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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

#221

Post by ThinkBeat »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #76
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…

The population might not be happy, but they don't have the means to change it. Revolutions don't happen when people are mad, they happen when the ones who can afford armies and equipment sense the possibility of coming out on top. 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth. Instead he put the losses o…

Revolutions can happen if enough people show up. Massive amounts of people are difficult to deal with.

Smaller groups you can outright kill in daylight, but better to get to them first to torture and kill them out of sight.

Once you need to kill 500.000 who are protesting and if violence to quell the hoards wakes up more people who want to see the regime fail.

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

#222

Post by qnleigh »

kvgr wrote: post #171

Well, i don't see what is wrong with it. Apart that common people don't invest even a bit. This is what happens always with everything. Some people find joy in accumulating stock and others in drinking beer every evening.

Poverty exists because people choose to drink beer instead of investing their wealth in the stock market? That's really the only explanation you can think of? If only all those people living paycheck to paycheck works just have the sense to put their money in the S&P 500! #endworldhunger

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

#223

Post by Epa095 »

mandmandam wrote: post #207
bargainbin wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the wealth is unequal, sure, but look at how much better the human quality of life is compared to even 50 years ago. What is wealth when everyone is fed, watered and entertained? Only stating this as an explanation to why there has not been a civil revolution. People are still dying in poverty with no way to escape every day, and we need to address it.

> the wealth is unequal, sure Do you really understand just how unequal it is? Most Americans vastly underestimate it [0]. And that's from 2013; inequality has rapidly worsened since. Do you understand the effects of that inequality? > look at how much better the human quality of life is compared to even 50 years ago. I don't think this is true. There is quality of life in owning a house, a family house. There is qua…

Yeah, but did they have microwave ovens and Netflix? /s

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

#224

Post by tokioyoyo »

raziel2p wrote: post #187
tokioyoyo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global average age is higher than it has ever been and it keeps climbing. My stupid take is, we will continuously live in unprecedented territories for the foreseeable future, because needs, wants, abilities, thinking style of humans change as they age.

do they? can you give some examples?

Think what your priorities were when you were 15, 20, 25, 30 and so on. Personally for me, my priorities have been different at each stage. As I got older, I had more things to lose, loved ones to think about, deeper connections and etc., which made me more mindful while making specific decisions. I’m not saying that at the age of 30 (current global median age), every one of the same age think the same way. But it is different than what one would think at the age of 20.

I’m sorry, I don’t know how old you are, but I’m sure if you look back, you can think of examples in your own life too. But again, it’s just a stupid thought that I live with, and try not to compare current affairs to something in the past for that reason.

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

#225

Post by thworp »

OtomotO wrote: post #25
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 rich stay rich no matter what. Hell, there are companies and families who supported the third Reich openly. They were rich before world war 2, they were rich after and they are still rich today. Not to mention none of them had to go to the Nuremberg trials... It's their system, it's their game.

> Hell, there are companies and families who supported the third Reich openly.

> They were rich before world war 2, they were rich after and they are still rich today.

Yes, these families exist. But there is an equal amount of them that went to the poorhouse that you don't know about. Many German Nazis that got wealthy through stealing/grafting of Jewish businesses _did_ lose their assets. Others still stayed somewhat wealthy but are now just barely millionaires.

It's very easy to get fooled by survivorship bias, since it's only the companies and people that are still wealthy that get heavily covered. I don't think a publisher would accept a book like Nazi Billionaires about all the people that are no longer relevant at all.

edit: I have to say, I also think it's terrible that so many people could just go on like nothing happened. Doubly so for the bureaucracy, diplomats and judges -- both in Germany and the Axis collaborators.

But this is how the world goes. The only people punished for the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward or the Gulags were those caught up in internal purges. The new Syrian government threw a few of the worst people in Jail, but cannot dismiss everyone involved in the old system for practical reasons. The Architects and executors of British and Dutch "counter-insurgency" strategies to keep their colonies have Barracks named after them. I could go on with American examples but I think we all know.

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

#226

Post by hliyan »

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…

I believe the ancient greeks called this anacyclosis https://anacyclosis.org/portfolio/what-is-anacyclosis/

For a more snappier version, see this video by a former professor of history, university of Wisconsin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqsBx58GxYY

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

#227

Post by tankenmate »

briandear wrote: post #220
wesapien wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laborer coordination and workforce strikes.

How very Marxist. How have those Marxist governments fared in the past?

Unions have done more to increase the wages of the working class than tax cuts for the rich have ever done.

If you want to live in a country with rampant poverty, homelessness, crime, etc then go to a country with low or no income tax. If you're not a lord in a feudal society then you're a serf.

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

#228

Post by AngryData »

Gasp0de wrote: post #108

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.

Perhaps you see things differently because people here and in tech are generally near the top working class pay. The median individual pay in the US is 40K, and even that is a jump from just a few years ago. I don't know anyone that works in tech for $40K or less. Not to mention the other benefits that people making $40K don't get.

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

#229

Post by belter »

The more interesting statistic is that the 3 richest Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of the US.

So, to not inconvenience these 3 individuals, you wont make a significant impact to the bottom 50% of US citizens.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/11/09/the-3-ric...

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

#230

Post by wolvesechoes »

kvgr wrote: post #171

Well, i don't see what is wrong with it. Apart that common people don't invest even a bit. This is what happens always with everything. Some people find joy in accumulating stock and others in drinking beer every evening.

To invest, you need to have a surplus, and receive some form of education, not necessarily on investing per se, that would enable you to think in certain ways.

Asking why is it wrong is similar to asking why it was wrong that most people couldn't read or write, for many of them were quite happy being illiterate.

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