barryqwalsh
Gold Member
- Sep 30, 2014
- 3,397
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Americans have no idea how much the Masters of the Universe are paid, a finding very much in line with evidence that Americans vastly underestimate the concentration of wealth at the top.
And even the 1 per cent is too broad a category; the really big gains have gone to an even tinier elite. For example, recent estimates indicate not only that the wealth of the top per cent has surged relative to everyone else – rising from 25 percent of total wealth in 1973 to 40 per cent now – but that the great bulk of that rise has taken place among the top 0.1 per cent, the richest thousandth of Americans.
So how can people be unaware of this development, or at least unaware of its scale?
The main answer, I’d suggest, is that the truly rich are so removed from ordinary people’s lives that we never see what they have. We may notice, and feel aggrieved about, college kids driving luxury cars; but we don’t see private equity managers commuting by helicopter to their immense mansions in the Hamptons. The commanding heights of our economy are invisible because they’re lost in the clouds.
irishtimes.com/business/economy/invisible-wealthy-keep-inequality-shrouded-1.1945709?page=1
And even the 1 per cent is too broad a category; the really big gains have gone to an even tinier elite. For example, recent estimates indicate not only that the wealth of the top per cent has surged relative to everyone else – rising from 25 percent of total wealth in 1973 to 40 per cent now – but that the great bulk of that rise has taken place among the top 0.1 per cent, the richest thousandth of Americans.
So how can people be unaware of this development, or at least unaware of its scale?
The main answer, I’d suggest, is that the truly rich are so removed from ordinary people’s lives that we never see what they have. We may notice, and feel aggrieved about, college kids driving luxury cars; but we don’t see private equity managers commuting by helicopter to their immense mansions in the Hamptons. The commanding heights of our economy are invisible because they’re lost in the clouds.
irishtimes.com/business/economy/invisible-wealthy-keep-inequality-shrouded-1.1945709?page=1