Two Lies Bernie Sanders is Telling About the Economy… and One He's Not.
04 July 2019 [link youtube]
The mainstream left is clinging to this illusion that "the poor are getting poorer" and "the middle class is stagnating (if not being reduced to poverty)," even when very clear economic facts prove that these claims are untrue (charts from the C.B.O., the census bureau, and so on). Bernie Sanders may not be aware that he's lying, but he's repeating dangerous misinformation that has ossified into "bedrock assumptions" rarely challenged in the mainstream left (e.g., in the Democrat Party presidential primary debates).
Youtube Automatic Transcription
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 percent 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 then the poor are getting richer however still doesn't mean the poor getting poorer that is a heat that is a lie but here i find on page 191 of this book 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 shrewd I've got a lot of really idiotic fan mail or hate mail and response to that I love that what some people wrote in saying oh um but those charts don't account for inflation you look at a chart from like 1979 to 2010 or 2015 isn't like who you think those charts don't account for inflation and what one of the charts even says right on the headline right at the top it says real wages real wages and cumulative growth of real wages and percentage of gross national income 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 inflation to inflation I can't help you people if you're looking at the facts if you look into 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 this is the situation we're in in the mainstream of today and here is Bernie Sanders saying loud and clear - lies - lies the first law is the rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poor 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 you from within that that quotation he claims that Congress that the federal government of the United States is doing nothing to deal with this this reads we could do an impersonation of Courtney Sandra it sounds like it was transcribed from his speech the writing style it's very much like a speech and what other 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 the next campaigns and then once elected they are representing the interests of the 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 Aris train 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 and let me know if I'm wrong I'm guessing you are not on a vegan diet that would be my guess um let's go with the average hourly earnings of production and non supervisory employees produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics about four and 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 orders and many of the statistics use this it is a kludge 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 straightforward way based on 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 Oh using the PCE to adjust for inflation ah these statistics are adjusted for inflation guys it's just sorry if you can't interpret really simple economic and social science statistics use the PCE to adjust for inflation the wages of a typical 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 rig to benefit the people at the top they might well believe it okay let's go on to a new chart there's new in the sense that it hasn't appeared in my my prior video here we are zoomed out you can see that the source is from the CBO of the American Congressional Budget Office but let's zoom in what are we looking at people we're going in on the left you see the growth in income before the effect of the federal government's intervention okay so there is there several different myths and misconceptions Peak 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 but 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 this report from the CBO was criticized for that reason that it's much more complex to take you to 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 fragance to the people that it's 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 there's a look at the dramatic effect of government intervention and redistribution from the rich to the poor by that gold you SMA 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 primary is that they even present they're clinging to the myth of the poor getting poorer they're clinging to the myth that the federal government is doing nothing to help rubble we just looked at a very real quantitative measure of how dramatic the impact that is since 2000 in poverty the typical middle-class family has seen its well go down by more than 36 percent [Music] for the last 40 years the American and a third myth I challenge you in mountains to let me know if you'd ever hurt Bernie Sanders invoke this one a third myth that's very important for the current generation is the myth that capitalism will inevitably fail and will inevitably implode will inevitably collapse of turrets of the park why why why wow-wow because allegedly allegedly capitalism requires who don't quote 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 labour 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 unempioyed unfalsifiable dogmatic and ridiculous claim imaginable and it falls apart just to a simple process of Socratic dialogue like okay so what is it the capitalism requires what factor does capital is required to be infinite given that throughout its entire history none of the factors of 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 essentially really from a strictly theoretical perspective capitalism thrives on finitude and thrives on scarcity 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 fix things um it's not true of like feudal you're up you're fifteen hundred or something how does that make sense why would this claim if it's ultimately about you know the things of this earth what 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 so that is one more lie that as far as I know Bernie Sanders I mean look if you go through the guy's whole career if you go back to 1985 maybe you can find him saying that somewhere but in his current act in his current routine I think this video was addressed to lies that Bernie Sanders does tell and one that he does not
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 percent 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 then the poor are getting richer however still doesn't mean the poor getting poorer that is a heat that is a lie but here i find on page 191 of this book 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 shrewd I've got a lot of really idiotic fan mail or hate mail and response to that I love that what some people wrote in saying oh um but those charts don't account for inflation you look at a chart from like 1979 to 2010 or 2015 isn't like who you think those charts don't account for inflation and what one of the charts even says right on the headline right at the top it says real wages real wages and cumulative growth of real wages and percentage of gross national income 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 inflation to inflation I can't help you people if you're looking at the facts if you look into 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 this is the situation we're in in the mainstream of today and here is Bernie Sanders saying loud and clear - lies - lies the first law is the rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poor 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 you from within that that quotation he claims that Congress that the federal government of the United States is doing nothing to deal with this this reads we could do an impersonation of Courtney Sandra it sounds like it was transcribed from his speech the writing style it's very much like a speech and what other 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 the next campaigns and then once elected they are representing the interests of the 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 Aris train 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 and let me know if I'm wrong I'm guessing you are not on a vegan diet that would be my guess um let's go with the average hourly earnings of production and non supervisory employees produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics about four and 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 orders and many of the statistics use this it is a kludge 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 straightforward way based on 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 Oh using the PCE to adjust for inflation ah these statistics are adjusted for inflation guys it's just sorry if you can't interpret really simple economic and social science statistics use the PCE to adjust for inflation the wages of a typical 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 rig to benefit the people at the top they might well believe it okay let's go on to a new chart there's new in the sense that it hasn't appeared in my my prior video here we are zoomed out you can see that the source is from the CBO of the American Congressional Budget Office but let's zoom in what are we looking at people we're going in on the left you see the growth in income before the effect of the federal government's intervention okay so there is there several different myths and misconceptions Peak 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 but 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 this report from the CBO was criticized for that reason that it's much more complex to take you to 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 fragance to the people that it's 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 there's a look at the dramatic effect of government intervention and redistribution from the rich to the poor by that gold you SMA 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 primary is that they even present they're clinging to the myth of the poor getting poorer they're clinging to the myth that the federal government is doing nothing to help rubble we just looked at a very real quantitative measure of how dramatic the impact that is since 2000 in poverty the typical middle-class family has seen its well go down by more than 36 percent [Music] for the last 40 years the American and a third myth I challenge you in mountains to let me know if you'd ever hurt Bernie Sanders invoke this one a third myth that's very important for the current generation is the myth that capitalism will inevitably fail and will inevitably implode will inevitably collapse of turrets of the park why why why wow-wow because allegedly allegedly capitalism requires who don't quote 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 labour 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 unempioyed unfalsifiable dogmatic and ridiculous claim imaginable and it falls apart just to a simple process of Socratic dialogue like okay so what is it the capitalism requires what factor does capital is required to be infinite given that throughout its entire history none of the factors of 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 essentially really from a strictly theoretical perspective capitalism thrives on finitude and thrives on scarcity 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 fix things um it's not true of like feudal you're up you're fifteen hundred or something how does that make sense why would this claim if it's ultimately about you know the things of this earth what 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 so that is one more lie that as far as I know Bernie Sanders I mean look if you go through the guy's whole career if you go back to 1985 maybe you can find him saying that somewhere but in his current act in his current routine I think this video was addressed to lies that Bernie Sanders does tell and one that he does not