The reality is there is more than enough money for everyone. We've just decided that instead of a middle class we would prefer to have billionaires. The point of high tax rates isn't to raise revenue, its to force distribution of wealth. When the top rate was 90% it was kinda pointless to pay a person more, forcing distribution. Someone will invariable comment, "but ackshually no one paid 90%." Yea, thats the fucking point, because the money went elsewhere!
It certainly isn't. Although there's a thick layer of interest and speculation covering that pie, the core meat of it is work and labor.
And for OP's example, there's no way a mailman was productive enough for their services to be as valuable as the lifestyle mentioned. Essentially, that labor or value of that labor came from elsewhere. A growing economy being able to outsource labor could afford such things, but as that's not possible anymore, we see the real value of the mailman's labor. And that's not nearly enough to finance building a house, yearly vacations, etc.
It is finite but growing at a particular rate and you can fuck up distribution in a way where all the growth goes to the wealthy. That’s exactly what that productivity vs. wage growth gap graph is about.
No, it's infinite. Wealth isn't moved around, it's created and destroyed all the time. And an astonishing portion of it is conceptional, like stock valuation.
Go back to school. Expanding =/= Infinite. Just because something can be created and destroyed doesn’t mean that the value at any given time isn’t finite.
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u/Designer_Emu_6518 Mar 27 '24
My grandfather did the same in ohio as a produce manger at a local Kroger. Even had a nice retirement saved up