Almost all of US debt is internal. Social security and the federal reserve are the two biggest holders. Only 25% is in other countries, and the largest single other country is Japan at 3%.
If there is a secret Trump plan to devalue the dollar and force us treasury holders to accept cheaper longer term debt, the biggest plenary will be to social security.
(Though on the last numbers I saw had the UK and China with far more similar amounts of holdings.$
Calling T-bills debt is only half the picture. They function more like dollars, whose value can be deflated or increased after issuance merely by changing interest rates.
Not to mention a _huge_ [1][2] increase in wealth inequality over the past 30 years as well.
Instead of progressive taxes and taxing the rich more, you end up instead with tax _breaks_ for the richest and regressive taxes instead (tariffs, which are effectively a national sales tax).
I guess the current tactic is to distract people with "those terrible immigrants are at fault" and DOGE and constant policy changes.
The usual HN response to wealth inequality is "why do you care how much they have?" The answer is, of course, that money is power and the power that many of the wealthy are exercising is not to the benefit of most people.
You don't even need to think about money as power, you can just think about money as money. There's a far simpler way to think about wealth inequality. If you believe it's a problem, by definition the people holding the wealth are the cause of the problem. This isn't some social or philosophical construct - it's just basic deduction.
So quite literally, the wealthy holding the money means less money to go around to everyone else. The more they hold themselves, the more is withheld from everyone else. You can have debates about wealth distribution endlessly because it's subjective and complicated, but you can't argue that the wealthy getting richer is good for anyone except the wealthy. Trickle-down-economics has already been established as propaganda at this point.
I understand that wealth is not static in the world and it's possible to create wealth for everyone, but my point is money hoarding is definitionally the cause of wealth inequality.
If the wealthy held their wealth in money then there would be no problem. The problem arises because the wealthy hold their wealth in assets, the most productive of which become hoarded in fewer and fewer silos. Since the assets are desireable and increasing in scarcity their asking price increases. Since this price is paid in money, the value of money falls. This would be fine except that most normal people do hold most of their wealth in money so this reduction in buying power makes them poorer.
This split is particularly difficult to address because money is easy to tax (redistribute) while assets that may or may not be for sale at some arbitrary asking price are a lot harder to break up in this way.
Ultimately, to attempt to extract and redistribute this sort of ethereal wealth requires unpopular adjustments to long-held values of personal freedom and ownership that make the whole system possible in the first place.
The problem may in fact be insoluble sustainably. Most of human history provides examples of extreme wealth inequality.
I get what you say -- hoarded wealth is essentially idle. But I think there's more to it. The people who hold that wealth prefer to live in one country, and have inflicted themselves on the governance of that country.
> I get what you say -- hoarded wealth is essentially idle.
I'm not talking at all about wealth being idle in my previous comment. My point is entirely that the more money the rich have, the less money the poor have.
What you're bringing up is how the wealthy use their money to change their political environment to benefit themselves. This is also a problem, but is parallel to the point I was making.
You are replying to every single comment - you seem really upset about this. I never said anything was stolen from me. I said wealth inequality is the result of rich people holding money, because by definition there can be no wealth inequality without rich people. It's an objective statement and you're projecting so much political vitriol onto it.
> That doesn't all mean they are "holding" money. Money is not the same thing as wealth. Personally, I don't have any money other than pocket change.
I'm using money and wealth interchangeably here because there is no meaningful distinction in this context. I cannot take you seriously when you keep bringing up irrelevant things. It's obvious you don't understand my point. And I've had enough arguments with you on this site over the years to know it's a waste of my time to engage with you more than I already have.
It would be absurd to expect to change anyone's core beliefs with a couple of HN posts.
I'm satisfied just letting you know there is a case for free markets. I also admit that it is not an easy thing to understand. How can a chaotic system possibly work?
For a given definition, it doesn't. At least, not without vastly understating the gov's role (some might say responsibility) to step in and monopoly bust, regulate strategically important sectors of the economy, and generally try to provide human-scale stability to a system that tends to want to burn itself and polite society down more than a caffeinated toddler with an outlet, a fork, and a dream.
That's debatable. The US economy grew spectacularly in its first century, pulling scores of millions of poor people up into the middle class and beyond.
Regulation along the lines of enforcing contracts, protecting rights, and internalizing exernalities are the proper role of government.
Governments have never managed to make economies stable.
> It would be absurd to expect to change anyone's core beliefs with a couple of HN posts.
I 100% agree.
> I'm satisfied just letting you know there is a case for free markets.
I'm a believer in free markets. You just cannot stop projecting assumptions onto me. I've clarified my point multiple times already so I'm not going to bother repeating myself again. I think we can both agree it's okay to be misunderstood by people on the internet.
> "I'm satisfied just letting you know there is a case for free markets."
There's no such thing as "free markets", it's A. Smith's BS.
> "I also admit that it is not an easy thing to understand. How can a chaotic system possibly work?"
A chaotic system cannot work for any meaningful stretch of time. Moreover, we don't have a chaotic system, actually it's a system under finely tuned control: Biden placed 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, helping Tesla. Trump added more tariffs on China, exempted Tesla... Truly a chaotic coincidence /s
> the wealthy holding the money means less money to go around to everyone else
Wealthy entrepreneuers created their wealth, it was not transferred to them. It does not reduce the amount of money elsewhere.
The wealthy do not "hoard" wealth, either. They invest it. All of it. Even checking accounts are not hoarded wealth, because the money you put in it is loaned out by the bank (less the reserve requirements).
This is largely debatable and hard to measure. The thing about creation is that it's not black or white, it's gray.
Everything relies on thousands of other things. Products and services are huge graphs that nobody truly understands and that span hundreds of years. How much is created, and how much is reused? Hard to say.
At least some of the money is taken via exploitation. For example, if you opt to outsource product X to some third-world country and you drop labor cost 10%, and that in turn grows your company, you did not "create" that growth. You systematically stole it.
Another example we see a lot today is cutting quality. A lot of goods today are produced more efficiently, but not as much as you may think, because some of the productivity gains is simply pseudo-monopolies using their market dominance to cut quality without recourse. It's just human nature that we can't perceive a, say, 1% cut in quality. But if you cut 1% every year for half a century, then congratulations, you "created" a bunch of wealth. But you didn't actually create anything.
Choice isn't binary, it's a continuous distribution. There's not "free choice" and then "gun to head".
Work, especially for vulnerable, exploited populations, is not voluntary. Particularly when we talk about pseudo-slavery tactics used on migrant workers or other vulnerable populations.
There's a reason companies will often progressively move down to poorer, more vulnerable populations for their labor. Those people are much easier to exploit. We even see this in the US, to an extent. Tyson recently had a debacle where they threatened their (knowingly undocumented) workers with ICE if they attempted to unionize. To call this "voluntary" is willfully ignorant, at best.
Some items absolutely are zero sum - anything that is in short supply with a high demand becomes unobtainable for anyone who isn't rich.
Some things that are effectively out of reach for at least half of everyone:
Mansions and Luxury Condos in desirable locations
Private Jet
Private Island
The best quality food
2021 Ferrari 812 GTS
The best legal advice
A favor from a US Senator
These things are effectively zero-sum, only a limited number of people can have them and we can't expand the supply very much (or intentionally don't because that would hurt their exclusivity value).
The wealthy aren't exactly hoarding the money under their bed. They buy treasuries and bonds so the money get used elsewhere in the economy to do something.
The federal government's credit card is funded by the saving of the rich, which allowed us to run up huge debt.
The vast inequality you seen is the result of undertaxation of monopolies and deliberate granting of monopolies. Disney wouldn't be as big if copyright actually expire some 20 years after the fact.
Anyway, the billionaire are less relevant to you than the average homeowner next door. They are the one who hold further infill development hostage and are inimical to anyone who would depress the value of their home.
High housing prices are the result of a housing shortage. The shortage is the result of government zoning, regulation, and slow-walking building permits.
(Apparently California has only issued 4 permits so far for people to rebuild after the fires.)
Luxuries are cheap and getting cheaper. Basic necessities like housing are increasingly expensive. That's where most of the inequality is being felt by people.
Particularly after Citizens United, money has squelched voter influence in favor of a few large donors. People don't seem to realize however imperfect the choices are, actively voting against this agenda instead of giving up and hoping it'll somehow work out will fail.
One easy thing you can do on HN is replace "they" with "we" in a lot of those instances.
HN has a lot of good people. HN also has a lot of people who consider themselves supporters of meritocracy and see everything they've achieved as solely a result of their own hard work. HN also has a lot of people with absolutely mind blowing levels of wealth. HN also has a lot of people who, saying it as kindly as I can, just do not know what life is like for a normal person.
I actually wonder how much of the stagflation in the 1970s was caused by tax cuts for the rich. It would make sense, if you think about it. If rich people spent more on luxuries, then the free market would naturally move resources away from creating necessities. This results in a shortage of necessities, resulting in higher prices. There's no increase in productivity caused by just shuffling jobs around, so the economy would be relatively stagnant.
I'm not saying the oil crisis wasn't a major factor, but I'm curious how much of it was from voodoo economics...
> If rich people spent more on luxuries, then the free market would naturally move resources away from creating necessities. This results in a shortage of necessities, resulting in higher prices. There's no increase in productivity caused by just shuffling jobs around, so the economy would be relatively stagnant
I agree. And further, the whole concept of "trickle down economics" always seemed like a propaganda scam to me -- I mean, how much _do_ the exceptionally wealthy even spend when going about their daily lives? And how much of that just ends up going to other super wealthy people anyway (private jets, yachts, fashion, etc)?
It isn't like they are buying millions of dollars worth of locally sourced items in their communities every day of the year.
> how much _do_ the exceptionally wealthy even spend when going about their daily lives?
They invest in companies. Take a look at the annual report for any public corporation. The category of "Expenses" is what gets spent on plant, equipment, salaries, interest, etc.
Roughly speaking, "Profit" is Revenue minus Expenses. Profit accrues to the investors. If the Profit turns out to be less than zero, that loss is attached to the investors.
> It isn't like they are buying millions of dollars worth of locally sourced items in their communities every day of the year.
>>> If the Profit turns out to be less than zero, that loss is attached to the investors.
Within limits. "Limitation of liability" circumscribes the investors' exposure to loss. The loss may also be attached to creditors, workers, and the general public.
You could replace one rich guy with a larger number of average Joe shareholders and still obtain the same results (or better, since average Joes usually tend not to be ego-tripping activist investors).
You spend less, proportionally, of your income the richer you are. Economic activity scales inversely with wealth.
Poor people spend close to 100% of their income on consumption, middle class people a little less, and up into the billionaires we're looking at less than 1%.
They "move money" in other ways, but I think the key here is that those other ways are just necessarily less economically stimulating.
What tax cuts for the rich were there in the 1970s? The tax cuts came in the 80's. There were also Nixon's price controls, which Carter continued, which were another disaster.
For example, let's say the only things you spend money on are eggs and gas. One day, the price of eggs goes up. You buy eggs, now you have less money to spend on gas. The demand for gas goes down, and so does its price.
I.e. a rise in the price of eggs does not result in an increase in your income to cover it.
But with money creation, there is more money chasing the same goods, so your income goes up along with the prices.
But... When the cost of gas goes up, so does the cost of almost everything else because the trucks and trains and planes that deliver everything all use gas of some kind.
I also wonder if the decline of the middle class and a growing lack of leisure time for the lower/middle class (more people than ever working multiple jobs to make ends meet), also have been having an impact on sales.
> Eating at a restaurant seems like a subpar experience now compared to my own table.
Also most midrange restaurants I have been to lately are just so _loud_. Not sure if it is all the hard surfaces that are so popular, or if people just have less social awareness anymore and yap away at such high volumes.
Seems wild. I’d rather just make something at home, hit up a good food truck, or go somewhere fancy.
Look how many people wear headphones nowadays. Many of them at high volumes.
Try to watch a movie and to listen to conversations in that movie.
I am constantly using the remote to turn down loud explosions and amp up the very silent speakers.
Its a problem of the studios and movie makers, not everybody has or wants a 7.1 sound system.
The younger generation also is more short-sighted than ever. Smartphone and screen time is increasing.
Also, loud music increases thirst, which is good for the owner. Another aspect is waking the fight mode in humans so the waiters are more vigilant after their night out the day before...
Most of them are young uni students, earning some cash for partying.
I agree it seems the whole middle part of the of restaurant market is terrible. I can think of several places where I'm happy to pay $15-20 for a meal and several places where I'm happy to pay $100+, but hardly anywhere in the $30-40 range where I feel I'm getting value for money.
It's also loud because everyone is playing sound out of their device speakers, especially young parents who set up mini tablet theaters as soon as they sit down at the table. I don't understand why restaurants allow it. Why would I pay more for that ambiance?
All of the above. Most importantly, restaurant owners associate quiet with old and dead restaurants so they deliberately make things loud. They play music at loud levels which requires people to raise their voice. They prefer the look of hard surfaces and its certainly cheaper to leave wood, brick, and concrete exposed than to cover them up with material. Tablecloths impose ongoing costs and may not be in line with the ambiance the owners are going for.
In addition to sibling commenters mentioning incentive-side (eg. paid to promote) considerations, I also propose both an "immersion" and/or "consent" component.
When you are dining, and are suggested food pairings -- I'm there to eat, so suggesting something food related from the same establishment, that may enhance my meal experience, makes sense and generally does not feel unduly interruptive. In a way, I consent to being offered additional interesting and available food items at that time and place. I would not find it acceptable if the waiter brought out a catalog and tried to sell me shoes or insurance.
In a similar way, I don't mind (and often even enjoy or appreciate) movie trailers at the beginning of movies. I'm there to watch a movie, and in a fairly non-interruptive way (before the start of the movie) I am presented with some other movies coming out soon. Nice. I consent to seeing them at the start of a movie, and they are relevant to the subject matter. I would certainly be irritated if they were hoisted upon me in the middle of the movie, or if they were about new cars coming out soon.
I have also at times been actively searching for something I need or want to purchase, but am unsure what exactly I am looking for or what are the best options. At that time I would certainly be more open and interested in seeing advertisements regarding the types of items I am interested in. I would "consent" to seeing interest based advertisements.
Summary: I do not enjoy being interrupted with advertisements completely unrelated to whatever activity I am taking part in. I only want to see them when it is related to what I am doing, AND when I consent to seeing them.
Similar story here. My grandparents had a farm and had cows (dairy). Even by the time I was around, they had mostly wound down operations and had semi-retired.
They still had some dairy cows though.. and I still remember (over 30 years later!) the almost physical wall of smell that assaulted you going into that barn when it was all closed up because it was -20ºF outside. Nothing romantic about that!
Re shady company: the possibility of some shady foreign governmental agency getting control of Chrome, through layers of shell companies, is terrifying to think about. This possibility hasn't been discussed much in this thread, perhaps surprisingly. The value of collecting data from or inserting backdoors into Chrome seems so massive that I find it hard to trust any but the existing large tech companies to have the skills and infrastructure to keep it safe (keeping the pager bombs story in mind)
China is also a large external creditor, for example holding a large amount of treasury bonds from other countries.
I certainly don't know how either of those impact the calculus of which is worse and/or more manageable though.
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