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Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

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Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#171
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are devolving to the status quo from the nineteen century and before. A couple owners of inherited wealth and huge dispossessed masses.

More specifically, the post-WWII era is ending and now we're reverting to the mean of most of human history, which was oligarchic wealth and authoritarianism. It's sort of a tragic irony that the largest generation thus far saw the 1945-1975 period as "normal" and how things should be, because it was actually a highly anomalous point in history generated by a perfect storm of factors (the demographic peak from previo…

I think it's more useful to think of "a huge war" as the effect of the cause of allowing nonsensical wealth concentration via allowing the individual wealth concentrators to use the media, the banks, and governments (the nation's militaries) to enforce hegemony at home and abroad through debt and the use of violence to collect. International trade (as it did in the early 20th century global wars) becomes a vice, as indebted nations are divided between the wealthy that seek to preserve the value of their currency by bone-grinding the locals, fascist forces that seek to become the next bone-grinders, and socialists and idealists whom would rather at the end of the day see debt restructured around social welfare. We've consistently only chosen the first two options throughout all human history.

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#172
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are devolving to the status quo from the nineteen century and before. A couple owners of inherited wealth and huge dispossessed masses.

Who is dispossessed?

In the US about 60% of people do not own land without debt. And the majority also struggle to pay for healthcare and education without incurring debt. Only around 25% of Americans are debt free. Various surveys show between 15-30% of Americans think they could cover 6 months of expenses with their assets.

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#173
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true if you view the world from a zero-sum perspective. If the rich are winning, then the poor must be losing. But I would argue the world is not zero-sum. Modern life for middle class or poor class people is a lot better than the vast majority of history (the 2 notable exceptions are post WWII USA and post Cold War USA, when America was punched through as an undisputed global superpower). We are a looooonnng…

> Like seriously, would you desire to go back in time to 1890? This is a completely frivolous argument. We should all sit tight and be content because we're not being lynched or dying of dysentery? We live in a world where a tiny number of people sit on mountains wealth that will last them a hundred lifetimes while the vast majority ration themselves what limited education, food, shelter and healthcare they can affor…

> This is a completely frivolous argument.

> The 19th Century has jack all to do with it.

Okay well why don't you tell that to the GP who posted the comment: "We are devolving to the status quo from the nineteen century and before."

I'm replying to the comment.

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#174
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got it wrong. It is easier to start a business in the "socialist" scandinavian countries than it is in the US. https://archive.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings

Your link shows the United States out ranking Norway, Sweden, and Finland on their ease of doing business score which appears subjective compared or hard numbers of successful businesses. Are you sure you read that page right?

The discussion was about "starting a business" which is also a metric on that site.

The US ranks 55th in that category.

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#175

Yet on the billionaire leaderboard the top-10 are: Musk, Arnault, Bezos, Ellison, Buffet, Gates, Zuckerberg, Balmer, Page, Bin. Not one of them through inheritance. Sure, you have the waltons a little lower on the list. As a person who started in the bottom decile of wealth I want to hate inheritance at least as much as the next person. But at first glance it sure doesn't look good for these "researchers".

Musk: Rich father, emerald mine money? Arnault: "In 1971, he graduated from the École Polytechnique, France's leading engineering school, and began work for his father's company. Three years later, after he convinced his father to shift the focus of the company to real estate" Gates: "His father was a prominent lawyer" "At age 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside prep school, where he wrote his first software prog…

largely lol, this is class warfare silliness. Zuck is largely a billionaire because his father offered to pay for college? Have you read up on the so called "emerald mine"?. And how many lawyer's kids do you know that are billionaires?

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He must surely be an embedded character with such a prestigious background, promoted in the media, talks at the WEF, etc. Whatever he is proposing will be milk toast to the billionaires - a lighting rod to direct peoples' frustration to somewhere that won't cause any harm to those billionaires. Institutions: Paris School of Economics School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences London School of Economics Massac…

Are you referring to Piketty's work and folks like Krugman going on interviews to talk about it?

I'm making the point that the way legislation etc is drafted, the clauses that are allowed - the whole captured system really, that allows the very rich to be able to increase their wealth through inheritance, is problematic if it is seen to be unfair. People will get angry, as inflation, carbon taxes, etc start to bite. The billionaires will feel some heat.

In order to manage that tension, you need certain people who appear to be against you, but are actually in your pocket. Picketty is surely one of those. He will say contentious things, that appear to be critical of billionaires, but his real job is to help manage popular discontent, by sucking up the air from others whose response that would be more problematic to those billionaires.

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#177

This is the conclusion of Thomas Picketty's 2013 book, "Capital in the 21st Century." Due to the historical averages of the rate of return on capital, he concluded empirically that wealth will continue to concentrate to the point to inheritors, to the extent that individuals become increasingly unable through labor to achieve parity to the inheritors. The book was very provocative in economist circles, but even the c…

> Due to the historical averages of the rate of return on capital, he concluded empirically that wealth will continue to concentrate to the point to inheritors, to the extent that individuals become increasingly unable through labor to achieve parity to the inheritors. You're obviously incredibly unlikely to become a billionaire. If someone inherits billions - you're not going to out-labor them to become richer. Only…

>I'm in favor of inheritance taxes. But this doesn't seem like the main driver of inequality....

I mean, Piketty's work shows that it is...

I'd like to see a scandi style tax system and social safety net. Inheritance taxes at the point where 90% of small business and farms won't be affected. Progressive carbon taxes. Massively increased social safety net that includes paid education, healthcare, and unemployment generous enough that one won't be destitute if they try to start their own business and fail (look at the rate of small business formation in the scandi countries!)

There's a common refrain in conservative circles that they're more in favor of 'equality of opportunity over outcome'. Right now we clearly have neither.

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#178
post #134

This title is pure clickbait. The article says that out of the last 9 years, the statement has been true for 1 and false for 8. Flagged.

Hah, I've seen this title all over. Pretty easy to miss that it was just this past year, contrary to the prior eight years.

I don't find that to be clickbait at all. It wasn't just any one year in the past nine, it was the most recent.

Heck, the title could have been "For the first time in recent history, billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation." That would perhaps have been more accurate, but that's also a "stronger draw" in my opinion than the actual title. It doesn't make sense to call something "clickbait" that is less intended to incite than a more detailed headline.

Re: Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

#180
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common sentiment, but surprisingly it's quite easy to start a business in a country with a more developed social net because the failure consequences are much less severe.

It’s not a sentiment it’s statistics. Look at the number of successful businesses that result in wealth creation.

Feel free to show statistics.

Here's one that shows that Sweden has indeed been more entrepreneurial then the US (2019), see sources at the bottom: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/how-sweden-became-more-entrep...

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