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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

#211

Post by GreedClarifies »

hk__2 wrote: post #63
GreedClarifies wrote: post #30

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".

> Yet on the billionaire leaderboard the top-10 are: Musk, Arnault, Bezos, Ellison, Buffet, Gates, Zuckerberg, Balmer, Page, Bin. According to Forbes there are 2,6k+ billionaires, so the top 10 is 0.3% of that.

Weighted by wealth?

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

#212

Post by saalweachter »

elteto wrote: post #96
carabiner wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it different in other countries?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#Current_...

"A billion dollars isn't cool. You know what is? A billion dollars."

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

#213

Post by jplusequalt »

gretch wrote: post #86
Qem wrote: 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.

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…

I think you are straw manning their argument. I believe it's clear from context that they are referring to something different than material conditions.

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

#214

Post by lapcat »

GreedClarifies wrote: post #30

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".

> But at first glance it sure doesn't look good for these "researchers".

The "researchers" were the Union Bank of Switzerland. "UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of the world's billionaires among its clients." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS

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

#215

Post by lapcat »

beardicus wrote: post #42
GreedClarifies wrote: post #30

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".

boy, i wonder if these researchers maybe did more research than casually glancing at at top 10 list on the internet?

> boy, i wonder if these researchers maybe did more research than casually glancing at at top 10 list on the internet?

The "researchers" were the Union Bank of Switzerland. "UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of the world's billionaires among its clients." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS

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

#216

Post by dgfitz »

wewtyflakes wrote: post #187
beaeglebeach wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with that in USA. I'd rather die some billionaires minimum wage security squad protecting his gold plated yacht than let some violent freeloaders take my shit and install some cuban-tier communist hell-hole where there's no incentive to produce even basic grain stocks.

If you are minimum wage security guard, nobody is taking your shit.

What incentive would this guard have to keep working?

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

#217

Post by jplusequalt »

flappyeagle wrote: post #153
Qem wrote: 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?

The majority of the US.

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

#218

Post by spiralx »

chrischattin wrote: post #130
mushufasa wrote: post #17

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…

Hardly empirical. The data shows the opposite. ~80% of current billionaires in the U.S. are self-made first generation.

The article is saying that the inherited wealth of the remaining 20% of today's billionaires is greater than the wealth of those new-made billionaires, there's no contradiction there at all. And obviously you'd expect most new billionaires to have a net wealth close to the $1bn mark, so all it would take is each of the 20% to inherit four times as much on average.

This page lists nine people who inherited over $50bn each, and another 23 who inherited between $4bn and $50bn, totalling just over $1.1tn of inherited wealth. Easy to see how that would outweigh the wealth of a larger number of new billionaires.

https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/visualizatio...

And that list doesn't include any of the inherited wealth of the various royal, noble and other old money families around the world...

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

#219

Post by zozbot234 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #209
abeppu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think it's worth calling out that his follow-up, "Capital and Ideology" in its latter sections includes several suggestions for counteracting the trend to increasing inequality. One of these is basically that _every_ person should have a windfall inheritance when they're in their early adulthood, which would give them opportunities to pursue education, try starting a business, or whatever else. And naturally,…

> And naturally, this needs to be funded by taxes on the very wealthy. This is the part where the math never works out. If you look at the richest people, they have something like tens to low hundreds of billions of dollars. Which is less than the amount of money the federal government already spends every week. If you taxed the top 100 billionaires at a rate of 100%, it would fund the existing federal government (an…

Note also that Bill Gates is giving away a vast majority of his wealth for philanthropic purposes. So if you tax Bill Gates, it turns out you're actually taking mostly every cent of that money from starving kids in Africa and elsewhere. That's something to think about for sure.

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

#220

Post by jay_kyburz »

akprasad wrote: post #103
gretch wrote: 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…

There are two separate concerns here: - increases in material standards of living - decreases in class mobility and increased concentration of social power It is perfectly coherent to appreciate one and condemn the other. The parent comment seems to focus on the latter.

I don't think "class mobility" is a thing that we have to have. I don't think its a problem that needs fixing.

I also don't think its a problem that there is a big gap between rich and poor.

I _do_ think we need to make sure that our governments are well funded, and that it can afford to feed, house, and make safe all of its people, no matter how disabled, unlucky, or lazy.

I also think we need to have protections in place so that the wealthy can't use rent seeking behavior to feed on those with less money.

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