Billionaire: Capitalism Isn't Working For Majority, Extreme Inequality A National Emergency
Hedge Fund Billionaire Ray Dalio: "Capitalism Basically Is not Working For The Majority," CNBC, 1/16/19.
With just over $18 billion to his name, capitalism has been good to Ray Dalio: He started his hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, out of a two-bedroom New York City apartment in 1975 and it now manages $160 billion in assets and is the largest hedge fund in the world, according to Forbes. Quite literally, Dalio has built a fortune thanks to capitalism. But he's also keenly aware that it is a deeply flawed system.
"Capitalism basically is not working for the majority of people. That's just the reality," Dalio said at the 2018 Summit conference in Los Angeles in November. Monday, Dalio tweeted a video of his Summit talk.
Dalio made the comment about capitalism during a discussion about wealth inequality. Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the population's net worth is equal to the bottom 90 percent combined. In other words, a big giant wealth gap. That was the same last time that happened was the late '30s," Dalio said. (Indeed, research from Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the National Bureau of Economic Research of wealth inequality throughout the 20th century, covered by The Guardian, bears this out.)
Further, Dalio points to a survey by the Federal Reserve showing that 40 percent of adults can't come up with $400 in the case of an emergency. "It gives you an idea of what the polarity is," Dalio said. "That's a real world. That's an issue."
And Dalio says the income gap will only get worse. "We're in a situation when the economy is at a peak, we still have this very big tension. That's where we are today," he said in November. "We're in a situation where, if you have a downturn, and we will have a downturn, I believe that I worry that that polarity will become greater."
In fact, Dalio said that the President of the United States should declare the current wealth gap a national emergency.
"If I was doing it, I think that you have to call that a national emergency," said Dalio. Then, reasoned Dalio, the President could "[take] responsibility for changing those metrics. I think there's a lot that can be done in private-public partnerships and so on to be able to change it, but I fear that that probably will not be done by the next time we have a downturn, and I fear for what that conflict is going to be like that."
Dalio is not the only billionaire to speak out about the problems with modern capitalism. -More...
MORE & VIDEO, DALIO'S NOV. 2018 SPEECH,
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/16/bridgewaters-ray-dalio-capitalism-is-not-working-for-most-people.html
RELATED, "The Wealthy Are Victims of Their Own Propaganda." My wealthy friend doesnt want to pay for your child care. He doesnt want to help pay off your student loans. And he sure as heck doesnt want to shell out the big bucks for a multi-trillion-dollar Green New Deal.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/02/wealthy-are-victims-their-own-propaganda
Ray Dalio wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio
pangaia
(24,324 posts)c-rational
(2,595 posts)to be framed properly. At present, we are not told the deck is stacked against most, and MSM allows falsehood to be perpetuated. A high marginal tax rate is fair if you want to live in a just society.
Eyeball_Kid
(7,434 posts)... (now we have to remember that money is speech) in this conversation. For decades, the corporate sector has been tightening its grip on government. They can bribe and extort at will. Citizens United blew a whole in the Constitution.
c-rational
(2,595 posts)of 2018. It should be described as a bribe, with payment after the fact in plain sight.
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)and others who realize the scope, urgency and need to act before the coming market 'correction.'
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)When 40% of our citizens couldnt scrape up $400 for an emergency our inequality is a crisis.
It is past time to correct the stunning economic inequality in our country.
alwaysinasnit
(5,072 posts)woundedkarma
(498 posts)Give away 17 billion dollars to legitimate charities and then I'll listen to what you have to say about inequality. Really, it's okay, you can keep the last billion.
watoos
(7,142 posts)crony capitalism is even worse, and that's what we have. Dylan Ratigan was a cable news anchor for msnbc who was passionate about explaining the evils of crony capitalism. I tried not to miss his hour segment at 4 PM. msnbc fired him, not because he had bad ratings but because he was exposing the truth about crony capitalism.
It's basically that we socialize the costs and privatize the profits. Tax payers build new stadiums and arenas and the owners reap the profits. There wouldn't ever be a nuclear power plant built if we didn't socialize the costs and privatize the profits.
Income inequality is a national emergency.
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)(2 mins.) Dutch Historian Rutger Bregman tells Davos elites to 'start paying' taxes at a Davos 2019 panel discussion.
- "Historian Berates Billionaires At Davos Over Tax Avoidance." Rutger Bregman tells panel that the real issue is the rich not paying their fair share. A discussion panel at the Davos World Economic Forum has become a sensation after a Dutch historian took billionaires to task for not paying taxes.
I hear people talking the language of participation, justice, equality and transparency but almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share, Bregman tells the Time magazine panel on inequality. It feels like Im at a firefighters conference and no ones allowed to speak about water.
Industry had to stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes, he said, citing the high tax regime of 1950s America as an example to disprove arguments by businesspeople at Davos such as Michael Dell that economies with high personal taxation could not succeed. Thats it. Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/30/historian-berates-billionaires-at-davos-over-tax-avoidance
- Davos Experts Say It's Time To Switch To A Four Day Working Week
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/2-davos-experts-says-it-s-time-to-switch-to-a-four-day-working-week/
- PATRIOTIC MILLIONAIRES, https://patrioticmillionaires.org/