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by haizhung
157 days ago
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This apparent conundrum breaks away if you consider who holds the wealth now vs. in the 60s. In the 60s-70s, there was a wealth tax in Germany. Shortly after WW2, a law was drafted to redistribute wealth: All individuals and companies whose assets remained largely intact were required to pay 50% of their net wealth (as assessed on the day of the 1948 currency reform). This means that the working class had immense wealth and so simple jobs could support a family on a single income, buy a house, etc. Compare that to today — the two richest families in Germany hold more wealth than the bottom 50% COMBINED. It is no wonder that normal families cannot afford to buy property anymore; and are forced to rent. This further exacerbates the wealth gap. Another nice statistic is the productivity VS wage VS pensions curve: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KDug!,f_auto,q_auto:... (Black line - GDP, blue line - avg comp; red line - avg pension) In short - the productivity increased; but ordinary people are being squeezed out of the gains regardless. No wonder that everyone turns sour at some point. |
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1) the 50% net wealth tax vis-a-vis 1948 currency reform?
2) which 2 richest families in Germany hold more wealth than the bottom 50% combined?
3) most wealth distribution plots I have seen show a significant negative start (people in debt) then a large number of people with effectively 0 net wealth (what is earned is spent) and then a rise towards the haves. From such plots for different nations I am not surprised that the lower 2 digit percentages effectively have net 0 (with those in debt balancing those having a mediocre surplus), so it would seem trivial for this factoid to be true in many nations (with a slight change of the 50% number or a slight change of the exact number of richest families)
The perspective you give is certainly remarkable in the sense that the Nazi rise was basically a counterreaction to the rising popularity of communist ideas, with the end result... a redistribution of wealth after all, not even a holocaust could stop the wealth redistribution.