this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2025
185 points (95.6% liked)

ShowerThoughts

3128 readers
261 users here now

Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

If you divided all the stocks issued in the US stock markets by issue number

and put them in a basket, chose one randomly,

there is an 87% chance that that specific stock belongs to someone in the top 10% of wealth in the country.

There’s either millions or billions of stocks in existence, but this is still true.

all 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bring back the tax brackets from the 1960's.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

One of the most important drivers is the abolition of wealth taxes in the 70‘s. Although there is no exact date on which it happened (since wealth taxation in the US was fairly complicated, and rolled back over several decades); the 70s certainly played a pivotal role.

With no wealth taxation, nothing stops the ultra rich from amassing all the wealth, outcompeting workers and middle class. That’s what you are seeing here.

The good news is: all this productivity increase was real. The wealth increase is real. We just have to give it back to the ordinary people, and will see a massive economic boost across the globe. There’s just one little thing stopping us: we gotta tax the ultra rich ;-)

[–] memfree@piefed.social 31 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Reminds me of this site (which offers no answers):

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

[–] Lojcs@piefed.social 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

that took a turn:

[–] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fascinating, thank you. And the answer seems to be "no more gold standard" and apparently that was Nixon's decision?

It is nixon and reagan economics, the gold standard doesn't have much to do with it.

[–] cornshark@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 3 points 1 day ago

That certainly raises more questions than answers!

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

The Vietnam War is winding down which depleted the US treasury.

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe that’s when the neoliberals (dems and republicans started making America grate again?

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Wait, they stopped selling shredded cheese in 1973?

[–] Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You did all this in the shower?

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 32 points 2 days ago

Jerked off too, what can I say 🤷‍♂️

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Add inflation, and housing costs for a real shocker of a graph.

[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago
[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's right around the time "Business Administrators" came on the scene. "How can we squeeze even more juice from the lemon" seems to be their only administrating task.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Also, it's when conservative think tanks first came online. This is 80% government policy, 20% corporate fuckery (outside of gov't fuckery).

I could give you some indepth economic analysis, and behavior philosophy behind business spending, but the easiest?

Just unionize. Now. Volunteer time to talk outside work hours. Speak to local professionals like accountants and lawyers to help pro-bono with getting setup.

Talk to political offices locally, run if you can.

Talk about these issues with strangers. Print out your own corny pamphlet newspaper to educate someone willing to read.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 1 points 1 day ago

Its important to note that productivity line basically means profits from the company. And then you have to understand that more money is happening in the economy but pay is remaining the same.

All that money had to go somewhere and it hasn't been the workers for a while.