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It’s been almost 100 years since America’s 1% had this much wealth

ReactionShot

Member
Oct 25, 2017
505
Source: Market Watch

New research says America's ultra-rich haven't held as much of the country's wealth since the Jazz Age, those freewheeling times before the country's finances shattered.

"U.S. wealth concentration seems to have returned to levels last seen during the Roaring Twenties," wrote Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Zucman said all the research on the issue also points to large wealth concentrations in China and Russia in recent decades. The same thing is happening in France and the U.K., but at a "more moderate rise," the paper said.
In 1929 — before Wall Street's crash unleashed the Great Depression — the top 0.1% richest adults' share of total household wealth was close to 25%, according to Zucman's paper, which was distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
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samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
Much of the wealth redistribution at the dawn of the 20th century was due to WWII (it's fair to say inequality had some hand in instigating WWI/WWII) and the demands of a war-time industry. However, there will likely not be such an event in our lifetime and it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. What WWI/WWII did in the long term was actually kick the can of wealth inequality down the road, just by 100 years.
 

Deleted member 11637

Oct 27, 2017
18,204
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boontobias

boontobias

Avenger
Apr 14, 2018
9,532
User Banned (2 Weeks): Advocating violence.
I love tshirts from redbubble
 
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Pandaman

Pandaman

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,710
I'm sure dismantling the new Robber Barons will be a real treat while they benefit from 24/7 for profit media constantly gas-lighting people on the evils of unions and collective action.
 
samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
nightstalker962 said:
There's no Great Depression, New Deal, and WWII to save us this time. The middle class will be decimated as the century wears on.
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Ah, there's the GND which is still up in the air for the moment, but it's something. And we already had the "Great Recession".

Vote DSA and Justice Dems!

This message sponsored and approved by "Socialists Who're Sick And Tired".
 
CassCade

CassCade

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
2,037
Too bad nothing will stop them from accumulating more and more wealth, future generations of the not rich are fucked.
 
samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
entremet said:
Why the violence? Maybe some spirited debates like we saw at Davos could solve this?
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I'll take this opportunity to push a good blog post I read recently concerning Davos.

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/davos-climate-and-inequality/
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Despite this staggering data, the Davos crowd are not keen on any attempt at redistribution. Oxfam makes a modest call for a 1% wealth tax similar to the call made by French economist Thomas Piketty in his World Inequality Report 2018, which showed that between 1980 and 2016 the poorest 50% of humanity only captured 12 cents in every dollar of global income growth. By contrast, the top 1% captured 27 cents of every dollar. Left-wing Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also called for a higher marginal tax rate on the richest Americans. But the great and good at Davos have poured cold water on all these modest policy measures.
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Recommended if you like to see standard "capitalist pigs" hot takes but in the language of academic economics.

Credit to Old_King_Coal for turning me onto this blog, courtesy of the Socialist Era thread.
 
Sausage Handler

Sausage Handler

Member
Oct 27, 2017
176
I second the guillotine notion, particularly for those in power at the fossil fuel companies who bribed the politicians (Republicans) into ignoring climate change, and accelerating the Earths destruction.
 
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