18 ms·

I mean... that doesn't detract from the problem at all. That just says there's a massive wealth divide and that moving up to the mere top 20% (the group 1 out o

I mean... that doesn't detract from the problem at all. That just says there's a massive wealth divide and that moving up to the mere top 20% (the group 1 out of 5 people belong to) should be considered a ridiculous proposition unless you're born into it. Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic?

csallen 5y ago
> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.
- inetknght 5y ago
  > Why is it a bad thing that so many people are that wealthy? In the USA's case: for every one person who is that wealthy there are dozens of people struggling to put food on the table.
  - csallen 5y ago
    12% of Americans struggle from food insecurity. By definition, 20% of Americans are in the top quintile. I'm with you, I want that first number to be as close to 0% as possible. But it's mathematically untrue that there are dozens of Americans starving for every American in the top 20%. In fact, there are barely half as many.
    - inetknght 5y ago
      I count myself to be lucky in the top 20% of earners in America and have friends who also fit in the range. I've met a lot of people who struggle to put food on the table whose income is in the middle 50%. A lot of them have the same complaint: they don't qualify for help because they make too much. But they also struggle to pay their bills because they don't make enough. I don't know where you think 12% of Americans "struggle from food insecurity". But I don't trust your numbers because my anecdata says different.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - chongli 5y ago
        I'm not saying any of the people you've described fall into this category, but: there are plenty of people who struggle to pay the bills but not through lack of income. They struggle to pay the bills while always having the latest iPhone, designer clothes, drinking $7 lattes every day, etc. On the other hand, I know people who spend less than $7 per day on their entire food budget. They receive just barely enough money per month to cover rent and food (and a little left over to pay for wifi and a small savings for computer upgrades) but they don't struggle from food insecurity. I live in Canada, though, so I don't know about the welfare situation in the US.
      - rank0 5y ago
        I mean just think for a second. There is a maximum for 4 people for every person in the top 20%. It literally cannot be “dozens” even if the entire bottom 80% was struggling for food.
        inetknght 5y ago
        Yes, in the same way that the average energy density in the universe is zero, sure. But there's parts of the country where the local averages are much more skewed relative to the rest of the country.
      - nuclearnice1 5y ago
        The 12% is close to the USDA ERS survey finding that 10.5% U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2020. That might be a place to begin investigating the difference between your lived experience and more systematic data collection efforts. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
      - jandrewrogers 5y ago
        It may be that the definition of "food insecurity" is broader than your intuition. Per Federal Reserve studies, ~10-15% of US households have no discretionary income after all essential expenses, which includes food. For people in this financial state, any unplanned expense will cut into their already limited budget for food. Even though they have food, and won't starve, this risk is likely sufficient to be deemed "food insecure". However, in practice this is often offset by the myriad USDA and other food subsidy programs. We received a lot of free food from the US government when I was a child, and I doubt the programs are less generous today. I definitely would have met the definition of "food insecure" at the time even though we always had food.
    - thoraway66 5y ago
      This is a snapshot of now. Where are we going with the money thing? If the goal is everyone have money to access stuff (get to 0%)… why money? Just provide stuff? Socially make the story “this is how acquisition of stuff works and what stuff is available.” Like we do now. Just minus the money. Everyone lives under a quota for stuff given how much money they have. What’s with the arbitrary data structure (dollar) and old man algorithms for dividing it up?
  - jldl805 5y ago
    That does not answer the question you are responding to in any way.
- forgotmyoldname 5y ago
  I mean, wars were fought over that and revolutions had. People decidedly did not like royalty, large so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve groups, being so far above them. For a while, people much preferred knowing they could work hard or smart and make progress from the bottom to the top 20%. We're talking about the top 20% here. Not the top 0.1%.
  - goodluckchuck 5y ago
    Doing hard things can be good. We shouldn’t try to stop people from doing things just because others find it difficult.
    - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
      We shouldn't. But low social mobility and further stratified wealth divisions is a sign that the effort is pointless for a growing number of people.
  - fourtrees 5y ago
    This is one of my big take-aways from the article. My great-(great?-)-grandparents from Eastern Europe armed with nothing but excellent numeracy, some English, and the clothes on their backs. They could reliably expect to enter move out of post-immigration poverty based on skills cultivated for the purpose of success in the US. My great-x-grandfather ended up a bank manager. And they passed money and knowledge along to their children, insuring as best they could that their progress wouldn't be lost, and it wasn't. You've heard this story a thousand times, and I'd bet it happened tens of thousands of times. But that sort of outcome seems almost impossible in America today due to more factors than I could probably name especially at this hour. But it seems clear to me that America has changed in the last 120-100 years in a way that locks people into their social classes/'earnings quintiles' while perpetuating, I assume to the advantage of the very wealthy, the myth that that old America of extreme social mobility still exists. This is a myth that needs to die if we're to adequately address our problems as a nation. I suspect the solution begins in the education industry.
    - 5y ago
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better. Aren’t you just literally saying that social mobility is bad?
  - csallen 5y ago
    No, I'm saying that there's always going to be some level of wealth that's difficult to achieve. We can all pull a number out of thin air that's just super high, that's tough to imagine people in the bottom 20% commonly getting to in their lifetime. For argument's sake, let's say that number is a net worth of $500K. (Because that just so happens to be the minimum net worth to be in the top 20% of Americans[0].) What would you prefer: a world where more or fewer people were able to amass that much wealth? To me, the obvious answer is more. It does nobody any good for fewer people to be wealthy. Sure, you could look at the numbers and conclude that there's more class mobility, but that's just because more people are poorer, not because more people are making it to $500K. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/net-worth-to-be-wealthy-at-every-age-2019-8#51-to-55-years-old-586470-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/net-worth-t...
    - GavinMcG 5y ago
      > there's always going to be some level of wealth that's difficult to achieve Sure, but if that number is such that a significant proportion of society is born with it and pass it along to their children while everyone else can't hope to get there, that's a very different society and social structure than one where a few extremely lucky people happen to achieve it each generation without a self-reinforcing class structure. > It does nobody any good for fewer people to be wealthy It could. If we actively redistributed wealth from the top quintile to the bottom quintile, it would do a lot of people a lot of good.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      You're totally conflating relative and absolute wealth. Society is probably better off when the median absolute wealth increases, which will be achieved by more people achieving higher wealth levels. But as is becoming increasing clear (again), society is worse off when relative wealth distinctions grow (at least, if they grow too large). If more people make it to $500k, the 5th quintile threshold will move up. That means that the gap between the bottom quintile and the top quintile will increase. We could choose to be happy that more people have made it to $500k, or we could choose to be upset that the gap between the lower 4 quintiles and the upper one has grown.
- enraged_camel 5y ago
  Because wealth is used to capture political power, which in turn is used to help the wealthy hoard even more wealth and retain that wealth. Furthermore, this often is done at the expense of everyone else. Wealth may not be zero-sum, but that is only true in the abstract sense; I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that most people who are at the topmost quintile acquired their wealth by sucking value out of the system (e.g. rent-seekers, parasitic middlemen, etc.), rather than via value generation.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    The way you get to the top is to be a lackey of the extractive mega-elites. I.e., you help enable the parasites, and they give you a cut.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  Historically in the United States rich people have had a disproportionate influence on politics, distorting the effectiveness of our democracy. There is no problem that people are wealthy, the problem is that the wealthy people do not share (accountability, wealth, etc.) * wealthy here is used in a relative sense, not in an absolute one. Obviously it's good that people in general are wealthy absolutely.
- Kinrany 5y ago
  > Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? To be pedantic, exactly 20% are that wealthy. > The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better. So-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve can only be defined compared to people who can't achieve it. Medieval kings were in that category but lived worse that we do.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Medieval kings definitely lived better than you do.
    - Thorrez 5y ago
      Did they have good heating or air conditioning or medical care? Running water or plumbing or lighting? Travel was also much much harder.
      - DarylZero 5y ago
        Instead of the conveniences of modern technology, they had servants. They lived a life of full service, comparable to the most expensive modern hotels. They had "running water" -- as in servants would run and fetch the water. There was nothing inconvenient about the king's access to water. It would be served to him. How do you get your water?
        phone8675309 5y ago
        Fat lot of good that does when you die from a simple infection that penicillin can fix or keel over from a heart attack that is survivable in the modern age.
        DarylZero 5y ago
        Look, I'm not saying that everything was better in the medieval ages. But people who think that their own modern lifestyle is comparable to a medieval king are lying to themselves. They heard a dumbass meme and never thought about it critically. Modern working class people in the wealthy nations do have better _medical care_ than medieval kings did. That doesn't justify broad statements about "lifestyle."
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > Why is it a bad thing that so many people are that wealthy? Much more than they’re willing to admit this controversy is about envy on that side. They cloak that envy in a veneer of concern for the poor and concern about the undue influence that money allows; both valid concerns. However, they then target policies that exacerbate poverty and make worse the absolute plight of the poor. The other side is not willing to admit that for them it’s more than a bit about avarice. They hide that avarice in myths of the self made founder and myths about ethically conscious capitalism; both things you can find laudable examples of. However, many hide their privileged starting points and sell out immediately when profit conflicts with their morals.
- theonemind 5y ago
  An unreachable tier of society indicates a fundamental social injustice. They're in the top 20% of wealth...not intelligence, or in any other factor making them deserving of it. Some of them did work hard, and probably deserve it if you consider hard work deserving of it...but, some people worked harder and didn't make it, so it's not a 1-to-1 equation. So there's a huge element of luck, which is kind of like a slavery for the bottom 80%..just like, you're born with one skin color (luck), you're in the upper class, and own the unlucky people born with another skin color. Generally, we try to equalize the brutal laws of nature and offer equality of opportunity and try to remove blind, dumb luck from human life...with health care, with insurance, with social equality...sometimes, we succeed, but this is a failure.
  - defaultprimate 5y ago
    Who determines who deserves what?
  - ianbutler 5y ago
    "if you consider hard work deserving of it" Do you mean to say people who do nothing deserve wealth?
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      LOL where are these "people who do nothing"
      - ianbutler 5y ago
        There are multiple people I’ve known who do the bare minimum to continue their existence and from the ones I’ve known I’m sure they’d contribute nothing if they were able to. I don’t consider it a particularly valid way to live. There are a lot more who do try to make their lives better though.
        danaris 5y ago
        So...the idle rich, then?
- tlear 5y ago
  It is the normal propaganda of the class war. Identify Kulak, murder kulak.. profit (or mass famine). Usually they start with top 1% or a bit more, these guys jumped straight to 20%. But I am sure if you vote properly and donate to “causes” you Kulakness can be overlooked for now, proper public self flagellating is also necessary.
  - refurb 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Black_Categories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Black_Categories
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Or you could pay taxes, but no, better to die!
  - LQexplanation 5y ago
    "From rags to riches" - typical communist nonsense, far from true American values, like working hard your whole life and staying poor because the party memb... Tfu, the richest are too far away to ever reach them.
- EricDeb 5y ago
  One reason is because it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society. Some do, most don't. We tend to hear about the ones that do.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    > it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Money is basically an abstract representation of power, so that's almost a tautology. > Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society This is an interesting claim? What is good for society, and relative to whom? I suppose the obvious comparison would be relative to "poor" people, but poor people don't really intentionally allocate capital at all by virtue of barely having enough for their immediate needs. Even the selfish rich people tend to invest their capital, usually into lucrative projects that make money by fulfilling some need of society. I guess i wonder if that's so bad, or at least if its worse than the other social classes would do.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      >Even the selfish rich people tend to invest their capital, usually into lucrative projects that make money by fulfilling some need of society That's not how money is made. You need some kind of parasitic mechanism to enable massive accumulations.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      "Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power." -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776
    - diordiderot 5y ago
      > What is good for society Decarbonization, novel drug research, preventative medicine, high speed rural broadband, public transport, nutrient rich foods, exercise, education.
- bawolff 5y ago
  Because when people feel like there is no hope to make it to the top, they become resentful and society starts to break down.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I agree, but if we don’t account for wealth inequality, then we can fail to get there because our government tends to optimize for the already-wealthy at the expense of everyone else. This happens due to special interest lobbyists who make sure that every law tips the scales a bit in favor of their wealthy patrons (it’s like playing hungry hungry hippos on a table that tilts downwards toward the rich). The more inequality we have, the more greater the extent to which the government serves the interests of the wealthy class, which in turn exacerbates inequality. So we should make sure we are actually making more wealthy people and not just helping the already-wealthy grease the pole for others.
WalterBright 5y ago
> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why should some people be able to run much faster than I can? It's not fair there are many men handsomer than myself. They should be required to wear a mask.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  imagine equating wealth to attraction, lol. I understand your point, but what an inane example.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Why is it inane? Handsomeness is something you're born with, and most people assert that wealth is, too.
    - danaris 5y ago
      My handsomeness cannot, in any meaningful way, be taken away to help you be more handsome, no matter how handsome I am or how ugly you are. Your wealth can absolutely be taken away to help me afford food, shelter, and healthcare. Furthermore, my handsomeness does not in any way directly gain me the aforementioned things needed to survive and thrive. Your wealth absolutely does.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Handsome people statistically make significantly more money than others. Statistically, people in jail are much less handsome than the general population. Salaries are statistically higher for taller people as well, by the inch. Forcing Hollywood to hire fewer attractive actors and more unattractive actors will meaningfully transfer lucrative roles to less attractive people.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
56% of Americans spend at least one year in the top 10%, and 73% spend one year in the top 20% [1]. [1] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/evidence-shows-significant-income-mobility-in-the-us-73-of-americans-were-in-the-top-20-for-at-least-a-year/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/evidence-shows-significant-in... American mobility isn't bad because people can't make it to the top - you can, more so than almost anywhere in the world. It's bad because a significant portion of people at the bottom stay stuck at the bottom their whole life. Compared to countries in Europe, this is a lot worse.
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  That's laughably twisted. Just because someone makes a ton of money in a year (i.e. from inheritance, life insurance, or something else) means absolutely nothing about their wealth.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Inheritance NOR life insurance payouts are considered income by the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/faqs/interest-dividends-other-types-of-income/life-insurance-disability-insurance-proceeds#:~:text=Generally%2C%20life%20insurance%20proceeds%20you,report%20it%20as%20interest%20received https://www.irs.gov/faqs/interest-dividends-other-types-of-i....
    - jfrunyon 5y ago
      Uhh, inheritance definitely counts as income, but I'm not sure what income taxes have to do with what we were discussing. The supposed numbers you pointed to don't come from the IRS.
- wreath 5y ago
  Can you elaborate or share any studies that show Europe has better mobility opportunities than the US? Also what part of Europe are we talking, Germany? Romania? Portugal or maybe Poland?
  - 5y ago
goodluckchuck 5y ago
I’m sorry, but grammatically I don’t understand what your second paragraph is saying. I can infer that you mean to argue that America is economically unfair, but the words don’t seem to have any coherent meaning.

csallen 5y ago

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

inetknght 5y ago
> Why is it a bad thing that so many people are that wealthy? In the USA's case: for every one person who is that wealthy there are dozens of people struggling to put food on the table.
- csallen 5y ago
  12% of Americans struggle from food insecurity. By definition, 20% of Americans are in the top quintile. I'm with you, I want that first number to be as close to 0% as possible. But it's mathematically untrue that there are dozens of Americans starving for every American in the top 20%. In fact, there are barely half as many.
  - inetknght 5y ago
    I count myself to be lucky in the top 20% of earners in America and have friends who also fit in the range. I've met a lot of people who struggle to put food on the table whose income is in the middle 50%. A lot of them have the same complaint: they don't qualify for help because they make too much. But they also struggle to pay their bills because they don't make enough. I don't know where you think 12% of Americans "struggle from food insecurity". But I don't trust your numbers because my anecdata says different.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - chongli 5y ago
      I'm not saying any of the people you've described fall into this category, but: there are plenty of people who struggle to pay the bills but not through lack of income. They struggle to pay the bills while always having the latest iPhone, designer clothes, drinking $7 lattes every day, etc. On the other hand, I know people who spend less than $7 per day on their entire food budget. They receive just barely enough money per month to cover rent and food (and a little left over to pay for wifi and a small savings for computer upgrades) but they don't struggle from food insecurity. I live in Canada, though, so I don't know about the welfare situation in the US.
    - rank0 5y ago
      I mean just think for a second. There is a maximum for 4 people for every person in the top 20%. It literally cannot be “dozens” even if the entire bottom 80% was struggling for food.
      - inetknght 5y ago
        Yes, in the same way that the average energy density in the universe is zero, sure. But there's parts of the country where the local averages are much more skewed relative to the rest of the country.
    - nuclearnice1 5y ago
      The 12% is close to the USDA ERS survey finding that 10.5% U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2020. That might be a place to begin investigating the difference between your lived experience and more systematic data collection efforts. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
    - jandrewrogers 5y ago
      It may be that the definition of "food insecurity" is broader than your intuition. Per Federal Reserve studies, ~10-15% of US households have no discretionary income after all essential expenses, which includes food. For people in this financial state, any unplanned expense will cut into their already limited budget for food. Even though they have food, and won't starve, this risk is likely sufficient to be deemed "food insecure". However, in practice this is often offset by the myriad USDA and other food subsidy programs. We received a lot of free food from the US government when I was a child, and I doubt the programs are less generous today. I definitely would have met the definition of "food insecure" at the time even though we always had food.
  - thoraway66 5y ago
    This is a snapshot of now. Where are we going with the money thing? If the goal is everyone have money to access stuff (get to 0%)… why money? Just provide stuff? Socially make the story “this is how acquisition of stuff works and what stuff is available.” Like we do now. Just minus the money. Everyone lives under a quota for stuff given how much money they have. What’s with the arbitrary data structure (dollar) and old man algorithms for dividing it up?
- jldl805 5y ago
  That does not answer the question you are responding to in any way.
forgotmyoldname 5y ago
I mean, wars were fought over that and revolutions had. People decidedly did not like royalty, large so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve groups, being so far above them. For a while, people much preferred knowing they could work hard or smart and make progress from the bottom to the top 20%. We're talking about the top 20% here. Not the top 0.1%.
- goodluckchuck 5y ago
  Doing hard things can be good. We shouldn’t try to stop people from doing things just because others find it difficult.
  - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
    We shouldn't. But low social mobility and further stratified wealth divisions is a sign that the effort is pointless for a growing number of people.
- fourtrees 5y ago
  This is one of my big take-aways from the article. My great-(great?-)-grandparents from Eastern Europe armed with nothing but excellent numeracy, some English, and the clothes on their backs. They could reliably expect to enter move out of post-immigration poverty based on skills cultivated for the purpose of success in the US. My great-x-grandfather ended up a bank manager. And they passed money and knowledge along to their children, insuring as best they could that their progress wouldn't be lost, and it wasn't. You've heard this story a thousand times, and I'd bet it happened tens of thousands of times. But that sort of outcome seems almost impossible in America today due to more factors than I could probably name especially at this hour. But it seems clear to me that America has changed in the last 120-100 years in a way that locks people into their social classes/'earnings quintiles' while perpetuating, I assume to the advantage of the very wealthy, the myth that that old America of extreme social mobility still exists. This is a myth that needs to die if we're to adequately address our problems as a nation. I suspect the solution begins in the education industry.
  - 5y ago
tshaddox 5y ago
> The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better. Aren’t you just literally saying that social mobility is bad?
- csallen 5y ago
  No, I'm saying that there's always going to be some level of wealth that's difficult to achieve. We can all pull a number out of thin air that's just super high, that's tough to imagine people in the bottom 20% commonly getting to in their lifetime. For argument's sake, let's say that number is a net worth of $500K. (Because that just so happens to be the minimum net worth to be in the top 20% of Americans[0].) What would you prefer: a world where more or fewer people were able to amass that much wealth? To me, the obvious answer is more. It does nobody any good for fewer people to be wealthy. Sure, you could look at the numbers and conclude that there's more class mobility, but that's just because more people are poorer, not because more people are making it to $500K. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/net-worth-to-be-wealthy-at-every-age-2019-8#51-to-55-years-old-586470-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/net-worth-t...
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    > there's always going to be some level of wealth that's difficult to achieve Sure, but if that number is such that a significant proportion of society is born with it and pass it along to their children while everyone else can't hope to get there, that's a very different society and social structure than one where a few extremely lucky people happen to achieve it each generation without a self-reinforcing class structure. > It does nobody any good for fewer people to be wealthy It could. If we actively redistributed wealth from the top quintile to the bottom quintile, it would do a lot of people a lot of good.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    You're totally conflating relative and absolute wealth. Society is probably better off when the median absolute wealth increases, which will be achieved by more people achieving higher wealth levels. But as is becoming increasing clear (again), society is worse off when relative wealth distinctions grow (at least, if they grow too large). If more people make it to $500k, the 5th quintile threshold will move up. That means that the gap between the bottom quintile and the top quintile will increase. We could choose to be happy that more people have made it to $500k, or we could choose to be upset that the gap between the lower 4 quintiles and the upper one has grown.
enraged_camel 5y ago
Because wealth is used to capture political power, which in turn is used to help the wealthy hoard even more wealth and retain that wealth. Furthermore, this often is done at the expense of everyone else. Wealth may not be zero-sum, but that is only true in the abstract sense; I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that most people who are at the topmost quintile acquired their wealth by sucking value out of the system (e.g. rent-seekers, parasitic middlemen, etc.), rather than via value generation.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  The way you get to the top is to be a lackey of the extractive mega-elites. I.e., you help enable the parasites, and they give you a cut.
endisneigh 5y ago
Historically in the United States rich people have had a disproportionate influence on politics, distorting the effectiveness of our democracy. There is no problem that people are wealthy, the problem is that the wealthy people do not share (accountability, wealth, etc.) * wealthy here is used in a relative sense, not in an absolute one. Obviously it's good that people in general are wealthy absolutely.
Kinrany 5y ago
> Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? To be pedantic, exactly 20% are that wealthy. > The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better. So-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve can only be defined compared to people who can't achieve it. Medieval kings were in that category but lived worse that we do.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  Medieval kings definitely lived better than you do.
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    Did they have good heating or air conditioning or medical care? Running water or plumbing or lighting? Travel was also much much harder.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Instead of the conveniences of modern technology, they had servants. They lived a life of full service, comparable to the most expensive modern hotels. They had "running water" -- as in servants would run and fetch the water. There was nothing inconvenient about the king's access to water. It would be served to him. How do you get your water?
      - phone8675309 5y ago
        Fat lot of good that does when you die from a simple infection that penicillin can fix or keel over from a heart attack that is survivable in the modern age.
        DarylZero 5y ago
        Look, I'm not saying that everything was better in the medieval ages. But people who think that their own modern lifestyle is comparable to a medieval king are lying to themselves. They heard a dumbass meme and never thought about it critically. Modern working class people in the wealthy nations do have better _medical care_ than medieval kings did. That doesn't justify broad statements about "lifestyle."
nyokodo 5y ago
> Why is it a bad thing that so many people are that wealthy? Much more than they’re willing to admit this controversy is about envy on that side. They cloak that envy in a veneer of concern for the poor and concern about the undue influence that money allows; both valid concerns. However, they then target policies that exacerbate poverty and make worse the absolute plight of the poor. The other side is not willing to admit that for them it’s more than a bit about avarice. They hide that avarice in myths of the self made founder and myths about ethically conscious capitalism; both things you can find laudable examples of. However, many hide their privileged starting points and sell out immediately when profit conflicts with their morals.
theonemind 5y ago
An unreachable tier of society indicates a fundamental social injustice. They're in the top 20% of wealth...not intelligence, or in any other factor making them deserving of it. Some of them did work hard, and probably deserve it if you consider hard work deserving of it...but, some people worked harder and didn't make it, so it's not a 1-to-1 equation. So there's a huge element of luck, which is kind of like a slavery for the bottom 80%..just like, you're born with one skin color (luck), you're in the upper class, and own the unlucky people born with another skin color. Generally, we try to equalize the brutal laws of nature and offer equality of opportunity and try to remove blind, dumb luck from human life...with health care, with insurance, with social equality...sometimes, we succeed, but this is a failure.
- defaultprimate 5y ago
  Who determines who deserves what?
- ianbutler 5y ago
  "if you consider hard work deserving of it" Do you mean to say people who do nothing deserve wealth?
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    LOL where are these "people who do nothing"
    - ianbutler 5y ago
      There are multiple people I’ve known who do the bare minimum to continue their existence and from the ones I’ve known I’m sure they’d contribute nothing if they were able to. I don’t consider it a particularly valid way to live. There are a lot more who do try to make their lives better though.
      - danaris 5y ago
        So...the idle rich, then?
tlear 5y ago
It is the normal propaganda of the class war. Identify Kulak, murder kulak.. profit (or mass famine). Usually they start with top 1% or a bit more, these guys jumped straight to 20%. But I am sure if you vote properly and donate to “causes” you Kulakness can be overlooked for now, proper public self flagellating is also necessary.
- refurb 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Black_Categories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Black_Categories
- DarylZero 5y ago
  Or you could pay taxes, but no, better to die!
- LQexplanation 5y ago
  "From rags to riches" - typical communist nonsense, far from true American values, like working hard your whole life and staying poor because the party memb... Tfu, the richest are too far away to ever reach them.
EricDeb 5y ago
One reason is because it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society. Some do, most don't. We tend to hear about the ones that do.
- bawolff 5y ago
  > it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Money is basically an abstract representation of power, so that's almost a tautology. > Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society This is an interesting claim? What is good for society, and relative to whom? I suppose the obvious comparison would be relative to "poor" people, but poor people don't really intentionally allocate capital at all by virtue of barely having enough for their immediate needs. Even the selfish rich people tend to invest their capital, usually into lucrative projects that make money by fulfilling some need of society. I guess i wonder if that's so bad, or at least if its worse than the other social classes would do.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    >Even the selfish rich people tend to invest their capital, usually into lucrative projects that make money by fulfilling some need of society That's not how money is made. You need some kind of parasitic mechanism to enable massive accumulations.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    "Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power." -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776
  - diordiderot 5y ago
    > What is good for society Decarbonization, novel drug research, preventative medicine, high speed rural broadband, public transport, nutrient rich foods, exercise, education.
bawolff 5y ago
Because when people feel like there is no hope to make it to the top, they become resentful and society starts to break down.
throwaway894345 5y ago
I agree, but if we don’t account for wealth inequality, then we can fail to get there because our government tends to optimize for the already-wealthy at the expense of everyone else. This happens due to special interest lobbyists who make sure that every law tips the scales a bit in favor of their wealthy patrons (it’s like playing hungry hungry hippos on a table that tilts downwards toward the rich). The more inequality we have, the more greater the extent to which the government serves the interests of the wealthy class, which in turn exacerbates inequality. So we should make sure we are actually making more wealthy people and not just helping the already-wealthy grease the pole for others.

WalterBright 5y ago

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why should some people be able to run much faster than I can? It's not fair there are many men handsomer than myself. They should be required to wear a mask.

endisneigh 5y ago
imagine equating wealth to attraction, lol. I understand your point, but what an inane example.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Why is it inane? Handsomeness is something you're born with, and most people assert that wealth is, too.
  - danaris 5y ago
    My handsomeness cannot, in any meaningful way, be taken away to help you be more handsome, no matter how handsome I am or how ugly you are. Your wealth can absolutely be taken away to help me afford food, shelter, and healthcare. Furthermore, my handsomeness does not in any way directly gain me the aforementioned things needed to survive and thrive. Your wealth absolutely does.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Handsome people statistically make significantly more money than others. Statistically, people in jail are much less handsome than the general population. Salaries are statistically higher for taller people as well, by the inch. Forcing Hollywood to hire fewer attractive actors and more unattractive actors will meaningfully transfer lucrative roles to less attractive people.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

56% of Americans spend at least one year in the top 10%, and 73% spend one year in the top 20% [1]. [1] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/evidence-shows-significant-income-mobility-in-the-us-73-of-americans-were-in-the-top-20-for-at-least-a-year/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/evidence-shows-significant-in... American mobility isn't bad because people can't make it to the top - you can, more so than almost anywhere in the world. It's bad because a significant portion of people at the bottom stay stuck at the bottom their whole life. Compared to countries in Europe, this is a lot worse.

jfrunyon 5y ago
That's laughably twisted. Just because someone makes a ton of money in a year (i.e. from inheritance, life insurance, or something else) means absolutely nothing about their wealth.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Inheritance NOR life insurance payouts are considered income by the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/faqs/interest-dividends-other-types-of-income/life-insurance-disability-insurance-proceeds#:~:text=Generally%2C%20life%20insurance%20proceeds%20you,report%20it%20as%20interest%20received https://www.irs.gov/faqs/interest-dividends-other-types-of-i....
  - jfrunyon 5y ago
    Uhh, inheritance definitely counts as income, but I'm not sure what income taxes have to do with what we were discussing. The supposed numbers you pointed to don't come from the IRS.
wreath 5y ago
Can you elaborate or share any studies that show Europe has better mobility opportunities than the US? Also what part of Europe are we talking, Germany? Romania? Portugal or maybe Poland?
- 5y ago

goodluckchuck 5y ago

I’m sorry, but grammatically I don’t understand what your second paragraph is saying. I can infer that you mean to argue that America is economically unfair, but the words don’t seem to have any coherent meaning.