Curious why you made the distinction about real personal income when it is also rising. I agree wealth inequality is rising but not that it is coming at the expense of real personal incomes.

The long-term trend is that the average person’s income is rising but we’ve seen recent declines due to high inflation. Can you expand on your line of thinking? I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.

Most households living below the poverty line have at least one unemployed person, so giving people jobs is pulling them out of poverty. Whether or not they are treated fairly at work and are satisfied with their working conditions is another story.

My parents never could’ve either but $500k household net worth only puts you in the top 20% of households so it’s not like they were exceptionally wealthy and we don’t know if they borrowed to invest or what exactly their specific situation was. Miguel Bezos was a Cuban refugee and then worked as an engineer for Exxon and Jackie Bezos was a secretary so i mean this is pretty middle class IMO.

That doesn’t mean that all billionaires clawed their way to the top as i mentioned above, or that we shouldn’t make progressive changes to the tax code. It’s just important that we separate truth from fiction to make educated decisions.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz grew up in a Brooklyn Housing project, George Soros survived the holocaust and worked waiting tables, David Murdock of Dole Foods was homeless. There’s tons of examples.

Here’s a fun article that ranks the whole Fortune 400 list. 80% of them inherited their wealth or at least grew up middle class.

Jeff Bezos actually scores high on the list because his Mom had him when he was 17, he flipped burgers in high school and by and large did not grow up rich.

deleted by creator

Even a labourer who has saved up can buy a back-ho. The backho could have been produced by a communist country or work co-op. Who produced the back-ho is not important.

The important thing is that value is stored, invested and combined with labour to make everyone better off. This is why wages are higher in countries with more capital such as the USA.

😂

It’s not extracted it’s combined with labour to produce higher output than labour or capital on their own.

For example a worker with a shovel could only dig a small hole a day, but with the injection of capital (ie a backhoe) they can dig many more holes. The worker can increase their pay compared to what they would’ve made with just a shovel and the person that provided the backhoe can also generate a healthy return for their capital contribution.

You keep saying “doing nothing” but I earned that money and now I am risking it in investments with uncertain returns.

Like what else would i do with it? Wreck the environment by spending it on things i don’t need?

It depends on the percent of the company you own.

I have no idea what point you’re trying to make.

Employers compete for labourers, so they have to raise wages to attract employers in tight labour markets. Offshoring has been going on for decades but it’s slowing down as developing countries are becoming more wealthy (ie: China)

Owning public stock is legally indistinguishable from directly owning a joint business venture.

The sources range wildly, some are just images and links to podcasts or articles. For example the “How many people did the Great Leap Forward kill” link just goes to a Reddit comment on r/communism where the OP just says “it’s fine… there were famines all the time in China!”.

You’re right that wealth is concentrated, but I was saying that the assets are collectively owned. For example I am a shareholder of Amazon, a publicly-traded company that Jeff Bezos owns a large stake in. So Amazon is “collectively owned” but each share gets one vote instead of one person.

These are bad links because they are from a biased source and not properly cited.

It’s directly deployed in stocks and real estate, what do you mean?

Most capital is “collectively owned” through public corporations, pension funds, etc.

You should check out “The Cold War Podcast”. The housing episode is really good.