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I wasn't the one who called it clickbait but I do think it's misleading. The one year could easily be an outlier. It might be by accident, or it could be that t

I wasn't the one who called it clickbait but I do think it's misleading. The one year could easily be an outlier. It might be by accident, or it could be that the writer was more interested in pushing a political view than getting clicks.

lapcat 3y ago
> it could be that the writer was more interested in pushing a political view than getting clicks. The report comes from the Union Bank of Switzerland. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-20231130-the-great-wealth-transfer.html https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-2023... "UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of the world's billionaires among its clients." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS Also keep in mind that some of the world's wealthiest people are getting older. Inheritance of their wealth is inevitable. Warren Buffett is 93, and Charlie Munger just died. Bill Gates is 68, Steve Balmer 67, and Paul Allen already died. Larry Ellison is 79. Bernard Arnault is 74. Michael Bloomberg is 81. Carlos Slim is 83. I suspect the share of inherited wealth is only going to accelerate in the near future.
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  Buffet has said he is giving most of his money away. Same with Gates, Ellison and Bloomberg. Carlos Slim has also been donating huge amounts to philanthropies.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    We'll see what happens when they actually die. In any case, they're giving their money "away" to "foundations" controlled by billionaire families. The money is still inherited, and these foundations can be seen as tax shelters.
    - DennisP 3y ago
      I've spent some time googling how foundations work and while there are various structures, a common theme is that it's not that cushy. The bulk of the money has to actually go to charity, otherwise you pay the normal taxes. And they keep an eye out for tricks like having the foundation pay absurd salaries to your relatives.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        The foundation doesn't have to be cushy in itself. The family members already inherit enough money to satisfy all of their material desires. You don't even need to be a billionaire to satisfy all of your material desires. Beyond a certain point, wealth is simply power, and the foundations give power to the families. What I see from the billionaires is a desire to undermine democratically elected governments, starving them of funding by cutting taxes, and making them dysfunctional by financing the campaigns of dysfunctional politicians. When the masses lose faith in democratically elected governments, the so-called "charitable" foundations swoop in to become the trusted providers of social services to the masses. The ultimate result is the elimination of democracy and the restoration of hereditary aristocracy, with the foundations ruling the world as undemocratic governments. I would be more impressed if billionaires gave away 99% of their wealth to somewhere that is completely out of the control of themselves and their families. The world's wealthiest people aren't looking to buy more stuff. There are only so many mansions and yachts you can buy before you'd had enough with that and get bored. For the purposes of buying stuff, wealth has diminishing returns. What they're looking for in accumulating unlimited wealth is to increase their power relative to everyone else, to perpetuate social inequality. Power is a kind of zero sum game, because if we all accumulate the same amount, we're still all equal.
        rufus_foreman 3y ago
        >> I would be more impressed if billionaires gave away 99% of their wealth to somewhere that is completely out of the control of themselves and their families Warren Buffett has already given away stock worth more than his current net worth, and the main beneficiary has been the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His will gives more than 99% of his remaining net worth to philanthropy.
- DennisP 3y ago
  I don't dispute the content of the report, but the report doesn't have the misleading title we were talking about; in fact, the first line says "For the first time in nine editions of the report..." My only complaint is that the title at FT makes it sound like it's always this way.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    I dispute that the title is misleading. People seem to expect too much from an article title. You can't get all of the nuance in just a few words. The subtitle is "A survey of the global elite shows the ‘great transfer’ between generations has overtaken entrepreneurship", and the first sentence of the article is "New members of the global super-rich gained more of their assets through inheritance than through wealth creation this year — the first time that this has been recorded by Swiss bank UBS in its nine years of surveying global billionaires." Nobody is getting misled.

lapcat 3y ago

> it could be that the writer was more interested in pushing a political view than getting clicks. The report comes from the Union Bank of Switzerland. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-20231130-the-great-wealth-transfer.html https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-2023... "UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of the world's billionaires among its clients." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS Also keep in mind that some of the world's wealthiest people are getting older. Inheritance of their wealth is inevitable. Warren Buffett is 93, and Charlie Munger just died. Bill Gates is 68, Steve Balmer 67, and Paul Allen already died. Larry Ellison is 79. Bernard Arnault is 74. Michael Bloomberg is 81. Carlos Slim is 83. I suspect the share of inherited wealth is only going to accelerate in the near future.

rufus_foreman 3y ago
Buffet has said he is giving most of his money away. Same with Gates, Ellison and Bloomberg. Carlos Slim has also been donating huge amounts to philanthropies.
- lapcat 3y ago
  We'll see what happens when they actually die. In any case, they're giving their money "away" to "foundations" controlled by billionaire families. The money is still inherited, and these foundations can be seen as tax shelters.
  - DennisP 3y ago
    I've spent some time googling how foundations work and while there are various structures, a common theme is that it's not that cushy. The bulk of the money has to actually go to charity, otherwise you pay the normal taxes. And they keep an eye out for tricks like having the foundation pay absurd salaries to your relatives.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      The foundation doesn't have to be cushy in itself. The family members already inherit enough money to satisfy all of their material desires. You don't even need to be a billionaire to satisfy all of your material desires. Beyond a certain point, wealth is simply power, and the foundations give power to the families. What I see from the billionaires is a desire to undermine democratically elected governments, starving them of funding by cutting taxes, and making them dysfunctional by financing the campaigns of dysfunctional politicians. When the masses lose faith in democratically elected governments, the so-called "charitable" foundations swoop in to become the trusted providers of social services to the masses. The ultimate result is the elimination of democracy and the restoration of hereditary aristocracy, with the foundations ruling the world as undemocratic governments. I would be more impressed if billionaires gave away 99% of their wealth to somewhere that is completely out of the control of themselves and their families. The world's wealthiest people aren't looking to buy more stuff. There are only so many mansions and yachts you can buy before you'd had enough with that and get bored. For the purposes of buying stuff, wealth has diminishing returns. What they're looking for in accumulating unlimited wealth is to increase their power relative to everyone else, to perpetuate social inequality. Power is a kind of zero sum game, because if we all accumulate the same amount, we're still all equal.
      - rufus_foreman 3y ago
        >> I would be more impressed if billionaires gave away 99% of their wealth to somewhere that is completely out of the control of themselves and their families Warren Buffett has already given away stock worth more than his current net worth, and the main beneficiary has been the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His will gives more than 99% of his remaining net worth to philanthropy.
DennisP 3y ago
I don't dispute the content of the report, but the report doesn't have the misleading title we were talking about; in fact, the first line says "For the first time in nine editions of the report..." My only complaint is that the title at FT makes it sound like it's always this way.
- lapcat 3y ago
  I dispute that the title is misleading. People seem to expect too much from an article title. You can't get all of the nuance in just a few words. The subtitle is "A survey of the global elite shows the ‘great transfer’ between generations has overtaken entrepreneurship", and the first sentence of the article is "New members of the global super-rich gained more of their assets through inheritance than through wealth creation this year — the first time that this has been recorded by Swiss bank UBS in its nine years of surveying global billionaires." Nobody is getting misled.