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The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

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Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#81

Post by bawolff »

denkmoon wrote: post #10
weatherlite wrote: post #4

So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.

The 2008 stock market crash famously reduced inequality. Definitely didn't increase inequality by leaving the average person (via government bailouts) holding the bag.

Similarly, the great depression was not a great time to be poor. [Edit:to be clear income inequality did go down, but poor people got a lot poorer, which seems like a pretty bad outcome]

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#84

Post by ramon156 »

_bin_ wrote: post #55

this is the least-bad state of things. consider the financial literacy (or notable lack thereof) of the average person. consider how much worse active investing would be, particularly in light of the bubble-y market regime recently prevailing where simple rules are thrown out the window, a regime somewhat exacerbated by retail hype. and consider the massively market-distorting effects of passive indexing when scaled…

Also, financial literacy is most likely part of the reason its split like this. You cant set them up for success

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#85

Post by roenxi »

denkmoon wrote: post #10
weatherlite wrote: post #4

So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.

The 2008 stock market crash famously reduced inequality. Definitely didn't increase inequality by leaving the average person (via government bailouts) holding the bag.

In fairness; there is an ongoing strategy of printing money and distributing it to asset owners. That may also be contributing to asset owners accounting for most spending.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#86

Post by carlob »

colechristensen wrote: post #45
ookblah wrote: post #31

I think about this from time to time and I suppose everything is cyclical in the end. Most of us would have been some peasant in the feudal age and when it gets really bad it always ends in a revolution of some sort. It's just on a global scale and timeframe now. As more of the population feels the effects of inequality they won't appeased by just fancy toys and shiny things, they will want change by force. My only s…

There is always an exponential distribution of wealth, it isn’t rational to argue against it. What needs argument is what the exponent is.

I'm pretty sure wealth doesn't follow an exponential distribution. Power law, log normal or stretched exponential or maybe some sort of generalized Zipf.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#87

Post by actionfromafar »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #72
itake wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the rich have cash flow and can continuously invest during crashes. The top 10% aren’t losing their jobs in a crash, but the bottom 50% might. So while the top 10% keeps investing and will maximize the recovery, the bottom 50% will cash out at the bottom and won’t return to invest for years after their emergency fund has recovered.

> the rich have cash flow and can continuously invest during crashes There are a lot of levered rich people. Musk would be screwed if he got margin called on Tesla.

So you are telling me there is hope after all?

(I mean, unless there's a federal ruling that it's unconstitutional to let a Musk and his money part ways.)

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#89

Post by [deleted] »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #38
arvinsim wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial education is useless if you don't have capital. Most poor people are just earning enough to live day by day. Getting financial literacy would help little.

I think the importance of financial education is pretty underestimated. But just to illustrate, investing $10 a month into an index fund would mean something like $100K saved up for retirement. Even if you’re poor, it is usually possible to find that $10.

[deleted]

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#90

Post by carlob »

bawolff wrote: post #81
denkmoon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2008 stock market crash famously reduced inequality. Definitely didn't increase inequality by leaving the average person (via government bailouts) holding the bag.

Similarly, the great depression was not a great time to be poor. [Edit:to be clear income inequality did go down, but poor people got a lot poorer, which seems like a pretty bad outcome]

The great depression in itself wasn't, but the combined effect of WWI, GD and WW2 was. We razed Europe rather than redistribute.
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