by ksey3 on 7/22/23, 12:31 PM with 126 comments
by roody15 on 7/22/23, 1:27 PM
Using the the top 10 percent of incomes is meaningless….because the divide here is astronomical.
It is really the the top 1 percent of earners (and honestly a fraction of that) that hold all the wealth. The ultra elite wealthy like to hide in groups like the top ten percent to avoid being signaled out for just how much obscene wealth they control.
The way wealth is controlled, printed, shifted by policies and large banking institutions we are living in almost a modern feudal like system.
by sunsunsunsun on 7/22/23, 1:16 PM
by wonderwonder on 7/22/23, 2:22 PM
Not really sure where I am going with this except to express surprise at what appears to be a massive wealth discrepancy between the US and what I had long considered its closest comparable economy. I had never really done the research though thus my surprise.
by simbolit on 7/22/23, 1:02 PM
Around the same time this rice visualization went viral: https://piped.video/watch?v=qSOVBiEotaw
by gizmo on 7/22/23, 1:10 PM
This is their thesis:
> The focus of this book is on the larger group between the 1% and the 10%. These are the managers and professionals of our media, business, the third sector, political parties and academia and are just as influential. However, many would not recognise themselves as high earners at all. In fact, earning around £60,000 a year in Britain places you in the top 10% of income earners. Maybe you’re surprised you fall into this category, or are not as far off as you thought. But despite this group’s relative advantage and comfort, these high earners don’t feel politically empowered. They worry about their income and are anxious about the future.
Uh, yes? Aren't these just trite observations? Professionals who earn somewhat higher than average salaries live in nicer houses and drive nicer cars and go on nicer holidays but they are still stuck working for a paycheck like almost everybody else.
I get the impression the authors badly wanted to write a book about about income inequality, a subject they feel strongly about, and then tried (and failed) to come up with something fresh to say.
The meta point here is that academia has become fiercely competitive and that's why you see books like these getting written. CV padding by people desperate for tenure. I sympathize, but also wonder if we need yet another book rehashing arguments about wealth and income inequality.
by balderdash on 7/22/23, 1:17 PM
The statistic I’d me more interested in is cumulative earnings adjusted for age + untaxed transfers/benefits (e.g. inheritance or public pension benefits).
by jimkoen on 7/22/23, 1:36 PM
>Meanwhile, traditionally upper-middle class professions such as law, medicine and academia are threatened by automation, precarisation and increased competition in globalised labour markets.
Apart from this being the entire point of globalization, the attitude that an academic degree alone is a guarantee to a good income is one of insane privilege and entitlement. This is a take from someone that doesn't like that his humanities degree is worthless in a globalized Meritocracy.
The New Zurich Newspaper had a very sobering article on how academia is loosing it's last edge, that of gatekeeping higher paid jobs in a globalized economy. A degree used to be an effective showstopper for upwards mobility, because not many could afford one. This might be europe specific, but conditions for undergrads from the middle class were abhorrent up until the mid 80s here in europe.
The truth is that I don't need an electrical engineer or a compsci graduate from some no name university to obtain someone with a specialized skill, if some kid from Shenzen can do it for a fraction of the price. That's overstating it, but the comparison holds imo.
> The children of high earners will increasingly see their position depend on, as Maren Toft and Sam Friedman put it, the “bank of mum and dad”, and on what they inherit, rather than only on their professional status.
Because of the environment created by their parent generation. They're the ones pushing for ever more "professionalization" your honor! Where my parent's could have gone into the field I want to get into without a degree at my age, I have to graduate in order to attain any respect.
by ncphil on 7/22/23, 2:23 PM
by politelemon on 7/22/23, 12:59 PM
by stared on 7/22/23, 2:58 PM
Sometimes it is good to realize that those of us who work in tech are privileged.
by nomaD_ on 7/22/23, 1:23 PM
Though rising interest rates offer hope to people like us to work our asses off to earn 100K+, pay half of our salary in taxes, yet can't afford house in London.
I hope the house prices crash to a reasonable to income to price ratio.
All a decade of low interest rate has achieved is wealthy folks borrowing money to invest in houses and shitty companies that rely on government loans to fund.
by zorrotorro on 7/22/23, 1:10 PM
Silly article. It's basically claiming that since even the relatively well off are not doing so great nowadays due to inflation, etc. they may appreciate some wealth redistribution (to those even poorer) because they now understand inequality. (The article authors also imply inequality will lead to a revolt, aka. the stick).
Yeah, sure! You can bet the relatively well off which are feeling the economic heat will just love to pay more taxes and plunge even more rapidly on the economic ladder.
by J_Shelby_J on 7/22/23, 1:03 PM
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-bir...
by roenxi on 7/22/23, 1:22 PM
Poor people looking at the ultra-wealthy as a pot of money isn't going to work. We've seen how that plays out - the ultra wealthy buy up a few media firms and then gently redirect all the anger towards the middle class and/or stirs up social issues.
The focus really should be on absolute living standards and how to raise them. That is much harder to game and also fairer.
by bandrami on 7/22/23, 1:20 PM
If we just marked assets to book instead (which makes some sense because there's no way most whales could actually liquidate their holdings at their current price) the world's inequality would plummet.
by Ferret7446 on 7/23/23, 12:17 AM
Consider: would you rather increase the standard of living of the poorest by 2x if it meant also increasing it for the richest by 100x (increasing inequality) or would you rather decrease the standard of living of the richest by 100x and also the poorest by 2x (decreasing inequality). A lot of discourse around inequality seriously proposes the latter (out of ignorance rather than malice).
by johnea on 7/22/23, 3:49 PM
That wouldn't be in the top 10% in the US.
Inequality is skyrocketing, and the "labour" party has become tory, not even "tory light"...
by amai on 7/23/23, 9:38 AM
The top unequal countries according to wealth Gini 2019:
1. Netherlands 2. Russia 3. Sweden 4. United States 5. Brazil 6. Ukraine 7. Thailand 8. Denmark 9. Philippines 10. Saudi Arabia
by Incipient on 7/23/23, 1:29 AM
But what do you do about it? Especially in America the rich are those in power, so they're not going to shift the needle against themselves.
by anovikov on 7/22/23, 1:09 PM
I know plenty of people earning around a median wage but no one who actually lives on that little. When you get median wage, or two, or three, you still need someone else to pay your bills.
My employees get 2-4x median wages and they do NOT live on that money alone (almost all of them moonlight elsewhere), and they are almost all struggling.
I am far in top 1% and when i saw what is the asking rent now i said to myself - "wow if i had to move now, that'll be a predicament". Ask any landlord if they are getting paid through the bank. Many won't even accept bank payment. They are paid in cash - and that cash hasn't been in the bank since many circulation loops ago. People are not poor. They are buying everything like crazy, economy is running so hot it can blow up any moment. They just don't report the money they make.