Richest 2% Own Half the World's Wealth

kop writes "The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute. Most previous studies of economic disparity have looked at income, whereas this one looks at wealth — assets minus debts. The survey is based on data for the year 2000. Many figures, especially for developing countries, have had to be estimated. Nonetheless, the authors say it is the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken." The study itself is available from the World Institute for Development Economics Research.

Pareto Distribution

[eldavojohn]

An Italian by the name of Vilfredo Pareto once made the statement that 20% of the population will always own 80% of the wealth (also known as the 80/20 rule of thumb). From a site [newschool.edu] on him:

In the Cours, his main economic contributions was his exposition of "Pareto's Law" of income distribution. He argued that in all countries and times, the distribution of income and wealth follows a regular logarithmic pattern that can be captured by the formula:

log N = log A + m log x

where where N is the number of income earners who receive incomes higher than x, and A and m are constants. Over the years, Pareto's Law has proved remarkably resilient in empirical studies.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's only a bad thing when you need money in order to make money which is often the case. This translates to the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer. If you make sure that those with money don't influence the market so they make more money than Pareto law is actually good for the economy in my opinion

But...

[inviolet]

...just because an asset is owned by some over-rich guy, doesn't mean that it is unproductive. Tomorrow we could send Bill Gates the title deed to all farmland in the Midwest, and that land would still continue to grow wheat for everyone's Raisin Bran.

And even if we then sent Bill Gates the profits from all those boxes of Raisin Bran, Bill would only have a pile of cash. Cash is not an asset; it represents assets, which usually remain in production somewhere.

No matter how rich Bill Gates gets, he still consumes very little, perhaps a half-million dollars a year in food, real estate, clothing, maids, butlers, and the like. Everything else that he owns is (if he is an even half-wise investor) still producing something elsewhere.

What's worse

[Moby Cock]

While it is pretty awful that 2% own 50%. The study reveals that 1% of the population owns 40% of the weatlth. Also the poorest 50% own 1% of the wealth.

More tax cuts for the rich!!!

Re:Not just true for humans

[TrisexualPuppy]

And the richest 2% pay 50% of the taxes.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[Lorkki]

If you make sure that those with money don't influence the market so they make more money than Pareto law is actually good for the economy in my opinion

So the world would be a better place if everyone would just be nice and play by the rules? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before!

If it's legal

[Threni]

then it must be fair. Well, either that, or bad laws can be passed.

Still, as long as the issue is `do I cough up for a PS3 or is the Wii good enough` and not `why do millions of people die from easily and cheaply preventable/treatable diseases/issues such as malnutrition, malaria and sleeping sickness` I don't see things changing.

You still think the `war on terror` is important? Perhaps if the number of deaths on 9/11 we repeated in every country, every day, otherwise no - statistically, not really. And yet, look at the ratio of money spent on that futile little endeavor to money spent on issues that affect millions daily.

How's it feel to be rich (on a global scale)?

[nelsonal]

The top 1% only required wealth of $500,000 which a USer making $40,000 annually should easily eclipse with a 5% 401(k) contribution (assuming you have an employer match) and an 8% return. I'd guess that almost all of the college graduates here are above the 10% level (don't forget the value of cars, computers, clothes, any retirement accounts and such).

Re:What I'd like to see is a comparison

[Carewolf]

Try comparing with 50 years ago instead of 500. Then we have not made progress, but taken many step backwards in social equality.

Re:What's worse

[berashith]

Does it make things fair that the poorest 50% pay 1% of the taxes ?

Re:Pareto Distribution

[tomstdenis]

Even through the depression the wealthy were not bad off. It was the rich that suffered.

As the man himself, Chris Rock put it, Michael Jordan is rich, the man who signs his pay cheque is wealthy.

All that will happen is more and more economic bubbles will burst, the rich will join the poor and the wealthy will be further separated.

The only real balancing acts comes at the end of a sword during a revolution. Well I guess in modern times we'll use guns, but the idea is the same. Wealthy people keep taking and taking, hording cash and assets, till the point where the rest of society will just plunder and steal. The real trick is how far can society be pushed until this actually happens (again).

Frankly, hording cash and assets is the worst thing wealthy people can do. Money only has value when it's being traded for something. Which is also a form of wealth distribution. Keeps the rest of us fed and warm at night.

If you look at an average income of say $25,000/yr for a low income person, then realize that the wealth accumulated by people like Gates could pay the yearly salary of ~1.7 million people, it kinda makes you think what exactly are they doing with this money anyways? (Yes, I know Gates has his charity, but there is only so much money a person needs...)

Tom

Re:Pareto Distribution

[TopShelf]

To be more precise, the rich get richer, and the poor get richer, just not as fast. It's that disparity that people focus on.

Re:Communism or Socialism

[jimmy_dean]

That's interesting. So convenient on your part. I would venture to say that if you made more money (I'm assuming you're not currently), somewhere in the $60k+ range, you wouldn't have this attitude. Would you like the government to give your money away forcefully to someone else just so that it's "fair?" Why should the government be in charge of this? And what's to stop them from becoming corrupt in this which is more than likely to happen? Power like this always corrupts...you place way too much faith in a system that doesn't work because people are people. Something like capitalism, although far from perfect, allows the greedy to get what they want and it gives a non-law regulated way for anyone to also work hard and earn their wage. Communism would only work in a perfect society. Your views are very dangerous and convenient.

Re:What's worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironic that in response to an article regarding how poor people are, you'd not recognize that tax cuts for the business owners = jobs for the poor people. Hard to imagine that there actually exists a scenario where everybody wins (except those unwilling to work). Did anyone else notice that to be in the top 10% worldwide you only need to accrue 61,000 USD in assets? Funny that the midwestern farmers receiving federal assistance to "survive" are actually in the top ten percent of wealthy people.

Having lived in the third world for some years I can say their situation is exactly that of the United States: While most people say the rich are getting richer and poor getting poorer, that's not the case generally. The more general, accurate statement is the educated are getting richer, and the uneducated are getting poorer.

The rich are disproportionately heavily taxed

[Toby The Economist]

The richest 2% pay considerably more than 2% of taxes, however.

They are disproportionately heavily taxed.

I believe in the US, for example, the richest 1% bear 18% of the total tax burden.

The purpose of tax is not to reduce the wealth of those who have done well to the level of those who have not; unfortunately, class envy is a very significant factor in the perception of the masses of poor and averagely well off.

Re:They deserve it

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, of course... wait... how does one get educated in these financial matters again, without being able to afford an education? Nah, you are right, pretty much all those people in Latin America, Africa, and every other phenomenally poor areas of the world completely 'deserve' to be poor because they are all ignorant fools who burn their money. Who would have known that 98% of the world is just plain stupid?

Re:They deserve it

[gbarta]

You have a warped view of poverty.

The vast majority of poor people in the world have never set their eyes on a big screen TV.

Re:They deserve it

[Shard013]

You are thinking too small if you think the poorest people in the world spend their money on lotto tickets. I'm sure some of the poorest people in America might spend their money on gambling, but the real poor people, those in third world nations don't have the luxuries of buying lotto tickets, they struggle not to starve to death or not die from drinking the polluted water. If you have clean water, food and shelter, you are not poor by world standards. To say these people "deserve" it sickens me, but again I will pass it off as your ignorance for thinking the "world" is only the "USA".

We just need to change the way we see things

[erroneus]

As I once learned a bit about the development of Japanese culture, the fact that they live on an island with very few natural resources that world considers to be useful or otherwise valuable, much of their cultural values developed around an appreciation for other things which I find not only admirable, but inspiring as well.

In my own life, I have learned to divest myself of debt financing and to save and survive with more focus on needs and less on wants. I definitely pay a lot less attention to pop culture marketting. Having grown up very poor as a child does make the adjustment easier and somewhat more natural for me, but I am definitely not an unhappy person.

Among the things that no longer hold any direct personal value for me are things like diamonds, gold or other things that do not directly enrich my life in any meaningful way. In short, I value the practical and all but ignore the impractical, useless shiny things in life. I doubt I'll see the world's culture shift in this direction within my lifetime, but if we were to simply stop valuing many of the things we currently value, much of the world's wealth would simply lose value.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[RevMike]

As you say, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. That is system unsustainable, and will eventually collapse.

It isn't quite that simple. It depends on whether you measure wealth in some sort of absolute or relative terms.

The gap between rich and poor may indeed be widening, but the poor are becoming wealthier as well. In absolute terms, therefore, the rich are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer as well. This can be measured in lots of ways. Life expectancy and infant mortality are usually pretty good indicators. India and China alone account for roughly 2 billion people who were barely scraping out an existence two generations ago, but who now have a much higher degree of food security, have access to a much higher level of health care, access to technology (i.e. the cell phone is rapidly becoming ubiquitous, even in rural areas).

For the system to be clearly unsustainable, one would need to believe that people would undermine a system that is delivering them a rising standard of living. It would seem unlikely that they would do so in any sort of broad, universal way.

Re:They deserve it

[FhnuZoag]

But why don't they understand how money works?

Are they poor because they don't understand how money works, or do they not understand how money works because they are poor, and so have little access to MBA degrees and financial newspapers, and are forced to spend the majority of their income on living expenses (hence having little to save for long term schemes), and take lotteries because their 'nothing to lose' situation creates a risk-taker utility function, and have jobs that are unreliable and so will likely not give them a predictable future income - hence also forcing them to take loans?

The economic statistics we have suggest the latter - while income inequality is rising, social mobility is falling. Quite simply, a large number of people are poor because they are stuck in the low income trap inherited over several generations.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me rephrase: The hard-working get richer, and the lazy get poorer. Just look at America and China - I wouldn't call China either "rich" or "getting poorer". And neither is the richest nation in the world getting noticeably richer.

But forgive me, I let facts stand in the way of your leftist propaganda. Won't happen again.

Re:They deserve it

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

They deserve it, because the majority of poor people are poor because they don't understand how money works, and just fritter what they have away.

I hope you are mixing up the scale of these figures, otherwise I'd be forced to call you an idiot. When they say "Richest 2% Own Half of the World's Wealth", they mean the World including all those third-world countries. Yes, you know them. Those countries where millions of people have no chance of experiencing any significant wealth, let alone knowing how do deal with it. You're probably right though. They'd probably piss away wealth on food, clean water, or medicine, rather than sensibly investing it and watching it grow.

Re:They deserve it

[majaman]

That has to be the most ignorant post I have ever read and I have read a few. Open your eyes to look beyond the realms of your own limited vision. Most poor people have no choice but to live hand to mouth. And I don't mean trailer-park-poor but living-on-a-handful-of-rice-a-day-if-your-lucky-po or. Do you invest half of that rice in bonds or stock? Ignorant bastard.

It was worth the karma loss.

Re:The rich are disproportionately heavily taxed

[teg]

The richest 2% pay considerably more than 2% of taxes, however. They are disproportionately heavily taxed. I believe in the US, for example, the richest 1% bear 18% of the total tax burden.

Do they have more than 18% of the income (including capital gains, interest etc) and/or own more than 18% of the assets?

You act as if this is some sort of problem

[Oz0ne]

This is to be expected. People work disproportionately as well. High intelligence is distributed in a very similar curve.

The real reason that it seems to be getting more and more exaggerated is because the overall wealth/economy of the nation has continued to grow. This means that more people are able to afford to survive, to get health care, to be in a place where they can fill out these census instead of working their arses off or just trying to stay warm. Think back to the 1900s, or even late 1800s. People that were just scraping by would often not even survive. But really that's all besides the point.

Who cares if we have ridiculously rich people? What does it matter? It doesn't stop you from achieving your goals, you have to work to get there and earn your way the same. Just because there are enormously wealthy people doesn't mean you're prevented from acquiring wealth yourself. in fact, it makes you all the more likely to be able to get rich. These people if they want to stay wealthy, or grow their funds, must use it in some way. Maybe just earning interest in a bank, maybe investing in startup companies. Either way that money becomes a tool banks/companies can use to generate more wealth, and you can get in on that.

Quit being so classist. Just because others have done well doesn't mean you can't, but you surely can't if all you do is gripe about how you deserve more money without doing anything to earn it.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[BigDogCH]

And don't come with that crap that it's the way things are

But isn't that true

It is a sad reality, but this is the way it must be. Maybe not dying of hunger, but poverty is inevitable. If everyone had plenty of money, then the money is simply worth less. The world will always have poverty stricken people. Sure, take 99% of the money from the rich, spread it out to the poor. What happens now? Goods and services will all of a sudden cost more, and now the formerly poor are poor again. The only difference is, now the rich are not quite as rich.

Even so, I agree, 2% holding 80% does seem like it could be balanced out. There must be a happy medium between this, and the reality that some groups will always be in poverty.

Re:They deserve it

[lovebyte]

This reminds me of a joke.

A very rich man is asked by a journalist how he made his first million dollar. The rich man answered that he started off with just a few pennies, put them in a phone box and made a phone call: "Dad, can you lend me a million dollar, please?".

Re:They deserve it

[dabadab]

I find it rather fortunate, that we have this genius called Paris Hilton. She sure deserved her wealth with her superior intelligence and financial insight.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[Falesh]

When western companies bring employment to poor countries that's great. When they bring sweat shops, horrible working conditions, repression, etc then they damn well should get dog's abuse.

Re:Not just true for humans

[BakaHoushi]

Not to be rude, but do you have any sources to verify that? Last I heard, the percentage of taxes paid by the rich were dropping extremely quickly. But perhaps that was only corporations (which are legally considered a person) and maybe only in the U.S.

In either case, some data to read up on this would be appreciated.

Re:You act as if this is some sort of problem

[kahei]

Article:
The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth,

Parent:
because the overall wealth/economy of the nation has continued to grow

Trailer-park libertarian, huh?

Just because there are enormously wealthy people doesn't mean you're prevented from acquiring wealth yourself.

Yeah, thought so. In the real world, one of the major uses of wealth is to concentrate and control further wealth. To put it bluntly, that means preventing YOU from getting it.

Quit being so classist.

It's not 'classist' to point out that wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated. It's interesting, and it's of practical value -- for example, as in investor I'm looking for areas where wealth is _less_ concentrated, because mobility and opportunity is greater when the distribution of wealth has not settled down.

Is the increasing concentration of wealth a problem? It depends what you want; for me personally it's not a problem at the moment but it's certainly something to watch, and I can see how it's a problem in some areas that are tending to pass from 'everyone's a farmer' to '0.1% of people are really rich, and the rest are now serfs' without going through any intermediate stages.

What _is_ a problem, though, at least in the US, is a public large sections of which believe it's somehow especially manly and free-thinking to support their ruling class, no matter how silly the occasion.

Wealth != Darwinism Sucess

[Dareth]

Darwinism, or survival of the "fitest", does not care how much money you earn.

The definition of "fitness" is your ability to reproduce. Welfare mothers, NBA stars with 14 kids, are more fit than CEOs worth millions/billions with one,two, or especially no children, regardless of income.

Earning a degree from college does not make you more "fit". Having children makes you more fit.
Having an IQ of 150+ does not make you more "fit". Being "smart" enough to take birthcontrol to prevent unwanted pregnancies probably makes you more "unfit".

Re:The rich are disproportionately heavily taxed

[Toby The Economist]

Do they use more than 18% of the expenditure of State?

If not, on what ethical basis do we justify taking from them what they or their parents have earned and spending it on ourselves?

Re:Pareto Distribution

[Methuseus]

It seems to me that the poor in this country only get richer as a result of inflation, nothing else. I don't understand what you mean by "the poor get richer" when they may get raises, but the cost of living goes up faster than their pay.

Don't Thank "Enlightenment"

[Dareth]

"thank the enlightnment for making things change, a little."

Thank the firearm that allowed the common peasant to kill the highly trained solider/knight.

The world was not a better place before guns existed.

Re:What I'd like to see is a comparison

[ScentCone]

Try comparing with 50 years ago instead of 500. Then we have not made progress, but taken many step backwards in social equality.

Really? By what measure? More people own their own homes. Unemployment is lower. Even lower income families have things that would have been considered utter luxuries 50 years ago (multiple televisions, cell phones, cable, cheap antibiotics, cheap fresh food of every imaginable kind, etc). What does "social equity" mean to you - that someone who is successful should not have a flatscreen TV until everyone does? Or that incredibly wealthy pro basketball players shouldn't be allowed to spend their cash until everyone can spend the same amount of cash?

Re:Pareto Distribution

[Cro Magnon]

Maybe, but why do the people in poor countries accept and even welcome the sweat shops, horrible working conditions, repression, etc? Perhaps, because it's better than what they had before?

Re:Pareto Distribution

[mgblst]

There are different POVs in this instance. The people who are getting the work, and the people who are giving the work.

Sure, the people who are getting the work are happy, because things are better for them. Working in really bad conditions, being physically and sexually abused is still better than dying.

Now the people who are employing them, and employing those employers (the Western countries) are making huge amounts of money. Is this moral? No. They could be enforcing better conditions, but they choose to look the other way.

But you know who else looks the other way, the consumers who get cheaper products.

So they are all to blame, kill em all I say, and let god sort em out.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[LaughingCoder]

I don't understand what you mean by "the poor get richer" when they may get raises, but the cost of living goes up faster than their pay.

What he means is their standard of living goes up. It is not uncommon to see "poor" people in the US with cell phones, for example. A decade ago only the very wealthy had cell phones. Ditto for things like personal computers, internet access, MP3 players, and more advanced healthcare [OK, in anticipation of an argument on this one ... initially the latest drugs are very expensive, until the patents expire at which time generics become available to the "unwashed masses". The high initial prices are what fund the development of the new, expensive, but soon to be affordable, drugs of the future]. The standard of living for the poor in America is dramatically higher than it was 100 years ago - in this sense they are wealthier.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Wealth is unlimited...

[mario_grgic]

Unlike resources (assets) like land, water, ore etc. total wealth is not limited. Just because 2% of people have 50% of wealth, does NOT mean that there's somehow less wealth to be had for the rest of us.

Wealth is created by creative people. Each time you write software that other people need, you create wealth. Wealth is what other people need really.

Re:Not just true for humans

[Anonymous Coward]

This site is full of s***. If you enter $250,000, it tells you "You are the 107,565 richest person in the world!" There is no way there are fewer than half a million people making that much in the United States alone.

SO WHAT!

[p51d007]

For the most part, the "rich" EARNED it! They went out, took a risk, and made the money. Yeah, there are a few "silver spoon babies" like the Kennedy's, but you look at the top 100 and I'll betcha that they started with nothing.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[halivar]

So if a homeless man agrees to let you kick him for food, this is a perfectly acceptable thing to do? Are you a decent human being for bringing this opportunity to him? Fuck no, you're an exploiting piece of shit.

I think you're right, and you have every right to stop me from kicking a homeless man in exchange for giving him food.

Just don't expect the homeless man to thank you.

Re:The rich are disproportionately heavily taxed

[Stalyn]

The rich and powerful need the State more than anyone else. That's the big secret. The rich introduce the State as protection from the poor. It's not normally the poor and weak who create the State but the rich and powerful. See hundreds of years of history.

Selective Stats

[boot1780]

That is the income tax burden, not the tax burden. Why aren't you factoring in payroll taxes? Are you intentionally being deceptive? Despite your selective numbers, the top 1% of Americans still only pay 30% of the incomes taxes, even though they own more than 30% of the nation's wealth. So they are paying a smaller percentage of their wealth than the bottom 99%.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[Lord Ender]

Bullshit. Poverty is not a requirement for an economic system. If you were to take money from the rich and give the poor basic social services (food, shelter, healthcare, education), you would have no poverty. And the working people who actually make the economy function (the middle and lower non-poverty class) would still work just as hard.

Re:Not just true for humans

[Rob Kaper]

And on top of that, the top 2% of the rich probably also fund the employment of half the world.

Re:Not just true for humans

[Hubbell]

I guess noone is taking into account the fact that it costs orders of magnitude less to live in the places where people are making $1000 a year or amounts that would be impossible to survive upon in a First World country. They make so little BECAUSE their economy is based around making so little. I'm personally sick of this bleeding heart crap where it's all "OMFG You make xx,xxx per year, but these people make $1 an hour making the things you buy, FEEL BAD FOR THEM!" I'm sorry, but their economy is based around a lower income level and just because YOU can't fathom living on that much, people around the world do it just fine.

Re:Not just true for humans

[elrous0]

To others rich means has a large amount of resources available.

Think about this when looking at politicians. Most politicians, including the President of the U.S., don't make that much money in straight salary. George Bush makes FAR less than almost any CEO of any major corporation. Yet the power and resources the President controls make it one of the most desirable positions in the country. Why else would people be willing to spend millions of $ to get a position that only pays $400,000 a year?

Income alone is not indicative of true wealth.

-Eric

Re:You act as if this is some sort of problem

[Oz0ne]

I am a libertarian, but far from the trailer park. That is near where I started though. I've made a life for myself and am now wealthy. Through my own efforts.

Coming up from next to nothing and achieving so much, I really fail to see what all this garbage about wealth distribution and "ruling class" is.

Re:Not just true for humans

[CmdrGravy]

The reason the cost of living is far less in 3rd World countries is because they don't pay for the same facilities which you pay for in the 1st World. Things like free healthcare, honest impartial police forces, standards agencies, road construction, rubbish collection, planning laws, pensions, sick pay and maternity leave, social security etc etc etc.

I imagine if they had the money to afford those things then 3rd World taxes would be comparable to 1st World taxes but they don't because for a variety reasons they are much poorer.

There's nothing really stopping you going to live in the Congo or somewhere similar where you can spend your money on what you like. I bet you'd still spend a fair proportion of it on drainage, sewage treatment, security etc.

Re:The rich are disproportionately heavily taxed

[David_Shultz]

Do they use more than 18% of the expenditure of State?

If not, on what ethical basis do we justify taking from them what they or their parents have earned and spending it on ourselves?


You're conflating an ethical issue with an economical issue. Just because a capitalist economy has happened to distribute wealth in such and such a manner does not imply that those who received the wealth that they did are somehow ethically justified in spending that wealth. For example, it may well be the case that the economy dictates that your average celebrity or pro-athlete earns 1000 times as much as they need to survive. This is a far cry from saying that these people are somehow morally entitled to spend all of this money in any way they so please, when people are dying every day because the economy gave them a smaller piece of the pie (in a typical Ottawa winter one homeless person dies of the cold per day, for example.) To sum up, just because money is distributed in a particular way does not mean you are ethically entitled to spending it. Ethical questions are an entirely different matter from the particular circumstances that arise from our economy.

Let me note that I can't really fault you for believing this, because it is incredibly commonplace to hear that kind of sentiment. But I am interested in knowing why it is that so many people believe that economic circumstances should dictate what is morally correct. In any other domain it is absurdly obvious that what is ethical is determined by considering the pain and pleasure of the people involved, or by considering other aspects of the human condition, or by adhering to certain ethical maxims. And yet, when the domain of discourse is money, people suddenly forget this -they implicitly introduce the premise that what is ethical is entirely governed by the economy. This sort of assertion would be laughable if made out loud, and yet it is the implicit foundation the very sentiment you expressed in your post.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[eno2001]

Hehehe... nice one. Only for the fact that beads and trinkets (cell phones, MP3 players, etc...) don't really help people in a capitalist economy. If anything they put these people in worse financial situations due to their own poor judgement in buying into those things in the first place. The real measure of a decent standard of living (in addition to measuring wealth) would be to determine the housing, diet and health of these "richer" individuals who have cell phones and MP3 players. I would guess they can't afford decent food, housing or health care even though they are "richer" by your estimation. And by decent food, we're talking about fresh produce, meat, poultry, sea food and staples like rice, whole wheat flour, etc... Forget convenience foods and fast foods, they don't count. By decent housing, we're talking a proportional amount of space and count of rooms compared to the number of members of a household. Add to the decent climate control and security, as well as pest free (no roaches, mice or rats) living spaces as well. Regarding health care, do these people have any to begin with? And if so, is their co-pay reasonably low? Do they have access to decent doctors and facilities? Do they get their prescriptions paid for in most cases? Once you can answer yes to the criteria I've outlined above for the poor in the western world, then I'll agree that they are "richer". Owning a Slivr or an iPod doesn't make you healthy, wealthy or wise if you're poor.

Re:Not just true for humans

[mapkinase]

Am I the only noticing that 1% of the top earners own 40% of the wealth (as in one of the 5-rated comments) and 1% of the top tax payers pay only 30% of all taxes is kind of strange and suspicious?

Does that mean that 1% of the richest are not quite the same as 1% of the top tax payers? What happened to the progressive tax system?

Re:How Is My Comment Idiotic?

[EastCoastSurfer]

The great thing about socialism is that everybody eats. The bad thing about it is that everybody eats the same food--so why should I work harder at my job? What's motivating me to work my ass off in the fields while some computer scientist programs in an air conditioned office, in the end we both get the same thing.

I disagree that everyone eats in socialism. Of course that's the ideal, but in practice it doesn't work. It's human nature to do as little as possible to get by. The problem with socialism is that it goes against human nature, in that you don't have to do anything and you're still supposed to get by. When everyone starts doing nothing, then people start starving.

Or

[missing000]

You could say 2% make most of their financial gains from the work of half of the rest of us.

If you put it that way taxing them to a larger degree sounds almost fair, doesn't it?

Re:Pareto Distribution

[LaughingCoder]

I would guess they can't afford decent food, housing or health care even though they are "richer" by your estimation. And by decent food, we're talking about fresh produce, meat, poultry, sea food and staples like rice, whole wheat flour, etc...

And you would guess wrong. In fact the junk food is at least as expensive, if not more, than the "decent stuff". Don't confuse making poor choices with a lack of choice or inability to pay. Big Mac "value" meal: $5.19 A chicken breast and a can of vegetables, and a pint of milk: $3.50 tops.

As regards healthcare, I already addressed that. Many (if not most) poor in the West have access to government-paid or government-subsizided healthcare, and the quality of that care is dramatically better than it was years ago. Here is my proof: the life expectancy is much higher today than it was 100 years ago. Now if only the "rich" are benefiting from better healthcare, that would not be enough people to materially increase the average lifespan (unless the "rich" were living hundreds of years).

I agree that trinkets don't define a standard of living. They were just examples of how once-expensive technology, which was basically subsidized by the wealthy, is now available and affordable for the masses. The same argument applies to things like climate control (public housing is now air conditioned) and healthcare.

Owning a Slivr or an iPod doesn't make you healthy, wealthy or wise if you're poor.

Ahh, but having a computer and access to the internet does ... hence the OLPC initiative. Computers used to be toys for the rich, but now they are in reach of most everyone, as well as being available at the public libraries and in public schools. Another example of how the poor are wealthier now than they have ever been.

Taxing unrealized cap gains = badness.

[Kadin2048]

I'm not sure what the point is you're getting at. You don't pay tax on the unrealized capital gains, but you'd pay tax on them when you tried to convert them back to cash.

So let's say I buy 100 shares of a stock at $1 a share; during the year, it increases in value to $100 a share. So my $100 investment is now worth $100,000. Aside from the dividends, I don't owe any taxes on the stock -- however, if I 'cash out,' and sell any of the shares, I'm immediately liable for capital gains taxes. It's not a free ride.

The IRS doesn't try to tax investments as they go up and down, because to do so would be ridiculously complicated (and, as other people have pointed out, would probably lead to people claiming negative tax liability on losses). Instead they look only at the value when you bought in to the investment, and when you cash out, and then tax the difference between the two.

E.g., if my 100 shares ran up to $100 a share but then sunk back to $50 before I could sell them, the capital gain I get taxed on is $49 a share, not $99. Taxing me on $99 wouldn't make any sense, because I never really had that much money, except theoretically.

So while Bill Gates has a lot of money in MSFT, it's only wealth insofar as Microsoft's stock is considered rather stable. If Microsoft were to tank tomorrow, much of that apparent wealth would evaporate. Any time he actually sells stock in order to use any of that wealth, he gets hit with taxes. So really, he has a constant 'potential tax liability' on his 'potential wealth' of about 28% -- because if he wanted to cash out tomorrow, that's what the IRS would be coming after him for. (Well, probably slightly less than 28%, I think the first few thousand bucks get taxed at a lower rate and it goes up from there to 28% which is the cap.)

Actually taxing people on unrealized capital gains would be effectively a tax on savings. It would be a giant mess and have vast consequences -- basically it would mean that just having money sitting around in an investment would make it "shrink." It would lead to lack of savings and probably not hurt the very rich nearly as much as it would hurt the middle class. Not to mention that taxing unrealized capital gains would also involve taxing real property -- it would basically be a federal property tax. That's going to hurt homeowners everywhere; it's a total non-starter.

There are a lot of problems with the current tax code, but the fact that it doesn't go after unrealized capital gains is not one of them.

Re:Not just true for humans

[drooling-dog]

Hey, I'm not criticizing "the rich" at all. I'd like to be more like them myself in at least some ways.

My point was merely that they benefit disproportionately from living in a stable and civilized society, and ought not to whine when they are asked to pay their fair share of the cost of maintaining it.

Bunk

[missing000]

The problem is real in terms of percentile, and any other conclusion is either based on intentional deception or ignorance of the issue.

Here [economist.com] is a chart that says it all - the rich are getting richer as a percent of total wealth and that's bad for America.

Last time it was this bad we had a great depression.

If you don't like your 100k income in SF try making 15k there cleaning up after the 100k club. The so-called middle class has a very poor picture of how normal people actually live. You can live very very well on 100k in SF if you don't buy a lot of over priced crap.

Promote efficiency in the upper income brackets; tax 'em.

Re:Not just true for humans

[suggsjc]

...the cost of living in the US...

As opposed to the cost of not dying that most of the people in third world countries are struggling to make...

Re:Not just true for humans

[AliasTheRoot]

That site is bullshit, apparently my wages put me in the top 1% of people on this planet, but I cant afford to buy my own house, i'm constantly juggling money to pay for food and have the bailiffs around to chase on unpaid utility bills. Any simplistic measure of income is absolutely useless without correlating it to the actual cost of living.

I have a job that puts me in the top percentile of people in the world, but to have that job I have to pay the top percentile of living expenses

Agreed; the two extremes are both unfair.

[Kadin2048]

A poll tax or head tax is in some ways the most fair, in a perfect world, because it assumes that everyone has equal access to services and thus that everyone is "getting" the same thing from their government. Of course, in practice it doesn't work, and you can quite easily make the argument that wealthier people, by virtue of having more to lose, 'get' more from their government (in protection, economic/social stability, etc.) and thus should fairly owe more in taxes.

A percentage-based tax (which is often called a 'flat tax,' but I think that term confuses people with the idea of head taxes) solves this; everyone pays taxes at the same rate on their income, which naturally means that the more you're making, the more tax that you'll pay. This seems quite fair. At the extremes, someone not making any money would have no tax liability, someone making a lot of money would pay a rather large amount. This seems fundamentally most fair. Determining the rate is fairly simple; you take the proposed government budget, and divide it over the gross national earnings. If the rate's too high, you're probably spending too much.

So-called "progressive" schemes rely on taxing people making more not only more money in absolute-value terms, but also at a higher percentage of their income. This always has seemed to me rather nonsensical and punitive. Income is income; everyone should bear the cost of government equally across what they're making. Carving out special exceptions here and there, and taxing this person more than that one, and generally trying to do social engineering with the tax code as a bludgeon, is a terribly flawed idea.

Not a Zero-Sum Game

[cfulmer]

Beware the erroneous implication -- that because wealth is concentrated, the people at the bottom are in worse shape than they were when wealth is not so concentrated.

Consider the graduating class of a typical suburban high school as a closed system (ie ignore everybody not in that class). When they graduate, their individual wealths are usually pretty similar since they have very little in their own name. Now, fast forward 20 years -- some of those people will have been extremely successful, some moderately successful, and some will just be getting by. The relative wealth among the graduates has become skewed, yet each is generally better off than they were upon graduation.

If the pie keeps growing, we don't need to be as concerned with getting a smaller portion of it. In fact, there's a good argument that concentrations of wealth actually help the pie to grow -- when finding a cure for a disease may cost a billion dollars, you need people who have that sort of money and who are willing to put it at risk.

Re:Not just true for humans

[ArikTheRed]

Average American? Absolutely. One think people don't realize is that average household wealth hasn't really increased much since the 50's... the difference now is that 2 people tend to work outside the home, instead of just 1. People are working far more for far less than before. My personal income is around 100K... add my wife's and our household income is around 250K. We know some fairly successful people, but veeeery few individuals make over $250/year, but a fair number of households do.

Re:The rich are disproportionately heavily taxed

[NewWorldDan]

Free market economies do not "just happen" to distribute wealth. It goes to those who work, in proportion to how hard they work and how skilled they are.

I'd like to believe that, sir, I really would. Except I know that free markets are not really as free as we'd like to believe. By and large, the extremely rich maintain and increase their wealth through a number of mechanisms. They have connections. They know politicians, and other heads of industry. They enact protectionist laws. The reason lawyers and doctors make so much money is that they have erected barriers to entry to their professions. To practice law, one must attend an expensive law school before being allowed to take the bar. Along with the needless complexity of the court system dictates that leagal endeavors will be very expensive. The medical profession is very similar. While I don't dispute that quality surgery is likely to be expensive, day to day medical care should not be. Doctors, however, stand as the gateway between the people and most medications. I suffer from excema. About once a year, I need a new tube of cream to treat the occasional outbreak. The tube costs $4.15, but I have to pay for a $200 doctor visit before I can get one.

And of course, the rich generally begin life with a great deal of wealth. They have access to better nutrition and schools. They inherit the business connections of their fathers. They attain positions of power not through merit, but as an accident of birth. Which also implies that my own child is just that much more unlikely to attain those positions of power. There are a lot of policy changes that can be made to rectifiy this sort of situation. Eliminate protectionist laws. Reinstate the estate tax. Actually, just treat it as any other taxable gift, because that's what an inheritance is: A gift you make when you die. Eliminate incentives for the poor to remain poor. There are far too many of them to list here. Just a few ideas anyway. I don't mind the rich getting rich on their own merit. But for every James Sinegal (Costco founder) out there, there are 100 asshats riding on daddy's (or grandpa's) coattails.

Wealth-based taxation sucks.

[Kadin2048]

No, that would be really dumb. It would further discourage people from saving money, and push everyone even further down the road towards paycheck-to-paycheck living. (Or worse, to debt-maintained living -- unless you want to tax debt?)

Now I agree that it's rather bizarre that we don't just tax capital gains as income; actually it's bizarre that we don't just tax all income as income, and do away with all the little niggling special categories -- if it was someone else's money and now it's yours, that's income, tax it at the same rate.

People shouldn't be taxed on money that's sitting around and not doing anything, or on the principal value of property. If an investment makes money, then they should get taxed on it -- immediately in the case of dividends, or when they cash-out in the case of capital gains. But taxing "wealth" in the form of unrealized capital gains would result in people's retirement/college/savings funds just magically shrinking, year after year. It would basically be telling people: "use it or lose it."

That's not a smart road to go down, because when you discourage people from saving, you're just going to end up having to bail them out later, when they're 65 and broke because they didn't bother to save money for retirement. (I suppose you could pull a Logan's Run and kill them, but I'm going to make some assumptions here.) Rather than letting individuals run their own lives, you're heading down the road to a centrally planned economy, where because nobody can afford it on their own anymore, they have no choice but to depend on the government for everything.

Furthermore, you'd also discourage property ownership (which is one of the keys to social stability), and instead favor people who maintain a low "wealth" by constantly matching their stream of income to their stream of expenses, even when it's obviously not sustainable. Anyone who wants to could probably zero out their 'wealth' by just spending more on services and other items with little residual value. As long as they stay employed, they can maintain a high quality of life -- but the second that they have a gap in their income stream, because they don't have any savings, they fall flat. And then it's back to the government for a bailout.

Wealth-based tax schemes lead directly to heavy government dependency by the entire populace, and encourage personal finance schemes that aren't sustainable or productive in the long term. You might think that it's eliminating one form of classism, but instead you'd just replace it with the classism of a Politburo: a small number of bureaucrats managing all of society's savings and wealth. No thanks.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[NDPTAL85]

"Fair share"? Their fair share is whatever they're worth according to their skills, not the amount that would have them be equal in finances to every other human in the country.

You don't just give people money to be generous or to be nice or because you think everyone should have the same amount of money. Thats socialist and it doesn't work. If you give 10 people $1 Million Dollars and check back on them in 10 years you'll find some still rich, others poor and the rest somewhere in the middle. Spread the wealth? What are you, high on something? Like seriously?

The problem you have is you seem to have a problem with people benefiting from the power their wealth brings them. Well thats kinda the reason people want to be rich in the first place. Its not just about buying things or having the necessities. Some folks confuse our goal of having an eagalatarian society with having a society where everyone is the same. Thats not what it means at all. The purpose is to provide everyone with a chance at success, not garuntee that EVERYONE will be equally mediocre. Implicit in that is also allowing people to fail, miserably so in some cases.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unless you are poor, black and live in New Orleans and are too stupid to leave."

There fixed that for you, no need to thank me.

some insight you have

[Ivan Matveich]

The figure is 1-2 billion people living on $1-2/day, adjusted for purchasing power.

Re:Not just true for humans

[flithm]

You have free healthcare? Where do I sign up. I currently pay nearly $1,000 a month for health care, not including my out-of-pockets and co-pays.

Canada.

Honest impartial police forces? Hmmm...I'll bet you don't live in a major city like Detroit or Los Angeles, do you?

Nope!

At any rate, let me say this:

You exemplify typical American ignorance. You are precisely the reason the rest of the world hates your people. If you can actually compare the police forces of Detroit and LA to say China, where they have Death Vans [timesonline.co.uk], or Egypt where the police can detain any person, without cause, for (renewable) periods of 45 days, then you've obviously never left your country.

And do you really intend to suggest that you have it as bad as 3rd world countries in the US? I hope not... so instead of bickering about semantics, try actually thinking about what the grand-parent poster said... because it's all true.

In first world nations we do have things like health care, trash collection, pensions, government assistance, plumbing, streets, etc, etc. Just because they don't function as well as you'd like, doesn't mean they don't exist, and cost a ton of money to support.

To remind you what you were actually replying to:

I'm personally sick of this bleeding heart crap where it's all "OMFG You make xx,xxx per year, but these people make $1 an hour making the things you buy, FEEL BAD FOR THEM!" I'm sorry, but their economy is based around a lower income level and just because YOU can't fathom living on that much, people around the world do it just fine.

Again, this is more of why no one likes Americans. A statement like this comes from a person who lives in a house, isn't afraid of being bombed on a daily basis, and who never has to worry about food, or water. Sometimes they do it "just fine", but let me see you live under those conditions and then make the post that you did. And just so you know... sometimes they die. Not from a heart attack from eating a giant bucket of fries everyday, but from starvation from having no food to eat.

"Own" might not be the best word in the summary

[snowwrestler]

But surely it's not hidden in a mattress anywhere. It's out in the economy, making the economy work. The money *is* changing hands. Sure, it's making Rich Bastard wealthier, but it's making us wealthier, too. Maybe it's in a treasury bill, giving our government a loan and working capital to buy things and pay salaries. Or in a stock, which gives a company working capital to buy things and pay salaries.

This is a great point, one that is essential for understanding the relative advantages of capitalism over communism or socialism. It's not so much that the richest 1% own the majority of capital, it is that they control it. It's not ownership the way we normally think of it with respect to personal property, because there are practical limitations on how they can use it. Bill Gates can't just liquidate his stock and take the cash; partway through the process the resulting market crash would wipe out his wealth. What he can do, though, is choose where it will work in the economy.

As the capital he controls is worked through the economy, it creates growth. His appreciation and return is a small tax on that growth, however like taxes it is quickly reinvested as new capital. The rich capitalists compete with the government in directing the economy. This creates the competitive tension between elitist business and populist government that drives the improvement of both.

Re:Pareto Distribution

[E++99]

If you look at an average income of say $25,000/yr for a low income person, then realize that the wealth accumulated by people like Gates could pay the yearly salary of ~1.7 million people, it kinda makes you think what exactly are they doing with this money anyways?

Um, they are paying the salaries of ~1.7 million people.

Re:sales tax

[hamelis]

Um, no.. why? because the rich don't spend all of their money, while the poor have to spend all their money (just to survive). Sales tax is the one of, it not the most regressive form of taxation there is. Why is a regressive tax bad? because the people who don't have a lot can't afford to pay a lot - they need to pay rent/mortage, buy food, and are, in general, trying to make ends meet. The justification for a progressive tax scheme (such as we have in the US, and pretty much every other OECD country) is that the people who make a lot can afford to pay a lot, because they don't need all that extra income to survive. It's a luxury, and the government is (or isn't, depending on your opinions. Opinion, not fact.) justified in taking a portion of the income you don't actually need and giving it to someone who does need it, spending it on public goods, or redistributing it in order to produce a more egalitarian society (e.g. the Scandinavian countries). How much the government takes is based, roughly, on a consensus decision/negotiation by/within society that determines how much that society wants to spend on redistribution and public goods. There is no right or wrong answer, only opinions and preferences. We in the US have chosen to have our government tax and redistribute less than any other western democracy (I would say OECD country, but with the more recent additions I'm uncertain). The reasons for this are complex but essentially come down to a (relatively) more heterogenous society, lack of trust in government, and higher perceived (but not actual) social mobility. yes, IAAE.

Re:Not just true for humans

[heinousjay]

Even the pamphlet "Why Freegan", the nearest thing to a freegan movement "bible" is confusing in defining what exactly constitutes freeganism. On the one hand it defines freeganism as "an anti-consumeristic ethic about eating," and goes on to describe practices including dumpster diving, plate scraping, wild foraging, gardening, shoplifting, employee scams, and barter as alternatives to paying for food.

Ah, quite moral.

Re:Not just true for humans

[mbrod]

I recently travelled to one of these areas where $1000 a year aint so bad. Your correct in saying this should take into account how much $1000 a year get's you in each area. You are incorrect however in saying people around the world do it just fine.

Not having clean water, safe housing, basic nutritional needs and basic medical care are what is really the issue. Not their income in relation to ours in the U.S. Most of these places that don't have as high an income are the places that have issues in these basic needs. Big issues in these basic needs that make them NOT "just fine". It is not a matter of feeling one way or the other, the hardships these people go through in these situations are facts.

Now, if they are in a community that provides for their own food and shelter (I.e. living off the land) then that is fine for them. However if they have abandoned a society like that or are born into a society that has abanded that for one of say factory work to provide U.S. markets with cheap goods then like it or not we should be concerned about their well being because we are a part of the situation.

Being part of that situation and not having any concern and assuming no responsibility is why half of the worlds population now lives under goverments ruling in Marx's name. Because it is Marx who addressed this exact problem and said that the elite who don't know they are a part of the problem, is the problem. This obviously made a lot of sense to people being exploited this way who looked towards communism for some protection against such injustice.

So as an elite western consumer, work towards economic justice so people won't have to look for systems to protect themselves from you, like communism (which IMHO does even more harm to them).

Re:Not a Zero-Sum Game

[StrawberryFrog]

This got modded up? Oh dear. Picking your sample that carefully (a group who all have the same bank balance and education) and then generalising wildly from it to a discussion that was originally about the whole world's population is generally known as a "straw man" argument.

Beware the erroneous implication -- that because wealth is concentrated, the people at the bottom are in worse shape than they were when wealth is not so concentrated.

So it's not proven true, does that make it necessarily erroneous? I think not.

Re:You act as if this is some sort of problem

[RexRhino]

Yeah, thought so. In the real world, one of the major uses of wealth is to concentrate and control further wealth. To put it bluntly, that means preventing YOU from getting it.

Nowadays, when the vast majority of the "wealth" that the 2% own only exists on paper. An acre of land in Manhattan is only worth 100,000 times more than an acre of land in Sascatchiwan because of competition for that land by the wealthy. An expensive designer bag is only worth $50,000 if you resell it, because the designer artificially limits supply, and there is social benifits for having the bag, but no-one actually believes that the designer bag uses more resources to produce than an SUV. An origional hand written copy of Beatles lyrics is worth millions and continues to go up in value, but in the end it is just a piece of paper, it doesn't represent the vast financial resource it does when you pay taxes on it or pay to insure it.

It is inevitable that the rich own half of the wealth, but a good portion of that wealth is only wealth because the rich own it. The rich owning half the wealth is a self fulfilling prophesy, because there are many things that gain "value" just because the rich own it. A lot of so-called wealth is not real!

These statistics are meaningless, because they are not limited to items that have real economic values. A much more accurate value would be to compare the consumption of natural resources and labor by the wealthy. How much metal do they use, how much wood do they use, the fruits of how much labor they consume. This will give you a real breakdown on who is wealthy, and who is not.

Trailer-park libertarian, huh?

As opposed to the bourgeois socialist? (or in your case maybe the tree-less suburban subdivision socialist :) ) Of course Libertarians are not as ultra-rich as Socialists. When the ultra-rich reach the limits of their power in the market (lets face it, consumers can be fickle and what is an economic powerhouse one year can be in the dumps the next... most rich people in America don't stay rich their entire lives. And there are things that even the ultra-rich can't do, like throw people in jail, or invade countries), the ultra rich look for a way to institutionalize their wealth by gaining power in the state. They look to nationalize all wealth into the state, and they use socialist rhetoric to get the people to go along with it. Socialism = State Capitalism = The most extreme type of capitalism and the most extreme inbalance of wealth possible.

So, of course rich people (or those who are under permanent dependence of the rich), would be horrified by a Libertarian philosophy which doesn't want to give them state apperatus they can manipulate to preserve their wealth. Everyone knows the rich don't go for Laisse Faire economics, because it is too unpredictable, to violtile, and too hard to concentrate wealth in. Libertarians tend to be middle class, because the middle class benifit the most from free markets.

Re:How unfair!

[khallow]

I disagree. If a parent wants to make their children into pampered fops, then they should be allowed to do so. It's their folly, but the State has no business interfering with that. Besides as another poster pointed out, making things better for offspring is a strong incentive for producing wealth.

Re:Not a Zero-Sum Game

[Fantastic Lad]

If the pie keeps growing, we don't need to be as concerned with getting a smaller portion of it. In fact, there's a good argument that concentrations of wealth actually help the pie to grow -- when finding a cure for a disease may cost a billion dollars, you need people who have that sort of money and who are willing to put it at risk.

You're still not talking about the top percentage.

You're talking about the mid-level managerial staff. (Who also, btw, like to ensure that people are fed tainted foods and lifestyles so as to ensure that there is enough sickness around to require their billion dollar cures.) No, the really rich individuals are the ones who plan things like wars and famines so that the human harvest will be just as bloody and terrible as can be managed.

Fear is food for the dark side, and the dark side is in control at the moment.

-FL

Re:Not just true for humans

[susano_otter]

As opposed to the cost of not dying that most of the people in third world countries are struggling to make...

Ah, but this is the natural human condition: living in caves, using sticks and rocks as tools, struggling every day to keep body and soul together.

If your life is any better than that, you're already a step ahead of the game. Instead of complaining that somebody else, through some combination of hard work and good luck, is two steps ahead of the game, we should all be grateful we're not inside the lion already. Because "inside the lion" is a much more natural and fitting end to the human condition than all the things we've come up with to postpone that day.

I'm sick and tired of this whining and complaining, that simply because one primitive cave man scored himself a bicycle or a smallpox vaccine or a two bedroom/three bathroom house, that now every primitive cave man on the planet is entitled to a bicicyle, a smallpox vaccine, and a two bed/three bath house.

Re:ironically

[c0nc3rn3dcitiz3n]

Ironically, the latest studies show that obesity is now more prevalent than starvation worldwide. And it is frequently linked with low income (not just in western countries).

That's because in a wonderfully ironic twist of fate, it's more difficult and costly to buy healthy foods than foods rich in fat and sodium.

Re:Not just true for humans

[Omestes]

I don't think thats why people hate us, its that we put together a system that works, and then promptly stopped caring about anyone else in the world but ourselves and to some extent we think that people mired in systems that don't work (or in most cases, no systems at all) owe us homage for being so great, so we try to take what little they have, to keep America great. People see America as the greatest parasite ever. Look at our meddling in South America, we obviously don't want anyone else to have a "country that works", unless we get a cut.

Not that I necessarily, 100% agree, but this is how the world sees the US, and this view is somewhat justifiable, albeit simplistic.

Re:Not just true for humans

[gfxguy]

Because you're not able to invest as much because the seed money has already been taxed. If they taxed it once when you made it (like a Roth), or once when you got your return on your investment (like a 401k) then it'd be "fair."

After all, that's why Roths and 401ks exist, because it was understood that the system was "unfair."

Moreover, that seed money is at the top of your income - the highest taxed portion. That's as much as 35%. It'd take years just to get your seed money back to it's pre-taxed value.

And keep in mind that while people may invest for their own personal gain, investing does create new jobs and new opportunities. The intentions might not have been benevolent, but the results generally are.

Re:Not just true for humans

[Cerebus]

Between the ongoing collapse of fisheries, pollution of waterways, exhaustion and salinization of farmland, and rapid disappearance of wilderness lands (mainly for new farmland), where exactly would you like these people to fish, farm, and hunt?

Free-choice

[Fantastic Lad]

People are missing the point here, I think. The problem is that the wealthiest people are a fraction of that top 1%, by comparison to whom, people like Bill Gates, are just low ranking staffers.

The wealthiest few own pretty much everything. Let's take one example. . . Haroldson Lafayette Hunt; arguably one of the richest men on the planet until his death in 1974, is somebody we don't hear much about, if at all. His name did not appear on the list of the 500 largest international corporations, although he was probably among the top five. In the 60's Hunt owned and controled companies the names of which have never even been associated with his. The Hunt assets are staggeringly huge, estimated to be equal to those of such corporate complexes as General Electric.

--As a point of reference, the assets of General Electric, the fourth largest American corporation, equaled $4,851,718,000 in 1966. Yes. That's four trillion. In the 60's! Haroldson Lafayette Hunt had neither stockholders nor board of directors. He owned 85 to 90% of the shares in all of his companies. His family owns the rest.

Now that is wealth. By comparison, Bill Gates with his measly few billion is a bell boy. This Hunt character, and a small handful of people like him, own the world. Hunt had has his own intelligence network, his decisions were carried out by a powerful general staff. His business interests were so extensive that he subsidized (along with other big oilmen) most of the influential men in Congress, men like Lyndon Johnson. Hunt was one of the financial backers of Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose deputy Roy Cohn attracted his attention and had since worked for him on several occasions.

Hunt was the most powerful American propagandist of the Far Right in the day. In 1951 he financed "Facts Forum," a series of radio and television programs which was later replaced by "Life Line," a one-sided series of 15-minute radio broadcasts carried daily on 409 stations throughout the country. His propaganda campaign cost him $2 million a year, financed by companies that he owned, or on which he was in a position to exert pressure.

Okay. So what did he do with all that power? What kind of guy was Hunt? Well, you can measure a man by taking stock of his likes and dislikes. He didn't like President Kennedy.

As an interesting aside, Hunt was nearby on the day of the infamous assassination in Dealey Plaza.

At 12:23 on November 22, from his office on the 7th floor of the Mercantile Building, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt watched John Kennedy ride towards Dealey Plaza, where fate awaited him at 12:30. A few minutes later, escorted by six men in two cars, Hunt left the center of Dallas without even stopping by his house.

At that very moment; General Walker was in a plane between New Orleans and Shreveport. He joined Mr. Hunt in one of his secret hideaways across the Mexican border. There they remained for a month, protected by personal guards, under the impassive eyes of the FBI. It was not until Christmas that Hunt, Walker and their party returned to Dallas.

So when people here talk about trickle down economics and the quality of life being measured by the availability of iPods and the number of rooms people have to live in, or the available good food, I am fairly certain the point is being missed. The point of view needs to be pulled waaaay back, because there is a much larger picture. Slaughterhouse chickens have resources and lives of similar relative quality; shelter, heat, food, society of other chickens, and enough room to walk around and pluck about and play 'pecking-order'. (Meat chickens are not individually caged). I'm sure if you gave them some iPods and jobs and general distraction, they wouldn't even realize thta they were owned. But they are, and their lives are severely limited. --Genetically, physically, mentally, spiritually, etc. And they don't realize it.

The typical pattern in a free-cho