Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 356 posts

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

#271

Post by somewhereoutth »

beaeglebeach wrote: post #182
kelseyfrog wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative of last resort is always violent revolution[1]. Wealth redistribution is the olive branch. There seems to be an open question among the wealthy and political class of how far inequality can go given the modern police state and effectiveness of technology in accomplishing the goal of maintaining or exacerbating the current political economy. 1. See historical populist grivences against aristocracy that…

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.

There won't be any incentive to produce even basic grain stocks if the large majority of the population can't afford to eat. See the Great Depression.

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

#272

Post by skyyler »

pmorici wrote: post #267
skyyler wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discussion was about "starting a business" which is also a metric on that site. The US ranks 55th in that category.

It was about building wealth through starting a business.

>It is easier to start a business in the "socialist" scandinavian countries than it is in the US.

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

#273

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

abeppu wrote: post #266
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Of the criticisms to Piketty, not having done the math isn't really one of them. I don't have Capital and Ideology close at hand, so I can't check how he worked it out, but consulting some other sources: - the top 1% in the US apparently have around $45.7T in wealth [1] - there are around 22M people in the 20-24 age bracket and 23 in the 25-29 age bracket [2] So suppose there are 5.5M people turning 21 every year. Gi…

The top 1% of households in the US starts around $10M. That sounds like a lot, but consider it includes retirement accounts, value of a home etc.

For a couple in that bracket at about retirement age (and who might own their home and be expecting to retire on their savings), those people might be looking at a household income of $300-400K per year.

I don't know, but it seems pretty unreasonable to start hitting them with an extra $120K tax bill annually.

This is again the basic point that the other poster was making.

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

#274

Post by blacksmith_tb »

zozbot234 wrote: post #208
ambientenv wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels true to me. So my question is - and I don't know the answer yet, though I continue to seek such - when do we, as a humanity, break this cycle? When, and how, do we override the greed impulse, the impulse for power and control and domination of others? When do we begin to leverage a superior cognitive capacity enough to gain true enlightenment and break free from the bonds of behaviour which, while necessar…

We are pretty much there already. The average person in a developed Western country is pretty much a billionaire when compared to the living conditions of even the wealthiest people in ancient history. It's only the impulse of greed and envy towards others that leads us to believe otherwise.

Traditional responses see that as either good (which I think is your implication) or terrible, a la "bread and circuses" where people are too complacent to demand any real changes. I would say that the "average person" is a tricky model, here in the US there are people sleeping on the sidewalk, but they have smartphones in their pockets. Are they better off than a Roman emperor? I would say no.

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

#275

Post by carlosjobim »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #11
orangepurple wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wealthiest and most secretive are probably the members of the Rothschild family. Today, the family's total net worth is estimated at an eye-watering $400 billion, with some estimates ranging to an astonishing $1 trillion. Ref: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/the-richest-... Archive: https://archive.is/pMypx -- Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist and author, estimated this year that Putin has somewh…

That reads like something out of a tabloid in the checkout aisle of a grocery store. It links to a website called “celebritynetworth”, which just based on the URL, has no credibility.

> which just based on the URL, has no credibility.

It seems like you're proudly flaunting your own ignorance? The site has been around for more than a decade. What about a web site such as "Hacker News"? Sounds like I might get a virus if I visit that page!

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

#276

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #231
zozbot234 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Housing and land in particular are really tough. Housing and land are not "tough". There's plenty of dirt cheap land even in highly developed countries; it just happens to be outside the most popular locations. But if we want housing to become both cheap and livable we must invest in those "unpopular" places, even as we also try to build more housing in the more high-demand locations. There's just no avoiding that.

I wonder if that's really true, I'm going to do some web searches latter because I think its interesting, but I doubt a young person who has an online only tech job, and can therefore live anywhere, could even afford an undeveloped parcel of land in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, they could - much of the land in the US sells for hundreds of dollars per acre.

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

#277

Post by badpun »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #210
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…

> Modern life for middle class or poor class people is a lot better than the vast majority of history I 100% agree with you. I'm upper middle class and I live better than any king or any robber baron ever lived up until the early 20th century. Better dental care, better surgical operations (which saved my life when I was 18 or so btw and which save my daughter the day she turned 7 years old btw), better car, better s…

On the other hand, you have to work for a living, don't have a private cook, prostitutes/concubines if that's your thing etc.

I think I'd very much prefer to be a king in 1890 than McDonald's worker today. There's a risk I'd die of infection that's easily treated today, but, on the other hand, I'm not flipping burgers through majority of my waking hours.

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

#278

Post by JKCalhoun »

gsky wrote: post #20

How's amassing through inheritance instead of squandering is a bad thing? I know a lot of people who are poor because of lack of skill or bad habits.

I grew up with a lot of people who lack skills and have bad habits because they were poor.

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

#279

Post by trealira »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #220
akprasad wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Really? If there were zero class mobility, that would mean that no matter how hard someone works, no matter how good their business ideas are, they'll never become more wealthy than their parents were when they were born (at least, compared to someone who sat around doing nothing). And it would mean that no matter how inefficiently or stupidly a rich person blows their money, they'll never become less wealthy than they already are. Bloodline would become a better predictor or wealth and status than luck, charisma, investment opportunities, or hard work.

Even if we lived in a world where even there poorest of the poor were provided for, I wouldn't be okay with zero class mobility. It would basically be acceptance of inherited birthright privilege.

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

#280

Post by gumby »

pkkm wrote: 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.

The whole point is that this year is different, pehaps due to the changes in interest rates.
Post reply on HN