The choice of 10% is extremely peculiar.

Top 1%: 40% to 54% -> +14%

Top 10%: 77% to 93% -> +16%

Top 10% minus the top 1%: 37% to 39% -> +2%

Essentially this was all the top 1% and the rest of the 10%ers barely budged in ownership percent. I'd be curious to see the results for top 0.1% and 0.01% as well.

Good points made but you linked to corporate bonds held

> [edit] Found the source numbers:

> 50-90% https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBSN40172

> 90-99% https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBSN09145

> 99-99.9% https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBS99T999258

This is the series I think you want.

Share of Corporate Equities and Mutual Fund Shares

Can some smart person here help me understand what this means in terms of average holding value per household? Like how much stock market wealth does the average household own? What's the average amount of stock market wealth held by the first, second, third and fourth quadrille?

If 93% of stock market wealth help by the wealthiest 10% represents $10k, that means something really different than if it represents $1m. Comparing percentages can be really confusing, particularly when talking about wealth.

> If 93% of stock market wealth help by the wealthiest 10% represents $10k,

Assuming Us has round 300k population.

My understanding: lets say whole market is worth 1Gz, i.e. sum(share*sharePirce) over (all shares in all companies) is 1 gadzilion, so 10% of population (30k) combined own 0.93 gadzilion. While the rest (270k), share 0.07 Gz of market.

on avg per person 0.93/30=0.031Gz 0.07/270=0.00025Gz

(On average, poorer 9 deciles are poorer by a factor of two)

it's clear to me that Americans were sold economic slavery on the conditions that economics keep minorities in check .

I understand those figures don't include 401k, pensions etc, only stocks and funds hold directly by the households. If you include those, plus real estate, plus accrued Social Security rights, plus Medicare rights, plus inheritance rights etc, the real wealth distribution is a lot more equal.

So the million dollar question... when to sell off to beat the boomer exit? :-D

the ultra wealthy put all their assets into trusts or charities that dodge taxes and don't require selling anything. They can then take out loans using those assets as collateral when they need cash

Are they allowed to take out loans without paying them back? If they have to pay them back, eventually they have to use that collateral which will be a taxable event. They might be able to delay, but they'll eventually have to pay.

"Buy, Borrow, Die" is the talking point. Cost basis of the assets gets stepped up at death so the inheritor can pay off the loans at that point in time without paying taxes on capital gains.

Then this seems to be the loophole that needs to be resolved. Before the estate pays out, the debts should be settled within the estate using the cost basis belong to the deceased. Assets paid out after loans are satisfied should then have their cost basis reset (if that happens at all, I don't want to take a stance either way if that should happen, except it should only apply once loans are repaid if it ever does apply).

Mechanically, I don't think that works. What prevents the debt from attaching to the inheritor before death (e.g., co-signed loan)? The only solution here is eliminating the cost basis step-up at death.

Could they not make sure that enough of their assets are in cash-flowing assets (think, rent-yielding assets, or treasuries, or dividend-yielding stock, etc.) that need not be sold and whose cash-flow can be utilized?

All those cash flows are taxed.

They invest the loans and make even more money. No need to sell anything ever.

When inheritance taxes become punitive. So, on the 2nd of never, two thousand and not gonna happen.

Who cares of they do or don't have to pay taxes. Taxes shouldn't be punishment. We should strive to all pay less. The government wastes our money frivolously. We should be advocating for better appropriation and spending, not advocating to give them more just because you think the rich are an enemy.

Having people be this rich is a problem, though: periods of time where the wealth is superconcentrated have never been good for anyone, the economy slows down, because the superrich never consume in proportion with what they have, there is social unrest and eventually wars and revolutions. The times where wealth was less unequally distributed were the '50s and '60s, whereas we haven't seen this kind of inequality since 1914, and we all know what happened in the following 3 decades...

If the rich are not consuming in proportion to what they have, then what do they do with their money? Right, they invest it. And what does that investment create? Jobs, factories, lower costs, and new opportunities for all. The fact that someone was able to accumulate wealth shows that they know how to use it to generate a return. For the economy in general, it is much more beneficial to have people with skin in the game to invest their own money, instead of the government wasting it in bureaucracy.

>Right, they invest it. And what does that investment create? Jobs

No, overpriced housing. You want jobs? You need more income equality to fund spending.

Some people want wealth redistribution. Taxes are the only real mechanism for doing that. I understand that you disagree with that objective. But the proposed mechanism isn't the problem.

Wealth redistribution via progressive taxation has been a primary way of avoiding peasant revolts for awhile (working in favor of the rich who tend to be targeted during those things). Sort of like how property taxes discourage buying and holding property without using it productively.

But yes, government should use our tax money better, and even if they are used as a debtor of last resort, they should use the money they borrow more wisely as well (less relevant now that interest rates are high).

If society ossifies into classes with landed gentry at the top, it’s not going to end pretty.

Sure let’s cut spending, but in the mean time those who are wealthy and benefitting most should be paying the most.

Boomers have been exiting for the past 10+ years.

I wanted to link to this since it's the primary source but the amount of paywall forced me to pull this Axios summary instead. Thanks for posting the archive.

I can't find any problems with the data, but this is extremely unintuitive! My father who was buying shares decades ago for his personal account had $50 commission fees (not inflation adjusted!!) And like most brokers in that time demanded, he could only buy in 'lots' meaning 100 shares minimum or multiples of that. You had to place a call to your broker, usually when the market was open, which meant the middle of the work day.

Today, practically everyone including fastfood workers has access to 401ks which are extremely cheap. No commission fees upfront. Almost every broker has commission free trading. Not only can you buy 1 share at a time, you can buy fractions of 1 share. You can do it all from your phone, after or before market hours.

Access has been expanded and costs lowered dramatically. So why have the bottom 90% stopped buying shares?

with what money? what money are the bottom 90% supposed to buy shares with after rent utilities food car note and high APR debt?

accessibility is useless without purchasing power

According to the US census, the bottom quartile of earners made more money in 2022, adjusted for an inflation, than any previous year in American history.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-27...