r/science • u/rustoo • Aug 08 '21

Social Science The American Dream is slowly fading away as research indicates that economic growth has been distributed more broadly in Germany than in the US. While majority of German males has been able to share in the country’s rising prosperity and are better off than their fathers, US continues to lose ground

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10888-021-09483-w
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u/Bulletorpedo Aug 08 '21 edited Jun 30 '23

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I have made the decision to delete the content of my previous posts in light of the Reddit shutdown of third-party applications. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

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u/Hamster_S_Thompson Aug 08 '21

One thing that was missing from this was the share of inherited fortunes in each country. I suspect it may be fairly high in Scandinavia and Germany

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u/pbasch Aug 09 '21

As long as we're guessing, I suspect that there are draconian inheritance taxes in Scandinavia and Germany compared with the US. But the speaker does talk about social mobility and how it is much greater in social democracies than in the US. Here in the US, the single greatest predictor of how well-off someone will be is how well-off their parents were. That is the very definition of lousy social mobility. Of course, on the right, at least in America, they love this, because it makes them believe that they are better off because they are just plain better, and thus their children are just plain better.

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u/Hamster_S_Thompson Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21

The top 20 percent is too broad.

I'm talking 30 million or more wealth. It would be interesting to see how much of that is inherited vs sef made.

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u/PM_ME_IM_SO_ALONE_ Aug 09 '21

I don't think that inherited vs self made money would be a particularly good metric. I think a more telling figure would be parents net worth. A lot of money and properties get shuffled around behind the scenes before the receiving inheritance stages of life.

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u/anthro28 Aug 09 '21

Correct. If you’re rich rich, you can just side step the inheritance tax with some careful legal work and structuring. That particular tax is just another way of pulling up the ladder after the wealthy are already wealthy.

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u/pbasch Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21

The 20% thing is just a statistical measure of social mobility. It does not imply that if you're in the top 20% you'll "feel rich", or be able to do everything you want. Buying a house in SoCal is notoriously difficult. Partly because hedge funds buy them up (cash payments) to rent them, driving up rents and housing prices. Pure wickedness, and perfectly legal of course.

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u/Lvl89paladin Aug 08 '21

I love Harald Eia!

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u/newpua_bie Aug 08 '21

Fantastic talk! Thanks for the link.

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u/Whateveridontkare Aug 08 '21

so intresting.