"No matter how hard you work, how smart you are, if you come from the wrong family you'll probably never own property. That is feudalism; we're going back into a world of aristocracy. Capitalism is over."
source: YouTube
The intro to this post is a quote from a highly successful and educated trader who was one of Citigroup's top earners in the years 2009 through 2012. You can listen to this man, Gary Stevenson, in the video linked below this article, and I highly recommend everyone does so. Gary's is a rather unique story, as it is a true "rags to riches" story. In his first full year of trading for Citigroup, he received a bonus of 400,000 British Pounds; it's eye-opening and heart-warming to hear him speak about how ashamed he was for making that much money, while his friends and family still lived in the relative poverty from which he had escaped. He compares his ridiculous bonus, which he got sitting in an office jumbling numbers on a screen, to his father, who worked as a postman making his rounds each day for decades for a lousy 20,000 British Pounds per year...
As you can deduce from the quote in the intro, Gary has a romanticized view on capitalism. He sees it as a system in which everyone who works hard should be able to make a decent living. That's the idea he, and most everyone else, grew up with. But it's simply not true. It never has been. Gary is now an "inequality activist" who is visibly and emotionally upset by the gross inequality that's getting worse each and every day at an accelerated pace. This is directly related to how he became a multimillionaire; he made that money by betting that inequality was going to destroy our economy and make the poorest in society even poorer. And from 2008 when he started working at Citigroup until now he has been right. In fact, he started his trading career only a few months before the financial meltdown of 2008 happened.
Unsurprisingly that was a big shock to Gary; he had just started and now suddenly banks and financial institutions were in the biggest crisis since the 1930s!! To Gary's surprise however, none of the seasoned colleagues at the office were worried. They were laughing in fact, reassuring Gary that they "won't come after us" and that the losses would be carried by public money; governments and regular people would pay for their mistakes. That's where Gary Stevenson's journey began, and that's where he made his grand plan to become a millionaire.
I made the money by betting on what is a fucking disaster, right? I bet on the long-term, continual collapse of the global economy. No fucking joke, right? You know, people will die because of that. Families’ lives will be ruined, and it will get worse and worse and worse.
Look at what is happening right now with the cost of living crisis. In the winter, half of this country [the U.K.] will not be able to afford to turn the heating on.
source: The Guardian
How Billionaires Are Damaging the Economy | WIRED
Gary also explains how inequality skyrocketed during the pandemic. You see, of all the billions of newly printed dollars the vast majority went to the rich, to business owners and corporations. The thusly created deficits aren't the problem by themselves, it's who got the money. You see, if someone earning $30,000 dollars per year gets $1,200 then millionaires get ten times as much. The $1,200 gets circulated back into the economy, while the millionaire uses his money to buy assets, like stocks or already existing houses; the millionaire drives prices up and causes the inflation regular workers suffer from. Gary explains that the 600 billion Pounds given away during the pandemic means that there was 12,000 pounds for every British adult. So if you don't have 12,000 Pounds more cash than you had three years ago, someone else has your 12,000 Pounds...
And that's not even accurate. Gary goes on to explain that assuming that most of it went to the top 10 percent richest people, that means they got close to 120,000 Pounds each. With that money they then buy houses from poorer people, driving up prices, making it harder and harder for starters to get their own home, their own piece of the property-pie. There's a lot to be learned by listening to this man, but everything he says points at the same conclusion; as long as capitalism exists, we have to tax the extreme wealth of the insanely rich! If we fail to do that, inequality will get worse, the poor will get poorer, the middle class will become poor, and the economy will collapse. This is not an opinion, but a rather easy to understand fact of this economy. I've done this many times before, but let me try to explain it in Gary's words.
If you earn $30,000 dollars per year, all your money will end up in the pockets of the rich. It'll disappear in the pockets of the individuals who own the food you buy, the land on which the food is grown, the house you pay rent for and so on. If the government gives you a subsidy for that rent, that goes to the landlords as well. What that should tell you is that money isn't wealth, property is. And with $30,000 per year you'll probably never going to own property while your money goes to the few that do. And they buy more property with your money, the money you had to work hard for while they sat back watching the money flow their way. That's the TL;DR and essentially that's what capitalism is.
It is also why I'm surprised about Gary's romanticized view on that economic system. He's so right that wealth creates more wealth, that real wealth is not money, but assets and property. And the ultimate wealth generator is private property; the private ownership of the stuff we all need to survive, like land, tools, factories... As long as this stuff is privately owned, the only solution is to take back from the few that become insanely wealthy by merely owning that stuff; tax their wealth, their assets, their property. But that's ultimately only a medicine for the disease, not a real cure. Regardless, watch the interview, and also watch the video linked above; I promise you it'll be worth your time.
The Plan Is To Make You Permanently Poorer | Aaron Meets Gary Stevenson
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