2 ms·

i dont see how this belongs on hacker news, other then the fact that not mentioned in it is that the spike in wealth accumulation of the top 1% is in part large

by autokad 13y ago

i dont see how this belongs on hacker news, other then the fact that not mentioned in it is that the spike in wealth accumulation of the top 1% is in part largely do to the tech industry - whom are mostly liberal 'we are the world' people who actually don't really give anything back. i dont know what the makeup of the population in the 1% is for certain, but i do remember that back in the late 90s bill gates had more wealth than the bottom 50%. fast forward to today, and you got the page, brin, zuckerberg, etc worth tens of billions of dollars each. new billionaire from whatsapp whom less than a year ago posted something along the lines 'hey bitches, check out my app'. the wealth distribution is typical of such a boom, like the steal industry in the late 1800s. today's boom has an unprecedented 40-80 billion$ of month of free gun powder thrown under it by QE3. such reforms supported by those like krugman, yet he's the first in line to complain against those who are becoming easy billionaires off it.

dasil003 13y ago
You should have probably listened to the interview before jumping to conclusions about the subject matter. The crux of the matter is (according to Krugman and the book's author) is not so much the high incomes, but rather than inherited wealth which is now growing faster than the economy. The initial wave of oligarchy happened while the country was industrializing and hence was swallowed up by the greater growth of the overall economy, then staunched further by very progressive taxation during the New Deal and WWII. Today the economy is growing much more slowly and any talk of wealth redistribution is a dirty word.