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The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

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141–150 of 606 posts

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

#141
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…

The difference now is globalism and that the rich have private jets to take them to safe havens.

People's wealth were more geographically locked and tied to land back then.

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

#142
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s different this time around. The sheer complexity of society makes it hard to ascertain exactly the true nature of the situation. People who voted for trump aren’t even aware he’s part of the problem of wealth inequality. They aren’t even aware wealth inequality is the problem. At worst we will get an angry mob stampeding the White House with no real direction or objective. Are rich people the problem or is it th…

Not only complexity per se, I'm firmly on the camp of Byung-Chul Han's take on the lack of unifying narratives in the contemporary age. Living through the information age I do subscribe to his views of information being only additive, incapable and incomplete to form overarching narratives for us to hinge on. Recommend the read of "Psychopolitics", "The Crisis of Narration", and "In the Swarm", those books eloquently…

It’s possibly a clear strategy (“flood the zone”) by some people to cause the conflict and confusion. I read recently a comment that in media “sex used to sell but now rage and outrage are more effective”. Start the fire and exploit the situation for their own benefit.

So many people outraged but very few offering any context or insightful suggestions. Assisted by social media insane demand for controversy and dispute ( even without bad actors tweaking the algorithms), there seems very difficult for the sane rational voices to gain attention.

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

#144
post #20

And how much of that is owners of tech companies that they founded? The US economy depends on those tech companies: try succeeding in a country that only has old school businesses: I remember the top stocks for France are terrifyingly old. I'm in New Zealand and we hardly have any tech stocks. Xero, RocketLabs? We often sell our successes overseas. Edit: many of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_Americ…

Where are the stats for France? Asking genuinely

I dont have the exact stats under the hand but if you look in the CAC40. There is not a single innovative company founded independently in the last 40 years. All offshoots at best, at worst companies literally founded between 1890-1920, similar in Germany, Spain and Italy. It's kinda crazy ngl.

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

#146
post #91

[flagged]

> Grok suggests around 15% of US adults are involved in starting or running new businesses, based on recent data. This makes it sound like much of the people in the 10% are there because they started with most of the stock of the companies they created. .. or those that own stocks are more likely to be in a position to start a company. one of these possibilities seems more likely than the other if you ask me.

> .. or those that own stocks are more likely to be in a position to start a company.

probably. So I guess the real debate is inheritance vs self-made and whether inheritance is good or bad.

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

#147
post #23

In the US you need to earn only $178,611 as a HOUSEHOLD to be in the top 10%. That's less than $90K per person. Comparatively, you need to earn $663,164 to be in the top 1%, and more than $3M to be in the top 0.1%. I just want to highlight this to remind that the top 10% is by far not made up exclusively of ultra-rich individuals like people on internet like to believe.

Top 1% by income or by wealth. The former is less meaningful as it ignores your cost of living.

The proportion of people who will be in the top 1% of annual income for at least one year of their lives is quite high. I am too lazy to look it up now but I think it's about 20%.

The majority of people who earn a top 1% income only manage to do so for a short period.

As a consequence the overlap between top 1% by income and by wealth is small. They are (broadly speaking) different groups.

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

#148

I was very surprised by the holiday budget. Less than 2500$ for 80% of the population? Does that mean that no one from these 80% stays in a Hotel or AirBnB for longer than a week with their family? No one travels overseas, or if so, only every 5 years or so? 2000$ is what you can easily spend on plane tickets for a family of 4.

In the Netherlands, a financial advisory board (NIBUD) advises people to save 10% of their income. The average yearly income being around € 45K comes to a € 4.5K yearly saving. Deduct unexpected costs + that you want to spend part of this on actual savings _and_ realizing that many people don't manage to save that much due to increasing prices + senseless spending (subscriptions, fast fashion, etc.) makes it much less surprising.

Also, Hotels and Airbnb's are incredibly expensive (even for me, working a decent job with a good income) for families. That's why i chose campings over hotels and bought a decent tent.

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

#149

Financial education - spending less, saving up, and investing - is common sense but maybe needs to be taught in school. Or maybe the new sovereign wealth fund will indirectly reduce this inequality without needing every individual to take action. Not sure what other options there are.

Education alone will not stop the wealth inequality and deteriorating living standards.

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

#150
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…

"they will want change by force"

Won't happen in a society where elders are more numerous than young. In the past it required a lot of young males thinking they have not much to lose, but they are becoming extinct.

Old people won't revolt, middle-aged fathers that need to think of their children and mortgage won't revolt.

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