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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On March 13 2017 21:57 Big J wrote:
The Dutch reaction was completely valid. Quite honestly, with how Turkish officials are behaving, threatening and trying to cause uproar in Europe we may actually have to resort to some strict treatment of Turkish civilians if this keeps on happening. It's bad, but it is probably the only historically-proven measure to ensure the functioning of the society. And I rather see it done by reasonable politicians than by the actual Nazis.
What do you mean with strict treatment of Turkish civilians? The officials or actual turkish citizens of european countries?And what treatment?
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On March 13 2017 21:47 LightSpectra wrote:I love any excuse to trot out this graph: + Show Spoiler +Like I've said many times before: The European countries that have lots of refugees/immigrants like Finland and Germany are doing just fine because they haven't succumbed to neoliberal austerity. The Netherlands, Italy and France, who have comparatively less migrants but high unemployment over the past few years and less economic growth, have shown a bump in the polls for the far-right whackos. The EU has problems. I don't think its main problem is unrestricted travel or denationalized immigration restrictions, I think its main problem is that the single-market is trotted out as an excuse not to tax the rich. It's an easily solvable problem without dissolution.
Can you explain to me how so called neoliberal policies led to unemployment and low economic growth in The Netherlands, Italy and France. Italy and France especially are known to be very statist and The Netherlands had a homegrown crisis which had little to do with liberal policy or austerity in general. Germany's strong growth in employment has also been widely credited to the Hartz reforms in the early 2000s which are seen as liberal. Iirc WhiteDog (sadly banned) used to complain about them all the time.
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Are you denying that Rutte and Hollande have enacted austerity in their respective countries?
Even if I'm wrong about neoliberalism being the causation, there's still an intense correlation between unemployment and far-right voters.
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On March 13 2017 21:55 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 21:22 Keniji wrote:On March 13 2017 17:22 zatic wrote:
What is currently happening in the Netherland has zero to do with the PKK, and bringing that in is just an attempt to deflect from the issue. To put it bluntly, no one cares about the Kurds anymore.
The European conflict with Turkey is all about Erdogan moving Turkey toward a authoritarian, non-secular state. In that context there are many arguing that the AKP should be hindered from drawing support for their referendum from Turks living in Europe. So far, that is simply exchange of opinion, nothing more.
The Netherlands are unique in that they actually did take action - and their decision to actively block Turkish politicians from speaking in NL has been widely criticised across Europe. Headlines today in Germany read "The Netherlands are gambling away their liberal heritage".
As for Germany, as it stands right now the AKP is free to hold rallys. There might be many people here not happy with this, but AKP members enjoy the same freedom of speech as everyone else over here. Your last paragraph is not completely right. Rallies of the AKP in germany are mostly tolerated at the moment, but they are NOT protected by freedom of speech. The BVG made clear that that persons in the role of officials of foreign goverments are not. I am still not sure how the netherlands should have reacted according to some german opinion pieces. The praise merkels 'never do anything', but what do you do if a foreign government make threats? Of course, the decision of the netherlands helps erdogan, but its not the job of the netherlands to base their decision (solely) on inner politic effects in turkey. Erdogan was clearly looking for it, dont you think he would have increased his provocations until he gets his scapegoat? There is clearly a point where you cant sit back anymore. It might not have been that point yet (i disagree) but some german journalist act like it would be the best to sit passively until the referendum in turkey is over, whatever they do until then Source on the bolded part? I assume you mean BVerG as in constitutional court, and at least I can't find anything on that. When was that ruling supposed to have happened? In any case I wasn't taken sides, just pointing out that the opinions about NL's action are all over the map. At the same time when headlines criticise the ban, others voice their support for NL. Which of course is a fantastic thing and precisily what we are seeking to defend. I am personally not sure what the right call is here. It's a tough call between freedom of speech and allowing foreign propaganda officials to freely operate in your country.
http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2017-03/tuerkei-politiker-bundesverfassungsgericht-karlsruhe
I agree that it is a tough call.
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On March 13 2017 22:24 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 08:45 Big J wrote:+ Show Spoiler +So, two graphics for Germany and the US on household income: + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +What is happening is that the bottom is stagnating or even dropping over time. it's very hard to accurately measure the value though that is being added by public services. Education is expanding, healthcare outcomes are much better than they were decades ago, you've basically got access to all information for free if you have a smartphone and so on. The environmental situation is improving in places that were polluted etc.. All of which doesn't really impact your net worth immediately. You are talking about technological progress. Yes, we profit from that. But society also paid for all of that. We live in peaceful times, we build up more and more wealth because noone destroys it. The standard rises, that is true. But it does not come for free. There were investments made to research technology, to build up houses and infrustructure, to educate people, to build up the WWW and so on and so on. There are still investments made for that, I can't access the internet for free, behind every service is someone who profits in one way or another from you using it. You pay for almost everything, with money or with your data, everything has some upkeep or gets lost eventually. And that is OK. What is a problem is if the people who own all these things take much more than what it is worth, but noone can enter the market who isn't dirty rich to begin with. What do you do as a small firm that needs investments, when all the investors only invest if you pay them more than your employees for no work at all? There is no way around getting that capital, so it's up to those who have the money to dictate their own income, and they simply take more and more of it: + Show Spoiler +The ones with capital are cutting deeper and deeper into the overall cake for themselves. Firm and Capital income that is by the way heavily undertaxed, i.e. socialism for the rich. Where are the true economic liberals, that ask for "any income is to be taxed equally, whether it is capital income, work income or heritage. It's liberalism, not tribism or heritagism." How come, that when I enter this world no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, it is completely up to some investors or company owners whether they want me to succeed or not? People that simply were lucky to be born from someone who owned a pile of money or land or rights, that generates money. That is not liberalism! Why can't I download music today for free on the internet? Why is it protected? People did not expect the internet to happen back in the days, it was an entrepreneurial risk they were taking. But no problem, instead of giving the wealth of the world to the people through the internet, we come up with new laws so that you have to pay for it again. You know, gotta protect the interests of those who are powerful already. We had absurd cases of companies fighting over the right to use a certain geometric form for their phones, how in the heck is that useful for society? It isn't, it is socialism for the rich, so that they can protect the most absurd rights and monetarize them. And then tell me again that we live in a free market society. "Oh yeah, you can always enter the market. Just not if you want to make something in a 3-dimensional shape, those are all 'owned'." You know something is deeply wrong, when we start living in a society that has to forbid everything so that we cannot spread information, music and films for nothing. "But then they don't make films and music anymore" - "But what about the supply and demand logic and market forces?" "Fuck that! Gotta make more money for myself!" I don't speak German so it's kind of hard for me to respond to those numbers. In regards to the US numbers you have to keep in mind that it's talking about family income. This can be explained by a faster increase in the number of households than GDP, an increase in employer-provided benefits and pension contributions (which aren't taken into consideration in household income) and inequality. I've tried finding a graph for real median personal income per quintile but couldn't find one. ALl I can find is an average which does show a dip after the financial crisis but shows a long term increase. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3gXA6yB.png) Even if we take household income it shows a stagnation at most and not the poor getting poorer as you claimed. fredblog.stlouisfed.orgfred.stlouisfed.org
If you take the 2000 peak at 140, in 2015 we have an 11% decrease down to 125. OK, compared to 1990 it is "only stagnating". Keep in mind that these are quintiles, so the bottom 20%. This isn't even
The average household size has decresed from 2.63 to 2.53 in the past years in the US. It's 4%, I don't see that as the major contributor alone. Obviously we would have to look at low income households specifically to connect it with their income. And also we would have to look at the income structure. From what I have seen in Germany, more and more of low income is made up by social benefits, so basically society is paying what the economy is not paying anymore.
But even if we say that income is not shrinking, we have had a massive growth in productivity per work hour. You'd think that when we are so heavily outproducing our past, we all would be massively more wealthy. But that's not happening, because most of it goes to the top.
![[image loading]](http://anticap.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/fig3_scenarios.jpg)
How is that fair? How is that a well working economy? We have nice fantasy numbers of GDP, but noone profits from it. Maybe we should re-visit basic market theory for once? It is about supply and demand. So what happens if all the demand is concentrated in the hands of a few? Well whatever they want the economy to produce the economy will produce. And since noone in the world can actually use that money, all they want to produce is security for their money. Booming financial sectors that do not create anything, whose only job is to redistribute the money of the 1%. For a percentual price that has to be paid to the financial sector and to the investors - which are still not producing anything, they are just leeching and weakening those who actually come up with innovation, yet need capital to start their businesses and then have to pay investors more than their employees. This is simply a much worse market system, than one with a very even distribution of money and power. In which the demand is with 50% of the population and not just 1%.
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People, the US is a different economy from the EU, with different factors affecting inequality. This was initially a discussion of the EU's role in impacting inequality on EU countries. In the US the biggest driver of inequality today might be the tech sector and the platform business that have been built. In each EU country the panorama is different.
Big J there is a lot to be said about inequality and what to do about it but to have a fruitful discussion you have to go into what's causing it, why, and what alternatives to it there are. For instance, your depiction of the financial sector not only is somewhat outdated, but it is a caricature and doesn't touch at all their actual role in the economy.
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Specifically, why is Big J's post a caricature? I ain't seeing it.
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On March 13 2017 23:04 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 22:24 RvB wrote:On March 13 2017 08:45 Big J wrote:+ Show Spoiler +So, two graphics for Germany and the US on household income: + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +What is happening is that the bottom is stagnating or even dropping over time. it's very hard to accurately measure the value though that is being added by public services. Education is expanding, healthcare outcomes are much better than they were decades ago, you've basically got access to all information for free if you have a smartphone and so on. The environmental situation is improving in places that were polluted etc.. All of which doesn't really impact your net worth immediately. You are talking about technological progress. Yes, we profit from that. But society also paid for all of that. We live in peaceful times, we build up more and more wealth because noone destroys it. The standard rises, that is true. But it does not come for free. There were investments made to research technology, to build up houses and infrustructure, to educate people, to build up the WWW and so on and so on. There are still investments made for that, I can't access the internet for free, behind every service is someone who profits in one way or another from you using it. You pay for almost everything, with money or with your data, everything has some upkeep or gets lost eventually. And that is OK. What is a problem is if the people who own all these things take much more than what it is worth, but noone can enter the market who isn't dirty rich to begin with. What do you do as a small firm that needs investments, when all the investors only invest if you pay them more than your employees for no work at all? There is no way around getting that capital, so it's up to those who have the money to dictate their own income, and they simply take more and more of it: + Show Spoiler +The ones with capital are cutting deeper and deeper into the overall cake for themselves. Firm and Capital income that is by the way heavily undertaxed, i.e. socialism for the rich. Where are the true economic liberals, that ask for "any income is to be taxed equally, whether it is capital income, work income or heritage. It's liberalism, not tribism or heritagism." How come, that when I enter this world no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, it is completely up to some investors or company owners whether they want me to succeed or not? People that simply were lucky to be born from someone who owned a pile of money or land or rights, that generates money. That is not liberalism! Why can't I download music today for free on the internet? Why is it protected? People did not expect the internet to happen back in the days, it was an entrepreneurial risk they were taking. But no problem, instead of giving the wealth of the world to the people through the internet, we come up with new laws so that you have to pay for it again. You know, gotta protect the interests of those who are powerful already. We had absurd cases of companies fighting over the right to use a certain geometric form for their phones, how in the heck is that useful for society? It isn't, it is socialism for the rich, so that they can protect the most absurd rights and monetarize them. And then tell me again that we live in a free market society. "Oh yeah, you can always enter the market. Just not if you want to make something in a 3-dimensional shape, those are all 'owned'." You know something is deeply wrong, when we start living in a society that has to forbid everything so that we cannot spread information, music and films for nothing. "But then they don't make films and music anymore" - "But what about the supply and demand logic and market forces?" "Fuck that! Gotta make more money for myself!" I don't speak German so it's kind of hard for me to respond to those numbers. In regards to the US numbers you have to keep in mind that it's talking about family income. This can be explained by a faster increase in the number of households than GDP, an increase in employer-provided benefits and pension contributions (which aren't taken into consideration in household income) and inequality. I've tried finding a graph for real median personal income per quintile but couldn't find one. ALl I can find is an average which does show a dip after the financial crisis but shows a long term increase. Even if we take household income it shows a stagnation at most and not the poor getting poorer as you claimed. fredblog.stlouisfed.orgfred.stlouisfed.org If you take the 2000 peak at 140, in 2015 we have an 11% decrease down to 125. OK, compared to 1990 it is "only stagnating". Keep in mind that these are quintiles, so the bottom 20%. This isn't even The average household size has decresed from 2.63 to 2.53 in the past years in the US. It's 4%, I don't see that as the major contributor alone. Obviously we would have to look at low income households specifically to connect it with their income. And also we would have to look at the income structure. From what I have seen in Germany, more and more of low income is made up by social benefits, so basically society is paying what the economy is not paying anymore. But even if we say that income is not shrinking, we have had a massive growth in productivity per work hour. You'd think that when we are so heavily outproducing our past, we all would be massively more wealthy. But that's not happening, because most of it goes to the top. How is that fair? How is that a well working economy? We have nice fantasy numbers of GDP, but noone profits from it. Maybe we should re-visit basic market theory for once? It is about supply and demand. So what happens if all the demand is concentrated in the hands of a few? Well whatever they want the economy to produce the economy will produce. And since noone in the world can actually use that money, all they want to produce is security for their money. Booming financial sectors that do not create anything, whose only job is to redistribute the money of the 1%. For a percentual price that has to be paid to the financial sector and to the investors - which are still not producing anything, they are just leeching and weakening those who actually come up with innovation, yet need capital to start their businesses and then have to pay investors more than their employees. This is simply a much worse market system, than one with a very even distribution of money and power. In which the demand is with 50% of the population and not just 1%.
Please link sources for your graphs (unless you scanned that graph from the academic paper it is sourced to). This is the third graph you post with deceiving/wrong axes. The top 1% wasn't earning "real minimum wage" in 1965, or they wouldn't be the top 1%. So how come all those lines start at the same point if that is talking about real income? Or is it supposed to be descriptive of "what would have happened" if the top 1% had earned minimum wage in 1965 but their income developed as the income of the top 1% developed over time? On the same note: how is productivity measured in USD there?
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On March 14 2017 00:34 warding wrote:
People, the US is a different economy from the EU, with different factors affecting inequality. This was initially a discussion of the EU's role in impacting inequality on EU countries. In the US the biggest driver of inequality today might be the tech sector and the platform business that have been built. In each EU country the panorama is different.
Yeah, I was originally just giving examples and US data is easy to access and I understand the language, didn't just want to show German data. 
Big J there is a lot to be said about inequality and what to do about it but to have a fruitful discussion you have to go into what's causing it, why, and what alternatives to it there are. For instance, your depiction of the financial sector not only is somewhat outdated, but it is a caricature and doesn't touch at all their actual role in the economy.
What's causing it? That people don't get their share of productivity growth, because the privat owners don't pay it. That's just it.
It's a market economy, there is a labor market and unless someone forces the economy to hire and pay properly for unqualified labor, they will pay as little as possible. Free trade accelerates that for jobs that can be done in lower income countries and same goes for automatization. If you can't work for less then a machine you can't compete.
That's where I say we need a wealth recycling mechanism.
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On March 14 2017 01:07 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 23:04 Big J wrote:On March 13 2017 22:24 RvB wrote:On March 13 2017 08:45 Big J wrote:+ Show Spoiler +So, two graphics for Germany and the US on household income: + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +What is happening is that the bottom is stagnating or even dropping over time. it's very hard to accurately measure the value though that is being added by public services. Education is expanding, healthcare outcomes are much better than they were decades ago, you've basically got access to all information for free if you have a smartphone and so on. The environmental situation is improving in places that were polluted etc.. All of which doesn't really impact your net worth immediately. You are talking about technological progress. Yes, we profit from that. But society also paid for all of that. We live in peaceful times, we build up more and more wealth because noone destroys it. The standard rises, that is true. But it does not come for free. There were investments made to research technology, to build up houses and infrustructure, to educate people, to build up the WWW and so on and so on. There are still investments made for that, I can't access the internet for free, behind every service is someone who profits in one way or another from you using it. You pay for almost everything, with money or with your data, everything has some upkeep or gets lost eventually. And that is OK. What is a problem is if the people who own all these things take much more than what it is worth, but noone can enter the market who isn't dirty rich to begin with. What do you do as a small firm that needs investments, when all the investors only invest if you pay them more than your employees for no work at all? There is no way around getting that capital, so it's up to those who have the money to dictate their own income, and they simply take more and more of it: + Show Spoiler +The ones with capital are cutting deeper and deeper into the overall cake for themselves. Firm and Capital income that is by the way heavily undertaxed, i.e. socialism for the rich. Where are the true economic liberals, that ask for "any income is to be taxed equally, whether it is capital income, work income or heritage. It's liberalism, not tribism or heritagism." How come, that when I enter this world no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, it is completely up to some investors or company owners whether they want me to succeed or not? People that simply were lucky to be born from someone who owned a pile of money or land or rights, that generates money. That is not liberalism! Why can't I download music today for free on the internet? Why is it protected? People did not expect the internet to happen back in the days, it was an entrepreneurial risk they were taking. But no problem, instead of giving the wealth of the world to the people through the internet, we come up with new laws so that you have to pay for it again. You know, gotta protect the interests of those who are powerful already. We had absurd cases of companies fighting over the right to use a certain geometric form for their phones, how in the heck is that useful for society? It isn't, it is socialism for the rich, so that they can protect the most absurd rights and monetarize them. And then tell me again that we live in a free market society. "Oh yeah, you can always enter the market. Just not if you want to make something in a 3-dimensional shape, those are all 'owned'." You know something is deeply wrong, when we start living in a society that has to forbid everything so that we cannot spread information, music and films for nothing. "But then they don't make films and music anymore" - "But what about the supply and demand logic and market forces?" "Fuck that! Gotta make more money for myself!" I don't speak German so it's kind of hard for me to respond to those numbers. In regards to the US numbers you have to keep in mind that it's talking about family income. This can be explained by a faster increase in the number of households than GDP, an increase in employer-provided benefits and pension contributions (which aren't taken into consideration in household income) and inequality. I've tried finding a graph for real median personal income per quintile but couldn't find one. ALl I can find is an average which does show a dip after the financial crisis but shows a long term increase. Even if we take household income it shows a stagnation at most and not the poor getting poorer as you claimed. fredblog.stlouisfed.orgfred.stlouisfed.org If you take the 2000 peak at 140, in 2015 we have an 11% decrease down to 125. OK, compared to 1990 it is "only stagnating". Keep in mind that these are quintiles, so the bottom 20%. This isn't even The average household size has decresed from 2.63 to 2.53 in the past years in the US. It's 4%, I don't see that as the major contributor alone. Obviously we would have to look at low income households specifically to connect it with their income. And also we would have to look at the income structure. From what I have seen in Germany, more and more of low income is made up by social benefits, so basically society is paying what the economy is not paying anymore. But even if we say that income is not shrinking, we have had a massive growth in productivity per work hour. You'd think that when we are so heavily outproducing our past, we all would be massively more wealthy. But that's not happening, because most of it goes to the top. How is that fair? How is that a well working economy? We have nice fantasy numbers of GDP, but noone profits from it. Maybe we should re-visit basic market theory for once? It is about supply and demand. So what happens if all the demand is concentrated in the hands of a few? Well whatever they want the economy to produce the economy will produce. And since noone in the world can actually use that money, all they want to produce is security for their money. Booming financial sectors that do not create anything, whose only job is to redistribute the money of the 1%. For a percentual price that has to be paid to the financial sector and to the investors - which are still not producing anything, they are just leeching and weakening those who actually come up with innovation, yet need capital to start their businesses and then have to pay investors more than their employees. This is simply a much worse market system, than one with a very even distribution of money and power. In which the demand is with 50% of the population and not just 1%. Please link sources for your graphs (unless you scanned that graph from the academic paper it is sourced to). This is the third graph you post with deceiving/wrong axes. The top 1% wasn't earning "real minimum wage" in 1965, or they wouldn't be the top 1%. So how come all those lines start at the same point if that is talking about real income? Or is it supposed to be descriptive of "what would have happened" if the top 1% had earned minimum wage in 1965 but their income developed as the income of the top 1% developed over time? On the same note: how is productivity measured in USD there?
As the title says, it's "how the minimum wage has grown" and "how it would have grown if it had grown like... top 1%, productivity" and so on. Just screw the numbers and pretend it's an index starting in 1965.
Source is at the bottom of the plot.
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On March 14 2017 00:48 farvacola wrote:
Specifically, why is Big J's post a caricature? I ain't seeing it.
I suppose you don't see it because you also see the financial sector as an aggregation of leeches who contribute nothing to society, getting rich at everyone else's expense. Here's a rule of thumb: if, when you take someone's description of the banking system and replace 'banking system' with 'the jews', that description sounds like an antisemitic pamphlet from the 1920s, that is not a fair description of the banking system.
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On March 14 2017 02:48 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2017 00:48 farvacola wrote:
Specifically, why is Big J's post a caricature? I ain't seeing it. I suppose you don't see it because you also see the financial sector as an aggregation of leeches who contribute nothing to society, getting rich at everyone else's expense. Here's a rule of thumb: if, when you take someone's description of the banking system and replace 'banking system' with 'the jews', that description sounds like an antisemitic pamphlet from the 1920s, that is not a fair description of the banking system.
What a pathetic argument... Tons of economists have explained how the financialization of capitalism has parasitized the whole economy. Ups, I shouldn't say “parasite” since it was part of the antisemitic rhetoric too, right?
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On March 14 2017 02:48 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2017 00:48 farvacola wrote:
Specifically, why is Big J's post a caricature? I ain't seeing it. I suppose you don't see it because you also see the financial sector as an aggregation of leeches who contribute nothing to society, getting rich at everyone else's expense. Here's a rule of thumb: if, when you take someone's description of the banking system and replace 'banking system' with 'the jews', that description sounds like an antisemitic pamphlet from the 1920s, that is not a fair description of the banking system.
You sure you're not reinforcing any stereotypes about Jewish bankers there...? I mean, you seem to be saying "criticizing banksters is like antisemitism"...
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incoherent ramblings against 'the system' no matter if it's the banking system or not have their roots in nationalist conspiracy theories heavily used by the far-right, so I honestly don't understand why any left-winger would adopt them. This kind of antisemitism is a real problem on the left.
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Yeah, that's not exactly convincing logic in action, Warding. In order to establish that a particular characterization ought be regarded more as caricature than genuine description, you'll have to provide more than an analogy that, as both TheDwf and LightSpectra point out, causes more problems than it solves.
Those eager to defend neoliberal economic policies oftentimes make the argument that more socialist, redistributive attitudes towards economics rely on stilted characterizations of the topmost classes. However, when offered relatively simple evidence that points towards increased capture of economic gain by those with high baseline levels of wealth, such as the graph Big J referenced earlier that points to a failure on the part of low-end wages in keeping up with overall growth, most retreat to a defensive posture rooted in what looks like an unnecessary defense of the rich. That's not exactly persuasive.
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I too have a vague feeling that there a lot of really useless really rich people in the finance sector, because it just seems to be like that. However I completely lack the understanding of what those people actually do so that I can't support this feeling by any actual arguments. I also have no idea what the impact of just getting rid of all those people on the rest of the system would be. I would like to hear a reinforcement from a knowledgeable source that my gut feelings are correct together with some easily digestible explanation why is that so. That however keeps on not happening. Where is the problem?
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On March 14 2017 03:21 Nyxisto wrote:
incoherent ramblings against 'the system' no matter if it's the banking system or not have their roots in nationalist conspiracy theories heavily used by the far-right, so I honestly don't understand why any left-winger would adopt them. This kind of antisemitism is a real problem on the left.
So just clear this up for me: can one have legitimate criticisms of big banks colluding with corporations and politicians for the benefit of the wealthy, and it's just antisemitic when your ramblings are "incoherent" and against a nebulous "the system"? Or is all criticism of particular big banks antisemitic?
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I never meant to attack the banks, but my sentence was probably badly phrased. The leechers in my sentence are the investors. The booming financial sector is not a problem, it's a symptome of more and more money being in the hands of people, that do not want to spend it right now.
Also I don't mean to blame someone for playing by the rules, I blame the people and their representing politicians for creating those rules. I absolutely adore people who abuse systems in clever ways. Although it is not that hard, it's democratically elected idiots against teams of free market experts, lawyers, psychologist, lobbies... You obviously know who is going to win, if one side can use all of science's combined powers and the other one is mainly responsible to answer "economically important" questions like: "Why do you think it's fair that someone who never paid into the system gets money from it."... (obviously usually asked by net receivers of the transfer system with hardly any education)
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I get the feeling that a disproportionate amount of wealth is circulating around in the financial sector, and largely (not entirely) bypassing government and consumers, thereby creating an unhealthy economic ecosystem.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20170304_WOC022.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/voRjR6J.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/52YAbE2.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/C6VAgXZ.jpg)
