[kortilla]

> Paradoxically, "developed" nation inequality has hit 1920s levels.

That’s not a paradox. Inequality is a completely separate measurement that emerges anywhere there are extremely wealthy people despite the average population doing really well.

A high density of tech billionaires in California doesn’t prevent a regular family in Tennessee from putting food on their table. Poverty rates would.

[danaris]

But a high density of tech billionaires does prevent a regular family in Tennessee from putting food on their table, by increasing the poverty rates.

They do this by a number of mechanisms, including lobbying to reduce or end programs like SNAP, gutting labor protections, and various other political means; and more generally by making money in zero-sum ways (financialization of the economy means that people are getting rich by skimming off money from other people, rather than by creating value themselves).

[pixl97]

>A high density of tech billionaires in California doesn’t prevent

I put this in the case of 'eh, maybe'. Not a definite yes or no. The particular place where this breaks is asset ownership and other forms of VC fuckery that start raising the costs for everything around the country.

[wat10000]

Money is power. Extreme wealth means extreme power. That power can be used to screw people over even if their income looks nominally decent.