The 9.9%

[tomh009]

The Atlantic magazine argues that the real problem is not the 1%, but the 9.9% -- what they term the "new aristocracy".

The wealth transfer in the past few decades (in the US) has been primarily from the bottom 90% to the 9.9%:

And as the article describes, it's less of a meritocracy than it appears, with limited social mobility:


It's worth a read, here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...cy/559130/

[Viewfromthe42]

...that graph seems to show the problem not being the 9.9%, but the 0.1%...

[tomh009]

...that graph seems to show the problem not being the 9.9%, but the 0.1%...

Oh, there is no doubt that the 0.1% has a huge amount of wealth. But the drop for the 90% has basically benefited the 9.9%, not the 0.1%.

The Canadian situation is not identical, but it's still worth pondering about this kind of scenario.

[jamincan]

I agree with Viewfromthe42. The graph seems to be showing an increase in the 0.1% proportionate to the decrease in wealth of the 90% with the wealth of the 9.9% actually falling slightly over that period.

Edit: I don't have time to read the full article right now, but scanning it, it reiterates what Viewfromthe42 and I have said, only the 0.1% benefited from the concentration of wealth. 

It is in fact the top 0.1 percent who have been the big winners in the growing concentration of wealth over the past half century. According to the UC Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the 160,000 or so households in that group held 22 percent of America’s wealth in 2012, up from 10 percent in 1963. If you’re looking for the kind of money that can buy elections, you’ll find it inside the top 0.1 percent alone.

Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. But not everyone in the 99.9 percent gave up a slice. Only those in the bottom 90 percent did. At their peak, in the mid-1980s, people in this group held 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Three decades later that had fallen 12 points—exactly as much as the wealth of the 0.1 percent rose.

[Viewfromthe42]

That almost makes it sound like the article is saying that the downfall of the 90% should have been eased by splitting the downfall with the 9.9%, while leaving the overall into-the-0.1% wealth transfer intact. Which is a particular kind of logic, I suppose.

[tomh009]

So … in fact, yes, I did read that top chart incorrectly! The colours are too close to each other, that's my excuse.

But please do read the article when you have time, the chart only scratches the surface.