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Wal-Mart Heirs have more wealth than 40% of the American Population.

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Dartastic

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I want to fucking vomit. 40% of our population is 124,640,000 people. The Waltons are six people.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...s-says-walmart-heirs-own-more-wealth-bottom-/

RDreamer said:
Anyone who thinks inequality like this is just no big deal needs to watch this TED talk. I think something like that is pretty much essential viewing before participating in a conversation like this.
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Putting this in the OP because I forgot about this Ted talk, and it's absolutely fantastic.
 
I don't know, my initial reaction to this is...

Okay...? That's good for them. I'm not going to get sick at the fact that Walton's success lead to that for his heirs.
 
Degen said:
What do you even do with that amount of money

at what point do you just say "fuck it I'm solid"
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Buy a bunch of X-box 360 and PS3's and give them to all of Europe to get around Persona 4: Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena's region lock.
 
They also have an underground bunker in case people rebel against them. I saw it on some documentary.
 
perfectchaos007 said:
If you have a net worth of 0, aren't you still ahead of like 10% of the American population?
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Apparently according to the article, that number has increased to 25%.

Phoenix said:
Why does that make you want to vomit?
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http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/O.../Income-inequality-It-s-a-problem.-Here-s-why
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142883180/how-to-solve-wealth-inequality

...plus like, just think about these numbers for a second. Six people have more wealth than almost half the nation. WTF?
 
Shrinnan said:
I don't know, my initial reaction to this is...

Okay...? That's good for them. I'm not going to get sick at the fact that Walton's success lead to that for his heirs.
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Unfortunately it speaks of a fundamental divide in wealth - specifically, that the gap between the rich and the poor is similar to developing nations. Bad ones.
 
The annoying thing is that you subsidize their wealth by paying for the medicare costs of THEIR employees since Wal*Mart avoids paying for employee healthcare as much as possible.

Why should you be subsidizing multi-billionaires? Is that fair?

Look . . . if it is going to cost a buck more for that blender to cover healthcare then go ahead and do it.
 
Aselith said:
Hate me. I have more than 25% of Americans.
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I used to as well, then I realized I should go get my MBA. Now I'm about to graduate with 60k in student debt, and I still don't have a job yet. Whomp. :/
HigherLevel said:
I love how it's now wrong to have a lot of money.
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It's not wrong; it's not wrong at all. However, from an economic standpoint it is very bad for ANY nation to have such vast levels of income disparity. It's also really terrible when so many people in this country are getting cheated left and right by student loans, mortgages, etc.
 
Kinitari said:
Unfortunately it speaks of a fundamental divide in wealth - specifically, that the gap between the rich and the poor is similar to developing nations. Bad ones.
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Getting wealthy in the United States, at least, is not that hard. It takes discipline and it doesn't even require good income, necessarily. It just requires that one live within his or her's own means so that one can "live it up" in the future.

However, this particular instance is simple: Sam Walton created Wal-Mart. Everyone knows how big of a business Wal-Mart is and how much money its founders and families must receive from this so it comes as no surprise that the divide in wealth between this particular family and the rest of the US population is quite wide.
 
Shrinnan said:
Getting wealthy in the United States, at least, is not that hard. It takes discipline and it doesn't even require good income, necessarily. It just requires that one live within his or her's own means so that one can live above his or her's own means in the future.
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Say what?
 
If I had that much wealth, I'd keep about 1% of it and donate the rest to help kids, the environment, non-profit medical research, libraries, education, and the space program. I'd probably hold court like some ancient king and let NPOs come and try to convince me to give them cash.

With that much cash, think of the huge-ass positive influence you could have and the lives you could touch. Damn.
 
NawidA said:
Say what?
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I worded that weird initially. Pretty much - fight current debt aggressively and get it paid off as soon as possible, then accumulate money (one of the ways to do this is to pretend you still have the debt you just paid off), then live within that accumulated money (and invest it). There are still plenty of ways to get out of debt and to live comfortably under an income that isn't necessarily that high. It just requires a lot of self-discipline.
 
Shrinnan said:
Getting wealthy in the United States, at least, is not that hard. It takes discipline and it doesn't even require good income, necessarily. It just requires that one live within his or her's own means so that one can live above his or her's own means in the future.
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http://mattbruenig.com/2012/07/21/us-wealth-mobility-in-one-chart/
Wealth mobility (the ability of people to gain wealth) is -terrible- in the US. We've got a substantial amount more mobility here in Canada, for example. A LOT more. Oh, and in China.

However, this particular instance is simple: Sam Walton created Wal-Mart. Everyone knows how big of a business Wal-Mart is and how much money its founders and families must receive from this so it comes as no surprise that the divide in wealth between this particular family and the rest of the US population is quite wide.
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The issue this is trying to highlight isn't even necessarily walmart, I don't think. It's trying to show the divide between the rich and the poor - the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting rich, this is just a very straight forward example of that.
 
KuroNeeko said:
If I had that much wealth, I'd keep about 1% of it and donate the rest to help kids, the environment, non-profit medical research, libraries, education, and the space program. I'd probably hold court like some ancient king and let NPOs come and try to convince me to give them cash.

With that much cash, think of the huge-ass positive influence you could have and the lives you could touch. Damn.
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Yep, I don't want to force super rich people to hand over almost all their money, but even when I become a doctor making 400k I'll be donating a lot of my money to charity. I don't understand how some people don't give some of their money to the needy. I mean I feel like I could live very comfortably making 100k a year. I don't maybe it's just being raised in an environment where you make ends meet on like 1/3 of that.
 
Oxirane said:
If I have a net worth of roughly $5000 what percentage of the world population is worth less than me?
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155s.png
 
Shrinnan said:
Getting wealthy in the United States, at least, is not that hard. It takes discipline and it doesn't even require good income, necessarily. It just requires that one live within his or her's own means so that one can "live it up" in the future.

However, this particular instance is simple: Sam Walton created Wal-Mart. Everyone knows how big of a business Wal-Mart is and how much money its founders and families must receive from this so it comes as no surprise that the divide in wealth between this particular family and the rest of the US population is quite wide.
Click to expand...
Within our current economic climate, getting wealthy is increasingly more and more difficult. It is less and less about discipline and more and more about being in the right place at the right time, and being lucky as fuck. While the middle class still retains income mobility, the lower class is being left further and further behind. Getting wealthy is definitely not as easy as you think; and it's most definitely not "not that hard."
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/11/economic-mobility-is-“rags-to-riches”-still-possible/

Yes, this instance is simple and Wal-Mart from an economic standpoint has added lots of traditionally defined "value" to the American economy. It's also worth examining how much value they have taken away from smaller business owners when Wal-Mart comes into town. They're not necessarily the best corporation in the world... Regardless of that fact, I feel that there is no fucking way anyone, ever, needs that much money. At all. It's ludicrous. Meanwhile what is the active tax rate for these people? Fuck.

Farooq said:
Maybe he sees how Walmart crushes small businesses, destroys unions, and forces manufactures to keep their manufacturing costs low (read: labor costs).

All that amounts to making Walmart a shitty company for Americans because it negatively impacts the American economy.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594200769/?tag=neogaf0e-20
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Yeah. That.
 
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