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Piketty is a hack. Most billionaires don't spend anything even close to their net worth. In effect, they have a bunch of IOUs from other people and never cash t

Piketty is a hack. Most billionaires don't spend anything even close to their net worth. In effect, they have a bunch of IOUs from other people and never cash them in.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
imtringued 2y ago
So you're saying they have ever increasing influence and are keeping the rest of society in debt to them.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  "ever increasing" - no. People die, billionaires tend to stay that way for a few decades then die. In the grand scheme they are nothing, zero. Death aside, look at all the billionaires currently running to kiss the ring of Trump - a populist elected by the people of the US against the will of the so called elite. No one is in control, no one has very much power. It's a story book idea.
pqtyw 2y ago
How exactly do your subsequent claims prove: > Piketty is a hack. Generally those IOUs are real as a ton of gold bars or dollar bills somebody might be hoarding in their vault.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  Inequality is generally accepted as differences in material possessions acquired/consumed or access to services (eg health, travel, whatever). It's fair to aggregate it into "consumption". Jeff Bezos is literally never cashing in the vast majority of the IOUs he has. The actual difference in his life isn't anything close to that suggested by the difference in net worth between he and I. Net worth differences aren't a good proxy for actual lived differences. It's off by orders of magnitude. This isn't a groundbreaking idea, Piketty is aware. He discusses it briefly in his book, with handwavy, abstract notions about "power" and "influence", as if that's what most people care about. But, it doesn't sell the same way his nonsense does. So he pedals his nonsense.
  - pqtyw 2y ago
    Perhaps. Then you can use something else instead of Gini. e.g. comparing wealth 10th, 50th, 90th, 99th percentiles. That would exclude Bezos & co. e.g. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/1962-_Net_personal_wealth_-_average_in_percentile_ranges_-_linear_scale_-_US.svg/1920px-1962-_Net_personal_wealth_-_average_in_percentile_ranges_-_linear_scale_-_US.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/19... I agree that this is probably a better metric. Easier to visualize and interpret than Gini. > his nonsense You could actually try making some coherent arguments before coming out with such conclusions?
    - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
      This is nonsensical. The response to "net worth is a bad proxy for consumption" isn't to show various ways of slicing and dicing net worth. A person with net worth $30m doesn't consume 10x that of someone with $3m, or anything like it. Piketty's own assumption is that most of the money is used for investment capital. The argument is clear - net worth is a bad proxy for consumption and lived experience. You just can't read. Piketty can, he just doesn't like that it makes his argument significantly less potent so he tries to paper over it with "power" and "influence" as if 99% of the world could care less about those things.
      - pqtyw 2y ago
        > net worth is a bad proxy for consumption and lived experience Because it's simply not. It's a very good proxy. I understand what you said and only think you are somewhat right if talking about people who are at the very tail of the distribution (yes, when it comes to "consumption and lived experience" it hardly matters if you have 100 millions, 500 or even a billion). For those in the the 99.X% it's certainly (and obviously backed by all kinds of data) good indicator. Talking about the "lived" part. Here is another indicator http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/ http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/. Of course now you'll claim that living for significantly longer does not say much about the "experience" part or some other nonsense. > You just can't read. Or have a low tolerance of ideologically driven demagoguery. >doesn't like that it makes his argument significantly less potent I'm still waiting for you to elaborate on that besides just claiming it as fact or "proving" that it doesn't apply if you're in the 0.1% (which is hardly relevant).

Piketty is a hack. Most billionaires don't spend anything even close to their net worth. In effect, they have a bunch of IOUs from other people and never cash them in.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

imtringued 2y ago

So you're saying they have ever increasing influence and are keeping the rest of society in debt to them.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago
"ever increasing" - no. People die, billionaires tend to stay that way for a few decades then die. In the grand scheme they are nothing, zero. Death aside, look at all the billionaires currently running to kiss the ring of Trump - a populist elected by the people of the US against the will of the so called elite. No one is in control, no one has very much power. It's a story book idea.

pqtyw 2y ago

How exactly do your subsequent claims prove: > Piketty is a hack. Generally those IOUs are real as a ton of gold bars or dollar bills somebody might be hoarding in their vault.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago
Inequality is generally accepted as differences in material possessions acquired/consumed or access to services (eg health, travel, whatever). It's fair to aggregate it into "consumption". Jeff Bezos is literally never cashing in the vast majority of the IOUs he has. The actual difference in his life isn't anything close to that suggested by the difference in net worth between he and I. Net worth differences aren't a good proxy for actual lived differences. It's off by orders of magnitude. This isn't a groundbreaking idea, Piketty is aware. He discusses it briefly in his book, with handwavy, abstract notions about "power" and "influence", as if that's what most people care about. But, it doesn't sell the same way his nonsense does. So he pedals his nonsense.
- pqtyw 2y ago
  Perhaps. Then you can use something else instead of Gini. e.g. comparing wealth 10th, 50th, 90th, 99th percentiles. That would exclude Bezos & co. e.g. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/1962-_Net_personal_wealth_-_average_in_percentile_ranges_-_linear_scale_-_US.svg/1920px-1962-_Net_personal_wealth_-_average_in_percentile_ranges_-_linear_scale_-_US.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/19... I agree that this is probably a better metric. Easier to visualize and interpret than Gini. > his nonsense You could actually try making some coherent arguments before coming out with such conclusions?
  - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
    This is nonsensical. The response to "net worth is a bad proxy for consumption" isn't to show various ways of slicing and dicing net worth. A person with net worth $30m doesn't consume 10x that of someone with $3m, or anything like it. Piketty's own assumption is that most of the money is used for investment capital. The argument is clear - net worth is a bad proxy for consumption and lived experience. You just can't read. Piketty can, he just doesn't like that it makes his argument significantly less potent so he tries to paper over it with "power" and "influence" as if 99% of the world could care less about those things.
    - pqtyw 2y ago
      > net worth is a bad proxy for consumption and lived experience Because it's simply not. It's a very good proxy. I understand what you said and only think you are somewhat right if talking about people who are at the very tail of the distribution (yes, when it comes to "consumption and lived experience" it hardly matters if you have 100 millions, 500 or even a billion). For those in the the 99.X% it's certainly (and obviously backed by all kinds of data) good indicator. Talking about the "lived" part. Here is another indicator http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/ http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/. Of course now you'll claim that living for significantly longer does not say much about the "experience" part or some other nonsense. > You just can't read. Or have a low tolerance of ideologically driven demagoguery. >doesn't like that it makes his argument significantly less potent I'm still waiting for you to elaborate on that besides just claiming it as fact or "proving" that it doesn't apply if you're in the 0.1% (which is hardly relevant).