to local govt as possible, just make sure the funds come from the feds
Hell we can still leave as many actual decisions to local govt as possible, just make sure the funds come from the feds
ReplyDeleteThis is the obvious solution, but there still needs to be federal oversight in order to ensure that the funds aren't distributed to cronies and through corruption, and actually get to where they are supposed to go via the most transparent and efficient route. There's a lot of corruption, cronyism and shady dealing at the state and local level.
This is happening right now wrt the privatization of Medicaid services under a GOP state government allocating funds provided by the federal government.
Medicaid Privatization in Iowa and the Market State
And Iowa has a reputation for being a relatively clean state.
No doubt tom. Dan already described the myriad ways the local govt corruption hurts him in his state.
ReplyDeleteThe responsibility of the feds is to set up the boundary conditions to prevent races to the bottom and to provide the funding from the magic money machine
More about the people behind the videos - Man's family harvest videos growing popular
ReplyDeleteUnk thanks I'll keep an eye on them and post some things up if there is new stuff... corn probably coming up soon.... rsp,
ReplyDeleteAuburn-Dan lives in Idaho. His over the mountain comment about MT should have made that evident.
ReplyDelete@Auburn, if it were up to me ..... (pause for drum roll) .... I'd do away with state government altogether. Let the Feds maintain the roads. Let the Feds run the schools. Let the Feds administer unemployment, SNAP, Medicaid, etc.. When is the last time a red state did anything right, anyway?
ReplyDeleteAnd of course all social programs should be funded by the Feds because only the Feds can deficit spend to keep those programs going during recessions when the demand for services rises.
I think the top 20% carries more political weight and does more harm to society than most people realize. I didn't realize it myself for most of my life, because I lived in working class neighborhoods where everyone else was in the same boat as me, so I didn't think much about the rich.
Then I moved to my current home where the neighborhood is more diverse, from blue collar to billionaires, and I got to observe how different the rich were. Different lifestyles, different values, straight out of the Ayn Rand playbook. And as I mentioned earlier, it burns me up that I pay a higher property tax rate than they do. Aargh !
A more efficient alternative to huge corporate welfare farms?
ReplyDeletehttp://ecowatch.com/2015/03/10/vertical-farms-grow-food/