Did lockdowns turn richer Americans into dragons hoarding gold?

Americans who were at least moderately rich, e.g., incomes above $100,000 per year, prospered financially through a year of lockdown. They got paid the same or more. They didn’t have to spend money or time commuting. Their stock market and real estate holdings zoomed (so to speak) up. Since they couldn’t buy restaurant meals or travel, their earnings piled up. (See “During Covid-19, Most Americans Got Richer—Especially the Rich” (WSJ): “U.S. households gained $13.5 trillion in wealth in 2020. … More than 70% of the increase in household wealth went to the top 20% of income earners. About a third went to the top 1%.”)

Where have we previously seen someone who stays in one place for a year or more while surrounded by valuable items? Beowulf! At the end of the poem (more than 1,000 years old), our hero confronts a dragon whose lived experience for 300 years has been #StayHomeSaveLives while his/her/zir/their golden treasure appreciates. Mx. Dragon is almost as stuffed with cash as a Seattle divorce plaintiff, but never spends any of it.

Related:

  • “Dragonomics: Smaug and Climate Change” (Richard Fahey, a grad student in English at University of Notre Dame): “I would suggest that Smaug may be productively read as a representation of climate change, in the sense that the dragon is a force of smoke and heat which destroys ecosystems and disrupts the environment in much deeper and more long-lasting ways. … At the center of our modern struggles with dragonomics, I would argue, the problem of avarice endures. It is greed, especially from the fossil fuel lobby and the major energy companies (many linked to nations themselves), which have stalled and prevented developments in renewable energies in order to reduce our carbon footprint. … Dragonomics is not simply about making money, it is about plundering it and more importantly hoarding it.”
  • source of image above

8 thoughts on “Did lockdowns turn richer Americans into dragons hoarding gold?

  1. As it was in 2008, a lot more money has to go to go to the top than the bottom in order for quantitative easing to stimulate the economy. The only reason QE works is because the money is concentrated in those top tier wallets so it doesn’t count as inflation.

  2. “Americans who were at least moderately rich, e.g., incomes above $100,000 per year” Thanks for accepting most working people at some point of their careers to your club! Care to pass a drink?

  3. Do…not… look… behind… the… curtain…. Ignore the Fed… nothing to see there….

    The reality of why rich are getting richer is simple: monetary emission creates Cantillon effects. So the real weath flows from people who don’t hold any assets to those who do. COVID simply created the prime opportunity for the kleptocrats to rev the money printer into overdrive. Because stimulus.

  4. Regarding: Related:
    “Dragonomics: Smaug and Climate Change” (Richard Fahey, a grad student in English at University of…”

    What drival comes from English graduates!!! Are English graduate studies just a forum for the n monkeys with typewriters, hoping to get Shakespeare serendipitously, while understanding it will never really happen!

    • This is an example of smart and educated productive person’s writing, from an university ranked 19th best nation-wide. Aren’t we all doomed?

    • Remember that the smartest young Americans get PhDs in Critical Race Theory and then have their choice of academic and government positions.

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