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The parent was refuting this claim: ...inherited wealth starts dominating the economy. This means the ability to get rich fast will most efficiently be accompli
by yummyfajitas 10y ago
The parent was refuting this claim: ...inherited wealth starts dominating the economy. This means the ability to get rich fast will most efficiently be accomplished with strategic marriages rather than starting your own businesses.
Your comment is discussing something completely unrelated. Facebook and Salesforce were not inherited or constructed via a strategic marriage, they were built. The fact that they were built by high human capital individuals with good parents does not change this fact.
The fact that child earnings are correlated with parental earnings suggests that inheritance of wealth is NOT the cause at all and that Piketty's scary story is wrong. Rather, it suggests that US social mobility is low because rich parents pass good work habits, intelligence and similar traits on to their children while poor parents do not.
The fact that a few individuals can still work their way up against all the odds doesn't alter the fact it's an unreachable goal for most of the population.
It's tautologically true that being in the top 0.1% is unreachable for 99.9% of the population. So what?
- ap22213 10y agoWhat are you trying to sell exactly and to whom are you trying to sell it? I currently live around a bunch of upper middle income Americans (>$200k annual household income), and I have family and friends in poor rural America (<$10k annual household income). Both groups are struggling much more today than they were 10 years ago. Maybe the higher-income ones are still living well, but their work environments have become so extreme that I rarely see them around anymore. I can see that many are being are pushed to their limits just to maintain what they have. There's a reason why Donald Trump even has a chance at winning the presidency. Many of both of these groups want to see the whole system crash and burn. The media personalities like to think that only the poorer ones are supporting him. But, when I talk around my neighborhood, as much as my neighbors dislike him, they'd also secretly like to see him win. There has been some frightening instability rising in the US, and it had a lot to do with inequality and unfairness. Many people are realizing that working hard doesn't matter as much as they were taught. Anyway, package up what you're selling as a solution to the above crisis, and I'll try it out at least. Otherwise, it just sounds like you're complaining that the billionaires are being treated unfairly.
- yummyfajitas 10y agoNone of this is responsive to my point, namely that current inequality is mostly self-made wealth rather than inheritance (contra Picketty).