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The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

theatlantic.com

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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#51

Post by zjaffee »

jokoon wrote: post #38
anbende wrote: post #2

Some of the points about privilege might be accurate, but breaking economic status in to .1%, 9.9%, and 90% is arbitrary and misleading. The author tries to make the point that “the 9.9%” have the majority of the wealth and this issue is as big or bigger than the concentration of wealth at the very top. The problem is that this is largely an artifact of the division system. The distribution is highly skewed, and the…

I disagree. What the article is trying to point out is that the 9.9% thinks he's not so wealthy, so he is against inequality, but he still, somehow, for his own comfort and merit belief system, likes his higher income. Trying to talk about ranges of income, would it the top N%, is pointless. You could strip out the hypocrisy like so: "I am not at the top, so I am still against inequality, but I am comfortable, but si…

This is a big debate in the HN world too, where tech workers in that top 10% think they are working class. The real breakdown here is that in todays day and age, there's hardly a middle class, there's the working class who struggles, lives basically paycheck to paycheck, and at the age of 45 has up to 40k in wealth to their name. Then there's that top 10% whose able to afford a million dollar home, take yearly vacations, send their kids to college, ect.

The things the upper middle class think should be a given to them because they are within a certain economic strata are actually just regular luxuries.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#52

Post by imbokodo »

mozumder wrote: post #12

Class differentiation is the central meaning of life. The struggle is the point. You get up and wear nice clothes in the morning so that you're better than the slob that doesn't. Nobody wants to be the same as everyone else. If everyone was equal, then there would be no point in your existence. You become a bag of mostly water. Celebrate the fact that a few billionaires and royalty and celebrities exists. Life is mor…

The top is predicated on the existence of the bottom. I watched some of the royal wedding the other day, that family has not worked in living memory, or perhaps even historical memory.

Heirs live in luxury without need of work because what used to be called the reserve army of labor is used as a bulwark against those working, which in cause generates those profits. Wealth created by those who work, expropriated by heirs who do not work. So, as I said, the top is predicated on the existence of the bottom.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#53

Post by dvanduzer »

tscs37 wrote: post #18
mrybczyn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it's more than 90.1% of the population posesses... Interestingly, some estimates of (formal) Polish aristocracy in the 17th century place it around 10% of the population. Maybe this is just some natural distribution of socio-econo-political status of human groups.

As another comment here pointed out; 90.1% possess about 30% of the wealth. 9% possess another 30% of the wealth. The remaining 0.9% possess the rest. Is the 9% to blame for inequality?

Yes, that is the core thesis of the article.

For the last 30 years, that tiny fraction (0.1%, correcting what I assume was a typo/misread) has seen their overall share grow.

Thirty years ago, that 90% possessed 35% of the wealth. Today, that 90% possesses 20% of the wealth.

The 9.9% near (but not at) the top has maintained their wealth over the last 30 years.

The culture problems of this tier of American society may not be as obvious to you, but I assure you, the answer to your question is yes.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#54

Post by meritt »

matthewaveryusa wrote: post #7

The top 10% is 120k in income or 1.2m in net worth -- would be nice to see the demographics. In any case, 1.2m in net worth is a house with some retirement money, not exactly what I would call aristocracy.

The data source of this report is the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finance [1] and they prepared a separate report [2] looking specifically at wealth-holding by race and ethnicity.

> In 2016, white families had the highest level of both median and mean family wealth: $171,000 and $933,700, respectively (figure 1). Black and Hispanic families have considerably less wealth than white families. Black families' median and mean net worth is less than 15 percent that of white families, at $17,600 and $138,200, respectively. Hispanic families' median and mean net worth was $20,700 and $191,200, respectively.

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm

[2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/rece...

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#55

Post by refurb »

jokoon wrote: post #38
anbende wrote: post #2

Some of the points about privilege might be accurate, but breaking economic status in to .1%, 9.9%, and 90% is arbitrary and misleading. The author tries to make the point that “the 9.9%” have the majority of the wealth and this issue is as big or bigger than the concentration of wealth at the very top. The problem is that this is largely an artifact of the division system. The distribution is highly skewed, and the…

I disagree. What the article is trying to point out is that the 9.9% thinks he's not so wealthy, so he is against inequality, but he still, somehow, for his own comfort and merit belief system, likes his higher income. Trying to talk about ranges of income, would it the top N%, is pointless. You could strip out the hypocrisy like so: "I am not at the top, so I am still against inequality, but I am comfortable, but si…

Yup! Asking someone "How much money makes a person rich?" is like asking someone "How many drinks makes you an alcoholic?". The answer is typically "Someone who drinks more than I do."

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#57

Post by leetcrew »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #26
leetcrew wrote: post #13

> Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. this statement is literally true, but aside from "in relative terms", the wording of the whole sentence seems to evoke a zero sum game. I see this type of writing in most articles about inequality and I wish the authors would strive to be more explicit. it's an important distinction, even if we agree that rela…

The explicit invocation of the concept "zero-sum" is avoided because it's a lightning rod for criticism, where someone will inevitably chime in to point out the realization of absolute gains of utility among the losers also; specifically, that important metrics like living standards have been improving for wide swaths of the population, even those whose share of wealth declined over time. And therein lies the disconn…

to be clear, I am not criticizing the author for not explicitly using the term "zero-sum game"; however dysfunctional the economy may be, it is clearly not that. I am criticizing the author for writing about relative gains using language (e.g. "pie", "taking from", "giving up") that is clearly evocative of a zero sum game. it encourages the uncareful reader to conflate absolute and relative gains.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#58

Post by seibelj »

distances wrote: post #32
seibelj wrote: post #16

I believe very strongly in equality of opportunity, and the liberal tendency to zone everything to prevent development and keep out the poors is a glaring example of hipocrisy. I don’t know if charter schools are the answer, but certainly letting the family choose where to stick their education dollars could alleviate the vast difference in K12 education that keeps the “9.9%” in continuous power.

> letting the family choose where to stick their education dollars could alleviate the vast difference in K12 education that keeps the “9.9%” in continuous power. Could you elaborate what you mean by this? Wouldn't the best course of action to give each school the same funding based on the number of pupils, and additional funding for troubled areas in need?

I think that we should let students from poor towns go to awesome schools in rich towns even if they aren’t residents of the rich town. The wealthy self-segregate by limiting low-income housing in their area to keep out the poors.

Similarly I think it should be easy to create a new school (charter or whatever you want to call it) to compete with bad schools in poor districts.

But even without option 2, option 1 would be great. Would also let rich kids interact with poor kids which will benefit everyone.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#59

Post by refurb »

sologoub wrote: post #45
p49k wrote: post #8

Rebuttal from Slate: https://slate.com/business/2018/05/forget-the-atlantics-9-9-...

Key paragraph: “He neglects to mention that many of them are actually just retirees. According to Saez and Zucman, whose data Stewart uses, more than 40 percent of all wealth belonging to Americans between and 90th and 99th percentiles is held by the the elderly, meaning age 65 or older. This is what makes wealth data a tricky way to measure class below the very tiptop of the distribution. Stewart’s “9.9 percent” inc…

This is a great rebuttal. We seem to ignore that wealth changes over a person's life.

When average wages are dropping, are they actually dropping or are wealthy people leaving the workforce at a greater rate than lower income people (just starting their careers) entering it?

Kind of what we'd expect when the baby boomers retire, no?

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#60

Post by oculusthrift »

mrybczyn wrote: post #9
matthewaveryusa wrote: post #7

The top 10% is 120k in income or 1.2m in net worth -- would be nice to see the demographics. In any case, 1.2m in net worth is a house with some retirement money, not exactly what I would call aristocracy.

And yet it's more than 90.1% of the population posesses... Interestingly, some estimates of (formal) Polish aristocracy in the 17th century place it around 10% of the population. Maybe this is just some natural distribution of socio-econo-political status of human groups.

yeah but you’re comparing 20 year olds with no money saved to 70 year olds who are retiring and have a house. The greatest inequality is actually between age but it’s obvious why.
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