Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн
45 страница из 137
The second battlefront has been over the distribution of wealth within countries. The billionaire Warren Buffett candidly told a CNN interviewer in 2011 that ‘there's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won’.ssss1 He was right. Structural overvaluation of the dollar due to the level of foreign demand for the currency has weakened the competitiveness of American exports in international markets. The wealthy have benefited disproportionately from the migration of manufacturing to lower-cost centres of production, while US workers have paid the price. This is not just a matter of monetary policy, however. Extreme ideological leanings towards free market policies since the 1980s have benefited wealthy and corporate interests through a range of policies, including lower taxation and less rigorous antitrust enforcement. The negative social impacts have been far-reaching. Rising wealth concentration has dragged on American economic vibrancy and undermined the legitimacy of the political system.