patrick.net

In addition to figures for the top 1%, 5%, and 10%, it would be really interesting to see the figures for the top 0.1%, 0.01%, and 0.001%.

My guess is that most of the folks in the top 1-5% have made substantial investments (time and money) in education and training: doctors, lawyers, MBAs, etc.

And my guess is that a lot of folks in the top 0.1-0.001% have inherited their wealth.

Awe man I'm going to be about $5k shy of the 1% this year. It was fun while it lasted.

ducsingle5313 says

And my guess is that a lot of folks in the top 0.1-0.001% have inherited their wealth.

Read Forbes 400 and you can find out. A lot of them are self-made. Many do not have degrees.

Doctors and lawyers almost never get rich.

Kevin says

Awe man I'm going to be about $5k shy of the 1% this year. It was fun while it lasted.

Kevin, stop aiming for the top 1%. If you are so close you should have 0.01% in sight.

jealousy and envy are never pretty...

Jealousy and envy do make great stories.

Peter P says

Kevin says

Awe man I'm going to be about $5k shy of the 1% this year. It was fun while it lasted.

Kevin, stop aiming for the top 1%. If you are so close you should have 0.01% in sight.

Apparently I'd need to more than triple my income to qualify for the 0.1% and land a 10-bagger for 0.01%.

Anyway, looking at this just in the U.S. is all wrong. The US is the only country on the planet with both a large population and a high income level.

To qualify for the 1% globally, you need merely $35,000 / year or about $100k in assets. So most working americans qualify already. Congrats!

Globally you need only $150,000 to be in the top 0.1%. $400k for the top 0.01%.

Look at all of those people that you can be better than!

More seriously, the "1%" is a really bad number. Wealth disparity is a very real problem, but it isn't simply the fact that one group of people gets paid more or has more assets that causes it. Inconsistent labor, environmental, safety, and quality standards around the world, overpopulation, undereducation, and many other factors created it.

Tax and redistribute is a short term fix. To really correct wealth imbalance, you have to address the gaps in education, family planning, safety, health care, and everything else that keeps some families poor for generations.

Kevin says

The US is the only country on the planet with both a large population and a high income level.

What constitutes a large population? I'd say Japan and Germany have large populations for starters.

Kevin says

The US is the only country on the planet with both a large population and a high income level.

And trillions in debt.

You say "Congratulations Top 1%"

I say "Thanks for the honor you degenerate worthless piece of shit serfs & cockroach peasants."

In a few years it will be, "Congratulations Top .0001%"...

I can't wait for that day to come. It will be cannibal anarchy 2.0.

Fuck the low class, fuck the middle class & fuck the upper middle class.

Anyone with less than half a billion in net worth is a peasant to me.

I can't wait to bail out Charles Manson to start mass murdering you cockroach peasant sheep. My grandfather John D. Rockefeller financed Adolf Hitler. I want to finance Charles Manson.

If I am in the top 5 percent am I entitled to stand on my lawn with my dick out shouting 'Blow me, America!' like Mitt Romney?

If you are in the top 5%, I am entitled to torture you to death

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

You say "Congratulations Top 1%"

Aw, I would have taken you seriously if you hadn't included the monkey as the second picture.

Stop looking at statistics. It is just about you and your world. Will you do things differently because if the situations of others? I won't.

And all of this happened on Obama's watch.

"Obama's watch" wrt the national economy ended Dec 2010 since his job is to execute what the Congress wants to have happen, and the present Congress has been mainly concerned with renaming post offices, plus threatening to default on the national debt when the mood strikes.

We're living the Republican Dream now. Even got a Republican health reform coming next year, whoopee!

I am SO leaving this chickenshit country. Good luck to the poor schmuck taking my place at the oar.

Peter P says

Kevin, stop aiming for the top 1%. If you are so close you should have 0.01% in sight.

Man, talk about not understanding the monetary system. When you go from 1% to 0.1%, it is not 10 times harder. The degree of difficulty achieving will get exponentially more, not linear.

Kevin says

Wealth disparity is a very real problem, but it isn't simply the fact that one group of people gets paid more or has more assets that causes it.

No, this is precisely the problem, the 1% are invested in the system that is extracting wealth from the 99%.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP/

plus higher housing (FIRE rents), energy (resource rents), high-profit health care, etc.

The top 10% owns 90% of this country's productive assets. We've gone beyond the Schwarzschild radius were the 1%'s wealth is accreting wealth faster than the 99% can create new wealth, almost.

This is why the 1%'s share went up and the lower 50%'s share went down.

~70% of this country is just totall fucked going forward, under the present structure.

The 1% don't make their money operating aether machines or from the Mines of Zanzibar, the get it from their many involuntary rent taps on those lower on the pyramid.

This is obvious to me, but not to most people apparently.

I guess the top 1% has more money to invest to squeeze more money out of middle class.

It seems peoples' greed has clouded our judgement. We have limited resource to make services and goods that are in demand. Simply, there is a limit in our ability to make profit, while there is practically no limit in amount of money we can print or type into the computer. The abundance of investment does not necessarily equal to the output of income or earnings.

Peter P says

Doctors and lawyers almost never get rich.

That depends on your definition of rich. Most doctors and lawyers will not become billionaires - - - but many lawyers and most doctors will make a multiple of the average U.S. family income. And at least doctors have excellent job security.

Doctors and lawyers historically have taken their wage surplus and plowed it back into investments of course, moving them and their progeny from upper-middle to upper class over time.

Back in the 1970s my parents rented a SFH owned as an "investment property" by a nice doctor (living down the street) in Salinas, LOL.

Just another brick in the wall.

Peter P says

Read Forbes 400 and you can find out. A lot of them are self-made. Many do not have degrees.

I think I read that article for the past year or the year before. My general recollection is at least half of the people on the list inherited most if not all of their wealth, and a significant portion of the remaining folks came from extremely wealthy families that provided invaluable business connections.

Not begrudging anyone their wealth. I consider myself to be very well compensated and am in the top 1% of wage earners in the U.S. But I wouldn't be there without a few advanced degrees.

Bellingham Bill says

The top 10% owns 90% of this country's productive assets.

I wonder what the top 1% own? And the top 0.1%? And the top 0.01%?

Bellingham Bill says

The 1% don't make their money operating aether machines or from the Mines of Zanzibar, the get it from their many involuntary rent taps on those lower on the pyramid.

I know plenty of doctors, lawyers, and accountants who held blue collar jobs early in their careers. Probably less common now than a few decades ago though.

ducsingle5313 says

I wonder what the top 1% own?

42.1%

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Peter P says

Doctors and lawyers almost never get rich.

That's actually very much true.

Most of them are just paycheck to paycheck yuppies.

Peter P says

A lot of them are self-made. Many do not have degrees.

That's also true but only partially.

The few elite banking aristocracy is all inherited old money wealth that is NEVER listed on Forbes or on any media publication because the amount of wealth they have will make Bill Gates look like a pitiable serf and peasant.

Old money is purposely not listed on Forbes and the public media because it is simply foolish for them to do so.

But you are right. Most money is new money. But you are very much wrong to promote the idea that the new money self-made class possesses the steak...

They just possess peanuts compared to how much old money banking aristocracy hold in wealth and assets.

Hint: Rothschild's, Rockefeller's, Morgan's, Dupont's, Vanderbilt's, Carnegie's, Ford's etc etc

ducsingle5313 says

But I wouldn't be there without a few advanced degrees.

+1

That's how the top .0001% have set-up the system to be like. Advanced degrees may very likely pull you into the top 1%.

But a degree will prove to be worthless as soon as you try to become the .0001%

For that you will need connections, pure merit (not just a piece of paper that says you have merit.) & a very very focused game plan in wealth management.

Nobody says

Man, talk about not understanding the monetary system. When you go from 1% to 0.1%, it is not 10 times harder. The degree of difficulty achieving will get exponentially more, not linear.

That is actual very true.

Making $1,000,000 a year will not be 10 times harder than making $100,000 a year. It will 100 times harder due to the pyramid structure in the economic system.

+1

Bellingham Bill says

Doctors and lawyers historically have taken their wage surplus and plowed it back into investments of course, moving them and their progeny from upper-middle to upper class over time.

Most of these clowns whose dicks you have no problem sucking on...

Are yuppie pay-check to pay-check wealth under-accumulators proven by statistics. 2/3rds end up completely broke for retirement because they spent it all on worthless luxury for the social image.

And even the ones who are frugal in spending and conservative on financial management are not that much of a impression when you are living in a world made up of hundreds of trillions of dollars and a hidden aristocracy so wealthy...

It will make every last doctor and lawyer on earth look like a pitiable slave.

ducsingle5313 says

That depends on your definition of rich.

My definition of rich is purely objective. I don't care if I have everything I need and could ask for...

If someone has more... I must beat them. Why? Because I'm scum. I made money my god a long time ago.

ducsingle5313 says

. Most doctors and lawyers will not become billionaires

Exactly. So why become one? Fuck being a yuppie! Those bastards are just gold-plated... Not an actual steak of gold.

ducsingle5313 says

but many lawyers and most doctors will make a multiple of the average U.S. family income.

Yet they end up increasing their expenses a multiple as well on useless luxury.

At the end of the day, both are still peasants. It's just that one takes a shower everyday, wears more better, fashionable and more high-quality clothing along with having a bit social respect.

But what's the use?

It like one person having a bar of aluminum and another one have a gold-plated bar of aluminum.

The person with the gold-plated bar in the end usually comes out worse than one with the ordinary bar. Why? Because most of them become deluded and begin to walk into a street where they don't belong or deserve to be in.

ducsingle5313 says

And at least doctors have excellent job security.

It won't last for long. The medical and legal profession will become extremely over-saturated... And the artificial economical system it stands on will fall apart.

Medical & legal professions do not work on free market capitalism. Anything which is not operated on a free market capitalism eventually collapses. It's success is short-lived.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

Doctors and lawyers almost never get rich.

That's actually very much true.

Most of them are just paycheck to paycheck yuppies.

I'll have to disagree here. I know a lot of doctors and lawyers. Most live fairly frugally. None live paycheck to paycheck. A small percentage of folks in these professions might be financially irresponsible, but that is definitely not the norm.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

That's how the top .0001% have set-up the system to be like. Advanced degrees may very likely pull you into the top 1%.

But a degree will prove to be worthless as soon as you try to become the .0001%

For that you will need connections, pure merit (not just a piece of paper that says you have merit.) & a very very focused game plan in wealth management.

Totally agree, discounting extremely rare exceptions (e.g., Google founders, etc.).

Your average Silicon Valley engineer is probably waaaay smarter than your average Wall Street financial flunky. But the Wall Street guys make more money because they are connected. Sort of like organized crime, only a lot more money and it's supposedly legal.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

And even the ones who are frugal in spending and conservative on financial management are not that much of a impression when you are living in a world made up of hundreds of trillions of dollars and a hidden aristocracy so wealthy...

But none of us (yourself included) live in the world of hidden aristocracy trillionaires. In our world, $500k/yr makes you rich to almost anyone with whom you might interact.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

The medical and legal profession will become extremely over-saturated... And the artificial economical system it stands on will fall apart.

Medical & legal professions do not work on free market capitalism. Anything which is not operated on a free market capitalism eventually collapses. It's success is short-lived.

A lot of areas in legal are super-saturated, but there are some niches that are quite lucrative for those with the right background.

You're nuts if you think demand for medical professionals is going down. Baby Boomers will continue to wear out and need repairs for at least another 40 years.

ducsingle5313 says

You're nuts if you think demand for medical professionals is going down. Baby Boomers will continue to wear out and need repairs for at least another 40 years.

PPACA alone is going to put tens of millions of new people into the healthcare system.

Well, those doctors that have to take Medicaid patients at least.

Peak boomer birth year was 1957, so the boomer health burden is going to really hit just about . . . now.

Bellingham Bill says

Doctors and lawyers historically have taken their wage surplus and plowed it back into investments of course, moving them and their progeny from upper-middle to upper class over time.

Wa? Are you living in a lala land?

1% would like their slaves where they are. Now, get back to work.

ducsingle5313 says

You're nuts if you think demand for medical professionals is going down.

I said eventually. I agree that medical demand is probably going to skyrocket like housing.

But then it's going to completely crash within 40-50 years depending on how long it takes for "doctors" (mass murders) to kill their "patients" (victims) with harmful and toxic pharmaceutical medications along with other western "medicine" (poison).

Everybody is trying to become a doctor or nurse/medical related field nowadays anyway.

So the pay may stay the same or even drop a bit.

And I strongly believe that the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies want socialized medicine with doctors and medical workers to start taking much less pay in salary...

And they also are attempting to shut down small private practices.

Why? Because they want the biggest profit percentage out of the huge medical bubble that will be created out of baby boomers.

Only get into this field if you really care about medicine and have a genuine interest.

Otherwise, trying to make big money as a doctor is foolish. Which is what the majority of people getting into this field have the motive of.

If you want to live average, then it's fine. But, trust me... Many are going into this field with delusional monetary goals.

Baby boomers created the college/education bubble, consumer bubble, housing bubble and now they are creating a health care bubble.

All these bubbles will collapse completely and eventually. It will hit very very hard when it does.

ducsingle5313 says

But none of us (yourself included) live in the world of hidden aristocracy trillionaires.

As long as everyone in this forum including you has to pay illegal IRS income taxes, social security taxes, deal in funny money Federal Reserve notes & live your life in a nazi banker controlled environment...

You DO live in the world of the hidden banker aristocracy trillionaire scum.

ducsingle5313 says

In our world, $500k/yr makes you rich to almost anyone with whom you might interact.

That's all opinion. In reality and in factuality, you are not rich. Period.

Better off than many? You can say that. But you are still a peasant.

Bankers are not rich. They are above money. They are the creators of money itself. Bankers are wealth creators and money gods. Money and wealth is below them.

500K a year earning doctors or lawyers are just the slaves of their money. Money is above them and they are below money.

If you have to earn something, it is your master. If something has to earn you, you are it's master.

ducsingle5313 says

Totally agree, discounting extremely rare exceptions (e.g., Google founders, etc.).

Your average Silicon Valley engineer is probably waaaay smarter than your average Wall Street financial flunky. But the Wall Street guys make more money because they are connected. Sort of like organized crime, only a lot more money and it's supposedly legal.

Perfect example.

Very big money will never be earned, it will be looted and hijacked as if it is below the orchestrator.

Stop earning wealth, have wealth earn you.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

The few elite banking aristocracy is all inherited old money wealth that is NEVER listed on Forbes or on any media publication because the amount of wealth they have will make Bill Gates look like a pitiable serf and peasant.

You are quite right. :-)

John D once said:

Own nothing, control everything.

Money is just a vehicle. One of many. Power is true wealth.

Quiz:

Who said this?

Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws.

Peter P says

Will you do things differently because if the situations of others? I won't.

Yes you will.

If everyone around you is starving, you won't be feasting.

If everyone around you is a billionaire you aren't going to be able to afford to pay your electric bill.

Peter P says

Quiz:
Who said this?
Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws.

-Mayer Amschel De Rothschild

DIE PEASANTS DIE PEASANTS!!!

Mayer Amschel Rothschild died on September 19, 1812. His will spelled out specific guidelines that were to be maintained by his descendants:

1) All important posts were to be held by only family members, and only male members were to be involved on the business end. The oldest son of the oldest son was to be the head of the family, unless otherwise agreed upon by the rest of the family, as was the case in 1812, when Nathan was appointed as the patriarch.

2) The family was to intermarry with their own first and second cousins, so their fortune could be kept in the family, and to maintain the appearance of a united financial empire. For example, his son James (Jacob) Mayer married the daughter of another son, Salomon Mayer. This rule became less important in later generations as they refocused family goals and married into other fortunes.

3) Rothschild ordered that there was never to be "any public inventory made by the courts, or otherwise, of my estate...Also I forbid any legal action and any publication of the value of the inheritance."

Kevin says

Awe man I'm going to be about $5k shy of the 1% this year. It was fun while it lasted.

I think I'm going to slip out of the top 10% this year, after my wife quit her job and decided to work part time.

savedmymoney says

I am a blue collar kid who worked hard and saved my money and over time I have become pretty close to financially independent by working 2 jobs, saving my money, learning how to invest it, and being patient as my next egg grew.

You do know that the top 1% AGI was about $343,000. Assuming a 8% return on assets, that puts top 1% net worth near $5 million.

So your telling me your net worth is $5 million or more, and all you did was work two blue collar jobs and saved (and invested) well?

Lets assume you are pretty old, say 80 years old, and you worked two jobs from age 18 to 65. In order to have a net worth of $5 million, you would have had to save a ton. Lets use the following median incomes for men, (nominal dollars):

1950s: $2,500
1960s: $4,080
1970s: $6,670
1980s: $12,530
1990s: $20,293

IF we double all of those since you worked two jobs, you would have had to have saved 18% of your gross pay (assuming 20% tax rate, that is 22.5% of net pay) in every year you worked, plus earned an average return of 10% per year, plus have made ZERO withdrawals since you retired.

That, and the average salary of both of your blue collar jobs had to be equal to the median salary for ALL jobs.

Hey, I guess it is possible that all of those scenarios hold. Of course, if you only got a 9% average return, (which still beats the market), then you would have need to save 27% of gross (one third of net) to get to five million.

Of course, if you are only say, 65 right now, then you would have had to save 65% of your gross (81.25% of net) to get to $5 million, provided you averaged 10% return for every year of your career.

So yeah, I guess, if you are really old, and you significantly beat the market for the past 37 years, and you worked 80+ hours per week (two jobs), and you spent like a miser, then you would be a 1%.

No one ever taught me that in school though.