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Most shares on the stock market are owned by small percentage of population. Through various shells like a business entity or fund or whatever terminology the finance world created hide the faces and names of the people behind it.
Quote from article:
"The stock market, which has nearly doubled since the March 2020 drop and is up nearly 40% since January 2020, was the main source of wealth creation in America during the pandemic — as well as the main driver of inequality. The total wealth of the top 1% now tops 32%, a record, according to the Fed data. Nearly 70% of their wealth gains over the past year and a half — one of the fastest wealth booms in recent history — came from stocks.
“The top 1% own a lot of stock, the rest of us own a little,” said Steven Rosenthal, senior fellow, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center."
It's very easy to own stocks in this day and age, and more people should do it. You can lead a horse to water and all that.
America is still a pretty spiffy place. A place where my parents through frugal living and investing retired with a net worth over $1 million dollars. My dad sold building materials and my mom was a school teacher. No place in the world does hard work and intelligence pay off like it does in the US.
The oligarch label is being placed on numerous Russian rich men who own banks, oil companies, real estate empires, football clubs and so on. The word seems to be used in a negative connotation. They are basically billionaires who made tons of money on the back of underpaid workers who do not share in the bounty they enjoy and rig the economy and the government to their advantage.
Yet in the US, and I am sure other nations, we have Bezos, Musk, Gates, and Buffet to name a few who do exactly the same. We call them "billionaires" and treat them like celebrities watching their space junkets, cheering the sports teams they own, plastering their faces and following their lives on the pages of our publications. Are they any better than the Russian "oligarchs"? Should we not view them in the same light? Isn't the US just an oligarchy that won't admit it?
Most shares on the stock market are owned by small percentage of population. Through various shells like a business entity or fund or whatever terminology the finance world created hide the faces and names of the people behind it.
Quote from article:
"The stock market, which has nearly doubled since the March 2020 drop and is up nearly 40% since January 2020, was the main source of wealth creation in America during the pandemic — as well as the main driver of inequality. The total wealth of the top 1% now tops 32%, a record, according to the Fed data. Nearly 70% of their wealth gains over the past year and a half — one of the fastest wealth booms in recent history — came from stocks.
“The top 1% own a lot of stock, the rest of us own a little,” said Steven Rosenthal, senior fellow, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center."
32% isn't "most of the shares," and I wouldn't call 100 million Americans a small percentage of the population...
100 million US workers/retirees, in aggregate, hold $37.4 trillion worth of investments in their pensions/IRAs/401Ks, etc.
While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I think Bezos, Musk, Gates and Buffet all do share the bounty in their own ways. Gates absolutely does a lot for charity (even if some don't like it or agree, it can be argued he does a lot of good), and I believe the others all have charitable contributions as well. I know that's not the point of your post, but I just hate to see when people digest and spread biased media propaganda.
But I think the difference is that in Russia, it's more open, whereas in America, it's nearly as bad, but we like to live under the illusion that our elected leaders are not owned. Even if we know they are. I guess that's the difference.
Bezos gave $200 million to the Smithsonian for a learning center for the Air and Space Museum.
He also have $100 million each to Van Jones and Jose Andres to give as they see fit charity wise.
"The wealthiest 10% of Americans now own 89% of all U.S. stocks held by households, a record high that highlights the stock market’s role in increasing wealth inequality.
The top 1% gained more than $6.5 trillion in corporate equities and mutual fund wealth during the Covid-19 pandemic, while the bottom 90% added $1.2 trillion, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. The share of corporate equities and mutual funds owned by the top 10% reached the record high in the second quarter, while the bottom 90% of Americans held about 11% of individually held stocks, down from 12% before the pandemic."
Those "aggregate" holdings mean nothing. The nominal price of those "assets" have to be propped up by the taxpayers/govt. None of those workers/retirees own enough of any one company to have any real control, or in reality, anything that resembles actual ownership. Its not like they can just walk into a McDs and take some nuggets whenever they want. Sure they can collect dividends, but they have no control over how much, or when or whether they will get any at all.
The taxpayer/govt may as well socialize/subsidize fantasy sports, and let the retirees/workers play on Fan Duel, or Draft Kings. Each player will be funding by the taxpayer in the beginning. Any earnings he gets to keep for themselves but will get taxed (just a little though). And of course bailouts when needed.
Because oligarch implies no competition. Go ask Tom from MySpace or the Napster guys if competition does not exist the US. Hell Sears Macys and JC Pennys were the Amazon and Apple or their day.
We do- the liberals and democrats don't listen and support the oligarchs, who fully fund the democrat party.
Perhaps this conflict might open the eyes of SOME democrats about what is happening here in the US.
Trump was seeking to break up the monopolies of the oligarchs and was thus their target. Also, Trump was going to stop the democrat/Ukraine money laundering business, which would have hurt Biden, Hunter, Clintons, Pelosi's son, and Obama.
Funny how when you shine a light on a dark area, it flushes out a bunch of democrat cockroaches.
What is your definition of an oligarch re the United States ?
It's a good question, OP. I had to read the definition of oligarch to think it through. If you Google the word "Oligarch" you get routed directly to the term "Russian Oligarch" from Wikipedia. I think it's basically a slanted term they use for rich Russian dudes that profited from the dissolution of the USSR, through direct bargaining with the Russian government.
In other words, its not materially different than the 0.01% here in the US. See, for example, Amazon's tactic of whoring itself to the most tax advantaged geography. All of the most successful companies in the US have figured out how to use taxpayer money to externalize their costs. Never forget that we live in a corporate socialism. Privatize the profit, socialize the cost. Bezos is an oligarch of the highest order.
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