Economists say the rising stock market is giving an added boost to consumer spending through what is known as the "wealth effect."

Key Points

  • The wealth of the top 1% hit a record $44.6 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter.
  • All of the gains came from stock holdings thanks to an end-of-year rally.
  • Economists say the rising stock market is giving an added boost to consumer spending through what is known as the “wealth effect.”

The wealth of the top 1% hit a record $44.6 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter, as an end-of-year stock rally lifted their portfolios, according to new data from the Federal Reserve.

The total net worth of the top 1%, defined by the Fed as those with wealth over $11 million, increased by $2 trillion in the fourth quarter. All of the gains came from their stock holdings. The value of corporate equities and mutual fund shares held by the top 1% surged to $19.7 trillion from $17.65 trillion the previous quarter.

While their real estate values went up slightly, the value of their privately held businesses declined, essentially canceling out all other gains outside of stocks.

  • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 months ago

    Sounds like you’re speaking off of ignorance. Farm collectivization has led to some severe famines, but after the collectivization was completed those nations rarely saw food insecurity. China still hasn’t had major food insecurity since being collectivized. I think there are ways to prevent that from happening, because it hasn’t happened in every country that collectivized the farmland.

    Stop trying to force things into terms of monetary exchange, because it doesn’t fit for everything. The government can provide the machine, since the US has monetary sovereignty (doesn’t owe a lot of debt to other countries) in a fiat currency. This means that as long as the federal government has access to the labor and resources, it can afford to do so by issuing debt to itself and paying it off with the next year’s run of fiat currency.

    Now, it’s impractical and wasteful to manufacture all of the different combine heads for all of the different crops that could be grown by every farmer. Establish a library of sorts where farmers can utilize these machines without cost, and can be repaired without downtime (by using a different one in good repair while the broken one is fixed). Food can then be grown and distributed locally and based on need. This will also reduce overproduction and reduce emissions to transfer food. It also makes every place more resistant to natural disaster and disrupted supply lines.

    • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      3 months ago

      Sounds like you’re speaking off of ignorance. Farm collectivization has led to some severe famines, but after the collectivization was completed those nations rarely saw food insecurity. China still hasn’t had major food insecurity since being collectivized. I think there are ways to prevent that from happening, because it hasn’t happened in every country that collectivized the farmland.

      China imported $104.6 billion in food alone just last year, mostly from the USA.

      They’re not the example you think they are. They are increasingly reliant upon imports (and USA’s capitalist system) for food security.

      Now there’s plenty of downsides to capitalism. But collecing fucktons of money to fund $Billion ventures is one of the good things that capitalism does exceptionally well. You’re arguing against literally Capitalism’s greatest strength here. Go poke a hole at all the other problems capitalism causes, you aren’t going to make progress on this front.

      BTW: China’s increasingly grown capitalist themselves, reliant upon huge bonds and stock markets to raise funds like the USA does. The debate is over, capital markets are widespread even in former Soviet Bloc’s and former Communist countries. And its been like that for decades.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 months ago

        Please read what I said again. The whole thing. I’m saying that the federal government of US doesn’t need to raise any money at all because of modern monetary theory.

        • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          3 months ago

          It sounds like you just want US Government to nationalize John Deere and take over the production of tool equipment.

          If there were no innovation happening (ex: Boeing situation), I think you’d have a point. But my understanding (I’m not a farmer, but just someone looking outside in), it seems like farm equipment innovation continues to skyrocket. IE: As bad and awful as John Deere is, they are doing their primary job of innovation and building new equipment.

          • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 months ago

            I come from a Case family, so I’d rather they nationalized Case IH lol

            On a serious note, we don’t need to nationalize the companies that make the machinery to solve this issue. There are many different methods (even in socdem ideologies) to solve this problem created by capitalism. Personally I think farmers should organize amongst themselves to collectively manage farmland and machinery. I don’t think we’d need to nationalize one of those farm equipment companies, we’d just have to abolish intellectual “property”. Then the machinery can be made and improved by anyone, because we don’t need free markets to innovate.

            • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              3 months ago

              I’m absolutely for right-to-repair laws. I don’t think patents are full evil, but they absolutely need reform. Copyrights should likely be weakened as well.

              So I don’t know about “abolishing intellectual property”, but I can meet in the middle: I can agree that patents have become stupid as the patent office no longer can keep up with the pace of inventions and fairly evaluate who is, or isn’t, deserving of patents. Reforming our country to this new reality (ie: that patents are unfairly, and inconsistently applied) is absolutely required.