so going back to your 2013 post, median income was 100K and no one was richer than 70b
today median income is 190K and TWELVE people are over 100 BILLION
something is VERY VERY wrong
@sspopovich @SubductionRheology @kenshirriff
Chakraborti's 2002 yardsale model shows how a free market starting from perfect wealth equality evolves to extreme wealth inequality via fair exchanges:
* example octave script - https://codeberg.org/boud/yardsale
* McGhee, Michelle et al 2022 - very clear pop-science explanation - https://pudding.cool/2022/12/yard-sale
* Chakraborti, Anirban 2002 - https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S0129183102003905
* Boghosian, Bruce M. 2019 - affine wealth model https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_M._Boghosian
@SubductionRheology @kenshirriff To give a personal example: The spouse and I both started out on the poor side of working class. We always had housing, food and OK schools, but not much else.
Both of us worked our asses off to change that. He lucked into having a motherboard for a brain, and getting employed in tech right before the boom. The last 30 years of that have bumped us up several tax brackets. But we're still only in the top 10% of wealth, with no chance of getting much higher.
@riley @kenshirriff two things:
1. You find out we don’t have that much data on the distribution of the sub-$500M people so the plot can’t be accurate.
2. It removes the overall shock that Musk is so insanely rich.
With his money, he could do great things and make real change in things like health and welfare. But instead he wants more.
@sdjmchattie Didn't he calculate that he could end the world hunger with pocket change a couple of years ago?
But for some reason, he values the opinions of a few million poopie-shirt sneerleaders more highly than the gratitude of a few billion no-longer-hungry people.
Is that why TFG thinks he's "one of the working people, fighting the elites"? 😅
After #KochNetwork bought the Citizens United decision, it means that Musk (and his investors) decide if those 350 million people get to live in an oligarchy or a democracy.
In Musk's view, his vote is the only one that matters.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4921817-musk-trump-electoral-schemes/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/10/elon-musk-donald-trump-john-kerry-constitution-lies/
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/08/elon-musk-texans-for-lawsuit-reform-campaign-donation/
An illustrated guide as to why billionaires don’t think like you, act like you, have literally anything in common with any of us.
This much wealth (and power) in so few hands is inherently corrosive to individuals and society.
No man should be able to achieve this amount of money. It is a perversion.
They can't help it. Money makes money.
Bill Gates, philanthropist, had a net worth of 53b when he stopped working for Microsoft in 2008 and somehow acquired another 70b, while trying very hard to donate his money to charity. Poor guy.
The US Income distribution does not look like a "Bell Curve". It is an "L-Curve": a gradual ramp for 99% of the population forming "horizontal branch" and a steep spike at top reacing beyond stratosphere. The disparity is so great it is difficult to represent on single graph. To comprehend it we must zoom over five orders magnitude.
@kenshirriff
The US economy needs debt and very low wages to function.
Both are integral by design.
https://medium.com/@colingajewski/americas-coolie-economy-feaf95b0303c
It's obscene.
@kenshirriff I often explain that the problem is not the 10% rich not even the 1%. The 0.1% if not the 0.01%.
In the US millionaires are part of the 99%.
Ken Shirriff
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