I mean.. 1% controlling more than half of all wealth sounds bad and all, but according to the article, quality of life has been improving faster than ever for the remaining 99% too.. As long as that second part holds true, I don't really care about the first part to be honest
Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
31–40 of 368 posts
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#32I wonder what percentage of Hacker News readers are in the international 1%. That’s about $32,000/yr salary. My guess is it’s much greater than 50%.
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#33Top 1% worldwide is not a great statistic. In many US cities that is just above poverty due to CoL at ~32k.
Is there a better one instead? Or is it useless to measure global inequality and weatlh accumulation? Is there a local/national/global threshold that would make you concerned?
There should also be 0.5 and 0.9 quantiles since just knowing the 0.99 doesn't really say too much about the overall distribution.
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#34It is said the Chinese plan out 100 and 1000 years. Why not continue the extrapolation past 2050 and 2100, it might provide sound bites with more teeth "One person to control 99% of wealth by date 20XX".
This is silly. Chinese history is no more predicable than anywhere else. If any such plans exist, they are pretty worthless.
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#35> “If the system of capitalist liberal democracy which has triumphed in the west is to pass the big test of globalisation – and the assault from radical Islam as well as its own internal pressures from post-crash austerity – we need some new thinking on ways to widen opportunity, share ownership and philanthropy. Fast.”
Sprinkle in a little radical islam fear mongering for kicks. This was funded by the Labour Party - not saying the message about inequality isn't true, but really strange to see that completely out of nowhere.
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#36Communism went away. It's not that communism was better. It's that it was competition. There was, for half a century, a competitive threat - do better than the USSR, or face a revolution. That threat was taken quite seriously in the US for decades. Industrialists (the US economy was mostly manufacturing back then) were careful not to get too greedy or power-hungry. They feared expropriation. Britain nationalized many…
We’re at the point now where labels such as “capitalist” and “communist” is meaningless. China is a purported communist country but is minting more billionaires per year than any other country.
This is a very good point. It's like trying to trouble shoot a system failure in a bullet train based on a 19th century document detailing train locomotion.
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#37Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#38Until the other 99% switch to a new blockchain where ownership is distributed differently.
That'd be ideal of course, but as of today, blockchain doesn't force equality. China had a good grap over Bitcoin where the big money miners where due to cheap electricity.
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#39Top 1% Global Income - $32,500/year Top 1% Global Wealth - $770,000 assets via https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/05061...
This feels like a large disconnect?
Assuming these two sets of people are not the same -- there are a lot of people in the west earning > $32K a year and having less than $770K in assets.
So they are in the top set but not the bottom. Since the cardinality of the sets is the same, where are all the people that have more than $770K in assets but earn less than $32K a year.
Even a fairly modest 5% return would produce more income than that, or are the stats excluding investment income?
People with that much equity in their home wouldn't realize the income ... but how many people in the west even live in $700K+ homes and yet have less than $32K in income a year? Maybe some seniors, but surely not a very large group.
Re: Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
#40Communism went away. It's not that communism was better. It's that it was competition. There was, for half a century, a competitive threat - do better than the USSR, or face a revolution. That threat was taken quite seriously in the US for decades. Industrialists (the US economy was mostly manufacturing back then) were careful not to get too greedy or power-hungry. They feared expropriation. Britain nationalized many…
Capitalism is so ingrained now, nobody can even imagine that alternative system could exist. In the minds of most, communism is a synonym of authoritarianism. Communist governments tended to be authoritarian, but it's not clear to me if it's a natural consequence of communism. It's more likely that authoritarianism is a consequence of violent revolutions. Is it possible to combine communism with democracy?