IRS Data Shows 3 Million Business Owners Drive Half of US Wealth Gap

IRS数据显示：300万企业主推高美国半数贫富差距 自20世纪80年代以来，美国顶层收入不平等加剧有半数以上源于活跃的区域企业主利用穿透税制漏洞，而非被动食利者或科技亿万富翁。 经济学家Owen Zidar和Eric Zwick通过成功关联数十年间互不相通的IRS企业申报与个人纳税申报数据发现，20世纪80年代以来美国前1%顶层收入不平等的加剧，有一半以上是由活跃的穿透实体企业主推动的，而非科技大亨或被动食利者。这些广泛存在的巨额财富集中于看似平凡却利润极高的区域性行业（如汽车经销店、啤酒分销商、商业承包以及专科医疗和牙科诊所），并往往受到法定垄断、州特许经营法和获取大量劳动剩余的保护。在围绕“小企业”的浪漫化政治说辞掩护下，借助S公司利润分配与第199A条扣除等激进的税收套利手段，这一根深蒂固的区域千万富豪阶层在悄然左右地方和国家政治的同时，也将相对税负转嫁给了领取W-2薪资的普通工薪族。 不同于公众对沿海科技亿万富翁的聚焦，美国财富高度集中在约300万名平均净资产达2500万美元的非上市私营企业主群体中；全美每出现1位上市公司CEO，对应就有约1000名坐拥数千万美元财富的区域私营老板。 (4:45) 自1986年里根税改大幅下调个人所得税率后，穿透实体（Pass-Through Entities）爆炸式扩张，并在1980年代至2021年全美前1%人群收入不平等扩大的增量中贡献了超过一半的份额。 (14:04) 州级监管壁垒与特许保护构筑了强大的区域垄断护城河，例如禁酒令废除后的三级酒类分销法以及汽车经销商特许权法，让中间商和分销商获得了极高的抗竞争暴利。 (23:45) 研究直接挑战了托马斯·皮凯蒂关于富豪多为依靠金融资产获利的“被动食利者”论断，证实当代美国顶级富豪绝大多数是亲自下场、深度参与日常经营并持有单一实体企业的“活跃业主”。 (28:30) 医疗与牙科诊所是产生丰厚穿透利润的典型代表，全美牙医的年度总营收甚至超过了NFL、NBA与MLB三大职业体育联盟的总和，且专业人士普遍借助S公司结构规避自雇税与医保附加税。 (35:30)

Drawing on linked administrative IRS tax records, economists Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick demonstrate that American wealth is heavily anchored in an overlooked class of regional owner-operators who utilize pass-through business structures to amass multi-million-dollar fortunes. Uncovering Regional Wealth in Siloed IRS Data (6:05) In 2014, the US Treasury Department commissioned Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick to address an institutional blind spot: the government lacked a systematic method to link private business tax returns (such as Form 1120-S and Form 1065) to the personal returns of their owners (Form 1040 via Schedule K-1). Reconstructing this tax architecture required sorting through raw XML files and traveling to Utah to consult with an original IRS software architect who decoded the legacy schema over an informal lunch. Connecting these disparate databases revealed that the American millionaire class is far wider than high-profile Silicon Valley founders and Wall Street executives. Zidar and Zwick found that for every public company chief executive officer, there are roughly one thousand private business owners holding around $25 million in wealth, predominantly operating mid-market regional enterprises across the United States. Tax Codes and the Pass-Through Explosion (12:35) Following the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which lowered individual tax rates below corporate rates, businesses shifted en masse from standard C-corporations to pass-through entities such as S-corporations, partnerships, and LLCs. By avoiding double taxation at the entity level, pass-through structures grew to generate roughly half of domestic corporate profits. Zidar and Zwick's analysis indicates that 70% of pass-through income flows to the top 1% of earners, accounting for more than half of the growth in top-percentile income inequality between the 1980s and 2021. Pass-through owners also benefit from substantial tax arbitrage unavailable to standard W-2 wage earners. S-corporation operators frequently bifurcate earnings into a modest "reasonable salary" and profit distributions, legally shielding the distributions from payroll taxes and the uncapped Medicare surtax. Furthermore, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act introduced the Section 199A deduction, lowering effective top pass-through rates below 30%, while state-level Pass-Through Entity Taxes (PTET) allow business owners to circumvent the federal $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions. Regulatory Moats Behind Main Street Fortunes (23:45) Rather than relying on technological breakthroughs, many prominent regional fortunes depend on state-level franchise protections and statutory moats. Auto dealerships, for instance, benefit from mid-century franchise statutes that grant localized geographic monopolies and block automakers from selling directly to consumers or cutting redundant dealer networks. Rather than relying solely on vehicle markups, dealers generate substantial profits through statutory warranty reimbursements, parts and repair services, and captive financing markups. Similar protected dynamics govern beverage distributors, who operate under the post-Prohibition three-tier system mandating independent intermediaries between alcohol producers and retailers. Highly lucrative pass-through wealth also clusters in medical and dental practices: physicians' offices rank first and dental offices rank 21st in Bureau of Economic Analysis four-digit pass-through profits. When aggregated across the country, total annual dental practice revenues exceed the combined revenues of the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball. Active Ownership, Surplus Capture, and Private Equity (53:35) Contrasting Thomas Piketty's portrayal of passive financial rentiers, Zidar and Zwick characterize these proprietors as "Piketty with people"—active owner-operators whose wealth is concentrated in single, privately run enterprises. Examining business surplus reveals that while average value added per worker expanded by $18,000 between 2001 and recent years, firm owners captured $15,000 of that gain, leaving workers with $3,000 and raising the owners' surplus share to approximately 50%. As retiring Baby Boomer and Silent Generation founders face succession voids, institutional capital is systematically consolidating these niche enterprises. Private equity roll-ups and MBA-led search funds are targeting unsexy, highly profitable service businesses—such as HVAC contractors, plumbing services, and specialized healthcare clinics—buying out founders and scaling regional operations through debt-financed acquisitions. The entrenchment of pass-through tax shelters is sustained by political messaging that equates all pass-throughs with fragile mom-and-pop shops, reinforced by the fact that roughly 25% of federal lawmakers own pass-through entities themselves. Although Treasury data indicates that 80% of pass-through earnings flow to large private companies rather than small businesses, proposals to cap preferential deductions at thresholds like $400,000 or $1 million face persistent legislative resistance, leaving salaried W-2 workers to carry a disproportionate share of the tax burden.

普林斯顿大学的 Owen Zidar 与芝加哥大学的 Eric Zwick 基于美国财政部税收联动微观数据指出，美国极高财富与不平等扩大的核心驱动力并非仅是硅谷科技巨头或华尔街高管，而是数以百万计经营穿透实体的区域私营企业主；这批活跃所有者依托制度护城河与税收套利结构，在“小微企业”政治修辞的遮蔽下攫取了巨额财富。 穿透实体：财富集中与不平等的隐形引擎 (12:35) 研究显示，美国财富不平等的激增在很大程度上由穿透实体（如 S 公司、合伙企业与有限责任公司 LLC）所主导。在 1986 年里根税改将个人所得税率降至企业所得税率之下后，企业纷纷转向免除公司层面双重税负的穿透实体。这类实体目前贡献了全美约半数的商业利润，其收入分配呈现极高集中度：每 1 美元穿透利润中，有 70 美分直接流向全美收入前 1% 的阶层。自 1980 年代至 2021 年期间，Thomas Piketty 与 Emmanuel Saez 测算的美国前 1% 收入份额扩张中，超过一半直接由穿透商业利润推动。 尽管政界通常以保护自立自强的“小微企业”为名维护穿透实体的税收优惠，但财政部实证数据表明，全美 80% 的穿透利润归属于大型、高盈利的成熟私营企业，真正的沿街夫妻店仅占该利润池的 20%。 隐形富豪：区域垄断产业的惊人财富积累 (17:28) 通过将税收数据与游艇、私人飞机注册信息交叉比对，研究者揭示了美国存在一个庞大但公众罕见的区域富豪层。与依靠软件平台或金融衍生品的沿海富豪不同，这批所有者主要分布于汽车经销、饮料分销、商业承包及医疗诊所等传统行业。例如，佛罗里达州布罗克韦（Brockway）家族仅凭单一梅赛德斯-奔驰经销店的经营与出售，便能斥资约 6000 万美元在法国凡尔赛宫举办极尽奢华的私人婚礼。 类似现象普遍存在于专业医疗领域。在全美约 300 个细分行业分类中，独立医生诊所产生的穿透利润高居首位，牙科诊所名列第 21 位；全美牙医行业的总营收甚至超过了 NFL、NBA 与 MLB 三大职业体育联盟的收入总和。全美约有 300 万名此类富豪，他们并非 Piketty 理论中依靠金融复利过活的被动食利者，而是亲自把控运营、深耕本地网络的活跃所有者。 制度护城河与企业盈余分配的严重倾斜 (23:45) 区域商业帝国的超额利润往往源于战后法律构建的非竞争性壁垒。例如，各州汽车特许经销法原本旨在防范底特律汽车巨头的强权，如今却演变为区域垄断屏障，禁止整车厂设立竞争门店或直销，迫使厂商在精简网络时支付高额买断费用；经销商则通过垄断性的汽车金融贷款利差、法定高保额延保及售后维修赚取高额附加利润。废除禁酒令后设立的酒类“三层分销体系”同样锁定了批发商的法定中介地位，催生出控制区域物流网络的超级分销寡头。 在此类缺乏直接竞争的市场中，企业价值增长的分配极度向资方倾斜。数据显示，过去 25 年间穿透企业创造的新增盈余中，约 50% 来自企业总盘子的扩大，另 50% 则来自所有者对劳动者份额的蚕食。自 2001 年以来，员工人均增加值累计提升了 1.8 万美元，而资方拿走了其中的 1.5 万美元，仅给普通员工留出 3000 美元，使所有者在企业盈余中的占比从约 35% 跃升至近 50%。 税制套利：穿透实体特权与工薪阶层税负 (40:00) 现行联邦税法在私营企业主与传统工薪阶层之间划出了巨大的税负鸿沟。以年收入相近的麻醉医师为例，受雇于医院的 W-2 雇员需全额按最高 37% 的个人边际税率缴纳所得税，承担无上限的 3% 医疗保险附加税，并受制于 1 万美元的州与地方税（SALT）联邦抵扣上限。反之，设立独立 S 公司的医生可将收入拆解为名义上的“合理薪酬”与利润分配，后者完全豁免缴纳工资税与医保税；同时还可利用州级穿透实体税（PTET）通道无上限扣除地方税。 2017 年《减税与就业法案》中的第 199A 条款进一步将合资格穿透商业利润的实际最高税率压降至 30% 以下。由于高净值专业人士常通过设立关联租赁实体规避职业限制，加之约 25% 的美国国会议员本身即拥有穿透实体，导致税法漏洞在政商利益捆绑下长期难以修补，工薪阶层实际上承担了不成比例的再分配成本。 实体企业传承与搜寻基金并购热潮 (46:12) 随着婴儿潮一代与沉默一代进入退休高峰，全美数以十万亿美元计的私人财富正面临代际转移，其中逾半数集中在缺乏子女接盘的实体企业中，如暖通空调（HVAC）、管道卫浴、宠物诊所及专业设备制造。这一交接真空促使私募股权基金大举推进行业整合（Roll-ups），将原本分散的区域服务商打包专业化。 与此同时，由年轻商学院毕业生主导的“搜寻基金”（Search Fund）迅速壮大。发起人通过筹集天使资金并在全美筛选利润稳定但未达机构规模的实体，利用 40%–50% 的常规银行债务完成小型杠杆收购。尽管大多数搜寻案例因难以完成并购而导致收益率中位数为负，但成功运营并规模化扩张的项目回报可观，推动该资产类别的平均年化回报率维持在 20% 左右。 Zidar 与 Zwick 论证了美国极高财富结构的真正底色在于庞大的区域穿透实体所有者阶层，但税收改革受限于公众对“扶助小微企业”的情感执念与议员自身的利益冲突。尽管研究者建议通过设立硬性收入门槛（如 40 万或 100 万美元上限）来精准阻断富豪的穿透避税路径，但在既得利益集团的阻挠下，消除穿透实体与 W-2 工薪阶层之间的税负不平等仍面临巨大的政治阻力。

## Background 本期节目由彭博社（Bloomberg）旗下的《Odd Lots》播客于2026年9月18日发布，主持人为 Tracy Alloway 和 Joe Weisenthal。节目围绕经济学家欧文·齐达尔（Owen Zidar）与埃里克·茨威克（Eric Zwick）的新书《到处都是百万富翁》（The Everywhere Millionaire）展开，通过解密美国财政部核心税务数据，揭示全美约300万名平均财富达2500万美元、借助“穿透实体”等税制漏洞隐匿在公共视野之外的“主街富豪”阶层。 ## TL;DR 通过穿透美国国税局底层的庞杂税表数据，经济学家发现支撑美国财富不平等急剧扩张的核心力量并非仅仅是福布斯榜单上的科技巨头，而是数百万名掌握啤酒分销、汽车经销、重型承包与牙医诊所等传统实业的私营企业主。自1986年里根税改以来，穿透实体（Pass-Through Entities）的爆发让这一群体得以规避双重征税，并将70%的工商业增量利润输送给最富有的1%人群。这些企业主凭借区域特许权、行业壁垒与政治游说构筑了深厚的财富护城河，并借助“小企业”的道德光环在税改博弈中长期享有政策庇护。 ## Atmosphere & style 整期对话充满智性趣味与深度讽刺，两位主持人默契风趣的接梗与学者严谨扎实的数据考证形成了绝佳平衡。从调侃犹如特工探访“先知”般在犹他州小馆破解国税局代码，到戏谑汽车经销商耗资六千万美元的凡尔赛宫世纪婚礼，现场笑声不断却刀刀见血地刺中体制痛点。听感上既像是一场兼具学术底色与人间烟火气的商业侦探故事，又带着工薪阶层面对税制失衡时幽默自嘲的现实无奈。 ## Bulletin - `05:00` 全美约有300万名未上市私营企业主，平均财富达2500万美元；自1980年代以来，全美前1%人群收入份额的激增中，超过一半由穿透实体企业利润贡献。 - `13:00` 全美穿透实体商业利润的70%直接流向收入前1%的阶层，然而美国财政部数据显示真正符合传统定义的“小微企业”仅占此类收入的约20%。 - `35:00` 传统接地气行业吸金能力惊人：全美牙医产业年营收总和已超越NFL、NBA、MLB等核心职业体育联盟的收入总和，医生诊所更是高居穿透实体利润榜首位。 - `53:50` 分配失衡加剧：过去25年间穿透实体拉动了超60%的美国商业增量，但以样本企业人均创造价值增量18,000美元为例，所有者独占了15,000美元，一线员工仅分得3,000美元。 ## Key takeaways - `00:00` 公众对财富不平等的认知长期局限于0.1%的科技巨头与华尔街富豪，忽视了数量达300万、平均净资产约2500万美元的本土私营企业主阶层。 - `13:00` 1986年里根税改大幅压低个人所得税，使得不对实体征税、利润直达个人的穿透实体迎来爆发，成为过去数十年美国贫富差距扩大的核心推手。 - `15:00` 主街富豪多诞生于低调接地气的传统红海赛道，如啤酒分销商、工程承包商、连锁牙医诊所和汽车经销商，而非硅谷式颠覆性初创公司。 - `23:08` 汽车经销商凭借州级特许经营法律壁垒筑起区域垄断，利润重心在于原厂售后保修工时费、汽车金融贷款以及高毛利衍生服务，而非新车销售差价。 - `26:10` 美国啤酒分销行业得益于禁酒令废除后设立的“三级分销体系”，法令演变使得独立批发商成为法定必经通道，形成了坐收通道费的隐形暴利帝国。 - `28:16` 与皮凯蒂理论中被动坐收利息与地租的食利阶层不同，美国前1%财富中坚大多是深度参与日常运营的实体企业主，其核心资产是本地关系网、行业经验与特许合同。 - `31:52` 草根创业者往往具有亲力亲为、扁平管理和拒绝世俗爱好的特质，财富积累周期极其漫长，长期将净利润完全再投资于底层实体业务。 - `40:00` 高收入专业技术人士通过设立S公司将执业所得包装为企业利润，合法规避无上限的联邦医疗保险附加税和薪资税，税负显著低于普通受薪雇员。 - `43:24` 政坛对“小微企业”的情感道德包装成为税改盲区，国会民选官员中约四分之一自身拥有穿透实体，导致堵塞穿透税制漏洞在政治上面临极大阻力。 - `47:11` 伴随婴儿潮一代企业主退休，搜寻基金与私募股权大举涌入暖通空调、宠物诊所等传统行业，通过微型杠杆收购进行区域零散业务整合。 - `53:50` 医疗等专业服务领域的超额利润主要源于人为设置的高准入门槛（如执照限额压低医生供给），形成的经济租金几乎全额被顶层所有者截留。 - `01:03:42` 在缺乏税务筹划工具与抵扣渠道的制度现实下，拿固定工资填报W-2表格的企业工薪阶层实际上承担了最直接、最完整的税负转嫁。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 穿透实体与“小企业”神话背后的隐形富豪阶层 播客一开场，主持人 Tracy Alloway 与 Joe Weisenthal 就抛出了一个极具吸引力却往往被公众忽视的议题：穿透实体（Pass-through entities，如 S 公司与合伙企业）以及美国税法的深层结构。Joe 回忆起 2017 年底美国国会通过《减税与就业法案》（TCJA）时的激烈游说，威斯康星州参议员罗恩·约翰逊（Ron Johnson）当时极力阻挠，甚至以投反对票相要挟，要求必须保留对“穿透实体”的税收优惠。在传统舆论认知中，大众谈论富人减税时，脑海中浮现的通常是杰夫·贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）等超级科技富豪只缴纳接近零税率的个税；然而自 1980 年代里根税改以来，以及在特朗普任内的税制改革中，大量税收减免实际上流向了穿透实体。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 传统认知与美国财富现实的结构对比 accDescr: 对比公众对富人阶层的刻板印象与实际广泛存在的穿透实体中小企业主富豪层 subgraph PopularPerception["公众对财富分配的普遍认知"] direction TB A1["极少数科技巨头 / 福布斯400强<br/>（如 Jeff Bezos，0.1% 顶级富豪）"] A2["广大工薪阶层与经济困境群体<br/>（贫富差距两极化叙事）"] A1 -.->|"中间层被简化或忽略"| A2 end subgraph ActualReality["现实中庞大的隐形富豪层"] direction TB B1["超级富豪（科技创始人 / 华尔街巨擘）"] B2["穿透实体企业主（全美约 300 万人）<br/>平均净资产达 2500 万美元<br/>拥有牛排馆专属酒柜、主导地方政治"] B3["工薪中产与普通工人群体"] B1 --- B2 --- B3 end ``` 这种现象之所以能被长期广泛接受，核心在于美国政治话语对“小企业”（Small Business）的浪漫化包装。托克维尔当年将美国观察为一个由无数充满活力的创业者组成的国度，如今“小企业”这个标签在公众心理和政治修辞上依然自带天然的道德光环。但正如 Tracy 指出的，许多被冠以“小企业”之名的实体，实际上规模惊人、利润极度丰厚，其持有者更是一群极其富有的美国人。 ### `05:00` 隐匿的“常态百万富翁”与美国政治的“暗物质” Joe 和 Tracy 深入探讨了美国财富分布的真实切片。大众普遍认为美国除了顶级 1% 或 0.1% 的亿万富豪，剩下的就是深陷财务焦虑的普通大众。然而现实中存在着一层极其厚实的“超级富豪层”（fat layer of really rich people）：他们不在福布斯 400 强榜单上，没有发明划时代的技术，也不是聚光灯下的硅谷新贵，但他们在高端牛排馆里拥有自己的专属私人酒柜。这群人往往是地区性私营企业的所有者，例如区域饮料分销商、暖通空调（HVAC）连锁企业、大型承包商或汽车经销商，而近年来大行其道的私募股权（Private Equity）和私人信贷，底层收购的大量标的正是这类企业。这批地方商业巨头堪称美国地方政治的“暗物质”，对国会参议员和各州政策制定拥有巨大的隐形影响力。 随后，本期嘉宾——普林斯顿大学经济学教授欧文·齐达尔（Owen Zidar）与芝加哥大学布斯商学院金融学教授埃里克·茨维克（Eric Zwick）受邀登场。两位学者的新书《到处都是百万富翁：谁是美国真正的富人以及他们如何致富》（*The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There*）刚刚出版。Joe 形容这本书宛如高配版的斯塔兹·特克尔（Studs Terkel）口述史，通过翔实的数据与鲜活的故事还原了美国本土富人的真实面貌。 - **隐形富豪规模**：全美有大约 300 万名私营企业主，其平均财富高达约 2500 万美元。 - **产业横跨传统领域**：其商业形态并非高科技初创企业，而是牙医诊所网络、地区分销商、汽车销售集团、管道暖通等接地气的行业。 - **政治与资本交织**：作为地方经济支柱，他们既是私募股权基金打包整合的目标，也是区域政治选举的核心资助者与游说主力。 ### `06:50` 财政部地窖里的数据噩梦：解密美国税收底层系统 访谈切入两位作者这项研究的奇特起源。大约在十年前（2014 年前后），美国财政部委托 Zidar 和 Zwick 进入财政部的地下核心数据库，面对浩瀚且混乱的美国国税局（IRS）纳税申报表。当时美国政府面临一个极度棘手的技术瓶颈：财政部想要测算税改对穿透实体的影响，却根本无法将私营企业本身的纳税申报单与其最终所有者、合伙人及员工精准匹配起来，因为政府内部的各个数据库从未被打通。这一开创性的研究项目，最初就建立在梳理这堆庞杂、未结构化的税务“原罪”数据之上。 Zwick 和 Zidar 解释道，国税局的底层数据包含了税表上的所有细节，但各个表单在系统设计上根本不是为了互相关联而构建的。企业的所得税申报表与向投资人/合伙人分配利润的 K-1 表格分属不同的独立数据库，许多企业甚至依然采用纸质报税而非电子申报。更为致命的是，不同历史时期的代码手册（code books）中，同一个变量的命名和识别码（identifiers）经常出现变化；一个企业表单上所列的总利润，在逻辑上理应等于所有投资者分配表单的总和，但在实际数据库中却因为识别码与定义不一致而完全对不上账。Zwick 正准备向大家讲述一段极具戏剧性的往事：他当年曾专门飞往犹他州立大学，去寻找一位曾经亲手构建了这套国税局原始数据库系统、深谙其内部运作秘密的元老级程序员…… ### `10:00` 犹他州的汉堡与啤酒：解密国税局 XML 数据库的“神谕” 在研究刚起步的2014至2015年间，埃里克·茨威克（Eric Zwick）和欧文·齐达尔（Owen Zidar）面临着巨大的技术瓶颈：美国国税局（IRS）的数据虽然庞大，但缺乏任何用户手册或技术文档。当时公众通过电子报税提交的税表，会经由一套底层的 XML 系统被解析、转换成按行列排列的原始数据库。巧合的是，这套 XML 系统的核心设计架构师就住在犹他州，恰好位于茨威克从机场前往一次学术演讲的必经之路上。茨威克于是提出顺道拜访并当面请教。 主持人和学者们打趣道，大家脑海里想象的画面就像电影《黑客帝国》（The Matrix）里主角去拜见无所不知的“先知”（The Oracle）——或者是那种隐居世外、有人敲门就警惕质问“你来干什么”的怪人程序员。但现实中，这位架构师非常随和，穿着犹他州标志性的法兰绒衬衫。两人找了一家餐厅吃汉堡、喝啤酒，茨威克掏出了一份写满25个技术细节的清单。为了将数百万份企业税表与其背后具体个人的税表精确匹配，研究团队必须对数据库中的列进行重新排列与关联，而此前根本没人知道这些数据列的具体定义。在没有 AI 工具（如 Claude）可以读取代码与手册的年代，这些关键知识全凭口口相传和人际拜访才得以拼凑完整。 - **时代背景**：2014—2015年前后，大语言模型尚未问世，税收系统没有公开文档，数据架构完全封存在少数核心系统开发者的记忆中。 - **技术挑战**：需要破解国税局底层 XML 转置规则，重构数据列逻辑，从而将穿透实体企业税表与其实际拥有者的个人 1040 税表完成交叉链接。 --- ### `11:45` 经济学研究的核心：寻找新颖数据集与“街头富豪”的隐形冰山 播客主持人提出一个有趣的行业观察：在大量的美国国家经济研究局（NBER）工作论文中，经常能看到“我们利用了一个新颖的数据集”（we exploit a novel data set）这句话，究竟发掘新数据在现代经济学研究中占据多大分量？齐达尔和茨威克坦言，找到新数据至关重要。哈佛大学著名经济学家安德烈·施莱弗（Andrei Shleifer）给本科生布置论文作业时，核心要求就是“给我找一个酷炫的数据集，让我看到以前没见过的东西”。 但拥有数据只是第一步，提出关键问题才是破局的核心。长久以来，经济学界对财富分配的理解往往局限于上市公司的高管薪酬或福布斯富豪榜；然而真实的数据揭示出，每存在一个大型上市公司的 CEO，背后就有上千名净资产达到 2500 万美元的未上市私营企业主。这些群体过去一直隐匿在公共视野之外，唯有穿透国税局的底层纳税数据，学者们才能第一次完整追踪这些隐形富豪的资金来源、行业分布以及他们的致富轨迹。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 富豪群体的可见与不可见冰山结构 accDescr: 展现上市公司高管与未上市穿透企业主在财富研究中的对比分布 subgraph Visible ["公共视野可见部分（传统研究）"] A["大型上市公司 CEO 与高管"] B["公开市场股票期权与薪酬披露"] end subgraph Hidden ["国税局税表揭示的隐形冰山（本研究）"] C["约 300 万私营未上市企业主"] D["平均净资产约 2500 万美元"] E["涵盖区域承包商、分销商、专业诊所等"] end A -.->|"比例仅为 1: 1000"| C Visible --- Hidden ``` --- ### `13:00` 穿透实体（Pass-Through）与不平等的根源：1986年税改的隐秘遗产 为了厘清这一阶层的财富机制，嘉宾详细拆解了“穿透实体”（Pass-Through Business）的概念。与通用汽车（GM）这种传统的 C 类股份有限公司（C Corporation）不同，C 类公司面临“双重征税”：企业自身盈利需缴纳企业所得税，利润以股息形式分给个人股东时，股东还需再缴纳个人资本利得或股息税。而合伙企业（Partnerships）、S 类公司（S Corporations）和独资企业等穿透实体在税法上不对企业实体征税，企业利润或亏损直接“穿透”流入所有者的个人纳税申报单。 在20世纪80年代以前，美国经济的大多数利润与商业活动都集中在传统的 C 类公司。转折点发生在1986年罗纳德·里根总统推行税制改革，大幅削减个人所得税率，使其甚至低于企业所得税率。这一制度套利空间引发了企业组织形式的滔天巨浪，穿透实体自此迎来爆发式增长。时至今日，穿透企业已占据全美企业数量的绝大多数，贡献了整个工商业约一半的净利润。更震撼的发现是，穿透实体利润的集中度极高：穿透企业每赚取1美元利润，就有70美分直接流入最富有的1%人群手中。著名的皮凯蒂与塞斯（Piketty & Saez）关于美国收入不平等的经典图表中，从1980年代到2021年间全美前1%人群收入份额的激增，其中超过一半的增幅都直接来源于穿透企业利润，而非华尔街的被动资本收益或科技巨头的上市神话。 - **税收双轨制对比**：C 类公司承担“企业税 + 个人分红税”双重税负；穿透实体完全规避实体层面的企业税，直接计入所有者个人收入。 - **利润高度集中**：全美穿透实体商业利润的 70% 流向了收入前 1% 的群体。 - **不平等的核心驱动力**：自1980年代以来，全美前 1% 人口收入占比的扩张，超过 50% 是由穿透实体收入的迅猛增长贡献的。 --- ### `15:00` 发财的“ABC”启蒙童书：啤酒分销商、承包商与牙医 研究发现打破了公众对“顶级富豪等于垄断大亨或华尔街食利者”的刻板印象。这些赚取巨额利润的穿透企业主并不是躺着数钱的被动投资者，而是遍布美国各地的中型区域性实业所有者。 由于两人家里都有年幼的孩子（齐达尔有三个孩子，茨威克有一个），他们在陪伴孩子阅读儿童识字绘本时，萌生了一个既幽默又反映经济学实证结果的想法——写一本给孩子的《致富 ABC》（ABCs of Getting Rich）启蒙书。现实中支撑起美国千万级富豪阶层的，并不是天马行空的创业点子，而是这些听上去平平无奇的实体赛道： - **B** 代表 **Beverage distribution business owner**（饮料与啤酒区域分销商）； - **C** 代表 **Contractor**（重型设备与建筑承包商）； - **D** 代表 **Dental practice owner**（连锁牙医诊所所有者）。 播客主持人笑称自己的儿子从小就对金钱极度痴迷、成天琢磨怎么赚钱，如果真出版了这本童书绝对会成为忠实读者；主持人还插话调侃道，字母 **P** 应该留给“播客主”（Podcaster）。 --- ### `17:45` 汽车经销商的财富神话：耗资6000万美元的“世纪婚礼” 在各行各业的“主街富豪”中，汽车经销商（Car Dealerships）是最具代表性的造富机器。大众通常认为卖车是一项琐碎、低利润率的传统服务，却忽视了它在美国特许经营法保护下形成的惊人暴利与现金流壁垒。新书的开篇便记录了一场曾轰动全网、被称为“世纪婚礼”的真实奢华盛宴。 这场婚礼的主角是来自佛罗里达州科勒尔盖布尔斯（Coral Gables）的鲍勃与葆拉·布罗克韦（Bob and Paula Brockway）家族。作为佛州第三代梅赛德斯-奔驰（Mercedes-Benz）特许经销商，他们将女儿送往犹他州顶奢度假村安缦吉瑞（Amangiri）举办以“玛丽·安托瓦内特王后”为主题的四天单身派对；随后包下数架私人飞机，将所有宾客飞往法国巴黎，展开长达五天的奢华狂欢。布罗克韦家族不仅直接租下了凡尔赛宫用于举办晚宴，还在埃菲尔铁塔的灯光映衬下，邀请魔力红乐队主唱亚当·莱文（Adam Levine）现场为新人的第一支舞伴唱。 整场婚礼的总开销高达约 6000 万美元。这笔开销的底气来自于他们不久前将旗下的奔驰经销店以数亿美元的价格出售，买方财团中甚至包括传奇美式橄榄球教练尼克·塞班（Nick Saban）。令人震撼的是，即便挥霍 6000 万美元办婚礼，布罗克韦家族在全美各大汽车经销商巨头榜单中依然远远排不进前列。这个极其写实的案例直观证明：美国真正的财富深潭绝不仅属于硅谷科技独角兽或华尔街对冲基金经理，而是隐匿在千千万万个看似寻常的本土特许经销王国之中。 ### `20:00` 游艇、私人飞机与汽车经销商的造富神话 研究团队在分析税务数据时遇到了一个棘手的现实问题：官方税务记录为了保护隐私隐去了所有个人姓名，他们只能看到行业大类和令人咋舌的利润数字，却无法得知这群隐形富豪的真实面貌。为了给新书挖掘生动的人物故事，作者们另辟蹊径，将目光投向了游艇与私人飞机的官方注册数据库。这一查才发现，私人飞机和豪华游艇的登记名录里密密麻麻全都是汽车经销商和分包商的名字。通过这种顺藤摸瓜的方式，他们终于得以把匿名的纳税代码与现实中鲜活的名字、发家史和商业帝国对应起来。 针对汽车经销商为何能在现代经济中攫取如此惊人的财富，嘉宾用犹他州汽车巨头拉里·米勒（Larry H. Miller）的传奇生涯给出了第一层解释。米勒最早只是丰田汽车零部件部门的一名普通员工，但他凭借对每一件零件型号与规格的了如指掌，展现出堪比阿尔迪（Aldi）创始人的极致专注与勤劳。在他的经营下，原本在全美排名第961位的边缘丰田配件部一路狂飙升至全美第一。在积累了无与伦比的行业口碑与客户信任后，米勒抓住机遇接盘了一家濒临破产的经销商，随后滚雪球般扩张到40多家门店，并最终买下了NBA犹他爵士队（Utah Jazz）。米勒的成功代表了实体商业中"慢工出细活"的积极典范——与硅谷崇尚的"快速行动，破旧立新"（move fast and break things）截然不同，主街富豪的崛起往往遵循"放慢脚步，精细打磨"（move slow and make things），依靠数十年如一日的勤勉与信誉沉淀。 - **寻找富豪的独特路径**：由于美国国税局数据严格匿名，作者通过查阅全美游艇与私人飞机注册信息，成功锁定了这群低调隐秘的私营企业主。 - **拉里·米勒的逆袭样本**：从丰田配件部基层员工做到全美第一，再通过滚动并购建立起横跨40余家门店的汽车零售帝国，并收购犹他爵士队。 - **商业哲学对比**：硅谷依靠轻资产与快速迭代颠覆行业，而主街富豪依靠漫长时间沉淀的人际网络、供应链理解与扎实服务。 --- ### `23:08` 区域垄断与法规俘获：汽车经销店的暴利护城河 然而，汽车经销商致富的故事绝非只有个人奋斗，其背后更深层的推手是严重的法规俘获与区域特许保护。历史上，各州为了保护弱小的本地分销商不被福特或通用等底特律制造巨头强行压库剥削，出台了大量特许经营保护法案。但随着时间推移，这些原本旨在"保护小人物"的法规演变成了坚不可摧的法律特权。在2008年金融危机汽车业重组期间，这一矛盾暴露无遗：克莱斯勒在全美拥有的经销商数量是丰田的三倍之多，但两者的汽车总销量却相差无几。通用和克莱斯勒之所以无法精简过剩网络，是因为法律规定车企若想关闭门店，必须支付长达三年的高额租金补偿及巨额违约金。 更关键的是，这些法规在地理区域内赋予了经销商事实上的局部垄断权——汽车制造商被严禁在现有经销商的一定地理半径内开设新店，也不得向消费者直销。汽车经销商真正的利润源泉从来不是新车本身的进销差价，而是牢牢掌握在自己手中的独家售后管道： 1. **原厂保修与维修**：厂商向经销商支付高于自由市场竞争水平的保修工时费； 2. **店内汽车金融与贷款**：消费者在购车现场极少会专门跑去独立银行比价，经销商凭借先发渠道优势打包销售车贷与金融方案，从中抽取极高的利息佣金； 3. **高利润增值服务**：延保合同、防锈镀膜与配件改装等后市场服务，贡献了门店绝大部分的净利润。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 汽车经销商区域垄断与利润结构 accDescr: 汽车制造商受法律限制无法绕过经销商直销，经销商借地理垄断和售后金融业务获取超额利润。 subgraph Regulation["法律与特许保护"] A["州立特许经营法<br/>（禁止厂商直销/设排他距离）"] B["高昂解约门槛<br/>（关闭门店需赔付3年租金）"] end subgraph Monopoly["排他性区域管道"] C["汽车制造商<br/>（Ford / GM / Chrysler）"] -->|唯一法定销售通道| D["本地特许汽车经销商"] end subgraph ProfitCenter["超额利润来源"] D --> E["新车销售<br/>（低毛利/薄利引流）"] D --> F["原厂保修与维修<br/>（高溢价工时费返还）"] D --> G["汽车金融与车贷<br/>（先发优势绑定利息提成）"] D --> H["延保与增值服务<br/>（极高毛利率附加产品）"] end Regulation --> Monopoly ``` --- ### `26:10` 啤酒分销商的隐秘帝国：禁酒令遗产与三级分销 除了汽车经销，书中揭示的另一个典型暴利领域是美国的啤酒分销业。在日常生活中，人们常常在街道上看到印有百威（Budweiser）标志的送货卡车，但这些卡车乃至整个配送网络根本不属于百威母公司安海斯-布希，而是归属于雷耶斯（Reyes）等实力雄厚的分销巨头。这一格局起源于禁酒令废除后的历史法规：为了防止大型酿酒巨头垄断从生产到终端零售的全链条并控制市场供应，各州确立了严格的"三级分销体系"（酿酒厂—批发分销商—酒吧/超市等零售商）。 讽刺的是，这一原本为了制衡酒厂寡头、保护中间层小企业的制度，在几十年间催生出了一批权势熏天的批发商巨头。无论市场对精酿啤酒还是工业啤酒的需求如何攀升，所有的货品都必须经过这道法定分销"收费站"。这些坐收过路费的批发商积累了惊人的财富，不仅是私人飞机名录上的常客，更拥有强大的游说力量。嘉宾在节目中分享了一个极为生动的幕后轶事：有一次全美啤酒批发商在圣安东尼奥召开年度行业大会，当地市长甚至专门打电话给大会组织游说代表惊呼道："这太不可思议了，我在圣安东尼奥机场这辈子都没见过这么多私人飞机同时停在停机坪上！" - **虚假的企业卡车**：街头刷着各大名酒厂商标的配送车，本质上全是独立分销商的私产。 - **三级分销的异化**：规避巨头垄断的良法在执行数十年后，反向筑成了分销商不可动摇的区域行政垄断。 - **私人飞机浓度极高**：啤酒批发商的高额利润率使其在高端奢侈消费和政治游说中表现出极强的能量。 --- ### `28:16` 《带有人情味的皮凯蒂》：重写美国财富不平等的叙事 在讨论新书与托马斯·皮凯蒂（Thomas Piketty）及伊曼纽尔·赛斯（Emmanuel Saez）关于财富不平等经典理论的异同时，嘉宾幽默地将自己的著作形容为"带有人情味的皮凯蒂"（Piketty with people），并开玩笑说："我们写这本书是为了让人读得下去的，而不只是摆在书架上当藏品。"在《21世纪资本论》宏大叙事的描绘中，前1%的超级富豪往往是一群面目模糊、被动坐收资本红利、利息与地租的食利阶层，不平等加剧的核心机制被归结为纯粹金融资本的自动利滚利。 然而，通过真实的穿透式税务数据与实地访谈，作者发现现实情况大相径庭。真正构成美国前1%财富中坚的，并不是坐等分红的被动投资者，而是数百万名积极参与日常经营的私营实体企业主。他们的财富绝大部分并非分散在公开市场的股票投资组合中，而是高度集中于自己打拼出的那一家实体企业。他们的核心资产往往不是抽象的金融资本，而是： - 极其深厚的本地人脉网络； - 浸润数十年的行业排他性经验； - 受法律保护的特许合同与区域特权。 当被问及这些人是否自视为"富人"或"前1%"时，作者指出，这群人大多数对自己真实的财富水平有着非常清醒的认知。尽管社会舆论习惯于用"小微企业主"或"草根创业者"的标签来浪漫化他们，但由于其财富积累过程极其漫长、充满泥泞，他们在历经数十年跨越阶层后，深知自己已经成为了这片土地上真正掌握庞大资源的百万富翁。 ### `30:00` 卖热狗成为亿万富翁：迪克·波蒂略的白手起家之路 在讨论商业所有者财富积累的生命周期时，欧文·齐达尔（Owen Zidar）提到了《街头百万富翁》（*The Everywhere Millionaire*）一书中最令人难忘的人物之一：迪克·波蒂略（Dick Portillo）。波蒂略在芝加哥恶名昭彰的卡布里尼-格林公共住房项目区（Cabrini-Green projects）长大，最初甚至连如何做热狗都不会。他白手起家创办了一家热狗店，创业之初店里甚至没有自来水，他只能用手接水洗碗。然而，经过数十年的日积月累，他卖出了无数的热狗，最终跻身亿万富翁行列。 这个案例打破了“只有依靠市场垄断地位或高科技壁垒才能赚取巨额财富”的刻板印象。热狗快餐业是一个竞争极度激烈、几乎不存在护城河的传统红海市场，但波蒂略依然取得了惊人的财富。波蒂略到底算不算富有？他住着巨型顶层豪宅，拥有一艘取名为“顶尖热狗”（Top Dog）的豪华游艇。然而，“他觉得自己富不富有”完全取决于你在他人生哪一个阶段与他交谈。在创业初期亲手刷碗的漫长岁月中，他丝毫不觉得自己有钱；但当他最终套现离开，带着游艇出海时，他的富足已毋庸置疑——甚至在公司进行巨额首次公开募股（IPO）变现时，因为他个人的传统银行账户过于简单，根本无法直接接收数额如此巨大的支票，他只得潇洒地表示“我先上游艇走人了”。 另一位让作者印象深刻的受访者是被称为“法式咸派女士”（the quiche lady）的女性创业者。她花了整整二十年制作速冻咸派（frozen quiche）。在长达二十年的时间里，由于没有拿到大合同，她的经营状况极其风雨飘摇，账面上看起来一直在亏损，本人完全感受不到任何财富积累，直到最后终于拿下重大商业合约，生意才迎来真正的爆发。财富的积累需要跨越极其漫长且充满不确定性的人生周期。 - 迪克·波蒂略（Dick Portillo）出身芝加哥卡布里尼-格林公共住房区，白手起家创办 Portillo's 热狗连锁品牌，最终成为亿万富翁。 - 其私人游艇命名为幽默贴切的“Top Dog”。 - 传统小微企业主往往经历漫长的资金紧绷期，“速冻法式咸派”创始人耗时20年才迎来盈利爆发转折点。 --- ### `31:52` 沿海精英与街头富豪：扁平管理与全天候现场的“海军陆战队作风” 主持人和作者探讨了一个有趣的社会学视角：美国“沿海富豪”（如旧金山硅谷或纽约曼哈顿的技术与金融精英）与本土的“街头富豪”（如汽车经销商、饮料分销商老板）在日常工作状态与阶层认同上有着本质区别。像摩根大通（J.P. Morgan）首席执行官杰米·戴蒙（Jamie Dimon）这样的典型沿海精英，通常拥有极高的名校学历，身处层级森严、官僚体系庞大的跨国机构顶端，机构底层的绝大多数基层员工可能一辈子都不会与 CEO 产生任何交集。 与之形成鲜明对比的是各地的“街头富翁”。无论是在大型汽车经销商还是饮料批发站，企业掌门人与一线蓝领工人的物理距离非常近。以波蒂略为例，在扩张业务的几十年中，他的门店内甚至不设立管理层专属办公室，因为他坚持要求经理和自己必须全天候留在门店大堂和厨房一线。他将一种近乎严酷的“海军陆战队作风”带入了经营，开业现场必定亲自督阵，对所有运营细节极度执着。他拒绝外部投资人注资，名下持有所有门店的地产，极力避免负债，将赚到的每一分钱重新投入企业。即便波蒂略育有子女，但当他步入80多岁高龄时，所有人都很清楚这并不是一家常规意义上的“家族企业”，它完全属于迪克个人。这种第一代创始人特有的不知疲倦的狠劲与亲力亲为，是全美街头小巨头们的共同缩影。 --- ### `33:38` “讨厌爱好”的实业家：5美元电动牙刷与最初的“裸体画”生意 讨论中揭示了这群白手起家富豪的另一个共性：他们几乎没有也不喜欢任何世俗意义上的“业余爱好”（"They hate hobbies"）。对他们而言，创办和运营企业就是唯一的兴奋剂，闲下来反而让他们无所适从。 以约翰·奥谢尔（John Osher，常被戏称为并非医生的“约翰医生”）为例，他曾创办并成功出售过多家公司，在启动新项目前早就实现了财富自由。在佛罗里达州退休期间，他曾尝试像其他富豪一样去打高尔夫球，但很快就感到无聊至极，根本无法忍受这种闲散生活。在互联网泡沫（dot-com era）席卷全美、所有人都疯狂追逐网络概念的时代，奥谢尔却反其道而行之，创办了一家生产单价仅为 5 美元的旋转电动牙刷公司（Spinbrush），并凭借这门看似毫不起眼的传统制造生意再次套现数亿美元。 奥谢尔那种停不下来的商业天赋早在童年时期就展露无遗。他五至七岁左右时，他的父母参加了一个包含人体模特写生的成人绘画进阶班，并将画好的裸体油画藏在家中阁楼里。年幼的奥谢尔发现后，立刻将阁楼打造成了一个展厅，向所有好奇的小伙伴每人收取 5 美分（a nickel）的“门票”带他们上楼看画。嘉宾们调侃称，这门利用父母裸体写生画收门票的童年副业，恐怕是他这辈子做过的利润率最高的一笔生意。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 街头富豪的企业成长与再投资循环 accDescr: 展示以迪克·波蒂略与约翰·奥谢尔为代表的实业富豪从底层起步到资本积累的闭环流程 subgraph Phase1["初创与生存期"] A["草根起步 / 发现朴素商机<br/>(无自来水洗碗 / 5美分看画)"] B["极低杠杆与亲力亲为<br/>(无外部投资者 / 拒绝管理办公室)"] end subgraph Phase2["扩张与复利"] C["深耕高度竞争红海市场<br/>(热狗快餐 / 5美元平价牙刷)"] D["利润全额再投资<br/>(买下底层地产 / 自建供应链)"] end subgraph Phase3["财富兑现与不竭动力"] E["数亿美元级并购 / IPO变现<br/>(资产规模超出普通银行承接力)"] F["缺乏世俗消遣嗜好<br/>(厌恶高尔夫 / 退休后再次连续创业)"] end A --> B B --> C C --> D D --> E E --> F F --> C ``` --- ### `35:00` 牙医与医生的惊人吸金力：利润超越全美职业体育联盟 除了像热狗大王这样极具草根色彩的“蓝领富豪”，穿透实体收入中还有一大批高收入群体属于“白领专业人士”，其中最典型的代表便是牙医与专科医生。许多人以为普通牙医只是过着优渥的中产生活，但在美国，一旦一名牙医开始拥有并连锁经营多家牙科诊所，其财富就会呈指数级跃升。 在经济分析局（BEA）按利润排名的四位数行业分类体系（涵盖约 300 多个细分行业）中，牙医诊所高居全美穿透实体企业利润榜的第 21 位。如果将全美所有牙科诊所的总营收加总，这一数字将直接超越国家橄榄球联盟（NFL）、国家篮球协会（NBA）以及美国职业棒球大联盟（MLB）等全美所有核心职业体育联赛的收入总和。正如经济学家在书中的风趣总结：“全美每个人都长着牙齿。”不仅如此，由于牙医诊所遍布美国的每一个国会选区，他们拥有极其强大的地方政治游说能力。例如，当有提案主张将牙科常规服务纳入联邦医疗保险（Medicare）时，牙医协会就会迅速动用游说力量进行强力阻击，以避免联邦政府介入定价机制，从而守护行业高额的自主收费利润。 在作者梳理穿透实体收入的四位数行业数据库时，私人医生诊所（Doctor's Offices）更是直接高居利润总额全美第一名，其拥有的穿透实体数量极其庞大。面对主持人关于“牙医是否经常因为闲得发慌又现金充裕，而极易被忽悠去给独立电影投资 10 万美元”的半开玩笑提问，学者们认同了这一现象：这类高净值专业技术人员手中沉淀了极其庞大的流动现金流，而在主业之外他们往往缺乏多元的投资标的与商业灵感，因而往往成为各类民间高风险投资和融资项目最热衷钓取的大金主。 - 在美国经济分析局（BEA）近 300 个四位数细分行业代码中，医生诊所（Doctor's offices）在穿透实体企业利润总额中稳居第 1 名。 - 牙医诊所（Dentist offices）在穿透实体行业利润榜中排名第 21 位。 - 全美牙医产业的整体年营业额超过了 NFL、NBA、MLB 等全部北美顶级职业体育赛事的营收总和。 - 牙医与医生通过在各选区建立强有力的游说阵线，抵制将牙科服务并入 Medicare，以规避政府价格管制。 ### `40:00` S公司穿透税制如何让高收入专业人士合法避税 在医疗等专业服务领域，税法对受薪员工与企业主的差别对待表现得尤为刺眼。书中举了一个麻醉医师的典型案例：两个做着完全相同工作的麻醉医师，一位是医院雇用的受薪雇员，另一位则是以自己的S公司（S Corporation）作为穿透实体（Pass-Through Entity）独立执业。两者的税负差距令人咋舌。 产生这种悬殊的原因在于，美国税法对工资（Salaries）与企业利润（Business Income）采取完全不同的征税方式。以S公司形式执业的麻醉医师，只需按照国税局（IRS）所谓的“合理报酬”（Reasonable Compensation）给自己发放一部分工资并缴纳薪资税（Payroll Tax），其余绝大部分收入都可以归为企业利润流转出来。这些利润不仅完全免缴薪资税，还避开了平价医疗法案（ACA）针对高收入者加征的无上限联邦医疗保险税（Medicare Surcharge）——这显得极为讽刺，因为这些医师的大部分收入本身就来自向 Medicare 开具的账单，可他们自己的主要劳动所得却无需为 Medicare 缴税。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 医疗收入穿透实体避税路径对比 accDescr: 对比受薪医生与S公司私营医生在税负上的巨大差异 subgraph Hospital["医院受薪医生 (Salaried)"] A1["总执业劳动收入"] --> A2["全额计入工资"] A2 --> A3["最高个人所得税率 37%"] A2 --> A4["无上限薪资税 / Medicare附加税 3%"] A2 --> A5["受制于 SALT 州及地方税抵扣上限"] end subgraph SCorp["S公司私营医生 (Pass-Through)"] B1["总执业业务收入"] --> B2["低额‘合理报酬’工资"] B1 --> B3["大额穿透企业利润"] B2 --> B4["仅这部分缴纳常规薪资税"] B3 --> B5["规避 Medicare 无上限附加税"] B3 --> B6["业务包装/转租享有 <30% 穿透优惠税率"] B3 --> B7["企业端全额扣除州税 (绕过SALT上限)"] end ``` 在2017年的税制改革中，穿透实体的税率被进一步从最高档的37%大幅压低至30%以下。尽管国会针对医生、律师等专业技术服务领域设置了“防护栏”（Guardrails）试图阻止其享受该优惠，但现实中精明的经营者往往通过剥离辅助服务（Ancillary Services）、单独拆分手术中心业务，或是将诊所不动产反租回公司等会计与法律策略，成功将大量收入重新归类，从而享受低于30%的优惠税率。相比之下，普通受薪外科医生必须面对37%的顶格个税、超过3%的薪资税，还要承受州及地方税抵扣上限（SALT Cap）的限制；而私营企业主却能通过企业端代缴州税，实现无上限的全额抵扣。 - **制度扭曲与初衷**：此类政策最初旨在为街头“夫妻老婆店”（Mom and Pops）简化税制并扶持小型企业创业，然而规则一旦确立，便催生了大规模的避税筹划与既得利益维护。 - **税法如同折旧房屋**：嘉宾将税法比作一栋会随时间流逝而不断自然“折旧”的老房子，必须持续修补门窗、更换地板；但那些法案漏洞就像累积的折旧损伤一样难以根治。 - **政治阻力根源**：这类漏洞之所以极难废除，核心阻力在于联邦民选官员中约有四分之一自身就是穿透实体的企业主。 --- ### `43:24` 政治现实、富人避税与限制穿透税制漏洞的可能途径 公众往往有一种刻板印象：来自俄亥俄或爱荷华等州的政客常常身家上亿美元，但因为他们经营的是实体企业，在蓝领选民中反而比华尔街银行家显得更具亲和力。例如俄亥俄州参议员伯尼·莫雷诺（Bernie Moreno）本身就是大型汽车经销商出身。颇具讽刺意味的是，此前在讨论巩固社会保障基金（Social Security）的方案中，提案建议把税负全额压在受薪劳动者的工资单上，却对富有的私营企业主分文未提。这直接导致同样高收入的麻醉医师中，受薪者承担更重赋税，而私营老板却能“免受牵连”。 面对“富人总能找到漏洞，增税注定徒劳无功”的虚无主义论调，嘉宾在调研中发现，限制穿透实体的避税并非缺乏手段，而是受困于政治话语的包装。即使在民主党内部，许多国会助理一听到调整穿透税制也会心生顾虑，下意识地将其等同于打击“小企业”。 - **伪装成“小企业”的庞然大物**：美国财政部的一项过往研究表明，在全美所有的穿透业务收入中，真正属于传统定义下“小微企业”的仅占约20%，其余绝大部分都被未公开上市的大型私人企业所占据。 - **最可行的破局路径**：既然全面取消漏洞在政治上阻力重重，最现实的操作便是**按收入水平设立硬性门槛**（Limit by Income）。例如规定年业务收入超过40万美元或100万美元的企业主，一律不得享受将税率从37%降至30%以下的穿透扣除优惠；年入过百万美元的群体在商业上已极度成功，再将其粉饰为脆弱的“小微企业”在逻辑上根本站不住脚。 --- ### `47:11` 私募股权（PE）席卷平民行业与搜寻基金（Search Fund）的掘金潮 在全美无数本土富豪创造财富的旅程中，私募股权（Private Equity）扮演着关键的“接盘侠”与退出通道角色。彭博专栏作家马特·莱文（Matt Levine）曾辛辣地调侃商学院毕业生：“我从名牌商学院毕业后去旧金山一家顶尖私募工作，是为了去密西西比管一家管道疏通维修公司。”这种反差正是当前PE投资的主战场。 现实中，PE投资管线中超过一半的标的正是这些毫不起眼、但现金流极其充沛的初创创始人企业（Founder-Owned Firms）。它们或是暖通空调（HVAC）、兽医诊所、牙科连锁，或是橱柜制造商、窗帘百叶窗零售商等区域性龙头。这些企业往往具备极高的准入门槛或成熟的客户网络。随着婴儿潮一代（Baby Boomers）与沉默一代（Silent Generation）老去，迎来涉及数十万亿美元财富的“世纪大交接”，其中超过一半的财富沉淀在企业股权中。许多一代创始人年事已高，其子女不愿接手通下水道或除草修草坪的家业，这为资本提供了大举收购并整合（Roll-up）区域零散业务的契机。 对于体量较小、无法引起大型PE兴趣的社区企业，近年来在商学院MBA学生中风靡的**“搜寻基金”（Search Fund）**模式填补了这一空白： ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 搜寻基金运作流程与回报特征 accDescr: 展示搜寻基金从融得资金寻找标的到实施杠杆收购并实现回报的过程 subgraph Search["第 1 阶段：寻找标的"] A["MBA毕业生/合伙人"] --> B["获取投资者种子轮资助"] B --> C["全职搜寻 1~2 年"] end subgraph Acquire["第 2 阶段：发起并购"] C --> D["锁定传统行业老牌小企业"] D --> E["实施微型杠杆收购 (Mini LBO)"] E --> F["直接出任 CEO 经营管理"] end subgraph Return["风险与收益分布"] F -.-> G["中位数回报率: 为负值 (搜索失败/亏损)"] F -.-> H["整体平均回报率: 20%~25% (极高上行空间)"] end ``` - **运营机制**：毕业生通常两人搭档，由外部天使投资人出资支持他们进行为期两年的地毯式搜寻，专门寻找规模偏小但利润稳健的“婴儿潮一代老生意”（如草坪维护、游泳池清理、害虫消杀等）。 - **微型LBO（Mini LBO）**：一旦锁定目标，前期投资者拥有跟投选择权，联合发起微型杠杆收购，由这些年轻的搜寻者直接空降担任企业CEO。 - **回报特征**：搜寻基金的回报分布呈现典型的非对称性。由于相当一部分人在两年内找不到合适标的而以清盘告终，其**中位数回报率为负**；但对于成功交割并盘活业务的案例，其**平均年化回报率高达20%至25%左右**，已成为改变北美本土实体企业格局的重要力量。 ### `50:00` 戒毒中心、创业文化与企业所有权的代际传递 在冷门行业的创富案例中，一个常在商学院课堂上讨论的成功范例是加州的药物成瘾治疗设施（戒毒所）。由于社会危机的蔓延，对这类设施的需求激增。虽然管理这种业务极具挑战，需要应对极复杂的账务报表和繁重的监管合规，但正是因为门槛极高，执行到位的创始人与投资人最终斩获了高达 100 倍的投资回报。相比在传统职场苦熬十到十五年才熬到高管，通过搜索基金（Search Fund）买下一家成熟企业自主运营，不仅能在交易、融资和一线运营中快速积累全方位技能，最终还能坐拥 20% 的股权，成为独当一面的资深创始人和高管。 依托将企业主、企业与其雇员首次精准绑定的税收数据库，研究人员追踪了自 2000 年以来全美创建的每一家新企业，从而描绘出前所未有的创业者全貌。数据表明，环境对创业具有深远影响：在犹他州盐湖城长大的贫困孩子，创办出全美收入或就业排名前 10% 顶尖企业的概率，是在密西西比州长大的同类孩子的整整三倍。盐湖城素有“硅坡”（Silicon Slopes）之称，除了浓厚的营商氛围，也有观点认为当地庞大的摩门教社群文化发挥了作用——青年人挨家挨户敲门传教、屡遭拒绝却依然坚持的传教经历，磨砺了强大的心理韧性和毅力。此外，数据清晰显示，企业家的子女创办企业的概率远超常人，即便从样本中剔除所有家族继承企业，这种创业倾向的代际延续依然显著。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 创业率差异与所有权传递机制 accDescr: 对比地理环境与家庭背景对创业成功率和意愿的影响路径 subgraph Environment ["地理与文化驱动"] SLC["盐湖城（硅坡）<br/>敲门传教经历锻炼抗挫力"] MS["密西西比州<br/>创业生态相对匮乏"] SLC -->|"顶级企业诞生率高出 3 倍"| Comp["显著的创业成功率差距"] MS --> Comp end subgraph Heritage ["家庭与代际传递"] Parent["企业主家庭背景"] Child["子女创业倾向极高"] Parent -->|"剔除家族企业继承后"| Child end ``` --- ### `52:30` 搜索基金的现实挑战与杠杆融资结构 收购地方性中小企业并非没有暗礁。例如，当一位拥有名校 MBA 光环的年轻外来者突然空降，试图接管一家由本土老板打拼几十年的泳池维护公司时，客户和工人往往并不买账，极易遭遇水土不服。与此同时，近年来基层劳动力成本飙升、低端薪资持续上涨，叠加移民政策收紧，让清洁地面、高压水枪冲洗人行道等低壁垒脏活累活的暴富幻想迅速破灭。不过，只要在合法合规的前提下经营，即使最终项目未达预期，这段涵盖行业梳理、并购交易（M&A）及路演推介的真实历练，依然能成为重返传统职场的强力履历跳板。 对于此类并购交易所使用的资金杠杆，很多人好奇是否普遍依赖美国小企业管理局（SBA）的政策性补贴贷款。实际上，多数搜索基金收购案的债务资金直接来自普通商业银行。因为被收购标的大多是具有稳定历史现金流的成熟实体，借贷风险相对可控。与传统大型杠杆收购（LBO）动辄 80% 甚至更高的高杠杆运作不同，搜索基金的杠杆率普遍保持在 40% 到 50% 左右，股权资本占比较高，从而为抵御运营波动留出了充裕的安全垫。 --- ### `53:50` 穿透制企业的蛋糕分配：财富集中度与技术稀缺性 针对托马斯·皮凯蒂（Thomas Piketty）所关注的财富不平等命题，穿透制企业（Pass-through entities，如 S 公司）的底层数据显示出了惊人的分配失衡。过去 25 年间，美国商业部门超过 60% 的经济增长是由穿透制企业拉动的。但在蛋糕迅速做大的同时，企业主切分蛋糕的比例也在急剧扩张：所有者拿走的收益份额已经从早期的 30% 到 40% 攀升至约 50%。 | 衡量维度 | 历史基准（约 2000 年代初） | 近年现状 / 趋势 | 驱动因素与行业特征 | |:--- |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **穿透制企业占全美商业增量比重** | 相对较低 | **约 60%** | 里根税改后制度优势彻底释放，实体业务广泛采用穿透税制 | | **所有者占总增加值分配合额** | 约 33% ~ 40% | **约 50%** | 企业主占据分配主导权，增量收益绝大部分向资本与技术所有者倾斜 | | **高技能专业服务（诊所/律所）** | 成本加成定价 | **超额议价权与利润暴增** | 执照准入壁垒人为压低供给（如美国医生人均供给比 OECD 平均水平低 30%） | | **人均增加值变动（以数据测算）** | 约 $34,000 / 人 | 增加至 $52,000 / 人（**净增 $18,000**） | 净增额中 **$15,000 由所有者独占**，仅 $3,000 留给普通雇员 | 这种分配偏向在专业服务领域表现得尤为露骨。例如私人诊所的爆炸性利润，其核心竞争力取决于名医的稀缺专业声誉，这赋予了他们极高的定价权。美国医学会（AMA）等机构对医生执照的严格准入限制，使美国人均医生数量比经合组织（OECD）平均水平低了 30%。由于供给被人为缩减，面对庞大的医疗需求，行业产生了巨大的经济租金；而诊所老板完全无需等比例提高护士或普通助理的薪资。类似的情况也发生在知名反垄断经济学家凯文·墨菲（Kevin Murphy）身上——他在黑板上推导几组精妙的数学公式，就能让一项价值百亿美元的企业并购过审概率提升 5%，这种高端稀缺专业服务在现代经济体中价值极高，其收益自然全额落入顶尖所有者的口袋。 - 量化数据显示：2001 年至研究期内，被测企业的每名工人平均价值增量（利润加上员工薪酬）增长了 18,000 美元；在这笔增量中，**所有者拿走了 15,000 美元**，而留给所有一线员工的仅有区区 3,000 美元。 - 贫富差距扩大的动力机制呈现“五五开”：一半归因于企业整体创造的经济蛋糕本身在变大，另一半则归因于所有者从现有蛋糕中强行割走了更庞大的份额。 --- ### `57:30` 一代企业家的分配哲学与湖畔豪宅背后的隐形富豪 第一代白手起家的实体企业主，骨子里缺乏“利润共享”的自觉意识。他们的核心经营逻辑极为朴素：按劳付酬并给予绩效激励；只要一天结束账面有了超额利润，要么留存用于企业再投资，要么全部落袋为安。以一家名为 Chem Impacts 的化学品进出口企业为例，其创始人正是通过家族人脉将中间运营环节外包至印度，大幅削减了用工成本，成功规避了劳动力紧缺的掣肘。然而，外包所带来的生产力跃升和成本节约红利，并未转化成员工的薪酬提升，而是完完整整地沉淀为了创始人的私人净利。商业历史上类似的案例屡见不鲜——前 NBA 球员朱尼尔·布里奇曼（Junior Bridgman）退役后投资 Wendy's 汉堡连锁加盟店，斩获的财富远超其在 NBA 赛场上的薪水总和。 这种利润分配机制正是美国各阶层隐形财富泛滥的根本来源。在加利福尼亚的度假圣地，抑或奥索卡湖（Lake of the Ozarks）等风景名胜区，湖面上停泊的无数豪华游艇并非来自华尔街金融家或硅谷明星，其幕后主人正是那些从事害虫防治、制造快餐店得来速（Drive-thru）取餐窗口玻璃等枯燥实业的“无名富豪”。探寻“你高中同学里最富有的人现在在做什么”，往往能扯出成百上千个靠冷门小生意跻身身家数千万甚至上亿美元的鲜活案例。 ### `01:00:00` 告别嘉宾与“隐形富豪”对经济认知视角的重塑 在一段关于电影《罗密与米雪的同学会》（Romy and Michele's High School Reunion）中“发明便利贴”谎言的欢快幽默互动中，主持人们依依不舍地向两位经济学家埃里克·茨威克（Eric Zwick）和欧文·齐达尔（Owen Zidar）告别，并再次向听众极力推荐他们揭示美国真实财富格局的新书《无处不在的百万富翁》（*The Everywhere Millionaire*）。嘉宾退场后，特雷西·阿洛威（Tracy Alloway）向乔·威森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）由衷赞叹这项研究的开创性意义。她指出，公众在探讨美国经济与财富不平等时，长期存在巨大的盲区——人们一旦提及富豪或亿万富翁，脑海中立刻浮现的往往是聚光灯下的上市公司首席执行官、硅谷科技巨头或沙丘路上的风险投资家。然而，齐达尔和茨威克凭借来自财政部的微观税收数据证实，遍布全美各地的百万富翁群体其行业构成要丰富、复杂且分散得多。 乔对此深表赞同，并剖析了公众认知与现实之间的断层。他谈到，大众通常只对特定行业有模糊的直觉认识，比如深知汽车经销商（Auto Dealers）在其国会选区内拥有极其庞大的能量，政界也经常涌现出具有汽车经销商背景的政客（例如伯尼·莫雷诺/Bernie Moreno），尤其是在共和党内部展现出极强的游说实力与政治话语权。然而，极少有人真正意识到，全美范围内横跨无数行业，都广泛存在着结构极为相似、享受穿透制税率且具备深厚政治影响力的非上市企业网络。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 美国财富认知的盲区对比 accDescr: 对比传统公众对科技上市公司富豪的认知与现实中广泛存在的穿透制实体富豪阶层 subgraph Popular["公众舆论焦点"] A["科技行业寡头与VC"] --> B["上市公司CEO与高管"] B --> C["高曝光度公开股权财富"] end subgraph Reality["被忽视的现实（街头百万富翁）"] D["汽车经销商 / 建筑承包商"] --> E["大型牙医诊所 / 区域分销商"] E --> F["S公司与合伙企业穿透利润"] end Popular -.->|"主导了关于加州富豪税的讨论"| G["税改舆论"] Reality -.->|"享有‘保护小企业’的情感庇护"| G ``` - **认知偏差**：长期以来，关于财富分配的公众争论几乎被公开上市公司的股权和硅谷科技造富神话所垄断，忽视了庞大的非上市本土实业家。 - **政治影响力模式**：像汽车经销店这样的企业并非孤例，它们在各自的地方社区拥有深厚根基，并通过工商业游说团深度参与地方与联邦层面的政策制定。 --- ### `01:01:28` 被政治浪漫化的“小企业”与税法体系的结构性反思 乔与特雷西进一步探讨了这种财富分布对税制改革带来的深刻启示。乔指出，政策制定者和媒体整日热烈讨论在加利福尼亚州对科技新贵征收富豪税，诚然，若联邦政府希望切实提高财政收入并有效遏制贫富分化，对科技财富动刀不可或缺；但如果彻底忽视非上市实体股权，改革注定是瘸腿的。问题在于，美国政坛长期弥漫着对“小企业”（Small Business）近乎狂热的情感崇拜与冲动偏爱，使得针对穿透实体的税制审视在政治讨论中几乎成了一项不可触碰的禁忌。特雷西一针见血地质疑，当社会以扶持脆弱街头小店为由设立并捍卫 S 公司的税收穿透架构时，现实中真正受到制度呵护的，却是一大批每年源源不断创造数百万甚至上千万美元净利润的成熟盈利实体。 关于税法的本质，乔非常赞同茨威克在节目中提出的“房产翻修”隐喻。经济本身是一个不断自我演化的高速系统，技术突破、新型商业模式的涌现，以及税务筹划与避税策略的演进，无时无刻不在促使纳税人寻找更优的法人组织形式来享受超低税率。因此，税收法规必须像定期维护和改造房屋一样，紧跟时代经济结构进行主动调整，而非简单盲目地在纸面上减税或修修补补。特雷西则幽默地给出了另一种意象：在她看来，美国的税法更像是一个“所有人都在拿棍子乱捅的无定形黏液怪（Amorphous Blob）”。 - **制度套利实质**：穿透制（Pass-through entities）最初的设计初衷或许是减免小型创业企业的双重征税负担，但演变至今已成为高利润非上市资本锁定低边际税率的法宝。 - **改革难点**：对“小企业”的道德光环保护掩盖了真实财富体量，导致任何旨在对大型穿透企业合理征税的议案都在政治上面临巨大阻力。 --- ### `01:03:42` W-2打工人的无奈调侃与节目尾声 在严肃探讨的尾声，乔带着自嘲的口吻发起了一段关于工薪阶层的幽默吐槽。他开玩笑称，像他们这样在正规企业领取固定薪资、每年老老实实填写 W-2 表格的打工族，简直就是“全美国遭受最严酷压迫的阶级”。虽然这是一句逗乐的夸张戏谑，但他道出了一个极为现实的社会现象：在错综复杂的美国税收体系中，唯有拿纯工资报酬的普通企业职员，完全没有任何显而易见的避税手段、壳公司套利渠道或冲抵支出的合法漏洞，不得不承受最直接、最完整的税负剥离。“可怜的我们啊”，两位主持人在笑声中连连叹息。 随后，特雷西与乔正式收尾本期节目，致谢制作团队并宣布本期《Odd Lots》结束。他们向听众列出了关注渠道与社群互动方式，包括追踪制作人卡门·罗德里格斯（Carmen Rodriguez）、达希尔·班尼特（Dashiell Bennett）、凯拉·布鲁克斯（Kaila Brooks）和凯文·洛萨诺（Kevin Lozano）的社交账号，订阅彭博专属的每日通讯，加入 24 小时活跃的 Discord 交流群，并呼吁认可本期美国税制与财富深度调研内容的听众在各大播客平台留下好评，彭博订阅用户则可在苹果播客无广告畅听全集。播客最后播放了辛辛那提保险（Cincinnati Insurance）、餐饮连锁 El Pollo Loco 以及新兴 Agentic 收入管理与 CRM 平台 Adio 的商业赞助播报。 - **W-2群体与企业主的税收不对称**：工薪阶层的收入在发放前即被全额扣税，缺乏抵扣营业成本、划分资本利得与劳动所得的操作空间，在税务优化中处于完全被动地位。 - **社群与延伸阅读**：本期对话深度延展了彭博针对美国财富分层与技术变迁的相关报道，揭示了从科技新贵到传统产业隐形富豪的多维美国经济现实。 ## Notable quotes > `05:00` The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There — Joe Weisenthal > `11:45` we exploit a novel data set — Joe Weisenthal > `20:00` move slow and make things — Eric Zwick > `28:16` Piketty with people — Eric Zwick > `33:38` They hate hobbies — Owen Zidar > `47:11` I graduated from a great business school and I'm going to work for a top private equity firm in San Francisco, and they're going to send me to Mississippi to run a sewer cleaning company. — Joe Weisenthal > `50:00` Silicon Slopes — Eric Zwick > `01:01:28` Amorphous Blob — Tracy Alloway ## Mentioned Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal, Ron Johnson, Jeff Bezos, Owen Zidar, Eric Zwick, The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There, Studs Terkel, Andrei Shleifer, General Motors, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Bob Brockway, Paula Brockway, Amangiri, Nick Saban, Adam Levine, Larry H. Miller, Toyota, Utah Jazz, Chrysler, Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch, Reyes, Dick Portillo, Portillo's, Jamie Dimon, J.P. Morgan, John Osher, Spinbrush, NFL, NBA, MLB, Medicare, Bernie Moreno, Matt Levine, Kevin Murphy, Chem Impacts, Junior Bridgman, Wendy's, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Carmen Rodriguez, Dashiell Bennett, Kaila Brooks, Kevin Lozano, Cincinnati Insurance, El Pollo Loco, Adio ## Video description <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">In 2014, the economists Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick were asked by the Treasury to conduct a study on the tax burden of private business owners. It was tricky to figure out how much these sorts of business owners &mdash; auto dealers, contractors, the like &mdash; actually owed in taxes: After Reagan's 1986 tax reforms, pass-through businesses and other accounting tricks became widespread enough to obscure this class of wealthy Americans hiding in plain sight. The research they conducted led to their new book The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There, and one of their central findings is that there are about three million private business owners who have an average wealth of around $25 million. They call this group &ldquo;Main Street Millionaires&rdquo; and their influence on the economy and politics in the US is considerable. We speak with Zidar and Zwick today about how they measured the actual number of rich people in America by sifting through reams of tax forms, why income inequality started to rise in tandem with the growing number of pass-through businesses, and how it's possible that the collective revenue of the nation's dentists far exceeds that of the NFL.</p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true">Read more:<br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-11/tech-s-nouveau-riche-suffer-sudden-wealth-syndrome-as-ai-pay-explodes?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Tech&rsquo;s New Rich Are Suffering From &lsquo;Sudden Wealth Syndrome&rsquo;</a><br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-09-17/san-francisco-s-ai-wealth-boom-skirts-engineers-as-openai-anthropic-ipos-near?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Jobless Tech Workers Are Being Left Out of San Francisco&rsquo;s AI Boom</a></p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true">Only <a href="http://Bloomberg.com" data-inline-card="" data-card-data="">http://Bloomberg.com</a> subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at&nbsp; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots</a></p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true"><a href="http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter</a><br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><strong data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="strong">Join the conversation:</strong> <a href="https://discord.gg/oddlots" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">discord.gg/oddlots</a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/3715cbfc-b4cf-4840-bf1b-b4c8010bc9bb/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[5:00] Joe Weisenthal: The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There [11:45] Joe Weisenthal: we exploit a novel data set [20:00] Eric Zwick: move slow and make things [28:16] Eric Zwick: Piketty with people [33:38] Owen Zidar: They hate hobbies [47:11] Joe Weisenthal: I graduated from a great business school and I'm going to work for a top private equity firm in San Francisco, and they're going to send me to Mississippi to run a sewer cleaning company. [50:00] Eric Zwick: Silicon Slopes [61:28] Tracy Alloway: Amorphous Blob

[0:00] small business [4:45] Joe Weisenthal: fat layer of really rich people [4:45] Tracy Alloway: dark matter of American politics [6:05] Tracy Alloway: an upscale Studs Terkel [10:00] Eric Zwick: Can I come and just ask you some questions? [10:00] Andrei Shleifer: Show me something I haven't seen before. [20:00] move slow and make things [28:30] Piketty with people [30:00] which is just a great name for the yacht [32:04] Dick Portillo: This is not a family business. This is Dick's business. [34:10] They hate hobbies. [35:30] everybody's got teeth. [35:30] They are, I think, sitting on pools of cash, and maybe they don't have so many ideas of what to do with it... there's a lot of fishing to be done in that pool. [46:12] Matt Levine: What am I doing after business school? Oh, I'm going to work for a prestigious private equity firm in San Francisco so I can run their plumbing company in Mississippi. [61:28] Tracy Alloway: amorphous blob that people are always poking with a stick [61:28] Joe Weisenthal: the most oppressed class in America

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So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful Something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next. the next opportunity, the next investment. The next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has worked with independent agents to help protect businesses, homes, valuables, and more. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next. It's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict. Let Cincinnati insurance make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at CINFIN.com. *music* Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. Joe, I have a very exciting episode for you today. Go on. We are going to be talking about pass-throughs. Oh, S-CORS and the U.S. tax code. This is so great. I'm so excited about this because I remember during some of those tax cut negotiations and you have who is that? I think it was a senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson. And he was like, oh, I don't know which one it was, but he was like, oh, we really need to preserve some pass through. And I didn't learn about it. And then then I was like, well, you know, whatever. And then I missed it. That was a great. So finally here in 2026, I can learn about something that I really. should have learned in December of 2017. Well, actually, I'm glad you said that, because this is sort of the thrust of what this entire conversation is going to be, which is when we talk about tax breaks for the wealthy, we normally talk about or we think about Jeff Bezos paying like zero percent income tax or something like that. But actually, a lot of the tax cuts that we've seen, I guess, since the 1980s and now most recently under the Trump administration have been which generally get framed as small businesses. That's right. But as it turns out, a lot of these businesses are actually phenomenally large and very, very wealthy. Yeah, there's a few things that I think are really interesting here. So obviously, people just like love the sound of small business, right? Like small business makes people feel good, whatever it is, people like, It sort of is something aesthetically nice about something very American as well. You think about Tocqueville and his big impression of America was, oh, it's this nation of entrepreneurs. Yeah. So there's something about small business that feels good, et cetera. The other thing that I'm really interested in and I brought this up a couple of times on the podcast, you know, what we I think when a lot of people think about the United States or the American economy and the sort of distribution of wealth and income and so forth. You know, people talk about inequality and then they think, OK, there's like a one percent or a point one percent. That's insanely wealthy. You mentioned Jeff Bezos and a handful of others like that. And then people are aware of the fact that for a country as rich as ours is probably unacceptably high levels of like poverty. And people perceive there correctly to be a lot of people who are financially struggling, etc. Yeah. [5:00] They have their own private like wine locker at the steakhouse. It's like there's a lot of rich people. Yeah. And they're not all like the tech billionaires. They're not all on the Forbes 400 or whatever. Fat layer of like really rich people. And they're not people who made some great invention, et cetera, necessarily, or some great huge breakthrough. people in this country. Yeah. And we should talk about them, try to figure out who they are, how many of them there actually are. And the one other thing I would also add that makes this sort of a very odd lotsy episode is we talk a lot about the private markets, right? Private credit, private markets, private equity. And often when we are talking about those specific businesses, we are talking about these types of businesses. So, you know, a private equity firm, you think of it as this Wall Street entity, but it owns a portfolio of, I don't know, HVAC companies in And the last thing I'll say, and I don't know how much we'll get into this part per se, but like if you think about, I don't know if like the dark matter of American politics, etc., you know, like privately owned industry. companies are often or the owners of privately owned companies, some regional beverage distributor or something like that, are often very important figures in regional politics. And senators, if you want to get your handle on that, you should sort of know who these people are and how they got there. We'll get into that, definitely. So I'm happy to say we do, in fact, have the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with the authors of the new book, The Everywhere Millionaire, who is really rich in America and how they got there. And the authors are Princeton and Eric Zwick, Professor of Economics and Finance at Chicago Booth. So thank you both so much for being here. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here. It's a great book. I legitimately I really enjoyed it. When I was reading it, I was thinking it's sort of like a stud, like an upscale studs turkle. You know, you have all these stories of millionaires and how they actually got there. But the origin story of this book is something I wanted to ask you about, because it also sits squarely within Oblotz territory when we talk about, I guess, what a mess government data and technology tends to be, by the Treasury Department to try to sift through IRS data to figure out who these people actually were and how many of them there are. Talk to us about what you found when you started that project. Yeah. Yes. So we started more than a decade ago, commissioned by the Treasury. to go into the bowels of the Treasury and work with tax data to try and link all the businesses to their owners and workers because they didn't have the ability to do that and they needed it to do tax policy to sort of think about what if we change the tax code how much tax these pass through businesses pay. They didn't have the capacity to do that because the data weren't connected. And so that was the original kind of sin of our project. That was the foundation of our project was to sort of build this data that as we continued to expand it, add years, add different types of layers on it by looking at just the entrepreneurs, for instance, we could start to see, oh, there's actually a picture of income, wealth. entrepreneurship prosperity in the American economy that is very different than the picture that we were getting from the media, the picture we were getting from the Capital Book and so on. And so that's sort of the beginning was that kind of nerdy tax data project, the computers, the databases, the XML and so on, which we can talk more about. But that's where we started. Well, I wanted to ask about the databases, actually, because it just sounded like a nightmare the way you described it. And then there's this funny moment in the book where you basically like of built these systems and understood them and was able to help you wrap your head around them. How difficult was this? I mean, so the underlying data are basically everything on a tax form. So, you know, you can have information about the business. You can have investors in the business who get money going to them. They're not made to be linked. And many of them aren't electronically filed. When you say they're not made to be linked, what's not made to be linked? They're separate databases. So they're just different forms. the business's form and then you have to file an investor form that says, all right, half the profits are going to Joe, half the profits are going to Tracy. And so, the way they set up the identifiers aren't made where you're supposed to be able to add up all the things from investors and that should add up everything from the business. So the story about how we figured out how to do this, we're going through old code books, like things were called different variable names and Eric, I don't know if you want to tell the story about going to a part of Utah. Yes, I'm giving a talk at Utah State, and I knew that one of the [10:00] The guys who designed the XML system that... when people electronically file their tax returns, it's sort of like the formula for converting those tax returns into rows and columns that then get processed lived. on the way from the airport to the lecture I was giving. So I was like, "Can I come and just ask you some questions?" And so I met him for lunch. We had burgers. - What were you thinking? - I was imagining like in "The Matrix," you know, like you go see the Oracle. - Yeah, yeah. - And it's like this old lady, you know, who's like, the spoon is bending, you know. - I was imagining like some guy who like, like kind of a hermit. It's like someone knocking on his door, like, "Why are you here? What are you on?" And he's like, "That's not me." And then finally after, no, but keep going. - He was a super, reasonable he was kind of wearing like a flannel shirt as everybody utah seems to do he wanted to have a beer at lunch and i was happy to join him and i had my like list of 25 questions that are like very intricate questions about the structure of this database we had to rearrange columns in order to create the links to match the business forms to the individuals. And we didn't know what any of these columns were necessarily. What year is this, by the way? This is like 2014, 15. Okay, great. So, yeah, so you can't ask Claude to read the manual and read the code. There's no way to do that. There's no documentation. There's just like this knowledge in people's brains that you have to find to try and do this link. And there were other people who kind of knew some of these details, having the burger and beer with the architect. This is sort of a diversion, but I feel like I've read so many NBER working papers, which include the line, we exploit a novel data set. How much of economics is like finding a novel data set? Like, you know, we think of it as like, oh, maybe we're going to apply some econometrics or theory or whatever. How much of just, you know, as professional economists, is it about finding that data? I think it's an important part, question. And if you are thinking about how do people get rich and you only see a small sliver of how it actually works, and then suddenly you can say, you know, there's a thousand private business owners that have $25 million for every large public company CEO. Like we've missed all of these people. And now for the first time you can trace back, where did these people come from? Like, what are they doing? How did they do it? That I think opens it up and opens up a lot of Andre Schleifer teaches a class at Harvard, and he basically gives the college students the assignment, like, "Find me a cool data set," and that's how you write the paper. It's like, "Show me something I haven't seen before." So there's certainly something to find a novel thing to get a hook on something we care about. Yeah, but figuring out the question to ask with that data is kind of the trick. Like the data is sitting there like, oh, we can use this to understand inequality. Okay. Maybe this is like jumping forward, but just finally relieve me. What does pass-through mean? Like, I mean, finally, like, I'm just going to ask it. When we talk about like, oh, this center really wants to preserve or expand a pass-through induction, what are we talking about here? So pass-through businesses are... different than traditional corporations. So if you look at like a typical public company like GM, they're a C corporation, they face the corporate tax. So when they make profits, they have to pay the corporate tax. And then if they want to send money to individual investors, they have to pay dividends. Pass-throughs are a different part of the tax code where you don't have to face the corporate tax, just the profits and losses go directly to the owners. Right. And they weren't that big of a deal in the 80s. The lion's share of profits and activity were in traditional corporations. And then after Reagan cut taxes in 1986 on individuals lower than corporations, that suddenly became the most attractive way to organize yourself. And so we've seen this huge boom in pass-through entities where that's the vast majority of businesses in America and like half of profits. that seem to be run by hamsters spinning on wheels to actually work. What were your findings about wealth in America? So this income is among the most concentrated. So pass through business income, 70 percent of every dollar pass through business income goes to the top one percent. And if you look at the rise of income inequality, so like the famous graph, top one percent share of income from Piketty and Saez going back to the 1980s, more than half of the growth. from that period of time to the, you know, 2021 is coming in the form of pass through business income. So you want to understand what's driving income inequality and wealth inequality, because, you know, it's sort of a parallel story there. You really have to understand this pass through business sector. Like, what is the nature of this activity? We knew it was pass through business income. We didn't really know if this is like Monopoly man, big business. Yeah. You know, that you're just passively collecting the income or what we. turned out to find it was sort of these [15:00] Mid-market. regional businesses of which there were just millions of them across the country. And that was kind of like the second huge finding about, you know, who these pass-through business owners were and what they're doing. Owen, you want to tell them like our mnemonic from reading our kids like little books? Yeah, so I have three young kids. Eric has one young kid and we're half jokingly thinking about writing a kid's book of the ABCs of getting rich. B is for beverage distribution, business owner, and then C is for contractor. D is dental. You know, we could go through. We actually did it. We haven't made the book. You got to do it. Can I just say my son is obsessed with money and finally, no, he's like, right? It's shocking. Yeah, where does he get it? I don't know. No, it's like he's always scheming. So he would love this book. So please write it. Okay. P is for podcaster. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Did you ever notice how you spend hours shopping online, only to pause right before you hit buy now? That tiny hesitation, the one where you wonder if it is trustworthy, can make or break the sale. Now, with AI changing the way consumers discover and compare things, that split-second trust question matters more than ever. That's where PayPal comes in. For more than 25 years, PayPal has been a leader in online payments. And now they're at the forefront of agentic commerce, making it work for businesses, letting them maintain control of their brand and their customer relationships. most still feels familiar and deeply dependable. Build for payment, growth, and agentic. PayPal open. Built for all business. Visit paypalopen.com to get started. Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done. ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful Something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. Hey guys, Mario Lopez here. Grab one of the new loaded quesadillas from El Pollo Loco. It's a warm tortilla loaded with fire grilled chicken and melty jack cheese in two bold flavors. Fold it and toast it to take on the go. You can take a few bites and save the rest for later. Great plan, except we eat the whole thing right then and there. Your lunch? Just got a little more loco. Hungry yet? Well, try one today. Or make it a combo with chips and a drink for just $10.99. Let's get loco. El Pollo Loco. All right. So give us an example that like, let's dive into a specific one. And I'm just going to choose car dealerships because this is an interesting one. I think everyone knows how a car dealership theoretically is supposed to work. And I don't think you normally think of used cars or cars. I shouldn't say used cars, but car dealers as super wealthy. And yet you have a lot of examples in the book of people who have accumulated millions, if not sometimes billions from this business. So the book opens with the wedding of the century, which is a wedding, Bob and Paul of Brockway, Coral Gables, Florida. They sent their daughter to, to first to the Amangiri for the bachelorette party was a four day party where they dressed up like Marie Antoinette. But then they flew all the guests to Paris for a five day wedding on private jets on private jets. They rented Versailles, not for the wedding, but just for like a dinner. What year are we talking about here? 23. 23. 23. 24. Yeah. This was 2023, 2024. a few years ago, and it was all over social media. I remember the wedding of the century. Adam Levine sang the first dance. You could see the Eiffel Tower illuminated in the distance. And they're car dealers, third generation car dealers from Florida, the Mercedes dealer. And they had just sold the dealership for several hundred million dollars to actually a consortium that Nick Saban was a co-owner of. But they dropped 60 million dollars on this wedding. Wow. And, you know, they're not even close to the top of the list in terms of the most prodigious car dealers in the country. which we were like, okay, this is not the... bigot-y story of like billionaire tech or finance [20:00] Dan Cunningham: This is something different. What are these car dealers doing or, as an example, industry? And then we found them even more when we started looking in like yacht and jet registration data, they're just own all these yachts and jets. And that's how we found them by name, because the tax data that we were talking about before, we couldn't identify people that way. So when we set out to write the book and tell a bunch of stories, okay, let's find other data sources. We know the rough signatures, we know where to look. But let's find the people by name so we can tell a little bit more of their background, their story. I love that. Looking at yacht registries to find rich people. It makes sense, but I'm guessing not many people have done it before. Yeah. I'm curious, from a pure economics perspective, when we think about... let's say someone's salary. It's like, okay, here's a really talented person. Maybe they're really great with computers. Maybe they have a lovely voice that sounds great on podcasts. And they're like, okay, this is maybe a rare skill, et cetera. So they're going to get a lot of money. Or maybe we think about like someone who makes a great invention or whatever, and everyone wants to buy it and they get a slice of it. And so they make a lot of money. Let's just How would you characterize what these very successful car dealers have brought to the table such that the economy has rewarded them with such riches? - So that's a great question. I think, let me tell two stories of car dealers that kind of give a flavor of the complexity, even within car dealers. - Okay. - So one of my favorite ones, a story we tell in the book, is about Larry Miller. And Larry Miller is from Utah. He basically worked in the parts department at a Toyota and he learned every single almost like your Aldi guy. He like knew all the parts and he turned it from the 961st best dealer of parts of Toyota parts to the first. to run things, but it turns out that my sons need to run it. Sorry. And he like, you know, on his heels, he eventually finds somebody else to buy one dealership and that becomes two dealerships and eventually 40 something dealerships and he buys Utah Jazz. And so that is like, you know, the good story. He developed some skill. He really was actually on that last point. Can you clarify? OK, so he really gets to know the parts better than anyone else. Can you actually just a little bit more what he contributed to the market, so to speak, such that either at his first place of employment or at his own entrepreneurship, they go from 961 to one or whatever it is. Yeah. So I think it's, you know, when you're dealing with customers, it's being really responsive, understanding what they need and just, you know, being hardworking and diligent and delivering and having a reputation for, okay, if I have some need, over time. That's one broader lesson of the book is that it takes a long time. In contrast to the Silicon Valley, move fast and break things. It's often move slow and make things. It takes decades often. So that's kind of in my view, Larry Miller's the good case. But the more troublesome case where you have more regulatory capture. Our other... auto dealers who are quite protected, and I can go into the history of auto dealers if you want, but the short version is like they have a bunch of legal protections that were meant to protect the little guy from big manufacturers of auto companies. Ford or GM might put a bunch of cars on your lot and that was hurting the small guy. So over a series of decades, there are a bunch of franchise protections, and then if you go forward to say 2008 when we had the financial crisis, You know, the auto team had to deal with the situation where Chrysler, for example, had three times as many dealerships as Toyota, even though. And they sold the same number of cars. And so they had all these extra dealers. And why do they have them? It's because they have a bunch of protections where you have to pay them off. You have to pay three years of rent and a bunch of things that really don't make sense. And so there's a lot of protections from local competition. There are pretty sweet deals that were in the name of protecting the little guy that don't make a lot of economic sense. more money than they probably would because they're getting paid a lot for warranties, for example, that are a little more than what the market would, would pay them. Otherwise you have a local monopoly sort of, you can, you know, you can't, sell the Toyota within a geographic boundary of the existing dealership. And the manufacturer has very limited power to affect that competition anyway. [25:00] to introduce. So there's really barriers to entry. That's a big part of it. And then they sell these ancillary services in the dealership where the markups are much higher than on just the immediate sale of the car. So, you know, the warranty repair, the financing is a big source of profits, I think, for the dealers. And it's like, well, you know, are you going to buy you can get the loan at the dealer? You're going to go to a bank separately when you're buying the car there on the lot. So this like first mover advantage to sell all these ancillary services. And it's a huge part of like the margins and the profitability of these dealerships. you still have this like fixed entrant you know and like you can't get a car through any other pipe other than through that pipe. And so they just grab a chunk. Yeah, this was really interesting to me in the book, because we're used to thinking about antitrust or competition issues as these like big national scale companies. But actually, you talk a lot about sort of regionalized competition problems, which was very interesting. I have a bunch of other questions, but I want to ask you one more just on sort of local regulatory protections and loopholes. Can you talk about beer distribution? Because that was a really interesting thing, one to me. We were very amused by the beer distributor. So one of the things for folks that are listening, if you're like walking, like I walked from my home to the office and passed by a truck that says Budweiser on the side, you know, Budweiser doesn't own that truck. A distributor does. You look on the door and there's the name of the distributor. You might see Reyes or somebody like that. These are incredibly wealthy businesses that sit between manufacturers and end users like bars, restaurants, groceries, and so on. And depending on the state, similar to the auto protections. So you have to pass through the distributors and these way these contracts get protected. So then, you know, as demand for beer grows, the distributors just sort of like in the middle, this middle tier was again sort of protecting, you know, the little guy from the macro brewers. Yeah. But over time, these little guys have become really, really, big guys. And the idea was you didn't want the big brewers to dominate distribution as well as the actual selling of the product. That's right. And it sort of emerged post prohibition as this like sort of system. Let's avoid the situation where the manufacturers have so much power over the rest of the system in terms of what is available. But then the distributors end up having just a ton of power and they get. super richly show up within the jet data a lot. And there was this conference in San Antonio, and the mayor called the lobbyist who organized the conference was like, you know, this is amazing. I've never seen so many jets at the San Antonio airport as when the beer wholesalers were there. You mentioned... a disagreement or a different interpretation than capital, picketing, and size, et cetera. What is the essence of the conclusions or the things that you've discovered that you feel like someone coming at the wealth inequality question from their work, you would have a different interpretation of it? We've never actually had either one of them on the show, so maybe we'll get them on soon because we should. But what is the sort of the crux of how you see things differently? So we joke that our book is kind of like pickety with people. So if you happen to read Capital, which is a difficult read, I think we actually also joke that our book we wrote so people could read it, not just collect it because that book. It's a really good read. I'm just going to reiterate that. Yeah. So it's like we're going to have, you know, that book is like the top one percent is this kind of nameless, faceless entity. And they're just generating capital income. companies and are just collecting the rents or the capital income or the interest or whatever. And it's about this accumulation of massive troves of wealth that are generating this almost passive return. And we're saying, well, actually, when you look at the data, it's actually more this like these millions of private business owners who are actively owning and operating businesses in a large case. Their concentrated portfolio is really the business is kind of the main asset. And it's not really just financial capital. It's kind of important part of it. Broadly defined, it's sort of like the networks, the experience, maybe it's like having access to the contract or the special like market position. That's an important asset. But that's like sort of a different story about who's really rich. That's sort of this more active kind of human. And yeah, there's good, bad and ugly of the humans there. But that's kind of the distinction I think that we draw. Since you talk to a lot of these people, I have a sort of anthropological question, but do they see themselves as wealthy? Because we touched on this in the beginning, but everything is sort of like shaded as small business ownership, entrepreneurs. You talk to a lot of people who like did start from humble beginnings, but now have millions and millions of dollars. Do they see themselves as the rich, as the one percent? Usually they have a pretty good idea. Often it's because it takes so long time. [30:00] - To get wealthy, they're, you know, they've gone through the life cycle. So one of my favorite characters that we talked to in the book is Dick Portillo, and he started, he grew up in the projects of Chicago, the Cabrini Greens, and he didn't know how to make a hot dog and then started a hot dog company and was washing the dishes by hand 'cause there wasn't running water. And he ended up over decades selling a lot of hot dogs to become a billionaire. And I think it's a really useful example because it shows like, well, do you have to have market power to be a billionaire? No, you can actually sell hot dogs. It's a super competitive industry. And then is he rich? Well, he has a really big penthouse. He's got a yacht called Top Dog, which is just a great name for the yacht. And, you know, so it depends on when you're talking to him. stuff by hand. He does not feel rich. But when he's got a yacht and, you know, a huge IPO that they couldn't send him a check because his bank account wasn't sophisticated enough to take the check when he was just like, I'm getting on my yacht and leaving. Like, I think he knew. The short answer is it depends on when in their lifetimes, because it does really take a long time. There's another woman who I talked to. She spent two decades making frozen quiche. Oh, yeah, the quiche lady. Yeah, and she, you know, it was pretty tenuous for a long time before she got some big contracts to go through. I don't think she felt that wealthy from her business. It seemed like it was losing money until it really wasn't. This is maybe more of a sociological question than an economics question, but I think it kind of relates to who feels rich and who doesn't. When I think about coastal rich, and by that I mean San Francisco or New York City rich, I often think about heads of really gigantic, heavily bureaucratic, layered, hierarchical organizations. Imagine someone like Jamie Dimon or the CEO. There are numerous layers. A, they're often like very educated. And there are also going to be just like numerous layers of the organization. And there will be people who work at J.P. Morgan or whatever who never interact ever with the CEO, et cetera. Whereas in my mind, the sort of everyday millionaires, the head of the beverage distributor and the car dealership. organizations are like that CEO is probably much more in touch on some level on a day-to-day basis with the mass of like the workers at that organization, maybe on the floor with them, many cases like at a dealership, et cetera. And I'm curious if that resonates and whether that's sort of like, you know, when we think about sort of you know, Someone who has a yacht is obviously mega rich, but that's unquestionable. But also that just on a day to day basis, I suspect they have a lot more connection and like interaction with capital W workers than many sort of like the coastal rich do. Yeah. So like the Portillo, when he was growing the business, they didn't have offices for the managers because he wanted the people to be on the floor all the time. So there was a bit of a marine ethic that he kind of brought to running this business. And, you know, he was there for opening. He was like very detail oriented, no investors. He owned all the real estate. He tried to take no debt, reinvested every dollar. You know, he had kids, but like it was pretty clear when he was moving into his 80s. This is not a family business. This is Dick's business. And there's kind of a relentlessness to that character that I think we see in many of the stories. The first generation founders look like that. Yeah. One thing that stood out to me is like. all of these people don't seem to have hobbies. - They hate hobbies. - Yeah. - They hate hobbies. John Osher is so funny that Dr. John, who's not a doctor, who started a $5 electric toothbrush and sold that business after having sold other businesses before and probably had enough money before starting that business. But he tried to take up golf from florida he's like so bored by it maybe not a great swing i don't know but um went back and started this five dollar toothbrush business in the dot-com era which is exactly the kind of company you would think would make you hundreds of millions of dollars during the dot-com era selling five dollar electric toothbrushes um but that's what he did because he just like couldn't sit still i mean he was a had a personality clearly because even as a kid his first business It's a media. Yeah. No, no, no. That's awesome. Let's hear it. His first business. So his parents, he just took like one of those painting classes where you like have models come in and do the, like the nude paintings and they hid the paintings from like five, seven year old, I don't know, like, uh, in the attic and he would charge a nickel to his friends to look at the paintings. My son would love this. Yes. That was the best Martians of any business he ever started. He can't, uh. [35:00] He can't listen. to this episode. I'll stick to the children's book. Yeah, yeah. We're going to just paint still lives. We're going to. Can we talk a little bit about you mentioned dentists and I'm sort of curious whether dentists or doctors, what is their role in the story of the medical profession and how rich can they get? Yeah, no, that's a great question, because there's there's the kind of the Dick Portillo's more tactile, blue collar rich. And then there are the more white rich. I mean, I think if you're just a normal dentist, you have a pretty good life. But if you own a few offices, you can have a great life. Dentists have some amazing stats. I think they're number 21 on our list of top pass-throughs. four digit industries by profit. And if you, add up all the revenue of dentists in America, it exceeds the revenue generated by the NFL, the NBA, MLB, basically all professional sports and dentists are earning more. The joke we like to tell is that everybody's got teeth. And so if you own several of these, this is are in every congressional district. And so when you think about things like, oh, let's include dental services and Medicare, for example, they lobby against that to be like, well, we don't want price pressure from the government. We want to make sure we can protect. So there is a bit of regulatory might, and that's really the case more for doctors too. Yeah, the doctors showed up in one of our early statistical breakdowns when we were trying to figure out, okay, who are these people earning all this pass-through income? We said, what are the top four-digit industries in So this is like their industry codes by the BEA. And so four-digit, there are about 300 industries in the four-digit system. So that's like a pretty refined – like doctor's office is different from dentist's office is different from – like a physical therapy type industry, as an example, within services. Doctors were number one in terms of the amount of profits And they had just a ton of them. Is it true that, like, dentists, like... They're all really bored, so they get really, like, tempted to finance films. Isn't that, like, a big thing where it's, like, filmmakers, like, go to dentists? Like, this would be more exciting than teeth. Put $100,000 into this film. They are, I think, sitting on pools of cash, and maybe they don't have so many ideas of what to do with it. And so they make for maybe easy targets. And because it's a big pool of cash, you know, there's a lot of fishing to be done in that pool. Thank you. Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done. ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. 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To stay ahead, you need the tools that give you a competitive advantage, built for this new era. Welcome to Agentic Revenue. Adio is the CRM for this world. It meets you where you work, compounds every customer signal into context, then acts on it across your pipeline to let you move at unmatched speed and scale. With agents and automations for every job in revenue, Adio orchestrates your work around the clock. We'll be right back. [40:00] . So speaking of dentists and doctors, this reminds me, you have a working example in the book showing how the S-Core pass-through tax benefits actually works for, I think it was for an anesthesiologist. The one who is in private practice, who has their own S-Core, pays less tax than the one who's employed and earning income. What exactly are we incentivizing or supposed to be incentivizing through the tax code here? Because, again, these are two people who are ostensibly doing the same jobs. One is paying a lot less tax than the other one by virtue of the pass-through arrangement. Yeah, so we are taxing salaries at a different rate than taxing business income. And so that anesthesiologist that runs most of the business through the S Corp is not paying payroll tax, not paying like ACA sort of surcharge, which is uncapped Medicare tax on the profits that come through, which is maybe particularly galling because they're billing Medicare for so much services. And they themselves on their mostly labor income aren't paying the Medicare tax on it. IRS rules say you're supposed to pay yourself in wages, so you pay payroll tax on that. Everything above that reasonable compensation limit is kind of profit and just falls in this other bucket. In the 2017 reform, they brought down the pass-through rate even further from, say, the top rate of 37% to below 30%. They put in these guardrails for doctors and skilled service professions so they couldn't get that rate. But there are strategies that certain ones take to try and move a bunch of the – ancillary services again, or the surgery piece, or maybe they rent some real estate back. And so they can shift more and more of that income, I think, into forms that then get that below 30 percent rate. Whereas the surgeon that's working in the hospital system as a salaried worker is paying the top individual tax rate, 37 percent, the payroll tax, another 3 percent, you have all the state and local taxes. The cap on state local tax deductions applies to that salaried worker. But if you run all your income through the business, then the states have allowed them to basically take the deductions through the business instead and get that uncapped. What's the thinking behind this? We just want lots of small businesses to be created. And so here are some tax benefits. I think it's kind of an unintended consequence of... trying to simplify the tax code for the mom and pops in the small business. And then people sort of look at the rules and say, well, how do I minimize my tax given the rules are what they are? And then how do we protect those loopholes that sort of pop up over time? I like to think of the tax code like a house that sort of depreciates over time. And you kind of need to like invest in it, like repair windows, replace the floor, this kind of thing. These loopholes are like the depreciation that's applied to this house over time. The reason they've been so persistent, we haven't fixed them, is because it turns out that like a quarter of federal elected officials are also passed through business owners. Yeah, this is always my impression is like, you know, pick a state, Iowa or Ohio. And it's like, you know, I get some politician who's worth 100 million dollars. But they often tend to do very well. And they like position themselves as like, you know, popular among the working class voters. Then like, you know, CEO of a big bank who is like completely disconnected from them. But on the tax question specifically, you know, when it comes to the prospect of raising revenue for the government or raising taxes, you get a litany of issues. So, A, no one likes paying higher taxes, period. Then there's you get to say, well, you know, we don't want to disincentivize entrepreneurship or success or whatever. And taxes are bad for that reason. Even if we want it, even if we want to have higher taxes and even if we weren't worried about that, it would be impossible. And the rich always find a way. And so it'd be self-defeating. There's no way to like, actually, you can't do it. They'll find some loophole or whatever. And you know, That third part I'm really curious about, is that real? Or in your research, like if there were the political will to raise taxes, would Are there straightforward ways to do it? Yeah, so it's certainly real. I mean, we could start with the most recent. So first of all, you asked for about Iowa and Ohio. So Ohio, the senator, one of the senators is Bernie Moreno, who's an auto dealer. So that's a great one. And he had a proposal with Elizabeth Warren to shore up Social Security. How do you want to do it? You put it on the... [45:00] payroll of all these salaried workers. There's no mention of these very wealthy business owners, like it's all salary. So the anesthesiologist that you were talking about before, one of them is getting off, you know, scot-free and the other one is paying a lot more. So I think that's one very recent example. Now, it's interesting. We've been talking to folks on the Hill about, you know, what the prospect of raising taxes on the rich is. One natural place to start is this Thank you. was part of the one big beautiful bill that no one likes to talk about. And even among Democratic staffers, there's a lot of reticence of like, oh, I don't know, small business. And you're like, this is not small. If you take all pass-through income, only 20% of it is actually small business, according to an old Treasury study. The vast majority are big businesses that happen to be private. And so I think the most realistic thing, if you can't get rid of some of these loopholes, is to limit them by income. And that, to me, seems like one path. When you say limit them by income, explain that for a second. So say you cannot get a deduction that takes your rate from $37 to $30 if you have income in excess of $1 million or $400K. saying, OK, somebody has more than a million dollars in business income. Like they are doing very well. You can't plausibly call them small. This reminds me, actually, can we talk about the role of private equity in wealth creation? Because, again, when we talk about a lot of these businesses, whether it's HVAC or, I don't know, veterinarian services or dentist offices, a lot of the exits come in the form of a PE buyout. We love this line from your colleague, Matt Levine, who tells this joke, what am I doing After business school, oh, I'm going to work for a prestigious private equity firm in San Francisco so I can run their plumbing company in Mississippi. And, you know, I teach private equity to MBA students and talk about these unglamorous deals. So we're talking about founder owned firms and, you know, more than half of the deal, the typical deals in the pipeline from private equity are going to be founder companies. generated firms that maybe there's no natural successor. So private equity sort of comes in and so we can take the baton and maybe we'll be willing to pay a pretty high price because we can see the growth trajectory for it. And so they're looking for These unglamorous businesses that are quite profitable, maybe they have some competitive advantage because of either a barrier to entry or established brand and customer network and so on. And they're going to go in and, you know, take it over for the founder who doesn't really want to give it to the kids or doesn't have a kid that wants to take over the plumbing company. So private equity portfolios, if you go below the glamorous New York. job where you go like where they're actually on site, what are they looking at? It's a mid-market manufacturer making cabinets or it's sort of the shade store or something like that. These regional businesses that they want to grow further, maybe consolidate a few of them Maybe they can list it or break it up or whatever down the road. But it's transformed finance in a way because a lot of capital is flowing. There's the end point. Are these search funds? Is that what they are called? Like, I've heard that term. And I'm curious. I've been like seeing the, you know, people on Twitter, but they like, oh, all this stuff. I'm rolling up cabinet makers or pool servicing providers or lawnmowers or like I imagine like a pest repellent is a pretty big thing. How much are these boomer businesses where the kids don't want it and in theory you could take over the local lawn maintenance company and make more money or how much is left there? Well, we think about the great wealth transfer, right? Tens of trillions of dollars of wealth in the sort of silent generation or baby boomer generation. More than half of that is like in the form of business wealth. But there's a huge amount of business wealth that's coming. And. There aren't necessarily kids or great you know, people who want to run it from within those businesses. Some of them are too small. to attract private equity and trust. And so, yeah, so I see students. At first, it was like a few students that knew about the search fund thing. I started in 2014 teaching and I was talking about search funds. So this is like a student spends two years, usually have a partner looking for one of these businesses that's kind of too small to attract private equity interest. So they can do a mini LBO. They can do a mini buyout. If they find a good candidate, the investors that funded So there's optionality for the investors that makes it such that even the median return in search funds is negative. Most of them lose a little bit of money because the search doesn't work, but the average return is like – low 20s, I think, in the sort of data is a little hard to come by, but I think the people who are trying to do a good job of comprehensively measuring it, And it's real. [50:00] Pest control businesses, one of the most successful ones I talk about in class is drug treatment facilities in California. There was like a huge growth in demand for that, unfortunately. And these facilities running them, running them well, doing the billing, doing the kind of, you know, they're running those businesses. It's complicated. A lot of regulatory things you have to manage as well. But that person, that was like 100x investment for the investors and for the founder. get up there in like a decade, 15 years or something. Or I could like start this business and run a business, get all this weird experience doing deals, industry learning, raising money, operating something, like kind of bootstrap my way into being a seasoned founder and an executive and own 20% of the company on the other end if it does well. This also reminds me, in terms of just creating an environment that encourages entrepreneurs, you actually found some really interesting ideas. or did some really interesting research showing that if you are in a place with a lot of entrepreneurs you are more likely to be a business owner yourself. Yeah, so one of the cool data things, you know, to go back to the very beginning, when we built this data set that for the first time linked owners to businesses and their workers, we could track every single new firm in America since 2000. So we have the best data on entrepreneurs that has ever existed. And we can say, you know, how many people are going to start businesses if they're poor, if they grow up in Salt Lake City versus Mississippi. the top 10% of revenue or employment is three times higher than if you grew up in Mississippi. And anecdotally, it's not entirely clear what's going on. There's a nickname, the Silicon Slopes of Salt Lake, but some of it might be that Um, there's a large Mormon population and a common thing to do is to go on missionary work and bang on doors and have people tell you no, and you keep going, you get some resilience and grit and like, there's no hard data and that's what's going on. But that seems kind of plausible to me. So that's, that's one thing. And you see it also for the children of business owners, they're way more likely to start a business themselves, even if you take all of the family firms out of the data. money all the time yeah round two fourth generation podcast yeah You have to start the S Corp first. You know, I'm sort of curious. It's not the search funds thing. You know, one of the things you hear is like, OK, some guy is a pool company. Yeah. Well, maybe people like that guy and maybe like some then some guy from Wharton. It's like, we don't know you. We don't. And so I imagine that's tricky. And then also I imagine, you know, the cost of labor has gone up and low end wages have risen a lot. And of course, immigration crackdowns, etc. Are people stepping on? Do you see a lot of people stepping on rakes here? And they're like, you know what? Maybe this business idea to like, you know, power wash people's sidewalks was not quite the path to riches that I expected it to be. So there is risk in doing it. Right. But you can take that experience as long as you don't do anything illegal. OK. You actually have on your resume this experience. You learned a bunch of industries. You did a bunch of kind of deal M&A type work. basically analyzing industries, making pitch decks, this kind of thing, like leading up the search. So that actually is part of maybe the sales pitch. If you decide to return to the workforce or do something else. Do people get. SBA loans, is there publicly subsidized leverage for these buyers? It is possible. Most of the debt that's used in those deals is coming from banks. OK. I mean, they're established businesses with a decent track record, most of the case. So like you can really you can leverage that. They're not leveraging like 80 percent leverage. They're more like 40, 50. The typical search fund deal is there's a lot of equity there, too. So I think there's more cushion than a typical larger LBO. Just going back to the Piketty part of this conversation and the idea of income inequality, what do we see when we look at the S-Corp data in terms of how much is actually accruing to income? owners versus workers. Yeah. So it is quite striking. There are different ways to think about growth of this group and their income. It's like, is the pie growing? Yeah. Are they just capturing a bigger and bigger slice of a pie that's not growing? And we can sort of decompose the growth. So first of all, like if you look at the growth of the business sector, more than half of it, like 60 percent of the growth over the last 25 years is coming in pass through forms. There's a lot of economic activity. coming in pass through form. The pie is growing. The share that the owners are capturing of, [55:00] pie has gone from like a third or 40% to like 50%. They're capturing a larger and larger slice. Can I just ask, what's your explanation for that? It's easy to think about in the skilled services. The demand for the skilled service at the top, that doctor's practice, is really driven by kind of the scarce factor being brought, which is the expertise, the reputation of those folks at the top of the business. They could just raise the price. you know. Um, I mean, is the case that we have 30% fewer doctors in the OECD average. So the AMA is helping restrict the supply of doctors in a way that's quite useful, the American Medical Association. So as demand grows for that stuff, like it's there's a lot of surplus, but you don't need to pay the nurses or the assistants in that medical practice. So there's a piece of it there. I don't know, like in some of the other industries that are more like competitive. Maybe there's like a mixed, you know, productivity and invention and stuff. But I think that's an important part of it. Yeah. So, you know, we tell different examples, like we have a colleague, Kevin Murphy, who's one of my favorite economists, and he just his first language is economics, not English. He can just go up to the board. Just as a quick aside, I used to, as a first year faculty member, I went and sat in his class. It was the most amazing class. You sit there and he's like, what are you guys interested in? It's like, why is the labor And he just goes up to the board and just derive like three or four equations and have the most and it's coherent and beautiful and he just does it. - That's cool. - So anyway, so Kevin, he does some econ consulting. And if Kevin, makes a merger more likely to happen, say it's 5% more likely to happen, this is a billion-dollar merger, that's a lot of value from the perspective of the people paying them to try to help the merger get through. And so mergers are increasingly valuable as the economy grows, and Kevin's just doing his thing. And so I think that's also part of the story. So some of it is real skill and expertise. Sometimes it's induced scarcity from policy. And all of those things are kind of a blend. It depends on the complexities of what specifically is going on in that industry. But a material part is a bigger slice of the pie, and then also another big chunk is growing the pie. And both of those things are true, and we have stories and examples where workers are brought up along the CEO's, And then in other examples where most of it is just going to the owner and That's a big part of what's actually going on in the data for rising inequality. It's a bigger pie and a bigger slice. And it's like 50-50 for the quantitative breakdown between those two. Profit sharing isn't the default motive, I think, for these folks, especially the first gen. They're not like, oh, how do I... share more of the profits with the workers. It's like, well, I pay people for what they do and I incentivize them. And then, you know, if we have more money at the end of the day, I'm going to reinvest in the business or I'm going to take it. And that's kind of like the mentality of this founder generation, especially we this chemical importer exporter called Chem Impacts, you know, really like sexy name. There are a lot of unsexy names in this book, I must say. This is right. way more money running wendy's franchises than being an nba player junior bridgman um so yeah the whole franchise thing is a whole nother list of unsexy businesses to get really rich but the chem impacts they she talked about how they were able to offshore and have the middle of the business sort of indian people helping with the supply that you know through their family they're able to connect to and and hire and so they're using the same kind of ways to offset the sort of labor scarcity or, you know, to reduce labor demand, I think. And that then means that they can be more productive. But the workers are not, you know, capturing that those proceeds. Let me just give you some numbers because they really are striking. So I think if memory serves, in 2001, the value add per worker, so that's like add up profits and pay for people was 34k So there's 18K per worker of growth. Owners got 15 of that and workers got the rest. So like the numbers are really striking in terms of how big – You know, that's part of why there's so much abundant wealth in America. That's why when you go to California or any nice mountain town or any nice lake, there's a lot of boats. Like I used to go to the Lake of the Ozarks when I was growing up. And, you know, there's so many people with huge boats. And you're like, what are these people doing? And it's pest control. It's all of these, you know, they're making the windows for drive-thrus, for example. Like there's so many stories you hear. And one of our favorite things now is just to go ask people, like, who is the richest person in your high school? Like, what did they do? Oh. And the stories, I mean, we have a list of hundreds and hundreds of millions. We didn't even put in the book because there's too many good ones. It's a pretty fun game. [60:00] Invented Post-its. Does anyone get that reference? Oh, what's that from? Romy and Michelle's High School Reads. Yes, yes. I knew this. All right, Eric and Owen, we're going to have to leave it there. But thank you so much for coming on All Thoughts. The book is The Everywhere Millionaire, and it is very, very good. So thank you so much. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks. This was a lot of fun. That was great. Thank you so much. So, Joe, I know I've been kind of gushing about this. Yeah. But I do genuinely think that this is a piece of research based on a novel data set, to your point earlier, that has been missing from a lot of the discussion of the U.S. economy and what it looks like. Now, when we talk about billionaires, when we talk about rich people, we are so used to thinking about public companies, CEOs, tech, venture capitalists, that sort of thing. And as Owen and Eric have pointed out, the field of millionaires across America is much more varied than that. No, I couldn't agree more. I think this is such an important conversation and it's so interesting. I do think the one there is one part that I think is fairly understood. People know a that car owners are significant within their congressional districts. I think people have seen a lot of car owner politicians. Moreno. I think people have an intuition that car owners are often influential, particularly in the Republican side of the aisle, et cetera. But I think like, OK, that's car owners. And I think the idea that there is this big swath of similarly structured businesses and across so many different industries with political influence is not sufficiently appreciated when people talk about and when people think about the tax code, because there is so much talk about like... you know, taxing wealth in California. And I do think that if we're going to have, you know, at any point, if we're going to meaningfully raise revenue for the federal government, if we're ever going to do something to ameliorate inequality, then like clearly tech wealth, et cetera, is part of it. But there is so much more than just public company equity wealth that constitutes wealth in America that does not only does it not really get talked about, this sort of impulsive love for small business, it's almost never on the table. Right. And it is worth really asking what you're incentivizing through the S-Core structure if the idea is like, oh, well, we want a bunch of small businesses. But in effect, you're protecting a bunch of companies that are generating like millions of dollars in revenue. Totally. And I like the characterization of the tax code as a house. The idea that like The economy evolves. I mean, the economy evolves for structural reasons. There are new technologies, there are new things. So there are new types of businesses. And then, of course, tax optimization strategies evolve and people slowly discover there are different ways to structure their own work and business so that they can take advantage of lower rates, etc. We need to adjust it for the current conditions rather than just finding places to cut. I like the house analogy. I think of the tax code as an amorphous blob that people are always poking with a stick. Can I just say something? Yeah. Yeah. No. People like us who are like wage earners at companies who just get like a normal W-2 income. We are truly the most oppressed class in America. No, I don't believe that. But you know, like all like the only the only like the only sort of class of people that really does not have some like very obvious way to minimize taxes is basically just workers at companies. Thank you. Poor us. Poor us. All right. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. You can follow me at Tracy Allaway. And I'm Jill Weisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. Check out Eric and Owen's book, The Everywhere Millionaire. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Armand Dashiell Bennett at Dashbot, Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks, and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more Odd Thoughts content, go to Bloomberg.com slash Odd Thoughts. We have a daily newsletter and all of our episodes. And you can chat about all these topics 24-7 in our Discord, And if you enjoyed this conversation, if you want us to do more episodes on the U.S. tax [65:00] a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening. you If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next. the next opportunity, the next investment, The next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has worked with independent agents to help protect businesses, homes, valuables, and more. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next, It's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict. Let Cincinnati Insurance make your bad day better. 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