9 ms·

> Then the next question is why does wealth, in practically all industrious countries seem to distribute disproportionally and not uniformly? It's simply becau

by mcntsh 8mo ago

> Then the next question is why does wealth, in practically all industrious countries seem to distribute disproportionally and not uniformly? It's simply because money is compoundable. The more money you have the more you can make, and the more you make means less other people have.

Lionga 8mo ago
money (or more exact wealth) is not a null sum game.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
drorco 8mo ago
OK that's one thing, but still there are many new billionaires that didn't exist a few decades ago, let alone a few years ago. Why did they become billionaires and the wealth didn't distribute over a much larger group?
- hrimfaxi 8mo ago
  Is the rate of billionaire generation increasing? Maybe that is the distribution in practice.
  - drorco 8mo ago
    Maybe, I think it definitely happened with millionaires, there are probably many more millionaires these days compared to a few decades ago. Inflation helped too for sure. But I think still a lot of people would argue the distribution is too unequal.
- mcntsh 8mo ago
  Wealth doesn't go straight up, it bubbles up. And thinking about bubbles, imagine what happens when the GenAI one pops. The wealth some new billionaires had will go up in smoke, their assets will go on sale, and they'll be gobbled up by the old billionaires.
kjshsh123 8mo ago
There's a finite amount of money. There's not a finite amount of wealth. Having lots of wealth does not mean other people have less. If that were the case, there'd be as much wealth today as there was 1000 years ago. Making a company and having it valued at whatever value, does not remove that amount of wealth from other people.
- ryandrake 8mo ago
  But relative wealth is all that matters, when it comes to lifestyle. If I have $100K net worth, and I'm living in a city where the first standard deviation net worth range is $80K to $120K, then I'm living a pretty average lifestyle, can afford my groceries and entertainment, and feel middle class. If I have a $200K net worth, and I'm living in a city where the range is $1M to $500M, then I'm pretty much living in poverty, even though I have "more wealth" than in scenario 1. This is also why, although my absolute wealth today is hundreds or thousands of times more than a king in the middle ages, I'm not actually living like a king today. It's also how gentrification works. You're living somewhere and all of a sudden a bunch of very wealthy people move in, raising the prices of everything. You're no more or less wealthy than before, but everything has become slightly worse.
  - AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
    Can everyone be rich enough to not be food insecure or medically insecure? I'd like to think so. Can everyone be rich enough to not be in the bottom 20%? No, no matter how rich we become. Can everyone be rich enough to have servants? No, unless you count machines as servants. But if you do, then I'm rich enough to have several.
  - kjshsh123 8mo ago
    That is exactly wrong. Real wealth is goods and services available. You live way better than a king. Your expected lifespan is higher than kings because of access to better food, nutrition, and medical care. You have access to luxuries like chocolate, and coffee that kings might have tasted once in their life, or at best every few weeks. Not understanding what wealth is, is precisely what leads to this mistaken thinking. As for gentrification, it is often just confusing correlation and causation. People blame rich people moving in, when really a place just actually became better due to improvements in goods or services like public transit exapansion.
_DeadFred_ 8mo ago
"U.S workers just took home their smallest share of capital since 1947" https://fortune.com/2026/01/13/us-workers-smallest-labor-share-gdp-on-record/ https://fortune.com/2026/01/13/us-workers-smallest-labor-sha...
rayiner 8mo ago
Is compounding interest why Jeff Bezos is rich? Or is it because you get three Amazon deliveries a day?
- kg 8mo ago
  This reply has very strong "the average human does not eat 10 spiders a day; the average was thrown off by Spiders Georg who eats 10000 spiders a day" energy. Amazon does not have an exceedingly high profit margin, and my understanding is that a lot of it comes from stuff like AWS, not Amazon deliveries - correct me if I'm wrong here. So I'm not sure that "three amazon deliveries a day" - if this is even common - is why that man is personally rich. Even if it were a big source of revenue, that would go into Amazon's coffers, not necessarily his directly. Another way to look at this: Even if Amazon is wildly successful, does that mean Jeff Bezos specifically should become filthy rich as a result, instead of all its employees and investors? How should the gains from successful entrepreneurship be distributed?
  - lotsofpulp 8mo ago
    > Another way to look at this: Even if Amazon is wildly successful, does that mean Jeff Bezos specifically should become filthy rich as a result, instead of all its employees and investors? How should the gains from successful entrepreneurship be distributed? The answer depends on how should the losses from unsuccessful entrepreneurship be distributed?
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      Oh that's an easy one: that's societies' problem. Always has been. The same with pollution and all of the other stuff that can be externalized.
      - lotsofpulp 8mo ago
        Can you be more specific? Suppose I put $1M into developing a business. For whatever reason, construction hits a snag or revenues are not enough to cover expenses, how would it become “society’s” problem? Do I get made whole by the government giving me $1M, and the government takes posession of the property? If so, I foresee a lot more opportunities for corruption.
Manuel_D 8mo ago
> and the more you make means less other people have This is a false zero sum view of wealth that is unfortunately all too common.
- N_Lens 8mo ago
  Economy growing at 3-5% in the US. Rich people's wealth growing at a far higher rate. Which means the middle class wealth is getting siphoned to the rich. The middle class is getting poorer and we can all see that.
  - votepaunchy 8mo ago
    Or the wealthy are pulling up the average and most of the rest are not “growing the economy” with increased productivity.
    - dns_snek 8mo ago
      I think we should put this to the test. The working class stops working for a week/month and we'll see how "productive" the rich capitalists really are.
      - cindyllm 8mo ago
        [dead]
    - N_Lens 8mo ago
      Capitalists earn money through control of capital. They're actually parasites that extract all the labour and value from others below them in the system. Capital is taxed lower than labour in most developed countries, at every turn capital is advantaged at the expense of living beings. There is no positive morality in this system of mass impoverishment.
  - Manuel_D 8mo ago
    > Rich people's wealth growing at a far higher rate. Which means the middle class wealth is getting siphoned to the rich. No, that logic doesn't follow. Say my wealth grew by 3% and my neighbor's grew by 5%. That doesn't imply any sort of "siphoning" at play.
cbolton 8mo ago
I think you have the right idea, if poorly worded. The economy is not a zero sum game, but the idea works when you apply it not on wealth but on wealth increase. That's more or less the famous r > g formula of Piketty: when the rate of return of capital is larger than the growth rate of the economy, wealth gets more concentrated. Its application has been disputed but the basic principle certainly applies in many situations.

by mcntsh 8mo ago

Lionga 8mo ago

money (or more exact wealth) is not a null sum game.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

drorco 8mo ago

OK that's one thing, but still there are many new billionaires that didn't exist a few decades ago, let alone a few years ago. Why did they become billionaires and the wealth didn't distribute over a much larger group?

hrimfaxi 8mo ago
Is the rate of billionaire generation increasing? Maybe that is the distribution in practice.
- drorco 8mo ago
  Maybe, I think it definitely happened with millionaires, there are probably many more millionaires these days compared to a few decades ago. Inflation helped too for sure. But I think still a lot of people would argue the distribution is too unequal.
mcntsh 8mo ago
Wealth doesn't go straight up, it bubbles up. And thinking about bubbles, imagine what happens when the GenAI one pops. The wealth some new billionaires had will go up in smoke, their assets will go on sale, and they'll be gobbled up by the old billionaires.

kjshsh123 8mo ago

There's a finite amount of money. There's not a finite amount of wealth. Having lots of wealth does not mean other people have less. If that were the case, there'd be as much wealth today as there was 1000 years ago. Making a company and having it valued at whatever value, does not remove that amount of wealth from other people.

ryandrake 8mo ago
But relative wealth is all that matters, when it comes to lifestyle. If I have $100K net worth, and I'm living in a city where the first standard deviation net worth range is $80K to $120K, then I'm living a pretty average lifestyle, can afford my groceries and entertainment, and feel middle class. If I have a $200K net worth, and I'm living in a city where the range is $1M to $500M, then I'm pretty much living in poverty, even though I have "more wealth" than in scenario 1. This is also why, although my absolute wealth today is hundreds or thousands of times more than a king in the middle ages, I'm not actually living like a king today. It's also how gentrification works. You're living somewhere and all of a sudden a bunch of very wealthy people move in, raising the prices of everything. You're no more or less wealthy than before, but everything has become slightly worse.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
  Can everyone be rich enough to not be food insecure or medically insecure? I'd like to think so. Can everyone be rich enough to not be in the bottom 20%? No, no matter how rich we become. Can everyone be rich enough to have servants? No, unless you count machines as servants. But if you do, then I'm rich enough to have several.
- kjshsh123 8mo ago
  That is exactly wrong. Real wealth is goods and services available. You live way better than a king. Your expected lifespan is higher than kings because of access to better food, nutrition, and medical care. You have access to luxuries like chocolate, and coffee that kings might have tasted once in their life, or at best every few weeks. Not understanding what wealth is, is precisely what leads to this mistaken thinking. As for gentrification, it is often just confusing correlation and causation. People blame rich people moving in, when really a place just actually became better due to improvements in goods or services like public transit exapansion.

_DeadFred_ 8mo ago

"U.S workers just took home their smallest share of capital since 1947" https://fortune.com/2026/01/13/us-workers-smallest-labor-share-gdp-on-record/ https://fortune.com/2026/01/13/us-workers-smallest-labor-sha...

rayiner 8mo ago

Is compounding interest why Jeff Bezos is rich? Or is it because you get three Amazon deliveries a day?

kg 8mo ago
This reply has very strong "the average human does not eat 10 spiders a day; the average was thrown off by Spiders Georg who eats 10000 spiders a day" energy. Amazon does not have an exceedingly high profit margin, and my understanding is that a lot of it comes from stuff like AWS, not Amazon deliveries - correct me if I'm wrong here. So I'm not sure that "three amazon deliveries a day" - if this is even common - is why that man is personally rich. Even if it were a big source of revenue, that would go into Amazon's coffers, not necessarily his directly. Another way to look at this: Even if Amazon is wildly successful, does that mean Jeff Bezos specifically should become filthy rich as a result, instead of all its employees and investors? How should the gains from successful entrepreneurship be distributed?
- lotsofpulp 8mo ago
  > Another way to look at this: Even if Amazon is wildly successful, does that mean Jeff Bezos specifically should become filthy rich as a result, instead of all its employees and investors? How should the gains from successful entrepreneurship be distributed? The answer depends on how should the losses from unsuccessful entrepreneurship be distributed?
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    Oh that's an easy one: that's societies' problem. Always has been. The same with pollution and all of the other stuff that can be externalized.
    - lotsofpulp 8mo ago
      Can you be more specific? Suppose I put $1M into developing a business. For whatever reason, construction hits a snag or revenues are not enough to cover expenses, how would it become “society’s” problem? Do I get made whole by the government giving me $1M, and the government takes posession of the property? If so, I foresee a lot more opportunities for corruption.

Manuel_D 8mo ago

> and the more you make means less other people have This is a false zero sum view of wealth that is unfortunately all too common.

N_Lens 8mo ago
Economy growing at 3-5% in the US. Rich people's wealth growing at a far higher rate. Which means the middle class wealth is getting siphoned to the rich. The middle class is getting poorer and we can all see that.
- votepaunchy 8mo ago
  Or the wealthy are pulling up the average and most of the rest are not “growing the economy” with increased productivity.
  - dns_snek 8mo ago
    I think we should put this to the test. The working class stops working for a week/month and we'll see how "productive" the rich capitalists really are.
    - cindyllm 8mo ago
      [dead]
  - N_Lens 8mo ago
    Capitalists earn money through control of capital. They're actually parasites that extract all the labour and value from others below them in the system. Capital is taxed lower than labour in most developed countries, at every turn capital is advantaged at the expense of living beings. There is no positive morality in this system of mass impoverishment.
- Manuel_D 8mo ago
  > Rich people's wealth growing at a far higher rate. Which means the middle class wealth is getting siphoned to the rich. No, that logic doesn't follow. Say my wealth grew by 3% and my neighbor's grew by 5%. That doesn't imply any sort of "siphoning" at play.

cbolton 8mo ago

I think you have the right idea, if poorly worded. The economy is not a zero sum game, but the idea works when you apply it not on wealth but on wealth increase. That's more or less the famous r > g formula of Piketty: when the rate of return of capital is larger than the growth rate of the economy, wealth gets more concentrated. Its application has been disputed but the basic principle certainly applies in many situations.