Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean like today's capitalism then?
Aren’t there any sane systems in between?
Maybe something Keynesian
The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
291–300 of 606 posts
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
For comparison, the war with Iraq (a far less formidable opponent than the globe-spanning British Empire) cost the US-UK alliance $1.1 trillion [1]. Musk's net worth is $353 billion [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_of_Elon_Musk
George Washington didn't have Lockheed Martin's hand in his pocket. Wars were much cheaper when all you needed were men, horses and small arms.
And when you didn't have to fight the war on the other side of the planet.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, even those are out of reach for many pockets.
The properties themselves are being effectively given away. Refurbishing them to a modern standard, of course, is quite a different story. Perhaps €100K EUR in a lot of cases.
Now try that on a 1 000€ salary, or 2 000€ assuming married and both working at a good enough place (minimum wage in Portugal is 870€ brutto), while having a family, paying credit on the car (as public transport sucks), various kinds of insurances, supermarket, electricity, water,...
Even me with my seniority most likely won't pull more than 1 500€ netto at most places.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#294Earlier 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?
The home crisis can be solved if we insist that people can buy property only for living and not as an investment. Chinese are buying homes in Canada which is the reason for housing crisis there.
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nowadays is different from the feudal times you referred to. Because the majority of us are brainwashed by the media. When the brain is chained, there is no hope for a revolution.
>Because the majority of us are brainwashed by the media. I disagree, people were even more brainwashed in the past since their only source of information was what the church and the king would tell them (Plato's cave allegory) while now you have a plethora of independent unbiased sources of information plus leaks and whistleblowers out in the open to thanks to the internet and social media. Sure, you have a lot of f…
Our information environments are socially engineered. Reddit for sure. Major news sites. Etc
Or do we only do that in other countries?
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#296The title uses the stock stat because it's so unbalanced. But to me the scariest statistic is the other one mentioned in the article: "the top 10% also accounts for 50% of all consumer spending". This seems extremely fragile. Small changes in the behavior of the well-off can have big negative consequences for the entire country.
Also when scaling tech/platforms this is a big factor in how many people can actually pay.
Every scaled up platforms then gets trapped into collecting/selling personal data and flooding the field with Ads (and obviously in these ad auctions the 10% can outbid the majority so Ad prices keep rising).
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, because the richer one is the more one can endure. In a market crash, the rich can just survive with their own stash of liquid money and when the time is ripe they can sweep in and buy for cheap the stocks of middle class investors trying to liquidate to make ends meet
Liquid money is only good if the bank stays solvent. Which SVB was not, and neither were many banks in 2008 until the federal govt stepped in and backstopped all deposits beyond the $250K limit.
Rich people use different banks than the general population
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#298The rest of us are gaining ground! Didn't it used to be 90% of stocks?! We are catching up! Peak optimism :) - granted, from a global economic perspective I am probably in 'the top 10%' depending on how it's calculated - tho am stock-free
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#299Top 10 percent of who?
According to this source, 40 percent of US stock is owned by foreigners: https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/who-owns-us-stock-foreign...
Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks
#300In 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…
> 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 should the ideal Lorenz curve look like).
Just looking "more uniform" would be a great starting point. The optimal distribution is left as an open question for future research.
Not having the perfect solution upfront should not block incremental improvements, which is more or less what is happening ATM. E.g. people argue we cannot have free healthcare because the proverbial "welfare queen" will also receive it.