The Right in the US at present supports policy that shunts an increasing fraction of GDP into financial assets leaving a decreasing fraction to meet the material needs of the population. Since the late 90's more that $50 trillion of excess output that before would go to material capital and consumer goods has gone to immaterial financial values. This manifests as lack of wage growth and rising costs of housing, neither of which are good for ordinary people.
No one has every clearly explained to me how speculators increase housing costs. They’re just going to trade at the market equilibrium. For housing to get more expensive something else has to happen.
Most of the people on the right seem intelligent enough to understand this.
Benjamin Graham's dictum: in the short term the stock market is a voting machine, while in the long run it is a weighing machine. In the short run, in an enthusiastic market supercharged with new inflows of money that did not exist in the past (stock buybacks and QE) can develop truly impressive levels of speculative excess. Think of the $3 TRILLION is crypto assets with zero intrinsic value or the estimated 90% of the price of high-flier stocks like TSLA that consists of speculative excess (i.e. value that would be erased should "the long run" happen now).
Suppose you put $1 million into crypto which has become $2 million. Aware of Graham's dictum, you decide to pull $1 million out of crypto and invest it elsewhere. You are still in this asset class, but are playing with house money and so have only upside. Meanwhile you deploy your original $1 million elsewhere. Real estate has traditional offered excellent returns if you are willing to manage things closely. A work colleague back in the late 1990's with decades of investing experience was getting involved with real estate as the market was getting pricey. It was too much work for me so I did not learn the in's and out's of real estate investing.
IN the 2000's investment banks were selling large amounts of triple A bonds with excellent yields. Institutional investors were buying enormous amounts of these. This rising demand led to efforts to increase the supply of these bonds. These bonds were made of mortgages, so that mean lots more mortgages needed to be created to make more bonds. More mortgages necessarily mean lending to less creditworthy borrowers. The result of this effort gave us the 2008 panic.
Since then, there have been other ways to participate in real estate markets. As money flows into very overvalued liquid markets into less overvalued, less liquid real estate, means increased demand for houses and that means higher prices.
Another way demand for homes rises is through rising levels of wealth due to rising financial markets. Investors with speculation bonuses can buy more expensive homes that they otherwise would creating demand for larger, pricey homes, which consumes land that previously been used for more modest homes, restricting the supply of the latter leading to higher prices for modest homes as well. The general rule is if more money pours into an economic sector, prices rise. This is the mechanism that traditionally led to inflation during wars.
Left in the sense of being in opposition to the standing or traditional order. The populists were left because they opposed the gold standard and were enemies of Big Business and Banks. I did not say their MAGA descends are still on the Left, they aren't, they dropped their economic arguments long ago and have been on the right since.
The Socialists are considered as Left by pretty much everyone. They don't really have a modern version since they have more or less blending into the progressives. As such they are seen as Left.
The progressives were originally focused on a number of economic reforms supported by the first two Leftist movements which is why I put them on the Left. Today the people who go by this label are usually seen as on the Left.
Most people at the time would seem these movements in the way I presented. So I am not sure to what you are referring.
Progressives are definitely NOT socialists. You could classify most of them is social Democrats, but the only thing those two things have in common are the first seven letters.
There is no left in America other than Bernie. He’s the only person with both feet on the left side of center. You have 10 or 11 democratic party members that have 1 foot destroyed the line.
The entire ideal what is America has been skewed so far to write a sizable demographic, think Hitler was a communist.
The classical left is pretty much extinct. Frank Ziedler was probably the last of them who held any significant power. Bernie is now a social democrat, but was once a socialist. But socialism was invalidated long ago, no positive change can come through that ideology. IMO the best road forward would be a modern version of the New Deal, well the Left plays a watchdog role to prevent what happened to the last one from happening again
Correct take! Mo Udall might’ve actually been a better candidate than Jimmy Carter. He was a true progressive And Ralph Nader was right. They’re both owned by the corporate donor class. Too bad the Green party was so incredibly naïve. They got co-opted by Vladimir and Jill Stein. They were completely human before that happened.
Why is it not possible that the Right actually represents the ordinary Americans best?
The Right in the US at present supports policy that shunts an increasing fraction of GDP into financial assets leaving a decreasing fraction to meet the material needs of the population. Since the late 90's more that $50 trillion of excess output that before would go to material capital and consumer goods has gone to immaterial financial values. This manifests as lack of wage growth and rising costs of housing, neither of which are good for ordinary people.
No one has every clearly explained to me how speculators increase housing costs. They’re just going to trade at the market equilibrium. For housing to get more expensive something else has to happen.
Most of the people on the right seem intelligent enough to understand this.
The effect is indirect. Speculators create higher prices for liquid assets such as stocks and crypto by boosting demand for the asset. https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/looking-at-the-stock-market-in-terms
Benjamin Graham's dictum: in the short term the stock market is a voting machine, while in the long run it is a weighing machine. In the short run, in an enthusiastic market supercharged with new inflows of money that did not exist in the past (stock buybacks and QE) can develop truly impressive levels of speculative excess. Think of the $3 TRILLION is crypto assets with zero intrinsic value or the estimated 90% of the price of high-flier stocks like TSLA that consists of speculative excess (i.e. value that would be erased should "the long run" happen now).
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/looking-at-the-stock-market-in-terms
Suppose you put $1 million into crypto which has become $2 million. Aware of Graham's dictum, you decide to pull $1 million out of crypto and invest it elsewhere. You are still in this asset class, but are playing with house money and so have only upside. Meanwhile you deploy your original $1 million elsewhere. Real estate has traditional offered excellent returns if you are willing to manage things closely. A work colleague back in the late 1990's with decades of investing experience was getting involved with real estate as the market was getting pricey. It was too much work for me so I did not learn the in's and out's of real estate investing.
IN the 2000's investment banks were selling large amounts of triple A bonds with excellent yields. Institutional investors were buying enormous amounts of these. This rising demand led to efforts to increase the supply of these bonds. These bonds were made of mortgages, so that mean lots more mortgages needed to be created to make more bonds. More mortgages necessarily mean lending to less creditworthy borrowers. The result of this effort gave us the 2008 panic.
Since then, there have been other ways to participate in real estate markets. As money flows into very overvalued liquid markets into less overvalued, less liquid real estate, means increased demand for houses and that means higher prices.
Another way demand for homes rises is through rising levels of wealth due to rising financial markets. Investors with speculation bonuses can buy more expensive homes that they otherwise would creating demand for larger, pricey homes, which consumes land that previously been used for more modest homes, restricting the supply of the latter leading to higher prices for modest homes as well. The general rule is if more money pours into an economic sector, prices rise. This is the mechanism that traditionally led to inflation during wars.
And your definition of “left” is? Left of Mussolini?
What do you mean by “left”? Anybody left of Mussolini?
Left in the sense of being in opposition to the standing or traditional order. The populists were left because they opposed the gold standard and were enemies of Big Business and Banks. I did not say their MAGA descends are still on the Left, they aren't, they dropped their economic arguments long ago and have been on the right since.
The Socialists are considered as Left by pretty much everyone. They don't really have a modern version since they have more or less blending into the progressives. As such they are seen as Left.
The progressives were originally focused on a number of economic reforms supported by the first two Leftist movements which is why I put them on the Left. Today the people who go by this label are usually seen as on the Left.
Most people at the time would seem these movements in the way I presented. So I am not sure to what you are referring.
Progressives are definitely NOT socialists. You could classify most of them is social Democrats, but the only thing those two things have in common are the first seven letters.
There is no left in America other than Bernie. He’s the only person with both feet on the left side of center. You have 10 or 11 democratic party members that have 1 foot destroyed the line.
The entire ideal what is America has been skewed so far to write a sizable demographic, think Hitler was a communist.
The classical left is pretty much extinct. Frank Ziedler was probably the last of them who held any significant power. Bernie is now a social democrat, but was once a socialist. But socialism was invalidated long ago, no positive change can come through that ideology. IMO the best road forward would be a modern version of the New Deal, well the Left plays a watchdog role to prevent what happened to the last one from happening again
Correct take! Mo Udall might’ve actually been a better candidate than Jimmy Carter. He was a true progressive And Ralph Nader was right. They’re both owned by the corporate donor class. Too bad the Green party was so incredibly naïve. They got co-opted by Vladimir and Jill Stein. They were completely human before that happened.