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> Due to that, statistically, Europe does worse than the US wealth inequality […] Do you have a source for the statistic that show this? Another comment menti

> Due to that, statistically, Europe does worse than the US wealth inequality […] Do you have a source for the statistic that show this? Another comment mentioned Gini. Piketty uses the share of the top percentile (1%) or decile (10%): * https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/pikettys-inequality-story-in-six-charts https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/pikettys-inequal... * https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/03/pikettys-new-book-explores-how-economic-inequality-is-perpetuated/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/03/pikettys-new-... The US isn't the worst in the world, but it is certainly more unequal than Europe as a whole, and most (all?) EU countries.

sokoloff 5y ago
Both of those citations appear to be looking at income inequality measures rather than wealth inequality measures.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  What is wealth but income accumulated over time? (Or wealth stolen from others. Oops?)
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Wealth is the integral of income minus expenses plus net unrealized gains over time. The latter two terms are pretty significant in the overall calculus, if you’ll pardon the (partial?) pun.
- j_wtf_all_taken 5y ago
  Yeah but what pays for rent and food? Income.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  There are several chapters on wealth inequality in Piketty's book: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce... Wealth is harder to measure because it's not as reported in most countries. You get an 'income slip' for tax purposes (e.g., US Form W-2), but there's no official 'wealth slip'. That's one of the things that Piketty suggests: declaring of credits and debts in an official way, which could then be used for a (net) wealth tax. Starting as little 0.1% if you're just over (e.g.) $US 10M, and having a top rate of (e.g.) 2% for those that are worth more than (say) US$ 1B.

sokoloff 5y ago

Both of those citations appear to be looking at income inequality measures rather than wealth inequality measures.

AstralStorm 5y ago
What is wealth but income accumulated over time? (Or wealth stolen from others. Oops?)
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Wealth is the integral of income minus expenses plus net unrealized gains over time. The latter two terms are pretty significant in the overall calculus, if you’ll pardon the (partial?) pun.
j_wtf_all_taken 5y ago
Yeah but what pays for rent and food? Income.
throw0101a 5y ago
There are several chapters on wealth inequality in Piketty's book: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce... Wealth is harder to measure because it's not as reported in most countries. You get an 'income slip' for tax purposes (e.g., US Form W-2), but there's no official 'wealth slip'. That's one of the things that Piketty suggests: declaring of credits and debts in an official way, which could then be used for a (net) wealth tax. Starting as little 0.1% if you're just over (e.g.) $US 10M, and having a top rate of (e.g.) 2% for those that are worth more than (say) US$ 1B.