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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Wealth Distribution
Message-ID: <378@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 31-Mar-85 21:26:07 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.378
Posted: Sun Mar 31 21:26:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Apr-85 01:25:00 EST
References: <380@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <563@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 35

> [26 March 1985]
> 
>      Some data on wealth distribution in the US:
...
>      The average household net worth is $131,250.  It is distributed
> as follows:
> 
>      Top 1/2 percent     $5,250,000/household
>      Next 1/2 percent     1,440,000/household
>      next 5 percent         682,000/household
>      bottom 94%              67,000/household
...
>     Who are the rich?  From the October 1, 1984 issue of Forbes 
> magazine, I compiled the following table of the rich in America.
...
> Dani Eder/ Boeing/ssc-vax!eder

Note that many of the famous actors and actresses spend all of their
income, and are therefore somewhere in the bottom 94%.  On the other hand,
many farmers own their million-dollar farms and therefore in the top 1%.
Now, who do you think is wealthier in real terms, the farmers or the
celebrities?

In short, there is one piece of property that is never included in these
figures, because it cannot be sold and therefore is not assigned a value.
However, this property, which all of us own, yields much higher profits
on average than real estate or stocks.  This property is ourselves, our own
resources.  If we were to include this in our statistics, we would find
that wealth in this country is much more evenly distributed.
-- 
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the
interests of the right of nations to self-determination." -Lenin, 1918