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Keyser Soze

On 2/1/18 1:17 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:16:05 -0500, Keyser Soze
wrote:

On 1/31/18 3:00 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 31 Jan 2018 13:07:49 -0500, Keyser Soze
wrote:

On 1/31/18 12:40 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 31 Jan 2018 10:03:21 -0500, Keyser Soze
wrote:

10%
of Americans who own 80% of corporate shares need more money.

I heard MSBNC say that too but what they ignore is just because most
working class Americans do not hold individual stock shares, they are
still invested in the market through their IRA and 401k plans. That
statistic they like to throw around assumes mutual funds are not
stocks.
My wife is a Trump hater too but she certainly likes the 10 grand she
made in her 401k last year.

What is the basis for your comment about "most" working Americans, and
how does that conflict with the claim that 80% of corporate shares are
owned by 10% of Americans?

Because you are talking about "shares" not money in funds where most
Americans have their retirement money. It doesn't really matter
whether that is a 401k/IRA, a private pension plan or a
union/government employee plan. A significant part of all of that
money is in equities and it is ultimately the worker's (later
retiree's) money.
The only exception I can think of is the federal government and they
have no real investments at all other than whatever our kids can bear
in taxes.

What percentage of equities, directly or indirectly through funds, are
held by the 10% of the wealthiest?

Define "wealthiest". Are you just talking about what you call the
middle class? (households making $110k+) That is going to be a pretty
big number since they will have the biggest 401ks, assuming they did
not raid them.
I am sure if you just want to talk about hedge funds and guys like
Buffett they have huge holdings but they also have stockholders
themselves. They are essentially those funds I was talking about. You
can't confuse that with individual investors.
I suppose We could actually track down what percentage of stocks are
held by the real middle class, that guy who makes $50k or so but you
really need to figure out how much is in his pension or 401k.
I tend not to believe some of the things that the left (or the right)
says until I see how they arrived at their statistic. I crunched
numbers at work long enough to figure out you can make a database say
pretty much anything you want, just by what "view" you define in your
query.

Your assumption, I suppose, is that the guy making $50k these days has
some sort of defined benefit pension. Well, that's not 2018 America so
much. Defined benefit pension are disappearing. And at a $50k income
level, I wonder how many workers are contributing to an
employer-sponsored 401k, or hang around long enough to get vested, or
have enough left over after living expenses for putting away some bucks
in an IRA.