This visualization of the ultra-rich's wealth blew my mind

[mmascari]

@LDoBe

If your net worth is over a million dollars these days it is almost certainly because you were given a massive unfair advantage in some way.

This misses the point of the visualization. Lumping in a billionaire with someone who has a million and thinking they’re the same thing. It’s like comparing someone with 100,000 and someone with 100 and thinking they’re the same.

@tlwest

Say we introduce a major wealth tax (say 50% over $1M), probably most of it is in assets such as stock, real estate, etc.

Also misses the point of the visualization.

@Scientist

Warren’s supposedly radical plan is 2% over $50 million and 3% over a $1 billion.

This is what makes the plan fall into reasonable. It’s exactly what the visualization is trying to convey.

That people should understand that “the rich guy down the street”, or even “all the rich people with summer homes on that nearby coastal island” aren’t the same as the truly super rich that actually have all the wealth.

The chances that you (genetically) personally know one of those 400 people is pretty small. The chances that you think “tax the rich” means collecting more from the guy you do know or from yourself is high. This is what makes discussion about this difficult, since the two are worlds apart from understanding.

The alternative is someone arguing that sure, after we tax the billionaire, and a 50 or 100 millionaire, it’s just a slippery slope until we’re taxing the single millionaire or the 500K. But, that entire argument depends on not understanding this visualization. It depends on thinking that it’s a small step down, not a gigantic change in scale. Which is exactly the confusion those 400 people are trying to make by pointing out that they’ll have to pay some huge dollar amount. They’re counting on you thinking “there’s no way I could pay that” without being able to imagine that it’s a small amount to them.

[LDoBe]

I’m not talking about saying a million is the same as a billion. I’m saying both of those classes are practically never “self-made” and more often than not the product of not properly taxing estates and inheritances.

I am aware that the difference between 1 million and 1 billion is very nearly 1 billion. I don’t think it’s unfair to point out both are from unacceptable rigging.

[mmascari]

@LDoBe

I’m not talking about saying a million is the same as a billion. I’m saying both of those classes are practically never “self-made”

Not true at all. I’m not saying there’s no privilege involved.

But someone from a middle class upbringing who it able to go to college without mortgaging their soul, and works an office job, can save enough in their 401K to have a net worth over a million, long before they retire. A million for retirement doesn’t go very far either.

Sure, college and not having soul crushing debt (easier when it was cheaper) are both huge advantages. But, they’re not some huge hand out of mega dollars, and no where near the same as getting to a billion.

Just look at those “save everything now live like you’re still in college, retire by 40” people.

Lots of other professions, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, small businesses can easily get over the million mark. Again, there is probably privilege involved in the path to having those jobs too. It’s not nothing, but it’s not the same.

Anything that lumping both a million and a billion is exactly missing the point about how different both of those are. And then completely misses how 100 billion is that much MORE than a billion.

[LDoBe]

@mmascari

But someone from a middle class upbringing who it able to go to college without mortgaging their soul, and works an office job, can save enough in their 401K to have a net worth over a million, long before they retire. A million for retirement doesn’t go very far either.

That is a major position of privilege. Extremely privileged any time after about 1990, actually.

@mmascari

Sure, college and not having soul crushing debt (easier when it was cheaper) are both huge advantages. But, they’re not some huge hand out of mega dollars, and no where near the same as getting to a billion.

It kinda is

@mmascari

Just look at those “save everything now live like you’re still in college, retire by 40” people.

Who? Disingenuous people who get the advantages of living at home with their parents paying for everything?

[GagHalfrunt]

@James_Mason

These oligarchs need to organize and really do some good in the world or their wealth will eventually be taken from them (or their progeny) by force. Then a consortium of warlord quasi-govermental gangsters will be running things.

Can’t they avoid that outcome by becoming a consortium of warlord quasi-governmental gangsters?

[Scientist]

In the U.S. (as of 2016) the 9th decile (80-89.9 percentile) had a median net worth of $600,000. A net worth of over a million puts someone in the top ~10% of the country. It is certainly not something that lots of plumbers easily get over.
There are 2 important points. First taxing billionaires more only affects 1 in 300,000 people and helps everyone. We need to do it.
Second, in modern america having a net worth of a million is rare and strongly correlated to one’s parents having over a million

[anon47741163]

And yet, somehow… this one individual with the enormous orange mass… is supposedly “equal under the law” to one of those modest blue squares. Is anyone actually supposed to believe that?

[lastchance]

Some days, it’s to enough to make you wonder if we really need “money” after all.

[Carbonman]

@Scientist

actually its
$7,400,000,000.00 per the top 400

You were short one digit

Seven hundred and forty million dollars, seven billion, four hundred million dollars - it’s so easy to get lost in the zeros when we have this much to count! /s

[csilvest]

I dragged the scroll thumb quickly to the full right side, missing all the commentary. Returned to beginning and then started reading the text.

Then I was annoyed at how much scrolling i had to do. Click, click, click, dammit!

Then the light went on. JFC, what a fantastic graphic.

[Scientist]

@anon47741163

this one individual with the enormous orange mass…

It took a couple moments for me to realize this wasn’t a trump joke

[DeLoshming]

Right. Relative to total wealth, what he spends on blue origin is three times as much as I spent on my current mobile phone.

[Aciantis]

That’s a symtom of POWER. The ship so large that it displaces the ocean.

Concentrated wealth is incompatible with democracy.

[Nightflyer]

I originally posted this over in Commie Library of Memes, but it works well in this thread:

[tubacat]

According to Thomas Pijetty, most of that wealth is in offshore accounts being protected from taxation. It’s precisely not being spent or loaned or used in anyway to further the economy. Hence he and Elizabeth Warren recommend a wealth tax, which would encourage the ultrarich to get the money circulating again

[tubacat]

If I understand correctly the wealth tax is not so much a way to grab the money back from the ultra rich but a way to incentivize them to liquidate it themselves and put it back in circulation

[hngr]

Korea’s National Pension Services owns stock. It’s a powerful avenue for large collective action and influence on mega-corporations.

They are often a big enough shareholder to lean into the company’s policies, which became one of the things being tried in court during the impeachment investigation a few years back: did the Rasputin puppet-master get bribed by (the now heir to) Samsung so she would make the president tell NPS to not block the mergers necessary for the 3rd generation family succession to go through, at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to NPS?

So, kinda bad if the top officials are corrupt.

[hngr]

I used to wonder, if the US somehow banned billionaires, wouldn’t we just be abdicating our power to countries like China, which is totally OK with having all their TOP OFFICIALS be billionaires.

But then I realized, a country with citizenry with no poverty, and trillions of dollars put to work sensibly would have far more influence around the world, which was, basically, the US during the middle of the 20th century.

[AnthonyC]

In a (IMHO) healthier market, the market price of stock would come from things like dividends and expectations of future growth thereof, which might remove that problem, instead of the current situation where no one derives money from owning shares in a company until they sell the stock.

[mmascari]

@LDoBe

That is a major position of privilege. Extremely privileged any time after about 1990, actually.

What’s the scale we’re using here then? As “Extremely” sounds like the top end of most scales. The point of the graphic is that when comparing a million to a billion, the million isn’t anywhere near the top end of the scale.

@LDoBe

It kinda is

EVERYONE in that graph, the entire picture, plus the not shown people with a million net worth are all dirt poor paupers compared to a single billionaire. That’s the point of the visualization.

It’s trying to show that the gap between the 1% and the 0.1% is just as big as the gap getting to the 1%. And, then the gap from the 0.1% to the 0.01% is just as big again.

Lumping a millionaire in with a billionaire misses the point on just how different they are.

@DeLoshming

Right. Relative to total wealth, what he spends on blue origin is three times as much as I spent on my current mobile phone.

Someone check my math, but a billion is 0.72% of $139 billion. Using a $1,000 phone then, $3,000 is 0.72% of $417,000. Congratulations, you’re almost half way to a million in wealth.

When you get there, we’ll treat you the same as the billionaire, since a million is still a lot of money.

The point of the visualization is that a billion is a HUGE number that’s vastly different than anything we normally relate to. Treating a millionaire the same as a billionaire is the same as treating a thousandaire the same as a millionaire.

We absolutely should tax the billionaire and the multi billionaire more.

Direct from the visualization “Even the fortunes of very rich people are dwarfed by the incomprehensible wealth of the 0.0001%.”.

Also, from the visualization “The 400 richest Americans own about $3 trillion, which is more than the bottom 60% percent of Americans.”.

None of those 400 is just a millionaire, not even close. Assuming this source is correct, a millionaire doesn’t even get you into the top 1% , you need over 10.

Who Are the Top One Percent by Income or Net Worth in 2023? - DQYDJ

Again, we absolutely should tax the billionaire and the multi billionaire more. We should also tax investment income and wage income the same.