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johnsimertoday at 7:20 PM6 repliesview on HN

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Replies

ryandraketoday at 7:36 PM

At your dinner table, that one person would have approximately 32% of the food at the table, and 50 people at that table would only have a half a stick of butter to share between them all.

tking8924today at 8:27 PM

In addition to what others have said, it's also worth pointing out that the top 1% of income earners != the top 1% of wealth. The top end of the wealth spectrum are generally not earning much, if any, income subject to federal income tax.

civet_javatoday at 7:46 PM

I'm not sure I fully understand this "society as a dinner crowd" metaphor you're painting here - who is the govt here and what are taxes and most importantly what is the food everyone is eating?

How does the wealthy paying 40% of the income/consumption tax collected by the govt translate to them feeding 40% of population (which they don't)?

outside1234today at 8:26 PM

Where the OP got this wrong is by stating the top 1% vs. top 0.01%. It is entirely true that the top 1% pay a lot of tax. There are a lot of us here that are in the top 1% and god knows we pay a lot of taxes.

The top 0.01% however have access to vehicles that mean they can pay very little in taxes by taking low interest rate loans against huge amounts of capital. This 0.01% is the problem, not the 1%.

lkeytoday at 7:55 PM

The top 1% hold 41% of all wealth on the planet, so they are still getting a discount in your contrived example.

Meanwhile at that table, 68 people are sharing 3 meals between themselves.

Would you want to eat at that table? Are you even a member of that class or are you just wish-casting?