Observations on Wealth-Income Inequality (from Federal Reserve Reports)

There's a profound difference between assets that produce no income and those that produce net income.

To those of us nutty enough to pore over dozens of pages of data on wealth and income in the U.S., the Federal Reserve's quarterly Z.1 reports and annual Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) are treasure troves, as are I.R.S. tax and income reports.

Allow me to share a few observations on family wealth and income drawn from my review of these documents:

Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2013 to 2016 (42 pages)

Financial Accounts of the United States (198 pages)

Corporate profits clock in at $2.135 trillion annually, around 11% of the nation's GDP (gross domestic product). (Page 10 of Z.1) This has changed very little over the past few years; corporate profits totaled $2.140 trillion in 2014.

Most people who follow financial matters closely probably know corporate profits have been around $2 trillion annually for awhile.

But how many know that proprietors' income from small businesses ($1.375 trillion) and rental income of persons--i.e. not corporations--($740 billion) together equal corporate profits? ($2.115 trillion for small biz/rentals, $2.135 trillion for corporate profits.

How many financially savvy people know that proprietors' income and private rental income rose by $189 billion since 2014, while corporate profits flatlined?

Clearly, the families that own the proprietorships and rentals pulling down $2.1 trillion in annual profits are doing a bit better than OK.

As the charts below reveal, most of this profitable business equity is owned by the top 10% of families. There are a few clues that suggest that family-owned business equity is distributed along a power-law curve, i.e. the majority of wealth and income is held by the top and the rest is distributed over the rest of the owners.

On Page 28 of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), we find that the business equity owned by families in the bottom 50% of family incomes has a mean value of $208,000, up marginally from $204,000 in 2010, the business equity held by the top 10% of families rose from $2.265 million in 2010 to $3.3 million in 2016--a gain of over $1 million.

As always, I want to stress the profound difference between assets that produce no income and those that produce net income. This excludes hobby businesses that lose money or tax shelters that are intended to lose money. I'm talking about businesses that generate revenues in excess of all expenses: net profit that is taxable.

Owning a vacation home that is rented out a few weeks a year is one thing, owning a rental property that's rented out 50 weeks a year is considerably different. The first is an expense, the second generates net income.

Somewhat to my surprise, almost 14% of households own some residential property equity other than their primary residence (page 18 of the SCF). Unfortunately, the Fed lumps second homes and vacation properties in with rental properties of up to 4 units, while rentals with 5 or more units are lumped in with farmland and commercial properties in equity in nonresidential property.

Only 6% of households own any equity in nonresidential property, a category of wealth that gained 72% from 2013 to 2016. Interestingly, the percentage of families owning this form of wealth actually declined from 7.2% in 2013 to 6.2% in 2016, suggesting to me that the corporations and hedge funds snapping up multi-unit residential properties are buying properties from families.

Based on my previous surveys of I.R.S. income tax data, much of this small-business equity and family owned-rental property is owned by the top 4% to 5% of families, with the majority owned by the top 10%, as shown in the chart below.

The number of families with business equity has been declining, eroded by recession and stagnation, despite the recent bounce higher.

Most of the biz-equity is owned by the top 10%:

While the financial media focuses on billionaires and hedge fund managers playing for billions, much of the wealth and income of the nation is firmly in the hands of families that own proprietorships and rental properties.

These assets have risen sharply in value, and they've also generated gains in income.

If you want to get rich, you can climb into a time machine, return to 2010 and buy a couple thousand bitcoin for $1 each. Alternatively, you can marry extremely well. If neither of these options is available, then starting a profitable proprietorship that enables the purchase of rental properties is another option.


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Where To Invest When (Almost) Everything's in a Bubble

Many things that are scarce and thus valuable cannot be bought on the global marketplace.

Now that almost every asset class is in a bubble, the question of where to invest one's capital has become particularly vexing. The ashes of wealth consumed by the 2008-09 Global Financial Meltdown are still warm, at least to those who never recovered, and so buying assets at nosebleed valuations in the hopes of earning another 5% aren't very compelling to anyone pursuing common-sense risk management.

As it happens, I wrote a whole book on this vexing question, An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times.

I can't summarize all the ideas presented in the book in one brief blog entry, but some basic principles will serve us well when bubbles abound.

1. Risk cannot be disappeared, it can only be masked or transferred to others.When anyone claims an investment is low-risk, they're actually claiming either A) the risk has been obscured by fancy footwork or false claims, or B) the risk has been transferred to some mark, chump or bagholder--nowadays, that usually means the taxpayer, as profits are private and losses are socialized.

2. Value flows to what's scarce. As economist Michael Spence and his colleagues have noted, conventional capital--the kind issued by central banks and private banks--is not scarce and therefore has little value. Ditto for conventional labor. This is why the returns on conventional capital and labor are so low.

Spence et al. suggest that what's scarce in today's global economy are ideas that create new business models, new productivity tools and new goods/services: Labor, Capital, and Ideas in the Power Law Economy.

This suggests an investment strategy of identifying what's scarce, or what will soon be scarce, before everyone else.

3. Many things that are scarce and thus valuable cannot be bought on the global marketplace. The number one example of this is of course health, which is priceless because even having millions won't buy your health back when it's been lost.

Yes, you can get patched up with stents or costly meds or maybe score a black-market organ harvested from some unfortunate prisoner somewhere, but all this sort of thing merely keeps you alive; it doesn't actually restore health.

So any investment in health will pay extremely high dividends. It doesn't take a ton of cash to invest in one's health; most of the investment is behavioral.

Other examples of what can't be bought in the same way stocks, bonds and housing can be purchased: meaningful work, communities with a collective memory of how to get things done in the real world, a functioning community economy, etc.

Investing in work you find fulfilling and meaningful pays dividends that can't be bought on the marketplace. Once again, investing in one's skills and social/intellectual capital doesn't require much cash; thanks to YouTube University and many other free or low-cost sources, anyone can start acquiring the eight essential skills I lay out in my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy. The basic idea is to learn how to build your own career and job.

4. Comparing the relative value of various assets helps identify what's relatively overvalued and undervalued. The key word here is relative: to say something is absolutely undervalued is trickier than concluding something is undervalued compared to other asset classes.

For example, compare housing in the U.S. and global commodities. Based on the national Case-Shiller Index, house prices have reached new bubblicious levels. Thanks, Federal Reserve!

It's not much of a stretch to reckon that, hmm, valuations are looking a bit more likely to be overvalued here rather than undervalued.

Now ponder this chart of global commodity prices. It seems commodities are looking decidedly unbubblicious at these levels.

Many commentators have noted that commodities such as precious metals, agricultural products, fertilizers etc. are considerably lower than their recent peaks.

So one possible strategy here would be to sell that apartment complex you bought in Seattle that's doubled in value over the past few years and use the proceeds to start nibbling on some commodities that look beaten up, ignored, scorned or simply low in their historic range.

This doesn't mean commodities can't or won't go much lower, or the Seattle apartments can't or won't go much higher; remember, risk cannot be disappeared. It's an exercise in risk management, and making an assessment of what's more or less likely to happen over the next few years. It's an exercise in hedging gains by seeking exposure in assets that may become scarce and thus more valuable in the near future.

(This is not a recommendation to pursue this strategy; I mention it only as an example of the principle of comparing relative value.)

There's more in the book, have a look: here's the Intro and Chapter One, and the Amazon page: An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times.


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Stagnation Nation: Middle Class Wealth Is Locked Up in Housing and Retirement Funds

The majority of middle class wealth is locked up in unproductive assets or assets that only become available upon retirement or death.

One of my points in Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin was to highlight how few families had the financial wherewithal to invest in bitcoin or an alternative hedge such as precious metals.

The limitation on middle class wealth isn't just the total net worth of each family; it's also how their wealth is allocated: the vast majority of most middle class family wealth is locked up in the family home or retirement funds.

This chart provides key insights into the differences between middle class and upper-class wealth. The majority of the wealth held by the bottom 90% of households is in the family home, i.e. the principal residence. Other major assets held include life insurance policies, pension accounts and deposits (savings).

What characterizes the family home, insurance policies and pension/retirement accounts? The wealth is largely locked up in these asset classes.

Yes, the family can borrow against these assets, but then interest accrues and the wealth is siphoned off by the loans. Early withdrawals from retirement funds trigger punishing penalties.

In effect, this wealth is in a lockbox and unavailable for deployment in other assets.

IRAs and 401K retirement accounts can be invested, but company plans come with limitations on where and how the funds can be invested, and the gains (if any) can't be accessed until retirement.

Compare these lockboxes and limitations with the top 1%, which owns the bulk of business equity assets. Business equity means ownership of businesses; ownership of shares in corporations (stocks) is classified as ownership of financial securities.

These two charts add context to the ownership of business equity. Note that despite the recent bounce off a trough, the percentage of families with business equity has declined for the past 25 years. The chart is one of lower highs and lower lows, the classic definition of a downtrend.

The mean value of business equity is concentrated in the top 10% of families.While the value of the top 10%'s biz-equity dropped sharply in the global financial crisis of 2008-09, it has since recovered and reached new heights, while the value of the biz equity held by the bottom 90% has flatlined.

Assets either produce income (i.e. they are productive assets) or they don't (i.e. they are unproductive assets). Businesses either produce net income or they become insolvent and close down. Family homes typically don't produce any income (unless the owners rent out rooms), and whatever income life insurance and retirement funds produce is unavailable.

This is the key difference between financial-elite wealth and middle class wealth: the majority of middle class wealth is locked up in unproductive assets or assets that only become available upon retirement or death.

The income flowing to family-owned businesses can be spent, of course, but it can also be reinvested, piling up additional income streams that then generate even more income to reinvest.

No wonder wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the top 5%: those who own productive assets have the means to acquire more productive assets because they own income streams they can direct and use in the here and now without all the limitations imposed on the primary assets held by the middle class.


If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Check out both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print) and Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook) For more, please visit the OTM essentials website.

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How Much of our Discord Is the Result of the "Engagement" Advert Revenue Model of Social Media?

The goal of maximizing profits for shareholders by any means available incentivizes discord as the primary source of profits.

Few would deny that social discord is rising. The proposed causes range from wealth/income inequality to the rise of polarizing political ideologies and the Trump presidency.

A few commentators are starting to question the role of social media in this dynamic, and specifically, the advertising based revenue model of social media. This advert-based revenue model is based on two principles:

1. If an online service is free, you're not the customer. You're the product.

In other words, if you're not paying for the service or content, then your personal information (harvested by Google, Facebook, et al.), your time online (i.e. your "engagement") and the content you create and post for free (videos of your cute cat, expressions of outrage, etc.) are the products being sold to advertisers at a premium.

2. The more discord content sows, the more advert revenue it generates. In traditional media, audiences were measured by visitor impressions on websites, the number of web searches made for key words, the number of viewers of a TV program, the number of listeners to a radio station, and so on.

But Facebook has changed the advert-revenue model in several key ways.Facebook now seeks "engagement" rather than impressions, and it sells so-called "dark ads", adverts that are targeted by the advertiser to very specific audiences, so that only the people in that audience see the paid content/advert.

Only three entities know who's seeing the paid content/advert: Facebook, the advertiser and those targeted to receive the paid content/advert.

On the face of it, this seems fairly benign. A company selling Medicare plans might target Facebook users who are about to turn 65, for example, with paid content about Medicare plans or an advert for their services.

But these changes are not benign, as longtime correspondent GFB explains in his commentary on this article, How Facebook Rewards Polarizing Political Ads (via GFB):

Facebook has ditched the 'conventional' advertising metric for determining the value of advertising - 'eyeballs' viewing the material, i.e. 'impressions' - and instead uses their perverse and self-serving "engagement" model.

If your ad (your content) on Facebook generates users "engagement" (users like, hate, or share the ad or content) Facebooks spreads it to more users - because if the content is engaging, then users are staying on Facebook and are available to be shown more content.

The worst content for Facebook is content that is skipped over and ignored. And since Facebook can monitor that, that kind of content is fed out to users less and less.

So you have the ultimate circle - the more offensive and off-putting, the more "fake news" you make your paid content - the more people react to it ("engage" with it - reading it, and sending to other people who find it equally repellent or admirable as does the original viewer) the more the content appears system wide. Because in Facebook's view, anything that keeps people on Facebook is a win, a chance to expose people to other paid content. Round and round it goes.

Other commentators are also recognizing the qualitative threat this new model poses to democracy, social discourse and the fabric of our daily lives, as evidenced by these two articles:

What Facebook Did to American Democracy

Smartphones Are Weapons of Mass Manipulation, and This Guy Is Declaring War on Them: What’s crucial to understand is that, from the system’s perspective, success is correctly predicting what you’ll like, comment on, or share. That’s what matters. People call this 'engagement'."

Meanwhile, concerns over the influence wielded by Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft is also rising: Why Tech Is Starting to Make Me Uneasy

Ask yourself: how much of the discord and distress that's so evident in both social media and traditional media would diminish if everyone spent no more than 5 minutes daily on social media?

Extending the question to the entire media space: what if everyone spent no more than 30 minutes a day on any media, other than pure entertainment (listening to music, watching a movie, etc.)

In effect, corporations are now incentivized by the advert revenue model to sow as much discord and distress as possible, because all these negative emotions fuel "engagement."

What's especially perverse about the Facebook model is that ad blocking software won't eliminate the paid content in your FB feed, nor will it identify which advertiser targeted you or why.

Then ask yourself this: how much better would you feel if you limited your time on social media to somewhere between zero and ten minutes daily?

Personally, I severely limit my time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. not because I have great self-discipline, but because I find more than a few minutes of social media feeds deranging and a time time sink I can't afford.

They don't make me feel better or more positive. Generally they make me feel the opposite: more disconnected from a deranging zeitgeist, less positive and less productive.

I doubt I'm unique in experiencing these negatives.

The goal of maximizing profits for shareholders by any means available incentivizes discord as the primary source of profits when adverts are the primary source of revenues in the addict-pusher model of "engagement".

If this isn't the acme of a politically and culturally self-destructive model of profit-maximization, then what is it?

Of related interest:

Are Facebook and Google the New Colonial Powers? (September 18, 2017)

Hey Advertisers: The Data-Mining Emperor Has No Clothes (September 15, 2017)

The New Facebook Buttons: Promote, Despise, Abandon (November 1, 2012)

800 Million Channels of Me (February 21, 2011)

Are You Loving Your Servitude Yet? (July 25, 2012)


If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Check out both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print) and Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook) For more, please visit the OTM essentials website.

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Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin

Those who see governments banning ownership of bitcoin are ignoring the political power and influence of those who are snapping up most of the bitcoin.

To really understand an asset, we have to examine not just the asset itself but who owns it, and who can afford to own it. These attributes will illuminate the political and financial power wielded by the owners of the asset class.

And once we know what sort of political/financial power is in the hands of those owning the asset class, we can predict the limits of political restrictions that can be imposed on that ownership.

As an example, consider home ownership, i.e. ownership of a principal residence. Home ownership topped out in 2004, when over 69% of all households "owned" a residence. (Owned is in quotes because many of these households had no actual equity in the house once the housing bubble popped.)

The rate of home ownership has declined to 63%, which is still roughly two-thirds of all households. Clearly, homeowners constitute a powerful political force. Any politico seeking to impose restrictions or additional taxes on homeowners has to be careful not to rouse this super-majority into political action.

But raw numbers of owners of an asset class are only one measure of political power. Since ours is a pay-to-play form of representational democracy in which wealth buys political influence via campaign contributions, philanthro-capitalism, revolving doors between political office and lucrative corporate positions, etc., wealth casts the votes that count.

I am always amused when essayists claim "the government" will do whatever benefits the government most. While this is broadly true, this ignores the reality that wealthy individuals and corporations own the processes of governance.

More accurately, we can say that government will do whatever benefits those who control the levers of power most, which is quite different than claiming that the government acts solely to further its own interests. More specifically, it furthers what those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid have set as the government's interests.

Which brings us to the interesting question, will governments ban bitcoin as a threat to their power? A great many observers claim  that yes, governments will ban bitcoin because it represents a threat to their control of the fiat currencies they issue.

But since government will do whatever most benefits those who control the levers of power, the question becomes, does bitcoin benefit those holding the levers of power? If the answer is yes, then we can predict government will not ban bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) because those with the final say will nix any proposal to ban bitcoin.

We can also predict that any restrictions that are imposed will likely be aimed at collecting capital gains taxes on gains made in cryptocurrencies rather than banning ownership.

Since the wealthy already pay the lion's share of federal income taxes (payroll taxes are of course paid by employees and employers), their over-riding interests are wealth preservation and capital appreciation, with lowering their tax burdens playing third fiddle in the grand scheme of maintaining their wealth and power.

Indeed, paying taxes inoculates them to some degree from social disorder and political revolt.

I was struck by this quote from the recent Zero Hedge article A Look Inside The Secret Swiss Bunker Where The Ultra Rich Hide Their Bitcoins:

Xapo was founded by Argentinian entrepreneur and current CEO Wences Casares, whom Quartz describes as "patient zero" of bitcoin among Silicon Valley’s elite. Cesares reportedly gave Bill Gates and Reed Hoffman their first bitcoins.

Their first bitcoins. That suggests the billionaires have added to their initial gifts of BTC.

The appeal to the wealthy is obvious: any investment denominated in fiat currencies can be devalued overnight by devaluations of the currency via diktat or currency crisis. Bitcoin has the advantage of being decentralized and independent of centrally-issued currencies.

I submit that not only are the wealthy the likeliest buyers of bitcoin for this reason, they are the only group that can afford to buy a bunch of bitcoin as a hedge or speculative investment. Lance Roberts of Real Investment Advice recently produced some charts based on the Federal Reserve's 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) report-- Fed Admits The Failure Of Prosperity For The Bottom 90%.

Put another way: how many families can afford to buy a bunch of bitcoin?

Here is a chart of median value of family financial assets: note that this is far below the 2000 peak and the housing bubble of 2006-07:

Here is mean family financial assets broken out by income category: note that virtually all the gains have accrued to the top 10%, whose net worth soared from $1.5 million in 2009 to over $2.2 million in 2016, a gain of $700,000.

The Fed's 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances is a treasure trove of insights into wealth and income inequality in the U.S. Here are the highlights: Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2013 to 2016.

As you'd expect, the report starts off on a rosy note: GDP rose by 2.2% a year, unemployment declined to 5%, and the median family income rose 10% between 2013 and 2016.

Blah blah blah. Meanwhile, on page 10, it's revealed that the top 1% receives 24% of all income, and the families between 90% and 99% receive 26.5%, for a total of 50.5% of all income flowing to the top 10%.

The top 1% owns 38.6% of all wealth, and the families between 90% and 99% own 38.5%, so the top 10% owns 77% of total wealth.

On page 13, we find that the total median net worth of all families between 40% and 60% went from $57,000 to $88,000, a gain of $21,000, while the median net worth of families in the 60% to 80% bracket rose from $166,000 to $170,000, a grand total of $4,000.

Meanwhile, back in La-La Land, the median net worth of the top 10% soared by $468,000, from $1.16 million to $1.62 million.

Which family has the wherewithal to buy a bunch of bitcoin at $5,900 each as a hedge or investment, the one that gained $4,000 in net worth, the one that gained $21,000 in net worth or the one that gained $468,000?

You see the point: the likely buyers of enough bitcoin to count are the politically powerful financial elite. If any politico was foolish enough to propose banning bitcoin, a few friendly phone calls from major financial backers would be made to impress upon the politico the importance of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to the U.S. economy.

Heck, the financial backer might just suggest that all future campaign contributions to the politico will be made in bitcoin to drive the point home.

My vision of cryptocurrency, laid out in my book A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology & Creating Jobs for All, is of a truly decentralized currency that directly funds work that addresses scarcities in localized community economies. The reality of existing cryptocurrencies is that they are probably being snapped up for buy-and-hold storage by the wealthy.

Those who see governments banning ownership of bitcoin are ignoring the political power and influence of those who are buying enough bitcoin to matter.


If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Check out both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print) and Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook) For more, please visit the OTM essentials website.

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