Which, to me, looks very subpar rather than companies paying taxes in the country where they actually make profit

That's what I call a "let them eat cake" response.

Ordinary people do not buy stock. Most people here are in the highest percentile and it shows.

But ordinary people can buy stock, and should buy index funds at least.

There are plenty of reasons why they do not, but in almost all cases they are not good reasons. There are some extreme exceptions, but then you're outside of "ordinary".

That take feels kinda... Detached from the average person to me? I don't know how to take it, just like when you hear gates saying a banana cost 10$. Common Joe would benefit much more from taxes being actually paid than profits being accumulated by companies just so they can crush the competition more and earn more and (...)

> just like when you hear gates saying a banana cost 10$

When was that?

I've never seen a real video, it may as well be a common saying after being on the internet for a so long time. However, there is a video of gates trying to guess grocery prices on the internet, and he's not that bad. I think at this point it's just an internet meme that exist to reference billionaires being disconnected from reality

> I've never seen a real video, it may as well be a common saying after being on the internet for a so long time.

I mean, I can show you the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw

But that has nothing to do with Bill Gates or any other person named Gates. (You might be aware that Bill Gates isn't a woman.) It's a joke on a comedy show. It's not something anyone has ever said.

Likely that they conflated it with this video of Bill Gates guessing grocery prices on the Ellen show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA

I don't know about the majority, but plenty of people have 401Ks (over 34%). It wouldn't be too shocking if 16% more people had stocks.

And presumably some of the 66% are either children/students who have never had a job but will have a 401k or similar when they get one, or retirees who cashed out their 401k and bought an annuity (perhaps not the absolute smartest thing to do, but something a decent number of people do).

You get a 401k from working at McDonalds. Yes ordinary people own stock.

They can't, because companies these days only go public after most of their growth has already been captured by private equity (if at all).