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Bill Heath's avatar

Matt, a couple of issues. First and foremost the Gini Coefficient increased every year under Obama. It decreased for the first time in half of forever under Trump. not sustainably, of course. K-shaped stimuli are designed to keep forcing the Gini Coefficient higher.

One reason the large firms benefited was the war on small business successfully undertaken by Obama. The most reliable and successful route to upward socioeconomic mobility has always been entrepreneurial pursuit. Immigrants start new businesses at a much higher rate than the native-born, a reason we want more immigrants. New business formations dropped under Obama, and the five-year survival rate plunged. Dodd-Frank created CFPB, which crippled small business.

Second, your citation about 401(k) accounts is from 2017. From 2020, https://medalerthelp.org/blog/retirement-statistics/ reports that 59% of American workers had access to these accounts, but only 32% took advantage of them. That's a failure in life-skills learning, including basic financial education. This is best done in the nuclear family - which the authoritarian left is trying to destroy.

Third is back to the entrepreneurial pursuit issue: It's hard to open a new business when all the existing small businesses are closed. I am a scientist, and can find no information supporting an assertion that the size of a business is relevant to its ability to spread disease, let alone holding a BLM sign or illegally crossing our southern border. I want more opportunities for black Americans and more immigration; I don't want them built on a foundation of lies, any more than I want public health built on that same foundation.

Each of these is a liberal's view of events, not an alt-right bigot's. The fight is between authoritarians and libertarians.

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A. N. Owen's avatar

There's a saying that generals always fight the last war. I can see the same idiom applied to economists.

I have to side with Summers. If anything, most people I've talked to agree that significant inflation is likely coming. It's happened before and why shouldn't it happen again? Record low interest rates + massive stimulus spending all point to one thing = massive inflation in the value of assets (which for most people would be housing and funds).

And who gets screwed when the cost of assets soars? Not the asset owners, who get richer on paper are are protected against inflation by owning assets. But the working people who don't own but must rent, and don't have 401ks or investments. In other words, the working classes are going to get screwed. Again.

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