Report finds wealth of top 1% up $21T, bottom 50% down $900B since 1989

Don&#x27;t fall for it:<p>&gt; This follows from 30 years in which the top 1 percent massively grew their net worth while the bottom half saw a slight decline in its net worth.<p>The &quot;top 1%&quot; and &quot;bottom half&quot; are categories, not entities. They are made up of different people in 1989 and 2019, not the same people getting richer and poorer respectively. The author wants you to imagine a bunch of rich people having more and more money each year, and poorer people having less and less. This is not what the statistic means.

Most work for wages. Workers work a few hours a day creating wealth and keeping the wealth they create. The last few hours a day, they keep absolutely none of the wealth they keep - it is expropriated by heirs. It is a social relationship - we work, they live off our labor. They are parasites, and they have little helpers who they give crumbs to and argue their case, including those who tell guileless fools that a magic man who lives in the clouds named Jesus will make sure they never die.

And how did the top 49% do? A.k.a all of the middle class and above.

I&#x27;m confused by this. It doesn&#x27;t quite mesh with the more recent numbers I&#x27;m familiar with such as [1], which shows modest gains for the bottom 50% wealth households from 2013 to 2016 [1]. My guess is that the dotcom bust recession and great recession both knocked down bottom-half wealth holders far more than the interim percentage gains to arrive at the net decrease quoted here.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dqydj.com&#x2F;net-worth-brackets-wealth-brackets-one-percent&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dqydj.com&#x2F;net-worth-brackets-wealth-brackets-one-per...</a>

<p><pre><code> &gt;People&#x27;s Policy Project &gt;The primary mission of 3P is to publish ideas and analysis that assist in the development of an economic system that serves the many, not the few. </code></pre> Some article titles:<p><pre><code> &gt;Tackling Inequality Through the Social Ownership of Capital &gt;Capitalism is hostile to families. The welfare state can fix that. &gt;The Difficulty of Using the Firm in Socialist Policy </code></pre> With this as context, it&#x27;s pretty easy to see that the thread&#x27;s post is clearly anti-capitalist, socialist propaganda, with a heavy political agenda to make people mad at &quot;the rich&quot; and support overthrowing &quot;the system.&quot;

Maybe so. But the poor of today (at least in the US, which the article is about:<p>- Have smart phones (entertainment)<p>- Have climate controlled housing<p>- Have better food than the poor of 1989<p>- Have fewer diseases and live longer than their 1989 counterparts<p>- etc.<p>It&#x27;s not fun being poor, but there&#x27;s never been a better time.<p>In a similar way, the rich don&#x27;t live <i>that much</i> better than the next lowest classes. A middle class home feels more like a McMansion than the rich&#x2F;poor housing comparison of 1989.

So, like, everyone gets the same return in the market - say 5% S&amp;P500 avg return - and so the total return on more money is more than the return on less money, because math.<p>1.05x100&lt;1.05x1000<p>And, of course, we all know those with capital get better returns on everything and access to all opportunities. Hence the rich get richer. But that&#x27;s life and math. So?