Tyler Durden: “We are consumers. We’re the by-products of a lifestyle obsession.”
Tyler had a point. How’s that working out for you? Being clever. Obsessing about lifestyle.
Well, Chris Hamilton has a point of view as we sit on the edge of plutocracy’s apparent recapture of the US executive branch:
“To begin, I’ll divide the world into two roughly equal groups, consumers and non-consumers, using the World Bank gross national income per capita.
“‘Consumers’ are half the worlds population, have average income per capita above $4,045…enjoy 80%+ of the income, savings, access to credit and likewise consume 80%+ of the worlds exported commodities and 80%+ of the worlds energy.
…
“‘Low or Non-consumers’, the other half of the worlds population, have average income per capita of a few hundred dollars to $4044…earn less than 20% of world income, savings, access to credit and consume less than 20% of all exported commodities and burn less than 20% of global energy. They have average income of about $1,200 a year…10x less per person among non-consumers than the average ‘consumer'”
A Pareto distribution.
Or, if you prefer, my old professor, Murray Rothbard: “The necessary result…of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes…tax-payers and tax-consumers.”
Of course, Rothbard was merely quoting Calhoun who said: “… it must necessarily follow, that some one portion of the community must pay in taxes more than it receives back in disbursements; while another receives in disbursements more than it pays in taxes… The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is, to divide the community into two great classes; one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes, and, of course, bear exclusively the burthen of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds, through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers.” (J. Calhoun, Disquisition on Government (1848)):
Rothbard: “For taxation, Calhoun’s inspired division of society into taxpayers and tax-consumers is applied. Inflation is shown to be binary intervention because it consists of fraudulent issuance of ‘counterfeit’ warehouse receipts.” (M. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economic Principles (1962))
Back to Chris in the present:
“For those paying attention, inflation (as represented by the Federal Reserve set Federal Funds Rate) has been declining nearly in tandem with the declining consumer nation births, and global debt has blasted off inversely…with the impact of pulling demand forward against a future with organically declining demand. The question here, how would an ever smaller future of consumers pay off or outgrow ever more debt??? [Comment – the old fashioned way states have dealt with this problem: asset inflation and wealth debasement]
“Narrowing in on high income nation births versus low income nation births…Not hard to see where this is going.
“Given 30 years of declining consumer nation births, no surprise the childbearing population among consumer nations is now in decline versus ongoing growth in the low consumer nations childbearing population.”
Murray Rothbard: “The State says that citizens may not take from another by force and against his will that which belongs to another. And yet the State…does just that.”
Tyler Durden: “Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.”
https://econimica.blogspot.com/2020/12/you-met-me-at-very-strange-time-in-my.html
Econophysics2020 