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Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#121

Post by myrmidon »

esseph wrote: post #95
myrmidon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote political parties into power that put a price on emissions and honestly work on reducing it. The big problem is that this is not gonna be free. When fossils are used, it's obviously because they are the most economical option. As soon as you price in actual externalities (=> climate change), energy is going to get more expensive, and people don't like this. Almost everyone claims to be concerned about climate ch…

What if those political parties don't exist...

If there are no parties mainly concerned with climate sustainability, then that is very likely because voters are not sufficiently interested in such platforms, and are more receptive to messages like "will fight immigrants", "will fight use of incorrect pronouns" or "will prevent trans-women from fighting in womens MMA".

Speaking for the US: climate sustainability (as main focus) was up for election 25 years ago, and about half the nation did not even bother voting, so it seems unsurprising to me that focus has shifted away from this issue (and fair to blame voters for that).

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#122

Post by newsclues »

whatsupdog wrote: post #41
newsclues wrote: post #8

The .001% is the new 1%.

Actually 0.01% was the new 1% after Bernie Sanders made a couple million and hit the top 0.1%

I was amused by his flip from decrying the millionaires to the billionaires as his personal wealth grew.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#123

Post by akramachamarei »

apapsksn wrote: post #104
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish wealth wasn't treated so abstractly as if it's some kind of universal measure of evil. Wealth equals influence. So yes, it kinda is a measure of evil. It goes so far as Musk turning of Starlink at a critical moment to help the Russians for example. Or buying access to POTUS. Or donating money to groups to help undermine labor rights. Basically, the type of person that can get this rich is in 99% of all cases…

> Basically, the type of person that can get this rich is in 99% of all cases also the type of person that doesnt give two shits about other people. This is mostly because we’re ruled by elites that hate us. Noblesse oblige is a thing and wealth disparity is not necessarily a bad thing. What’s bad is our current elites using wealth to enrich themselves instead of planting trees (so to speak) for America. There are hu…

Just for the record, you are advocating for racism and nationalism as attributes of good rulers?

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#124

Post by bdangubic »

TFYS wrote: post #114
bdangubic wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not that I disagree with you in principle but it is a bad example. there are a lot more places where rich do not want to live than places where they do so rich outbidding you for housing wouldn't make even a top-100 list of issues. the "If you have enough, why does it matter if someone else has more" is basically "rich get to live in Monaco, you get to live in Elmo, Kansas" with all your needs met

A good location means more opportunities. Someone located in the center of a large expensive city will have a lot more opportunities to make money and meet people who have influence than someone in Elmo. A business set up in Elmo will not make as much money as a business set up in Monaco. This means that the best opportunities are reserved for people who need them the least.

> This means that the best opportunities are reserved for people who need them the least.

I am not "arguing" this - that would be silly. This was OP comment:

> This, "If you have enough, why does it matter if someone else has more" argument doesn't really hold.

it does hold water. you can work and live in Elmo and have all your needs met while the rich&famous are chillin on a yacht in Nice

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#125

Post by happytoexplain »

DrProtic wrote: post #87
pseudocomposer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only “misleading” if you’re so out of touch that you don’t know a substantial portion of the population is in crippling debt. There’s nothing misleading about the fact that negative net worth is worse than zero. And a person without debt factually does have far more wealth than 10 million people in debt.

Using your logic, a person in debt living in a nice house driving a nice car is worse than a homeless person without any debt. Another example of your logic, any MD with a huge student debt is worse off than pretty much everyone in undeveloped world? Or a person with a business loan but a successful business.

"Using your logic" is almost always an overreach that uncharitably extrapolates and puts words in a person's mouth, and this case is no different.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#126

Post by atmavatar »

simianwords wrote: post #71
maciejzj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that we have now enough information to say that this sentiment (characteristic for some strata of american society) is simply not true: 1) Wealthy people account for more and more % of consumption (now about 50% in the US). Source by Federal Reserve via Bloomberg: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/capital-markets/top-10-of-earn... . 2) "Investment in productive companies" now either goes to: a) financial inst…

1) you are damn right that top 10% consume as much as bottom 50 or whatever. Let’s be clear that taxing this bunch of people even more will have disastrous consequences. I’m okay with it if it works out. Top 10% includes everyone pretty much in HN. 2) a) PE is owned mostly by pension firms that the public has a huge stake in. Billionaires have stake mostly in their own companies rather than in PE firms. b) AI investm…

> Let’s be clear that taxing this bunch of people even more will have disastrous consequences.

Clearly, it's a good thing that literally every US tax law passed in the last half-century has reduced taxes on the wealthy then.

I don't think anyone's asking to return to the pre-Reagan era where the top tax bracket was 90%, but rolling back some of the absurd tax cuts in the Bush and Trump eras only make sense, given how much they ratcheted up deficits while doing absolutely nothing to improve the economy.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#127

Post by claudiulodro »

DrProtic wrote: post #87
pseudocomposer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only “misleading” if you’re so out of touch that you don’t know a substantial portion of the population is in crippling debt. There’s nothing misleading about the fact that negative net worth is worse than zero. And a person without debt factually does have far more wealth than 10 million people in debt.

Using your logic, a person in debt living in a nice house driving a nice car is worse than a homeless person without any debt. Another example of your logic, any MD with a huge student debt is worse off than pretty much everyone in undeveloped world? Or a person with a business loan but a successful business.

Real estate, automobiles, credentials/degrees, and businesses are all assets that would counterbalance their debt. (Credentials and degrees are not liquid, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that a doctor's license isn't worth many dollars).

The much more likely situation is a person with no assets or money and some credit card debt. Indeed, a person with simply no money is better off than such a person.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#128

Post by ajuc »

simianwords wrote: post #115
ajuc wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It isn't 0-sum (see the effect of Henry Ford paying his workers more for 1 obvious example). 2. But that's irrelevant, because the reason some people are poor is not lack of resources in the whole economy. We have way more stuff than we need even if it was 0-sum 3. Also I wasn't even talking about eliminating poor people, I was talking about ensuring poor people have a say in what the society does.

It is zero sum unless you can prove that redistribution will increase productivity. If you can prove it then it is an obvious thing to do. It actually isn't that obvious otherwise we would see more productivity from western Europe. >But that's irrelevant, because the reason some people are poor is not lack of resources in the whole economy. We have way more stuff than we need even if it was 0-sum What do you think is…

Redistribution doesn't need to increase productivity, it suffices that it increases consumption for the economy to grow, if that's your only goal (it isn't the main goal for me).

I recommend reading this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

Basically if you have the same amount of money in economy, but you double the number of transactions - economy will double too (assuming same distribution).

Money naturally accumulate. If you redistribute it - it starts moving again, and with each transaction something is produced.

That's why redistribution usually increases GDP.

But - the goal shouldn't be growing economy. The goal should be preventing oligarchy.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#129

Post by Jensson »

baq wrote: post #15
simianwords wrote: post #12

This is misleading. It counts debt as negative. This means a person who has zero wealth and zero debt will have more wealth than bottom 5% of people cumulatively (their wealth cancels out due to debt). It would be misleading to suggest that a single person with zero wealth has more wealth than 100k people’s wealth combined. But that’s what this headline and report are doing.

How else to do it? Don't count debt at all and pretend that if you've borrowed money, you're rich? Calculate EV of that debt - but how and on what timeframe?

Counting debt makes the poorest person in the world being richer than the poorest 1% combined. That is ridiculous to say, because we intuitively don't read that with negative wealth in mind so you create these very misleading headlines.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#130

Post by Jensson »

bdangubic wrote: post #107
apexalpha wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It would be misleading to suggest that a single person with zero wealth has more wealth than 100k people’s wealth combined Using a word exactly as you should is not misleading. People simply have a bad conception of wealth in their head. But in reality saying that a single person just born is indeed wealthier than someone in debt: that's how it works.

single person just born is indeed wealthier than someone in debt is exactly right. based on my Pre-K Math 0 is greater than -X :)

The poorest 1% have more wealth than the poorest 5%. But they would never write that in an article since they have an agenda.
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