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*among billionaires The numbers of billionaires, and especially percentages of those, are a worthless metric. Billionaires are about as rare unicorns, especial

*among billionaires The numbers of billionaires, and especially percentages of those, are a worthless metric. Billionaires are about as rare unicorns, especially here in the Netherlands (pop. 17 million) where we only have 9 billionaires in total. Due to the high taxes here in Europe it's incredibly difficult to become very rich, so it's not strange that a lot of our billionaires have inherited their wealth. We also lack the tech scene which created a lot of self-made billionaires in the US.

Noseshine 10y ago
> Due to the high taxes here in Europe it's incredibly difficult to become very rich With all due respect, but you don't understand what "getting very rich" means. You don't get money and place it in a bank. The money is the firm or firms that you control, and that is where it remains. If you reinvest and expand your business you don't pay a lot of taxes. The personal tax rate has nothing to do with becoming a billionaire. When it is harder to become a billionaire it shows that there is less of a "winner takes all" system, which has advantages and disadvantages. The US is much more "winner takes all" than Europe. That Europe still is a lot of countries, the EU did not change that, is part of why that is so, but I would not go so far to say it's the major part, even if Europe was "one" I think we would still not be the same. That's from some business observations I made while living in the US for a decade (I'm from Europe). For an example what that means (winner takes all), when I worked for a tech startup we found it pretty easy to get initial customers in Europe, Germany to be exact. However, scaling was hard, getting a few customers helped with the next ones but not all that much. It was very different in the US: It was very hard to get even medium-sized companies interested, but when it started it was like an avalanche. And most of those companies purchased from the market leader (our competitor unfortunately), even as #2 we were far, far behind. That obviously helps with wealth concentration. I'll leave it to you to decide if you think that's a good thing, or to find a nuanced view. > We also lack the tech scene which created a lot of self-made billionaires in the US. Food for (your) thought(s): Secret History of Silicon Valley - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo A truly remarkable lecture form the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. TL;DR Silicon Valley was made possible by huge amounts of money spent by the US government during WWII on R&D. The "billionaires" happened on that basis. Also, and since I saw this first hand on both continents I feel very comfortable making that claim, much of the current-time explanation for this lies in what I wrote above - "winner takes all" plus "one market" sure helps to concentrate wealth and more quickly too. IMHO the US does have something important: They have people and networks of people who understand scale and what is important and what isn't for business success. More so than others, although I can only compare with Germany. I completely reject your "analysis" though, well with that one sentence that makes a statement about a reason (taxes).

Noseshine 10y ago

> Due to the high taxes here in Europe it's incredibly difficult to become very rich With all due respect, but you don't understand what "getting very rich" means. You don't get money and place it in a bank. The money is the firm or firms that you control, and that is where it remains. If you reinvest and expand your business you don't pay a lot of taxes. The personal tax rate has nothing to do with becoming a billionaire. When it is harder to become a billionaire it shows that there is less of a "winner takes all" system, which has advantages and disadvantages. The US is much more "winner takes all" than Europe. That Europe still is a lot of countries, the EU did not change that, is part of why that is so, but I would not go so far to say it's the major part, even if Europe was "one" I think we would still not be the same. That's from some business observations I made while living in the US for a decade (I'm from Europe). For an example what that means (winner takes all), when I worked for a tech startup we found it pretty easy to get initial customers in Europe, Germany to be exact. However, scaling was hard, getting a few customers helped with the next ones but not all that much. It was very different in the US: It was very hard to get even medium-sized companies interested, but when it started it was like an avalanche. And most of those companies purchased from the market leader (our competitor unfortunately), even as #2 we were far, far behind. That obviously helps with wealth concentration. I'll leave it to you to decide if you think that's a good thing, or to find a nuanced view. > We also lack the tech scene which created a lot of self-made billionaires in the US. Food for (your) thought(s): Secret History of Silicon Valley - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo A truly remarkable lecture form the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. TL;DR Silicon Valley was made possible by huge amounts of money spent by the US government during WWII on R&D. The "billionaires" happened on that basis. Also, and since I saw this first hand on both continents I feel very comfortable making that claim, much of the current-time explanation for this lies in what I wrote above - "winner takes all" plus "one market" sure helps to concentrate wealth and more quickly too. IMHO the US does have something important: They have people and networks of people who understand scale and what is important and what isn't for business success. More so than others, although I can only compare with Germany. I completely reject your "analysis" though, well with that one sentence that makes a statement about a reason (taxes).