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Comment by rb808 | Hacker News Reader

To be clear this article isn't whether globalization is good or bad but about how it affects "American workers". Its pretty clear it has been on average very good for America and the world, but bad for say factory workers or coal miners. The response should have been to tax the wider benefits and subsidize the people who lost out, but that money got lost somewhere en-route...

Most of the world is far better off in nearly every measure than 20 years ago.

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It's been fantastic for the 400 people that own more wealth then the entire country.

An extreme exaggeration that ignores the extraordinary wealth holdings of the US middle class, which is wealthier than their peers in Germany or Sweden. That is despite heavy middle class demographic change from Latin America immigration the past ~45 years, they're still wealthier than those elite nations.

The 50% to 90% bracket in the US for example holds $31-$35 trillion in household wealth. The 90% to 99% bracket holds another $39-$44 trillion. So 50-99% holds $80+ trillion.

The Forbes 400 is worth $3 trillion.

> The 50% to 90% bracket

what percentage of the u.s population fits into that bracket?

90%-50%=40%

Yes it has, that doesn't make it bad though. It has also been fantastic for 90% of the world's population.

That's a political choice we've made in the US, not an inevitable consequence of globalization.

“that money got lost somewhere”

It’s a mystery.

Wonder where it could have ended up… The oceans, perhaps. We may never know.

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