Is the top half of the comments on this forum for entrepreneurs really discussing the communist revolution revisited?
The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
341–350 of 606 posts
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
For comparison, the war with Iraq (a far less formidable opponent than the globe-spanning British Empire) cost the US-UK alliance $1.1 trillion [1]. Musk's net worth is $353 billion [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_of_Elon_Musk
George Washington didn't have Lockheed Martin's hand in his pocket. Wars were much cheaper when all you needed were men, horses and small arms.
Not relatively. They were incredibly expensive compared to the resources at the time, not least because of the difficulty of moving supplies around and the huge amount of opportunity cost in the lost work of the men recruited into the military.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, the bailout if banks in multiple countries is the biggest transfer from the rest of us, to the rich there has ever been. Absolutely enormous amounts of money.
All major banks paid back all those loans with interest. That was actually net income for governments that lended those money. Who really lost money directly were all those speculators who had 10 mortgages on them and just kept taking more and more. Look, I am all for hatin' the big man when he deserves it and he often does, but lets be a bit smart and not just throw random angry spits without checking the facts, sha…
No they didn't, some of them went bankrupt anyway, while others used that money in corruption schemes, which is why in Portugal many people nowadays avoid any kind of offers their bank advisors propose.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Liquid money is only good if the bank stays solvent. Which SVB was not, and neither were many banks in 2008 until the federal govt stepped in and backstopped all deposits beyond the $250K limit.
Rich people use different banks than the general population
This!
I keep "my money" in a few different places. I keep a spreadsheet and every 1st of the month I 'do the rounds' and add the numbers of deposits, investments, '401k', etc. so I keep an eye on my 'net worth' on a monthly basis. When COVID happened and I saw that SP500 tanked, I bought more than my typical 'monthly purchase'.
Now, I am a nobody and worth a little. Someone who had $50m in the bank, well connected, and with access to info, 'went in' for x1000 what I did, at a better timed entry and left at a better timed exit made big bucks.
I am definitely part of the top 1% (8b people --> 80m)(considering that majority of the planet lives 'poor')(my definition of 'poor' was redefined when I visited the Philippines and saw a family of 4 live in a carton box from a fridge).
"We" here in HN (most of us) are in that 10% of the global population, whether we like it or not. And it's not because "everyone living in the EU is rich", it's more like in so many countries for majority of the people their income is well below $upper-tripple-digits.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The people of Belarus put this to test not that long ago. Massive numbers of people came out, factories went on strike, even people from the military and police spoke out against the regime. Turned out that in this day and age when the governments have unprecedented powers of surveillance and the ability to cut anyone from the respective financial system, a revolution is a really hard thing to pull off. If the Britis…
You have to both outnumber the loyalists to certain degree and show significant determination. Euromaidan did that with 800,000 protesters at its peak. As a percentage of the population that's less than what Belarus saw, but at the same time Yanukovych had significantly fewer people willing to do his bidding than Lukashenko.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#346I 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…
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…
Problem
Is government as they should know exactly what is wrong - that is their job
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#347I 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.
Wait what, you're surprised by this?
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#348> Short of a financial crisis I don’t really see what slows this trend.
Vote left and increase taxes for the rich?
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Belarus had 500.000 people show up. But they got beat down. Hong Kong had millions of people show up. But it just led to massive crackdowns. Numbers mean nothing when the guys who own the guns are not on your side.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you really understand just how unequal it is? But the above blog post and study you linked to are misleading as well. For instance, wealth gets vastly skewed by age. The average net worth for people 65-75 is almost 10 times the average net worth of someone under 35[1]. For anyone who knows anything about investing, this isn't very surprising. Steady investment will cause people's savings to grow drastically from…
> The average net worth for people 65-75 is almost 10 times the average net worth of someone under 35[1]. Is that because they're older? Or is it because when 70 yo's were young they could go through college on part time work, buy a house with an average wage, and then have that house skyrocket in value because housing was turned into an investment vehicle? Dig into those statistics, and look at how much of the €400k…
> Is that because they're older?
Honest question, but do you know much about investing? The investment curve isn't linear. Someone making steady contributions should have around 10 times the amount of wealth at age 67 than they do at age 30 [1].
Millennials have more wealth than previous generations _at_ _the_ _same_ _age_[2]. Generation Z is earning even more than millennials _at_ _the_ _same_ _age_[3].
If you have evidence for why we should dismiss age cohorts, feel free to share it. All of the data I've seen shows that it's extremely important, and people who intentionally ignore it are pushing a narrative that doesn't match reality.
[1] https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/retirement/how-much-do-i... [2] https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/04/16/g... [3] https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/04/16/g...