The wealthiest 0.001% of people control 3X more wealth than the bottom 50%. But there’s a catch . . .

Photo above - Al Jazeera, the middle east's pre-eminent news organization, has take the USA to task over "wealth inequality." (This photo may be an AI fake, I can't tell . . . )

Any way you look at it, the optics are bad. The top 10% of earthlings own 75% of homes, bank accounts, Teslas, etc. The average wealth of “north americans” (including you, Canada) is 340% greater than the rest of the people. See link below.

Upon reflection, this doesn’t look like a problem which higher Federal income tax rates can solve. That extra tax money is simply going to remain in America. A little will be shaved off the top by Congress and various agencies, and the rest redistributed (or spent on) deserving North Americans. That money will NOT be leaving the USA to help “the rest of the world”, like Somalia, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, or Mongolia.

Wait . . . it gets weirder. North American INCOME (paychecks) is already 300% higher than the rest of the world. We’re at the top for both savings and paychecks. How do we feel about redistributing it among ourselves now?

The Al Jazeera article doesn’t do a deep dive on things like car ownership, smartphones, and Roomba vacuums but I take on faith that we’re outperforming Mongolia on those metrics too.

I don’t want to seem churlish, but NONE of the American politicians screaming wealth inequality have any intention of helping out peanut farmers, goat herders, and subsistence fishermen in Africa. They want to redistribute our tax dollars in ways that swell the entitlement class and create loyal voters on election day. When we redistribute 300-340% among ourselves, the size of the pie doesn’t change. The only thing that happens is that somebody’s slice gets a little bigger of what is already the worlds largest pie..

This is why we have uncontrolled migration to America and Europe. Nobody aspires to be a peanut farmer or subsistence fisherman. They want iPhones, Netflix, and BMWs. Even complete regime change in the most despotic nations isn’t going to immediately usher in a golden age of prosperity and equality. Planet earth hasn’t had equality of living standards since the time of the Neanderthals. The first guy who chiseled a rock into a wheel was probably the first millionaire.

I don’t have an answer to fix the problem of global poverty. But I don’t think it will be increasing the top personal income tax rate by another 5%, or to keep expanding the national debt.

I’m just sayin’ . . .



Where in the world are wealth and income most unequal? | Business and Economy News | Al Jazeera