patrick.net

Some wealth disparity is healthy and needs to happen to enhance the productivity of citizens in general. Those who are harder workers or brilliant artisans or great at business deserve to be in higher positions of wealth than the common people. This is what drives people forward, and encourages success. Without this you have the stagnation of communism, where hard work isn't rewarded and brilliance in politics is rewarded while brilliance in science and tech is viewed with suspicion. This is not good, and leads to poverty and rewards the vultures.
When wealth disparity grows too large, and especially when wealth controls politics and government, the people also suffer under the boot of aristocracy. This is where we are currently headed, if we have not already arrived.
Balance, in ALL things, is preferable.

Quigley says

the stagnation of communism, where hard work isn't rewarded and brilliance in politics is rewarded while brilliance in science and tech is viewed with suspicion. This is not good, and leads to poverty and rewards the vultures.

I had no idea the Republicans were communists. This explains a lot.

Quigley says

and especially when wealth controls politics and government, the people also suffer under the boot of aristocracy

And the plutocracy, having gained unfair advantage and control and a radically disproportionate share of the wealth, does ANYTHING it has to in order to retain it.
Hence Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, NDAA's indefinite detention, the militarization of local police and the shift of command control to Fusion Centers, the creation of USNORTHCOM and it's manning with troops cycling out of battle zones, the radical growth of domestic spying, the criminalization of dissent.
All these make no sense as anything but a nervous elite's response to knowing they have, or will, cross the line and need to control the population.

Robert Sproul says

Amazing Fed Money Creation Coincidence

Maybe it isn't a coincidence.

But that does not mean there is cause and effect there. And it certainly doesn't mean that the fed's policies (in the short run) led to the craziness in commodity prices.

More likely that the connection might be that both are a result of imbalances that are in turn a result of globalization. Perhaps the disconnect between asset inflation and wage inflation is somehow related to where we are in the evolution.of our global economy.

It seems that as asset inflation disconnects from wage inflation it wreaks havoc on many of the developed worlds economies. That in turn only exacerbates the volatility in asset prices. The fed tries to remedy the situation with it's monetary policy.

Just a theory.

Obviously there were other factors, such as the lack of regulations and fraud in the mortgage finance sector.

marcus says

related to where we are in the evolution.of our global economy.

Or a signal of the collapse of the unsustainable, exponential, elements of the global financial rackets.

kmo722 says

the average game plays out much longer with this restriction in place..

Is that because the little guys stay alive longer ? OR is it only because the two biggest guys take longer to resolve who wins.

(honestly asking, because I haven't played since I was about 11)

Vaticanus says

Thank you, but the main point is when there is a limited supply of money people seem to find other ways to get along better

Huh? What does that even mean? Please give me some details of how people got along better?

Robert Sproul says

and complete corporate control of the media

as well as the government.

Robert Sproul says

This crooked set-up of wealth extraction is to "capitalism" what Stalin's Russia was to "communism"

Good point. Somehow we lost our economic values as well as the very definition of "conservative" that existed in 1960. (and no I'm not talking about the effects of LBJs "Great Society" that came a few years later).

The "me generation" version of conservatism kicked into full gear in the eighties. I cited 1960 because it was a time when we still had regulations in place and when we still had a form of conservatism that allowed for workers to partake in our wealth creation (i.e. earn a piece of it) to a much higher degree than today.

marcus says

The "me generation" version of conservatism kicked into full gear in the eighties

Reagan.
They lionize him even though everything he touched turned to shit. (hey, let's close all the mental hospitals and then let's deregulate EVERYTHING!)
For 16 years of my young life that genial Corporatist loomed large, smirking as he ruined America. From his "If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all" days as governor to his Alzheimer's addled last term as president.

Even reaching from beyond the grave with the aid of his Brownshirts Cheney and Rumsfeld.

As for the chart:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ACOILBRENTEU

oil prices tripled 2003-2007. That pumped a lot of cost-push inflation.

As for why oil prices tripled:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/NETEXP

the Greenspan era was one of letting the trade balance run on and on, empowering China (mainly) to join the first world, and another mouth at the table was going to put immense demand on things in short supply, like oil.

tatupu70 says

Please give me some details of how people got along better?

People knew their places back in the Good Old Days.

Lot more "yes sir; no sir" back then, lemme tell you.

Vaticanus says

If a person could keep the fruits of their labor

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CUUR0000SEHA

It's no accident that Monopoly was about real estate.

Source and sink of all wealth!