Item — HN Reader

> At what point does the distinction between wealth and income become arbitrary?

I think risk is the difference. Someone invested (esp. heavily in one name) who borrows against that holding to finance consumption is basically adding leverage to their position, increasing their risk in order to continue growing their investment. Since growth is a social good, that's incentivized. It becomes income when you take your chips off the table i.e. making that capital entirely private instead of investing alongside others.

The risk is less apparently in TFA since it, you know, focuses on 25 of the absolute wealthiest people in the world, any one of whom can finance any sort of consumption short of becoming a nation-state without impacting their position, borrowing or selling.

Whether _wealth_ inequality is so undesirable that it should be ameliorated even at the expense of growth is a policy conversation worth having, but equating change in wealth to income and arguing _income_ inequality doesn't really hold water, esp. for wealth primarily invested in public names

To clarify the intent of my original content, I'm referring to wealth vs income with regards to the obscenely wealthy. As you've pointed out, risk is generally very low for billionaires. The ELOCs that they utilize for credit have very generous terms as the sheer amount of assets all but guarantee that the debt can be serviced.

What I'm trying to get at is that while the distinction of wealth and income is very palpable for wage earners such as myself, it is less so for billionaires. Throughout my life my wealth will consist mostly of my primary residence and retirement portfolio. I can't really use that for my day to day consumption. But if a billionaire can get an ELOC against a portion of their stock portfolio and use it to purchase yachts, cars and whatever tickles their fancy then their wealth enables behaviour that renders the lack of liquidity irrelevant.