It's also an average, someone like Bezos technically raises the average by a lot. It just doesn't make the people working in a warehouse any richer.

For the vast majority of people, living in a wealthy country, where that wealth is more equally distributed, will be much more attractive than living in country with just a high GDP.

To be fair, if we’re talking about wealth distribution (as opposed to income distribution) many European countries have similar inequality to the US. Some, like Sweden for instance, are even worse than the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_...

I honestly had no idea. That's pretty interesting, I wonder if it's because of a few REALLY wealthy individuals?

Generally you have a lower limit to how poor a person can be, in Scandinavia that limit is reasonably high (I sure it doesn't feel that way if you're actually poor), so I would have assumed that would level out the inequality somewhat.

Denmark in particular have also always excluded students from statistics on who's poor, because it's seen a temporary thing. So we don't see them as truly poor, even if they often are, but I suspect that they have to be included in the Gini coefficients calculation.

In many European countries you can be "poor" (i.e. have low or negative wealth) while still maintaining a relatively high standard of living. The most expensive asset most people own is their home, so if you rent all your life or have a very long mortgage that you don't necessary intend to pay off (which is not uncommon in some countries) you might have very low or negative wealth. And you might not need to save as much due to socialized healthcare, social safety nets, etc.

Looking at the median wealth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...), a median person in Spain is 3 times as "rich" then someone in Sweden and Germans or the Dutch are more "poor" than Slovaks or Greeks etc. But this is largely a result of relatively low home ownership rate in most North European countries.

However if we disregard average people and look just at the top 10% or even 1% Sweden is still Remarkably similar to the US:

Wealth Share of the top 10%/1% *

United States: 75.9% / 35.4% Sweden: 75.3% / 37.4% Netherlands: 68% / 26.6% Denmark: 66.6% / 29.3% Germany: 65.1% / 30.2% Norway: 65% / 32% United Kingdom: 59.3% / 24.5% Spain: 55% / 23.8% France: 54.6% / 22.2% ...

* according to https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/g..., see page 168 in "Global wealth databook 2019" fro the full table

If I had to be poor, I would rather be poor in Europe.

Otherwise, I would rather be wealthy in the USA.

In general, greater income tax leads to greater wealth inequality.

The reason is, higher income tax means it is more difficult to become wealthy. So in countries with high income tax, the majority of wealthy people is those that inherited their wealth. Over time some wealthy people become poor, but with high income tax, even fewer become rich. This means that wealth becomes more and more concentrated among the few, which is somewhat counter-intuitive.

So in the US, wealth-mobility is greater than Denmark for example, resulting in the list on Wikipedia, where countries that are thought of as "unequal" actually are the most equal of all when it comes to wealth.

Article studying the effect: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

That doesn't make a ton of sense, research shows that social/wealth-mobility is greater in Denmark, compared to the US, by a lot: https://www.rockwoolfonden.dk/app/uploads/2018/03/Om-social-...

The reasoning is pretty much the opposite, the redistribution of health helps to move children out of their parents wealth/social-class. It might be that an individual adult in the US is able to move from poor to wealthy more easily, but I sort of doubt it.

So Russia is the second most equal country after the Netherlands, and Brazil more equal than Denmark? I'm not buying that data.

You're reading that the opposite way.

> A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality, where all values are the same (for example, where everyone has the same income). A Gini coefficient of one (or 100%) expresses maximal inequality among values

Was easy to spot, US and Russia are definitely not at the top when it comes to income equality as both are controlled by oligarchy

Everyone could be equally poor.

There are not enough oligarchs to make an impact.

I don't think that Bezos, as an individual, has any measurable impact on the US's GDP. The headline number for Bezos is his fortune of $190B, but that's the total value of his assets, not his yearly income. Furthermore, GDP primarily measures spending, not wealth, and I would be surprised if Bezos actually spent even $1B per annum (though this might be different depending on what exactly we count as "spending", as he might make stock trades in that range). In either case, he's having a very small impact on the measured GDP of $21T, something in the range of 0.01%.

Meanwhile, the difference between the US and Europe in the article is around $10K per person--hundreds of times larger than the distortion created by the billionaires.

GDP measures income, not spending. If someone outside the US spends money on Amazon, and a portion of that money becomes part of Bezos' income, that portion is counted in the US GDP, not the foreign country's GDP.

His income last year was around $60 billion, or $200 per person (of any age) in the United States. While last year was exceptional, all of his wealth ($600 per capita) was income in the last 20 or so years, most of it in the last 10. And his ex-wife Mackenzie Scott kept 25% of their combined wealth when they separated.

So it's simply not true that his contribution to GDP looks completely trivial even when compared to total US GDP.

Every source that I can find says that US calculates its GDP based on the "expenditure" approach, meaning that it measures spending, not income. Eg: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp

Secondarily, capital gains is not really the same thing as income (at least, not in the tax code, and also not in GDP calculations), and most of his $60B "income" is increases in Amazon stock price. And even if it were actual cash income, the GDP difference between the US and Europe is still fifty times larger than that.

Look: I was an American by birth, but I moved to Europe as an adult. I get the attraction, and I'm not trying to bag on Europe. But it's simply false to suggest that America is not overall richer than Europe, or to say that America's extra riches are all concentrated at the top.

You're confused about how GDP is calculated.

The GDP difference between the US and Europe is fifty times larger than one rich person's own income? This isn't actually a great argument dismissing the suggestion that US wealth is extremely concentrated.

> His income last year was around $60 billion

Are you really counting the increase of Amazon stock price as his personal income? This is totally inaccurate. Most of that worth is extremely volatile and can quickly dissipate if the stock price falls for whatever reason. Would you count a falling stock price as spending?

I don't think you read the whole of my comment.

Amazon aggressively reinvests its extremely large and stable earnings into the business which Bezos owns a large part of and controls actively. Both he and his ex-wife have realized extremely important liquid wealth by selling a significant part of their stakes. How would you measure his wealth?

I read your whole comment and am very interested in seeing a source for how Bezos earned $60 billion last year as private taxable income. The fact that amazon (not even Bezos) re-invests a large part of the corporate income has nothing to do with distorting the US GDP per capita, as you claim. I would like to see a more solid argument.

One way might be measure his total net worth last year vs this year. You'd be subject to the vagaries of the stock market that way, but given that most of his wealth is paper wealth, that seems fair.

Certainly Amazon revenue is not the best way.

Exactly for that reason, I wish it was a median not average.

GDP is not computed from anything that's split on individuals, GDP median over people does unfortunately not make sense. (Not in the way that median disposable income would, for example).

GDP isn't even measured in the same way in different countries.

1. The USA gifts itself > $6 trillion in imputed values. Or about the GDP of Japan;

2. If China measured their GDP using the formula used by India, its economy would be significantly larger;

3. Nigeria overtook South Africa literally overnight by changing (amongst other things) the value of unpaid child care.

Its largely are ruse to make public debt look sustainable.

Like selling your house, living on the street and bragging how rich you now are, a high GDP with crumbling infrastructure really begs the question: Was it really that smart of a decision in the long run?

> GDP as a main metric is terribly flawed

On the short term it may be true. On the long term you need a strong GDP to sustain quality of life.

COVID showed Europeans how dependent they are from China industry and US tech. Quality of life is still an order of magnitude better than in most countries in the world but I don't believe it will remain like this ad infinitum. Most Europeans know that Europe is declining and sinking slowly.

Oh for goodness sakes. I don't know where you're writing this from, but Europe a is a big place. And lots of it is doing reasonably well - modulo lock-downs.

I'm not convinced at all that Europe is declining, though I am convinced that China and India are rising (as they bloody well should after the horrible history Europe has given them in recent centuries) though I'm worried that this isn't accompanied by a freer, fairer society in those places, just a richer one. Being richer is a good thing of course; freedom being of limited value to a starving child.

Which leads me to ask what your basis for comparison is? Because I've lived in wealthy parts of the US - much wealthier than anywhere I've lived in Europe - and seen streets paved with metaphorical gold, but I've visited plenty of places in the US that seemed pretty backward, poor, soaked in ignorance and hopelessly broken. When 2 million people in the richest country in the world don't have indoor plumbing then something is wrong with that country's measure of wealth.

> I don't know where you're writing this from, but Europe a is a big place.

I know that Eastern Europe is "killing it" regionally by a mix of good policies, EU funding and geoarbitrage - I've lived there - but European Union as whole is slowly declining.

Yes, we are still the world leader on lifestyle and culture - I don't want to create roots anywhere else - but I don't believe this will be enough to guarantee a bright future for my children.

I have come to the conclusion that western Europe's next year is either the same as this year or a bit shittier. Its a bleak outlook, while my mom came from Asia, I'm actually thinking of moving back to Asia, given I'm not rooted yet. All I really see is Europe becoming hotel Europe for rich Americans and Asians.

I'm pretty sure in Asia they see next year will be better then this year. I can see it in my own family members back in Asia. They went from generational housing to each uncle and auntie having their own house, nieces and nephews having finished college or university able to afford a better life style then my aunties and uncles could. While I see my little brother and many others struggling to afford a good enough place to buy or rent because of the fucked up housing markets back here in western Europe.

That's the general feel I get talking to older Westerner europeans. Be it 80s or 90s or 00s or nowadays... Life is good as usual, but relatively it feels worse because you're no longer that rich compared to others. And working class experience seems to be declining due to offshoring etc.

Meanwhile in Eastern europe is as you describe Asia. My parents live tremendously better than their parents. I live better than my parents. And I'm positive my kid will live better than I do. After that... Fingers crossed I'll see the trend going strong. And that's in pretty much any socioeconomic class. While wealth gap is growing since Soviet era, the poor are living better than Soviet era elite. Both in terms of necessities and leisure.

So far it feels like Western europe is becoming a fashion house / museum / resort / rich oligarchs clubhouse for the rest of the world. Which, while may sustain high enough living standards for them for some time, looks tragic to say the least.

10 years ago I'd have said Eastern European spirit may turn the ship around. But today I'm not so sure. It feels like too many people got comfy enough and sign off on Western's idea. The sad part is that we're still pretty poor and that comfiness will be gone even faster. Both in terms of wealth and geopolitics.

> 10 years ago I'd have said Eastern European spirit may turn the ship around. But today I'm not so sure. It feels like too many people got comfy enough and sign off on Western's idea.

Is this code for calling West Europe lazy? I surely can't make much sense of what you mean with this phrasing.

As an eastern european, it does feel like western europe is sinking. West seem to be fucking over their citizens. On the other hand, this gives a chance for East and Asia to raise faster. But ceiling is getting lower and lower. Anecdata observations is East (and Asia) is slowly rising, but difference to West is shrinking much faster.

As a non-native but naturalised Western European, I'd like to know more what you are talking about sinking and decline here. On another post [0] you state:

> "10 years ago I'd have said Eastern European spirit may turn the ship around. But today I'm not so sure. It feels like too many people got comfy enough and sign off on Western's idea."

And this is a pretty strange statement, calling on something like "Eastern European spirit" to turn something around, and getting "comfy" as a "sign off on Western's idea", both of which you don't describe what you mean with.

Do you care to expand on those points?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26384325

Eastern Europe was super hungry in 90s. Sort of like picturesque US startups? Give us a hope and we'll work 24/7 to achieve the impossible.

Meanwhile Western Europe. Feels much more.. complacent? if that's the right word. Looking from the East, West looks like smug underachievers riding on forefathers' fame.

So it's code for saying that Eastern Europeans work hard and Westerners are lazy...

Look, I came from Brazil, working 10-12h/day was common for most of my 10 years career there. It doesn't bring prosperity, it doesn't get rewarded, working hard and not taking breaks is no measure of success. As much as you think this is the way to emulate because of US's wealth I'd say to think again about this bold assumption, you are being extremely reductionist and topping it off with some xenophobia. I don't like it.

Ah yes, sorry I forgot we're not allowed to criticise anybody anymore.

And I was talking about true hard working, not butt-in-seat theatre. And we sure got rewarded here in Eastern Europe. Just look at statistics comparing east/west in 1990 and today.

You are completely allowed to criticise if you have arguments for it, calling whole nations lazy is, at minimum, a ignorant reductionism. Also, it feeds into this weird narrative of "hard-working East" vs "lazy West" nations, the same reversed argument used by xenophobes and racists on the West against the inclusion of the East in the EU, I really dislike this type of argument as it's not constructive and completely shallow, just feeding into a hateful narrative.

How much would you like to be called one of the numerous Eastern European stereotypes?

You didn't get rewarded simply by working hard, go check Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc.) and see how fucking hard the people there work, which, unlike in the EU, doesn't have support from the US, the country that extracts most of the value and productivity from these nations.

There are a lot of geopolitical and economical factors for the rise of the East in Europe, one of these factors is exactly by being included in the EU and participating on the free market with richer nations, that propped up the economy of the bloc as a whole... Stop feeding into this bullshit narrative, it's dangerous.

I'm sorry I didn't write out a long essay detailing all my arguments and backing them up with all sorts of statistics. This is short dumb comments online, not academic work.

TBH a lot of Eastern european stereotypes are truth. Unfortunately we did export a lot of criminals and welfare seekers. We joke all the time how after joining EU streets became safe the next weekend. In reality it took a bit longer :)

It's funny how you want to read that I'm saying that people were working hard. No, I'm saying that people work(ed?) hard and smart. Maybe sometimes too smart skewing regulations.

It's not bullshit narrative, it's your xenophobia :) See, I can play this game too.

Now on a more serious note, sure it's not just hard/smart work. There're a lot of reasons. For example, leading up to WW2, there was no big discrepancy between east and west. When Soviet era was over, nothing was stopping East from bouncing back to where it should be.

I don't see how stating that West is more rich and people take it for granted and happy with what they have is "hateful". I'm not saying "you fools live on our hard work". I'm saying "we're catching up and fast and that's awesome. But that's partially on you, because you seem to be not trying to level up anymore". I wish all europeans would get more hungry and get ready to take on Asia.

Is wishing for people to become more active/hungry/whateveryouwanttocallit "hate"?

Resuming: Western Europe is more worried about the redistribution of the pie than creating a larger pie. Eastern Europe was vaccinated to this but its antibodies are getting weaker.

Are you really implying that trickle-down economics work?

> COVID showed Europeans how dependent they are from China industry and US tech.

I absolutely agree with you here.

> Most Europeans know that Europe is declining and sinking slowly.

Sorry, you lost me here. Outside of the nationalist far right, I never hear people saying anything of the sort. How are we "declining and sinking"?

> Outside of the nationalist far right, I never hear people saying anything of the sort. How are we "declining and sinking"?

You don’t have to be a far-right nationalist in order to have an objective look at the situation in EU, although I understand your temptation to resort to such low-effort arguments, it’s fashionable after all.

As a non far-right European, the EU is falling behind by failing to drive any tech innovation, by relying on non-EU countries for vaccine production, by not importing any external tech talent by having extremely unattractive wages in the tech sector. Every major tech innovation happened outside of EU, and this is something I’m not proud about. If your only metric for success is having decent public healthcare and social benefits, then I guess EU is doing fine, but I’m skeptical this will do us any good in the long run.

> You don’t have to be a nationalist far-right in order to have an objective look at the situation in EU

Sure, but I didn't say that. I said those are the only ones I hear making unsubstantiated alarmist claims about Europe, and/or their respective home countries, "declining and sinking". I have no problem with people pointing out specific problems, like you did with wages and tech innovations. This opens up for constructive debate. Screaming that we're doomed does not.

A lot of tech innovation happened in the EU, the issue is that companies are acquired by the major players as a way to curb competition or acquihire a good team. The issue with tech in the EU has more to do with how different markets are across the Union, not the lack of innovation. Language barriers, cultural barriers and economical barriers are all more varied in the EU than in a market such as the US or China, it's a uniquely European issue on having such large variance in a single market.

What is the metric you are using to gauge innovation in tech in the EU?

The first COVID vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech ... was developed within Pfizer in the EU (Germany to be exact).

The part that made it work, a lipid envelope that keeps the thing running at non cryogenic temperatures, doesn't sound very impressive (though it is), is a Belgian company (Dutch, although I believe located in the French part of the country).

This vaccine, aside from (part of) it's financing is very much European ...

right on the money. One index that is far from perfect that give an alternative view is https://happyplanetindex.org

I'm not saying it is more accurate than the GDP measure, it just offer a different view.

Norway seems to fair well on both metrics.

It's the combination of being a Nordic social democratic + having large oil reserves.

And more importantly: not spending the money from that oil wealth in a stupid way but setting it up to generate future revenue streams that benefit everybody. As opposed to other countries which squandered their riches on short term stuff.

To be fair, there is not really any other country to compare them to on this. No country which was already rich, stable, democratic and well-educated has ever received such a large resources windfall as Norway did from North Sea Oil.

NL, UK.

NL has a far, far smaller share of North Sea Oil than Norway (and 3 times the population)

The UK has a similar share (actually slightly smaller) with over 10 times the population.

All the more reason to use that windfall responsibly and to preserve the proceeds. NL in particular was extremely wasteful, especially with their natural gas resources which were sold for a ridiculously low amount to foreign customers, and which they now re-import at much inflated prices.

You seem to be making a political point about the Netherlands which is completely separate from the fact which I presented, and which you incorrectly contradicted.

Haha. Good luck with that attitude here.

Sweden is doing pretty well too. No oil there.

Sweden is a pretty impressive industrial exporter.

Well, GDP is at least a good metric to estimate the capacity of a country to finance good public healthcare, transport, education, etc. If GDP does not grow, with time it will be more and more difficult to finance all of these services because of inflation, etc.

GDP is a measure of production and thus an indication of spending power (you need to earn before you can spend).

Whether a country chooses to use its economic output to finance these services is another question.