In listening to the interview of Sen. Bernie Sanders on the talking heads programs yesterday I noticed something confusing. He continually talks about the “1%” and then conflates that with “billionaires”.
There are fewer than 1,000 billionaires in the United States. Their total combined wealth is around $6 trillion. Their combined annual income is unclear.
There are about 1.5 million individuals in the top 1% of income earners. Their combined annual income is around $120 billion. Their combined wealth is around $49 trillion.
Which is Sen. Sanders concerned about? I’m concerned about the heavy concentration of wealth in so few hands in the United States but I’m even more concerned about the wealth and income of the top 1% than I am of the .001%.
My uninformed take on the .001% is that they are shrewd exploiters of “the system” and will prosper regardless of what that system is. Perhaps they are using the influence their enormous wealth brings but it’s a lot less obvious than the lobbying and manipulation of the top 1% of income earners.
Take Elon Musk as an example of the “billionaire class”. An extremely short summary of where he obtained his wealth might be
Zip2 => X.com (online bank) => PayPal => SpaceX => Starlink => Tesla
Most of his wealth is Tesla stock. I don’t see a great deal of rent-seeking on his part until SpaceX but ever since he founded SpaceX he’s been very skillful at it. Would Tesla actually be where it is today without the federal subsidies for electric vehicles? I doubt it. But here’s the key point: Mr. Musk did not lobby to get those put in place. He’s said that he opposes such subsidies. His benefiting from them as much as he does is an example of my point: he’s riding the waves not creating them.
The situation with the top 1% is somewhat different. In many cases their high incomes depend on lobbying organizations that try to get the Congress to craft the laws in ways that benefit them.
Consider the graph at the top of this post. The incomes of “the billionaires” has gone up twice as face as that of the top 1% but the income of the top 1% have gone up three times as fast as those of the top 25% of income earners.
That’s why I’m as worried about oligarchy as Sen. Sanders is but I’m worried about rule by the 1% at last as much as rule by billionaires. And that 1% includes Sen. Sanders.






