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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

#381

Post by serallak »

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…

> 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

Is that true ?

As far as I am aware, the money the French Government alone loaned to the US during the revolutionary war (at least two million dollars[0]) far exceeded the value of Washington personal wealth (estimated at $780,000 in 1799 [1], so at the time of his death, not during the war).

And this is not counting all the loans made from other foreign sources (the Spanish Government and private Dutch investors), and the money raised directly by the Continental Congress.

Also, as others have said, it would have been almost impossible to liquidate his assets (his lands and his slaves) during the war - the problem was availability of cash, not wealth.

[0] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_George_Washington#...

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

#382

Post by frontfor »

fxwin wrote: post #175

In any kind of non-uniform distribution of any good, the top x % will always own a disproportionate (wrt to headcount) amount of it (In economic systems, this mathematical fact is further amplified by other factors such as financial literacy and leverage). What's always missing to me in these types of discussions is what this value should be at, and what the distribution should look like qualitatively (i.e. what shou…

I think we can start with the work of Gary Stevenson. He made a few points on why inequality is bad.

When there’s massive inequality in the system, the super rich will compete with you for resources. Resources can include:

- Housing, of which fewer and fewer people could afford owning at the median income level

- Education, think buying access to spots at top schools and the ability to afford the fees/debt

- Political power, think Elon Musk in the western world

- Media/consensus, think Jeff Bezos, and think blaming of immigrants for house prices

- In the current tax system, the super rich could inherit wealth while paying very little tax, and they can borrow money at very low rates collaterized with the massive amounts of assets their own: meanwhile some of us pay a 30-50% tax on our income and are struggling to save for a downpayment or retirement.

With the massive financial power of the super rich, it’s not so much that this is bad in an “evil” way. Rather, it’s bad for the rest of us because the super rich are indifferent to us in pursuit of their own agendas in the “cosmic indifference” kind of way. Just as how we humans destroy anthills with an indifference if they get in the way of road constructions, the super rich would “run over” us if it benefits them.

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

#383

Post by pzo »

cbeach wrote: post #117

The only thing that should matter is that the poorest segment of society becomes richer over time. And it has (in inflation-adjusted terms, lower income Americans have become richer over many decades).

only sometimes on paper because they bought property decades ago that increased value but debt haven't been paid off yet. Even if debt paid off doesn't mean those people are rich - if they sell property they would have to still rent place to live at now much bigger rental cost, unless the move to cheaper country or cheaper state/town but might not find a job there.

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

#384

Post by anticensor »

bdangubic wrote: post #16
29athrowaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would get bailed out with something like Quantitative easing. Congress will not let the stock market crash because they are #1 insider traders.

so short-sighted, they will either exit or short it before they let it crash. they make $ either way mate

But then they'd lose some amount of control.

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

#385

Post by xpe »

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…

Ah, the pendulum / cyclic metaphor. It gets trotted out way too often IMO.

The pendulum metaphor fails often; here are some examples where it cannot make sensible predictions: species level extinction; major technological shifts; the overall growth of economies (upward), the growth of attitudes around human rights.

Why does the pendulum metaphor fail? It has no explanatory ability to handle non-cyclic things. Mathematically, it has too few degrees of freedom and a poor functional form.

How often does the pendulum argument make a testable prediction? Is there a prediction of _when_ something will happen? Is there a scientific study (or even statistical analysis) of the underlying factors?

The pendulum argument often serves as some kind of wishful thinking; just wait, it says, and things will (somehow) “swing back” to the middle. For a while, at least, until there is some kind of overreaction.

Enough. Let’s call bullsh-t on this vague metaphor. There are better ways of thinking.

(In contrast, the statistical concept of “reversion to the mean” is a mathematical fact. Using it when observing real world data helps us assess the nature of the underlying statistical distributions.)

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

#386

Post by eszed »

boelboel wrote: post #273
hagbarth wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher top marginal income tax rate (was much higher in the 50s, 60s, 70s). Higher capital gains tax. And then use the income from that to distribute wealth through things like single payer health care, affordable housing etc. So the basic needed expenses don't take up such a large portion of the budget for middle income households. Also: stronger unions.

Higher marginal income taxes discourage investment and productivity and high capital gains causes high distortion/is difficult to implement/also discourage investment. Affordable housing shouldn't be tried to be solved by throwing money at it (subsidizing demand), the real way is to cause the supply to go up by laxer zoning and less restrictions. Inheritance taxes could also be used to 'level' the playing without cau…

> Higher marginal income taxes discourage investment

I'm not persuaded that this is true. They discourage investment in the stock market, and inhibit a venture capital model, but I think they encourage internal investment. I don't think it's a coincident that places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC thrived during the high marginal tax regime, nor that back then companies were more apt to train and retain skilled labor: when C-class and stock-holders are taxed at a high rate there are more-useful things to do with profits than eye-watering compensation packages and stock buybacks.

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

#387

Post by Gravityloss »

Epa095 wrote: post #231
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible. At least in Finland today it's much easier for young people to buy their 1st home now compared to 15 years ago. Interest rates are roughly where they were 15 years ago, but house prices in real terms have gone way down. There's also huge market asymmetry with large amount of vacant properties that nobody wants to buy, and relatively…

How did you manage that!?! It was my impression that increasing housing prices is a problem all over, and that it partially stems from the mega trend of people moving to cities. Most countries have a lot of room to build houses, just not where people want to live! So why is it different in Finland? Is there a lot of free space around then cities? Or doesn't everyone want to live in Helsinki?

Well, it's a bit more complex. Some areas have gone vastly up in price. But there's also been a lot of building and new mass transit projects, making it possible to now commute from an area that was a bit more complicated before. For example metro expansion and associated building.

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

#388

Post by jgilias »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #374
DecoySalamander wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Euromaidan did that with 800,000 protesters at its peak. Euromaidan succeeded because it also had massive support and influence from the western powers and from the western(mostly US) itelligence agencies to make the pro-Russian regime change happen. Similar to the fall of the Berlin wall and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, it was a decades long effort from the US itelligence agencies, they didn't just sit…

I was following the events very closely. The most obvious foreign interference I saw was Russian spetznaz being brought in as reinforcements to try and suppress tbe protests for longer.

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

#389

Post by ozim »

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…

Absurd.

Inequality doesn’t matter really nowadays. There will be no revolution as most of people are out of poverty despite what narration on the internet is.

Living conditions as today day poor person are immensely better than 18 or 19th century peasants.

Whoever has billions does not affect me having running water in faucets and me enjoying life.

Warm water is not all there is to life but it is a lot.

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

#390

Post by switch007 »

pjc50 wrote: post #310
vixen99 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are zero rights without obligations. Why do we never hear about the latter? To read about people standing up for their rights in a Marxist State read Robert Conquest's 570 pages of 'The Great Terror' - an account of the crimes committed against humanity in the name of the Soviet Communism that emerged from the 1917 revolution. 'We'll do it differently' is the usual response. Sadly this always leaves out appreci…

> How about evolution rather than 'eggs in one basket' revolution? That's the premise of social democrat parties, and the UK Fabian society (named after Roman general Fabius "the delayer") & Labour party! Revolutions only happen when peaceful change is thwarted. Of course, America is the least fertile ground for a left revolution. It's in the middle of a right-populist one.

> Revolutions only happen when peaceful change is thwarted.

Hence why the illusion of change and propaganda/political marketing is so, so important

Just make sure people are busy believing everything is changing all the time. Wear them out

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