Economic mobility is more or less the lowest in the US of all OECD countries. This means that it is extremely likely that whatever quartile/quintile/percentile you are born into in the US, you will also die in the same economic bracket.
Yes, you can cite whatever exceptions you like - the statistics are clear.
Most billionaires are born to other billionaires (or at least extraordinarily wealthy people compared to median wealth). As such, they represent an ancestral inheritance just nearly as much as the aristocracy.
There is almost no evidence of de novo great wealth being correlated to great talent. It may (or may not) be a necessary component, but it certainly is not necessary, even if it was possible to quantify precisely what is meant by "great talent".
In a capitalist-ish society, there are always going to be great winners in the competitive economy. Pointing them out as if they are special is absurd: the system is designed to generate such cases.
Back in the 90's, the Seattle Times reported that there were over 10,000 millionaires (excluding home equity) in Seattle as a result of working at Microsoft and getting stock options.
A million bucks is nothing to sneeze at, it's upper middle class. And that's the cutoff - many are in 8 figures.
Without Amazon and Microsoft and their billionaires, Seattle wouldn't be the wealthy city that it is. Not even close, and that wealth has filtered out all over the area. For example, there are all Paul Allen's initiatives and developments in the area, and that's only a tiny bit of what has happened.
Be careful what you wish for in getting rid of billionaires. A lot of very nice things we all have will go away with them.
> I'm not for Paul Allen deciding what's nice or what we get.
The thing is, Allen didn't take anything from you to give those things. He didn't raise your taxes. He didn't impose any levies. They were gifts you could ignore if you chose.
Me, I liked his flying WW2 aircraft museum very much. It's a little thing in the grand scheme of things, but I've enjoyed it a lot. If you read his autobiography "Idea Man" you're sure to find a number of things that have benefited you - without costing you anything.
Musk has given us a space program. Carnegie gave us public libraries. Gates has saved millions of lives through his foundation.
BTW, you don't get to decide what nice things government does for you, either. A vote is not the same thing as a choice. I've lobbied my Congressmen. Did they do what I wished? Absolutely not!
Apaprently you're not aware of the gigantic shift in the proportion of GDP that ends up in the hands of labor vs. capital.
A significant chunk Paul Allen's share of the GDP would have been in the hands of workers had he been economically active during the period 1949-1978.
That's what he "took" from people to be as wealthy as he is.
I am flabbergasted that you feel that the "lack of choice" over what your government does is the same thing as the "lack of choice" over what rich people do with their money. In fact, I feel sorry for you in that you live in a country fundamentally built on formalizing this difference and creating a nation based on a belief in government "of the people". You don't believe that - you're not alone. But I still feel pity for you that you've been forced to give up the dream that this country was built on after just a couple hundred years.
Allen's wealth was neither given to him nor taken by him. He created it.
As for me, I prefer having a choice on what's for dinner than a vote on that. The US was founded on the principle of individual rights and liberty, not communal purpose.
No need to pity me, we are living in a golden age in the US. I have little doubt future historians will see it that way. I have no fear of billionaires. I don't buy that money buys elections. Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 and still lost, Bernie outspent Biden by some huge amount, and lost. Bloomberg flooded money into his campaign, and was completely eviscerated. I confess I daydream sometimes about what I'd do with a billion dollars that I'll never have, but that doesn't translate into any desire to tear down existing billionaires.
I missed several forks in the road in my life that could have led to billionaire status, but my taking the wrong fork each time was entirely my fault. I simply didn't see what in hindsight was obvious.
I'm missing something right now that could make me a billion dollars, and in five years I'll be able to tell you what it was :-)
Yes, you can cite whatever exceptions you like - the statistics are clear.
Most billionaires are born to other billionaires (or at least extraordinarily wealthy people compared to median wealth). As such, they represent an ancestral inheritance just nearly as much as the aristocracy.
There is almost no evidence of de novo great wealth being correlated to great talent. It may (or may not) be a necessary component, but it certainly is not necessary, even if it was possible to quantify precisely what is meant by "great talent".
In a capitalist-ish society, there are always going to be great winners in the competitive economy. Pointing them out as if they are special is absurd: the system is designed to generate such cases.