America’s 50 Largest Inherited-Wealth Dynasties Accelerate Inequality | Hacker News Reader

America’s 50 Largest Inherited-Wealth Dynasties Accelerate Inequality

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62 pointsbengtan32 comments

>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.

Does "this" = low taxes on the wealthy? Or allowing lobbying?

"This" = mandating most regular folks put their lives on hold, while the rich and powerful get to continue with their schemes.

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.

That doesn't matter. You consume their content, and buy their goods. In fact, those two things have increased massively over the past year.

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

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.

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...

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.

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/documents/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.

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.

I would say the real problem here is that the 0.1% *of today* are hoarding capital just for their families to an extreme level. Instead of giving back their fair share to the very same Society that provided the ground conditions for them to profit.

Let's not forget that during the eight years of the Eisenhower *Republican* Administration, from 1953 to 1961, the top *marginal* tax rate was 91 percent. (...and it was 92 percent the year he came into office.) [1]

People won't tolerate eternally these levels of material Precarity and Inequality. And like in the 1930s, they will lead to Fascism.

PS: Seibelj, "Trickle-Down Economics" has been repeatedly proven to be a myth and not to work in reality. [2]

1 - [https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/nov/15/bernie-san...]

2 - [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/23/tax-cuts-...]]

I don’t know any definition of “wealth hoarding” nor what a “fair share” is that makes logical sense. It’s always some dollar amount where beneath it someone is a good citizen, and they make one more dollar and suddenly they are evil robber barons. Do you have a wealth amount that signifies someone is evil?

I don’t care about trickle down, I don’t care about rich people. Most of the huge problems in society - cost of housing, education, and healthcare, problems with the criminal justice system, problems with corporate welfare - are caused by the government themselves. The best parts of society that work like well-oiled machines are built and operate in the private sector.

It’s a philosophical difference of opinion - I like rich people and I’m happy that private entities have lots of resources and power. I don’t feel the need to steal from them out of envy.

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

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.

Wow this is fascinating, GINI for wealth inequality is definitely not talked about enough

It's a lie though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

Income and wealth are two different things.

In some ways the low income inequality is driving the high wealth inequality. The income 'equality' means that the top end wages are quite low by global standards, meaning it is basically impossible to build wealth by just working hard and getting a salary.

In the US it is absolutely possible to become a millionaire simply by working your way up the ladder at a large corporation. In Sweden that is basically impossible since there are hardly any jobs offering those sort of salaries.

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.

Another 'fun' fact about Sweden is that has some of the highest levels of unsecured debt pr capita in Europe.

> 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.

No.

This is blatant lie found in a second on Google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

Your link is for income, not wealth. For wealth inequality, sweden had the 3rd highest gini in 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_in...

The majority of the Forbes 400 is first generation.

That's cute compared to Europe where for example in Austria, the top 50 wealthiest families own a third of the country's wealth.

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.

Socioeconomic mobility is low in the US. This has been litigated and resolved in research ad nauseam.

Survivorship bias, on the other hand…

>Socioeconomic mobility is low in the US.

Compared to where?

Other developed countries (or ourselves, in the past).

Pareto Distribution makes people angry. Film at 11.

well it is an issue that is important enough to keep bringing up over and over especially as most Americans see their standard of living go down

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