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>Dynastic families have seen their wealth grow significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic >Dynastically wealthy families wield a great deal of political power, and use it to further their interests. I've been saying this pretty much since the start of lockdowns and restrictions. For the past year, we have essentially legislated the transfer of more power and wealth to those already wealthy and powerful. When the dust…
That's cute compared to Europe where for example in Austria, the top 50 wealthiest families own a third of the country's wealth.
Laudable goals and action points - for which I would vote. Already, if nothing more, raising awareness is a positive outcome of this initiative. *However*, I guess it is easy to agree that the prescribed policies would face huge political opposition in attempts to implement them. Look at what happened to Bernie's campaign! (Unless, of course, something majeur / extraordinary circumstances - like the Pandemic - are in…
They face huge political opposition because rich people have the means to create that opposition (through all sorts of mechanisms from bribery on the one extreme to subtly influencing popular media to create the perception that wealth accumulation is a virtue on the other extreme). That means that any policy at all that effectively solves the problem will face opposition - or in other words, if your proposed policy s…
Of the 10 richest people in Sweden, you have 1 company founder, 1 hedge fund manager and 8 people who directly or indirectly inherited their wealth, 4 of whom belong to the same family. This is hardly unique to the US
Sweden has one of the largest wealth inequalities in the world. This might be unexpected given how how the aggressive taxation keeps the income equality high.
Sweden has a low income inequality.
Around 20% of the population are immigrants that have yet to accumulate wealth, myself included. If you own an apartment in Stockholm you are already many times richer than any newly arrived. And, at the current prices, it is going to take them 50 years to pay for such an apartment.
So, the system needs time to let everybody accumulate wealth. That is to be expected.
That does not mean that the situation is perfect. In Sweden, like in the rest of the Western world, big corporation does not pay taxes in the country but in tax havens. So, much more can be done to increase the change of everybody getting a good life.
tldr; Sweden is a rich country, newly arrived people from poor countries have no wealth and it is going to take them decades to catch up even if they get a fair salary.
Of the 10 richest people in Sweden, you have 1 company founder, 1 hedge fund manager and 8 people who directly or indirectly inherited their wealth, 4 of whom belong to the same family. This is hardly unique to the US
That's cute compared to Europe where for example in Austria, the top 50 wealthiest families own a third of the country's wealth.
Correct: Europe has a far more entrenched elite / patrician class than the United States with far less opportunities for someone to "break out" by creating a company. Yet we continually hear about how terrible the US's economic & social policies are... to this observer, it makes no sense.
Survivorship bias, on the other hand…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They face huge political opposition because rich people have the means to create that opposition (through all sorts of mechanisms from bribery on the one extreme to subtly influencing popular media to create the perception that wealth accumulation is a virtue on the other extreme). That means that any policy at all that effectively solves the problem will face opposition - or in other words, if your proposed policy s…
Wealth accumulation, i.e. “savings”, is a virtue. Benjamin Franklin is known for the phrase “a penny saved is a penny earned.” It is extremely common to want to leave a legacy to your kids after you die - this is a natural, human trait.
Herbert does include some quotes that advocate virtue, though, including "Great alms-giving lessens no man's living," "Poor and liberal, rich and covetous," "Wealth is like rheume [a cold]: it falls on the weakest parts," "He is not poor that hath little, but he that desireth much," and "Honor and profit lie not in one sack."
Franklin quotes the phrase in a column "Hints for those that would be rich" (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-00...), which isn't about earning money and isn't even primarily about savings; it's about not buying unnecessary things on credit and paying interest on it forever. Sound advice, but again, more strategic than moralistic.
I also think that it's natural and human to want to leave a legacy to your kids. It is unnatural and inhumane to leave them such a legacy that they don't have to work at all; there's a reason "trust fund kids" are a stereotype. The article talks about inheritances on the orders of billions, richer than even monarchic dynasties of centuries past, which aren't particularly considered exemplars of virtuous resource allocation these days. (Even Queen Elizabeth II has a personal net worth of only half a billion dollars.) That's well beyond a "legacy."
Anyway, thank you for providing a perfect example of the actual battle here. So long as people believe the propaganda that giving your children billions of dollars is simply the larger-scale version of the virtue of working an honest job and living frugally, they'll hold on to their power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wealth accumulation, i.e. “savings”, is a virtue. Benjamin Franklin is known for the phrase “a penny saved is a penny earned.” It is extremely common to want to leave a legacy to your kids after you die - this is a natural, human trait.
I don't think "A penny saved is a penny earned" is advocating virtue , just strategy. The phrase predated Ben Franklin; the first written source seems to be George Herbert's 1640 Outlandish Proverbs , which has it in the form "A penny spared is twice got" - a bit clearer in that it's about effectiveness and not the moral value of either saving or earning. It's also got phrases like "Ever since we wear clothes, we kno…
I say, let’s allow some people to have large resources. If they inherited it, their ancestor usually earned it via a company, or that is the vast majority of the cases nowadays. Wanting to seize a family’s money is because of envy, or because you fear private power. I myself am not envious and also wish there was more private and decentralized power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct: Europe has a far more entrenched elite / patrician class than the United States with far less opportunities for someone to "break out" by creating a company. Yet we continually hear about how terrible the US's economic & social policies are... to this observer, it makes no sense.
Socioeconomic mobility is low in the US. This has been litigated and resolved in research ad nauseam. Survivorship bias, on the other hand…
Compared to where?