shacklesburst:

schpeelah:

isaacsapphire:

fruityyamenrunner:

official-kircheis:

collapsedsquid:

A groundbreaking 2019 study by four economists, “Capitalists in the Twenty-First Century,” analyzed de-identified data of the complete universe of American taxpayers to determine who dominated the top 0.1 percent of earners.

The study didn’t tell us about the small number of well-known tech and shopping billionaires but instead about the more than 140,000 Americans who earn more than $1.58 million per year. The researchers found that the typical rich American is, in their words, the owner of a “regional business,” such as an “auto dealer” or a “beverage distributor.”

This shocked me. Over the past four years, in the course of doing research for a book about how insights buried in big data sets can help people make decisions, I read thousands of academic studies. It is rare that I read a sentence that changes how I view the world. This was one of them. I hadn’t thought of owning an auto dealership as a path to getting rich; I didn’t even know what a beverage distribution company was.

Who is this guy who would write this???

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 2013. His work focuses on using big-data sources to uncover previously hidden behaviors and attitudes. He is at work on a book based on his research. He is a former quantitative analyst at Google.

So much for ivy league education, economics doctorate programs, big data, google, and I guess literacy

I didn’t even know what a beverage distribution company was.

Imagine admitting to this level of lack of… vocabulary? as a Harvard PhD in the national newspaper of record. Lmao.

when you get to that level, and even when you just aspire to get to it, publically admitting with your cock out that You Didn’t Even Know What X Was is not a statement about a deficiency in yourself, but a deficiency in X. if X was worthy surely you would have heard about it by now?

If you paid attention and read the label on your fucking Coca-cola you’d know, FFS! If you were even mildly awake and ever worked anywhere that sold soda? If you read the back of the Pepsi truck in the convenience store parking lot or in traffic?! If you ever drove through an industrial area and read the sign with a soda company logo you recognized?! Like, how fucking oblivious do you have to be to not know what a beverage distribution company is?!

I will freely admit I immediately assumed “beverage distribution company“ is what Americans call an alcohol shop. It’s a really generic term!

What do you refer with the labels, do Coca-Cola bottles labels have like “Denver Brewage Distributor Inc.” on them?

we are all aware that this guy didn’t literally not know what a beverage distribution company is, he’s just lying *cough* taking artistic freedoms *cough* for emphasis, right?

I… one of my father’s associates was a beer distributor. Local elite, of course he was. Under the 21st Amendment and post-Prohibition doctrine states have significant latitude in alcohol regulation and – like car dealerships! – they’ve significantly used that to empower a local elite with regional monopolies (which is why alcohol distributors are part of suburban growth machines, because more population = more sales and consumption, ultimately through you.

So I have a sense of that, and if you had hospitality industry management experience I could see where you’d get a sense of that, but honestly I’m baffled where you’d expect the average person – who is not even a significant drinker! – to even be aware of them from. The distributor name written on the door of the big Budweiser-branded beer truck unloading kegs at the bar at noon?