Top US billionaires' collective wealth grew by $698B in past year – report
15 points
9 hours ago
| 2 comments
| theguardian.com
| HN
jppope
9 hours ago
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Less impressive but more accurate headline: The US stock market continues to go up, some people own more stock than others.
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toomuchtodo
9 hours ago
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> some people own more stock than others.

The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks even with market participation at a record high - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealthiest-10-americans-own-9... - January 10th, 2024

> The richest Americans own the vast majority of the US stock market, according to Fed data. The top 10% of Americans held 93% of all stocks, the highest level ever recorded. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of Americans held just 1% of all stocks in the third quarter of 2023.

Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949–2016 - https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/708815 | https://doi.org/10.1086/708815 - July 29th, 2020

> In any event, stock market booms have traditionally produced the largest rewards for those who are already wealthy. That's because the wealthiest US households have most of their assets tied up in equities, while most middle-class families have their assets tied up in housing, researchers said in a 2020 study.

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MentatOnMelange
9 hours ago
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People are able to take out loans using their stock as collateral. Why sell when you can borrow against them for tax-free hard cash?
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standardly
7 hours ago
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Closer to a trillion than a billion. What are we gonna do
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eMPee584
4 hours ago
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Spark a debate about ways to (in light of the coming wave of cheap machine labour that would outcompete human on most fields within few years, thus tanking the current societal organisation) switch to a post-commercial open-access open-source commons-based post-scarcity economy! Switching from profit/cost to quality/joy as prime optimization targets and readjusting focus to build planetary infrastructure instead of upping shareholder value.. Chances are the majority of people is fed up with the money system and a campaign for "commons economy 2030" can go viral. So we an seize the moment – or wait and see others do it, to their advantage.
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downrightmike
5 hours ago
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What we always do: wait for the bubble to pop and hope it isn't worse than the -80% the S&P500 lost in 1929
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