Wealth/savings inequality is a big driver of low interest rates and to some, the main force behind why interest rates aren’t being raised by the central banks.
Low rates help the wealthy borrow with leverage and get more assets that would be otherwise owned by lower percentile households.
I'm unconvinced high rates or low rates help or hurt the distribution of wealth. If rates are high, you park it and collect yield. If rates are low, you leverage. Both lead to increased inequality.
Wealth is power. If you have lots of wealth, you will be able to find ways to accrue more wealth. If interest rates are up you can swap to other forms of investment.
The handbrakes that are needed is taxation on the wealthy as well as to consider distribution of ownership (if one wishes to decrease wealth inequality).
The issue isn't that the wealthy are accumulating more assets, but that the poor cannot see a way to reach higher than what they have.
Economic inequality is not about lowering the rich to the level of the poor, but giving opportunities to, and enforcing fiscal discipline for, the poor.
What, if I was in charge of the US? If I was the global hegemon? God?
Minimum wage has been stagnant for ages, so that probably needs to change. I'm not of the opinion that it should be possible to support a family of 6, homeownership, and college for all your kids on a burger-flipping job necessarily, but I do think people should be able to get by and support a child or two between a full time minimum wage job and the social safety nets. Speaking of, those need to improve in my opinion. SNAP is pretty solid, but we have too many other points of failure. Too many people are a bad day away from being in a really bad situation, be that a medical issue, car failure, whatever. There are so, so many points of failure here in my opinion. It should be easier to pick yourself back up in my opinion.
In the US, I think enabling the FTC and IRS to be much more aggressive and enact much greater penalties upon those found guilty would be a start.
I would also probably add tax brackets beyond the existing ones, simplify the tax codes, and explore a practical way of effecting a wealth tax. I am generally aware of the plethora of issues people have with the concept, but haven't personally spent a ton of time thinking about it and it's not something I've worked on. I imagine there's a workable solution though. I think another concern with these things is often "what if the rich people all leave," which is silly to some extent in my opinion. The assets aren't necessarily going to up and leave the country. Roman Abramovich left the UK, but he wasn't able to take Chelsea FC with him. But I do think increased international cooperation would be good. You want to live or exist anywhere anyone really wants to live? Pay the price to be part of society.
Global hegemon, no longer need countries to agree upon this, I just do it.
If I were God I'd probably be busy just smiting people I don't like and building waterfalls in Iceland or something.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff and this isn't going to be terribly insightful, I'm in bed and going to sleep. But you wanted word vomit so here you go.
You tax the rich in a way billionaires and trillionaires can’t exist and work with countries around the world to close the loopholes and then build safety nets for the poor via 401K and other types of investments backed by the government, put all that tax money to use by making education and healthcare free, then just wait and watch the dividends coming in
Okay, if you do that tax, then there will be capital flight. Your solution is for all countries to work with you on this, but they likely won't, as billionaires often create business and hence jobs in their countries.
You are just making your country poor for no good reason.
That's why no one deploys leftist 'anti-wealth' policies in reality. They are a result of lacking an education in basic public policy and economics.
So why are there still billionaires then? You said these taxes will eliminate billionaires.
>Right wing agenda
No, I'm just Asian. Asians just believe that if you are poor, you need to study, work hard, and have fiscal discipline. Not right or left here, and frankly, I am fairly left-leaning.
Statistically, wealthy people live in areas with higher taxation, because they like to live in places that are nice and have functional infrastructure.
allocation of ressources is important, because the wealthy whales will inevitably do some wealth protection spending meaning they will find ways to NOT pay taxes or to NOT give away a part of the profits to make the whole of society benefit off it
taxes are indeed the thing to solve inifnite wealth accrual, especially taxes on inheritances and on high wealth or income
For starters no single person should be more wealthy/powerful than state governments.
Otherwise there is no real functioning government. There can't be, as plutocracy is basically cartelism.
It's not possible for Democracy to function or continue to exist as long as billionaires exist.
"1 million seconds is 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is 31.7 years, and 1 trillion seconds is 31,709 years."
Millionaires are a healthy sort of wealthy. Sane & also healthy for encouraging competition, launching big projects without bank loan approval, etc. There's no infinite money hack there either.
Billionaires are sociopathic hoarders. You can't become one and be a decent person.
MacKenzie Scott maybe. But she's not really one of them and she's undoing it. Because sociopathic hoarder money doesn't do any good for anyone while it's still sociopathic hoarder money.
Worst of all, they can borrow indefinitely to repay previous loans indefinitely. No income tax, infinite money hack. So they always have sociopathic hoarder money no matter how much they spend.
No single schlup should control the Atlantic ocean either.
Why not tax wealth directly, instead of just changes in wealth i.e. spending? Recalling calculus, wealth is the integral of net income, so it's quite a different beast.
We probably ought to siphon off as tax approximately the same proportion of wealth, as we do of income. Very (very) approximately, 1/3 of income is siphoned off as tax during a lifetime. So we should think about siphoning approximately the same amount of wealth as tax during a lifetime. Over several decades, a 0.5% annual wealth tax would end up reducing wealth by about that much.
The usual criticism of a wealth tax is that some assets are hard to value. Where it's hard to value, or hard to split up assets, it could be ok to have something like a lien recorded against the asset, which would be called in when change of control/ownership of asset takes place.
Because almost all wealth comes from output, not redistribution. So if you want more equality, tax consumption. Even though a consumption tax reduces output as well, it's less direct. In general I just prefer less taxes.
The biggest problem I see with wealth isn't so much inequality (although there's certainly a moral question about control/distribution of world resources) but about power concentration and subverting political processes.
Would you expect that political donations would be roped into a consumption tax or would you not see them as consumption?
Sure, why not. Though id definitely be wary of classifying donations such as charity as consumption merely on the basis that its a non-rival good being bought.
Anyways, wealth inequality doesn't really seem that bad politically. I think it's largely orthogonal to the issue at hand. I can see that power concentration often leads to wealth inequality, but I am not sure how wealth concentration leads to power concentration, and if it does lead to power concentration, the utility of wealth concentration is too large to give up for moderately small political cost.
Right, but wealth concentration is also largely the cause and effect of rising output, not just some epiphenomena. To put it bluntly, sacrificing output for democracy or something along those lines is not smart.
youre talking as though loopholes wont be a problem; with someone like chump claiming no income, for example. whats to stop all the chumps/loopholers from loopholing? arent the worst ones just loopholers? like people who buy domains for the sake of holding them hostage?
Social Security doesn’t require added debt to address the “fiscal cliff.” They can very easily address it, adding a fair number of years to solvency, by doing nothing more than removing the wage cap.
Right we should continue to have the older generation hold onto jobs that younger people would need to move up the job ladder, great idea! I'm sure that will be very healthy for the economy at large.
We are just going to get forever QE up and down the yield curve.
Also, de-carbonization isn't going to happen imo, same with de-globalization and (hot take for reddit) same with de-dollarization
Adding more so my comment doesn't get deleted by the bot
"In 2025, the IMF reported that, across the globe, companies, households, and countries had amassed $251 trillion in debt. Looking toward the end of 2026, J.P. Morgan has warned that interest rates on such borrowings are set to spike, owing largely to dwindling populations and diminishing fiscal discipline.
In a note yesterday, JPMorgan’s Joyce Chang and team unpacked the “six D’s” that will shape the global economy: Deficits, deregulation, de-carbonization, de-population, de-globalization, and de-dollarization."
Well France and Spain are having it easy these days to carbonize the atmosphere. And I assume it's only a beginning of new ways to send CO2 in the atmosphere.
Eh, even that is mostly failing. Trump and co make a lot of noise but the fact of the matter is we’re building drastically more renewable even under his admin.
It sounds bizzaro from the outside but it makes sense. Texans may vote for idiotic politicians but they make smarter decisions on their land. Except east of I-35, the land is sunny most of the year, and there’s a lot of it that no one’s ever figured out what to do with, and perfect for solar farms. Hell, build em on stilts and your cattle got shade (what cattle remain there).
Cheaper if your pretend those things still provide power at night and batteries aren't needed. I'm really hoping sodium batteries get good enough and cheap enough that clean energy is all we need both day and night.
Check out CATL’s Naxtra. Those have just gone into mass production now, for cars. BYD is close behind with their sodium batteries. Mass production is not yet scale, but in a few years we’ll be there, probably at $20 per kWh of storage, and 10,000 charge-discharge cycles.
Batteries have started to take that role in some regions with more expensive electricity. And they are improving at a good pace, prices down 84% in the last decade. Top tier cells are improving at 7% a year recently. It’s really only a few years away from being competitive practically everywhere.
And it is cheap and is everywhere. Even in relatively low sunlight countries people have put them in their roofs because they are cheap and produce a good output. Sunny regions are full of them.
Concentrated solar power is less used than solar panels but produces a lot of energy and converts that to heat to spin a turbine, which makes it easily combinable with heat storage, allowing it to co tinue providing energy through the night.
Also, batteries have developed a lot as well. A lot of it isn't really conventional batteries as we think of them, but in any case there's one being built literally walking distance to where I live.
> that it was getting so much cheaper every year and that it would soon it would be everywhere
Uh, look around. It is.
The world added 647 GW of new solar in 2025, and 167GW of wind, estimated to generate 1046TWh of power. Even at just staying at that pace of installation you'd have displaced all fossil fuels before 2050. Source
Oh and here's one from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), "NLR is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for critical minerals, energy innovation, and energy security."
You're saying, all of this data, all of it is "propaganda"?
It IS much cheaper when compared to solar systems in 2010 etc... You can thank China for boosting manufacturing for that ;), something America could have jumped on- But it seems you guys are lead by a pack of old men who still get excited over 19th century tech.
I love how boomers latch onto this as some sort of prayer...
In my state in Australia we have large scale battery storage which keeps excess energy and flicks on during the night. Shocking idea I know, but over here, it works.
In a very short time every home and business will have their own batteries. Whether in their vehicles or dedicated storage. These will tie in with rooftop solar, but also store grid energy when it's cheap.
Europe is already proving baseload is no longer a thing, as is Australia. When demand can be sated at local level, and on demand, then the grid can deliver what it has, when it has it.
De-carbonization is unfolding before your very eyes. The rate at which it settles can be discussed, as can how much total energy we will consume, but proportionally clean energy will only grow for the foreseeable future due to economic reasons if nothing else.
Sure if the definition of de-carbonization we are using is just "increasing the percentage of renewable energy sources" But if people are expecting it to get over 50% of total energy production anytime in the next 20 years then I'm skeptical. And then you have to factor in that total energy usage is still growing year over year.
>In 2024, 36% of Australia’s total electricity generation was from renewable energy sources, including solar (18%), wind (12%) and hydro (5%). The share of renewables in total electricity generation in 2024 was the highest on record, a share of 5% higher than the earlier 2023-24 financial year.
>Solar and wind have been the primary drivers in more than doubling renewable generation expansion over the last decade. Small-scale solar generation grew 15% in 2024, and by an average of 21% per year since 2015. Wind generation grew 3% in 2024 and by an average of 12% per year since 2015. Hydro power output has fluctuated around a fairly consistent level according to rainfall and market conditions, losing predominance as generation sources diversified.
>Recently, large-scale solar generation has begun rapid expansion. Large-scale solar generation has grown from negligible levels before 2016 to 7% of all Australian electricity generation in 2024, representing a growth rate of 3,144% from 2016.
little ol' Australia is up to 36% now. A country of 28 million people, has the economic power to do it- Why can't the US? Stuck in the past? Lack the technology? Brain drain? You guys are falling behind. Even China is doing it:
>In 2020, as a part of the Central Committee's fourteenth five-year plan, a target of 20% total energy production from non-fossil fuel sources by 2025 was set.[6][7] As of February 2026, China's clean electricity capacity reached 52%, exceeding its fossil fuel-based electricity generation for the first time.
Emissions are reducing in Europe, but that is where progress ends. China, India, Russia and the US has zero intention of cutting down emissions and all recently argued in the ICJ that there are no legal obligations arising in respect of climate change.
China is the number one importer for oil, coal and gas, and it has the second largest daily oil consumption. China's entire economy, and the green "reforms" it implements are all run on electricity generated from fossil fuels.
In the west, we live in the most legally complex times in human history. The narrative is often oil companies wanting de-regulation for profit, but it's much more complex than that. There are good reason to want de-regulation as small business, citizen and for green reasons. The actual trend is that established industries do regulatory capture, so whoever incumbent prevents innovation.
There is some deregulation in order, but I fear we will be throwing out the baby with the bath water when it really gets going. I sure as shit don’t want to fly in a deregulated air travel industry.
Deregulation is always at the expense of the consumer. It has never been used to "encourage innovation" and is only used to extract more wealth while providing less or providing worse products.
I hope you will eventually realize that, once a lobby group, or an established industry has created a regulatory fence around them, echoing this (typical) sentiment on reddit you are playing into their hands.
Look up adobe(building material) in the US. Cory Doctorow on anti circumnavigation law. Or frankly the whole mass surveillance debacles the last 1-2 decades here on reddit.
I know what regulatory capture is. The solution is not to deregulate. It is to weaponize and mobilize the government agencies that pursue antitrust actions, and end Citizens United. Your solution is more neoliberal tripe that has never fucking worked ever, yet somehow still gets argued for.
De-dollarization is already underway, just look at the changes to central bank reserve holdings over the past 2 years. Also, you can virtually guarantee that the oil moving between Russia/India/China isn't getting priced in dollars.
>Also, de-carbonization isn't going to happen imo, same with de-globalization and (hot take for reddit) same with de-dollarization
If anyone thought any of these things would just "happen" then they're absolute morons who have zero understanding of how the world works.
The above are not just "things" or decisions. They are structural features of the current political system which transcends state boundaries. These are all global superstructures. Reducing carbon emissions in Europe exists in conjunction with carbon emissions in Asia. Europe can cut, but this means little if Europe exports its manufacturing, and the corresponding carbon emissions, to Asia where there exists zero political appetite to cut down. It is global absurdity but a necessary structural feature of popular democracy in the West.
Globalization isn't just a modern thing. It is a historical features which goes back 5000+ years. The premise of a globalized economy has existed for as long as humans have had agriculture. Abundance created supply/demand movements which transcended territorial boundaries. The Sea People had a globalized Mediterranean economy. The Romans were globalized. The Silk Road has existed forever. You cannot end globalization anymore than you could end daylight. Are there conversations needed around the movement of capital and labor? Yes, but this should play out through the lenses of taxation, productivity, wages and quality of living.
The dollar is popular because the US political system is for now stable. Could this change? Yes, it could but the data doesn't exist. China continues to push its hegemony but it continues to retain the USD as a reserve alongside gold. If China, the arch hegemonic rival to the US is still holding USD as a reserve then this demonstrates the USD is something structural. It isn't just a choice but its about risk management. The USD will remain a stable reserve until the day the US collapses politically. How likely do you think that is? The answer is very, very, very unlikely and if it does happen then this would constitute an existential, and fundamentally structural shift in how the entire world works.
"we view de-population as an underappreciated risk that will reduce savings and contribute to higher interest rates."
This makes zero sense.
Interest rates are higher either due to higher inflation or higher economic growth. "De-population" will literally cause lower economic growth as the percentage increase in population falls, so will the demand for higher interest rates on the risk free rate. Examples are abound throughout the entire world where populations getting older and slower growth keeps a cap on interest rates. From Japan to China to Europe. The countries with the highest population growth rates, relatively speaking, also have much higher interest rates.
When there's lower economic growth and people selling their equities, the market will accept lower interest rates because equities won't be offering a good alternative.
Yeah this is why economics is bullshit, a bunch of fortune tellers instead of reading palms they make assumptions based on “metrics”.
Your assumption that lower economic growth will fuel a sell off of equities is just that, an assumption. For 20 years the narrative has been markets only go up and if the market is in trouble a bailout is coming.
Because markets are tied to retirements and old people control who is voted into power, we can rest assured that equities will continue to go up until the paradigm is broken.
Lower population COULD user in an era of deflation as the demand curve will flatten, but your ability to produce will continue to increase. We might even see a market with zero growth but deflation increasing the buying power of every class, except the 1% as their wealth is primarily driven by the market.
Again, this is just an assumption which could be right or could be wrong, but at least I know it’s not a science.
With less people, there is both less buyers of debt, and the debt is riskier as it becomes a larger share of the GDP (since GDP grows slower / not at all, due to declining populations).
Because all the existing debt still exists and continues to accrue interest. And thing like social security and Medicare still need to paid for (with less tax payers to pay for it).
Workers are retiring without young people to replace them, and that's not a recipe for increasing GDP. With government obligations to the retired rising in tandem with reduced revenues from a shrinking pool of workers, I don't know how you get 2% deficits without a big increase in taxes and/or old-age poverty, and 3% GDP growth on fewer workers requires a growth boom driven by capital rather than labor.
Still doesn’t make sense to me. There are a host of factors far more important than population growth in bond markets and GDP growth alike: innovation, application of technology, infrastructure, regulatory/trade frameworks etc.
Banks (and to a degree other credit lenders) have leverage limitations - so they can only lend out a hypothetical 10 times the savings (or similar assets such as bonds) that they hold.
Wealthy people live their lives based on credit. People talk about them as though they have ready cash but they invest pretty much all of that into businesses or financial products with theoretical value.
To realise some of that value they get loans against those assets and live off of those loans. The real value of those assets is often questionable. See Elon Musk and SpaceX.
This is one of the reasons that the wealthy will not tolerate the stock market or property market going down - that would lower the value of their assets and consequently make it harder for them to borrow against those assets.
However, despite having something to borrow against, the credit markets still require their own holding of savings etc in order to offer any credit to the rich. But the rich don’t want to keep any of their assets in anything that liquid (as it doesn’t grow money) so they depend upon the banks using the money of everyone else.
When the number of people saving is reduced, then the amount that the rich can borrow reduces.
Our population reduction has multiple effects. One is that we rely on immigration to offset reduced population. The immigrants utilised are typically for low wage jobs and do not bring much, if any, savings with them so fewer of them contribute to the credit leverage pool.
The rich like them though because it means they can employ them on ‘just above slave’ wages to help grow their ‘asset’ businesses.
While people who are born to parents already in western nations may theoretically inherit some wealth from their parents, their parents typically want them to have a better quality of life (resulting in more money being spent on them and less saved). Again, it negatively affects the credit leverage pool.
A lot of people aren’t intending to have children at all even when they are reasonably well off. That means no saving up for university or buying the kids first car, wedding etc. All those past reasons that parents put money aside for their kids are being reduced. As always, shrinking the credit leverage pool.
Now we are entering another credit crunch. The Iran war, higher fuel prices, a massive amount of credit provided to AI with no sign any of it will be paid back in the near to medium future. The banks (and other credit lenders who have relied upon the banks since the post-2008 leverage rule changes) are pulling back.
However, such credit limitations may well be the norm in future due to the changing demographics. The rich want everyone else to do something about it so they don’t have to change up their portfolios to something a little less profitable.
Interest rates aren't historically high, it's just that all of the ultra-rich shitheads want it as low as possible so they can borrow against their stocks like a piggy bank.
Interest rates are not controlled by billionaires.
They are controlled by Central Banks who make economic policy on the basis of theory, empirical evidence, data projections and subjective bias to make compelling arguments for why a certain policy is needed.
What controls interest rates is argumentation and the kinds of arguments people make.
Not my point. My point is that these ultra-rich shitheads are why you hear constant whining and kicking and screaming about interest rates that are relatively normal. They long for the free money they were getting that fueled the housing bubble and then were used to try to climb out of the hole. They want that to be the norm.
DeathMetal007 | a day ago
There’s still a major part of the economy keeping interest rates low.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/why-the-rich-get-richer-and-interest-rates-go-down
Wealth/savings inequality is a big driver of low interest rates and to some, the main force behind why interest rates aren’t being raised by the central banks.
FearlessPark4588 | 20 hours ago
Low rates help the wealthy borrow with leverage and get more assets that would be otherwise owned by lower percentile households.
I'm unconvinced high rates or low rates help or hurt the distribution of wealth. If rates are high, you park it and collect yield. If rates are low, you leverage. Both lead to increased inequality.
maniacal_cackle | 19 hours ago
> help or hurt the distribution of wealth.
Wealth is power. If you have lots of wealth, you will be able to find ways to accrue more wealth. If interest rates are up you can swap to other forms of investment.
The handbrakes that are needed is taxation on the wealthy as well as to consider distribution of ownership (if one wishes to decrease wealth inequality).
Virtual-Alps-2888 | 18 hours ago
The issue isn't that the wealthy are accumulating more assets, but that the poor cannot see a way to reach higher than what they have.
Economic inequality is not about lowering the rich to the level of the poor, but giving opportunities to, and enforcing fiscal discipline for, the poor.
fa1afel | 16 hours ago
While it's not a zero sum game, pretending that resources aren't finite is sort of forgetting that economics is the study of scarcity and allocation.
IvoryTowerResident | 8 hours ago
that is why there is a massive move amongst the dems based on Ezeal Klein's abundance.
Virtual-Alps-2888 | 16 hours ago
Sure we can talk abstract theorizing all we want, but what would you, in practice, do? What kind of policies you will implement if you could?
That’s the kind of conversation I wish to have.
fa1afel | 15 hours ago
What, if I was in charge of the US? If I was the global hegemon? God?
Minimum wage has been stagnant for ages, so that probably needs to change. I'm not of the opinion that it should be possible to support a family of 6, homeownership, and college for all your kids on a burger-flipping job necessarily, but I do think people should be able to get by and support a child or two between a full time minimum wage job and the social safety nets. Speaking of, those need to improve in my opinion. SNAP is pretty solid, but we have too many other points of failure. Too many people are a bad day away from being in a really bad situation, be that a medical issue, car failure, whatever. There are so, so many points of failure here in my opinion. It should be easier to pick yourself back up in my opinion.
In the US, I think enabling the FTC and IRS to be much more aggressive and enact much greater penalties upon those found guilty would be a start.
I would also probably add tax brackets beyond the existing ones, simplify the tax codes, and explore a practical way of effecting a wealth tax. I am generally aware of the plethora of issues people have with the concept, but haven't personally spent a ton of time thinking about it and it's not something I've worked on. I imagine there's a workable solution though. I think another concern with these things is often "what if the rich people all leave," which is silly to some extent in my opinion. The assets aren't necessarily going to up and leave the country. Roman Abramovich left the UK, but he wasn't able to take Chelsea FC with him. But I do think increased international cooperation would be good. You want to live or exist anywhere anyone really wants to live? Pay the price to be part of society.
Global hegemon, no longer need countries to agree upon this, I just do it.
If I were God I'd probably be busy just smiting people I don't like and building waterfalls in Iceland or something.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff and this isn't going to be terribly insightful, I'm in bed and going to sleep. But you wanted word vomit so here you go.
Virtual-Alps-2888 | 15 hours ago
Okay, I appreciate the actual policies you sounded out. Thanks!
TheNASAguy | 16 hours ago
You tax the rich in a way billionaires and trillionaires can’t exist and work with countries around the world to close the loopholes and then build safety nets for the poor via 401K and other types of investments backed by the government, put all that tax money to use by making education and healthcare free, then just wait and watch the dividends coming in
Virtual-Alps-2888 | 15 hours ago
Okay, if you do that tax, then there will be capital flight. Your solution is for all countries to work with you on this, but they likely won't, as billionaires often create business and hence jobs in their countries.
You are just making your country poor for no good reason.
That's why no one deploys leftist 'anti-wealth' policies in reality. They are a result of lacking an education in basic public policy and economics.
TheNASAguy | 15 hours ago
They did it in NY, no capital flight happened, I can bet money if they did that nationwide there will be some capital flight but negligible
And your right wing agenda is making the rich richer and the poor, poorer
Virtual-Alps-2888 | 15 hours ago
So why are there still billionaires then? You said these taxes will eliminate billionaires.
>Right wing agenda
No, I'm just Asian. Asians just believe that if you are poor, you need to study, work hard, and have fiscal discipline. Not right or left here, and frankly, I am fairly left-leaning.
IvoryTowerResident | 8 hours ago
It will, we have already seen with Ken Griffin. With the empty house tax coming, who knows
jellyhessman | 3 hours ago
Statistically, wealthy people live in areas with higher taxation, because they like to live in places that are nice and have functional infrastructure.
Suspicious_Place1270 | 5 hours ago
allocation of ressources is important, because the wealthy whales will inevitably do some wealth protection spending meaning they will find ways to NOT pay taxes or to NOT give away a part of the profits to make the whole of society benefit off it
taxes are indeed the thing to solve inifnite wealth accrual, especially taxes on inheritances and on high wealth or income
Jonnny | 3 hours ago
That's one aspect of economics, but it's not the only truth. Wealth is produced, yes, but it can also be hoarded. Let's not play pretend.
krung_the_almighty | 19 hours ago
Yes, fundamentally there needs to be limits to what a single person can own.
frankster | 9 hours ago
Or perhaps no hard limits, but increasingly prohibitive taxation, the more you own?
Certain-Mind8119 | 18 hours ago
why would that be the case, anyways you should do a progressive consumption tax if you want less inequality.
Everythinghastags | 17 hours ago
They can only consume so much. Concentrated wealth undermines democratic processes? You need to limit it
oldsecondhand | 10 hours ago
What is even progressive consumption tax? VAT and sales tax are consumption taxes and they're flat taxes in pretty much every existing implementation.
Certain-Mind8119 | 8 hours ago
Im pretty sure some countries have progressive consumption taxes but ok
Congenital0ptimist | 9 hours ago
For starters no single person should be more wealthy/powerful than state governments.
Otherwise there is no real functioning government. There can't be, as plutocracy is basically cartelism.
It's not possible for Democracy to function or continue to exist as long as billionaires exist.
"1 million seconds is 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is 31.7 years, and 1 trillion seconds is 31,709 years."
Millionaires are a healthy sort of wealthy. Sane & also healthy for encouraging competition, launching big projects without bank loan approval, etc. There's no infinite money hack there either.
Billionaires are sociopathic hoarders. You can't become one and be a decent person. MacKenzie Scott maybe. But she's not really one of them and she's undoing it. Because sociopathic hoarder money doesn't do any good for anyone while it's still sociopathic hoarder money.
Worst of all, they can borrow indefinitely to repay previous loans indefinitely. No income tax, infinite money hack. So they always have sociopathic hoarder money no matter how much they spend.
No single schlup should control the Atlantic ocean either.
frankster | 9 hours ago
Why not tax wealth directly, instead of just changes in wealth i.e. spending? Recalling calculus, wealth is the integral of net income, so it's quite a different beast.
We probably ought to siphon off as tax approximately the same proportion of wealth, as we do of income. Very (very) approximately, 1/3 of income is siphoned off as tax during a lifetime. So we should think about siphoning approximately the same amount of wealth as tax during a lifetime. Over several decades, a 0.5% annual wealth tax would end up reducing wealth by about that much.
The usual criticism of a wealth tax is that some assets are hard to value. Where it's hard to value, or hard to split up assets, it could be ok to have something like a lien recorded against the asset, which would be called in when change of control/ownership of asset takes place.
Certain-Mind8119 | 8 hours ago
Because almost all wealth comes from output, not redistribution. So if you want more equality, tax consumption. Even though a consumption tax reduces output as well, it's less direct. In general I just prefer less taxes.
frankster | 8 hours ago
The biggest problem I see with wealth isn't so much inequality (although there's certainly a moral question about control/distribution of world resources) but about power concentration and subverting political processes.
Would you expect that political donations would be roped into a consumption tax or would you not see them as consumption?
Certain-Mind8119 | 8 hours ago
Sure, why not. Though id definitely be wary of classifying donations such as charity as consumption merely on the basis that its a non-rival good being bought.
Anyways, wealth inequality doesn't really seem that bad politically. I think it's largely orthogonal to the issue at hand. I can see that power concentration often leads to wealth inequality, but I am not sure how wealth concentration leads to power concentration, and if it does lead to power concentration, the utility of wealth concentration is too large to give up for moderately small political cost.
frankster | 7 hours ago
> I can see that power concentration often leads to wealth inequality, but I am not sure how wealth concentration leads to power concentration,
I think there are two similar processes at play in each direction. Two sides of the same coin.
Power concentration leads to control of economic resources and wealth concentration.
Wealth concentration leads to control of political/media resources, which leads to power concentration.
Certain-Mind8119 | 7 hours ago
Right, but wealth concentration is also largely the cause and effect of rising output, not just some epiphenomena. To put it bluntly, sacrificing output for democracy or something along those lines is not smart.
Certain-Mind8119 | 7 hours ago
Also, the recent power concentration comes from populism, not wealth concentration.
casualcorey | 7 hours ago
youre talking as though loopholes wont be a problem; with someone like chump claiming no income, for example. whats to stop all the chumps/loopholers from loopholing? arent the worst ones just loopholers? like people who buy domains for the sake of holding them hostage?
mr-blazer | 6 hours ago
What would you do with the tax money?
frankster | 6 hours ago
I would use tax on wealth to reduce tax on income
HulksInvinciblePants | 17 hours ago
> the main force behind why interest rates aren’t being raised by the central banks.
Is that a fun way of saying wealth inequality lowers inflation? Keeping rates down to keep people happy usually leads to hyperinflation.
Doesn’t the research usually point to technological advancement and immigration?
WillTheyKickMeAgain | 22 hours ago
Social Security doesn’t require added debt to address the “fiscal cliff.” They can very easily address it, adding a fair number of years to solvency, by doing nothing more than removing the wage cap.
Splashy01 | 16 hours ago
Or increasing the retirement age.
casualcorey | 7 hours ago
great idea. instead of less than 10 years of retirement we can push it down to 1 year
Emblazin | 6 hours ago
Right we should continue to have the older generation hold onto jobs that younger people would need to move up the job ladder, great idea! I'm sure that will be very healthy for the economy at large.
morbie5 | a day ago
We are just going to get forever QE up and down the yield curve.
Also, de-carbonization isn't going to happen imo, same with de-globalization and (hot take for reddit) same with de-dollarization
Adding more so my comment doesn't get deleted by the bot
"In 2025, the IMF reported that, across the globe, companies, households, and countries had amassed $251 trillion in debt. Looking toward the end of 2026, J.P. Morgan has warned that interest rates on such borrowings are set to spike, owing largely to dwindling populations and diminishing fiscal discipline.
In a note yesterday, JPMorgan’s Joyce Chang and team unpacked the “six D’s” that will shape the global economy: Deficits, deregulation, de-carbonization, de-population, de-globalization, and de-dollarization."
maldovix | a day ago
they invented buckets to have more things that start with "D-"
303uru | a day ago
De-carbonization is happening, it’s far cheaper in most places to build wind or solar.
ericvulgaris | a day ago
To be honest it's really hard to carbonize at this point so it was bound to happen the other direction.
thbb | 14 hours ago
Well France and Spain are having it easy these days to carbonize the atmosphere. And I assume it's only a beginning of new ways to send CO2 in the atmosphere.
big-papito | a day ago
Unless the Reverse Central Planning is happening like in the US. Paying clean energy companies to shut down cheaper sources of energy.
303uru | a day ago
Eh, even that is mostly failing. Trump and co make a lot of noise but the fact of the matter is we’re building drastically more renewable even under his admin.
BasvanS | a day ago
Texas is a leader in renewable energy. Texas!
wbruce098 | 23 hours ago
It sounds bizzaro from the outside but it makes sense. Texans may vote for idiotic politicians but they make smarter decisions on their land. Except east of I-35, the land is sunny most of the year, and there’s a lot of it that no one’s ever figured out what to do with, and perfect for solar farms. Hell, build em on stilts and your cattle got shade (what cattle remain there).
BasvanS | 21 hours ago
Not just sun. Wind too. They cheaped out on winter proofing them, but the bigger picture is clear: the oil state is pro renewables
makemeking706 | 21 hours ago
I've have said that we will get renewables as soon as the old guard are able to maintain their monopolize through the transition. Here we are.
big-papito | a day ago
Yes, they are giving up on those efforts but the fact is still pretty shocking.
paulhags | 23 hours ago
De-population would have a larger impact than any amount of solar panels ever could.
Momoselfie | a day ago
Cheaper if your pretend those things still provide power at night and batteries aren't needed. I'm really hoping sodium batteries get good enough and cheap enough that clean energy is all we need both day and night.
BasvanS | a day ago
Check out CATL’s Naxtra. Those have just gone into mass production now, for cars. BYD is close behind with their sodium batteries. Mass production is not yet scale, but in a few years we’ll be there, probably at $20 per kWh of storage, and 10,000 charge-discharge cycles.
CATL is not a company that overpromises.
Momoselfie | 23 hours ago
That's good to hear. I hope it all pans out
SkiingAway | 22 hours ago
Solar with battery is at this point cheaper than fossil fuel as an energy source in most places.
morbie5 | a day ago
The sun isn't always shining and the wind isn't always blowing. You need a backbone on the grid that is available 24/7
Platos-ghosts | 23 hours ago
Batteries have started to take that role in some regions with more expensive electricity. And they are improving at a good pace, prices down 84% in the last decade. Top tier cells are improving at 7% a year recently. It’s really only a few years away from being competitive practically everywhere.
morbie5 | 23 hours ago
We heard the same thing about solar for years, that it was getting so much cheaper every year and that it would soon it would be everywhere
GalaXion24 | 22 hours ago
And it is cheap and is everywhere. Even in relatively low sunlight countries people have put them in their roofs because they are cheap and produce a good output. Sunny regions are full of them.
Concentrated solar power is less used than solar panels but produces a lot of energy and converts that to heat to spin a turbine, which makes it easily combinable with heat storage, allowing it to co tinue providing energy through the night.
Also, batteries have developed a lot as well. A lot of it isn't really conventional batteries as we think of them, but in any case there's one being built literally walking distance to where I live.
SkiingAway | 22 hours ago
> that it was getting so much cheaper every year and that it would soon it would be everywhere
Uh, look around. It is.
The world added 647 GW of new solar in 2025, and 167GW of wind, estimated to generate 1046TWh of power. Even at just staying at that pace of installation you'd have displaced all fossil fuels before 2050. Source
morbie5 | 21 hours ago
That source is propaganda
Cpt_Soban | 21 hours ago
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices
Uh... Here? The data sources are below...
https://www.solarchoice.net.au/solar-panels/solar-power-system-prices/
Here's another from Australia
https://www.nlr.gov/solar/market-research-analysis/solar-installed-system-cost
Oh and here's one from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), "NLR is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for critical minerals, energy innovation, and energy security."
You're saying, all of this data, all of it is "propaganda"?
Cpt_Soban | 21 hours ago
It IS much cheaper when compared to solar systems in 2010 etc... You can thank China for boosting manufacturing for that ;), something America could have jumped on- But it seems you guys are lead by a pack of old men who still get excited over 19th century tech.
Platos-ghosts | 20 hours ago
Solar is by far the #1 source of new electricity in the US. Here is a link from the Trump energy information institute https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67205
Last year 51% of new capacity was solar, 28% battery, 14% wind, 7% gas. It’s all transitioning, just takes time.
Cpt_Soban | 21 hours ago
I love how boomers latch onto this as some sort of prayer...
In my state in Australia we have large scale battery storage which keeps excess energy and flicks on during the night. Shocking idea I know, but over here, it works.
morbie5 | 20 hours ago
> I love how boomers latch onto this as some sort of prayer...
Ironic you say that considering people latch onto green energy like it is a religion LMAO
> but over here, it works
No one is saying it doesn't "work", the question is "how expensive is it?"
Cpt_Soban | 19 hours ago
> Ironic you say that considering people latch onto green energy like it is a religion LMAO
We don't though?
>No one is saying it doesn't "work", the question is "how expensive is it?"
Cheaper than previous years and going down, please refer to my other replies...
morbie5 | 19 hours ago
> We don't though?
You do tho
Cpt_Soban | 19 hours ago
Show me where "I" do lol. Stop being dumb mate.
morbie5 | 18 hours ago
First it was "we" now it is "I"? Pick one mate
Cpt_Soban | 15 hours ago
>You do tho
Your comment not mine, look up mate. If you're struggling this much no wonder why the magic of "solar power" confuses you.
BigBadAl | 22 hours ago
In a very short time every home and business will have their own batteries. Whether in their vehicles or dedicated storage. These will tie in with rooftop solar, but also store grid energy when it's cheap.
Europe is already proving baseload is no longer a thing, as is Australia. When demand can be sated at local level, and on demand, then the grid can deliver what it has, when it has it.
WolfsBaneViking | 22 hours ago
Wood chips and straw are both combustibles that are solar powered and available to cover you in the cold still nights.
capitalsfan08 | 22 hours ago
De-carbonization is unfolding before your very eyes. The rate at which it settles can be discussed, as can how much total energy we will consume, but proportionally clean energy will only grow for the foreseeable future due to economic reasons if nothing else.
morbie5 | 22 hours ago
Sure if the definition of de-carbonization we are using is just "increasing the percentage of renewable energy sources" But if people are expecting it to get over 50% of total energy production anytime in the next 20 years then I'm skeptical. And then you have to factor in that total energy usage is still growing year over year.
Cpt_Soban | 21 hours ago
>In 2024, 36% of Australia’s total electricity generation was from renewable energy sources, including solar (18%), wind (12%) and hydro (5%). The share of renewables in total electricity generation in 2024 was the highest on record, a share of 5% higher than the earlier 2023-24 financial year.
>Solar and wind have been the primary drivers in more than doubling renewable generation expansion over the last decade. Small-scale solar generation grew 15% in 2024, and by an average of 21% per year since 2015. Wind generation grew 3% in 2024 and by an average of 12% per year since 2015. Hydro power output has fluctuated around a fairly consistent level according to rainfall and market conditions, losing predominance as generation sources diversified.
>Recently, large-scale solar generation has begun rapid expansion. Large-scale solar generation has grown from negligible levels before 2016 to 7% of all Australian electricity generation in 2024, representing a growth rate of 3,144% from 2016.
https://www.energy.gov.au/energy-data/australian-energy-statistics/renewables
little ol' Australia is up to 36% now. A country of 28 million people, has the economic power to do it- Why can't the US? Stuck in the past? Lack the technology? Brain drain? You guys are falling behind. Even China is doing it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China
>In 2020, as a part of the Central Committee's fourteenth five-year plan, a target of 20% total energy production from non-fossil fuel sources by 2025 was set.[6][7] As of February 2026, China's clean electricity capacity reached 52%, exceeding its fossil fuel-based electricity generation for the first time.
Guilty_Perception_35 | 13 hours ago
Is this couting vehicles, farm equipment, etc.
Not saying it's not swell or anything, just curious what the total sum % of everything would be
Cpt_Soban | 13 hours ago
We're discussing power generation. But on the topic of vehicles:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/electric-car-use-by-country
China: 11.3 million
US: 1.5 million
And that's just 2024...
Guilty_Perception_35 | 13 hours ago
Thanks, but don't give a shit about US or China
Was interested in Australia
Didn't realize this was just some America bad China good garbage
Have a good day
Cpt_Soban | 13 hours ago
Ah, sorry about that
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/soaring-ev-sales-to-shield-australia-from-fuel-shortages-20260724-p60i5h.html
It's spiking in sales
TubeframeMR2 | 21 hours ago
A number of countries are already well past 50% if you include nuclear. Canada is close to 80% non carbon.
morbie5 | 20 hours ago
Sure if we are including nuclear in the equation then that changes things a lot
> Canada is close to 80% non carbon
Then add in all the nasty, dirty oil they produce and export in Alberta
TubeframeMR2 | 9 hours ago
Nuclear is non carbon. If you take out nuclear Canada is close to 70 percent.
morbie5 | 4 hours ago
> Nuclear is non carbon
No it isn't, it is lower carbon. It takes a lot of carbon to make the nuclear planet tho
Thom0 | 11 hours ago
It is objectively not.
Emissions are reducing in Europe, but that is where progress ends. China, India, Russia and the US has zero intention of cutting down emissions and all recently argued in the ICJ that there are no legal obligations arising in respect of climate change.
China is the number one importer for oil, coal and gas, and it has the second largest daily oil consumption. China's entire economy, and the green "reforms" it implements are all run on electricity generated from fossil fuels.
The__Amorphous | 22 hours ago
Wtf regulation is there to de-regulate at this point?
WWWeirdGuy | 21 hours ago
In the west, we live in the most legally complex times in human history. The narrative is often oil companies wanting de-regulation for profit, but it's much more complex than that. There are good reason to want de-regulation as small business, citizen and for green reasons. The actual trend is that established industries do regulatory capture, so whoever incumbent prevents innovation.
LegSpecialist1781 | 19 hours ago
There is some deregulation in order, but I fear we will be throwing out the baby with the bath water when it really gets going. I sure as shit don’t want to fly in a deregulated air travel industry.
veryupsetandbitter | 18 hours ago
Deregulation is always at the expense of the consumer. It has never been used to "encourage innovation" and is only used to extract more wealth while providing less or providing worse products.
WWWeirdGuy | 10 hours ago
I hope you will eventually realize that, once a lobby group, or an established industry has created a regulatory fence around them, echoing this (typical) sentiment on reddit you are playing into their hands.
Look up adobe(building material) in the US. Cory Doctorow on anti circumnavigation law. Or frankly the whole mass surveillance debacles the last 1-2 decades here on reddit.
veryupsetandbitter | 5 hours ago
I know what regulatory capture is. The solution is not to deregulate. It is to weaponize and mobilize the government agencies that pursue antitrust actions, and end Citizens United. Your solution is more neoliberal tripe that has never fucking worked ever, yet somehow still gets argued for.
makemeking706 | 21 hours ago
You'd be surprised at how far from the wild west we still are despite how it currently feels.
bellybuttonbidet | 22 hours ago
Dollar stays if the US wins WW3
veryupsetandbitter | 18 hours ago
The USA can't even beat Iran. Besides, no one wins WW3.
bellybuttonbidet | 18 hours ago
No poor people win.
veryupsetandbitter | 18 hours ago
I'd honestly prefer going out with a bang than survive a nuclear holocaust in an underground bunker.
bellybuttonbidet | 18 hours ago
Does the going out with a bang include getting off work early? I’d be down too.
veryupsetandbitter | 17 hours ago
Agreed. At this point, I welcome that ending. The best part is that I won't have to work the next day.
morbie5 | 21 hours ago
OMG an actual comment that isn't about "de-carbonization" LMAO
ImNotHere2023 | 21 hours ago
De-dollarization is already underway, just look at the changes to central bank reserve holdings over the past 2 years. Also, you can virtually guarantee that the oil moving between Russia/India/China isn't getting priced in dollars.
morbie5 | 20 hours ago
> just look at the changes to central bank reserve holdings over the past 2 years
Central bank holdings is only one part of dollarization
> Also, you can virtually guarantee that the oil moving between Russia/India/China isn't getting priced in dollars
Cuz they are forced into that situation due to sanctions
ImNotHere2023 | 20 hours ago
That's a bit like saying the engine is only one part of a car... it's the most important part.
Thom0 | 12 hours ago
>Also, de-carbonization isn't going to happen imo, same with de-globalization and (hot take for reddit) same with de-dollarization
If anyone thought any of these things would just "happen" then they're absolute morons who have zero understanding of how the world works.
The above are not just "things" or decisions. They are structural features of the current political system which transcends state boundaries. These are all global superstructures. Reducing carbon emissions in Europe exists in conjunction with carbon emissions in Asia. Europe can cut, but this means little if Europe exports its manufacturing, and the corresponding carbon emissions, to Asia where there exists zero political appetite to cut down. It is global absurdity but a necessary structural feature of popular democracy in the West.
Globalization isn't just a modern thing. It is a historical features which goes back 5000+ years. The premise of a globalized economy has existed for as long as humans have had agriculture. Abundance created supply/demand movements which transcended territorial boundaries. The Sea People had a globalized Mediterranean economy. The Romans were globalized. The Silk Road has existed forever. You cannot end globalization anymore than you could end daylight. Are there conversations needed around the movement of capital and labor? Yes, but this should play out through the lenses of taxation, productivity, wages and quality of living.
The dollar is popular because the US political system is for now stable. Could this change? Yes, it could but the data doesn't exist. China continues to push its hegemony but it continues to retain the USD as a reserve alongside gold. If China, the arch hegemonic rival to the US is still holding USD as a reserve then this demonstrates the USD is something structural. It isn't just a choice but its about risk management. The USD will remain a stable reserve until the day the US collapses politically. How likely do you think that is? The answer is very, very, very unlikely and if it does happen then this would constitute an existential, and fundamentally structural shift in how the entire world works.
jellyhessman | 3 hours ago
NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE. ROME WILL STAND FOREVER.
morbie5 | 2 hours ago
Rome stood for a long time
tachyonvelocity | 23 hours ago
"we view de-population as an underappreciated risk that will reduce savings and contribute to higher interest rates."
This makes zero sense.
Interest rates are higher either due to higher inflation or higher economic growth. "De-population" will literally cause lower economic growth as the percentage increase in population falls, so will the demand for higher interest rates on the risk free rate. Examples are abound throughout the entire world where populations getting older and slower growth keeps a cap on interest rates. From Japan to China to Europe. The countries with the highest population growth rates, relatively speaking, also have much higher interest rates.
Timbo1994 | 23 hours ago
When there's lower economic growth and people selling their equities, the market will accept lower interest rates because equities won't be offering a good alternative.
Smithc0mmaj0hn | 22 hours ago
Yeah this is why economics is bullshit, a bunch of fortune tellers instead of reading palms they make assumptions based on “metrics”.
Your assumption that lower economic growth will fuel a sell off of equities is just that, an assumption. For 20 years the narrative has been markets only go up and if the market is in trouble a bailout is coming.
Because markets are tied to retirements and old people control who is voted into power, we can rest assured that equities will continue to go up until the paradigm is broken.
Lower population COULD user in an era of deflation as the demand curve will flatten, but your ability to produce will continue to increase. We might even see a market with zero growth but deflation increasing the buying power of every class, except the 1% as their wealth is primarily driven by the market.
Again, this is just an assumption which could be right or could be wrong, but at least I know it’s not a science.
Timbo1994 | 22 hours ago
Sorry, I didn't mean lower economic growth will cause a selloff of equities.
I meant that demographic decline will cause both, in the way that demographic rise has helped cause a rise in both
bankermayfield2026 | 22 hours ago
It makes complete sense.
With less people, there is both less buyers of debt, and the debt is riskier as it becomes a larger share of the GDP (since GDP grows slower / not at all, due to declining populations).
PoopyisSmelly | 17 hours ago
Why do governments need to issue more debt with less people? Why wouldnt debt scale down with less people and thus less infrastructure?
This assumes taxes and spending never change. I geuss....fair. But there is no reason for this to be the eventuality.
bankermayfield2026 | 17 hours ago
Because all the existing debt still exists and continues to accrue interest. And thing like social security and Medicare still need to paid for (with less tax payers to pay for it).
PoopyisSmelly | 17 hours ago
I mean there are a lot of assumptions being made, the biggest of which is that government spending must continue to go up. Why would it?
If deficits were capped at 2% of GDP and GDP grows at 3% your problem goes away very shortly.
stillyslalom | 16 hours ago
Workers are retiring without young people to replace them, and that's not a recipe for increasing GDP. With government obligations to the retired rising in tandem with reduced revenues from a shrinking pool of workers, I don't know how you get 2% deficits without a big increase in taxes and/or old-age poverty, and 3% GDP growth on fewer workers requires a growth boom driven by capital rather than labor.
PoopyisSmelly | 16 hours ago
Productivity gains can increase GDP with a shrinking pool of workers
Who says taxes will not be higher in 10-15 years? Despite what people claim, Medicare, Medicaid, and SS can be fixed very easily.
3% GDP on fewer workers doesnt require labor or financial capital, it can use human capital via productivity.
bankermayfield2026 | 9 hours ago
I think you’re mixing up “what is” versus “what ought to be”.
It’d be great if we had a fiscally responsible government, we don’t.
Aggravating-Bet-607 | 22 hours ago
Still doesn’t make sense to me. There are a host of factors far more important than population growth in bond markets and GDP growth alike: innovation, application of technology, infrastructure, regulatory/trade frameworks etc.
The_10th_Woman | 13 hours ago
Banks (and to a degree other credit lenders) have leverage limitations - so they can only lend out a hypothetical 10 times the savings (or similar assets such as bonds) that they hold.
Wealthy people live their lives based on credit. People talk about them as though they have ready cash but they invest pretty much all of that into businesses or financial products with theoretical value.
To realise some of that value they get loans against those assets and live off of those loans. The real value of those assets is often questionable. See Elon Musk and SpaceX.
This is one of the reasons that the wealthy will not tolerate the stock market or property market going down - that would lower the value of their assets and consequently make it harder for them to borrow against those assets.
However, despite having something to borrow against, the credit markets still require their own holding of savings etc in order to offer any credit to the rich. But the rich don’t want to keep any of their assets in anything that liquid (as it doesn’t grow money) so they depend upon the banks using the money of everyone else.
When the number of people saving is reduced, then the amount that the rich can borrow reduces.
Our population reduction has multiple effects. One is that we rely on immigration to offset reduced population. The immigrants utilised are typically for low wage jobs and do not bring much, if any, savings with them so fewer of them contribute to the credit leverage pool.
The rich like them though because it means they can employ them on ‘just above slave’ wages to help grow their ‘asset’ businesses.
While people who are born to parents already in western nations may theoretically inherit some wealth from their parents, their parents typically want them to have a better quality of life (resulting in more money being spent on them and less saved). Again, it negatively affects the credit leverage pool.
A lot of people aren’t intending to have children at all even when they are reasonably well off. That means no saving up for university or buying the kids first car, wedding etc. All those past reasons that parents put money aside for their kids are being reduced. As always, shrinking the credit leverage pool.
Now we are entering another credit crunch. The Iran war, higher fuel prices, a massive amount of credit provided to AI with no sign any of it will be paid back in the near to medium future. The banks (and other credit lenders who have relied upon the banks since the post-2008 leverage rule changes) are pulling back.
However, such credit limitations may well be the norm in future due to the changing demographics. The rich want everyone else to do something about it so they don’t have to change up their portfolios to something a little less profitable.
Majestic-Volume9996 | 20 hours ago
Interest rates aren't historically high, it's just that all of the ultra-rich shitheads want it as low as possible so they can borrow against their stocks like a piggy bank.
Virtual-Alps-2888 | 16 hours ago
Interest rates are controlled by central banks. This isn’t some conspiracy by the rich, but it is a conspiracy to believe so.
Majestic-Volume9996 | 2 hours ago
I never implied they were controlled by the rich, im explaining why people like Donald Trump kick and scream constantly about it.
Thom0 | 11 hours ago
Interest rates are not controlled by billionaires.
They are controlled by Central Banks who make economic policy on the basis of theory, empirical evidence, data projections and subjective bias to make compelling arguments for why a certain policy is needed.
What controls interest rates is argumentation and the kinds of arguments people make.
Majestic-Volume9996 | 2 hours ago
Not my point. My point is that these ultra-rich shitheads are why you hear constant whining and kicking and screaming about interest rates that are relatively normal. They long for the free money they were getting that fueled the housing bubble and then were used to try to climb out of the hole. They want that to be the norm.