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American Wealth, Sliced Up

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Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#81

Post by JKCalhoun »

NietzscheanNull wrote: post #21
asjldkfin wrote: post #3

Can somebody explain how this graph makes sense? It seems to imply the top 2 people own 30% of the wealth, which is not what the data states.

Sure. Hedge fund owners, VC firm owners, cosmetic surgeons, the Walton heirs, and Zuck/Jensen/Jeff/Elon own 97.5% of all wealth in the United States. The former three, while each representing cohorts, are very small cohorts. The latter are billionaire individuals. If you're an American and not among those specific groups, your share of the remaining 2.5% is split with the rest of the US population in that slice (i.e.…

So no one's arguing though that in fact "the rest of us" are just that tiny slice?

Yeah, the uber-wealthy need a reckoning.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#82

Post by JKCalhoun »

elevation wrote: post #28

If you liquidate Elon or Bezos' wealth and distribute it to every US citizen, you're looking at a one time payment of $1-2K per US citizen, and that's only if the value of the assents holds as you attempt to liquidate everything. If you sell it off slowly, you'll get more, but a few years of payments of $50/mo from the Bezos estate is hardly a UBI utopia. I can do far better for myself than that if I'm simply allowed…

"$1-2K per US citizen"

I think removing billions from those individuals is the more salient point. Put the money toward high speed rail—who cares.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#84

Post by archagon »

Blackstrat wrote: post #30
Blackstrat wrote: post #20

Generally, income distribution is a solved problem. The issue is that too many people aren't willing to take the steps necessary to get the income they seek. They'd rather scream about the minimum wage, the ultra-rich, the evil white men, etc. Redistribution schemes do not work. Bottom line, stay in school, get a functional education, stay off drugs, moderate alcohol intake, and don't have kids early, particularly wh…

I love the reaction that I see when people are told they are responsible for their own outcomes and it takes work. Getting down voted for such comments is hilarious.

It's crazy that Musk is six million times more productive than your average tech worker! I'm certain he earned every cent by the sweat of his brow!

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#85

Post by jmpman »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #32
pyrophane wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A handful of super-rich families got together in the 90s, hired some people to put together a campaign to re-label the estate tax as the death tax and convince everyone it was causing families to lose their small farms, and we haven’t talked seriously about it since.

Larger scale family farms that would go over the estate tax minimums make up around 4% of all farms in the US, from what I can find. Disrupting about 4% of farms upon the death of the farmer does in fact seem like a bad idea to me. But thst didn't stop Stalin from liquidating the kulaks.

What if one person owned all the farms. It would be terrible if a larger scale family farm would go over the estate tax minimum, and would make up 100% of all the farms in the US. Disrupting 100% of farms upon the death of the "farmer" does in fact seem like a bad idea to me. Those kulaks must be protected.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#86

Post by jmpman »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #22
jmpman wrote: post #12

The laffer curve was used to justify lower taxes in order to maximize government revenues. When you look at an individual, you can imagine that each individual would have an optimal laffer curve. Too high of a tax rate, and people aren't incentivized to work for one more dollar. However, we never talk about the laffer curve for dead people. I'd say that it could be about as high as you want to make it, and they're no…

>However, we never talk about the laffer curve for dead people. I'd say that it could be about as high as you want to make it, and they're not going to work any more or less for an additional dollar. Can you really not imagine that what happens to their wealth after they die, wealth they were presumably accumulating at least in part for their children, would have zero effect on how much they work before they die? Hon…

It's partially unserious, but I want people to think and not just repeat dogma. So, let's extend it one generation. The children who inherited their parents wealth. Why not tax that 100%? They're not working, so how would a 100% tax impact their output? What's the difference between a welfare deadbeat and a nepo baby? The bank account their money comes from.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#87

Post by tossandthrow »

RhysU wrote: post #78
tossandthrow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What comments like this does not realize is that moving 1-2k usd into the hands of the people is democratizing the expenditure. Suddenly musk, bezos and friends do not decide what people work on - people do.

What does "democratizing the expenditure" mean?

Spending one to one defines what people are using their time on.

The current oligarch structure lets very few people decide what people use their time on.

In more equal societies, the decision of use of time is a democratic process.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#88

Post by tossandthrow »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #53
tossandthrow wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you move health care out of the US economy (as it largely is in the EU), you are at quite similar gdp.

Nope, even adjusting for health care costs the average American is still roughly 20-40% richer than the average European. This may come as a shock to you, but roughly 20% of Americans are on Medicaid, our state-sponsored healthcare insurance. America does actually provide healthcare for its poorest citizens.

Source?

When I run the calculations and take vacation, health, education for the median person they are close to similar.

But these calculations does not take into consideration: less noisy cities, walkable neighborhoods, longer life expectancy, higher quality food, better workers protections, education, etc.

An honest study would need to include the value of the commons.

> roughly 20-40% richer

This is likely wrong. Americans have better purchasing power, but are not necessarily richer.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#89

Post by hnav »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #79
mplanchard wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody ever gets assaulted or murdered in the country, eh?

At far, far, far lower rates than in the city, so I really don't know what argument you thought you just made. I live in the countryside. In 2018 our small neighboring town of about 13k residents had their first murder since 1965, and none since. That works out to about 0.12 homicides per 100,000 residents annually. By comparison, Baltimore has 22 per 100,000 annually.

Baltimore is also like top 10 nationwide for murder, you might as well have cherry-picked some Southern city like Birmingham to really drive the point home. The odds of you being murdered in NYC are 1/10th of dying in your car in Mississippi.

Re: American Wealth, Sliced Up

#90

Post by mplanchard »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #79
mplanchard wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody ever gets assaulted or murdered in the country, eh?

At far, far, far lower rates than in the city, so I really don't know what argument you thought you just made. I live in the countryside. In 2018 our small neighboring town of about 13k residents had their first murder since 1965, and none since. That works out to about 0.12 homicides per 100,000 residents annually. By comparison, Baltimore has 22 per 100,000 annually.

My point is mostly that cherry picking a city-specific assault scenario and acting like it’s super common is no different from me saying “better than living in bumfuck louisiana where cletus will sexually assault you in the back of his pickup truck.”

The murder thing is also an error of faulty generalization. As a counter example, Opelousas, Louisiana, a nothing town with barely more people than yours, has a murder rate of 39/100k, higher than your example of Baltimore, and much higher than New York (3.92/100k).

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