JB Shreve presents the End of History

Reading Time: 2 minutesThis episode looks at the ascent of the new Shah and the coup in Iran. This is part 2 in our series on the History of Iran and the Next War from JB Shreve and the End of History.   In this podcast episode I separate a lot of the popular myth and legend regarding the Shah and the coup in Iran from the actual and factual history. You will learn about the origins and rise of Iran’s second Shah after his father was removed from power by the British. you will also learn about Mossadeqh. He is frequently portrayed as this fighter for democratic liberalism in Iran. The truth about Mossadeqh is a bit mirkier.   JB Shreve and the End of History Episode 190: The Shah and the Coup in Iran – History of Iran and the Next War Part 2   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Reading Time: 1 minuteThis is part 1 in my podcast series covering the history of Iran. We move from the ancient history of Persia up to the Pahlavi dynasty and World War II in this episode. the End of History Episode 189 – History of Iran and the Next War – Part 1 Watch for part 2 in this series to hit your feed in the next few days.  If you liked this podcast episode on the history of Iran you might also enjoy this podcast series on the History of the Middle East. ↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Reading Time: 1 minuteWelcome to the series finale of my economic inequality podcast series. Will economic inequality be resolved? What are the theories that have been offered up to cure this problem? Why do these ideas so often fail? This is the series finale in my 13 part economic inequality podcast series. In this finale I look at some of the popular ideas around economic inequality and why they are frequently incorrect. It is here in this finale to the economic inequality podcast series where I also provide my personal take on the issue.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my expert topic guides on other topics as well.   

Reading Time: 2 minutesCorruption and inequality go hand in hand. I pointed this out at the beginning of this series on Economic Inequality in America. A key indicator of a society in decline and near the edge of destruction is rising levels of inequality. And a key contributor and symptom of inequality within a society is rising levels of corruption. This is true from ancient Rome to the modern day. This fact alone should have Americans concerned as we are currently experiencing levels of corruption unprecedented in our history. Unfortunately, very few are alarmed. We have been numbed to what is taking shape. Perhaps one of the effects of digitizing our currency is that we no longer realize when we are being robbed. Perhaps we are too distracted to realize what is taking shape. In any event, corruption and inequality in America today is unlike ANYTHING we have ever seen or experienced. In 1920 a man by the name of Charles Ponzi duped his investors out of $20 million. This was in the context of massive inequality within the American economy that was soon to be corrected during the Great Depression. The phrase “ponzi scheme” originated here. Less than 90 years laters Bernie Madoff dwarfed that scandal by stealing more than $65 billion from his investors. Madoff’s was not the only corruption scandal of the new 21st century. His was only the largest. In the first ten years of the new century there were several corruption scandals which signaled the alarm of the linkage between corruption and inequality. Each of these also easily overshadowed the original Ponzi scheme of 1920. Very little, if anything, was done about the root issues contributing to the growing normalization of corruption in the American system. Corruption and Inequality and a Growing Disregard From Tyco to Worldcom to Enron and beyond, the nature of today’s corruption scandals set off alarms only for their levels of flagrant abuse and disregard to the costs they give to American economy. * In the Worldcom corruption scandal there were 30,000 lost jobs. Investors lost $180 billion. * In the 2001 Enron corruption scandal shareholders lost $74 billion and more than 28,000 people lost their jobs. * In 2005 AIG was caught in a $3.5 billion accounting fraud. No one went to jail. Then again in 2008 they posted one of the largest losses in history with $61.7 billion for their part in the 2008 economic crisis. The company was bailed out by tax payers and then awarded its executives with $165 million in bonuses. Corruption and inequality go hand in hand. This is the state of affairs in America today. ↑ Grab this Headline Animator   This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my expert topic guides on other topics as well. 

Reading Time: 2 minutesIn the shadow of the United States moving its embassy to Jerusalem and officially recognizing the ancient city as Israel’s capital, more than 1,000 Palestinian protesters were shot and over 60 killed by Israeli security forces in Gaza. This podcast episode looks at the between the US and Israel special relationship through the decades, separating fact from myth and political agendas. We examine the scale of the US and Israel special relationship, its history, and whether or not this is actually a benefit to the global order and American foreign policy.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator the End of History  Episode 188: America’s 51st State – US and Israel Special Relationship    * If you want to learn more about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, check out this series referenced within the episode.  * See also this article by Neri Zilber in the Atlantic that was referenced within the episode.  * You can also see all of our resources on this topic here.  If you are enjoying this story on the “US and Israel Special Relationship” you might enjoy the whole series related to it. Click here to see the table of contents for the Complete and Balance Historical Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. If you liked the opening music…here you go.

Reading Time: 3 minutesIf economic inequality is as big an issue as I have made it out to be in this series, then why do we tolerate it? The answer lies in this idea of the American dream. The root of the American dream is the potential for social mobility. In this podcast I will explain how Americans today are living under an illusion. Social mobility has expired and we are living at the end of the American dream. The American dream was a concept first coined during the 1930s as the Greatest Generation fought back agains the Great Depression. It was made popular when that same generation lived out the benefits of the great compression. We talked about this period in a prior episode in the series. Central to the ideas of the American dream was social mobility. If one worked hard and obeyed the rules, they could make it here. The lives of their children would be better than their own. Social mobility means moving up from one social hierarchy to another over the course of generations if necessary. By way of the American dream, Americans have continued to pursue social mobility ever since World War II. The reality however is that we have come to the end of the American dream. It has been over for at least a decade and perhaps even longer. Stats on the Decline of Upward Social Mobility in America Today a child born into the middle class is more likely to descend into a lower and poorer class in America than he is to become rich. This makes sense to some extent because if it was easy to become rich, everyone would do it. But the loss of upward mobility means that child is more likely to become poor than he is to even remain in the middle class. The American dream is over. * One study showed that it would now take a child born into poverty in America at least 125 years to become rich throughout social mobility. That is more than five generations. * An American born into poverty is far less likely to rise to the middle class than a child born in Germany, France, or Scandinavia today. * Far more people are falling out of the middle class and into poverty than are moving from the middle class into upper classes. * The proportion of wealth being held by the richest Americans is increasing while the percentage of these richest Americans is decreasing. End of the American Dream One of the major paradigms that have contributed to the end of upward social mobility in America has to do with the perspectives of money, wealth and riches. The middle class thinks of riches in the form of income. The rich think of riches in the form of assets minus liabilities. For the rich, it is about how much assets they hold and can free from taxes and debt. The assets of the rich are frequently not even associated with their income. Debates about income taxes are therefore null and void when it comes to economic inequality. Income has very little to do with the differences between the rich, the middle class and the poor.     ↑ Grab this Headline Animator     This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my expert topic guides on other topics as well. 

Reading Time: 1 minuteThis episode is part of our podcast series on the history of terrorism. In today’s episode we tell the story of Russian Terror from 1850 to the Russian Revolution. the End of History Episode 187: History of Terrorism: Russian Terror Additional Reading: Assassination of Alexander II ISIS and the History of Russian Terrorism Blood Rage & History: The World’s First Terrorists

Reading Time: 4 minutesHow bad is wealth inequality in the US? How bad is income inequality in the US? This reality of ignorance allows the problems of wealth and income inequality to not only persist, but it also insures that the issues will never be dealt with. How Bad Is Inequality in the US? * Currently the rate of economic inequality in America is worse than at any point in American history since 1928 (the year before the start of the Great Depression). * After accounting for taxes and transfers, the United States has the second highest level of inequality among the world’s developed countries. This has increased under both Republican and Democrat leadership. That accounts for both how bad is wealth inequality in the US and also how bad is income inequality in the US. * Americans in the top 10% income bracket earn an average of almost 9 times more than those in the bottom 90%. Those in the famous top 1% earn a whopping thirty-eight times more than those in the bottom 90%. * A lot of press coverage and protest activity has been directed against income inequality but the bigger story is about wealth inequality. In the United States, the top 20% own 88.9% of all the wealth in the country.     The US is a Major Part in a Global Problem of Inequality * Oxfam released a study in 2017 announcing that 8 of the world’s richest people possessed the same amount of wealth as the world’s poorest half. This goes beyond the questions how bad is wealth inequality in the US or how bad is income inequality in the US, but the US is a big part of the story of global inequality. * In 2017 billionaires increased their combined global wealth by almost a fifth to a record $6 trillion– more than twice the GDP of the United Kingdom. * There are now 1,542 billionaires across the world, after 145 multi-millionaires saw their wealth in 2016 tick over into nine-zero fortunes last year, according to the UBS / PwC Billionaires report. This increase in wealth among the super rich took place under the policies of former President Obama’s – not President Trump. The world’s liberal leaders have overseen as much economic inequality  as the conservative. The pictures of inequality are all around us. They demonstrate how bad is wealth inequality in the US and how bad is income inequality in the US everywhere from our healthcare to our entertainment. The problem is we have not learned to recognize these issues and problems for what they truly are. * The gap in life expectancy between the richest 1 percent and the poorest 1 percent now stands at between 10-15 years. Billionaires own our favorite sports teams while most Americans cannot afford tickets to these sports events. * The stock market soared in 2017 and much of 2018. Only 54% of Americans were invested in the stock market.   In the portion of my podcast series on economic inequality where we look at the historical process through which this process has unfolded I noted how the gap between the rich and poor, as well as the rich and middle class, starting in the 1980s. The picture speaks for itself. Look at what happens in the 1980’s.    

Reading Time: 2 minutesWho are the top 1% in America? Probably not who you think they are. The photo below was captured at the University of Arkansas during the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. The banner was hung by a fraternity on campus. Across the street you can see the self appointed representatives of the 99% yelling at the fraternity house. What I really enjoy about the photo is that at least one of these groups is incorrect in their self appointed designations when it comes to inequality in America.   This episode is Part 9 in my podcast series on Economic Inequality in America. This episode explores the question “who is the top 1% in America.” What does it take to be super rich? When people talk about the super rich and inequality in America they frequently miss the point and true facts of the matter. For example, income has very little if anything to do with inequality when we are talking about the top 1% in America. They don’t draw their riches from a paycheck. Their riches are defined by wealth. And wealth is something that all of the poor, most of the middle class and even some of the regular rich (top 10%) don’t have as much of a hold upon as the super rich do. * 00.5% of the world’s richest elite own 38.5% of its wealth * The 3 richest men in the US own as much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans (160 million people) * The world’s 500 richest people within the 1% are expected to pass down more than $2.4 trillion to their heirs over the next 20 years * In 2017 the 1% captured 82% of the world’s wealth while the world’s poorest 50% gained nothing * 42 of the world’s richest people (those in the 1%) hold as much wealth as the world’s poorest 3.7 billion people The 1% do not look at money the same way the rest of us do and they also do not live by the same rules which the rest of us live by. Then there is a group who talk about much less often because they have not been made infamous by the chants of protesters. * They 10% richest Americans own 84% of the stocks in America’s investment system.   * The top 10% richest Americans own 77% of America’s wealth To really understand economic inequality in America it is important that we understand who the super rich really are. The top 1% in America are frequently not who we think they are. They are hidden from most of us. Even the top 10% in America are far more influential and powerful than we often realize.   This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my expert topic guides on other topics as well. 

Reading Time: 2 minutesMost Americans are unaware of how close the American and global economies came to complete collapse in 2008. Recognizing what nearly occurred in 2008, if we are paying attention, should demonstrate with authority the links between financial crisis and inequality. This episode continues where the last episode left off. We look at the rising levels of debt and speculation within the economy that was a byproduct of the growing inequality in the American system. Then we look specifically at how the 2008 Economic Crisis came about, one step at a time. The economic crisis of 2008 might have been the reset within the American system needed to resolve the extensive imbalances of inequality. This would have made it much like the Great Depression was in the 1930s. The government was stuck. If they had allowed the crisis to play out on its own, America and the global economy might not have survived. On the other hand, by getting involved and bailing out the finance sectors during the 2008 economic crisis, corruption and inequality were incentivized. As a result, since the 2008 crisis, inequality has only gotten worse. The Financial Crisis and Inequality – The Obama Years * The gains since (2008) have accrued overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans. The top 1% gained 93% of the additional income created in the country in 2010 compared to 2009. * The income gap between rich and poor people grew to the widest in more than 40 years in 2011 as the poverty rate remained at almost a two-decade high.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator This podcast episode is part 8 in the series on Economic Inequality in America. This episode wraps up the history portion of the story with a look at the relationship between the financial crisis and inequality in America. One thing led to another and since then the cycle has only continued. This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my expert topic guides on other topics as well. 

Reading Time: 3 minutesAt the beginning of this series I asked the question, “Why is inequality bad for the economy?” Beginning in the late 1990s and up to the 2008 meltdown we began to see the answer to this question. We began to see the effects of wealth and income inequality economics as the American economy bounded from one extreme to another. (Note the bullet points of income inequality facts at the bottom of this post.) The tech boom, and tech bubble, of the late 1990s fed into different crises of the early 2000s. First there was 9/11 and then there was Enron and the corruption scandals. Each of these crises along with the busting of the tech bubble bursting should have led to a correction in the markets. The excess of the 1980s and 90s should have been resolved here. They were not. Instead the government kept interest rates artificially low fueling greater and greater levels of market speculation and investment. We also saw a surge in the finance sector as it became one of the leading sectors of the American economy.   Why and how did this all happen? It happened because the elite and powerful who were amassing more and more wealth through the markets had their hands on the levers of power in the markets and the governments. This was not calculated or conspiratorial. There was no cabal unfolding in America. It was basic human nature and self interests at work throughout the American economic system. Why is inequality bad for the economy? Because income inequality economics and wealth inequality economics, when allowed to go unrestrained, breed greater and greater levels of corruption. When left unchecked and unaccountable individual self interests will fight for individual survival and strengths even if the rest of the ship goes down. That was what was taking shape in the American economy. Debt was growing. Interest rates were holding low. Corruption was increasing. The gap between those at the top of the economic spectrum and those at the bottom was growing wider and wider by the month. * US public debt in 2001 was $144.5 billion, in 2008 $962 billion * The poverty rate grew from 11.5% in 2000 to 13.2% in 2008 (US Census Bureau, 2010). The Look of Income Inequality Economics Check out these income inequality facts. * From 2000-2005, only 4% of workers, typically highly-educated professionals, had real income increases. * According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, who reviewed income tax returns for all income groups since 1917, found that in 2005, the top 1% received its largest share of gross income since 1928. * The top one percent of households received 21.8 percent of all pre-tax income in 2005, more than double what that figure was in the 1970s. * This is the greatest concentration of income since 1928, when 23.9 percent of all income went to the richest one percent. * All of the income gains in 2005 went to the top 10 percent of households, while the bottom 90 percent of households saw income declines. * While the middle class stagnated, the super rich, the top 0.1% jumped from an annual average income of $4million in 1979 to $24.3 million in 1976 –A 600% gain per family. This was more than 2 ½ times their share in 1979. * The super rich, the top 1%, gained so much that they captured 23.4% of the national economic pie in 2007. * The typical college graduate today makes only about a $1000 more than in 1980, adjusted for inflation. * In the past decade entry level college salaries actually went backward. Their annual pay in 2010 was about $2,000 below their pay in 2000. These are only the tip of the iceberg for income inequality facts. Learn more about the state of income inequality economics that occurred after the turn of the century in this podcast episode.  

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe great divergence of the 1980s and 90s changed the way Americans worked. This inequality changed American society. Most did not realize what was happening at the time. There were cultural implications of the growing divide between rich and poor. As the costs and standards of living grew much faster than the income of the middle class and poor, choices and changes of life were necessary. We frequently don’t see the history of American culture in this light but changes at the economic level were affecting changes at the family and societal level as well. As these changes grew and developed across the coming decades they you completely upend and revolutionize American culture. How Inequality Changed American Society During the Great Divergence American homes changes from single income homes to double income homes as mom and dad both went to work. This shift was not about women’s liberation. It was about the need for grocery money, for car and home payments, and the growing costs of living. This was significant. When we see the growing gap between the rich and the middle class represented in graphs that chart the growth of economic inequality we need to keep in mind that those in the middle class and lower usually account for two incomes per home, not only one as they did in prior decades. The problem is even worse than the charts demonstrate. These changes were evident in the 1980s. New terms to describe our society like “latchkey kids” were invented. The movies of the era reflected the shift in America’s family culture, even if they did not address what was driving the shift. Have you ever wondered where the parents in the movies about teenagers from the 1950s and 1960s disappeared to in the 1980s? They went to work. Just as significant was a change in laws that opened up access to greater reservoirs of consumer debt to the middle class. The efforts for the middle class and the poor to keep up with the growing costs and standards of living were now being finances with personal debt. The rise of unprecedented levels of personal debt within the American economy was a game changer that would drive economic growth and transformation for the next three decades.     How Inequality Changed the American Economy During the Great Divergence The home and the family was not the only thing that changed during the great divergence. The growth of debt and the financial sector changed the very nature of the US economy. While the markets began to experience more frequents booms and busts, the rich learned to get richer no matter what was happening. Notice the growth of market activity since 1980 versus all the decades prior in this chart.     At the same time consumer debt exploded in growth. Many of the stocks that were part of this rise in the markets were buoyed by debt. The easier financing of a car or home furniture led to more sales which led to better company performance and higher stock values. This was a vicious cycle of economic growth built upon debt. No one seemed to realize that eventually the bills were going to come due.     This was the beginning of a new American experience and explains how inequality changed American society.     ↑ Grab this Headline Animator   This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe great divergence is mapped out in most graphs and charts about economic inequality as beginning in the 1980s. It is credited as an effect of Reaganomics, the economic policies of US President Ronald Reagan. When historians and economists look to the end of the great compression and what caused the great divergence and rising inequality in the US, they usually look to the 1980s and President Reagan. As discussed in the last podcast episode in this series, I do not believe that is what the data and history really demonstrate. Sometimes we have to look beyond politics to find the real facts. The 1970s brought an end the post war economic growth in the US economy. The government financed boom to the economy in the 1950s and 60s proved it could work – but it could not work indefinitely. The era of the great divergence in the 1980s was brought about by policies and objectives to end the stagnation of the 1970s. Something had to change. Those changes, known as Reaganomics, meant an end to the economy’s death spiral of the 1970s but it also meant a rising inequality in the US economic and social systems. The most famous aspect of Reaganomics was a complete philosophical reversal to what the baby boomers and the greatest generation believed. Government could not fix the problems of the American economy because government was the problem in the American economy. With the significant exception of defense spending, throughout the 1980s the hand of government was withdrawn from the American economy and social system. This created significant deregulation within industries that were previously tightly managed by the government.     There were positive benefits to this. It worked! Innovation, entrepreneurship, new technology, all of these things were incentivized to push to the forefront. America’s economy, by the middle of the 1980s was growing and producing once again. There were also significant negatives to this. The lack of regulation and government oversight led to a heightened level of corruption and excess within the American business and economic sectors. The 1980s became known as the Decade of Decadence. Corruption and excess thrived and the great divergence began. The modern phenomenon of rising inequality in the US can be traced to this specific time period. This shift in economic and governing philosophy was not isolated to the United States. The shift was global, largely as a result of US leadership and inspired the rising inequality in the US to be reflected throughout the world. The great divergence was a global trend. Economists say that the great divergence was the event where two significant things happened within the global economy. First, globalization began. Massive economic growth took shape for all of those nations and economies who participated in the deregulation trends. The second event was that the benefits of this growth was experienced almost exclusively at the top end of the income and wealth spectrums. The poor were being left behind not only in the US but throughout the world.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator   This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my expert topic guides on other topics as well. 

Reading Time: 2 minutesIn our last episode we looked at the period of the great compression. In this episode we will begin look at what ended the great compression. The massive government spending, the acceleration of the American dream, and the thriving levels of economic equality came to an abrupt halt in the 1970s. This was the beginning of what ended the great compression but it is not where many economists and historians look for this answer. The growth of inequality began to surge in the 1980s but the economic exhaustion of the 1970s are what allowed this to take place. There was a cost to pay for the massive spending of the 1950s and 60s. From Vietnam and bulging defense spending to NASA and President Johnson’s extensive social programs – the US government was involved and writing checks everywhere. This could not be sustained though. This fact seems quite obvious but it is missed in most histories of economic inequality in the US. The very solution that many believe will cure economic inequality, government spending, taxation and redistribution of income and wealth, has already proven itself unsuccessful and unsustainable.     What Ended the Great Compression The public thirst for government spending had been established and would never be quenched again. The government could no longer keep up with that thirst. As a result, government debt began to grow. As the debt grew, interest rates skyrocketed. That meant a lot for the government. It also meant a slowdown for business growth. Worst of all, it meant a huge hit on the average American family. This is what ended the great compression and the economic growth in the 1970s. This is what we look at in this podcast episode and continuing series on the History of Economic Inequality. The good times come to an abrupt halt in the 1970’s as the excessive postwar spending finally comes due for payment. In this episode we look at the 1970’s in America and the economic downturn that serves as the launching pad for the onset of economic inequality that we are experiencing today.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator   This is part of my Complete Guide to Understanding Inequality in America. Check it out for more podcast episodes, infographics and articles and on this topic. Check out all of my expert topic guides on other topics as well. 

Reading Time: 1 minuteThis podcast episode from the End of History looks at the conditions and chaos in Eastern Ghouta, Syria. The violence and atrocities continue and the world seems to barely notice. the End of History Episode 184: Hell On Earth: Eastern Ghouta You can download or stream my entire podcast series on the Syrian Civil War here.