by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
The Elephant in the Room–No, the Other Elephant
Charles Hugh Smith [Of Two Minds, via Naked Capitalism 11-15-2024]
…The reason why it’s so easy to ignore extreme wealth inequality (EWI) is that we don’t experience EWI as a thing, we experience a decline in our standard of living as wealth is siphoned up into the top 10%….
The RAND study Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 concluded that capital skimmed $50 trillion from labor from 1975 to 2018.
Using data from the Federal Reserve’s FRED database (series A4102E1A156NBEA), correspondent Alain M. calculated the actual sum for the period 1970 to 2022 (2022 being the most recent data available) was a staggering $149 trillion: his spreadsheet is available here as a PDF: Employees Share of Gross Domestic Income 1970-2022.
If wage earners’ share of Gross Domestic Income had remained at 51% instead of declining to 43%, wage earners would have received an additional $149 trillion over those 52 years. That’s roughly $3 trillion a year, which works out to an additional $22,000 annually for America’s 134 million full-time workers or an additional $18,000 annually for the nation’s entire work force (full-time, part-time, self-employed, gig workers) of 163 million….
In my view, there should be zero taxes on all earnings up to the median wage of $60,000 annually–no Social Security taxes, nothing–and progressively steeper taxes on all income / capital gains from capital/finance above some modest amount, say half of the median wage ($30,000 annually), along with a transaction tax for every financial trade submitted, whether it executes or not. Shifting the tax burden from labor to capital/finance would at least start the overdue rebalancing….
Crypto industry accounts for half of corporate donations in 2024 election
GRAPH: Top 10 corporate campaign funders in the 2024 US election
[Public Citizen, via The Big Picture 11-17-2024]
- In 2024, crypto corporations have poured over $119 million directly into influencing federal elections, primarily into a non-partisan super PAC dedicated to electing pro-crypto candidates and defeating crypto skeptics.
- Crypto corporations are by far the dominant corporate political spenders in 2024 as nearly half (44%) of all corporate money contributed during this year’s elections ($274 million so far) came from crypto backers.
- Koch Industries is a distant second place in 2024. The privately held conglomerate owned by Charles and, formerly, the late David Koch, contributed $25 million to its Koch-controlled Americans for Prosperity Action and $3.25 million toward electing Republicans to Congress.
[TW: cryptocurrencies were created and promoted by libertarians in line with their dream of total freedom from government regulation and oversight. In the Federalist Number 10, Madison wrote “The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation.” In the Federalist Number 15, Hamilton poses one simple question to test the worth of any national financial scheme: “Is private credit the friend and patron of industry?” Which has contributed more to the advance of the human condition? Libertarianism, or the civic republicanism embodied by Madison and Hamilton? It is exactly because they are unable or unwilling to contemplate such questions that USA and western elites have so little support among their publics. ]
Welcome To The United States of Crypto (podcast)
Jared Jacang Maher, November 15, 2024 [The Lever]
After spending hundreds of millions to influence politicians in both parties, the industry defeated some of its fiercest critics and scored bipartisan support, particularly from President-elect Donald Trump, despite crypto’s potential risks for consumers and the financial system. Today on Lever Time, Lever reporter Freddy Brewster discusses crypto’s emergence as a political power broker and what industry insiders are hoping for in return for their massive donations….
For a transcript of this episode, click here.