The decay of America’s middle class has been well documented and many commentators have explored the causes.
This decay isn’t random; the income of the middle class isn’t going to suddenly increase at 15 times the growth rate of the income of the top 0.1%.
The income of the top 0.1% grew 15 times faster than the incomes of the bottom 90% because that’s the only possible output of America’s distorted financial system.
The same can be said of the rising asymmetry of wealth.
The top 10% own 2.5 more wealth than the middle class (51% to 90%) and 34 times the wealth of the bottom 50% as a result of the asymmetric structure of our financial system.
America’s “Helicopter Parent”
The decay of America’s middle class has been well documented and many commentators have explored the causes.
This decay isn’t random; the income of the middle class isn’t going to suddenly increase at 15 times the growth rate of the income of the top 0.1%.
The income of the top 0.1% grew 15 times faster than the incomes of the bottom 90% because that’s the only possible output of America’s distorted financial system.
The same can be said of the rising asymmetry of wealth.
The top 10% own 2.5 more wealth than the middle class (51% to 90%) and 34 times the wealth of the bottom 50% as a result of the asymmetric structure of our financial system.
The Federal Reserve is the nation’s
Helicopter Parent, saving everyone from the consequences of their actions. We all know what happens when over-protective
Helicopter Parents save their precious offspring from any opportunity to learn from mistakes and failures:
they cripple their child’s ability to assess risk and learn from failure, guaranteeing fragility and catastrophically blind-to-risk decisions later in life.
Helicopter Parents generate a perfection of
moral hazard, defined as
Moral hazard perversely increases the incentives to take on more risk because
Mommy and Daddy (the Fed) will always save me / bail me out.
For example, when Mommy and Daddy make their reckless teen’s DUI charge go away, the teen’s already potent sense of godlike liberation from real-world consequences floats even higher. So next time the teen gets into his car drunk and takes his friends on a high-speed spin down Mulholland Drive, he loses control and kills everyone in th
The Federal Reserve is the nation s
Helicopter Parent, saving everyone from the consequences of their actions. We all know what happens when over-protective
Helicopter Parents save their precious offspring from any opportunity to learn from mistakes and failures:
they cripple their child s ability to assess risk and learn from failure, guaranteeing fragility and catastrophically blind-to-risk decisions later in life.
Helicopter Parents generate a perfection of
moral hazard, defined as
Moral hazard perversely increases the incentives to take on more risk because
Mommy and Daddy (the Fed) will always save me / bail me out.
For example, when Mommy and Daddy make their reckless teen s DUI charge go away, the teen s already potent sense of godlike liberation from real-world consequences floats even higher. So next time the teen gets into his car drunk and takes his friends on a high-speed spin down Mulholland Drive, he loses control and kills everyone in the car no
What Could Go Awry?
All of which sounds very pretty indeed, but it does raise a question: can risk really be destroyed, or can it only be transferred? And if it can only be transferred, then what’s it been transferred to?
What a remarkable moment in time: every asset is lofting higher, with no limits in sight. The path ahead is already well-scouted: the U.S. economy will add a million jobs a month until the cows come home, Covid will continue fading until it basically disappears as an issue, the dollar and volatility will continue their death-march toward zero (good for risk assets), oil and commodities are entering a new super-cycle of growth, as are stocks, bonds (now that pesky yields are falling), cryptocurrencies and housing– all are entering super-cycles of high growth and essentially limitless expansion of speculative gains.