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100 CEOs Have as Much Retirement Savings as 116M Americans
- SQL2219 10y agoThere ought to be 2 tax rates: 10% if you risk your own money to build a business, and 50% if you pile up huge amounts risk free.
- sfeng 10y agoWho does it serve? Using other peoples money might allow you to grow your business faster improving the economy. I might agree if you divide it by industry, oil and gas mining or finance has a higher rate.
- dv_dt 10y agoLong term capital gains tax is 15%. Interest on simpler accounts are taxed at a higher income rate. This is a very loose interpretation of what you're asking for, but with lots of side effects. Like people who trade their labor for income are taxed at a relatively high rate, while people who sit back and collect rent on capital "risking their money" are taxed at a fairly low rate. At high concentrations of capital, the "risk" is not so much a risk. (esp when the full force of the gov't is backing many aspects of the risk...)
- positr0n 10y agoHow would you define risk free investments? Buying Walmart stock and holding it for a decade? Buying a house and renting it out? Lobbying for preferential treatment for a business/sector you have a large stake in? The latter is obvious a problem, but if you can define that process legally then you could just outlaw it outright instead of trying to penalize it with taxes. Any investment I can imagine that is close to risk free is either already illegal or technically illegal but hard enough to define that people can skirt around the edges of the law.
- SQL2219 10y agoI define risk free as an employee with no skin in the game/no downside.
- woofyman 10y ago>Trump’s 17 cabinet-level picks have more money than a third of American households combined http://qz.com/862412/trumps-16-cabinet-level-picks-have-more-money-than-a-third-of-american-households-combined/ http://qz.com/862412/trumps-16-cabinet-level-picks-have-more...
- lappa 10y agoI have more money than every person in the US who has $0 to their name combined. This metric isn't useful for anything other than shocking headlines.
- lucasmullens 10y agoCould whoever downvoted this explain why this is wrong? This seems like a great point. From the main article "The report also notes that 37 percent of U.S. families have no retirement wealth at all." So I could claim "100 McDonald's employees have as much retirement savings as 104M Americans". That doesn't really say much.
- danielvf 10y agoYes, the grandparent post is being unfairly downvoted. It's an entirely valid criticism of the meaninglessness of a sensational headline.
- sytelus 10y agoThis is a good observation. If you zoom in the power law, it still remains power law :). Average american probably has more wealth than bottom million Americans combined.
- actuallyalys 10y agoFair point, although "37 percent of households have no retirement savings" is still a pretty shocking headline.
- mzw_mzw 10y agoAnd in 2004, the Democratic Party ran a billionaire for President. Whoopie-doo.