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The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

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Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#411

Post by mihaic »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #76
ookblah wrote: post #31

I think about this from time to time and I suppose everything is cyclical in the end. Most of us would have been some peasant in the feudal age and when it gets really bad it always ends in a revolution of some sort. It's just on a global scale and timeframe now. As more of the population feels the effects of inequality they won't appeased by just fancy toys and shiny things, they will want change by force. My only s…

The population might not be happy, but they don't have the means to change it. Revolutions don't happen when people are mad, they happen when the ones who can afford armies and equipment sense the possibility of coming out on top. 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth. Instead he put the losses o…

I can see almost the same argument being made in 1780 in a French salon, after the cost of fielding armies had exploded in the seven year war.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#412

Post by baobabKoodaa »

actionfromafar wrote: post #167
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #120

Earlier 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…

So, are young people buying their 1st home now? If not, is it actually easier for them to buy?

> So, are young people buying their 1st home now? If not, is it actually easier for them to buy?

No, young people are not buying their first home. Despite that, yes, it is actually easier for them to buy. What is stopping them? I would say mainly the expectation that housing prices will drop further as the economy is going further down the drain, leading to better buying opportunities at a later time.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#413

Post by mandmandam »

bawolff wrote: post #395
mandmandam wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As true and important as that it, there are more harmful and more direct effects wrapped up with our record inequality than jealousy and resentment, or even hate; like the capture of our political system.* And most Americans have no idea how unequal wealth distribution really is, which means that those emotions are being easily redirected onto vulnerable groups by the people actually responsible for the gross inequal…

> * See, for example, the vast gulf between public opinion on issues like Israel, public healthcare, free education and housing for all, vs the opinion of the political and media class. While i agree with you generally (blaming domestic problems on unpopular minorities or foreign enemies is a playbook as old as time), im not sure i agree that those issues are based on class division. Large swathes of America seem to…

> im not sure i agree that those issues are based on class division.

Rule of thumb: it always, always goes back to class. No war but class war is a cliche for good reason.

> Large swathes of America seem to be genuinely opposed to public healthcare.

That may be kinda true, but most Americans actually want it [0]. They just have basically no representation in media or politics. These days we're 'lucky' if a Democrat gives healthcare the slightest lip service.

> (i would say that similarly those other issues don't follow class divides all that much either

They absolutely do. Most Americans want a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo vs Israel. The political and media class almost unanimously pretend that isn't the case, but it is.

Same with free education and housing. These aren't really debatable facts, or matters of opinion; you can look up the polls yourself. Americans want this stuff; our politicians and media do everything they can to stop us having them.

And that's despite the fact that the vast majority of media, traditional and social, is under the thumb of like ten ultrawealthy people.

0 - https://news.gallup.com/poll/468401/majority-say-gov-ensure-...

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#414

Post by ahaferburg »

timewizard wrote: post #114
ninetyninenine wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s different this time around. The sheer complexity of society makes it hard to ascertain exactly the true nature of the situation. People who voted for trump aren’t even aware he’s part of the problem of wealth inequality. They aren’t even aware wealth inequality is the problem. At worst we will get an angry mob stampeding the White House with no real direction or objective. Are rich people the problem or is it th…

> They aren’t even aware wealth inequality is the problem. It seems like a symptom. Primarily because "wealth management" does seem to be a skill. So the expectation would be that even if you equalized all wealth tomorrow and suddenly educated everyone to the same level in it's management then in a very short time a large imbalance would again be created. > but they aren't sure what it is or who to blame, It's imposs…

> in a very short time

Citation needed. This seems highly implausible.

Wealth is mostly inherited, and amassed over generations. The wealthy become more wealthy because they already have wealth. If you take that away, all those wealth management skills matter a lot less.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#415

Post by sigmoid10 »

serallak wrote: post #381
sigmoid10 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The population might not be happy, but they don't have the means to change it. Revolutions don't happen when people are mad, they happen when the ones who can afford armies and equipment sense the possibility of coming out on top. 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth. Instead he put the losses o…

> George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth Is that true ? As far as I am aware, the money the French Government alone loaned to the US during the revolutionary war (at least two million dollars[0]) far exceeded the value of Washington personal wealth (estimated at $780,000 in 1799 [1], so at the time of his death…

Your source says that it depends on how you look at it. See the similar discussion regarding Iraq war spending in the other comments.

But it is also totally irrelevant, because the point is that Washington was one of the richest people in America before the war started and even richer when he died. There is no doubt about that.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#416

Post by tfourb »

fxwin wrote: post #175

In 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…

The most in-depth historical and empirical analysis of wealth inequality that I know of was done by Picketty et al. He is quite famous, so you can easily google his main research findings.

The upshot is that wealth inequality is above or close to historical high points and that it has actual and severe real world negative consequences.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#417

Post by nickjj »

weatherlite wrote: post #4

So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.

As far as I know the stock market has winners and losers.

If you're not rich but invested whatever you could over the course of your life and now the market tanks to where you've lost half (or more) of what you had then someone else is going to win that from you.

A massively rich company can hold out a lot longer than a software developer who tucked away what they could over the years. If a real crash happens that software developer just got 30 years of their net worth mostly vaporized in a few months.

How much of the population is in that category? It's the whole middle class basically. It's a crushing blow to most folks when the market crashes for a long period of time. It's even worse for folks who are already in a position of barely scraping by while putting a little bit aside whenever they can. That person is destroyed if a majority of that disappears because they may have to sell it off on the spot just to survive because if the market really crashes, you can be sure a ton of people are going to be out of work.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#418

Post by sprainedankles »

Gasp0de wrote: post #250
jltsiren wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers exclude airfare and other transportation costs. And you need both time and money for a vacation. The average American family probably can't take 2-3 weeks off to travel every year, which makes their vacations shorter and cheaper.

Wow, I didn't know that! In Germany, everyone get's at least 4 weeks of PTO, most jobs get 6 weeks off.

My first job (2018) provided 2 weeks of PTO, with an increase to 3 weeks expected after _five_ years. Folks in the U.S. can't quite comprehend having more than that (or any at all, depending on the job).

I am very grateful for my current company's "unlimited" PTO policy, it's life-changing.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#419

Post by angusturner »

fxwin wrote: post #317
angusturner wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think we should resist the temptation to separate out values from the discussion. Like, even if it was the case that some extremely high-level of inequality turned out to be "optimal" in some GDP-maximizing way, the question still ought to hinge on some notion of fairness or justice (in my view). (Although, I guess if your metric is "citizen satisfaction" maybe that's not as terrible). In any case, there…

I haven't read the examples you mentioned, do they point toward the source of the instability being extreme inequality, or the lower (economic) classes being unable to survive in dignified conditions? (read: can we tolerate great inequality if it comes with increased standards of living for everyone?)

I mean, it seems possible that with greater absolute wealth people might tolerate greater relative inequality but like … why run the experiment?

Anyway, that’s the path we are on - Piketty doesn’t hazard a guess about if/when society collapse, IIRC the point is just that things will only continue to get more unequal unless there’s a major crisis or some political intervention (e.g wealth or inheritance taxes - imagine trying to get the US to agree to that lol).

Also you can’t ignore relative inequality because wealth is strongly coupled to political power/influence.

Look at the head of DOGE - he spent $300m to get himself a top gov role, in charge of regulating his own business and restructuring US gov spending to suit his own whims.

In terms of percentages / orders of magnitude it’d be like your avg citizen spending $100 for a top gov role.

Re: The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks

#420

Post by ahaferburg »

vladimirralev wrote: post #272
weatherlite wrote: post #4

So a stock market and/or real estate crash can actually be good to reduce inequality . In fact I think its about the only way to dramatically reduce inequality. Think about young people trying to buy their 1st home now, its becoming impossible.

The Fed has a few papers on this issue. Their conclusion is basically that the young will eventually inherit the wealth and market forces will force a redistribution. Thus it solves itself eventually. I personally think that the Fed papers are just designed as an excuse to print money, but my point is the Fed is very far from seeing this as a problem and will never act to remedy it.

Trickle down economy is totally going to work. Just wait another couple decades! /s
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