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> The real meaningful wealth gap in our society is between the HN poster income bracket and the poor, not the one between HN poster income bracket and the billi

> The real meaningful wealth gap in our society is between the HN poster income bracket and the poor, not the one between HN poster income bracket and the billionaires. This is billionaire propaganda[1] to get the middle class to fight thier class war - it is a class war against the poor and middle class . The tax rate of the ultra-rich are at an all time low 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM shows the gap between people (like you) think the wealth distribution is vs the reality. It was made 10 years ago and has gotten further skewed since then. Start from to 2:40 if you're in a hurry.

fallingknife 4y ago
My salary is 240k. This is enough to afford me so much luxury as to render any complaints about people having more than me laughable. This is why the upward wealth gap from the upper middle class is not meaningful and the gap below is.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  Congratulations, but what does your income level have to do with your opinion/advocacy - or lack thereof - for changing the status quo? Even billionaires like Buffet are saying things are not right on billionaire taxation, how much more laughable are their "complaints"?
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    I don't hear them complaining, though. But I do hear people making the same money I do. I mean like non stop woe is me can't afford blah blah blah, billionaires have so much more than me upper middle class (lol at the "middle" part) whine. It's all just envy.
  - megaman821 4y ago
    I pretty sure what he is saying the the gap upwards is near meaningless. If you drive a Civic or a Ferrari, you still arrive to your destination in about the same amount of time. If you can't afford a car and have to take a bus it takes you 2-4x as long. There is utility in owning a car and almost no further utility in owning a luxury car. Same for moderate-sized house vs mansion. Southwest vs a private jet. Walmart clothes vs designer. The US has one of the most progressive tax systems. What Buffet is pointing out that at the .1 level it plateaus out (even falls in some cases) when it should still be going up.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      We may be having completely different conversations. When people like me say the billionaires ought to be taxed more, we're not complaining that "people richer than us" exist. > If you drive a Civic or a Ferrari, you still arrive to your destination in about the same amount of time We're on the same page on the diminishing marginal utility of wealth[1]. > If you can't afford a car and have to take a bus it takes you 2-4x as long. Perhaps if we taxes the billionaires at the same rate we tax those earning $240k, we could afford to improve bus services so it only takes 2x as long. 1. Incidentally, I hold that to be a strong an argument for higher-than-average tax rates for the ultra wealthy - but that's an argument for another day
Aunche 4y ago
> This is billionaire propaganda[1] to get the middle class to fight thier class war In my opinion, anything that tries to simplify the interests of billions of actors is a form of populist propaganda. It allows bad actors to prove that they're on the "people's side" just because they virtue signal against the "evil side" in order to advance their own interests: for example, crypto-scammers complaining about banks or Hitler complaining about rich Jewish bankers. > The tax rate of the ultra-rich are at an all time low Right. The problem is that the taxing the ultra-rich is difficult to do because they have the resources to avoid these taxes, and they don't actually raise that much money. So what happens is that the left always ends up raising taxes on the professional class like California. I personally wouldn't have an issue with this, if were better spent, like in the Nordic countries, but they clearly aren't in the US. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM This video just shows that most Americans are bad at math. Even if literally everyone made the exact same amount of income, the wealth distribution would look closest to the last one because older people would have more time to accumulate more wealth.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  > Even if literally everyone made the exact same amount of income, the wealth distribution would look closest to the last one because older people would have more time to accumulate more wealth. There are plenty of other countries with old people. I disagree with what I read as your core argument, which is "It's going to happen anyway, so lets not fight it"
  - Aunche 4y ago
    > There are plenty of other countries with old people. And literally all of them have a wealth distribution that looks like that last one. Say you lived in a place where everyone saved $10k a year and worked for 50 years. Then the bottom 10% would have an average of $25k saved, and the top 10% would have $475k saved. If you add a modest 3% rate of return on investment, that brings the top 10% to ~$1 million. Visually this looks closest to the last wealth distribution. Wow much inequality! Time to eat the rich! > "It's going to happen anyway, so lets not fight it" This is such a disingenuous interpretation of my comment. Telling you not to volunteer to be a footsoldier of a class crusade isn't saying that we should do nothing. If you have a good argument for why should increase the capital gains tax rate, and why the fears of it disincentivizing investment are overblown, I'm all for it.

fallingknife 4y ago

My salary is 240k. This is enough to afford me so much luxury as to render any complaints about people having more than me laughable. This is why the upward wealth gap from the upper middle class is not meaningful and the gap below is.

sangnoir 4y ago
Congratulations, but what does your income level have to do with your opinion/advocacy - or lack thereof - for changing the status quo? Even billionaires like Buffet are saying things are not right on billionaire taxation, how much more laughable are their "complaints"?
- fallingknife 4y ago
  I don't hear them complaining, though. But I do hear people making the same money I do. I mean like non stop woe is me can't afford blah blah blah, billionaires have so much more than me upper middle class (lol at the "middle" part) whine. It's all just envy.
- megaman821 4y ago
  I pretty sure what he is saying the the gap upwards is near meaningless. If you drive a Civic or a Ferrari, you still arrive to your destination in about the same amount of time. If you can't afford a car and have to take a bus it takes you 2-4x as long. There is utility in owning a car and almost no further utility in owning a luxury car. Same for moderate-sized house vs mansion. Southwest vs a private jet. Walmart clothes vs designer. The US has one of the most progressive tax systems. What Buffet is pointing out that at the .1 level it plateaus out (even falls in some cases) when it should still be going up.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    We may be having completely different conversations. When people like me say the billionaires ought to be taxed more, we're not complaining that "people richer than us" exist. > If you drive a Civic or a Ferrari, you still arrive to your destination in about the same amount of time We're on the same page on the diminishing marginal utility of wealth[1]. > If you can't afford a car and have to take a bus it takes you 2-4x as long. Perhaps if we taxes the billionaires at the same rate we tax those earning $240k, we could afford to improve bus services so it only takes 2x as long. 1. Incidentally, I hold that to be a strong an argument for higher-than-average tax rates for the ultra wealthy - but that's an argument for another day

Aunche 4y ago

> This is billionaire propaganda[1] to get the middle class to fight thier class war In my opinion, anything that tries to simplify the interests of billions of actors is a form of populist propaganda. It allows bad actors to prove that they're on the "people's side" just because they virtue signal against the "evil side" in order to advance their own interests: for example, crypto-scammers complaining about banks or Hitler complaining about rich Jewish bankers. > The tax rate of the ultra-rich are at an all time low Right. The problem is that the taxing the ultra-rich is difficult to do because they have the resources to avoid these taxes, and they don't actually raise that much money. So what happens is that the left always ends up raising taxes on the professional class like California. I personally wouldn't have an issue with this, if were better spent, like in the Nordic countries, but they clearly aren't in the US. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM This video just shows that most Americans are bad at math. Even if literally everyone made the exact same amount of income, the wealth distribution would look closest to the last one because older people would have more time to accumulate more wealth.

sangnoir 4y ago
> Even if literally everyone made the exact same amount of income, the wealth distribution would look closest to the last one because older people would have more time to accumulate more wealth. There are plenty of other countries with old people. I disagree with what I read as your core argument, which is "It's going to happen anyway, so lets not fight it"
- Aunche 4y ago
  > There are plenty of other countries with old people. And literally all of them have a wealth distribution that looks like that last one. Say you lived in a place where everyone saved $10k a year and worked for 50 years. Then the bottom 10% would have an average of $25k saved, and the top 10% would have $475k saved. If you add a modest 3% rate of return on investment, that brings the top 10% to ~$1 million. Visually this looks closest to the last wealth distribution. Wow much inequality! Time to eat the rich! > "It's going to happen anyway, so lets not fight it" This is such a disingenuous interpretation of my comment. Telling you not to volunteer to be a footsoldier of a class crusade isn't saying that we should do nothing. If you have a good argument for why should increase the capital gains tax rate, and why the fears of it disincentivizing investment are overblown, I'm all for it.