
100 CEOs Have as Much Retirement Savings as 116M Americans - SQL2219
http://monetarywatch.com/2016/12/100-ceos-much-retirement-savings-116-million-americans/?doing_wp_cron=1481930387.8412010669708251953125
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woofyman
>Trump’s 17 cabinet-level picks have more money than a third of American
households combined

[http://qz.com/862412/trumps-16-cabinet-level-picks-have-
more...](http://qz.com/862412/trumps-16-cabinet-level-picks-have-more-money-
than-a-third-of-american-households-combined/)

~~~
lappa
I have more money than every person in the US who has $0 to their name
combined.

This metric isn't useful for anything other than shocking headlines.

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lucasmullens
Could whoever downvoted this explain why this is wrong? This seems like a
great point.

From the main article "The report also notes that 37 percent of U.S. families
have no retirement wealth at all." So I could claim "100 McDonald's employees
have as much retirement savings as 104M Americans". That doesn't really say
much.

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danielvf
Yes, the grandparent post is being unfairly downvoted. It's an entirely valid
criticism of the meaninglessness of a sensational headline.

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SQL2219
There ought to be 2 tax rates: 10% if you risk your own money to build a
business, and 50% if you pile up huge amounts risk free.

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positr0n
How would you define risk free investments? Buying Walmart stock and holding
it for a decade? Buying a house and renting it out? Lobbying for preferential
treatment for a business/sector you have a large stake in?

The latter is obvious a problem, but if you can define that process legally
then you could just outlaw it outright instead of trying to penalize it with
taxes. Any investment I can imagine that is close to risk free is either
already illegal or technically illegal but hard enough to define that people
can skirt around the edges of the law.

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SQL2219
I define risk free as an employee with no skin in the game/no downside.

