3 ms·

Plenty of billionaires all over Europe. Relative to salaries the spread is quite worse. Democracy there is perfect

bbreier 1y ago
As far as I am aware, wealth inequality is significantly better in Europe than it is in the United States (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-in... as an example) and I still wouldn't characterize democracy in Europe as "perfect" even if we narrowly define the rubrick to be only concerned with money tipping the scales of power
- aetherson 1y ago
  That site is weird. As far as I can tell, it's measuring income inequality, not wealth inequality, and it doesn't... appear to know the difference? Quoting it: > The Gini index, or Gini coefficient, is a statistical measure of wealth distribution developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini. The Gini index is used to gauge economic inequality by measuring income distribution, also called wealth distribution. It's a kinda big red flag if they say that income and wealth are the same thing! There are a few notable cases of European countries having very high wealth inequality despite lower income inequality (my take which may not be shared by many: having low income inequality makes it hard for people who aren't generationally wealthy to overcome old money). Notably, Sweden has a higher wealth inequality than the United States. However, I don't think it's true that Europe in general has higher wealth inequality than the United States. Here's the wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    > It's a kinda big red flag if they say that income and wealth are the same thing! Wealthy and old people love when income is used as a stand in for wealth. It deflects political action onto the young and hard/smart working, and helps keep their dynasties and rent seeking assets intact.

As far as I am aware, wealth inequality is significantly better in Europe than it is in the United States (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-in... as an example) and I still wouldn't characterize democracy in Europe as "perfect" even if we narrowly define the rubrick to be only concerned with money tipping the scales of power

aetherson 1y ago
That site is weird. As far as I can tell, it's measuring income inequality, not wealth inequality, and it doesn't... appear to know the difference? Quoting it: > The Gini index, or Gini coefficient, is a statistical measure of wealth distribution developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini. The Gini index is used to gauge economic inequality by measuring income distribution, also called wealth distribution. It's a kinda big red flag if they say that income and wealth are the same thing! There are a few notable cases of European countries having very high wealth inequality despite lower income inequality (my take which may not be shared by many: having low income inequality makes it hard for people who aren't generationally wealthy to overcome old money). Notably, Sweden has a higher wealth inequality than the United States. However, I don't think it's true that Europe in general has higher wealth inequality than the United States. Here's the wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  > It's a kinda big red flag if they say that income and wealth are the same thing! Wealthy and old people love when income is used as a stand in for wealth. It deflects political action onto the young and hard/smart working, and helps keep their dynasties and rent seeking assets intact.