Economic and Financial Ignorance
8th September 2026
The level of economic and financial ignorance on display from so many people in the debates over “wealth taxes,” “redistribution” of wealth, and taxes in general boggles my mind.
I see way too many opinions and comments premised on, or stating explicitly, the idea that the wealth of wealthy people is just sitting in vaults or in idle brokerage accounts, not circulating in the economy, and thus not benefiting others in society. From this premise the argument is that such wealth would circulate more in the economy to the benefit of all if it were taken from the “wealthy” people who “hoard” it and redistributed to others who are not “wealthy.”
I am [now] an investor. For several decades I was a salaried employee at large corporations. Thanks to careful expense control and other money management by Mrs. Tabby, we accumulated sufficient “wealth” that most people (including most Americans) would call us “wealthy.”
As an investor, I see on my statements and the dashboard at my broker’s that our money isn’t just sitting idly in a MorganStanley warehouse. Our money (in our case mostly pooled with money from other investors with similar goals as ours) is invested in or loaned to companies so those companies can develop, to make, and to distribute the goods and services people want and value.