| ▲ | crostlybostly 2 hours ago | |
A contrarian view: - Most of that wealth is tied up in assets offering services for americans (servers / warehouses). It would be much worse if the rich decided to spend all of that on consumption rather than keep reinvesting it in assets. - Even the LHS of that chart Americans are some of the wealthiest in the world. A lot of the middle class from many other countries would love to be on the LHS of that chart. - No one is expected to build wealth on a 40 hour minimum wage job. It is the bare minimum and most people get paid more. - Americans don't want wealth. Our spending habits are abysmal. I suspect if you gave every American $500K the chart would revert back to this in like 12 months | ||
| ▲ | podgorniy an hour ago | parent | next [-] | |
> Most of that wealth is tied up in assets offering services for americans Yeah. Like renting a house for a mother of 2 children who will never get her own by selling her labour, while the renter uses her money to buy more units. | ||
| ▲ | hypfer an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
The same wealth could be tied up in assets that are _owned_ by the americans and offer services to them. Services that have an incentive to serve said americans, because it is them who own them. You are completely right that this capital is super useful for society. It would just be infinitely more useful if it was in the hands of society. | ||
| ▲ | viraptor an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
> Most of that wealth is tied up in assets offering services for americans (servers / warehouses). It would be much worse if the rich decided to spend all of that on consumption rather than keep reinvesting it in assets. Why would that be worse? What online services are so important that it's better to have them than to lift some people above the poverty line? Rich people spending is the next best thing after taxing them - it distributes their money and provides jobs. It would strictly improve the society if Bezos spent lots of money and folded his servers and warehouses - in so many different ways... | ||
| ▲ | fblp an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | |
Disagree. A large portion of billionaire wealth isn't reinvested in productive assets. It comes from holding onto assets like corporate shares and land that grows in value based on the asset's ability to extract profit or rent. Or from distorted (speculative) demand for that asset that is completely detached from its productive output. Someone like Bernard Arnault is worth around $160B (wealth from luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Tiffany). That paper valuation exceeds the total national wealth of many entire countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_pri... | ||