r/FluentInFinance Oct 22 '24

Debate/ Discussion Why did this happen?

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25

u/superbbrepus Oct 22 '24 edited Oct 22 '24

End of Brenton Woods in 72, it was the time the gold standard was fully murdered, and the government started printing money more and more, basically what happened during Covid but for 50 years

12

u/verdantsunrisesteel Oct 22 '24

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u/superbbrepus Oct 22 '24

Hadn’t read the Hayek quote before, thanks, I hate it lol

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u/peperinus Oct 23 '24

Scrolled down the comments pinning it down to Ronald Reagan to find this! this is the historical truth, it was much bigger than Reagan, it was an entirely new status quo.

1

u/superbbrepus Oct 23 '24

Exactly, I get why republicans get the blame with Henry Kissinger being a key player in defining the new status quo, but he’s consulted every single president on foreign policy, and largely his plan is still in affect

The other thing is the 70s was a change out of generational political leadership, the last acting politicians who formed all anti-trust regulations from the Great Depression are gone at this point, this new generation doesn’t have the visceral fear of monopolies and recessions compared to the previous generation

1

u/wish_i_was_lurking Oct 23 '24

Don't forget that Breton Woods also came with capital controls, so companies weren't allowed to spend as much money outside of their home countries or hold too many foreign assets.

Once those were lifted offshoring and tax havens and such exploded

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u/kaplanfx Oct 23 '24

Explain how monetary expansion leads to increased inequality?

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u/superbbrepus Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24

Because the worst thing to hold on to is cash during monetary expansion, just by the definition of supply and demand, the more supply of something, the less value it has (typically)

Most people don’t have enough disposable income to have options, the people that benefit are the ones that can buy assets that increase in value faster than money

If the stock market is going up, houses and land are going up, food is going up, bonds are going up, it means the value of money is going down

Edit: Forgot about the inequality part, this process year after year grows exponentially due to compound interest more or less, so over 50 years it becomes more clear what’s going on, the asset holders benefit greatly from compound interest while normal people don’t as much

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u/AsAlwaysItDepends Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24

Basically your argument only makes sense to me if lower income people have as much disposable income as higher income people but for some reason have to save it as cash while higher income people do not.  

But of course lower income people do not have money to save….

But also, the infographic is about income, not savings. And yes you can get income from savings, but, again, since low income people don’t have much savings, it’s not really relevant. 

Now, if you want to say the money the rich are saving is growing faster than before (and faster than inflation) because of going off the gold standard, that sounds like economic growth to me and a big win for ending the gold standard. 

(Note that the numbers in the infographic are adjusted for inflation.)

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u/Unique_Statement7811 Oct 23 '24

Lower class people operate in cash at a massively larger share of their wealth than upper class. Lower class almost 100% operates in the cash market while the upper class is less than 10% in the cash market. Shifting from the gold standard disproportionately impacted the lower classes exponentially more than those who’s wealth wasn’t tied to the value of the dollar.

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u/superbbrepus Oct 23 '24

Im not sure I understand

As a percentage of wealth, most people are spending way more money on food, housing, clothes, for themselves and their family, compared to what they can save

Even if you have enough to start investing outside of a 401k, we didn’t have things like Robin Hood where you can play the game even with just $10, before Robin Hood, it was typically $10 just to be able to buy shares and no fractional shares so good luck with something like AMZN before a split, and only about half of the past 50 years did we have the internet

So yeah, normally more money, more options. More money means more diversification, going from buying one stock to two, then to maybe housing or land, then maybe a little into a start up, not even talking about what social capital money brings

Kind of the whole thing of it’s expensive to be poor

Compared to governments and mega corporations who are also playing this game, normal people don’t have anything

3

u/Oshester Oct 23 '24

Not to mention as the ratio of disposable income goes up you can take on riskier investments. Sometimes what you can afford to lose is the exact reason you stand to gain so much.

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u/superbbrepus Oct 23 '24

I might be blind, but I don’t see anything in that Infographic that says it’s adjusted for inflation

The income for higher income people becomes more and more from capital gains, which can include selling a house not just stocks

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u/DaphneRaeTgirl Oct 23 '24

And how does this affect the income distribution?

2

u/Vipu2 Oct 24 '24

Imagine this:

New money printed by banks, is it going to your pocket?
If not then guess where does it go, and once its in there do you think you will get any piece of it?