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The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

lemonde.fr

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Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#41

Post by throwaway77385 »

AndrewThrowaway wrote: post #38

If you take any ancient or not so ancient civilization or kingdom, all the wealth including land and people's lives belonged to king/imperator which was appointed by god or something like that. Isn't is exactly the same with the system we have now? The question we have to ask is about 99% of population of peasants who work 8h a day same as they did in Mesopotamia. Do they have a living standard, healthcare, possibili…

The question is why we have to work 8h a day to begin with. Or why we don't earn more.

If productivity goes up, something has to give. We either work less or we earn more.

If productivity goes up and we work the same amount of time for the same amount of money (and let's not kid ourselves, if anything we'll end up working more time for less money), the social contract has been broken.

I don't care how rich some outlier becomes, so long as it isn't at the sacrifice of our own self-actualisation. But that is exactly what is (and has been since the 70s) occurring. That trend is unlikely to reverse and it won't lead anywhere good.

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#42

Post by scotty79 »

simianwords wrote: post #3

> Together, they now own three times more than the poorest half of humanity, or 2.8 billion adults. While the gap has stabilized since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has grown sharply over recent decades: Back in 1995, the 0.001% held "only" twice as much as the poorest half. Important context: here debt is counted as negative. This means a person with no debt but zero wealth also owns more wealth than bottom 2…

Why is it misleading? Debt is negative wealth. Being indebted to the very rich puts you lower than people who at least have nothing. Would it be less misleading for you if they silently ignored bottom 20% of people?

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#43

Post by bloqs »

simianwords wrote: post #3

> Together, they now own three times more than the poorest half of humanity, or 2.8 billion adults. While the gap has stabilized since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has grown sharply over recent decades: Back in 1995, the 0.001% held "only" twice as much as the poorest half. Important context: here debt is counted as negative. This means a person with no debt but zero wealth also owns more wealth than bottom 2…

while debt might be well marketed as acceptable, I worry that you have allowed yourself to consider it not real: if someone is in debt to the bank for the majority of their homes value of 300k while earning 50k PA and then someone else pays 10k rent PA but earns 40k PA then the person on 40k is still wealthier

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#44

Post by TFYS »

AndrewThrowaway wrote: post #38

If you take any ancient or not so ancient civilization or kingdom, all the wealth including land and people's lives belonged to king/imperator which was appointed by god or something like that. Isn't is exactly the same with the system we have now? The question we have to ask is about 99% of population of peasants who work 8h a day same as they did in Mesopotamia. Do they have a living standard, healthcare, possibili…

This is very close to saying you wouldn't be against slavery. A slave could be given a decent quality of life. Does that mean slavery is acceptable? A person with 50 bazillion will be able to make you a slave if he wants to.

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#45

Post by scotty79 »

renewiltord wrote: post #6

Yeah and if you make US median income you’re in the top 0.3% of worldwide income. I don’t see all these people giving away to the bottom 99.7%, hahaha.

People with median US income probably gave away more than the people above them because they are losing their purchasing power for decades. What they gave away was immediately scooped up by the very rich, with very little going to people below them.

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#46

Post by squigz »

AndrewThrowaway wrote: post #38

If you take any ancient or not so ancient civilization or kingdom, all the wealth including land and people's lives belonged to king/imperator which was appointed by god or something like that. Isn't is exactly the same with the system we have now? The question we have to ask is about 99% of population of peasants who work 8h a day same as they did in Mesopotamia. Do they have a living standard, healthcare, possibili…

We don't live in those times anymore. Just because something was a certain way for most of history doesn't mean anything about how we should shape our future.

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#47

Post by scotty79 »

throwaway77385 wrote: post #32

The question is where this will lead and what, if anything will, should or can be done to put the brakes on this wealth (re-)distribution. It feels as though over the last few decades, all we have seen is a continuing trend of increasing amounts of wealth being amassed by a smaller and smaller circle of people. What I find incredibly hard to judge is the point at which the current system leading to this will face vio…

The only thing that can be done is to adjust the tax rate on the rich to the point that their wealth doesn't grow faster than the economy. Then it's going to really be "tide rises all boats".

And yes, for that you have to raise tax all investments. The exactly opposite of what we are doing where investments usually get tax breaks. Will it kill the growth? Only one way to find out. Without AI companies growth is zero already.

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#48

Post by imtringued »

renewiltord wrote: post #6

Yeah and if you make US median income you’re in the top 0.3% of worldwide income. I don’t see all these people giving away to the bottom 99.7%, hahaha.

If you paid attention then you would notice that the article isn't about income. You can have top 0.3% worldwide income and still have massive student loans to pay off.

Someone who is using all their income to pay off student loans is "giving away".

Someone in a capital city can be living paycheck to paycheck, spending all of their money due to high rent. Meaning they're "giving away", except not to people poorer than them. They're giving away to people richer than them, so the last part is somewhat correct, but it's not funny so why are you laughing?

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#49

Post by imtringued »

renewiltord wrote: post #30
harimau777 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's actually all that relevant. Political power and social class are much more determined by the wealth distribution within a society than they are by the worldwide wealth distribution.

This story is literally about global wealth.

And you talked about income, not wealth. The problem is that your comment is simply not relevant.

Re: The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth

#50

Post by Libidinalecon »

renewiltord wrote: post #30
harimau777 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's actually all that relevant. Political power and social class are much more determined by the wealth distribution within a society than they are by the worldwide wealth distribution.

This story is literally about global wealth.

The responses to your post just prove the point.

It is always someone else that is greedy. My American friends and I? It doesn't make sense. We are just trying to get by!

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