[goblgobl]

She sold her stock, which represented ownership of a business.

If Mark Zuckerberg sold all his "stock" in Facebook, that doesn't mean he made his money from the financial services industry.

The majority of wealthy people are wealthy by equity (ownership of a business), not from annual income. If the author used traders as an example of people making money on stocks, that would be an argument more inline with his thesis.

The way he defines being involved with the finance sector, of course the majority of wealthy people (business owners) will have touched the financial services industry - the same way the average joe a touches retail bank.

[kds]

The retail bank in no way makes Joe Average far richer than he already is by his own efforts.

And I don't think those Russian billionaires invested in Facebook just because they were yawning at the thought of depositing the money in a bank and the boring routine of such a transaction.

They all expect huge capital gains and the pump-and-dump institutional machinery of Wall Street is the instrumental system for this.

[goblgobl]

My point was the author's claim that the top of the top 1% is "involved in the financial services industry" is meaningless because of how he defines it. The only people who don't fit his description would be salaried employees.

To address your points - you're ignoring the difference in financial goals and economies of scale.

Joe is an employee. So his goal is to preserve the capital he earns, which is a service the retail bank offers. He earns a paltry interest on his money because 1. the bank lends his cash out very conservatively, and 2. he's not paying for the service of having it actively managed by a professional.

Rich people can not only afford professional money management, but very wealthy ones typical have access to higher quality investment vehicles than less wealthy rich. And since they have more capital (that they don't need) than Joe does, they tend to tolerate more risks. They also tend to get the rewards of that risk when its professionally managed.

At that scale of money, investment can have positive externalities. The capital invested in Facebook, Google, Apple, etc directly helped create jobs and expand the technology sector. Joe's money did comparatively little. Both are rewarded for their proportional economic impact. Capital gains is an incentive to keep rich people from parking their cash at a retail bank. Whether it works 100% effectively is definitely up for debate. But the general idea is that their cash can be deployed in a way that not only makes the rich richer, but the rest of society as well.

[kds]

To add a second million to the first 1M is hard exhausting labor (lower rich achievers according to the article, in some real business sector), but to gain another 5-10M on any 100M already available is inevitable for the Top 0.01 on Wall Street.

I guess I understand this. (You express the idea as economies of scale, higher quality investment vehicles, and their professional management).

If this is true and OK to be as a situation, than in some pure math sense - relative velocity of financial growth compared to efforts to gain it - it seems that a tiny historically established minority of a super-rich guys and families (mostly in the banking and investment) will always be far, far ahead in money wealth.

And maybe even gaining momentum. There are many economical studies and observations that a certain wealth spread between the Top Richest and the rest is increasing, at a macroeconomic level. Is this good or bad?

A quote from the article: "... the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability."

If so - are the CEOs/founders/owners of Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Virgin Group, (you name it, any other huge real business success story), merely some outlying points WITHIN the TOP 0.01? How big is the amassed wealth of such iconic entrepreneurs compared to those that in a clan-wise manner are into banking/investment/real estate/government contracts (and the related politics)? And to what extent the financial wealth as evaluation of the former depends on the latter?

I don't have answers to the questions I've raised - perhaps it would be interesting for somebody to research and see the whole picture.