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Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

nytimes.com

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Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#21

Post by slavik81 »

balance_factor wrote: post #9

It's interesting what words are not in the article. Words like heir, inheritance, profit, interest, rentier. The word rent is there, but assumed as a tenant, not landlord. I assume the Forbes 400 richest are in the 1%. How did the Koch brothers get their $100 billion? Where did the Waltons get their $140 billion? Where did the Mars family get their $75 billion? The article makes it sound like these people became rich…

The Forbes 400 has a self-made score rating the people on its list from 1 to 10, where higher means more self-made.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/02/the-ne... https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#22

Post by Mitchhhs »

Is inequality a feature or a bug of capitalism? Seems like the general thinking is that its a feature in-so-much as it encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, etc. It seems like it becomes a bug when it reaches a level in which it creates a positive feedback loop of more inequality.

As with anything, i've noticed the discussion is really about how much, not should it exist at all. Almost every debate in American politics is painted as black and white, whereas the actual debate is where we fall on a spectrum. It seems like everyone disagrees so much, but really I think we are haggling over a slight deviation to the right or to the left and because we have to talk about everything in such black and white terms, the real discussion gets lost. We all agree on much more than we disagree on.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#23

Post by Retra »

auggierose wrote: post #20
sigi45 wrote: post #19

Whatever the reason was, that a family or people where able to accumulate that much wealth: I believe, there should be an upper limit. It is not okay for people like Bill Gates (i do think he is a good person) or Mark Zuckerberg to have that much power on such a small planet. It is awesome that someone like Bill Gates spends tons of money for research etc. but he should not be able to make such huge decisions in a mo…

I don't know. Somebody needs to make those huge decisions, and it is not always clear if that should be by democratic means (here is to you, Trump and Brexit).

Trump and Brexit are the result of people with too much money making terrible decisions for the rest of us. They're not evidence that rich people should have more power.

But incidentally, someone's ability to make a lot of money (or worse: inherit it) doesn't imply that they have any preferential ability to spend it in a way that benefits society. And when someone has the unchecked power to spend massive sums of money on themselves in ridiculous and frivolous ways, it's pretty clear that they have too much power. Because whoever should be making those decisions should certainly not be doing that.

Bill Gates rented a yacht for $5M/week. How is this not a clear waste? How much suffering could have been avoided at that cost? At least put it in some kind of public trust where such behavior can be properly considered corruption.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#24

Post by civilian »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #17
balance_factor wrote: post #9

It's interesting what words are not in the article. Words like heir, inheritance, profit, interest, rentier. The word rent is there, but assumed as a tenant, not landlord. I assume the Forbes 400 richest are in the 1%. How did the Koch brothers get their $100 billion? Where did the Waltons get their $140 billion? Where did the Mars family get their $75 billion? The article makes it sound like these people became rich…

The Kochs inherited a $680mm fortune. I was just listening to a great podcast about them, as a matter of fact: https://crooked.com/podcast/dangerous-dark-money/

Just for a balanced outlook, you might listen to Freakonomics' interview of Charles Koch: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-hate-koch-brothers-part-...

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#25

Post by vtange »

I'm surprised the words "capital gains" are not mentioned at all in the article. It's already well known that the richest of the 1% did not get there purely through a high wage/salary.

Some might blame loose monetary policy for providing easy money for the 1% in the USA (if you can borrow money and speculate for free, why not, after all), but if that's the case Japan really stands out; they've been QE'ing since their '80s bubble popped and they've managed to keep a relatively good Gini coefficient relative to the rest of the developed world (they're more egalitarian than their East Asian peers). You'd think that having two lost decades with your economy stuck in neutral, the Japanese 1% would just leave their country in the dust.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#26

Post by ryandrake »

slavik81 wrote: post #21
balance_factor wrote: post #9

It's interesting what words are not in the article. Words like heir, inheritance, profit, interest, rentier. The word rent is there, but assumed as a tenant, not landlord. I assume the Forbes 400 richest are in the 1%. How did the Koch brothers get their $100 billion? Where did the Waltons get their $140 billion? Where did the Mars family get their $75 billion? The article makes it sound like these people became rich…

The Forbes 400 has a self-made score rating the people on its list from 1 to 10, where higher means more self-made. https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/02/the-ne... https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/

Only numbers 8 through 10 are what any reasonable person might consider even remotely "self made" and lumping "middle-class background" and "upper-class background" into 8 (so that Mark Zuckerberg could be considered 8 instead of 7) is a stretch.

Any credible list of "self-made this" or "successful entrepreneur that" should include a disclosure of parental wealth.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#27

Post by aaronbrethorst »

civilian wrote: post #24
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kochs inherited a $680mm fortune. I was just listening to a great podcast about them, as a matter of fact: https://crooked.com/podcast/dangerous-dark-money/

Just for a balanced outlook, you might listen to Freakonomics' interview of Charles Koch: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-hate-koch-brothers-part-...

Here's a response to Dubner's interview: https://medium.com/@maxwellllindquist/freakochnomics-how-ste...

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#28

Post by vlehto »

sigi45 wrote: post #19

Whatever the reason was, that a family or people where able to accumulate that much wealth: I believe, there should be an upper limit. It is not okay for people like Bill Gates (i do think he is a good person) or Mark Zuckerberg to have that much power on such a small planet. It is awesome that someone like Bill Gates spends tons of money for research etc. but he should not be able to make such huge decisions in a mo…

Is that a real problem?

Seems like 5 richest US citizens own less than 0,5% of all US assets.

I'd be lot more worried about organizations. JP Morgan chase and General Electric are not exactly democratic either. Both are way richer than Gates. And while church of latter day saints is not quite in the same league, it's incredibly wealthy and not at all democratic.

If you assume that Gates foundation gets 5% profits and distributes that, then it can share about 2,1 billion/year. American Red Cross gets to distribute 2,7 billion/year. Who does their homework better, Bill gates or the average guy who donates to Red Cross? And yet Red Cross is still not exactly democratic.

It doesn't seem very straight forward how you should count assets or income and deduct the monetary power from there.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#29

Post by heylook »

Retra wrote: post #23
auggierose wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Somebody needs to make those huge decisions, and it is not always clear if that should be by democratic means (here is to you, Trump and Brexit).

Trump and Brexit are the result of people with too much money making terrible decisions for the rest of us. They're not evidence that rich people should have more power. But incidentally, someone's ability to make a lot of money (or worse: inherit it) doesn't imply that they have any preferential ability to spend it in a way that benefits society. And when someone has the unchecked power to spend massive sums of mone…

> Bill Gates rented a yacht for $5M/week. How is this not a clear waste?

Those $5M don't just get lit on fire. They transfer to some other set of people who can then decide what to do with it, and then onto some other set of people. Maybe the yacht's owner donates all proceeds to feed starving children.

Re: Myths of the 1 Percent: What’s Putting People at the Top

#30

Post by 200x0 »

Funny to see you people discussing petty caviar-allowance inequality so fervently within your own arbitrary Western borders yet never giving much mindshare to the rampant "developing" country exploitation that is the very source of your general prosperity.

I'm a citizen of third-world country that is being sucked dry by the West for its resources and getting its people shackled to the ground by direct support for the ruling dictatorial regime.

I don't even know why I'm writing this..

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