 |
 |
It is my understanding that the note I sent round about rich Americans was a bit on the short side for those not immersed in current economic analysis. I apologize for this. I think that the two links I present this time about the richest Americans getting the biggest part of the pie are better explained. In Randy Wray's chart, you will notice that the 90% have had their share of the pie reduced. I hope this works better for all. http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/10/rising-tides-lift-yachts-1-grabs-gains-growth.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/upshot/the-benefits-of-economic-expansions-are-increasingly-going-to-the-richest-americans.html It is becoming clearer that it isn't sufficient to say that the economy is growing simpliciter. It is necessary to know for whom it is growing. While the US disparities are perhaps greater than those here, it is obviously insufficient for Osborne (or Carney (who I have been told is a closet neocon)) to merely point to economic growth and crow that their austerity plans are working and that interest rates can now rise. Working for whom? Who are these new interest rates going to benefit? The answers I believe are becoming more obvious every day to more and more people. Yet the organ grinder still plays on, even though the audience no longer likes the tune. The inexcusable cowardice of the Labour Party is inexplicable. All they have to do to begin to put together an alternative economic narrative is read one book, and it isn't Piketty's. It is Randall Wray's Modern Money Theory. It is relatively short and not too technical. One may well encounter unfamiliar concepts, but I think that is to be expected when you come across a new narrative. This narrative has an illustrious though not well known history. When you read some of the work that informs this new narrative, known as MMT, you find that writers in the thirties and forties seemed to understand how the economy worked better than present claimants do. And the economic system we have now and have had since 1971 is similar to the one that operated from around the mid-thirties to the implementation of the Bretton Woods agreement in the mid-forties. I hope these links help show how almost everyone is getting shafted for the benefit of a few. I should end with a small caveat. There is some disagreement concerning the size of the disparity of the shaft. This is one view of it. larry Dr L Brownstein [Alt-e] [log in to unmask] Review Editor Radical Statistics ****************************************************** Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your message will go only to the sender of this message. If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically to [log in to unmask] Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. *******************************************************