Wealth Distribution in America (video)

[Guest]

http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2?g=2&c=ufb1

 

Nothing all that new, but still a rather chilling video.

[bargainman]

Saw this a few days ago.  very impressive.

[Liberty]

A lot of what Buffett has been talking about for years.

[rranjan]

 

 

Nothing all that new, but still a rather chilling video.

 

+1

[siddharth18]

Chilling.

[fareastwarriors]

the average American is pretty naive and ignorant. but somehow we make it work...

[berkshiremystery]

For sure I have known this fact for years, it might be considered shocking for the unaware. But I might encourage everybody to read "Economyths", a book by Dr. David Orrell, an applied mathematician who studies complex systems. The book describes the flawed thinking of economists and the flaws in economics itself. Even if some wise King Salomon might be able to correct this unequality, what would be considered good,... the emergence of the system itself (i.e. behavior of its agents=people) has an inherited tendency to oscillate back to the initial position over long periods of time. If a new wealth distribution system starts with an initial equal distribution, where each 1% of the population, also only owns equally 1% of it's assets, the system itself falls back to an unlinear distribution, because of the inherited behavior of it's people. Each individual participant in a system, stands daily in front of relapsing Monty Hall decision-making problems, and since the majority of people would ignore this hidden gravity field, the system itself falls back to some sort of unequality.

[Kiltacular]

For sure I have known this fact for years, it might be considered shocking for the unaware. But I might encourage everybody to read "Economyths", a book by Dr. David Orrell, an applied mathematician who studies complex systems. The book describes the flawed thinking of economists and the flaws in economics itself. Even if some wise King Salomon might be able to correct this unequality, what would be considered good,... the emergence of the system itself (i.e. behavior of its agents=people) has an inherited tendency to oscillate back to the initial position over long periods of time. If a new wealth distribution system starts with an initial equal distribution, where each 1% of the population, also only owns equally 1% of it's assets, the system itself falls back to an unlinear distribution, because of the inherited behavior of it's people. Each individual participant in a system, stands daily in front of relapsing Monty Hall decision-making problems, and since the majority of people would ignore this hidden gravity field, the system itself falls back to some sort of unequality.

 

Very well said. 

 

Just look at a lot of the lottery winners -- some of whom have won 10's and 100's of millions -- that are dead broke within 10 or 20 years (or less).

 

Importantly, if these assertions are correct (and I believe they obviously are), they lead to some important conclusions about public policy.  It can only be taken so far -- unfortunately -- before it destroys its host.

 

America -- given its incredible heterogeneity in race, religion, country of origin, and even language (at certain points) -- has so far done a damn good job of handling this.

 

It's pretty impressive.  It's also a good reminder of why someone like Munger says that you should never get too extreme in your political views.  It's better to gently nudge the pendelum back in the other direction when things move too far.

 

Still, consider that charitable giving in the U.S. last year exceeded $300 billion.  Even though some of this money might have been ill-gotten, its interesting that over time (going back to J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Stanford, etc., etc.), the American tradition is to give back enormous amounts of personal wealth.

 

I'm still proud of the U.S.  (I like Canada too ;) )

[Myth465]

 

 

Nothing all that new, but still a rather chilling video.

 

+1