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What annoys me is that this becomes a simple accounting question. Inequality has only soared like this to the extent that we mark asset portfolios to market rat
by bandrami 3y ago
What annoys me is that this becomes a simple accounting question. Inequality has only soared like this to the extent that we mark asset portfolios to market rather than to book. Somebody agrees to pay a bit more for a TSLA share and suddenly Musk's net worth has "increased" by a billion dollars, but he owns at the end of the day exactly what he owned at the start of the day.
If we just marked assets to book instead (which makes some sense because there's no way most whales could actually liquidate their holdings at their current price) the world's inequality would plummet.
- balderdash 3y agoI think in the context of the article they are referring to income, so the unrealized portion of asset inflation is not taken into consideration
- CSSer 3y agoThe thing is that they never have to liquidate. They’re given an outsized leverage because any bank will lend them money with the assets as collateral, and they never have to pay tax on that cash (unless you consider low interest given to a bank tax).