The wealth concentration is a symptom of a dysfunctional economy based around rent-seeking monopolies. If you address that, the wealth equality comes as a result thanks to the non-zero sum nature of the economy, as more people are able to operate businesses in a fair way.
This is almost exactly the situation that resulted during the first gilded age with standard oil. Antitrust legislation works wonders if it has teeth. Currently it does not.
The current richest man on the planet makes his money not from economic rent but from first mover advantage in the electric car market, first mover advantage in the private space market, and first mover advantage in the online payments market.
What part of this seeks rent?
It is exceptionally easy for Americans to fund and start businesses at this point
Monopoly may lead to wealth inequality but you're confusing causation with correlation. Witnessed wealth inequality does not necessarily signal large scale monopoly
I think there's a case to be made against generational wealth on the basis that it can suppress free enterprise by acting monopolistically, capturing a regulatory environment, and/or by draining liquidity from an economy. But that is clearly not the case being made by most of the people who harp on wealth inequality. Free enterprise would eventually lead to inequality all over again, so obviously that's gotta go too /s
The pie gets bigger as long there is room for economic growth, which points to our finite planet and a zero-sum economy after all. When the non-zero wealth creation is only in the form of eg. circular investment, as we see it today, i would dismiss it as a detached numbers game.
"NPR finds 'no sign' of Polymarket's office; sources say the reporting team was 'deeply unsettled' to find a company operating without a mandatory 40-minute 'Land Acknowledgment' in the lobby."
This ruling impacts tariffs imposed by way of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which includes the reciprocal tariffs announced on April 2’s so-called “Liberation Day.” Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that roughly $170 billion in tariff revenues have been generated through February 20 via these policies. However, this ruling has no bearing on section 232 tariffs, which have been used to justify levies on the likes of steel and aluminum.
Trump administration officials had indicated that they developed contingency plans to attempt to reinstate levies in the event of this outcome. CNN reported that Trump called this ruling a “disgrace” and said he had a backup plan for tariffs.
The important thing is that Trump can't do the tariffs beyond 15% on a whim anymore though. Like imposing tariffs on Canada because of an ad displayed in Toronto.
That's just bluster. The IEEPA nonsense was already the creative trickery deployed in defense of a novel and prima facia unconstitutional policy. If they had a better argument, they would have made it.
And we know in practice that Trump TACOs out rather than pick real fights with established powers. Markets don't like it when regulatory agencies go rogue vs. the rule of law. They'll just shift gears to something else.
Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO) is a term that gained prominence in May 2025 after many threats and reversals during the trade war U.S. president Donald Trump initiated with his administration's "Liberation Day" tariffs.
The charitable explanation is that he chickens out when confronted with real backlash.The less charitable explanation is that he 'chickens' out after the appropriate bribe has been paid to him.
I think that the tariffs are what he said they were... a starting point for pushing (re)negotiation, and that has largely been successful. This ruling doesn't roll back all those trade deals.
1. That's transparently NOT what the white house said the tariffs were for.
2. There has been NO significant change (via negotiation or not) in non-tariff trade policy under this administration. Essentially all those "announcements" of "deals" were, were just the acts of rolling back the tariffs themselves. No one caved. We didn't get any advantage.
It's just absolutely amazing to me the degree of epistemological isolation the right has created for it in the modern US.
Joe Rogan is attempting to explain both sides to the ICE raid debate, but the media keeps clipping his full quote so it sounds like he’s calling ICE “the Gestapo.”
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