Economic Fiction: the Post-Bernie-Sanders Consensus.

there are several different myths and
misconceptions he exploded in this video one is just the idea that the poor are getting poorer okay if we look at the left hand side of this chart look at the green lines that does not show the poor getting poorer let's just say you look from 1995 to 2015. the two green lines right this does not show the poor getting poorer that's just a lie okay but here's the other thing that's really interesting if we compare to the purple chart on the right hand side wow what a dramatic difference the federal government makes the lightest line the lowest quintile line instead of going up by only 32 has gone up by 79. look at that lilac purple line how much does it look at the dramatic effect of government intervention and redistribution from the rich to the poor by that gold usfa take a look at the small numbers on the right hand side of this chart i can zoom in for you there between 2018 and present that number has been hovering between 4 and 6 right now if you've been listening to left-wing news media like jenk wieger on the young turks if you've been listening to campaign speeches and debates from bernie sanders you will have the preconceived notion that this statistic you're looking at right now the rate of wage growth in the united states is at a crisis level that it's so low and that it's been so low for so long that this is a unique crisis this is a special problem the united states of america has and that other countries don't have where they they don't have the same problem right and i've never once seen jenk wieger on the young turks i've never once seen him make this argument or make this claim by presenting this number or presenting this chart and then comparing it to the charts from other countries so you can see this in perspective right what what is the average person supposed to think when they see this chart is four percent a good number is six percent good number is this is this you know consistent with the dire warning bernie sanders is giving us again and again that this strange propaganda claim that the new radicalism of bernie sanders is justified because of a lack of wage growth in the united states of america this is canada this is canada by comparison if you think that five and a half percent wage growth is terrible what what do you think about the economy of canada do you see the numbers on the right-hand side canada you're lucky to be above three percent right in the last several years you've long periods of time there where it's way way below three percent okay and you're basically never above four percent oh wow now wage growth in the united states seems quite hopeful seems quite powerful seems quite strong now now already we start to question where where did this idea come from that america's problem is wage growth oh oh here's here's germany all we ever hear about in the news is how germany has this fantastically powerful fantastically successful economy and it does all we hear about is how german car manufacturers are way more successful than american car manufacturers and they are we hear about how the german high-tech industry from the pharmaceutical industry to the chemical industry even they make many of the components that go into mobile phones they make expensive microphones all kinds of great equipment well we hear nothing but good things about the the german economy we hear all the time that germany is the powerhouse of the european union economy look at the numbers on the right hand side of the chart wage growth in germany lucky you're lucky to reach two percent oh now let's look back at the united states rate of wage growth and you people have convinced yourselves because you hear dishonest carpet bagging liars like jake wieger and bernie sanders lying to you about this day after day after day you've convinced yourself that america's unique problem america's economic disadvantage in the world is low wage growth if you believe that if you believe the united states is in a crisis right now because of lack of wage growth in the last 20 years then wha what do you think about germany what do you think about canada are they on the brink of a socialist revolution is germany is the german economy just falling apart because of lack of wage growth when they're lucky to reach 2 percent [Music] [Music] there's good news and there's bad news the good news is i'm back with another video offering you some analysis and critique of bernie sanders book our revolution the bad news is i gave bernie sanders a little bit too much credit in my last video now today i'm going to be talking about the incredibly important issue of income and wealth inequality for the last 40 years the american middle class has been disappearing and more americans are living in poverty than in almost any point in our nation's history since 2005 the typical middle class family has seen its wealth go down by more than 36 i commented that in general bernie sanders claims that the wages of the working poor the wages of the middle class in america that they have stagnated in recent decades i said that bernie sanders seems to avoid saying that the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer most likely because he is aware that this is statistically untrue [Music] in the united states of america i showed a whole bunch of charts to demonstrate this fact inequality is increasing but inequality has been increasing because the rich are getting richer much much more rapidly exponentially more rapidly than the poor are getting richer however still doesn't mean the poor getting poorer that is a that is a lie but here i find on page 191 of this book um quote in the real world the rich are getting richer and most everyone else is getting poorer so there's a claim that both the poor and the middle class are getting poorer okay i've already shown you guys charts to the effect that this is false many people just didn't want to believe what the charts showed i got a lot of really idiotic uh fan mail or hate mail in response to that i love that what some people wrote in saying oh um but those charts don't don't account for inflation you're looking at a chart from like 1979 to 2010 or 2015 or something oh you think those charts don't account for inflation and what one of the charts it even says right on the headline right at the top it says real wages real wages and cumulative growth of real wages and uh percentage of gross national income like if you don't know if you don't know the significance of real wages in relation to inflation or measures like percentage of gdp percentage of gross national income in relation to inflation i can't help you people i mean you're looking at the facts you're looking at the facts and you're refusing to see what's there in front of your face because you want to keep believing the myth that the poor are getting poorer even when the facts show you the opposite japan this is japan look at the numbers on the right-hand side japan one of the most vibrant economies in the world one of the most impressive education systems in the world fabulous high-tech industry fabulous export fabulous car industry the whole gamut japan has one of the most successful economies and you know you know the really messed up part there's an argument very few of you be willing to hear it and i think nobody in my audience would be willing to make it there's an argument you can present that one of the strengths japan has is that they've actually managed to have low wage growth right that they haven't had wages going up and up for all these years that may be part of the reason why unemployment in japan is practically zero all the time they have such low unemployment and they have such a vibrant economy they have such a great such great export-oriented industries despite competing with china they have to compete with china and malaysia and indonesia and vietnam and they're still doing great and you know what if you think the problem in the united states is lack of wage growth why don't you look at japan where this number it's lucky to be above zero all right over 2012 the present japan wage growth hovering around zero now i have to put in a footnote here japan does not measure wage growth by the same metric the united states does wage growth doesn't have a standardized measure the same way gross domestic product does uh it's not like there's one simple mathematical formula and all these countries are doing it the same way they're not however in broad brush strokes what i'm saying here is true and claims made about wage growth that are now a major plank of left-wing propaganda used by bernie sanders and used by james weaker i don't think those guys they even i don't think they even think about what is the argument like what's the basis for this and what are they driving towards this has become a mainstay of propaganda repeated day after day after day and i hear people echoing it back to me unquestionably and we can explode it just a quick google search and look at some charts oh financial times u.s wage growth stable at 3.1 percent and if you've been paying attention you know 3.1 is not a low number not for canada not for germany not for japan this is the situation we're in the mainstream left today and here is bernie sanders saying loud and clear two lies two lies the first lie is the rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer this is the this is the first lie and then the second lie i don't think i need to read it out you can probably tell within that that quotation he he claims that congress that the federal government of the united states is doing nothing to deal with this um this reads i mean you could do an impersonation of bernie sanders it it sounds like it was transcribed from his speech the writing style it's very much like a speech and what are the members of congress doing about these issues i will tell you what they are doing they are out spending a ridiculous amount of time raising money for their next campaigns and then once elected they're representing the interests of people who funded those campaigns so he is claiming that the rich are getting richer the poor getting poorer and the federal government is doing nothing to help the poor okay so both of these lies we can fact check through a quick google search let's do it people here's a quote from michael r strain i am guessing at the time this photograph was taken michael strain was not vegan just to guess just to guess michael by all means send me an email let me know if i'm wrong i'm guessing you are not on a vegan diet that would be my guess um quote let's go with the average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees produced by the bureau of labor statistics about four in five people in the labor force are included in this group they can be thought of roughly as workers not managers they're often described as typical workers and many of the statistics use this it is a cluj that basically excludes people like executives and yes managers it tries to exclude people whose pay is not going to be in such a simple and straightforward way based on the the hours of labor as you know executives may have all kinds of special privileges and bonuses and stuff so it's trying to look at so-called normal workers um using the pce to adjust for inflation these statistics are adjusted for inflation guys it's just sorry if you can't interpret really really simple economic and social science statistics use the pce to adjust for inflation the wages of a typical worker have increased by 32 percent over the past three decades that's a significant increase in purchasing power if all people hear is that wages have been stagnant for decades as part of a game rigged to benefit the people at the top they might well believe it hmm the whole continent of africa this isn't one country it's a weighted average for the whole continent of africa year 2000 to 2009 does that look like a problem in terms of wage growth oh the middle east 2000 to 2009. does that look like a crisis does that look like it would cause political instability due to lack of wage growth now let's look again let's look again at that american and german chart for wage growth let's ask ourselves whether or not the rate of wage growth united states is really a problem whether or not the weight of rage growth in in germany is a problem okay let's go on to a new chart just new in the sense that it hasn't appeared in my my prior video you can see that the source is from the cbo the american congressional budget office but let's zoom in what are we looking at people we're looking at on the left you see the growth in income before the effect of the federal government's intervention okay so there is there are several different myths and misconceptions he exploded in this video one is just the idea that the poor are getting poorer okay if we look at the left-hand side of this chart look at the green lines that does not show the poor getting poorer let's just say you look from 1995 to 2015. the two green lines right this does not show the poor getting poorer that's just a lie okay but here's the other thing that's really interesting if we compare to the purple chart on the right hand side wow what a dramatic difference the federal government makes and i looked into it this is exactly what bernie sanders was complaining but he was complaining about congress he wasn't complaining about the local mayor or the local state governor he was complaining about the federal government okay this is not calculating the effects of state level or city level interventions this is just measuring the effect of federal government interventions and and this report from the cbo was criticized for that reason that it's much more complex to take into account all 50 states and the conditions there you'd have to have a lot more lines in the chart but just the effect of the redistribution of income that the federal government brings to the people the united states of america is dramatic so the the lightest line the lowest quintile line instead of going up by only 32 has gone up by 79. look at that lilac purple line how much does it look at the dramatic effect of government intervention and redistribution from the rich to the poor by that gold usfa so these are these are powerful myths that the mainstream left has this isn't like communism or socialism the mainstream american left is clinging to the myth the same myths that people like bernie sanders and the other people attending the democrat primaries that they weave and present they're clinging to the myth that the poor are getting poorer they're clinging to the myth that the federal government is doing nothing to help her up with the board and we just looked at a very real quantitative measure of how dramatic the impact that is since 2005 the typical middle class family has seen its wealth go down by more than 36 [Music] for the last 40 years the american middle class has been disappearing and more americans are living in poverty than almost any point in our nation's history i have people sending me excuses for bernie sanders and they're well-intentioned they're people saying things like well you know bernie sanders isn't a researcher i mean like you know bernie sanders can't be expected to really do research about these things bernie sanders can't be expected to have a skeptical mind about things he found out about decades ago and that he's been repeating again and again he can't be expected to question whether or not his own beliefs and conclusions and propaganda message is really true well for one thing you're putting your expectations of bernie sanders shockingly low because this is already one problem but then the other question is what what's your excuse for jenk jenkweger and a third myth i challenge you and my audience to let me know if you've ever heard bernie sanders invoke this one a third myth that's very important for the current generation is the myth that capitalism will inevitably fail will inevitably implode will inevitably collapse or tear itself apart why why why why why because allegedly allegedly capitalism requires quote-unquote infinite resources since profit can only be achieved through growth a capitalist must always push production farther and farther however production requires the use of goods that are not infinite like labor and natural resources since capitalism cannot administer a limit it will always eventually crash in other words capitalism always ends up destroying the hand that feeds it that is the most laughably unempirical unfalsifiable dogmatic and ridiculous claim imaginable and it falls apart just through a simple process of socratic dialogue like okay so what is it that capitalism requires what factor does capitalism require to be infinite given that throughout its entire history none of the factors are production of an infinite right capitalism doesn't need infinite labor doesn't need infinite water doesn't need infinite coal on the contrary the price mechanism in capitalism is very much tethered to the idea that all of the factors are finite at least the amount that's available is finite right so actually really from a strictly theoretical perspective capitalism thrives on finitude and thrives on scarcity it responds to scarcity with the pricing mechanism but moreover why would this claim be made just about capitalism if this were true if there were any validity to this claim that human society requires infinity to sustain itself why would that be true of capitalism but not true of feudalism like are you saying this is true the united states of america but it's not true of saudi arabia how does that make sense um it's not true of like feudal europe year 1500 or something how does that make sense why would this claim if it's ultimately about you know the things of this earth like water and gasoline why would it be that capitalism requires these things to be infinite but not a communist system a communist command economy of the soviet union okay meaning a corporation will run out of resources to use or that pollution will start to be so great that it will start to affect the costs of production this is the natural outcome from a system that seeks to produce the most amount of goods for the least amount of money possible capitalism is a system that needs to perpetually grow and perpetual growth on a finite planet with finite resources is impossible when i look at jenk wieger i feel the exact opposite way about him as most of the people in my audience and most people in his audience i think most people on the internet who watch this stuff they really appreciate jank weaker's contribution to journalism they appreciate the entertainment and political commentary provides but they regard his political career as kind of a joke it's kind of a distraction i feel the other way around about it i think chank wieger has an incredibly important message to deliver about corruption what he calls money and politics i think he has an incredibly important political platform not just in standing for office and election now but also in he's created various foundations really targeting this issue really trying to communicate to the public all of your problems left wing and right wing in the united states america are linked to the fundamental problem that you have cash and carry government that people pay for influence that you know the private sector can buy outcomes can buy policy decisions that you really fundamentally need to change much more in american politics much more than just campaign finance reforms you need to you need to challenge the assumptions i wish the whole system i think that's a fundamentally brilliant important wholesome political message that jankweger you know as a politician he seems to be at the beginning of his career as a politician not at the end i i support him on that 100 unfortunately as a journalist i think he has absolutely no credibility whatsoever i think he's someone who comes on camera and has none of the self-discipline and none of the self-doubt and none of the skepticism and none of the intellectual rigor and none of the honesty necessary to do this job this job i'm basically doing for you right now for free i'm getting paid like five dollars a month at this point by google but i still have the honest i still have the rigor to just do this little bit of a google search to just question a piece of propaganda that i have heard repeated out of jake wieger's mouth again and again and again on an almost daily basis for years jank weaker is the same guy who will come on camera and deadpan serious you about the central park five and and the most fundamental lie is that he'll pretend he knows what he's talking about when he never once read the police reports he never once read the court decisions he never once read the interviews and the confessions with grumps he never did the 15 minutes of research that i did on and you know what at some point we have to stop holding our political leaders to such abysmally low standards it's not enough to say bernie sanders is better than donald trump we have to move forward to saying either bernie sanders is right or he's wrong either bernie sanders knows what he's talking about or he does not either something is truth or fiction and if you're dealing with fiction you tell me are these lies well-intentioned or is there some other agenda here so so you