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World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

theguardian.com

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Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#231

Post by wvenable »

notyourwork wrote: post #59
coliveira wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is simple to understand: as population grows and technology grows even faster, there should be a steady stream of wealth increase. This has been observed as is obvious to everyone. However, if we allow the bulk of this wealth to be controlled by a tiny part of the population, we are creating a huge problem to current and to future generations. A hereditary oligarchy can be terrible to our civilization, and…

Not to say I disagree because I do think the wealthiest should contribute meaningfully to society. But when you say "without visible contributions to society." why should an extremely wealthy person have to contribute to society?

At minimum, a wealthy person should at least buy stuff -- that would actually be a contribution to society. But the super-wealthy have more money than they can possibly spend!

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#232

Post by [deleted] »

Danihan wrote: post #130
volgo wrote: post #126

As capitalism matures, it's clear to anyone with a thread of financial literacy that most wealth is created through capital gains rather than salary. We're approaching a state (at least in developed countries) where productivity is so high, that you can literally park your money in 500 of the biggest businesses and you're almost guaranteed a 7% annual return (if you hold stocks for the long term). Using the commonly…

I agree with much of what you said, yet I just don't see it as all that bad of a situation. I still think there is a lot of upward mobility even in that scenario -- the smarter people I know earn good salaries and have nice lifestyles. Nicer than their parents, in most cases, mainly because consumer technology constantly gets better and cheaper. And there is still opportunity for risk takers to start their own compan…

[deleted]

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#233

Post by pdelbarba »

CalChris wrote: post #41
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is possible for everyone's wealth to increase. In the year 1900 Global GDP was 1 Trillion. Today it is 77 Trillion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product In Layman's the Global Pie is growing. The number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen DRASTICALLY over the last 25 years. https://twitter.com/humanprogress/status/913901718823489538 So the people with the smallest piece of the pie are s…

> The number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen DRASTICALLY over the last 25 years. This is defined as people living on less than a dollar a day . Yes, it has more than halved in 30 years. Congratulations. I totally see how this progress actually over half a century relates to the world's richest getting an extra trillion in one year. Yep, makes sense to me.

Sorry to hijack this, but referring to your other comment, I also saw weird stuff going on today with posts getting flagged. Seems the bots and trolls have found our corner of the internet as well... Not sure what's going on exactly.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#234

Post by dorgo »

tensor wrote: post #182
adventured wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's clear to anyone with a thread of financial literacy That's argument from intimidation and not a valid form of argumentation. > In effect, late stage capitalism becomes the anti-thesis of the spirit of capitalism - devoid of competition, free innovation, and upward mobility Fortunately the world isn't in late stage Capitalism, because there is no such thing. As one obvious example, China has only begun to emerg…

>In the US, more people are moving up and out of the middle class, than are moving down and out of it. That has been the consistent trend for 50, 30, 15, 10 years. You're going to need to provide a citation for this statement. As for the rest, how many people are getting wealthy from these companies? Largely the same people who were getting wealthy from previous generations, and a few lucky individuals who managed to…

I think his argument was that there is enough competition (and inovation) in all markets.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#235

Post by dragonwriter »

jrs95 wrote: post #217
maxsilver wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Middle class people can take advantage of those investment returns as well. How exactly do you define "middle class"? Because by the popular definition of middle class, these folks can not take any meaningful advantage of any sort of investment returns. Generally speaking, middle class people barely have enough money to house and educate themselves (they must take out large barely-sustainable loans to cover either/…

You're confusing what people can do with what they actually do. I've known people who make close to the median income and support 4 children, own a home, and still had enough savings to buy them all cars and pay for their college tuition. They have some amount of retirement savings as well, though I don't know how much. I've also known people who make nearly 6 figures and just spend all of their money. A more expensi…

> I've known people who make close to the median income and support 4 children, own a home, and still had enough savings to buy them all cars and pay for their college tuition.

You just said, in effect, they had enough savings to spend them later to meet basic expenditures needed in raising children in their income level, which isn't really a sign of ability to accumulate excess capital after maintenance.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#236

Post by MisterBastahrd »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #23
mtgx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it did increase, most of that increase is just inflation anyway. And it's usually the wealthy that benefit from inflation (at least more than regular people do).

Compare the "regular" person of today to the "regular" person of 50 years ago. Is it easier or harder to afford basic foodstuffs? Do they eat out (luxury) more or less? If they own a home, is it larger or the same size? Who travels more? Who has better healthcare? Who spends more on entertainment? How much do they spend on the family pet? Who spent more time furthering their education? All of these are measures of we…

Fifty years ago, my grandparents built a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house on 4 acres of land with cash saved up from my grandfather's manual labor job (he stopped going to school in 8th grade) working for a sugar cane plant. They never, in the entirety of their lives, took out a loan. The simple fact of the matter is that they saved and invested back when it was easy to save and invest and thus never needed to rely on a bank for anything other than a place to store money. Oh, and they sent their 5 kids to college.

Try to do that today in the same area. The foremen at the same sugar house could never afford a regular residential lot, much less the a house to put on it. It would take them 20+ years to save the money.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#237

Post by MisterBastahrd »

viridian wrote: post #25
mtgx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it did increase, most of that increase is just inflation anyway. And it's usually the wealthy that benefit from inflation (at least more than regular people do).

The wealthy absolutely do not benefit from inflation, and lose the most money due to it in reality. Inflation depreciates the value of your liquidity, which is why every major company (except apple, it seems) dumps as much currency as possible into appreciable and tax deductible assets. However, that's more difficult for persons, and most of the super wealthy end up holding a plurality of their money on their person.…

Yes, they absolutely do. Without inflation, it would be almost impossible to borrow money from a bank. No borrowing = no new investment. Most super-wealthy people are constantly borrowing money because the rates they borrow at are lower than their return on investing that money.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#238

Post by andai »

rayiner wrote: post #140
twoodfin wrote: post #2

This article provides paragraph after paragraph of supporting data that the richest have gotten richer, but none that I can see supporting its claim that “billions of poorer people across the world have seen their wealth standstill or decline”.

That claim is not only unsupported, it's almost certainly false. The last few decades haven't been great for the middle class in wealthy countries, but it's been fantastic for "poorer people across the world." U.S. GDP per capita is up 60% since 2000. Bangladesh's is up 235%. India is up 288%. Thailand is up 195%. Poorer countries that have been able to cobble together enough rule of law to participate in capitalism…

GOAL 1:

ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER

Target 1.A:

Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 a day

The target of reducing extreme poverty rates by half was met five years ahead of the 2015 deadline.

More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty since 1990.

In 1990, nearly half of the population in the developing regions lived on less than $1.25 a day. This rate dropped to 14 per cent in 2015.

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/poverty.shtml

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#239

Post by [deleted] »

jrs95 wrote: post #217
maxsilver wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Middle class people can take advantage of those investment returns as well. How exactly do you define "middle class"? Because by the popular definition of middle class, these folks can not take any meaningful advantage of any sort of investment returns. Generally speaking, middle class people barely have enough money to house and educate themselves (they must take out large barely-sustainable loans to cover either/…

You're confusing what people can do with what they actually do. I've known people who make close to the median income and support 4 children, own a home, and still had enough savings to buy them all cars and pay for their college tuition. They have some amount of retirement savings as well, though I don't know how much. I've also known people who make nearly 6 figures and just spend all of their money. A more expensi…

[deleted]

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#240

Post by dclowd9901 »

umeshunni wrote: post #146
dclowd9901 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're burying your head in the sand, you're missing the headlies that wages have been stagnant for decades.

Nearly a billion people have been pulled out of poverty in India and China over the last 25 years. Their wages have at least tripled on average in real terms in the last 20 years. So, it's you who's burying your head in the "America first" sand. The middle class in the US had enjoyed the fruits of global inequality resulting from colonialism and WW2 during the second half of the 20th century. As the gap in skills and…

Are you really sitting here and telling me that people merely being brought out of destitution is progress? We have far different views on progress.
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