The myth of the unused wealth

Every day we read of some excessive wealth that has quite shamefully accumulated in some very few hands, and which should be redistributed for some good purpose that most often sounds very meritorious.

Unfortunately that wealth is not some magic unused wealth stored under a mattress, but something that represents value somewhere. 

If for instance part of that wealth is invested in public bonds that helped finance education in the wealthiest’ home lands, should these bonds be sold in order to finance education in the land of the poor?

Or should it finance education in poor lands before financing some green investments that could make planet earth more sustainable?

And for one wealthy to sell the Picasso he owns or a bar of gold to another wealthy does not really seem to be the source of a solution for getting rid of the inequalities either.

To phrase good intentions, without fully spelling out the full range of possible opportunity costs, and upfront suggesting squarely what should be cut, is irresponsible and does little to help to solve the great challenges the world faces.

On that we need to call out all those who make a career of creating false illusions among the needed… offering one big redistribution party but not saying a word about the morning after.

By the way, how can we redistribute wealth without redistributing powers and paying commissions to profiteering wealth-redistributors?

In order to maximize the power of redistribution in the society, what is the optimum dependents to maintainers ratio?

Is it where the curve of the marginal benefit of the dependents touches the marginal cost curve of the maintainers?

For instance, as an economist, if I wanted to be a dependent, which by itself is not something to sneer at, I would like the number of dependents set at that maximum number which maximizes my benefits as a dependent, or at least where it does not fall under what would be my expected benefit, as the least successful of the maintainers.

Hearing so much about the power of redistribution, it would be interesting to see for instance a study that tries to determines the optimum ratio of dependents to maintainers in a society, and how that ratio might change over time, and under which circumstances. For instance, are there some societal benefits to be expected from educating the dependents to be really good dependents? Like Dependency 101?

PS. As percentages might be discussed, just so there is no confusion, If I could chose, I would of course prefer to be part of the one-percenters, on the top, and this even though I might have to maintain some few more dependents.