Viral Video Shows the Extent of U.S. Wealth Inequality | Hacker News Reader

Viral Video Shows the Extent of U.S. Wealth Inequality

mashable.com

32 pointselectic15 comments

Meh.. what is this "wealth"?

At a certain point, (unless you're just stupid), you don't buy "stuff" with your money. When you have > $100 million, I prefer to think that you instead have the capability to direct the flow of cash in the economy. Yes, some people buy yachts and other nonsense, but really, what are you going to do with that much money?

There's a chart somewhere out there on the internet detailing exactly what Bill Gate's money is going into. And it's interesting, because a lot of it is going into things that help people. Now consider, what if Microsoft never existed; where would this money be? It would mean the average person would have a little more probably. But Gates is directing it toward people that have the least of all (among some university donations, etc.)

I've always told myself that if I somehow ever came across a lot of wealth, I wouldn't live any differently. I wouldn't own a car > $30,000. I wouldn't buy an extravagant house or a nice piano, because personally, I would feel guilty about having luxury items like this when other people have so little. I'm not judging people that do; I'm just saying that for me personally, it wouldn't work. So I would put my wealth into 1) disease research 2) education 3) 3rd world support. Maybe some other things; I'd have to think more about it.

And I'd hate someone to say "Oh, look at how rich that person is. It's not fair."

EDIT: Nothing's worse on HN than writing a long response and having the article jump from the 1st page to the 3rd. I may as well be writing to nobody.

I was gonna write a lengthy response to your comment, but then, I don't need to, a rich person already held a TED talk exactly why gross inequality is problematic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIhOXCgSunc

This is pretty frightening.

Banks are too big to fail and now too big to jail; it follows that the top 1% also has these attributes. Does that mean the American government is powerless to affect change?

What's more likely to win their vote? A pile of money, or lots of phone calls? I hope we figure something out before it's too late ... this trend is only going to get worse.

Unless everyone has exactly the same amount, it is mathematically necessary that the top N% percent will have more than N% of the wealth. The same reasoning can be applied iteratively within each wealth group.

Most people who write about wealth distribution on blogs or popular political sites and forums, or make videos about it, don't seem to understand this, and so fail to start with a reasonable model of what a fair wealth distribution would be.

It's easy to create that model: just take a time machine (or history books) and copy the same wealth distribution of America a few decades ago, say in the 1940's-1960's. Also known as, the Golden Age of the American Middle Classes. I would settle for that.

But that was a time when the very rich had to pay up to 91% of income tax, and unions were everywhere preventing exploitation of middle-class jobs! OMG, the US was a Socialist country, thanks god we don't have this problem anymore!!

(Sarcasm aside, yes the world has changed and the exact same formula that worked in the fifties wouldn't work perfectly in the modern and globalized economy; still, in this case the present is so screwed up that even an imperfectly-fit clone of the past would work better)

While this is mathematically true, I don't think it is necessary to acknowledge it in order to suggest/discuss a reasonable model for wealth distribution. I would even say that it is beside the point. The OP is trying to show that the order of magnitude of US wealth (or income) inequality is shocking. Moreover, most of us vastly underestimate the magnitude of US wealth inequality. And I would add as an example that many still believe in the American Dream, even if the US is one of the worst OECD countries when it comes to social mobility [1]. As George Carlin was saying, "You have to be asleep to believe it."

Back to the OP, when the top 1% has 24% of income (and 40% of wealth), that means there's a lot of luxury in the US which could instead be used to improve the life of some other less fortunate citizens. The economics rhetoric is clearly failing: the current wealth distribution is certainly not the most efficient distribution of resources if one is to include "quality of life" in the equation.

[1] http://www.oecd.org/eco/growth/economicpolicyreformsgoingfor...

Two observations:

1. Working hard doesn't entitle you to anything. Tired of politicians making this claim.

2. Part of rise in inequality is powered by technology. I'm sure in 1970 you couldn't have created a billion dollar company with 12 people in 2 years (Instagram).

In 1970 that billion dollar company would have been valued as such based mainly on its assets and cash flow, not its irrational-speculator-fueled market capitalization bubble.

"Working hard doesn't entitle you to anything." -- well said. I am a software engineer, I always worked hard and I have a good income; but I'm by no means rich and most likely will never be, mostly because I've got no entrepreneurial genes. But that's alright, I think people who (besides the hard work) take high risks by creating new companies or even working their asses off in a startup that may or may not succeed, deserve an extra reward.

OTOH, the poor schmucks who work in the car wash a few blocks of my house, so I can have my car cleaned for $9 even in the winter with temperature below freezing? I would say they work much harder than me. And very likely they always did, they were already sweating over some soul-crushing job when they were teenagers (or even earlier), while at that age I had the privilege of being fully dedicated to my education. Not to mention always having a good and stable life -- food, healthcare, parents who had the means to care for me, etc.

Simple truth is that inequality of opportunities is huge. Another poster mentioned Bill Gates, well I don't take his merit away but Gates was the son of a wealthy attorney and a wealthier banker. Even Bill's entrepreneurship is something that can be attributed at least in part to the fact that he had a very good safety net to fall -- if he failed, he wouldn't exactly be screwed for a decade with debt.

How is this kind of data acquired? I suppose we don't know precisely who the 1% guy is, right?

This is pretty disingenuous. The creator of this video would have you believe that the wealthy 1% are like Scrooge McDuck sitting on vaults full of cash amounting to tens of trillions of dollars, and this is why some people are poor.

So, I wonder what a tax policy would actually look like that would revert us to "what we think it is". What would the marginal brackets be? Seems like it would have to require a heck of an estate tax, too.

I'd like to see a wealth data compared to data on how people spent their free time over their lifetimes.

The only thing to get upset about is wasted potential.

You reminded me of Bill Gates, who said that in his youth, he never took a day off, ever.

The historgram seemingly fits Zipf's law. I am not shocked. That is a law after all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com