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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

#431

Post by wakawaka28 »

nicoburns wrote: post #215
wakawaka28 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Rough (not absolute) wealth equality is a goal in and of itself we want a capitalist economic system to function. No, it's not. Capitalism has nothing to do with equality. We can have extreme inequality as long as the workers actually get enough to satisfy them. That of course depends on many things like their productivity, supply and demand for labor, and preventing monopolistic abuses by corporations and labor. >C…

> Every person in the market makes decisions according to their own estimations of what the true value of a thing is. That's basically a democratized hive mind at work If everyone has equalish wealth then yes. Otherwise the hive mind becomes weighted by each person's wealth... > This distinguishes capitalism from other systems like communism, which rely on a small number of central planners to make necessarily imperf…

>If everyone has equalish wealth then yes. Otherwise the hive mind becomes weighted by each person's wealth...

What makes you think everyone's opinion is equally important in the economy? Some people do more important things than others, and thus their decisions must be weighted higher. Otherwise, inefficiency would be created.

>...which ends up not being very different at all to communism in this regard. Your billionaires become your central planners. Except they're not even trying to make good decisions for other people in most cases.

If we're talking about billionaires who get rich through honest business, then they are by definition great planners who are bestowed money through satisfying the needs of many people. They can lose their money. They also only do part of the planning... Most of the decisions about what ought to be valuable are made by all the other participants in the economy. The billionaires are just the tip of the spear when it comes to actually doing big picture stuff.

>Now, granted, power in western democracies in 2025 is less centralised than it was in soviet Russia, but it's a hell of a lot more centralised than it was in the 70s and 80s. And currently it's only getting worse.

Western countries have been outsourcing manufacturing and automating everything which destroys jobs for short-term gains. It's not exactly the work of billionaires. It is more like a failure of people at every level to choose their countries over profits. Protectionism is one market inefficiency that I think we need.

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

#433

Post by sigmoid10 »

serallak wrote: post #424
sigmoid10 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not doubting that Washington was very very rich. I'm doubting the different and very specific claim that "George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War" with just a third of his wealth. To me, the math simply does not add up. I suppose it can be chalked up to hyperbole ? I also don't see how a discussion of the Iraq war could be relevant to that claim ...

War financing is incredibly complex and even more so when your only source is some paper notes from several hundred years ago. Whether you believe that or not basically boils down to how you want to see it. Would you for example say that George Washington would have owned more than 30,000 slaves in today's world? A straightforward extrapolation of the population size might suggest so. But then again that is also grossly overlooking many other aspects. So you would also be right to doubt it. Either way, you would still be missing the point of the discussion.

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

#434

Post by Apreche »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #430
jonplackett wrote: post #210

This guys has been saying this for ages https://m.youtube.com/garyseconomics

I really enjoy Gary Stevenson - both his YouTube channel and his book - but his very convincing message that wealth inequality is a problem isn't really accompanied by any particularly good solutions. Tax the wealthy yes, but how do you do it exactly? How much does it raise? How should the revenue be spent?

You have to raise taxes on the wealthy so heavily that they begin to sell their assets. This brings asset prices down. Meanwhile, lower taxes on normal people, who will have more money and be able to buy those assets. This reverses the wealth transfer. It doesn’t matter how much tax you raise. It just matters that it is enough to reverse the transfer of wealth back to the working class.

How specifically doesn’t matter as long as it’s enough. The way I see it, the best ideas, other than all out socialism, is to have progressive taxes that start low and have extremely steep curves.

Just one example, we could have a progressive property tax. For people who own a single reasonably sized home that they actually live in, the property tax would be very low and reasonable. However, if people own multiple properties, properties they don’t live in, or extremely large properties, the tax rate would increase and then skyrocket to the point where a wealthy person has no choice but to sell those properties or lose money. All that selling will bring down the price of real estate. At the same time, nobody will be in a position to buy that real estate except for those who don’t already have much, because for anyone else the tax will be too high for it to work out. If they don’t sell, they pay enormous tax, which is also acceptable. Either way we reverse the transfer of wealth.

Apply this same progressive scale to capital gains tax and estate tax. Also income tax, but less so. Effectively this puts a cap on wealth. If a person tries to own more than their fair share of things, they won’t make more money. Of course you still allow people to be quite rich. There will be multi-millionaires with fancy cars and mansions. There will still be movie stars, sports team owners, and bankers. They will still live lives of luxury and want for nothing. They just won’t control our entire society.

How do you spend it? You spend it on anything that benefits labor and makes everyone’s lives better. You don’t use it on a fossil fuel subsidy. You don’t use it on defense contracts. You use it on universal health care, social security, education, FEMA, infrastructure. Pretty much you do the exact opposite of whatever DOGE is doing.

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

#435

Post by FirmwareBurner »

jgilias wrote: post #388
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Euromaidan did that with 800,000 protesters at its peak. Euromaidan succeeded because it also had massive support and influence from the western powers and from the western(mostly US) itelligence agencies to make the pro-Russian regime change happen. Similar to the fall of the Berlin wall and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, it was a decades long effort from the US itelligence agencies, they didn't just sit…

I was following the events very closely. The most obvious foreign interference I saw was Russian spetznaz being brought in as reinforcements to try and suppress tbe protests for longer.

Yeah obviously, but I never claimed there wasn't interference from both sides since Russia would be stupid not to have interfered, but it's not like CIA, who also would have been stupid not to have interfered, wears high visibility vests with their org's logo while on duty abroad or posts their ops on Wikipedia for everyone to see.

If the public knew everything the CIA was doing, they would be not very good at their job. Stuff like this is usually declassified only 50+ years later or sometimes never. So please, let's not use the "I've only seen Russian agents in the streets but not CIA" as some sort of argument since that insults everyone's intelligence.

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

#436

Post by eric_cc »

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…

Washington did not have anywhere near the financial resources to fund the Revolutionary War, and the war was financed mainly through debt, foreign aid, and state contributions. While he did benefit from independence in some ways, he did not orchestrate it as a means to avoid taxes or personally enrich himself.

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

#437

Post by ahaferburg »

marcyb5st wrote: post #232
thomasingalls wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could tax the wealthy

As long as there are countries that allow for tax avoidance it's not gonna work. If my income is in the 10s of millions I am better off paying a few millions to some firm to handle every single thing for me to hyper optimize my life. They make you change residence on paper and buy fictitious tickets to prove you have been in country x at least y days during the fiscal year, and much more. You still end up saving way…

Since 2019, large corporations the world over have been forced to open up their books to fiscal entities in their respective countries. Every country could tax what these companies earn in their country, and also add some penalty for evaded taxes booked in other countries.

We can do the same with billionaires and their assets.

The tax evasion industry (for corporations as well as for individuals) needs way more regulation and penalties. These firms inflict a net negative cost on society.

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

#438

Post by m000 »

colechristensen wrote: post #45
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…

There is always an exponential distribution of wealth, it isn’t rational to argue against it. What needs argument is what the exponent is.

You make it sound like some kind of natural law that we have no saying over. It isn't.

The whole concept of wealth accumulation is entirely human-made, and influenced by what the society is willing to tolerate.

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

#439

Post by ninetyninenine »

sumedh wrote: post #323
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…

> People who voted for trump aren’t even aware he’s part of the problem of wealth inequality. Its just amazing as an outsider to see the other side calling Trump voters they don't understand what they voted for.

I mean if you’re rich I’m not referring to you. I’m referring to poor people who voted for trump.

Also I’m not referring to people who voted for the lesser of two evils.

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

#440

Post by hagbarth »

pzo wrote: post #364
hagbarth wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher top marginal income tax rate (was much higher in the 50s, 60s, 70s). Higher capital gains tax. And then use the income from that to distribute wealth through things like single payer health care, affordable housing etc. So the basic needed expenses don't take up such a large portion of the budget for middle income households. Also: stronger unions.

The problem is that this would have be to incorporated worldwide wise. Otherwise will capital first run to different cheaper state or different (tax paradise) country. I'm also not sure if alone would solve the problem. IMHO we would have to probably have small tax on revenue rather than profit - so only something similar to VAT but smaller and without deduction. VAT seems the most honest tax since you pay it only fo…

>The problem is that this would have be to incorporated worldwide wise. Otherwise will capital first run to different cheaper state or different (tax paradise) country. I'm also not sure if alone would solve the problem.

For the US specifically I disagree. The massive size of the US consumer market puts so much power in the hands of the government, that they are currently not using. Probably due to lobbying from corporations that try to prevent just that.

Agree on overproduction. This could also be handled by government subsidies or straight up government investment. Eg. solar and wind investment doesn't have a good ROI anymore for private companies. Maybe the state should be the provider of energy, so we can get very cheap and sustainable power.

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