American Wealth, Sliced Up • Hacker News Board

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#21

Post by NietzscheanNull » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

asjldkfin wrote: post #3

Can somebody explain how this graph makes sense? It seems to imply the top 2 people own 30% of the wealth, which is not what the data states.

Sure. Hedge fund owners, VC firm owners, cosmetic surgeons, the Walton heirs, and Zuck/Jensen/Jeff/Elon own 97.5% of all wealth in the United States. The former three, while each representing cohorts, are very small cohorts. The latter are billionaire individuals.

If you're an American and not among those specific groups, your share of the remaining 2.5% is split with the rest of the US population in that slice (i.e., the overwhelming majority of the population). It's an illustration of our extreme wealth inequality. (Whether it's an effective or good one is a matter of opinion, but I do think it broadly conveys what it intends to.)

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#22

Post by JCTheDenthog » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

jmpman wrote: post #12

The laffer curve was used to justify lower taxes in order to maximize government revenues. When you look at an individual, you can imagine that each individual would have an optimal laffer curve. Too high of a tax rate, and people aren't incentivized to work for one more dollar. However, we never talk about the laffer curve for dead people. I'd say that it could be about as high as you want to make it, and they're no…

>However, we never talk about the laffer curve for dead people. I'd say that it could be about as high as you want to make it, and they're not going to work any more or less for an additional dollar.

Can you really not imagine that what happens to their wealth after they die, wealth they were presumably accumulating at least in part for their children, would have zero effect on how much they work before they die? Honestly, your argument here comes across as utterly unserious.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#23

Post by myroon5 » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

asjldkfin wrote: post #3

Can somebody explain how this graph makes sense? It seems to imply the top 2 people own 30% of the wealth, which is not what the data states.

Musk and Bezos don't even own that percentage of Tesla and Amazon respectively, let alone all American wealth

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#24

Post by pyrophane » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

jmpman wrote: post #12

The laffer curve was used to justify lower taxes in order to maximize government revenues. When you look at an individual, you can imagine that each individual would have an optimal laffer curve. Too high of a tax rate, and people aren't incentivized to work for one more dollar. However, we never talk about the laffer curve for dead people. I'd say that it could be about as high as you want to make it, and they're no…

A handful of super-rich families got together in the 90s, hired some people to put together a campaign to re-label the estate tax as the death tax and convince everyone it was causing families to lose their small farms, and we haven’t talked seriously about it since.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#25

Post by JCTheDenthog » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

hnav wrote: post #14

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #2

I'd love the idea of a more equal share of wealth in America. Unfortunately most of the proposed solutions tend to be of the "make everyone equally miserable" sort, and usually come from the sorts of people that imagine themselves as the commissars and cadres of the new regime in such a situation. Europe has tried to limit to wealth of the wealthiest, and in the process seems to have utterly kneecapped their own econ…

You're looking at GDP when comparing Missouri to European nations. Bulgaria has higher life expectancy than half this country.

The OP is about wealth, not life expectancy.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#26

Post by anon291 » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:24 PM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #18

dayyan wrote: post #5

The acid test of intelligence is if one believes in a zero sum economy or not.

I don't think there's a real contradiction between the propositions: 1. The economy is not a zero-sum game. 2. The new gilded age concentrates wealth in a way that is harmful to free enterprise, detrimental to the economy, and bad for the world.

In what way is any of this wealth distribution harmful to free enterprise? The things actually harmful to free enterprise are not even on this chart.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#27

Post by rmah » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC

While mildly humorous, I don't understand why people on HN are voting this up. The pie chart is misleading at best.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#28

Post by elevation » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC

If you liquidate Elon or Bezos' wealth and distribute it to every US citizen, you're looking at a one time payment of $1-2K per US citizen, and that's only if the value of the assents holds as you attempt to liquidate everything. If you sell it off slowly, you'll get more, but a few years of payments of $50/mo from the Bezos estate is hardly a UBI utopia.

I can do far better for myself than that if I'm simply allowed to work overtime, and especially if I'm not criminalized for savings that I invest.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#29

Post by pjscott » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:26 PM UTC

cactacea wrote: post #13

asjldkfin wrote: post #3

Can somebody explain how this graph makes sense? It seems to imply the top 2 people own 30% of the wealth, which is not what the data states.

compare to https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr... rest of america == bottom 50% hedge funders, fascist VCs, etc == 50-90% walton children == 90-99% elon bezos == 99.9%

Even then, the numbers don't even remotely work out. Consider this "Elon Bezos" person; the combined net worth of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos is about $1.3 trillion or so, and the "Top 0.1%" category in the Fed's data has a net worth of about $25 trillion. This is not a small difference.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#30

Post by Blackstrat » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 7:26 PM UTC

Blackstrat wrote: post #20

Generally, income distribution is a solved problem. The issue is that too many people aren't willing to take the steps necessary to get the income they seek. They'd rather scream about the minimum wage, the ultra-rich, the evil white men, etc. Redistribution schemes do not work. Bottom line, stay in school, get a functional education, stay off drugs, moderate alcohol intake, and don't have kids early, particularly wh…

I love the reaction that I see when people are told they are responsible for their own outcomes and it takes work. Getting down voted for such comments is hilarious.