[HN Gopher] America's 50 Largest Inherited-Wealth Dynasties Acce...
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America's 50 Largest Inherited-Wealth Dynasties Accelerate
Inequality
Author : bengtan
Score : 56 points
Date : 2021-06-27 03:12 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ips-dc.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ips-dc.org)
| dagw wrote:
| Of the 10 richest people in Sweden, you have 1 company founder, 1
| hedge fund manager and 8 people who directly or indirectly
| inherited their wealth, 4 of whom belong to the same family. This
| is hardly unique to the US
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| The majority of the Forbes 400 is first generation.
| hackerNoose wrote:
| Sweden has one of the largest wealth inequalities in the world.
| This might be unexpected given how how the aggressive taxation
| keeps the income equality high.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > Sweden has one of the largest wealth inequalities in the
| world.
|
| Sweden has a low income inequality.
|
| Around 20% of the population are immigrants that have yet to
| accumulate wealth, myself included. If you own an apartment
| in Stockholm you are already many times richer than any newly
| arrived. And, at the current prices, it is going to take them
| 50 years to pay for such an apartment.
|
| So, the system needs time to let everybody accumulate wealth.
| That is to be expected.
|
| That does not mean that the situation is perfect. In Sweden,
| like in the rest of the Western world, big corporation does
| not pay taxes in the country but in tax havens. So, much more
| can be done to increase the change of everybody getting a
| good life.
|
| tldr; Sweden is a rich country, newly arrived people from
| poor countries have no wealth and it is going to take them
| decades to catch up even if they get a fair salary.
| boxed wrote:
| No.
|
| This is blatant lie found in a second on Google. https://en.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
| mrep wrote:
| Your link is for income, not wealth. For wealth inequality,
| sweden had the 3rd highest gini in 2019: https://en.wikiped
| ia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_in...
| pbadg3r wrote:
| Wow this is fascinating, GINI for wealth inequality is
| definitely not talked about enough
| tryptophan wrote:
| Yeah I was pretty surprised as well. Made me re-consider
| how much of a bubble of ideology I am in.
|
| How could I NOT hear about such a statistic for so long?!
| Especially with all these other inequality statistics being
| thrown around.
| boxed wrote:
| It's a lie though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co
| untries_by_income_eq...
| ppf wrote:
| >Dynastic families have seen their wealth grow significantly
| during the COVID-19 pandemic
|
| >Dynastically wealthy families wield a great deal of political
| power, and use it to further their interests.
|
| I've been saying this pretty much since the start of lockdowns
| and restrictions. For the past year, we have essentially
| legislated the transfer of more power and wealth to those already
| wealthy and powerful. When the dust starts to settle, it will
| become clearer just how much has changed, and maybe the
| theoretical questions of "was this worth it"? will become more
| practical.
| tolbish wrote:
| Does "this" = low taxes on the wealthy? Or allowing lobbying?
| ppf wrote:
| "This" = mandating most regular folks put their lives on
| hold, while the rich and powerful get to continue with their
| schemes.
| 8note wrote:
| Most regular people's lives go towards making those same
| people wealthier and more powerful.
|
| I'm not clear that putting those lives on hold acts in one
| direction or another.
| ppf wrote:
| That doesn't matter. You consume their content, and buy
| their goods. In fact, those two things have increased
| massively over the past year.
| [deleted]
| Proven wrote:
| Another junky socialist article.
|
| Sorry to break it to you, but different individuals must be equal
| only before law. Elsewhere, their abilities, talents, effort, and
| luck makes them realize different outcomes.
|
| Many people in the US get unjust income, not just the rich.
|
| Material inequality isn't illegal, and isn't a problem either.
| Plunder still is illegal, but that's a necessary condition for
| socialism so you won't write about that, will you?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| That's cute compared to Europe where for example in Austria, the
| top 50 wealthiest families own a third of the country's wealth.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Correct: Europe has a far more entrenched elite / patrician
| class than the United States with far less opportunities for
| someone to "break out" by creating a company. Yet we
| continually hear about how terrible the US's economic & social
| policies are... to this observer, it makes no sense.
| slumpt_ wrote:
| Socioeconomic mobility is low in the US. This has been
| litigated and resolved in research ad nauseam.
|
| Survivorship bias, on the other hand...
| mk81 wrote:
| >Socioeconomic mobility is low in the US.
|
| Compared to where?
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Laudable goals and action points - for which I would vote.
| Already, if nothing more, raising awareness is a positive outcome
| of this initiative.
|
| *However*, I guess it is easy to agree that the prescribed
| policies would face huge political opposition in attempts to
| implement them. Look at what happened to Bernie's campaign!
| (Unless, of course, something majeur / extraordinary
| circumstances - like the Pandemic - are invoked to pass such a
| policy package in one clean swoop).
|
| Being it so, how about considering a simpler, less contentious,
| parallel alternative - a bypass around the mighty legal
| loopholes, media & lobby opposition?
|
| That would be *the creation of Citizen's Wealth Fund*. Just like
| Norway's Oil Fund. But instead of oil, the asset would be *the
| bailed out stocks*. In other words, in the "bailout action", the
| State buys stock, then the State would keep said stock in the
| fund. Extendable to 5G auction proceeds, other licenses, etc.
|
| best explanation, also longer read, the 208 page book:
| https://angrynomics.com/
|
| https://www.ippr.org/media-item/watch-a-citizens-wealth-fund...
| https://youtu.be/rC9RAylrl0s
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund
| geofft wrote:
| They face huge political opposition because rich people have
| the means to create that opposition (through all sorts of
| mechanisms from bribery on the one extreme to subtly
| influencing popular media to create the perception that wealth
| accumulation is a virtue on the other extreme).
|
| That means that any policy at all that effectively solves the
| problem will face opposition - or in other words, if your
| proposed policy somehow doesn't face opposition, it means the
| rich families have figured out a loophole in it that lets them
| keep their money and power.
|
| You have to figure out either a way to get this done despite
| opposition or a way to break their ability to effectively
| create opposition.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Dear Geofft, I think aiming at a CWF would simply be a more
| attainable goal.
|
| But what course of action do you purpose? Revolution? They're
| notoriously messy and difficult to implement...
| seibelj wrote:
| Wealth accumulation, i.e. "savings", is a virtue. Benjamin
| Franklin is known for the phrase "a penny saved is a penny
| earned." It is extremely common to want to leave a legacy to
| your kids after you die - this is a natural, human trait.
| geofft wrote:
| I don't think "A penny saved is a penny earned" is
| advocating _virtue_ , just strategy. The phrase predated
| Ben Franklin; the first written source seems to be George
| Herbert's 1640 _Outlandish Proverbs_ , which has it in the
| form "A penny spared is twice got" - a bit clearer in that
| it's about effectiveness and not the moral value of either
| saving or earning. It's also got phrases like "Ever since
| we wear clothes, we know not one another," which is very
| clearly an observation and not a statement about the virtue
| of nudity!
|
| Herbert does include some quotes that advocate virtue,
| though, including "Great alms-giving lessens no man's
| living," "Poor and liberal, rich and covetous," "Wealth is
| like rheume [a cold]: it falls on the weakest parts," "He
| is not poor that hath little, but he that desireth much,"
| and "Honor and profit lie not in one sack."
|
| Franklin quotes the phrase in a column "Hints for those
| that would be rich" (https://founders.archives.gov/document
| s/Franklin/01-02-02-00...), which isn't about earning money
| and isn't even primarily about savings; it's about not
| buying unnecessary things on credit and paying interest on
| it forever. Sound advice, but again, more strategic than
| moralistic.
|
| I also think that it's natural and human to want to leave a
| legacy to your kids. It is unnatural and inhumane to leave
| them such a legacy that they don't have to work at all;
| there's a reason "trust fund kids" are a stereotype. The
| article talks about inheritances on the orders of
| _billions_ , richer than even monarchic dynasties of
| centuries past, which aren't particularly considered
| exemplars of virtuous resource allocation these days. (Even
| Queen Elizabeth II has a personal net worth of only half a
| billion dollars.) That's well beyond a "legacy."
|
| Anyway, thank you for providing a perfect example of the
| actual battle here. So long as people believe the
| propaganda that giving your children billions of dollars is
| simply the larger-scale version of the virtue of working an
| honest job and living frugally, they'll hold on to their
| power.
| seibelj wrote:
| The government has the ability to print and spend
| _trillions_ easily and quickly. When one person,
| exclusively through the private sector system by
| generating value for customers, creates enough value to
| obtain billions of dollars, it's a great thing. I like
| that private people have billions of dollars - with a
| fraction of the resources of the state, private people
| and entities accomplish magnitudes better outcomes,
| products, and services.
|
| I say, let's allow some people to have large resources.
| If they inherited it, their ancestor usually earned it
| via a company, or that is the vast majority of the cases
| nowadays. Wanting to seize a family's money is because of
| envy, or because you fear private power. I myself am not
| envious and also wish there was more private and
| decentralized power.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| Pareto Distribution makes people angry. Film at 11.
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(page generated 2021-06-27 23:02 UTC)